In 1990, Japanese law required that all arcade cabinets had to be shipped with a working game so that purchasers could plug it in and immediately test whether the cabinet was functional. Thus, companies created simple games with cheap hardware that could be included and then disposed of by the purchaser. Taito created Mini Vaders, based on Space Invaders, for their EGRET candy cabinets. Sega created Dottori-kun as the game that was included with its Astro City arcade candy cabinets.
Like Taito, Sega also reached back into the 1970s for their test game. Dottori-kun was based on Head-On, a maze game released by Sega in 1979. Like Mini Vaders, Dottori-kun was a monochrome game with no sound and no score tracking. The buttons only change the color of the background and game graphics, although they still remain as tinted monochrome. Dottori-kun was never meant to be released commercially, but presumably, for the sake of completion, Sega Toys included it in its Astro City Mini video game console.
Despite the lack of sound and a score, Dottori-kun remains fun. As it is based on Sega's Head On, it is a game that combines maze games with automotive chicken. The goal is to collect all of the dots on the four rectangular-shaped roads. The hitch is that each road is only large enough for one vehicle and there is a computer-controlled racer zooming around the tracks in the opposite direction. There are splits in the roads at the center, so the trick is to grab the dots when the opponent car is on another road so that you can collect the dots and then turn onto another road so that the two cars aren't coming at each other head on.
Dottori-kun is an arcade game from 1990 that is a simplified version of the already simple 1979 arcade game Head On. Despite it just being a test game with monochrome graphics, no sound, and no score tracking, it still is remarkably fun. I'm glad Sega Toys included it in the Astro City Mini since this game doesn't deserve to be junked.
Final Verdict:
3 out of 5
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