As a Lupin III fan I've always been fascinated by the making of this game. Had no idea about 5he Thunderbirds connection..another franchise I am a big fan of
Thank you for this. I was the winning contestant in the Starcade Cliff Hanger episode, and spent my high school years with the game in my bedroom. Ah, memories.
It's even harder to find a machine WITH the laserdisc player still inside, the two I've come across had the laserdisc player ripped out and it plays over a Raspberry Pi. No one can tell the difference without opening the back.
A friend of mine had one at a "barcade", and when I worked on it, I saw he had a substitute laser disc player inside that ran on a flash drive. Laser players, even industrial ones, broke down after being on every day for 10-12 hours a day. I have an LD player from a Dragon's Lair 2 my friend gave me.
I played this game incessantly at my local arcade. The owner decided to create a contest to see who could score the most amount of points in a specified period of time. The climactic end scene allowed so many points in such a short period of time I purposely “died” just to replay the scene with my two remaining lives. My friend end i to this day will occasionally call out the tag line in the same justice league narration voice :” Cliff Hanger. A game that will keep you in the edge of your toooooooes....”.
i was about 8 or 9 when this made it to the arcade at the mall. i played this over and over but since i didn't live close to the mall and my parents hated that i "wasted" money on this...i never was able to play it enough to complete it. i got past the ninjas part only once. however, there was an issue with the game and it would cut out and there was a lot of digital noise...so it was just unplayable after the ninjas. i saw an original cabinet in montreal a few years ago and i almost cried because how it stuck me. of course, no one understood but this was my favorite game. i saw one for sale in texas for about $6K but it was in such bad shape, i passed on it
I remember seeing this in the arcade. Never played it, but it was a thrill watching the previews. Loved the rooftop sequence. The entire Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro movie is currently on Netflix
This game was only at one arcade in my home town. We discovered that the back of the machine was open so we could rack up credits endlessly for free. I learned all the moves and was able to finish it after playing it dozens of times! Thanks for the video, brings back great memories!
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Geoff Edwards for the WIN! :-) I , too grew up with this as a kid, and I would give an arm and a leg for the complete series on DVD. I so wish they had it :'-( I did find this, though; If anyone wants to watch full episodes of Starcade, they have them for free at starcade.tv/starcade/games/index.html
They had this at the circle k in my neighborhood when I lived in St Petersburg FL in the 80s. I would go there and buy Klondike bars and candy and I played this a dozen times or so. Fun! I had forgotten all about it.
I played this game during a stop on a family vacation back in the 80s. I think it was at the arcade at "South of the Border". Waaaaay harder than Dragon's Lair! The anime was so great you wanted to see the whole story! At that time, here in the US, we had little exposure to the anime/"Japanimation" genre, outside of Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets. Great video. Great channel. I'm subscribed!
I never knew about this machine, very clever idea to use Lupin's movies to make a laserdisc game with good animation quality with minimum cost. I guess that the license caused some legal problems that didn't allow to import the Lupin anime, explaining why he is barely known in the US (in Japan and Europe he is a clasic) Had the popularity of laserdisc games lasted longer I can imagine that they would have licensed more animes to make other games, Gundam would have been a great source of action sequences.
Thank you so much for covering this game. Next to Dragons Lair this was one of my favorites growing up. I have many fond memories of playing and more importantly watching other players on this game which helped me learn the moves. But on 50 cents I never could get passed the ninja scenes. What a great game.
Found this game at Galloping Ghost arcade yesterday, while out for my B-Day, was NOT expecting that hanging scene. My friend and I laughed for a good bit, we were so shocked! lol
HUGE fan of the source material Cliff Hanger was pinched from. One thing, its pronounced "Loopan" because he's French. The character was an unauthorized "sequel" of sorts. The grandson of the title character of Maurice LeBlanc's Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Thief novels. It started as a limited run Manga, then became an anime they've never really stopped making since it debuted in the early 1970s. As of now, there have been six TV series, a few dozen movies, with an upcoming CGI movie slated for December. Because the character's name was not authorized by LeBlanc's estate, this made importing the anime under it's original title very tricky, until the copyright finally expired. One dubbing company, Streamline Pictures, came up with the elegant solution of renaming him "Wolf". Hence why the first run of dubs was known as "Tales of the Wolf". If you have a Netflix Subscription, you can watch one of the movies the footage from Cliff Hanger was taken from: "Castle of Cagliostro". Its actually one of Miayzaki's best movies.
It's pronounced loop-in here in Illinois. :-) Honestly I had no idea how to pronounce it so thanks for the correction. I've never seen any of those movies but I will definitely check out the castle of Cagliostro. It looks really good
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I think the Harry Potter movies added to the confusion of how it's pronounced. Even FUNimation's first batches of dubs flubbed it.
I remember seeing this cabinet in an arcade in Pennsylvania MANY years ago and just being mesmerized by the video attract loop. It was many years later with the beauty of UA-cam when I could see it in action again. Keep up the awesome work! :)
Thank you very much. Other people have mentioned to me asking why my subscriber count is so low. I have no idea, other than the channel has only been in existence for a little over a year . Thanks again for the nice words
Nice seeing that trailer bit of footage. I went to a garage sale with a friend an they had a pile of laser discs there. He snagged the Dragon's Lair laser disc :( and the Thayer's Quest but I got Space Ace and Cliff Hanger. They are a fun watch but have to keep the remote handy to skip ALL those death scenes as if I recall correctly, the Cliff Hanger death scene runs around 15 seconds each time it plays and it plays a lot...
i remember this game back in the early 80's at ShoBizz Pizza. Along with Dragon Lair and SPace Ace. What awesome times back then. I was always wanting to know what Cliffhanger was, and I finally found the VHS in the early 90's of the CAstle Of Cagliostro! Excuse spelling. I miss those days! Awesome video, thank you!
Thank you very much, I never saw this over at showbiz but I did see DL and space Ace. It sure was awesome having nothing but wall-to-wall arcade games in that place. It's too bad Chucky cheese isn't like that now
I fondly remember spending so many quarters at the Circus Circus arcade in Las Vegas on this game over many years as a child. It was the only place I knew that had the game, so a trip to Vegas became a special treat.
Thanks for this video. I was reminded of Cliff Hanger today and that prompted me to search for your video. This was the only laserdisc game I ever found compelling. I eventually learned all the moves and could reliably beat it with every quarter. The arcade i frequented (Aladdin's Castle in Wausau, Wisconsin) had it for a year or two. I believe there were difficulty settings because, depending on the arcade, I sometimes couldn't make it through the ninja sequence. There was a more forgiving setting that didn't require quite as complex a series of inputs. In the 80s these games initially seemed like miracles. The "graphics" were so much beyond what we were accustomed to although it didn't take long to realize you didn't really have much control over your character. It was a memorization exercise. I really enjoyed this game and it was my first real exposure to Japanese animation - though I didn't know that at the time. I remember wondering why the cartoons and animated shows I watched from that era couldn't look as good as Cliff Hanger did. Good times. Great memories. And I learned a few things from your video. Thanks!
Played this all the time. One of the few games I beat at the arcade. Some guy told of you hit all the buttons at the same time, up couldn’t go wrong. I described every scene to my mom. Thank yo mom!❤️
I remember seeing this in Chuck E. Cheese when I was 8. The hanging cut scene when you lost a life intimidated me into not even trying to play the game. The 80's is exactly why I'm now a hard-ass.
I just came across this at Game Galaxy in Smyrna, TN. It's Castle of Cagliostro! Hayao Miyazaki's first feature film! Incredible, this is a Studio Ghibli fans wet dream.
PatmanQC - History of arcade game documentaries. I had a question to ask you. Do you think there will be a MAPPY documentary? I still play that game all the time! It’s an awesome game! Best regards!
Wow so glad I found your videos. I remember seeing this game when I was 9 at an arcade in Gran Central Station, NYC. Me and my bother would watch it and wish we could play it and then we saw the death scene with the hanging that haunted us...
@@Ai-s_Picks Yeah - it's also amazing how they managed to cut out the entire Zenigata character except for the death scenes, mainly the one where he shoots Cliff with a gun. 🙂
I dumped a whole lot of tokens into one of these down at the Laverdiere's Action Family Arcade back in the day...couldn't figure it out, couldn't get more than a few actions in and it used to frustrate the hell out of me...fast forward into the 90's and I picked up a VHS of Lupin III: Castle Of Cagliostro and about 30 seconds into it I'm leaning forward in my chair yelling "IT'S THAT GODDAM GAME!!!!!" Ah, memories...
Another excellent choice to cover - have never heard of this game before but will be sure to find a copy and play at some point soon. Once again, nice work
This game was hard to come by even during the massively popular 80s arcade times. I played this at a chuckee cheese as a kid. I love it would tell you what move you should have made which increased replay value. Great game.
This looks so freaking awesome. I have seen and played in the arcades- Dragons Lair, Dragons Lair 2, Road Avenger, Space Ace, Cobra Command, and a futristic laser disc game that I can't remember the name but man was it cool (I feel like I'm missing a few). I thought I played them all but I have never seen this one. I have always considered myself an expert in all things gaming but I think I met someone a little bit better. You my friend, have shown me some very cool things this past week and I thank you.
I remember in the early 2000s thinking I'd find one of these cabinets since it was one of my most fav games as a kid (only one I've ever seen was at a bowling alley in my town, and I got to play once a week with a friend). I mentioned it to a comic book store owner and he told me 'Why don't you just watch Castle of Cagliostro?' I was like 'Er... what's that??' The next day he gave me several fan-subs of Miyasaki's work, including CoC, Nausicaa in the Valley of the Winds, Kiki's Delivery Service, Whispers of the Heart, and Porco Rosso (my most fav anime to date). This guy only briefly talks about Lupin III and Castle of Cagliostro, but if you're interested I -highly- recommend checking out Miyasaki's work (you've prob. already heard of some of his stuff like the super popular Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro). Such a cool way to be introduced to his amazing work! And I'm not really an anime fan either.
Never seen this game but I think Dragons Lair was in most arcades in the UK and as a kid always drew me in with its cartoon graphics. One laserdisc game that I remember enjoying was the sit down cabinet game Firefox by Atari based on the movie.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I remember Firefox very well along with Cobra Command, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Mach 3, Cliffhanger ( or other Castle of Cagliostro ) and Bega's Battle ( very, very rare ). Super Don Quixote was another I managed to play for a bit in the 80s.
I was watching Starcade when it aired and remember the Cliff Hanger episode. Sadly I never got to play it, the only laserdisc games I had in my area were Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, and they were jacked up to $1 per game. Then later when I was into anime as a teen and rented Castle of Cagliostro I instantly remembered the opening shot of the casino.
Arcades where I grew up were generally$.25 for older games, $.50 for newer games, a dollar for fancier games like the laserdisc ones, and $1.50 for that one hologram game that was out for a little while.
@@sunshineholmes3487 "Time Traveler," "that one hologram game," actually ALSO having been created by Rick Dyer - the same guy who conceived and developed "Dragon's Lair," "Space Ace" and "Thayer's Quest!" 😲
Thanks for this video - great information. I was able to acquire and restore an original Cliff Hanger Cabinet around 2009-10. Still had the original working Laserdisc player and ran great. Restored it and enjoyed it for several weeks before selling for a nice amount. Probably should have held on to it, but full size cabinets are a challenge to deal with and store. I loved just having it on in the corner with the demo running!
Cool video, I was unaware of the Stallone connection. But one technical bit of trivia AMIDAR, SCRAMBLE & TUTANKHAM are actually games developed by Konami Japan and officially licensed by STERN and distributed. So, If you haven’t done so already, Please post a video about BAGMAN a game also distributed by STERN but made by French developer Valadon Automation.
I always liked this a lot better than Dragon's Lair or Space Ace. The transitions were so smooth and was less repetitive. Thanks for the memory lane trip!
In jr high had a buddy who he and I would stop at the arcade every day otw home… he would spend one play a day! Took damn near the whole year to get it in one try!!! GOOD job Brandon!! 👌👌
We had a cliffhanger at a gas station in small-town Louisiana. I recall feeling guilty for spending five dollars all at one time playing that game. I loved cliffhanger, but longed for a more open world kind of gameplay.
I remember playing this when I was around 10 or so in the arcade. I thought it was so incredible! I couldn't make it too far tho but years later was able to see the entire game from start to finish. Later in HS I was playing DL3 and got really good at that. After investing alot of quarters and memorizing move after move.
Cliff Hanger can be seen in the movie THE GOONIES. In the opening sequence car chase, when they show CHUNK, he's standing at a Cliff Hanger machine. I played this plenty back in the day, but I could never finish it. I still can't. It's the one LD game my brother has over me. I played it in Daphne and got farther than I did back in the day, but after a while, it starts to have syncing issues, so the timing is harder. Have you done a history of the LD game Cobra Command by Data East? I look forward to watching more of your videos.
That guy narrating the promotional video is the same exact bloke who narrated the game's attract mode. Gotta love how stuff like this was always done to such miserable budgets back then.
Somehow this game randomly showed up in a local restaurant, and I loved it. Unfortunately it was very difficult to get a game in, as it was usually out of order. I made it as far as the ninjas...
i like the laser disc history stories, one weird one you might want to take a look at may be the Holographic Laser Disc Game Time Traveler. i remember playing it but i dont think it lasted very long either.
I loved the video and am a huge fan of the game. I just wanted to make one addition. MAME is not the only way you can play the game at home. It's also available via the DAPHNE emulator.
@@Dave.S.Cramer You're correct. Daphne is another option. Daphne is a better way to play it than MAME (IMO). Smaller files. Easy to set up. I was a HUGE fan of this game back in the 80's. Finished the game in it's original cabinet in the arcade. Now I play it just as smoothly in my MAME cabinet while running it through Daphne. Watching this video makes me want to go play it tonight.
As a matter of fact Daphne existed for quite awhile before Mame added laser disc game support. So for the longest time it was the only way to relieve these classics if you couldn't find a real one.
Used to play this game back in the arcade & loved it. However, there was a fault in the disc & it never got to the end, so I never finished it. I always remembered it. Then in the 90s, I saw the VHS of Castle of Cagliostro & on the cover was Lupin climbing the castle & I was like "That's Cliffhanger!" I bought it & to this day, Lupin is my favorite anime.
Played this every chance I got as a kid @ Miner's (a Legendary Yakima Burger Shop)! I always got puzzled looks in the late 80s-90s from people when I would describe this game to them.
Stern must have been really really cheap when they made the game. Only about half the material was dubbed by them, with Mamo section being from the Toho dub, and the ninja/rooftop/clocktower parts retaining their original Japanese audio.
I remember playing Dragon's Lair out in the wild back in the days when I was much younger. I missed out on a chance to play Cliff Hanger as not many arcades carried the laserdisc cabinets back then.
Heh, I thought that looked like Lupin on the cabinet. Speaking of laserdisc games, I recently found out about a very trippy one called Cube Quest from 1983. It used actual colored polygons over laserdisc images and reminds me a lot of Star Fox. There isn't much information out there about it, so I was wondering if you could do a video about it sometime. Some think it was the game many confused for Polybius. I can see where they would think that.
As far as FMV games go, this was severely underrated. Dragon's Lair its, sequel and Space Ace, while beautiful and well-presented, all succumbed to cheaply repeating mirror images of the same scenes to increase the playtime. As I recall, Cliffhanger did not do that. As a result of that and the Japanese-anime cartoon style , it really stood out.
Where did you find such good quality of the Cliffhanger footage? Sees end of the video. Ah download the laser disc on Main. Thanks for the video. I only knew vague information on Cliffhanger. I'm also surprised on the Stallone connection.
If you are in the Illinois/Chicago you can play this at Galloping Ghost! Thanks for making this video! I saw game for the first time at GG and was confused as to why Lupin was named Cliff 😂.
Apparently Discotek wanted to include the game as a bonus feature on Castle of Cagliostro's Blu-ray release, but no one could find the original contracts between Stern and TMS, meaning it had to be scrapped.
@@Ai-s_Picks Well I think it served it's purpose for what it was, and people enjoyed it so that's all that matters. plus it's not bootleg if they had the rights to it, it's just a very different for of localization. They didn't 'jack the footage' if they made a deal to have game rights to the footage. That said the story of the Lupin movies themselves will be way better, that's just a given lol
I LOVED this game at the time. It's such a shame the input timing seemed just slightly off in some sections, but there were a couple of guys at my arcade who knew how to work around those and 1CC it. It wasn't until years later I learned about the anime connection.
i am incredibly late to this but i wanna see the links to the sylvester stallone interview and the proposed thunderbirds game, i'm looking into this game myself i've come up empty, it'd be very interesting to know
I remember the game being VERY HARD. So used to Dragon's Lair's "Flashing" promps, the game was hard because you had to remember the PRECISE movements/button controls as the promp on the bottom screen was very VAGUE (A lot of Trial/Error and a Ton of quarters).
Can you imagine if Thunderbirds had managed to work with the company? It would have been the closest we'd ever come to a Team America: World Police video game!
As a Lupin III fan I've always been fascinated by the making of this game. Had no idea about 5he Thunderbirds connection..another franchise I am a big fan of
Absolutely, thank you for watching
Thank you for this. I was the winning contestant in the Starcade Cliff Hanger episode, and spent my high school years with the game in my bedroom. Ah, memories.
That is fantastic, I watch that episode many times :-)
What ever came of the game? Did you sell it? That is a piece of history!
@@Oldworldman Good question. I'd like to know as well! 👀👀
Geoff Edwards seemed like a really nice guy. Did you get to speak to him off camera?
Just saw this. I sold the game in 2002 for $6000.
Starcade was the vehicle that saved Cliff Hanger from obscurity. Only years later did I get into manga/anime and learn about the Lupin III connection.
I did not know about it until years later either
It's even harder to find a machine WITH the laserdisc player still inside, the two I've come across had the laserdisc player ripped out and it plays over a Raspberry Pi. No one can tell the difference without opening the back.
No kidding, that's pretty cool
Larry Bundy Jr - I’m sure that’s because the laser disk players broke down so often. I remember at my local arcade they were always broken.
A friend of mine had one at a "barcade", and when I worked on it, I saw he had a substitute laser disc player inside that ran on a flash drive. Laser players, even industrial ones, broke down after being on every day for 10-12 hours a day. I have an LD player from a Dragon's Lair 2 my friend gave me.
I own a original cliffhanger with the laser disc
I played this game incessantly at my local arcade. The owner decided to create a contest to see who could score the most amount of points in a specified period of time. The climactic end scene allowed so many points in such a short period of time I purposely “died” just to replay the scene with my two remaining lives. My friend end i to this day will occasionally call out the tag line in the same justice league narration voice :” Cliff Hanger. A game that will keep you in the edge of your toooooooes....”.
i was about 8 or 9 when this made it to the arcade at the mall. i played this over and over but since i didn't live close to the mall and my parents hated that i "wasted" money on this...i never was able to play it enough to complete it. i got past the ninjas part only once. however, there was an issue with the game and it would cut out and there was a lot of digital noise...so it was just unplayable after the ninjas. i saw an original cabinet in montreal a few years ago and i almost cried because how it stuck me. of course, no one understood but this was my favorite game. i saw one for sale in texas for about $6K but it was in such bad shape, i passed on it
I remember seeing this in the arcade. Never played it, but it was a thrill watching the previews. Loved the rooftop sequence. The entire Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro movie is currently on Netflix
I did not know that, thanks
However the video in the game uses both Cagliostro and Mamo intermixed (but Caglistro was used the most).
This game was only at one arcade in my home town. We discovered that the back of the machine was open so we could rack up credits endlessly for free.
I learned all the moves and was able to finish it after playing it dozens of times!
Thanks for the video, brings back great memories!
That is fantastic LOL, thanks
This game and Dragon's Lair two, are the only two arcade games I managed to beat simply because I played them so much.
Fantastic, we never saw cliffhanger around here
Thank for including the mention of this game being on Starcade. I watched that very episode as a kid. Love your videos.
Thank you, I so love that show to. It was on WTBS out of Atlanta :-)
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Geoff Edwards for the WIN! :-)
I , too grew up with this as a kid, and I would give an arm and a leg for the complete series on DVD. I so wish they had it :'-( I did find this, though; If anyone wants to watch full episodes of Starcade, they have them for free at starcade.tv/starcade/games/index.html
They had this at the circle k in my neighborhood when I lived in St Petersburg FL in the 80s. I would go there and buy Klondike bars and candy and I played this a dozen times or so. Fun! I had forgotten all about it.
Curious how Stallone found out about this game. I wonder if he used to just go hang out at arcades.
I played this game during a stop on a family vacation back in the 80s. I think it was at the arcade at "South of the Border". Waaaaay harder than Dragon's Lair! The anime was so great you wanted to see the whole story! At that time, here in the US, we had little exposure to the anime/"Japanimation" genre, outside of Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets. Great video. Great channel. I'm subscribed!
Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed the video
I never knew about this machine, very clever idea to use Lupin's movies to make a laserdisc game with good animation quality with minimum cost. I guess that the license caused some legal problems that didn't allow to import the Lupin anime, explaining why he is barely known in the US (in Japan and Europe he is a clasic)
Had the popularity of laserdisc games lasted longer I can imagine that they would have licensed more animes to make other games, Gundam would have been a great source of action sequences.
That would've made for a good game
There are other anime laserdisk games, like Sega's Bega's Battles (anime used, The Battle Against Genma, or as it is better known as, Harmagedon).
Thank you so much for covering this game. Next to Dragons Lair this was one of my favorites growing up. I have many fond memories of playing and more importantly watching other players on this game which helped me learn the moves. But on 50 cents I never could get passed the ninja scenes. What a great game.
I never saw one growing up but out of all the LaserDisc games this one looks the best to me
Found this game at Galloping Ghost arcade yesterday, while out for my B-Day, was NOT expecting that hanging scene. My friend and I laughed for a good bit, we were so shocked! lol
Happy birthday!
HUGE fan of the source material Cliff Hanger was pinched from. One thing, its pronounced "Loopan" because he's French. The character was an unauthorized "sequel" of sorts. The grandson of the title character of Maurice LeBlanc's Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Thief novels. It started as a limited run Manga, then became an anime they've never really stopped making since it debuted in the early 1970s. As of now, there have been six TV series, a few dozen movies, with an upcoming CGI movie slated for December. Because the character's name was not authorized by LeBlanc's estate, this made importing the anime under it's original title very tricky, until the copyright finally expired. One dubbing company, Streamline Pictures, came up with the elegant solution of renaming him "Wolf". Hence why the first run of dubs was known as "Tales of the Wolf". If you have a Netflix Subscription, you can watch one of the movies the footage from Cliff Hanger was taken from: "Castle of Cagliostro". Its actually one of Miayzaki's best movies.
It's pronounced loop-in here in Illinois. :-)
Honestly I had no idea how to pronounce it so thanks for the correction.
I've never seen any of those movies but I will definitely check out the castle of Cagliostro. It looks really good
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I think the Harry Potter movies added to the confusion of how it's pronounced. Even FUNimation's first batches of dubs flubbed it.
I remember seeing this cabinet in an arcade in Pennsylvania MANY years ago and just being mesmerized by the video attract loop. It was many years later with the beauty of UA-cam when I could see it in action again. Keep up the awesome work! :)
Thank you, I had never seen the arcade cabinet before. It wasn't until one of my patreon supporters requested that I finally look into it
You deserve way more subscribers. I feel privileged to know about your channel and I hope the UA-cam algorithm pushes your channel to grow.
Thank you very much. Other people have mentioned to me asking why my subscriber count is so low. I have no idea, other than the channel has only been in existence for a little over a year . Thanks again for the nice words
I agree
Nice seeing that trailer bit of footage. I went to a garage sale with a friend an they had a pile of laser discs there. He snagged the Dragon's Lair laser disc :( and the Thayer's Quest but I got Space Ace and Cliff Hanger. They are a fun watch but have to keep the remote handy to skip ALL those death scenes as if I recall correctly, the Cliff Hanger death scene runs around 15 seconds each time it plays and it plays a lot...
Wow, that's a heckuva score. Congratulations
I remember this game well especially the ninjas. Never finished, but got pretty far, loads of fun at the time. Thanks
i remember this game back in the early 80's at ShoBizz Pizza. Along with Dragon Lair and SPace Ace. What awesome times back then. I was always wanting to know what Cliffhanger was, and I finally found the VHS in the early 90's of the CAstle Of Cagliostro! Excuse spelling. I miss those days! Awesome video, thank you!
Thank you very much, I never saw this over at showbiz but I did see DL and space Ace. It sure was awesome having nothing but wall-to-wall arcade games in that place. It's too bad Chucky cheese isn't like that now
I don't think I could've ever imagined that Lupin the Third and Sylvester Stallone had anything to do with one another!
It's extremely bizarre when you think about it
I never knew other laser disc games except Dragon's Lair even existed before watching this video. Thank you for showing us this, PatmanQC~!
Absolutely, thanks for being a loyal fan:-)
I fondly remember spending so many quarters at the Circus Circus arcade in Las Vegas on this game over many years as a child. It was the only place I knew that had the game, so a trip to Vegas became a special treat.
I hadn't seen the Lupin series at the time, and still mostly haven't, but there are cool DVDs I've got my eye on.
I had no idea that the Stallone movie had any relation!
That's very cool, thanks for sharing your story
Loved that genre. Especially Revenge of The Ninja for Sega CD. Every kid in the Chicago neighborhood did too.
I don't Remember that game, I will have to check it out
Played this game at Aladdin's Castle. Spotsy Mall, Va. Fun times.
I never saw an actual arcade cabinet of this
Thanks for this video. I was reminded of Cliff Hanger today and that prompted me to search for your video.
This was the only laserdisc game I ever found compelling. I eventually learned all the moves and could reliably beat it with every quarter. The arcade i frequented (Aladdin's Castle in Wausau, Wisconsin) had it for a year or two. I believe there were difficulty settings because, depending on the arcade, I sometimes couldn't make it through the ninja sequence. There was a more forgiving setting that didn't require quite as complex a series of inputs.
In the 80s these games initially seemed like miracles. The "graphics" were so much beyond what we were accustomed to although it didn't take long to realize you didn't really have much control over your character. It was a memorization exercise.
I really enjoyed this game and it was my first real exposure to Japanese animation - though I didn't know that at the time. I remember wondering why the cartoons and animated shows I watched from that era couldn't look as good as Cliff Hanger did.
Good times. Great memories. And I learned a few things from your video. Thanks!
And that's where I saw it! On Starcade!
I used to love that show
Played this all the time. One of the few games I beat at the arcade. Some guy told of you hit all the buttons at the same time, up couldn’t go wrong. I described every scene to my mom. Thank yo mom!❤️
That's excellent, thanks for sharing
I remember seeing this in Chuck E. Cheese when I was 8. The hanging cut scene when you lost a life intimidated me into not even trying to play the game.
The 80's is exactly why I'm now a hard-ass.
LOL, I never saw this game as a kid but I can imagine it being traumatic
I just came across this at Game Galaxy in Smyrna, TN. It's Castle of Cagliostro! Hayao Miyazaki's first feature film! Incredible, this is a Studio Ghibli fans wet dream.
This is one of my all time favorite games! What a great job with this and all of your documentaries! I just binged all of your videos!
Fantastic, thank you so much for the kind words
PatmanQC - History of arcade game documentaries. I had a question to ask you. Do you think there will be a MAPPY documentary? I still play that game all the time! It’s an awesome game! Best regards!
Wow so glad I found your videos. I remember seeing this game when I was 9 at an arcade in Gran Central Station, NYC. Me and my bother would watch it and wish we could play it and then we saw the death scene with the hanging that haunted us...
@@Ai-s_Picks Yeah - it's also amazing how they managed to cut out the entire Zenigata character except for the death scenes, mainly the one where he shoots Cliff with a gun. 🙂
I dumped a whole lot of tokens into one of these down at the Laverdiere's Action Family Arcade back in the day...couldn't figure it out, couldn't get more than a few actions in and it used to frustrate the hell out of me...fast forward into the 90's and I picked up a VHS of Lupin III: Castle Of Cagliostro and about 30 seconds into it I'm leaning forward in my chair yelling "IT'S THAT GODDAM GAME!!!!!"
Ah, memories...
LOL, comment of the day :-)
This game enthralled me :) . Love the scene when all the ninjas were on top of your car racing down the road
It's really cool to watch, let alone the play
Another excellent choice to cover - have never heard of this game before but will be sure to find a copy and play at some point soon. Once again, nice work
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it
This was my favorite laser disc game, thanks for the backstory.
Thanks for watching
This game was hard to come by even during the massively popular 80s arcade times. I played this at a chuckee cheese as a kid. I love it would tell you what move you should have made which increased replay value. Great game.
I never saw it growing up. I had a patreon supporter request it which is when I first learned about it
Wow - I never even heard of this game - I live in Japan and grew up watching this cartoon on TV and loved this movie which I might still have on VHS
Great video. Not heard of this one! Big fan of "The Castle of Cagliostro"!
Thank you my friend
This looks so freaking awesome. I have seen and played in the arcades- Dragons Lair, Dragons Lair 2, Road Avenger, Space Ace, Cobra Command, and a futristic laser disc game that I can't remember the name but man was it cool (I feel like I'm missing a few). I thought I played them all but I have never seen this one. I have always considered myself an expert in all things gaming but I think I met someone a little bit better. You my friend, have shown me some very cool things this past week and I thank you.
I remember in the early 2000s thinking I'd find one of these cabinets since it was one of my most fav games as a kid (only one I've ever seen was at a bowling alley in my town, and I got to play once a week with a friend). I mentioned it to a comic book store owner and he told me 'Why don't you just watch Castle of Cagliostro?' I was like 'Er... what's that??' The next day he gave me several fan-subs of Miyasaki's work, including CoC, Nausicaa in the Valley of the Winds, Kiki's Delivery Service, Whispers of the Heart, and Porco Rosso (my most fav anime to date). This guy only briefly talks about Lupin III and Castle of Cagliostro, but if you're interested I -highly- recommend checking out Miyasaki's work (you've prob. already heard of some of his stuff like the super popular Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro). Such a cool way to be introduced to his amazing work! And I'm not really an anime fan either.
That is really cool, I never knew it was based on an anime until years later
I've never, ever heard of this LD game before so thanks again, Pat.
Absolutely, it's probably one of the best LaserDisc games out there in terms a variety of gameplay
Never seen this game but I think Dragons Lair was in most arcades in the UK and as a kid always drew me
in with its cartoon graphics. One laserdisc game that I remember enjoying was the sit down cabinet game Firefox by Atari based on the movie.
I had never seen this game here either but I did play a lot of Firefox.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I remember Firefox very well along with Cobra Command, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Mach 3, Cliffhanger ( or other Castle of Cagliostro ) and Bega's Battle ( very, very rare ). Super Don Quixote was another I managed to play for a bit in the 80s.
Wow lupin the third!!! That show was really funny!! And it had a game too!
Absolutely
@@Ai-s_Picks I gotta check that out!
I have had this game for a long time, fun game to play!
It is a lot of fun
I was watching Starcade when it aired and remember the Cliff Hanger episode. Sadly I never got to play it, the only laserdisc games I had in my area were Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, and they were jacked up to $1 per game.
Then later when I was into anime as a teen and rented Castle of Cagliostro I instantly remembered the opening shot of the casino.
They were still only $0.50 around here but I didn't play them too often. I never saw a cliffhanger game in person
Arcades where I grew up were generally$.25 for older games, $.50 for newer games, a dollar for fancier games like the laserdisc ones, and $1.50 for that one hologram game that was out for a little while.
@@sunshineholmes3487 "Time Traveler," "that one hologram game," actually ALSO having been created by Rick Dyer - the same guy who conceived and developed "Dragon's Lair," "Space Ace" and "Thayer's Quest!" 😲
Great video, love this game - It's has been awhile since I've played it, I need to throw it on the Pi4.
It's a lot of fun but I really suck at it
PatmanQC - History of arcade game documentaries most people did (me included)
I did get the pleasure of playing thisat The Galloping Ghost. Thank you for the history!
Absolutely, thanks for watching
I loved playing this game in the arcade. Came so close to beating it but no cigar. 😞
Thanks for this video - great information. I was able to acquire and restore an original Cliff Hanger Cabinet around 2009-10. Still had the original working Laserdisc player and ran great. Restored it and enjoyed it for several weeks before selling for a nice amount. Probably should have held on to it, but full size cabinets are a challenge to deal with and store. I loved just having it on in the corner with the demo running!
I have never seen one in person and would love to be able to try it out. Glad you enjoyed the video
Cool video, I was unaware of the Stallone connection.
But one technical bit of trivia
AMIDAR, SCRAMBLE & TUTANKHAM are actually games developed by Konami Japan and officially licensed by STERN and distributed.
So,
If you haven’t done so already,
Please post a video about
BAGMAN a game also distributed by STERN but made by French developer Valadon Automation.
Thank you
Well you finally covered a game I never heard of before
Glad I could be of service :-)
I always liked this a lot better than Dragon's Lair or Space Ace. The transitions were so smooth and was less repetitive. Thanks for the memory lane trip!
Love your mini game documentaries! Great job!
Thank you so much, but you enjoy Them
In jr high had a buddy who he and I would stop at the arcade every day otw home… he would spend one play a day! Took damn near the whole year to get it in one try!!! GOOD job Brandon!! 👌👌
That is awesome
Never heard of this one! Another good and informative review. Thanks!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it
The first time I saw this cabinet in the wild was around 1984 when I was 5. It actually spooked me then and was forever burned into my mind.
We had a cliffhanger at a gas station in small-town Louisiana. I recall feeling guilty for spending five dollars all at one time playing that game. I loved cliffhanger, but longed for a more open world kind of gameplay.
I remember playing this when I was around 10 or so in the arcade. I thought it was so incredible! I couldn't make it too far tho but years later was able to see the entire game from start to finish. Later in HS I was playing DL3 and got really good at that. After investing alot of quarters and memorizing move after move.
That's pretty much what you have to do, awesome
Cliff Hanger can be seen in the movie THE GOONIES. In the opening sequence car chase, when they show CHUNK, he's standing at a Cliff Hanger machine. I played this plenty back in the day, but I could never finish it. I still can't. It's the one LD game my brother has over me. I played it in Daphne and got farther than I did back in the day, but after a while, it starts to have syncing issues, so the timing is harder. Have you done a history of the LD game Cobra Command by Data East? I look forward to watching more of your videos.
For the record . . .
(For those who don’t know about Cliff Hanger’s source material)
Cliff is actually Lupin, Jeff is Jigen and Samurai is Goemon.
Another Classic. I spent a ton on this game. I eventually finished it. I still remember how to fight the ninjas by spamming right and fist.
Oh that's cool, never knew that
That guy narrating the promotional video is the same exact bloke who narrated the game's attract mode. Gotta love how stuff like this was always done to such miserable budgets back then.
I was wondering if I was the only one who noticed that also.
Somehow this game randomly showed up in a local restaurant, and I loved it.
Unfortunately it was very difficult to get a game in, as it was usually out of order. I made it as far as the ninjas...
i like the laser disc history stories, one weird one you might want to take a look at may be the Holographic Laser Disc Game Time Traveler. i remember playing it but i dont think it lasted very long either.
I've had a few requests for that
I loved the video and am a huge fan of the game. I just wanted to make one addition. MAME is not the only way you can play the game at home. It's also available via the DAPHNE emulator.
Thank you for the nice words. Completely forgot about Daphne, thanks for reminding me.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries You're welcome.
@@Dave.S.Cramer You're correct. Daphne is another option. Daphne is a better way to play it than MAME (IMO). Smaller files. Easy to set up. I was a HUGE fan of this game back in the 80's. Finished the game in it's original cabinet in the arcade. Now I play it just as smoothly in my MAME cabinet while running it through Daphne. Watching this video makes me want to go play it tonight.
As a matter of fact Daphne existed for quite awhile before Mame added laser disc game support. So for the longest time it was the only way to relieve these classics if you couldn't find a real one.
Hahah, I remember a trailer for this game being included in a fansub of Castle Cagliostro I got in a trade in the early 90s.
Very cool
Used to play this game back in the arcade & loved it. However, there was a fault in the disc & it never got to the end, so I never finished it. I always remembered it. Then in the 90s, I saw the VHS of Castle of Cagliostro & on the cover was Lupin climbing the castle & I was like "That's Cliffhanger!" I bought it & to this day, Lupin is my favorite anime.
Very cool, thanks for sharing
I enjoyed many Stern titles and memorized 20 minutes of Space Ace, but never saw or played this arcade game back in the day.
We did not have it around here either
Played this every chance I got as a kid @ Miner's (a Legendary Yakima Burger Shop)! I always got puzzled looks in the late 80s-90s from people when I would describe this game to them.
great vidoe. thanks for the summary. i hope this gets a switch release :)
Thanks! That would be a pretty cool release!
Played this game at my local arcade in the back of Laverdiere’s Drug Store!
Very cool, that was back when videogames were literally everywhere. :-)
Stern must have been really really cheap when they made the game. Only about half the material was dubbed by them, with Mamo section being from the Toho dub, and the ninja/rooftop/clocktower parts retaining their original Japanese audio.
I love cliffhanger this is one arcade very hard to find
It is very rare
Played it at Aladdin's Castle and through to the end at a 7-11 near my job. Great fun!
in 1983 I solved this gem for about 10 dollars...I was 13....54 now...great memories!
I remember playing Dragon's Lair out in the wild back in the days when I was much younger. I missed out on a chance to play Cliff Hanger as not many arcades carried the laserdisc cabinets back then.
I had never seen it in the arcades only discovered it years later
Heh, I thought that looked like Lupin on the cabinet. Speaking of laserdisc games, I recently found out about a very trippy one called Cube Quest from 1983. It used actual colored polygons over laserdisc images and reminds me a lot of Star Fox. There isn't much information out there about it, so I was wondering if you could do a video about it sometime. Some think it was the game many confused for Polybius. I can see where they would think that.
I can added to the request list And if there is something interesting to talk about I can cover
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Thanks! I appreciate that.
Great piece thank you
Glad you like it!
I lost a lot of coins on Cliff Hanger, Space Ace, and Firefox. All three were at the arcade I used to go to back in the day.
I never saw cliffhanger but I so love playing Firefox.
As far as FMV games go, this was severely underrated.
Dragon's Lair its, sequel and Space Ace, while beautiful and well-presented, all succumbed to cheaply repeating mirror images of the same scenes to increase the playtime. As I recall, Cliffhanger did not do that. As a result of that and the Japanese-anime cartoon style , it really stood out.
Where did you find such good quality of the Cliffhanger footage? Sees end of the video. Ah download the laser disc on Main. Thanks for the video. I only knew vague information on Cliffhanger. I'm also surprised on the Stallone connection.
Glad you liked it
If you are in the Illinois/Chicago you can play this at Galloping Ghost! Thanks for making this video! I saw game for the first time at GG and was confused as to why Lupin was named Cliff 😂.
I still haven't had a chance to make it out to galloping ghost. I live about three hours from there
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I live about 2 away, it’s totally worth it!
*Sees thumbnail*
Oh wow, that looks cool, looks a bit like a Lupin III rip off game!
*starts watching*
... WHAT?!
XD
LOL
Sly Stallone as Lupin III, you just made by day.
Apparently Discotek wanted to include the game as a bonus feature on Castle of Cagliostro's Blu-ray release, but no one could find the original contracts between Stern and TMS, meaning it had to be scrapped.
I didn't know that, that really sucks
I remember seeing this game at a Shakey's pizza once when I was a kid. But when we went back after, it was gone.
What was your source on Stallone wanting to adapt the game?
This feels so bootleg. They just jacked footage from castle cagliostro and changed the names.
@@Ai-s_Picks Well I think it served it's purpose for what it was, and people enjoyed it so that's all that matters. plus it's not bootleg if they had the rights to it, it's just a very different for of localization. They didn't 'jack the footage' if they made a deal to have game rights to the footage. That said the story of the Lupin movies themselves will be way better, that's just a given lol
I had the pleasure of playing the game today at a local arcade, I was taken aback by the source material realizing it was lupin the third lol
LOL I didn't know it at the time either
I LOVED this game at the time. It's such a shame the input timing seemed just slightly off in some sections, but there were a couple of guys at my arcade who knew how to work around those and 1CC it. It wasn't until years later I learned about the anime connection.
i am incredibly late to this but i wanna see the links to the sylvester stallone interview and the proposed thunderbirds game, i'm looking into this game myself i've come up empty, it'd be very interesting to know
Played this once at a pizza place when I was a kid only ever seen it that one time
Same here!
Scramble and Tutankhamun are Konami developed games and only distributed by Stern in the US.
Thank you
I remember the game being VERY HARD. So used to Dragon's Lair's "Flashing" promps, the game was hard because you had to remember the PRECISE movements/button controls as the promp on the bottom screen was very VAGUE (A lot of Trial/Error and a Ton of quarters).
Can you imagine if Thunderbirds had managed to work with the company? It would have been the closest we'd ever come to a Team America: World Police video game!
That would've been so awesome
Would love to see this come to PC(Steam). The people that did Dragon's Lair and Space Ace did a fantastic job.
Saw the anime last year on Netflix. Had no ideal it got turned into a lazer disc game till today
It was a widespread, I never saw one growing up either
Here because of Starcade on G4. I'd never heard of this game.
Very cool!!
Thanks