Chronsega Episode One is here!

Wow! An exciting new era for Chrontendo begins today. For we are broadening our scope to little to take in the other home console of the 8-bit era: the Sega SG-1000 Mark III aka the Sega Master System! Yep, Chrontendo presents -- Chronsega Episode 1.

A superior console on a purely technical level, the Master System failed to make much of a dent in Nintendo's market share in the US and Japan. However, the system was successful in Europe, Australia and Brazil and actually had a fairly long lifespan, from 1985 to 1998. The main culprits for the Master System's failure to make an impact on US consumers are usually given as exceptionally bad marketing (the Master System games had notorioulsy awful cover art in the US) and lack of third party support. Virtually every major Japanese game developer/publisher had already thrown their lot in with Nintendo. Due to Nintendo's restrictive contracts, they were prevented from dealing with Sega. During the system's Japanese and US lifespan, almost every game was released by Sega themselves.

And, of course, the Master System was not known for having a lot of good games. Whereas Nintendo threw all their effort in the Famicom, during the 80s Sega seemed like an arcade game manufacturer that just happened to make a few console games on the side. The original titles for the Master System were not always top-shelf Sega. On that note, let's take a look at the 15 games covered in Chronsega Episode 1. These games span October 1985 through July 1986. Keep in mind that during this same time period, we were seeing such pioneering titles as Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest being released for the Famicom.

Fantasy Zone














Surprisingly, Sega released very few arcade ports during its first 10 months of existence. The best Mark III/Master System this game turns out to be a port of their almost brand new 1986 arcade title. A horizontal shoot-em-up, Fantasy Zone is, along with Konami's Twinbee, one of
the first cute-em-up games: shooters that replace the typical military or sci-fi themes with silly, cute enemies and environments. While Fantasy Zone is definitely charming and cute, it is isn't actually a humor game, the way Twinbee or Parodius are. Humorous cute-em-ups tend to insert mundane objects into bizarre, inappropriate settings. For example many of the enemies in Twinbee are household objects, or in Hudson's Star Parodier, your ship is actually a PC Engine console! Fantasy Zone, on the other hand, exists in a coherent fantasy setting, albeit an usually colorful and cutesy one.

The game itself is surprisingly good for an 8-bit shooter; certainly miles above the other two shooters this episode. While some graphical elements from the arcade version needed to be eliminated, the Mark III Fantasy Zone still looks great. And it features some of the biggest and most creative bosses seen in a console game so far.

Hang-On

A port of Yu Suzuki's 1985 arcade game, Hang-On was a launch title for the Mark III. Certainly, the game shows off system's capabilities, with its fast, smooth, sprite based 3-D effects. Granted, the game loses something in the translation, since you are not playing while sitting on a motorcycle as in the arcade version, but the Mark III Hang-On is still a fun little racing game.

Comical Machine Gun Joe














A short arcade style shooting game, Machine Gun Joe is a pleasant time killer. It features an early version of the mechanic found in Cabal; your fedora and trench coat clad character is
free to move horizontally along the bottom on the screen. Enemies appear in the background/top half of the screen, spraying bullets down upon you. This game is a good example of the Japanese humor game aesthetic: while Machine Gun Joe has an ostensible gangster theme, various incongruous elements are thrown in. Enemies include pigs, giant spiders, schoolgirls, and Joe travels from docks and dive bars to a wooded fairyland.

Ghost House

I suppose the fact that such an average game as Ghost House made this episode's "good games" list says a lot about the quality of the Mark III's early releases. Ghost House is a typical arcade style platformer, distinguished only by its horror theme. While this was released a few months before Castlevania, it is not anywhere near as unique, exciting or well-designed as Konami's game. Games such as Ghost House give the impression that Sega was putting most of
its resources into its arcade titles, and relegating second-tier game ideas to the Mark III.

The Bottom of the Barrel Games:

Seishun Scandal/My Hero

This prototypical beat-em-up, developed by Coreland (later known as Banpresto), worked fine as an arcade game. However, something went seriously wrong with the Mark III version. Three out the four levels were scrapped, and the difficulty level shot sky-high. In the arcade game, your character could cut through punks like a hot knife through butter; in the home version, coming in contact with an enemy will frequently result in the enemy getting the first hit in. Considering that a single hit will kill you, this is serious problem. Come to think of it, maybe one-hit-deaths in beat-em-ups is a bad idea.

Satellite 7














Wretchedly dull vertical shooter. Every aspect of Satellite 7 is undistinguished: enemies, power-ups, music, backgrounds. Seriously, this is one of the most generic shooters I've seen, and I've already covered quite a few lame shooters for the Famicom.

Great Soccer

Sega, needing to put some software on the shelves for its new console, published a series of hastily developed sports games, all with "great" in the title. Of the three covered in this episode, Great Soccer, Great Baseball and Great Tennis, the soccer games is probably the worst. All three games are derivative of Nintendo's early sport titles, but Great Soccer features some daaaamn ugly character sprites.

Also:

Astro Flash: Another shooter, released immediatly after Satellite 7. Considerably better, but still not exactly a classic.

Fushigi no Oshiro Pit Pot: This sort of resembles a top down puzzle game such as HAL's Lolo games crossed with Legend of Zelda. That might not be a bad idea, but it this case, it resulted in a remarkably lame release.

F-16 Fighting Falcon: Port of super dull looking MSX flight simulation game. The fact that it requires two controllers to play the game makes it a bit of a drag. This late 1985 release is the first third party developed Mark III title; it was by the US based company Nexa.

Hokuto no Ken/Black Belt: This is about a million times better than the Famicom Hokuto no Ken game released by Toei around the same time. But it's still not very good.

Teddy Boy Blues: The other Sega launch title, and a port of a now forgotten Sega arcade platformer. The odd title comes from a hit Japanese pop single, and the game itself has nothing to do with Teddy Boys.

Gokuaku Doumei Dump Matsumoto/Pro Wrestling: Decent, but frustrating wrestling title. The Japanese version is based on a real female wrestler while the US release features fictional male wrestlers.

Great Baseball/Great Tennis: Just your average everyday mid-80s sports games. These are remarkably similar to Nintendo's Tennis and Baseball, but with slightly better graphics.

I really shouldn't be too hard on Sega; after all, it takes every console a while to hit its stride. On the other hand, this was Sega's second console. They had been releasing games for the old SG-1000 for a few years, and had developing video games since the late '70s, so you would hope they would approach the Mark III as grizzled veterans, not bumbling newbies. But, I have high hopes for Chronsega Episode 2, which will feature one of the Mark III's most respected titles. Look for it shortly after Chrontendo Episode 15.

To stream or download Chronsega Episode 1, go to archive.org.

Episode 14 Is Here and Chrontendo Goes Sega!

Surprisingly enough, Chrontendo Episode 14 is only somewhat behind schedule and available to stream or download at archive.org! An historic episode, this, featuring not one but two big releases from Nintendo themselves, and.... we finally move into the year 1987! I'll undoubtedly come with with some sort of 1986 debriefing/1987 introduction, but that will need to wait for next episode. Episode 14 is simply packed with too much 8-bit goodness/weirdness to fit in any more content. You even get a bonus game! There are 16 instead of 15 this time.

This episode has a pretty densely packed release schedule - 12 games released between 12/19 and 12/26. Publishers were clearly trying to get some product on the shelves before the year's end, regardless of the quality. Thus we have two titles from Kemco on 12/26; one was an odd little text adventure game based on an animated feature film and the other a port of an ultra-obscure platformer originally released for the Atari computer systems. Taito and Nichibutsu both release arcade ports that come with special controls. Capcom ports one of their most recent arcade games while Bandai quickly puts another Family Trainer game on the market. And future Nintendo rival Sony releases their first game for the system, which is naturally based on a Japanese rock band. The first month of 1987 starts off slowly by comparison, but does contain one huge release.

But...there is more big news! Chrontendo has so far been focusing strictly on releases for the Famicom and ignoring all other gaming systems. This is changing as of right now because we will now be covering the Sega Master System/Mark III! That's right, the next episode will actually be Chronsega Episode 1!! We'll begin in October 1985 and continue on through the first half of 1986. Chronsega Ep. 1 will be followed by Chrontendo Ep. 15, and then by Chronsega Ep. 2. At this point, we'll be "caught up" and episodes of Chronsega will appear occasionally. The Master System is virtually a lost system in the US, having sold a fraction of the number of units that the NES did. Since Sega has a pretty good reputation with its later consoles, I'm hoping to find some forgotten gems on the Master System.

Back to business! This episode's gold medal goes to:

Hikari Shinwa - Palutena no Kagami AKA Kid Icarus

















Produced by Gunpei Yokoi, Hikari Shinwa (literally "Myth of Light - The Mirror of Palutena") is sort of a follow up to Metroid. However, while Metroid focused on exploration and item gathering in a large, non-linear setting, this game is more action based and straightforward. Most levels are completely linear, though usually vertically orientated. In between each "world" is a maze-like fortress level, which are structured like side-view versions of Zelda's dungeons. Hikari is definitely not the classic that Metroid was, but still manages to be a solid, fun and occasionally very difficult platformer. One major issue is the curiously inverted difficulty level. Your character Pit starts off very weak, with almost no attack power and a short life bar. As Pit obtains new weapons throughout the game he gradually changes into an unstoppable killing machine. The final level is a cakewalk compared to the first. Regardless, Hikari Shinwa still stands heads above the other games this episode.

Other titles of note:

Layla

While having absolutely nothing to do with the Derek and the Dominos song, Layla still manages to be a slightly better than average run-and-gun game. It features a Samus Aran like space chick who blows through various asteroid/space station levels, killing everything in sight and picking up ice cream cones and pieces of cake for bonus points. Not to mention weapons and ammo. TONS of weapons and ammo. Layla must be the most well-armed character in video game history, able to carry around blasters, lasers, flamethrowers, bombs, rocket launchers, light sabers, axes, and so on. At a time when Castlevania's two weapon system was still fresh and new, the ability to switch between a dozen or so weapons seems way ahead of its time. If only the gameplay itself was a little more exciting....

Arkanoid

Taito ports their often-copied arcade hit to the Famicom, complete with a special rotary controller. Unfortunately, Konami had just released a very cool Arkanoid copycat called Nazo no Kabe (covered in Chrontendo Episode 13). Arkanoid's main strength/weakness is the special controller. Having the controller allows you to more replicate the arcade experience, while not having the controller renders the game virtually unplayable.

Seikima II

OK, OK! So Seikima II is not a good game! It is still the wackiest game this episode, and thus earns an honorable mention. The Famicom debut from Sony (but not first video game from Sony - they had been releasing games for Japanese computer systems such as the MSX for a little while), Seikima II is based on a black leather, spikes and make-up encrusted Japanese rock band that was popular in the 80s. Incidentally, this game is not a sequel; the band's name is actually "Seikima II." The game itself is a pretty standard platformer. You play as Seikima II's singer, collecting money and objects, avoiding enemies, and buying items in shops.

The Legend of Zelda 2 - Link no Bouken/Zelda 2 - The Adventures of Link

















The last game covered this episode in the famously disappointing Zelda 2. The black sheep in the Zelda family (unless you count the CD-i games, but most Zelda fans simply ignore the existence of those), The Adventures of Link radically alters the formula that made the first game one of the most successful titles for the Famicom. The sequel adds some RPG elements - experience points, spells, random monster attacks, villages, NPCs that request your assistance - while removing the money and shops. Additionally, much of the sense of exploration and adventure has been removed from the game, and the overworld is laid out in a much more linear fashion. But the most commented on change in Zelda 2 is the switch from an overhead to a side view for all the action segments of the game. While this isn't necessarily a bad idea, the execution is far from perfect. The dungeons tend to be on the boring side, and many of the enemies are incredibly annoying. Additionally, some enemies do not yield experience points when killed! Judged on its own merits, Zelda 2 is a good, but flawed game. Compared to its predecessor, however, it can't help but be a let down.

This episode's brown medals go to:

Cosmo Genesis/Star Voyager

















This Star Raiders clone from ASCII adds a few new elements to the formula, but still suffers from poor execution. Granted, Cosmo Genesis is not terrible, but nevertheless ends up being the worst game this episode. While Episode 14 does contain a few uninspired games, there's really nothing this time to compare to Super Monkey or Convoy no Nazo. Or course, Cosmo Genesis was still bad enough to catch the eye of Acclaim, who released it in the US as Star Voyager.

Tatakai no Banka/Trojan

After releasing a string of early classics such as 1942, Commando and Ghosts 'n Goblins, Capcom unleashed this dud. A side-scrolling futuristic beat-em-up, Trojan simply fails to capture the magic of those earlier titles. Again, Trojan is not a really terrible game, but it is a pop fly that arrives after a series of home runs.

This episode's utterly puzzling game:

Moeta Princess - Puzzling Zelda-like adventure game, heavy on the Japanese

The Rest:

Toki no Tabito: Time Stranger - Very simple text adventure game from Kemco.
Electrician - Another oddity from Kemco, this is a port of an old Atari computer game.
Dragon Buster - Port of Namco's ahead-of-its-time fantasy themed arcade game.
Hi no Tori: Wagaou no Bouken - A licensed property from Konami, based on an Osamu Tezuka manga.
Mahjong Goku - The third Mahjong game for the Famicom. It won't be the last.
Crazy Climber - Port of Nichibutsu's arcade classic, which requires a special controller.
Family Trainer: Running Stadium - Another game in Bandai's Family Trainer series.
Labyrinth - Action adventure game based on the Henson/Lucas film. This Tokuma Shoten
release is completely different than the LucasArts game, and is possible developed by Atlus!

As always, Chrontendo Episode 14 may be downloaded at archive.org here.

Chrontendo Episode 13: Wrath of the Yakyuu

Episode 13 has arrived, more or less on schedule. As always, it may be streamed or downloaded from archive.org. As you may recall from last episode, the 1986 holiday season has arrived in Japan, and new Famicom games are being released in droves. In fact, this episode only covers ten days, from December 10 thru December 19. We'll finish up 1986 next episode, so you can think of Episodes 12-14 as a trilogy of sorts.

Before we get into the games themselves, let's discuss sports games for a moment. Today, sports games are a major genre, with series such as Madden Football moving an absurd number of units. Sports games played an important role in the early years of video games, with such consoles as the Intellivison building their reputation on superior sports titles. But the astute Chrontendo viewer will have noted a distinct dearth of sports titles for the Famicom so far, with the exception of wrestling games. Nintendo themselves released a handful of basic sports titles early in the system's lifespan - Golf, Baseball, Soccer and Tennis. Since then we've had Irem's 10 Yard Fight in 1985 and Nintendo's Volleyball in mid-1986. With this episode, we'll see this start to change, beginning with the release of a baseball game from Namco that helped kick off the modern era of sports games.

In addition, we have another fine Konami release, a dull text adventure game from Square, and a US style RPG, as well as all kinds of general nonsense. Let's get going.


Episode 13's MVP:

Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium/RBI Baseball
King Kong 2: Ikari no Megaton Punch

















For the first time ever, it's a tie! Neither of these titles are stone cold classsics, yet both rise above the crowd. Namco's Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium marks a major turning point in the evolution of the sports game. Rather than using identical, generic players as in Nintendo's Baseball, Family Stadium features real Japanese baseball players, each with his own unique hitting and/or pitching stats. Thus, every team is different, and knowing your teams strengths and weaknesses is vital to mastering the game. Tengen released the game in the US as RBI Baseball, replacing the Japanese teams and players with American ones. RBI Baseball proudly featured the MLBPA logo on front, thus kicking off the era of licensed sports titles. The Family Stadium series continues to this day, while RBI Baseball continued as a separate series for a few years.

















In 1986, Dino DeLaurentiis released a belated sequel to his 1976 hit movie King Kong. King Kong Lives was a box office flop, but did inspire a video game tie-in from Konami, the wonderfully titled King Kong 2: Ikari no Megaton Punch. Never released in the US, this fun top down action game has nothing to do with the movie, but is a crazy romp featuring interconnected maze-like levels, the ability to jump, punch and throw rocks, and even a certain number of destructible elements in the environment. Oh yes, and giant ducks. I'm not sure why the folks at Konami think ducks are so sinister, but killer ducks will feature in another Konami game a little later down the road (to be covered in Episode 15).

More Cool Games:

Nazo no Kabe: Block Kazushi

What?! Konami virtually has a lock-down on this episode! Nazo no Kabe is a fun little Arkanoid clone, which beat Taito's Famicom port of Arkanoid to the shelves by around two weeks! Just like Arkanoid, this game is a modern variation on the old Atari classic Breakout. Think of it as Breakout with the following additions: a sci-fi theme, power-ups, enemies, more varied block patterns, and the occasional boss. I will admit, I like Nazo no Kabe better than Arkanoid itself.

Mashou/Deadly Towers

















Here's a game with an extremely bad reputation that it doesn't quite deserve. Mashou is a Zelda inspired adventure game in which you climb a series of towers to obtain and destroy seven evil bells. Much of the game is completely playable, though hampered by the developer Lenar's insistence on hiding most of the important items in completely arbitrary places. Even so, Mashou is relatively decent -- except for one thing. Lenar decided to ramp up the difficulty and length of the game by adding a number of huge, dangerous and impossible to navigate dungeons. The entrances to these dungeons are invisible, so accidentally stumbling into one will usually result in death while your desperately search for the dungeon's exit. This virtually kills the game for all but the most masochistic gamers. Find some maps of the dungeons online, however, and you Mashou becomes surprisingly acceptable. Mashou is a big, ambitious game. Too bad Lenar had to take a crap all over their own creation by adding those ridiculous dungeons.

Wing of Madoola

Again, not a great game, but better than I suspected. Wing of Madoola is the first Sunsoft title to show any promise. A side scrolling platformer with RPG elements, Madoola contains the usual power-ups, bosses, and running, jumping and slashing action. The game is fun in spots and there is a decent amount of variety to the levels, but Madoola is hampered by bad controls and annoying enemies. Still, a huge improvement over Super Arabian.

Deep Dungeon

RPG's are still relatively rare on the Famicom, even as RPG elements are becoming increasingly common. The first in a series of four games, Humming Bird Soft's Deep Dungeon is a straight up US style first-person RPG ala Wizardry. Taking place entirely inside a single dungeon, you control a lone adventurer who battles monsters one at a time, turn-based style. While not getting lost in the labyrinthine dungeon (hint: break out the pencil and graph paper for this one), your hero rummages through piles of trash looking for valuables. While RPGs don't really get any more basic than this, Deep Dungeon will please fans of old-school dungeon crawling action.

Not so good games:

Takeshi no Chousenjou

















Just like Ganso Saiyuuki: Super Monkey Daibouken, this Taito release is a classic example of kusoge - a shitty game. Supposedly designed by Takeshi "Beat" Kitano, the video game hating actor, director and TV celebrity, Takeshi no Chousenjou (Takeshi's Challenge) is sort of an anti-video game -- a deliberately boring, unplayable mess. Certain elements in this game have given it a reputation as either an avant-garde classic or one the worst games ever released. Either way, it is unlikely anyone actually enjoyed this game for more than a few minutes.

Breeder

I'm not sure if Breeder is bad, or just pointless. You construct robots and then pit your creations against each other in the arena - a decent idea for a game. However, the robot battles are completely automated and mostly consist of your robots wandering around the arena, occasionally attacking each other. The result is incredibly boring, but at least Breeder is notable as probably the least interactive video game released up to this point. The Japanese would eventually become the masters of non-interactive video games, so Breeder perhaps a little ahead of its time.

Gall Force: Eternal Story

An anime based shoot-em-up from HAL Laboratory? I had high hopes for Gall Force, but these were dashed upon playing the game itself. Considering this was the first game HAL published themselves, I shouldn't have expected too much. Regardless, Gall Force is a pretty lame shooter, with way too many enemies and useless power ups. The graphics are pretty good, however. This is also the earliest shoot-em-up I've seen that indicates in-game that the pilots are teenage girls. Eventually, Japanese games would start displaying an ennerving fascination with underage girls, so HAL is at least partially to blame for introducing lolicon into console gaming.

The rest:

Doreamon - A quickie release from Hudson, based on the eternally popular anime about a blue robot cat.
Suishou no Ryuu - Dull, almost dialog free text adventure game from Square. That oft-told story about Square facing bankruptcy in their early years is starting to make sense.
Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijou Yuukai Jiken - Actually sort of an interesting title from the obscure publisher Towachiki. As the master detective, you run around the UK, stabbing random pedestrians to death while searching for randomly hidden clues.
Adian no Tsue - A god-damned educational game disguised as a lame Zelda clone. More pointlessness from Sunsoft.
Knight Lore - A heavily modified port of the old Spectrum game, originally from The Ultimate Play the Game (later known as Rare). "Speccy" fans consider Knight Lore a timeless classic, but we'll have to chalk that up to typical British eccentricity.
Metro Cross - Port of an oddball Namco arcade game. You jump over giant rolling coke cans to avoid being electrocuted. No, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

Well, there you have it, another 15 games out of the way! Don't forget to download Chrontendo Episode 13 at archive.org!

Chrontendo Episode 12: Shooter Bliss

Hello everyone, Chrontendo Episode 12 is now available to download or stream over at archive.org. This episode sees us finally reach December of 1986 and the Japanese holiday season. As a result, we'll the number of games being released spike dramatically as publishers try to fill the shelves with product before New Year's Day. Not surprisingly, we see a few new publishers enter the fray this season. November and December see the Famicom debuts from the television and music company VAP, toy giant Takara, Japanese utility and cable provider Vic Tokai, and music/electronics behemoth CBS/Sony. We'll also be introduced to a few companies who actually specialize in video games, such as HAL Laboratory, the Square-led consortium DOG, Towachiki, Use, and Imagineer. Of these last five, only HAL would have a long and prestigious career.

As it turns out, this would be the last great influx of new publishers for the Famicom. Over the years Japanese publishers for the system would come and go, but never again in such great numbers. If we were to flash forward to November/December 1987, we would see releases from pretty much the same companies that released games in November/December 1986. By this time, the Famicom has entered its adult years.

As for the games themselves this episode? An odd selection, notable for two very good shooters (and one pretty decent shooter), a notorious example of kuso-ge, and a couple terrible games based on very popular licensed properties. Also, we have the second US-only release, this time courtesy of Data East.

Episode Twelve's Grand Champion:

Zanac AI

















We've seen some fine shoot-em-ups for the Famicom so far, but Zanac leaves all competition in the dust. A vastly superior port of a title originally released for MSX computers, Zanac is an early title from Compile, who you might recall being the developer of Lunar Ball. Compile would eventually go on the become what many consider to be THE developer of shoot-em-ups for consoles, with such titles as Blazing Lazers, Guardian Legend, and the Aleste series. Zanac feels like the first modern shoot-em-up for the Famicom, with its frequent bosses, wide variety of secondary weapons and generous helping of power-ups. From a technical perspective, the game is an amazing accomplishment. Zanac manages to cram in tons of enemies and bullets without slowdown or excessive flickering.

Coincidentally, this episode also features Tiger-Heli, a port of Toaplan's first shoot-em-up. While the arcade Tiger-Heli was a fun, if not exceptional game, the Famicom port is severely hampered by terrible programming, courtesy of Micronics. While still a worthwhile game, playing the Famicom Tiger-Heli will make you wish it was ported by someone with Compile's technical competence.

More Notable Games:

Moero Twinbee - Cinnamon Hakase wo Sukue!

Episode 12 is a little shooter-heavy, what with Zanac, Tiger-Heli, and this little gem from Konami. A console only sequel to the arcade game Twinbee, Moero Twinbee tweaks the formula slightly by adding horizonal scrolling levels as well as vertical. Still present is the unique and slightly irritating power-up techinque that requires you to shoot falling bells until they change color. Fortunatley, some of the best power-ups are found by bombing ground targets. Its a rare day that sees two high quality shooters on the Famicom in one episode, so enjoy it while you can. Next episode, things return to normal with the dire Gall Force.

Ikari

















Ikari is one of the most divisive games released for the Famicom/NES. A select few revere it as a classic, while many others consider it to one of the worst games for the system. Much of the vitriol centers around the difficult to use controls - the arcade original used a rotary joystick while the Famicom port makes due with the D-pad. Still, some of the greatness of SNK's original game manages to shine through, despite another horrible porting job from Micronics. Speaking of which, Micronics has managed to become the arch-villain in the Famicom saga so far. They should receive criminal charges for the number of classic arcade games they have screwed up so far.

Castle Excellent

Sequel to ASCII's MSX game The Castle. This Lode Runner like puzzle game, released as Castlequest in the US, has you make your way through a 100 room castle in order to find a princess. Each room contains enemies, death traps and color-coded locked doors. The wonky jumping controls give Castle Excellent some hair pulling moments, but overall it remains a well designed, challenging game.


This Episode's Losers

Ganso Saiyuuki: Super Monkey Daibouken

There are plenty of bad games for the Famicom, but few manage to reach the level of Ganso Saiyuuki. In the categories of boring gameplay, shallow combat, amateurish graphics, general incoherence, and simply lacking anything that even resembles fun, Ganso Saiyuuki takes the gold medals. Hell, this game takes the platinum medals. It's difficult to completely understand Ganso Saiyuuki without playing it yourself, so I can't really elaborate on how bad it is. However, someone picking this game up for the first time will probably be simply baffled, as it appears at first glance to be a game in which absolutely nothing happens. Imagine Dragon Quest with no enemy encounters (though these do eventually appear) and no NPCs and with an impossibly huge overworld. Needless to say, it has a cult following in Japan as being a prime example of kuso-ge.

Transformers: Convoy no Nazo

















Another spectacular debacle of a video game, this quickie cash-in from ISCO and Takara fails on almost every level. Really, a basic run to the right and shoot things game shouldn't be that hard to make, yet Convoy no Nazo manages to flub even the simplest gameplay elements. For example, most enemies are too short to actually be hit be your laser - it simply sails over their heads - thus forcing you to jump over most things that come your way. Even the most desperate Transformers fan should avoid this mess.

Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo

Notable for being the first of many, many Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z video games. Unfortunately, this Tose/Bandai title, released in censored form in the US as Dragon Power, gets the series off on the wrong foot. Shenron no Nazo misses even the low standards set by earlier Bandai games like Chubby Cherub and Ninja Kid.

The Rest:

Mappy Land - Decent but flawed console only sequel to Namco's arcade game concerning a rodent law enforcement officer.
Nagagutsu o Haita Neko - Based on Toei's 1976 animated film. Not to be confused with the related, but very different US only game, Puss 'N' Boots: Pero's Great Adventure.
The Monitor Puzzle - Kineco - Kinetic Connection - Difficult puzzle game involving putting together pieces of a moving image.
Aigina no Yogen: From the Legend of Balubalouk - Awkwardly titled adventure/platformer game. Seems to involve a kidnapped princess of some sort. The Famicom debut from Vic Tokai.
Hottaman no Chisoko Tanken - Sort of like Dig Dug, only more complicated. Famicom debut from Use.
Daiva - Part of an ambitious project of seven interrelated Daiva games, each released on a different Japanese system. The game itself combines Star Raiders with mediocre platformer action.
Karate Champ - The odd man out this episode. This Data East title was the second US-only release (after Nintendo's Gumshoe). Well, this technically isn't true - Karate Champ was given a belated release on the FDS in 1988. The 1984 arcade game was one of the first one-on-one fighting games and was probably still popular enough in 1986 for Data East to feel it warranted an NES releases.

As always, this episode may be downloaded from archive.org.