Balloon Bomber Returns After 46 Years and Finally Gets the Home Release It Never Had

Taito's 1980 fixed-screen shooter Balloon Bomber receives its first official commercial home conversion via Hamster's Arcade Archives on PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox.

Taito's Balloon Bomber has drifted out of 1980 and onto modern hardware through Hamster's Arcade Archives programme. The formative fixed-screen shooter launches October 1 on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 for $7.99 or regional equivalent, while the enhanced Arcade Archives 2 version arrives on Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S for $9.99. The latter adds a Time Attack mode, and owners of supported older-platform versions can upgrade to the newer edition for $2.99.

Balloon Bomber's rules are charmingly cruel. Players operate an anti-aircraft gun beneath rows of bombs suspended from balloons. Shooting the bomb itself removes the threat; shooting its balloon merely causes the explosive to fall and blast a hole in the ground. Those holes gradually restrict horizontal movement, meaning careless shooting literally removes your future escape routes.

Particularly notable is that Balloon Bomber never received a contemporary home conversion, unlike many famous arcade peers. For most of its forty-six-year existence, therefore, experiencing it properly required arcade hardware, later emulation or preservation projects. This release finally gives one of Taito's early post-Space Invaders experiments a straightforward commercial home version. Apparently some balloons take nearly half a century to come down.