Hop Top is the love child of Ice Climbers, Galaxian and Doodle Jump. The short burst action always leaves me wanting another game. It took me a long time to master even getting passed the first few levels but the natural osmosis over time through playing is greatly satisfying and rewarding, as failure is almost always on the player as the enemy patterns are fair/predictable with all their own unique behaviours and layouts, similarly the platforms are layed out in such a way that there is almost always multiple ways to progress forward even if you slip up the first jump and have to retry, especially so once you get accustomed to crossing over from one side of the screen to another by warping across ala pac-man and other such arcade games screen wrap mechanics. If the game is a little to hard for you or you just wanna try it and be done with it one sitting you can always cheat and use infinite continues, this doesnt remove all challenge as you still must restart the level ofcourse, I obviously never used this feature as a true gamer, but I imagine for some seeking an easier / shorter time with the game this will suffice without making it mindlessly easy for such a player. Similiarly there is an auto fire option if you dont wish to develop arthiritis playing, although again for me this didnt really serve much a purpose as spamming that button is half the fun, but its still a nice option to have, and it is even a little bit inferior to just mashing, which to some is a controversial choice I suppose, but its either you crank up the auto fire to make it objectively better, pushing players away from even bothering playing the game "properly" (in my opinion anyway) or giving them a very very slight handicap for choosing the easier option, which I think works better since its not exactly game destroying since the type of player to choose this option probably wasnt mashing to their hearts content anyway.

The presentation is stellar, excellent pixel art reminiscent of the era, akin to the more later "arrangement" namco games graphics which looks phenomenal and it really utilises this style rather than using "le retro" graphics as a crutch for bad/lazy art. The soundtrack is similiar, every track is a banger utilising the arcade instruments to their highest potential in short but memorable tracks. Extra shoutout for the kefka laugh cameo and Dancing Mad intro reference leading into Killer Queen, amazing.

Also the addition of the arcade mode emulating the style of the "original" version of the non existence arcade game pre the "arrangement" style is a great touch. SOUL.

One minor gripe I have with the game is that when the game ends, it simply ends. I feel like this game could benefit from a "loop" system like other arcade games where you can endlessly replay the campaign until game over to see how high your score could possibly go. Although this is less a criticism more just something I wish was in the game. Also I wish the main way of increasing the high score was via a time bonus per round as well as traditional point gain via collecting balloons/bouncing high as seemingly the best way to get a high score is just to stall? Which I dont really see the design idealogy behind that as it is rather tedious and without intention usually just rewards you for playing worse and taking longer which doesnt make much sense.