''Liquid Kids'' is a 1990 platform arcade video game developed and published by

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan. It b ...

. Starring the

hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extan ...

Hipopo, players travel through the land of Woody-Lake throwing water bombs, jumping on and off platforms to navigate level obstacles while dodging and defeating monsters in order to rescue Tamasun from her captor, the Fire Demon. The game was ported to the PC Engine and

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...

. Home computer versions were in development but none were officially released to the public. ''Liquid Kids'' enjoyed success in arcades among players, garnering positive reception from critics, while its home conversions were also met with similarly positive response from gaming magazines who reviewed it as an import title.

Gameplay

''Liquid Kids'' is a platform game where players assume the role of Hipopo, a hippopotamus who fights his way across various stages set in the land of Woody-Lake against enemies led by Fire Demon in search of his missing girlfriend Tamasun while rescuing other hippos along the way.''ミズバク大冒険アドベンチャー'' manual (PC Engine, JP) Hipopo is armed with water bombs that can be thrown at enemies to soak and damage them. Once soaked, enemies can be kicked and destroyed completely. Undefeated enemies will dry out and recover after a short time period. Small plants also appear on certain levels which can be "watered", causing them to grow and creating new platforms. He can also collect cakes and other items to gain more points. Getting hit by enemies results in losing a life, as well as a penalty of lowering Hipopo's status to his original state. There is also an invisible time limit. If the player takes too long to complete the stage, a jingle will play along with "Hurry Up!" music and the screen will get dimmer, along with the little demon from the Hipopo and Tamasun cutscenes chasing the player until he catches them. The game is over once all lives are lost, unless players insert more credits into the arcade machine to continue playing.

Release

''Liquid Kids'' was first released in arcades by Taito in August 1990, using the Taito F2 System board. The

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

was composed by Kazuko "Karu" Umino. On January 21, 1991, an album containing music from the game and ''

Space Gun Space Gun may refer to: *Space gun, a method of launching an object into space * ''Space Gun'' (album), a 2018 album by Guided by Voices * ''Space Gun'' (video game), a 1990 arcade game *Ljutic Space Gun, a 12 gauge single-shot shotgun See also * ...

'' was co-published exclusively in Japan by

Scitron is a Japanese record label that publishes video game music albums. List of video game albums released A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z ...

and

Pony Canyon , also known by the shorthand form , is a Japanese mass media publishing company founded on October 1, 1966. The company publishes mainly physical home media on compact discs, including music, films and TV shows and video games. It is affiliate ...

. The title was first ported to the PC Engine by Taito and released exclusively in Japan on January 17, 1992. It is a faithful conversion that retains most of the gameplay elements from the arcade original but a number of graphical effects were removed such as the time transitions and

parallax scrolling Parallax scrolling is a technique in computer graphics where background images move past the camera more slowly than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D scene of distance. The technique grew out of the multiplane camera tec ...

. This version would later be re-released for the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Unix ...

in 2008. A near-arcade perfect port was developed and published by Ving for the

on October 22, 1998. It was also included in the ''

Taito Legends 2 ''Taito Legends 2'' is the sequel to ''Taito Legends'' and is a follow-up collection of 39 (or 43, see below) Taito arcade games for Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows. As the former collection, it has been derived from the Japan exclu ...

'' (''Taito Memories 2'' in Japan) for

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

in 2006. The original arcade version is planned to be included as part of the Taito Egret II mini console. An

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

port was completed by Ocean France, but not released by Ocean Software. Likewise, an

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

version was also in development but never released by Ocean. ''Liquid Kids'' was released on

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

and

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

as part of the ''

Arcade Archives is a series of emulated arcade games from the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and Nintendo Switch, published by Hamster Corporation. A sub-series called is focused on rereleasing Neo Geo ...

'' series in December 2021.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Liquid Kids'' on their November 15, 1990 issue as being the seventeenth most-successful table arcade unit of the month, outperforming titles such as ''

Parodius! From Myth to Laughter ''Parodius! From Myth to Laughter'', released in Japan as and outside Japan as ''Parodius'' (from "Parody Gradius"), is a shoot 'em up arcade video game and the second title in the ''Parodius'' series produced by Konami. The European SNES vers ...

'' and ''

Magic Sword In mythology, legend or fiction, a magic sword is a sword with magical powers or other supernatural qualities. Renowned swords appear in the folklore of every nation that used swords.Josepha Sherman, ''Once upon a Galaxy'' p 113 In some tra ...

''. The arcade original was also met with positive reception from critics since its initial release. The PC Engine conversion was met with positive reception from critics.

Legacy

Hipopo makes cameo appearances in '' Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders''.

Notes

References

External links

''Liquid Kids''
at

GameFAQs GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. The site has a databa ...

''Liquid Kids''
at Giant Bomb
''Liquid Kids''
at

Killer List of Videogames Killer List of Videogames (KLOV) is a website featuring an online encyclopedia devoted to cataloging arcade games past and present. It is the video game department of the International Arcade Museum, and has been referred to as "the IMDb for pla ...

''Liquid Kids''
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liquid Kids 1990 video games Arcade video games Cancelled Amiga games Cancelled Atari ST games Nintendo Switch games Platformers PlayStation 4 games Sega Saturn games Taito arcade games TurboGrafx-16 games Virtual Console games Video games developed in Japan Multiplayer and single-player video games Arcade Archives games Hamster Corporation games