She envisioned the tempo for the background humming to become faster as the Grobda moved faster around the playfield. The current-sound hardware was unable to accomplish this, so Keino wrote a custom program that enabled it. Release Grobda was published in December 1984, running on the Namco Super Pac-Man arcade system board. In promotional material, Namco used the tagline "Grobda has awakened its combat instinct". The game was distributed in North America by Magic Electronics in September 1985. Grobda was ported to the PC-8801 home computer in Japan the same year, developed by Dempa Software. Grobda has been included in multiple Namco Museum collections such as Namco Museum Vol. 2 (1996), Namco Museum Battle Collection (2005), Namco Museum Virtual Arcade (2008), and Namco Museum Megamix (2010). The latter also includes a minigame based on Grobda titled Grobda Remix, where players control Pac-Man as he must destroy as many enemies possible under a time limit. Grobda was added to the Wii Virtual Console in Japan on November 16, 2009, alongside dozens of other Namco arcade games. Reception and legacy According to the arcade game magazine Game Machine, Grobda was Japan's top-grossing arcade game of December 1984 by revenue. In 1998, AllGame labeled Grobda as "a refreshing departure from slower, more methodical tank shooters such as Combat and Armor Ambush", praising its fast-paced gameplay but criticizing its high difficulty. In a 2014 retrospective review, Hardcore Gaming 101 said that the game was a lot simpler in gameplay compared to Xevious, and felt mixed towards the game's difficulty level. According to former Wolf Team designer Kazuyoshi Inoue, Grobda was an influence for Granada alongside Assault, as co-designer Toshio Toyota was a fan of arcade games. Notes References External links 1984 video games Arcade video games Namco games Namco arcade games Multidirectional shooters Virtual Console games Xevious Sharp MZ games Sharp X1 games NEC PC-6001 games NEC PC-8001 games NEC PC-8801 games Tank simulation video games Video games developed in Japan Video game spin-offs