Ganbare Goemon! Karakuri Dōchū (NES)

Ganbare Goemon! Karakuri Dōchū Aka. Mystical Ninja. This is the second of the Goemon games, and the first to be released on home consoles. Or so wikipedia claims.

This title screen hangs around for exactly three seconds before the game goes into demo mode, and I can certainly understand why they wouldn't want players to get a good look at it. It wouldn't be a finalist in a 'greatest NES title screens' tournament for sure.

The in-game graphics on the other hand don't look bad at all for a NES game.

This short intro shows Goemon throwing money around (as he does) and getting chased by people armed with giant cotton reels, or something. He jumps up onto the roof and the game starts.

Hey, wasn't I supposed to be on a roof? I have to admit, I was expecting a platformer, but this is more of a Zeldaish action-adventure type of thing.

Hey, I recognise this music (youtube link). This is the song I liked from the second stage of Mr. Goemon. If this is going to be the main Goemon theme from now on, then I can live with that.

I decided to break with tradition and head left for a change, and got five coins for jumping over some boxes. I wonder what I'd get for beating that guy over the head with a pipe.

100 points and another five coins. That's a pretty decent haul.

Hey, he was out to kill me, it was self defence. You think he was carrying that giant cotton reel around for fun?

Every time I walk back over to somewhere I've been, there's new enemies around and the boxes are reset. It's making it hard for me to tell if I'm walking around somewhere I haven't been yet.

Though I definitely don't remember seeing that bridge heading down off screen before.

The bridge took me down into a new area, which is just like the old one except yellow and full of different people trying kill me. Or maybe they not, it's hard to tell.

I accidentally walked into the woman and got points for it, so I guess I'm collecting some of them?

I recognise these cat statues from Mr. Goemon. I used to throw them at people that pissed me off, like that guy over there for instance.

Wikipedia informs me that it's called a Maneki-neko, aka a Money Cat. Wow, suddenly it makes a lot more sense why Goemon keeps grabbing them.

The cat statue was actually a weapon upgrade! I instantly changed into a new outfit and now I can throw coins at people instead of using the pipe. I know throwing money away isn't much of a special power, especially not for someone who already does it for a hobby, but this time it's not making my cash counter go down. I have free unlimited throwing coins!

Uh, I was just trying to dodge an enemy and I wandered through a door by accident. I didn't even realise I could enter buildings in this game.

All this gear is way too expensive (and vague) for me though. I mean what does a tag with the old Konami logo on it do? Maybe I'll come back later when I'm rich and find out.

I decided to spend my cash on a candle in the end because it was the cheapest object I could find in the shops, and now I can see hidden dungeon stairs in the streets.

Well I haven't found a way out of town yet, but I did find a scroll that extended my life bar!


FOUR MINUTES LATER.

Still haven't found a way out of town yet, but I did find a dice game I can't understand! I'm pretty sure I lost though.

It'd be nice if it was possible to learn Japanese just by repeated exposure to dialogue boxes in Famicom games. Not that I'm dying to learn the language, especially not just to read video games, I'm just curious sometimes about what these people are actually saying. Of course I only care because I can't read it, if it was in English I'd probably be skipping through it as fast as I could hammer the button.


EIGHT MINUTES LATER STILL.

Well that gap in the trees didn't turn out to be the way out either.

This level is really easy, so it was no effort at all to build up a huge amount of cash, and then buy pretty much everything on sale in every shop I could find. But none of it is magically opening a door out of here.

I've found a gate, or a mansion, or something... but it's locked! So I guess that's that then. Goemon never found his way out of town. The end.


Well that was a impressive display of gaming skill, I couldn't even make it past the first level. It's a shame because I got the feeling this was going to develop into a fairly decent game.