Did you know that Mario dressed up as a bullfighter in a secret ending of the Game Boy Qix? And it wasn’t the only transformist rarity of Taito’s classic.

Among the most legendary gaming companies we have Taito Corporation with an unblemished legacy in its beginnings. Just by mentioning Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble o Arkanoid Its influence in the industry should be clear by now, without forgetting another revolutionary saga as it was Qix. One of the most imitated classics within the recreational, mainly when it comes to undressing girls.

Qix was never sparked by that sexist controversy, obviously, by basing its mechanics simply on uncovering most of the background of the screen using a pointer. Everything was neat, without fanfare. There was no distraction, except for the dangers of the stage, which could ruin the geometric figures. A legend from which I just discovered something new.

And is that thanks to tweet de The Ultimate Mario Fan I was just surprised to see that on the Game Boy version of Qix there was an end ing where Mario dressed up as a bullfighter

at the same time that I saw in the foreground bailaoras flamenco.

Mario Mexican, African, Chinese, Indian, English …

It was not the only secret ending that pulled on topics, having in the case of Mexico a Mario dressed in the typical traditional clothing in the middle of a desert. Already today we saw him in all his glory inside one of the costumes of the Super Mario Odyssey from Nintendo Switch, by the way. But in the GB Qix it was first.

Other transformations / appearances were within the United Kingdom as a royal guard and with the iconic Big Ben in the background, or with the Chinese wall in the background. Even Mario as if he were a native African hunting an elephant or as a snake charmer with the beautiful Indian Taj Mahal in the background. Mario has no limits!

Now with this in mind, it is clear that this belated conversion to the 1990 Game Boy (the arcade original debuted in 1981) automatically becomes the best for seeing Mario in multiple tessitura, even if it was the worst version graphically. At the end of the day this mattered little equally in Tetris.

It was not, however, the only appearance of a character from the famous Nintendo saga within this revolutionary classic by Taito, when the moustached plumber appeared in the credits scene with the highest score (surpassing the 500,000 point barrier). victory accompanied by Luigi and Peach in the castle of the Mushroom Kingdom. Each milestone on the scoreboard actually unlocked one of the secret endings, the easiest to see being Mario disguised as a Mexican when requesting at least 50,000 points

. However, none of this was replicated by the later version of the NES in 1991. Ergo, the Game Boy is better.

On the other hand, separate mention of the Japanese advertisement for the time. Speechless.

More than a decade without Qix (not counting its clones)

It is still a shame that a game as original as Qix in 1981 has hardly had continuity officially. With a first sequel that hardly contributed anything of interest in 1982, his first visual leap was made to pray until Super Qix.

It was 1987 and until then there were already almost a dozen clones of Taito’s work, although its true boom would not occur until the arrival of Gals Panic in 1990, the most famous clone of Qix in arcades

. Claim? Women in undergarments whose image was unlocked when cleaning the screen, coupled with a bad slime with its difficulty, seriously penalizing mistakes.

That Qix is ​​one of the most copied games is not surprising, especially after what meant the Kaneko arcade aimed at the adult audience, creating behind it another row of spicy clones that, despite maintaining the mechanics of the original Qix, were ostensibly away from his style betting on the easy sex business.

Fortunately, Taito did not abandon his license, despite the Twin Qix cancellation in 1995. And it is that in 2000 we were surprised by a radical turn by means of Qix Adventure para Game Boy Color. Yes, an adventure where we moved around a map engaging in conversations and duels with the beings of their island. On the latter, his presentation seemed vilely copied from the first Pokémon …

Qix Neo, already for PlayStation in 2001, returned to the traditional formula, taking into Qix++ para Xbox Live Arcade en 2009 his last official appearance. A game that could not understand the time in which it came out, leaving a quite improvable trail for those who expected an evolution of its formula as Bandai Namco has been doing with its iconic Pac-man with the THIS, 256 Y Mega Tunnel Battle.

It is appreciated, at least, that it is one of the hundreds of backwards compatible Xbox games, but it is clear that it is time for a new update of Qix. That or pulling games that have gone further, such as the great Patchwork Heroes of PSP.