I think it's really funny how Microids looked at how well Nintendo and Namco were doing with their Battle Royale versions of Tetris and Pac-Man, and totally said to themselves, verbatim, in their dingy French basement
"ah, mon ami, but how do we get ze battle royale bag? Shall I contact le Astreix and Obelix guys?"
"Monsieur! We must find an arcade game people remember fondly!"
"Sacre Bleu! What can we afford wiz our European Dollars?!"
"Iz not good, mon ami. We have QIX, or Arkanoid!"
And because nobody gets QIX, here we are. Arkanoid battle royale, and instead of 99, it's 25. All of you are facing off in your own respective games of Arkanoid in an attempt to get the highest score, and anyone who is last gets eliminated by DOH, Arkanoid's villain in the story...
Yes, Arkanoid has a story.
Anyway! This game is visually disgusting, with some of the worst art direction and design you'll ever see in a video game, let alone a retro throwback going in too hard on a synthwave aesthetic. In-game, whenever you move up and down the leaderboard, you'll see other players boards swing around from left to right as the game tries to catch up to your current position on the board. At no point does this stop becoming an eye-sore, with it amplifying the most at the beginning of games. There's no option to turn off the visual flourishes either, because of course you always want DOH's big red "I-just-came-from-a-creepypasta-circa-2009" face staring at you and glitching the screen.
Mechanically, it breaks some rules that not even the oldest of arcade games have tested yet, mostly by having objects you can bounce off of that don't represent edged shapes. Certain enemies don't necessarily relay exactly how you'll bounce off from them, and anything spherical is a crap shoot in regards to where your balls gunna go.
Arkanoid Eternal Battle's biggest offence however, is the fact that it isn't even a battle royale. What you're doing is playing a 20-minute long game of Arkanoid on a tilt-a-whirl, before the game decides "Ah, bugger it, fight DOH!". The last 4 people have to face off against DOH, with the lowest score getting eliminated periodically. When you're the last player, victory right?!
No. You silly fool.
Instead, you now have the opportunity to do a boss fight. DOH will spam projectiles and his attacks, and if you fail to reduce his health bar in-time? Ahh, sorry bud! You're not a winner! I know you just beat 24 other players, but you can't beat me! A villain who shares his name with a cartoon dad's catchphrase!
This isn't just the worst battle royale game of all time, it's the worst multiplayer experience of all time. A multiplayer experience made pointless by the fact that you've no proof you're better than the other players. Because the game won't recognize it.
Do I need the game to congratulate me every time I win a game? No, but it helps! PUBG's developers have personally sent me Chicken Dinners for every Winner Winner I get, but that's the point of Battle Royale. Not that I'm better than the abitrary rules of the game, but the players around me, and DOH isn't a player. He's an annoying little rat from a Zelda ROM hack 20 years ago who has no tangible function in this realm.
Anyway, screw this game, screw Taito for allowing this, and screw Microids for not being responsible for a single good game in their entire history.
.5