Taito's 1980 arcade shooter Polaris is coming to Switch and PS4

Hamster Corporation is releasing the 1980 Taito arcade game Polaris on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on April 9. The submarine shooter is the latest addition to the long-running Arcade Archives series.

Polaris puts players in command of a submarine defending itself against an overwhelming military force. The screen is split between the ocean depths and the sky above. Enemy bombers fly overhead and drop projectiles. Surface frigates patrol the water line. Down below, the seabed is littered with mines that restrict your movement.

It only goes up

Your submarine can only fire its missiles directly upward. This is a bold design choice for a vehicle completely surrounded by explosives, but it forces a specific rhythm to the combat. You have to align yourself directly under fast-moving targets and avoid the depth charges raining down around you.

The arcade mechanics are straightforward. Shooting an enemy aircraft or ship earns points. The game occasionally rewards accurate players with a 1,000-point bonus screen. The difficulty scales up quickly as more enemies fill the screen with overlapping attack patterns. By the later stages, the water is completely saturated with enemy fire and hazardous terrain.

The 1980 arcade standard

Taito released the original arcade cabinet during the formative years of the shoot-'em-up genre. Space shooters were dominating arcades following the massive success of Space Invaders two years prior. Polaris took those basic mechanics and applied them to a naval setting. It added the complication of navigating around physical obstacles instead of just moving left and right across an empty screen.

The game originally shipped in standard upright cabinets and a smaller cabaret style. The controls consisted of a simple two-way joystick for movement and a single fire button. Players had to manage their position carefully. The submarine moves slowly, and the upward-firing missiles take time to reach the surface. Missing a shot often leaves you vulnerable to a counterattack from the planes above.

Modern emulation options

Like all Arcade Archives releases, this port includes several modern quality-of-life additions. Players can adjust the game difficulty and tweak the display settings to mimic the look of original CRT arcade monitors. The release also includes global online leaderboards for high score chasing.

Hamster has been steadily working through Taito's back catalog for years. The publisher has already released heavy hitters like Bubble Bobble and Elevator Action, alongside deeper cuts from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Polaris falls firmly into that second category. It is a simple score attack game from the early days of digital combat.

Early arcade games like this operate purely on reflex and pattern recognition. There is no ending to reach or story to uncover. The entire goal is to survive just a few seconds longer than your previous attempt and secure a higher spot on the leaderboard. It works, which is the nicest thing I can say about a 46-year-old control scheme.