Taito's weird trampoline game Plump Pop hits consoles this week

Hamster Corporation is bringing Taito's 1987 arcade game Plump Pop to PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch consoles on March 5.

The release covers both current and next-generation hardware, splitting into two slightly different versions. PlayStation 4 and Switch owners get the standard Arcade Archives release. Meanwhile, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and the upcoming Switch 2 are getting the "Arcade Archives 2" version. This newer tier of Hamster's emulation wrapper includes support for variable refresh rates to better match the original arcade cabinet's specific timing. It also adds a new Time Attack mode that ranks players based on completion speed rather than raw score.

Bouncing baby animals

Plump Pop is essentially a cute twist on the block-breaking genre established by Breakout and Arkanoid. Instead of a sterile paddle and a metal ball, you control two animal parents holding a trampoline. Your projectile is your own child. You bounce them into the sky to pop formations of balloons, collect falling fruit, and knock out flying enemies.

You can choose to play as a family of dogs, cats, or pigs. The choice is purely cosmetic, but it adds to the bizarre charm of launching your offspring at high speeds to pop bubbles. The arcade board also supports cooperative two-player gameplay. A second family can join the screen, allowing four parents and two flying children to create absolute chaos on a single monitor.

The level design gets surprisingly creative with its balloon formations as you progress through the forty stages. Early stages group them into basic shapes. Later rounds arrange them to spell out words like "CAT" or build large floating structures. The game breaks up the standard action with a "Sweet Time" bonus round, where the parents scramble to catch a massive shower of falling fruit without letting any hit the ground.

Out of the vault

Taito had a massive year in 1987. The company released heavy hitters like Operation Wolf and Super Qix, cementing their reputation for intense, quarter-eating action games. Plump Pop was one of their lighter, weirder experiments from that same era. The upbeat music and pastel color palette stand in stark contrast to the gritty military shooters that dominated arcades at the time.

The game is not completely forgotten by history. It was previously included in the 2005 Taito Legends compilation for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC. It also made an appearance on the Egret II Mini microconsole a few years ago. However, this new Hamster release is its first standalone digital port for modern console storefronts.

This version includes the standard suite of Hamster emulation tools. You can adjust the difficulty, compete on global high score leaderboards, and apply display filters to simulate the look of a vintage CRT monitor. The base game is notoriously tough despite the cute graphics. The pastel visuals and cheerful soundtrack mask an arcade board that demands serious reflexes. The physics of the trampoline mean your child can bounce off at wild angles if you do not catch them dead center. Those adjustable difficulty settings and the ability to add virtual credits will probably get plenty of use.

Hamster's release schedule continues to be a weird and wonderful grab bag. We get massive arcade hits one week and bizarre experiments the next. Plump Pop firmly belongs in the second category, and that is exactly why it is worth picking up.