The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Ganbare Goemon!

I'm glad I'm making the rules here.
So whilst I'm working on FF4 I'm fully allowed to skip the rest of the FF series for the time being and move on to the next game on the list, which is Ganbare Goemon: Neo-Momoyama Bakufu no Odori, known in the West as Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon.
The Japanese subtitle, in case you were wondering, means "The Dance of the Neo Momoyama Shogunate" which only goes halfway of indicating how incredibly insane this game is.

Initially you play as Goemon and his tubby friend Ebisumaru who has some exhibitionist tendencies. Later on you will be joined by Bodyguard/Pretty Girl Yae and Sasuke the robotic Ninja, whom you need to revive by finding his battery first.
Crazy? You ain't seen half of it yet.

The opening sequence shows Goemon and Ebisumaru getting kicked out of a Bar because Ebisumaru's "Enchanting Dance" which apparently involves him getting naked.
At that precise moment though, a huge flying Peach appears in the sky manned by the main bad guy and girl and their 4 Queer Sidekicks. Insane? Hold on, I'm still getting there.
With their wonderful Flying Peach they shoot a laser beam at the Castle of O'edo turning it into a Disneyworld-esque European-style Pretty Boy Castle.
Why? Because they want to turn Ancient Japan into a stage for their new musical of course! That's not so weird is it? Right? Right!

And before long you find yourself listening to scantilly clad guys for information, talking to dogs about geography and riding a huge robot that sings Enka and plays in foreign movies in his spare time. I swear I'm not making any of this up.

The game is a kind of Zelda-esque Action RPG, although I think it was made long before Ocarina of Time. This was the first RPG I ever played in Japanese I think, and the first time I played it, at the beginning of my study, I didn't understand a single word of it. So it became a kind of challenge for me to pop in this game every once in a while to see if I had progressed enough to understand more.
So I have a kind of nostalgic connection with this game. And I can say that my Japanese is now advanced enough to understand everything, except for the more obscure jokes, but at least I get all the dialects and patterns of speech now.

As you may suspect already, this game has a great sense of humor, extremely Japanese, which is good if you get it. I've been pretty much laughing out loud at every conversation I've had so far, and I really can't imagine the localisation of this game being as funny as the original. It's far too Japanese-specific.
It's fairly short though, so I think I'll be able to give the review soon.
Stay tuned!

posted by Ingen! @ 11:44 AM