An experiential and analytical look at the medium of video games in a particular order. Currently there is "Capcom A to Z," a look at the games of Capcom in alphabetical order, and "Super FamiComplete" a look at all of the games of the SNES/Super Famicom in chronological order.
Alright, at long long last, it is the last game of March 1992, and here we have another manga/anime licensed property. This being the case, this game is a Japanese only release. Let's jump in.
Background
There is a lot to unpack in this title. First let's talk about the developers. This game was developed by Game Freak, which you may recognize as the company that made Pokemon. They have a long history as being a second party developer for Nintendo, and while after this they were primarily the "Pokemon" company, before 1996 they developed some ancillary Nintendo titles (like and a few licensed games like Yoshi's Egg and the next title we will cover by them Mario & Wario), and some licensed games. It must be remembered that we actually already covered a Game Freak game, in the amazingly memorable Smart Ball, the platformer where you play as a ball of goo that has a lot of issues damaging enemies.
The source material on which this game is tied to is also a strange one. Magical Taluluto was a manga written by Tatsuya Egawa that was fairly popular in the Shonen Jump weekly manga scene around the late 80s and early 90s; popular enough that it warranted an 80 episode anime and three feature films from between 1990 and 1992. The story of the manga is pretty cutesy, falling into the "magical boy" trope of anime.
It follows a school boy who lives in Tokyo, named Honmaru Edojo, who is considered the "outcast" of his elementary class due to being a naughty kid. In a Great Gazoo style twist, a child-like gnome warlock named Magical Taruuruto-kun decides to help him with the challenges of childhood, such as bullying, meeting girls, etc. It also goes into the realm of the fantastic, as there are other witches, warlocks, etc, who junk things up. It all seems very cutesy and innocent...well except for this weird clip.
Now to junk things up even further, Game Freak actually released two different Magical Taruruuto-kun titles, one for the Mega Drive and one for the Super Famicom, and like the Batman Animated Series games, both are completely different in how they play. I did not get a chance to play the Mega Drive title, but it definitely seems, from youtube videos, to be the stronger of the two. Perhaps someday if I ever to Turbografx or Sega as well as Super Famicom I will check it out. It definitely seems to adhere closer to the source material.
Gameplay
This game is a traditional platformer that seems to pull from a lot of the games at this time. It has a Super Mario 3 overworld map, a Mystical Ninja style shop system and minigames that are built into the map, and Alex Kidd style platforming/jumping. You play as Magical Taruruuto and you play through a series of five worlds, each with 6-8 levels. At the end of each world, there is a final level with a boss fight against Magical's rival who looks like a little devil guy (don't @ me because I don't know this character's name).
Each level is very similar: the levels are cutesy little pieces of wilderness, towns, castles, and beaches. Like the anime, the theming seems to be a mix of the regular/mundane and the magical. Most of the enemies in these levels are animals and beasts (birds, mice, bees), and only rarely is it something mystical like a ghost or a monster plant. Throughout each level are a bunch of takoyaki, Magical's favorite treat, and he can lick these up to gain his form of currency. Each level ends with a form of takoyaki that is non-standard, such as a giant takoyaki or a wheel of moving takoyaki's, and when Magical gobbles these up the level is considered beaten. He then is allowed to spend these bits of currency at the store to buy spells or extra lives.
Now I mentioned licking because that is also Magical's primary and only attack. He let's loose his big "Wolfie" style tongue and slobbers enemies to death. It doesn't have crazy range to it, which makes combat rather risk/reward based. It should also be mentioned, at this point, that Magical dies in one hit, so you really want to be careful with how you approach enemies.
In fact, my primary complaint with this game is that it is actually pretty difficult. It forces you to move very slowly through each level. Magical's sprite is quite large, and his enemies are usually quite small and move at a fairly decent clip. This means that you have to assess each platforming challenge, and really wait to notice how your enemies are moving before trying to circumnavigate them or take them out with a good tongue lashing. You can't jump on enemies either, and one touch will cost you a life and send you back to the beginning of the level. It makes playing this game just a tad bit annoying.
In between levels, you are moving around your world map, and you will encounter various other characters from the anime, many of whom are blocking your path until you complete their mini-game. These mini-games are all traditional and simple card games. One is a form of speed solitaire where you are trying to move through your stack of cards before your opponent, one is a form of high/low, and another seems to be a game of war. This is a novel concept, but when I noticed that the same road blocks/games were appearing on every map, this got a little old.
The boss battles aren't too tough. The trickiest was probably the second would boss, where the devil guy clones himself and his clones attack you from various angles quickly. This wouldn't have been too bad if everything didn't kill you in one hit.
Music
The music is actually pretty catchy! It has a kind of island flair to it utilizing a lot of marimba and such.
Final Verdict
Overall it is a cute platformer, but it is really too tough to get into, and the card games slow down the pacing, especially in the later worlds where the computer seems to always get the best cards. Like its source material, I think this game is more of a curio that will be forgotten by history except by true hobbyists.
We have our first professional wresting game, and this one from LJN. LJN isn't really known for quality games, so I really don't have high expectations for this entry. On the bright side, this is the last of the four March 1992 US developed games, so we are almost out of the woods.
Background
Back in the 1990s, the WWE was known as the WWF, or World Wrestling Federation. It was still owned by the McMahons, and this was the generation where some of those classic wrestlers from the 1980s, like Randy Macho Man Savage and Hulk Hogan, were starting to really feel their age. This was the weird transitional period in wrestling, where the superstars of the 80's were fading, while we were still a ways off from The Rock" and Stone Cold Steve Austin. This was back when the Big Show was known as The Giant.
The Roster
The roster is a little strange to be sure, but it has some classics in it. The headliners in this title are Hulk Hogan, Randy Macho Man Savage, and Ted DiBiase, who were present in every port of this title. Unique to the SNES version though, they added The Undertaker (back when he was the cowboy style undertaker and not the biker quite yet), Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Sid Justice, The Legion of Doom (comprising of Road Warrior Hawk and Road Warrior Animal), and finally The Natural Disasters (comprise of Typhoon and Earthquake) who "famously" feuded with the Legion of Doom. Now this sounds like a pretty decent roster, but one issue I have with the game is that it pretty much turns these really unique and flashy personalities into a set of homogeneous characters. For example...
Randy Macho Man Savage looked like this at the time...
And in game he looks like this...(he's the one drop kicking his clone, who is actually Jake the Snake)
Hulk Hogan generally wrestled like this...
And in game he looks like this...
Jake Roberts looked like this...
and in game he looks like this...
One of my big issues with this game is that it takes a lot of the flash and fun out of wrestling, and just reduces it to a very simple wrestling simulator, and this is apparent even in the character designs. Not saying that they needed to add oddballs like Doink or The Boss, but at least play with some of the fun of grown beef boys in crazy costumes play fighting around a ring.
Gameplay
There is a weird trend in sports games from this era where developers stopped at just translating the rules of the game into video game format, and then said "okay good enough let's ship." This is certainly one of those titles, where the only gameplay format available to the players is arcade matches, a survival tournament, and tag team matches. There is no story or career mode, no arcade style tournament series, or really any other game mode outside just set a match and play. I am not saying that there has to be a full on narrative to this wrestling game, but there part of professional wrestling is some of that silly pageantry to it. There should at least be SOME sort of storyline, but instead what you get is a very barebones wrestling simulator. It feels like a port of an arcade title or an NES title rather than a true individual game. The most you really get, as far as hinting to its source material, is the announcer introducing each wrestler before a match.
The wrestling itself is pretty lackluster. You basically just punch and kick the enemy, and get into little "tug of war" style grapples where you can, if you win, throw the opponent against the ropes, deliver one of your signature slams, or wallop them for a little bit. You can do goofy shit like jump from the turnbuckle, but there is no exiting the ring and slamming into tables, no chairs being slid into the ring, or accidentally taking out the referee. The most effective and common strategy seems to be just punching your opponent until they fall, and then kicking them when they are on the ground. When they are weak enough, you can then pin them, winning the match.
Music
There is some music! It is...okay!
Ads
There are two mediocre ads, so I added a commercial that has nothing to do with the game, but I found quite funny.
Final Verdict
This is a super mediocre wrestling title. While not a huge fan of the sport in general, I do have an appreciation for the athleticism that goes into this sport, and generally enjoy the silliness, so was a little disappointed that none of that translated into this game. I really wanted to be screaming "OH YEAAHHHHHH" and "BROTHER!" and this game made me very bored instead. Oh well.
Here we have another golf game, and this time from the sports game goliath that is EA (you know, the giant that makes every big yearly sports release?). Let's jump in!
Background
The original computer version of this game, which was considered wildly popular, was developed by Sterling Silver Software, but then published and ported by Electronic Arts. This is the first title under the PGA Tour Golf series, and certainly not the last one that would appear on this blog eventually.
Gameplay
This certainly is a golf game, but honestly one of the most solid that we have covered in this blog thus far. It sets up the style of golf that would be replicated by Mario Golf and other tiles, with the camera behind the golfer, the timing based back and forward swing, and the placement of the club with the ball to be able to put spin on your shot.
Each hole begins with a breakdown by the commentators and your caddy, offering tips on how to approach the hole. The Mode 7 is in full effect as you can see the map of the course spin and rotate.
Like this blog post, much of this game is without bells and whistles. There is no real music (though the sound effects are pretty good), not many game modes (just tournament and single play), and generally just a golf game with several real courses to play through.
Ads
Final Judgment
Its a golf game, but with most sports games, you are better off just playing sports games on the new consoles if you want a good sports time!
I will be honest about this up front, but this is just a really awful game. Arguably one of the most bare bones and poorly constructed games I have played for this blog thus far. Luckily, this game is also one of the shortest games that we have played yet. My playthrough of the single player game took a grand total of 11 minutes.
Background
This game was originally an Atari arcade title, and was most known for using its digitized actors. The original arcade game, while also not being very good, showed a lot more promise than what was ported to the SNES. The game let you choose from three fighters, Buzz, Ty, and Kato, and you went through a series of underground pit fights against a variety of opponents in hopes of taking on the champion, the "Masked Warrior." You had to make it through seven matches, and your life would carry over between matches; the score system of the game would be how much money you earned from the people betting on you in the fight. The crowd, in the arcade title, would even interact with the fight, throwing in power ups and weapons to make the fight more interesting. Sometimes, members of the crowd would even reach out and stab your fighter, which is mildly terrifying in thought.
Before we talk about the port, it must be mentioned that this idea of underground and illegal "pit fighting" seemed to be a big thing with movies in the 80s and 90s, especially with the popularization of martial arts movies and actors becoming more mainstream. Jean-Claude Van Damme comes to mind specifically, as he had a series of movies about underground fight clubs, such as Lionheart, The Quest, Bloodsport, and Kickboxer. This game really seems to take inspiration from Lionheart in particular. While there are some media that still focus on this "setting" (Netflix's Kengan Ashura and Baki are some recent examples) this seems to be a genre that is on the decline.
Now the SNES port is a really rough one. The game has no intro cutscene or context, you press start, choose one of the fighters, and you are thrown into your first match. Instead of eight opponents, you fight five, and they have cut out all the power-ups or weapons from the game. The game still supports two player versus which is kind of neat as you don't play against each other, but instead fight two versions of each opponent together. Overall, though, this is an incredibly hewed game.
Gameplay
This game is one of the most rudimentary and sloppy "fighting" games that I have played. You have a punch button, a kick button, and if you press both together you do a "special move." What hinders this is the animation of your digitized actors is incredibly poor and limited, as your characters just jolt from key frame to key frame. The result is that each fighter just looks like they are seizing and flailing with no sense of visual coherence. Punches don't look like punches, kicks don't look like kicks, and nothing has a sense of impact. Without your health going down, there is no real indication of who is doing damage to who. Your sprites, too, are weirdly too small; one thing Mortal Kombat did really well was to digitize the actors so they were tall and each part of their body was clearly animated. In Pit-Fighter, all of the characters are boxy and squat, which aids in the visual confusion. Honestly, you should watch a youtube video just to see how piss-poor this looks.
This poor digitization extends to the truly god awful crowd. They are arranged with no real sense of visual mis-en-scene or proper visual organization. The crowd looks like someone's amateur attempt at photoshopping different people into a photograph. They all animate strangely, and are all oddly the same shade of olive green.
The design of your opponents is no great shakes either. Your first opponent, the Executioner (truncated to just the Exec), is just a fat guy in a ski-mask. Your second opponent is a squat guy with shades and a bandana, and even your champion is a squat guy in a mask. Not good at all.
Finally the game is a crap shoot in its difficulty. I beat the first three matches as Buzz, the pro-wrestler, by just holding forward and spamming the punch button. The enemy fighter could never get up off the ground without me awkwardly punching him back to the pavement. The later fights are certainly more "challenging" but it just felt like luck if I was able to knock down the fighter first and could stun lock them. As well, Buzz seems like the only viable choice of a fighter, as Ty is a kickboxer who kicks too slowly, and Kato, being a 3rd degree blackbelt, bows at the beginning of each match, which the enemy fighter hilariously ignores and starts wailing on you. All told, you can, with some luck, clear the game in less than ten minutes, whereupon your champ is hoisted up on a forklift as the underground fighting master.
Music
It's really bad, but here it is anyway. Like the game, the amount of music is quite limited.
Ads
They are really milking this one picture.
Final Verdict
Watch a youtube video if you want a good laugh, but otherwise, just ignore this one. It is true kusoge garbage.
So before we finish up the last game for March 1992, we are going to do the four USA developed releases, which due to the staggered and unplanned releases in the United States' retailors, don't have specific release dates, but just the release month. And, per usual, the US developed games aren't that good. We are, arguably, going to play the best of the four with this entrant.
Background
The Addam's Family is an exploration heavy platformer developed by Ocean. The Addam's Family is a licensed game based off of the 1991 popular film...
...which in turn is based off the sitcom from the 1960s...
...which in turn is based off Charles Addam's New Yorker cartoon...
The titular Addams are a horror themed "American" family, and an odd collection of weirdos. You have Gomez, the lothario retired lawyer who shas a lust for life and is passionately in love with his wife, Morticia. Morticia is a tall, pale, and detached from emotions in an aristocratic sense, but has a deep love for her family (she keeps carnivorous man-eating plants as a hobby). They have two children, Wednesday and Pugsley; Wednesday is a quiet borderline sociopathic little girl with a macabre sense of humor, and Pugsley, who is arguably the most normal though he is an extra destructive in his boyhood exuberance. Rounding out the family is Lurch, the tall Frankenstein-esque butler, Uncle Fester, the strange Igor-esque brother to Gomez who is a torture enthusiast and general masochist, Grandma, an old witch/mother of Morticia, and finally Thing, who is a disembodied hand.
The movie that this game is based on was relatively popular and garnered one direct sequel. It starred the late-great Raul Julia as Gomez, Angelica Huston as Morticia, Christina Ricci as Wednesday, and Christopher Lloyd as Fester. It centers on a group of con-artists trying to convince Gomez that one of their compatriots is actually Uncle Fester, who was lost at sea for years; ironically, this stooge actually happens to be Fester. They search the estate looking for the treasure, and eventually resort to holding the family hostage until the family fortune is handed over. There is a lot of comedy, some fencing action, some good gags, and an MC Hammer title song. Overall, a decent and enjoyable comedy from the 90s that retains a lot of its charm.
The game is tangentially related to the film. You play as Gomez, and your family has gone missing! You need to navigate your way around the house and surrounding estate in order to defeat the monsters and villains (one of which kind of looks like one of the conmen?) who have taken your family hostage.
The game itself was developed by Ocean, a European game developer known for licensed games and Arcade ports, though they did develop the really weird platformer Mr Nutz!
Gameplay
The game begins with Gomez in front of the manor, and you are free to explore any part of the manor in any order (with very few exceptions). There are is the manor itself, which has several wings like the Greenhouse and the Kitchens, and then the surrounding grounds. Each of these areas leads to specific stages or dungeons, which can be quite long. Darted throughout the maps are upgrades of various kinds, some permanent some temporary, and bosses for you to find and fight. This game is very much a rudimentary metroidvania in its style.
The first thing you are going to want to do is hunt down specific bosses, such as the bird at the old tree or the snowman in the freezer, as these bosses will reward you will permanent life upgrades. Old Gomez starts with just two hits available, and it is easy to lose them quickly! In fact, even with health upgrades this game is pretty difficult. There are some reasons for this: Gomez always sits in the middle of the screen and moves fairly quickly, which means that you don't have much warning before and enemy is in your path; it is very easy to make quick mistakes in this game. Also, Gomez doesn't have much of a defensive vocabulary; unless you pick up a weapon, Gomez can only jump on his enemies (and some are immune to that). Luckily there are rapiers and flying hats which shoot fireballs which make this a little easier. As well, Gomez has a very high jump that is very fast, and his controls are very sensitive to input when Gomez is in the air; Gomez has no realistic momentum, but instead all player input.
The difficulty is exacerbated by some pretty punishing level design. The game and many of its dungeons are very maze like, and there is no clear indication of where to go to find the next family member. This means that you are going to be wandering around and beating your head against walls and levels trying to figure out where to go. Some branches within dungeons will lead nowhere, and some seemingly important areas will actually be dead ends. As well, some of the platforming sections are really tortuous and do not play well with Gomez's movement. For a guy with some serious ups, many dungeons are tight and cramped, leading to many parts where Gomez bumps his head on a low ceiling and plummets into a lava pit. There is two really hair-pulling sections in the lava dungeon level where you have to do a series of coyote-time jumps (meaning jumping right as you are going off a ledge) in order to make it up to the next level. There is a bunch of sections where you have to jump off enemies in order to reach next ledges or clear gaps. Even worse, the game really doesn't have great checkpointing, with long rooms that seemingly go on for minutes and minutes. If you die, you go back to the beginning of that portion of the house.
The bosses, luckily, are pretty simple. They will mostly just move or hop around, maybe throw some projectiles, and generally are the easier parts of the game. Even the final boss, "The Judge," is just a reskin of the earlier goblin boss. If you beat him, Morticia and the family is saved, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Luckily the game is generous with lives. The "Continue?" screen actually has a secret room that continually fills with lives, so you aren't really in danger of a game over if you know that is there. As well, there is a password selection so you can pick up where you left off in the game.
Music
The music is a nice homage to the Addams in general. It captures the feel of the "eerie" harpsichord sound.
Art and Ads
Just a single magazine ad (for the Sega game) sadly!
Final Verdict
For an Ocean game and a licensed, "US" developed (okay European) property, this game isn't terrible. I would have had a ton more patience for this game as a kid, though nowadays it is pretty vexing. Worth playing? Yes! Worth spending money on for a collection? Sure! It is a moderate level collectible on Amazon (about $20-25 dollars), so you aren't breaking the bank. I would wait for the price to drop five bucks before buying.
Happy New Year everyone. I am pretty proud of the fact that we made it through the redux section of the blog and am now onto the new entrants in Super FamiComplete. Capcom A to Z will be updated soon too (Apollo Justice is taking some time to work through, but I am compelled to finish it), as well as some new projects I'm thinking of starting. All said, 2021 should be an exciting year.
To start us off on our road to 100 games, though, is another racing game, this time by Gremlin Graphics and Kemco.
Background
Though released in Japan first by Kemco, this game is actually developed by a British development house called Gremlin Graphics (later Gremlin Interactive). This was a company that arose in the British Home Computer market of the 1980s, during the era when the "bedroom coders" would develop games for British PCS. After that market/development method gave way to actual game development houses, Gremlin Graphics pivoted to the console market. Gremlin is best known for its Actua sports series and other racing games, such as the Lotus racing series. This developer was eventually absorbed by a French company, Infogrames, before that tanked in 2003. Nowadays, most of the developers from Gremlin moved onto working for Sumo Digital, the developers of the recent Sackboy: A Big Adventure for the PS5.
Gameplay
The game is a racing game in the same vein as Outrun where the camera is placed right behind your vehicle and you follow it along a swerving track. Unlike F-Zero where you are really rotating the screen, in this you are directly controlling the car. Its likeness to Outrun is a good thing, though, as this is one of the more playable racing games that has been featured on this blog in quite some time.
You first start by picking your loadout for the races: you choose your control scheme (one of which is to hold the controller upside down (?!?)), whether you will drive manual or automatic, and which model of car you will use. You then enter the racing circuit, which features four races for each continent. For example, the first tournament takes place across North America, with races in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Races can vary from three laps up to six laps.
Racing is pretty simple: you can accelerate, brake, and use up to three nitro boosts per race, which end up being pretty essential to winning. You can't really crash, but there are some hazards that slow you down, such as hitting road work signs and other cars. One thing you have to monitor is your gas! If you ride the nitro too much, or hit too many other hazards, you might run out of gas. You can stop in your pit for extra, which might be necessary in the longer races, but this eats up precious time.
One interesting quirk in this game is the push for two-players. In the early days of the SNES, two player racing games were rare, which makes this a rather novel game. Even if you aren't playing with another character, though, there will always be a split screen with another computer racer playing the 2-player. This sets up a neat little rivalry mechanic for throughout the tournaments.
The game, overall, is not that difficult, but a breezy yet fun experience. I managed to beat it in an afternoon. The graphics, music, and locales are all varied enough to keep the game interesting from tournament to tournament. The game also approximates high speeds pretty well for an SNES game, making it one of the more thrilling racing games from this era. There were several "close calls" versus the computer racer that made the races pretty exciting.
Music
As previously mentioned, the music in this game is pretty top notch! Check it out.
Ads and Commercials
Final Verdict
This is a really solid racing game! I highly recommend at least checking it out. It was really well received at the time, and also popular enough to have two sequels that will eventually be covered in this blog. Next up we have the last Japanese only release for March, and then the US developed games for March.
