Spinmaster

Spinmaster is an arcade game developed and released by Data East in December, 1993 in North America, in Europe the same year and on February 18, 1994 in Japan. It is the first game Data East developed and released for the SNK Neo-Geo MVS hardware. Its character designs are almost identical to the ones in Data East's Sega Genesis game titled Dashin' Desperadoes; however, the rest of both games are completely different. Also, Spinmaster's gameplay, artwork style, animations of some characters and the styles of its weapons were heavily inspired by another arcade game by Data East titled Joe & Mac, according to the Japanese Miracle Adventure arcade flyer.

After Data East became defunct due to its bankruptcy back in 2003, G-Mode bought the intellectual rights to the Neo-Geo game as well as most other Data East games and licenses them globally.

The game was later re-released on the Virtual Console in Japan on August 3, 2010, the PAL region on November 12, 2010 and in North America on November 22, 2010.

Gameplay


Players progress across the side-scrolling levels, jumping to avoid obstacles and reach platforms and defeating enemies with a default yo-yo weapon or projectile weapons obtained from treasure chests. They can also crouch or slide tackle to attack enemies or evade incoming attacks. Quickly tapping the attack button rapid-fires weapons, and holding the attack button charges an alternate fire mode that varies depending on the equipped weapon. There are also limited screen-clearing super attacks that also vary depending on the equipped weapon.

There are five worlds of several stages each. Each world ends with a boss fight that awards a fragment of a treasure map when defeated. After collecting the full map, players choose one of three locations, each of which are a different ending to the game.

Plot
Many years ago, a large treasure was hidden by a mysterious man on an uncharted island. The man of mystery drew the location of the treasure on a map and hid it deep in the forest of the island. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to years, and years turned to decades. The man who hid the map disappeared, never to be seen again. During this time, the map became dirty and weathered, eventually tearing into five pieces which were scattered about the corners of the world. One of these pieces wafted its way into the possession of the young treasure seeker named Johnny. Living with his girlfriend Mary and his rugged cowboy partner named Tom, Johnny dreamed of the day when he would some day find the ancient treasure on the hidden island of the mysterious man.

Then one day, the greedy, treasure-seeking mad scientist, Dr. De Playne appeared in Johnny's little town. Seizing Johnny's piece of the treasure map and kidnapping Mary, Dr. De Playne set out to find the treasure and buy up all the toys and candy of the world, plunging the children of earth into a bitter darkness of continuous study and well-balanced meals. Johnny and Tom pursued the mad Dr. De Playne with their yo-yos to save Mary and the world.

Reception
In North America, RePlay reported Spinmaster to be the eleventh most-popular arcade game at the time. Play Meter also listed the game to be the fifty-third most-popular arcade game at the time. The title garnered mostly positive reception from critics and reviewers alike since its initial release.

Retrospective reviews
Spinmaster has been met with mostly positive reception from retrospective reviewers in recent years. In 2014, HobbyConsolas identified it as one of the twenty best games for the Neo Geo AES.