Space Squash

Space Squash
Information
Developer	Tomcat System
Publisher	Coconuts Japan Entertainment
Platform	Virtual Boy
Device	Virtual Boy
Type	Game
Genre	Action, Sports
Play Area	Seated
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	September 29, 1995 (Japan)
Price	4,900 yen (Japan, excluding consumption tax)

Space Squash (スペーススカッシュ) is a 1995 action sports game for Nintendo's Virtual Boy, developed by Tomcat System and published in Japan by Coconuts Japan Entertainment. The player controls a machine called Peatron and returns a ball down a three-dimensional corridor at an opponent waiting at the far end, in a format the instruction booklet describes as a mix of squash and air hockey built around the console's sense of depth. It was released in Japan on 29 September 1995, at a listed price of 4,900 yen, and was not released in other regions.

The four reviewers of Weekly Famicom Tsushin (Famitsu) gave it a combined 20 out of 40 at launch, while later English-language retrospectives were more favorable: Nintendo Life scored it 8 out of 10 in 2009 and called it "one of the best titles on the Virtual Boy".

Reviewed 13 October 2026. Release date, price, scores and reviewer comments against the Famitsu 355 scan; gameplay, story and credits against the manual and staff roll; all retrospective quotes against Nintendo Life, Time Extension, PCMag and Retro Gaming Magazine. About review dates.

Gameplay

Each match takes place in an enclosed corridor, or tunnel. The player guards one end and the opponent guards the other, and each tries to hit the ball, which the booklet calls the "Psycho Ball", past the other. A point is scored when the ball gets past the opponent, and by default the first to three points wins the stage. The left directional pad moves the character and the right directional pad is used for shots. Shots can be bounced off any of the corridor's four walls to wrong-foot the opponent. A player hit head-on by the ball is stunned for a moment and loses one heart; losing all hearts concedes a point.

The corridors vary in shape (wide, tall and square courts are described in the booklet), and some contain obstacles and item boxes. Nintendo Life's review mentions hidden blocks that knock the ball back and blocks that can be pushed into the court to obscure the view. Before each match the player picks one charge technique (Shoot, Speed, Shield or Homing), charges a meter by holding down on the right directional pad, and releases it with the L or R button.

The game is organized into areas. Each area has four regular stages, then a boss stage, then a bonus stage, for six stages in all. After each area the player chooses the next one, which changes the stage layouts that follow; clearing four areas leads to the ending. The booklet states that there are 60 stage variations in total, not counting boss and bonus stages. Against bosses the aim is to drain the boss's energy rather than score points. In the bonus stage the player has 15 balls to knock down a wall of blocks, and clearing every block earns an increase to speed, energy or shot power. There is no save feature. Pressing Select on the title screen opens a training mode and a configuration mode, where the difficulty (easy, normal or hard), the points needed to win a match (two to four), the number of continues, the corridor style and the background music can be changed.

Use of the stereoscopic display

The booklet presents the game as making the fullest possible use of depth. The Virtual Boy's stereoscopic display shows the length of each corridor, and the ball changes size as it moves toward or away from the player. Nintendo Life also noted that the sound of the ball gets louder and quieter as it travels back and forth. Time Extension's game profile describes it as "essentially a 3D version of Pong" and says that "the challenge lies in telling how close the ball is to you".

Story

According to the instruction booklet, a band of space thieves called the Nightmare Gang builds a secret base on the peaceful Animal Star. The planet's chief sends a distress call to a space security group, the Bee Rangers. The player, a Bee Ranger, flies to the base in the machine Peatron and finds that the gang wants to settle the matter with a game of squash.

Development

Coconuts Japan Entertainment had announced Space Squash by June 1995. In the 3D Virtual Boy Magazine supplement to Family Computer Magazine issue 225 (16 June 1995), it appears as a tentative title with no release date, alongside three other Coconuts projects: Interceptor, Sunday's Point and Proteus Zone. The magazine noted that Coconuts had four known titles, the most of any developer at the time, including a squash game, a 3D shooter and a basketball game.

The game's staff roll credits Tomcat System staff for game and character design, graphics, programming and sound programming. It lists KoTaRo as director, Masao Doi as producer and Ryozo Gohara as executive producer, with a copyright line for Coconuts Japan Entertainment.

Release

Space Squash was released in Japan on 29 September 1995, on the same day as Atlus's Jack Bros.. Weekly Famicom Tsushin listed it as a Virtual Boy cartridge at 4,900 yen, a price shown without consumption tax. It was not released outside Japan. In October 2015, Retro Gaming Magazine reported that fans had released an English translation patch for the game.

Region	Release date	Publisher	Notes
Japan	29 September 1995	Coconuts Japan Entertainment	Virtual Boy cartridge; 4,900 yen

Reception

Publication	Score	Notes
Weekly Famicom Tsushin	20/40	Four reviewers: 4, 6, 6 and 4 out of 10; reviewed from a near-final sample
Nintendo Life	8/10	Retrospective review, 2009

The four Famitsu reviewers were split. Two gave it 6 out of 10. One of them said the game made much of depth, but since the main technique was varying where the ball was returned, play was fairly plain, though the many opponents made reaching the ending enjoyable for some time; the other singled out the court gimmicks and the special moves on the L and R buttons. The two who gave it 4 out of 10 credited its use of three-dimensional space. One still found the game content too traditional and said the generous hit detection made the balance loose and removed tension. The other said that as a plain squash match it was not exciting and wished it had more features, pointing to a game called Robo Squash as an example.

In his 2009 review for Nintendo Life, Dave Frear praised the controls and the stereoscopic effect, saying the 3D "works really well giving a great sense of the length of the corridors stretching out in front of you". He criticized the lack of a save feature and the small difference between difficulty levels, and suggested that a harder setting would have helped. Writing for PCMag, Benj Edwards included the game in a list of seven Virtual Boy games worth revisiting. He compared it to "a mashup of Space Harrier (in perspective) and Pong, with robots batting a ball back and forth in stereoscopic 3D", and said it "controls well and makes good use of the technology inherent in the Virtual Boy".

See also

• Virtual Boy
• List of Virtual Boy games