Video Game / Thunder & Lightning

Thunder & Lightning is a Breaking Out videogame released on Seta's 1st generation arcade hardware and the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990. The NES version was later released in Japan as Family Block (ファミリーブロック Famirī Burokku). An In Name Only sequel Thunder & Lightning 2 (Block Carnival) was released in 1992.

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Thunder & Lightning provides examples of:

• Boss Room: There's a Manta Ray, an archeological head, a giant spider, a monster that throws stones, and the Big Bad, all exclusive to the arcade version.

• Color-Coded Multiplayer: The first player, in red, plays as Mr. Chin. The second player, in white, instead controls his Palette Swap, Marcus. Averted in the NES version where both players are red.
• Covers Always Lie: One of the flyers for the arcade version has screenshots from the NES version, which has entirely different levels, plot, and characters (the only thing shared between them is Mr. Chin himself).
  • Another (presumably later) flyer actually has screenshots from the arcade version◊.
• Damsel in Distress: The whole point of the arcade version is to rescue Mr. Chin's girlfriend.
• Excuse Plot: In the arcade version, rescue your tall blond girlfriend from the Thunder Warrior that put blocks in your way.
• In Name Only: The "sequel" (known in Japan as Block Carnival) is massively different from the first game and it's NES counterpart, due to having no characters or settings from the original games (instead starring two generic Japanese men) and overall comes off as Denser and Wackier with more simple level design (all twelve of it's non-boss levels are a basic "wall of blocks" levels).
• Minus World: In the American NES version of the game, after you beat all 30 levels the game over screen is shown. However, in the Japanese version the game proceeds to load glitched levels after all 30 levels have been beaten. This is despite the fact that the Japanese version was released four months after the American one, which was more than enough time to remove the glitch.
• Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups: Mr. Chin can only have one powerup active at a time.
• Nintendo Hard: The original arcade version runs on a vertical screen^note 240×384px giving more vertical space, and has continues (coins). The NES version has a normal horizontal screen^note 256x240px and no continues, just the 3 extra lives (or 7 in the Japanese version) you start with. Like Arkanoid, it's also only possible to have one Power-Up at a time.
• 1-Up: Provided by a powerup that shows a small image of Mr. Chin with "1UP" written along the bottom.
• Our Demons Are Different: The two Thunder Warriors provided by both the arcade and NES game. The NES one being more humanoid, and the arcade one looking like a true demon.

• Pinball Scoring: In the arcade version, you can score amazingly high as early as the first level, reaching 1,600,000 points.
• Power-Up: Acquired by hitting certain floating vehicles that pass by on-screen. The powerups they spawn include sticky paddle ("Glove"), longer paddle ("Long"), a 1-Up, a big ball that goes through indestructible blocks ("Big ball"), ("Slow") that slows down the ball and so on.
• Shock and Awe: The two kinds of Thunder Warriors that occupy the two versions.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: In the underwater floors, Mr. Chin is immune to drowning.
• Walk, Don't Swim: Mr. Chin opts to walk on the bottom of the ocean instead of swimming between the islands.
• X-Ray Sparks: In the arcade version, when the Thunder Warrior zaps Mr. Chin and kidnaps his girlfriend.