Bad Apple is not a game of any kind, instead it is a music video based on a level from the fourth Touhou series of games called Lotus Land Story.  In 1998, Lotus Land Story was released for the PC-98, a Japanese gaming computer that was quite popular and home to many interesting, many Japanese exclusive, titles (see issue 2 of our mag for more Japanese exclusives worth playing).  Most retro gaming fans reading this understand the limitations of the Vectrex console.  The interesting thing about Bad Apple is, those limitations are all shattered and now we are in awe of what a console from 1982 can really do.

As already mentioned, Bad Apple is a music video complete with music and silhouette images dancing around (you will be able to easily see what is going on).  Bad Apple has also hit the Sega Genesis (PDRoms.de has it), a much more powerful console for this stuff but still not technically as capable as this demo shows.  Bad Apple seems to be a tech defying graphics and audio show piece, what is next? Bad Apple hitting the Atari 2600? The Nintendo Entertainment System?  Texas Instruments 84+?  Apparently, yes, Bad Apple has been ported to all of those platforms and more (links below).

While not a game per se, it is interesting to see retro game hardware running Bad Apple. It is a technical feat for some of these platforms to be doing so, that is for sure.

Do you know of a Bad Apple port not listed?  Let us know.  Know of something we should be covering (do you get the idea this is a slow news day?) then let us know in the comments or via the contact link at the top of the page (we respond to all e-mails).

Bad Apple:
Atari 2600
Nintendo Entertainment System
Sega Genesis
Texas Instruments 84+ Calculator

Carl Williams

It is time gaming journalism takes its rightful place as proper sources and not fanboys giving free advertising. If you wish to support writers like Carl please use the links below. https://www.paypal.me/WCW https://www.patreon.com/CarlWilliams