GG plays Japanese Nintendo Games (Part 4: COCORON)
Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:11 pm
Over the past few years in an effort to stave off expensive Nintendo-game-itis I've picked up a few imports for the Famicom and Super Famicom, most are well known but some may be a little more on the obscure side.
With the Retron 5 giving me a new excuse to play through some of them I invite you, the upstanding citizens of the Racket Boy forums to join me on an adventure as I give my impressions.
PART 1: The Great Battle IV (Below)
PART 2: Famicom Frenzy 1! viewtopic.php?p=902913#p902913
PART 3: Famicom Frenzy 2! viewtopic.php?p=1072881#p1072881
PART 4: Cocoron viewtopic.php?p=1103325#p1103325
First up is a game I can hardly find anything about on the Internet, an obscurity from an obscure series that no doubt got lost in the tidal wave of Bandai's SD (super deformed character style)-themed licensed games. It's a game I played back in the early days of emulation and had a hard time rediscovering it in recent years.
Settle in, this is a long one.
The Great Battle IV
"Hold the boat Gunstar," I hear you saying. "What happened to The Great Battle I through III? What's the big idea?"
Well The Great Battle series as it turns out is a sub-series within Bandai's larger Compati Heroes franchise which covers just about every genre you can think of. Like many of their SD games the Compati Heroes series is a crossover event. In this case they borrow specifically from three of Bandai's biggest franchises: Gundam, Ultraman and Kamen Rider.
The idea is that Bandai's greatest heroes would all be "compatible" and be total buddies with each other or something. In order to get around the obvious scale issue, the heroes are all transformed into person-sized SD caricatures of themselves. These titles often also include an "original" hero character who doesn't belong to any established franchise in order to give the games a bit of their own identity.
"That's great... but that has nothing to do with why you're starting with the fourth game in the series."
Well here's where things get more interesting. Even within the Great Battle segment of the Compati Heroes-verse they aren't able to keep the genre straight.
The first game is a simplistic top-down action game that's kind of fun but isn't very interesting to talk about at length.
The second game changed the genre to a belt-scrolling beat 'em up that feels inspired by Double Dragon or Kunio Kun/River City Ransom, just not quite as good.
The third game changes that formula slightly into a hack 'n slash that seems more than just a little inspired by games like Golden Axe and Knights of the Round. This is where the series starts to actively shout-out to and parody other popular games of the time. It also started the habit of taking on a specific theme (medieval knights in this case).
The fifth game is a straight-up clone/parody of the SNES 3rd-person gallery-shooter Wild Guns, and a capable one at that. If you ever wanted to see a Gundam in a cowboy hat, there you go.
Backing up to my favorite of the bunch and today's actual topic, the fourth game is a 2D action platformer. The theme of choice this time is Super Sentai, which western audiences might more readily recognize as Power Rangers.
In the game you play as the original hero "Fighter Roar" alongside the licensed characters, V2 Gundam, Ultraman Powered and Kamen Rider ZO. Together you form the "Battle Force" team complete with your own giant Voltron-style combining-mecha with a giant BF emblazoned across its chest.
I like to imagine it means "Best Friends" instead of "Battle Force" but whatever.
The story, or what I understand of it, is standard Super Sentai stuff. An evil emperor is trying to take over. His right hand-guy is your enigmatic rival. You own a giant robot. That's all you need to know apart from a cliche spoiler at the end of the game.
Aside from some standard shared abilities like possessing a shield to block enemies, each character comes with their own set of attacks and abilities:
Fighter Roar has a fairly weak machine gun though he can both move while firing or stand in place. The machine gun's main gimmick is that the bullets ricochet in tight spaces. He also possesses a grappling hook and a double jump.
V2 Gundam uses a grenade launcher that travels in a short arc making it useful for enemies underneath you. It also has a blast radius that can sometimes reach through walls. For close range it has a beam saber capable of dealing serious damage, though at a risk. His main draw is his booster jets which make him one of the best characters to play through most of the game's platforming segments.
Ultraman Powered is the heavy, carrying a huge bazooka with a piercing shot. He's the least agile character possessing only a regular jump but his damage makes him one of the most useful overall. He can also turn into a ball, Samus style, which you will need to progress through the game and locate secrets. He can use the famous Ultraman Cross Beam attack which useful against certain enemies.
Kamen Rider ZO uses a flame thrower which aims similarly to Roar's machine gun but seems to do even less damage (though it's the only weapon effective against swarms of bats). He has the ability to dash which sometimes helps to avoid certain obstacles but is more useful as the lead-up to his dash attack, the powerful Rider Kick. His special mobility gimmick is the ability to wall-jump, Mega Man X-style, and it's the only way to reach certain areas.
You have the option to change between all four characters on the fly and each has their pros and cons as you traverse the levels. Some will have an easier time getting places than others and occasionally a specific character will be required for use of his abilities to get through a part of the level. You'll undoubtedly end up with your favorites but each character feels like an important part of the game compared to earlier installments of the series where who you played as wasn't very important.
There's a simple experience system at work where your characters power-up a maximum of three times by collecting canisters dropped by enemies or scattered around the level. Every character levels up at the same time, making their attacks more effective. They keep their level ups until you have to use a continue, at which point you have to deal with sucking again like in Gradius. After reaching level three the canisters you collect go towards extra lives.
Also of note, the game supports simultaneous co-op play, but I can't say I've ever been huge on co-op platforming since it tends to just make things harder.
As I said before these games like to borrow a lot from other popular games and that's definitely true for this installment. The most egregious example is Mega Man X, not just for stuff like the wall jump but certain levels have very similar settings and design. One level is a direct rip-off/homage to Storm Eagle's stage. You're also given the Mega Man-ish choice of what order you want to play three of the game's levels in. The intro-level has a distinct Cybernator/Assault Suits Valken feel and the other obvious shout-out is the wild west level which could have been taken straight from Konami's Sunset Riders, complete with a familiar looking stampede.
At the end of certain levels you occasionally have to combine your giant robot, the Compati Kaiser, to fight another boss. You're given three chances separate from your normal pool of lives to win before being forced to use a continue. Here the game changes into a simplistic one-on-one fighter, complete with Street Fighter-style special moves.
Interestingly, you have an x-ray scanner that you can use on certain parts of the enemy in order to do more damage to their weak spots or to develop a countermeasure to protect against their weaponry. This was the trickiest part of the game to figure out and the least import-friendly aspect but thanks to GameFAQs it was no big deal. Save for the ridiculous final boss, none of these encounters are too difficult (certainly not as bad as Mazin Saga's completely broken attempt at the same thing) and it's sort of entertaining to watch your little characters struggle in the cockpit view at the bottom of the screen.
The graphics are really nice with occasional touches of Mode 7 that aren't over the top and are just enough to make the visuals pop. Most of the explosions are sufficient and many of the enemies blow apart into satisfying chunks when killed, though this causes occasional slowdown. Character sprites are well animated and cartoony and genuinely fun to look at. The soundtrack, while not particularly memorable, consists of very upbeat rock that fits excellently with the rest of the game. Production-wise it's a very slick game that's come a long way from the bland first entry in the series.
The game is not without its warts though, play control is at times a little less than perfect. At times I've been hit or killed while trying hard to switch characters at the right moment. Instead of having a button to change characters you have one button to select and another to change. This works fine most of the time but it inevitably leads to screw-ups. Another annoyance is that the screen will sometimes scroll while you're at the edge of it instead of when you're in the middle leading to cheap hits and even pit-falls.
The limited continues can make the game feel a little too punishing at times, though the difficulty isn't extreme the enemies in later levels start to hit hard and cheap deaths can cause you to eat through those continues. Luckily there is a password system which somewhat negates this problem but it means you're going to probably be playing through the last level quite a few times until you manage to beat the absolute bullshit final boss.
My reaction to the level design is mixed. It's decent enough and all of the levels vary with their own specific themes. Sometimes they're very straightforward while other times there are side paths to explore. It's not half bad and most of the levels truly look great and sometimes have neat background-effects.
Though it's a licensed game, it has very little to do with its licensed properties which means you don't need to know jack about Gundam, Ultraman or Kamen Rider to enjoy it. The character switching gimmick isn't original by any means but it's used to great effect here with each character playing uniquely and having something to bring to the table.
While the game could stand to have a little more polish it's still a worthy and challenging action-platformer for the Super Famicom and in my opinion, a true hidden gem. If you can ignore the fact that it's a sequel and ignore the fact that it's an SD licensed game and you don't mind the Power Rangers inspired theme it's well worth picking up for genre fans.
I feel like this game has been buried because its original target audience is a niche of a niche but it deserves a closer look. It requires zero knowledge of Japanese and can be had for well under twenty-bucks on eBay.
Gunstar Green's recommendation: Try it!
With the Retron 5 giving me a new excuse to play through some of them I invite you, the upstanding citizens of the Racket Boy forums to join me on an adventure as I give my impressions.
PART 1: The Great Battle IV (Below)
PART 2: Famicom Frenzy 1! viewtopic.php?p=902913#p902913
PART 3: Famicom Frenzy 2! viewtopic.php?p=1072881#p1072881
PART 4: Cocoron viewtopic.php?p=1103325#p1103325
First up is a game I can hardly find anything about on the Internet, an obscurity from an obscure series that no doubt got lost in the tidal wave of Bandai's SD (super deformed character style)-themed licensed games. It's a game I played back in the early days of emulation and had a hard time rediscovering it in recent years.
Settle in, this is a long one.
The Great Battle IV
"Hold the boat Gunstar," I hear you saying. "What happened to The Great Battle I through III? What's the big idea?"
Well The Great Battle series as it turns out is a sub-series within Bandai's larger Compati Heroes franchise which covers just about every genre you can think of. Like many of their SD games the Compati Heroes series is a crossover event. In this case they borrow specifically from three of Bandai's biggest franchises: Gundam, Ultraman and Kamen Rider.
The idea is that Bandai's greatest heroes would all be "compatible" and be total buddies with each other or something. In order to get around the obvious scale issue, the heroes are all transformed into person-sized SD caricatures of themselves. These titles often also include an "original" hero character who doesn't belong to any established franchise in order to give the games a bit of their own identity.
"That's great... but that has nothing to do with why you're starting with the fourth game in the series."
Well here's where things get more interesting. Even within the Great Battle segment of the Compati Heroes-verse they aren't able to keep the genre straight.
The first game is a simplistic top-down action game that's kind of fun but isn't very interesting to talk about at length.
The second game changed the genre to a belt-scrolling beat 'em up that feels inspired by Double Dragon or Kunio Kun/River City Ransom, just not quite as good.
The third game changes that formula slightly into a hack 'n slash that seems more than just a little inspired by games like Golden Axe and Knights of the Round. This is where the series starts to actively shout-out to and parody other popular games of the time. It also started the habit of taking on a specific theme (medieval knights in this case).
The fifth game is a straight-up clone/parody of the SNES 3rd-person gallery-shooter Wild Guns, and a capable one at that. If you ever wanted to see a Gundam in a cowboy hat, there you go.
Backing up to my favorite of the bunch and today's actual topic, the fourth game is a 2D action platformer. The theme of choice this time is Super Sentai, which western audiences might more readily recognize as Power Rangers.
In the game you play as the original hero "Fighter Roar" alongside the licensed characters, V2 Gundam, Ultraman Powered and Kamen Rider ZO. Together you form the "Battle Force" team complete with your own giant Voltron-style combining-mecha with a giant BF emblazoned across its chest.
I like to imagine it means "Best Friends" instead of "Battle Force" but whatever.
The story, or what I understand of it, is standard Super Sentai stuff. An evil emperor is trying to take over. His right hand-guy is your enigmatic rival. You own a giant robot. That's all you need to know apart from a cliche spoiler at the end of the game.
Aside from some standard shared abilities like possessing a shield to block enemies, each character comes with their own set of attacks and abilities:
Fighter Roar has a fairly weak machine gun though he can both move while firing or stand in place. The machine gun's main gimmick is that the bullets ricochet in tight spaces. He also possesses a grappling hook and a double jump.
V2 Gundam uses a grenade launcher that travels in a short arc making it useful for enemies underneath you. It also has a blast radius that can sometimes reach through walls. For close range it has a beam saber capable of dealing serious damage, though at a risk. His main draw is his booster jets which make him one of the best characters to play through most of the game's platforming segments.
Ultraman Powered is the heavy, carrying a huge bazooka with a piercing shot. He's the least agile character possessing only a regular jump but his damage makes him one of the most useful overall. He can also turn into a ball, Samus style, which you will need to progress through the game and locate secrets. He can use the famous Ultraman Cross Beam attack which useful against certain enemies.
Kamen Rider ZO uses a flame thrower which aims similarly to Roar's machine gun but seems to do even less damage (though it's the only weapon effective against swarms of bats). He has the ability to dash which sometimes helps to avoid certain obstacles but is more useful as the lead-up to his dash attack, the powerful Rider Kick. His special mobility gimmick is the ability to wall-jump, Mega Man X-style, and it's the only way to reach certain areas.
You have the option to change between all four characters on the fly and each has their pros and cons as you traverse the levels. Some will have an easier time getting places than others and occasionally a specific character will be required for use of his abilities to get through a part of the level. You'll undoubtedly end up with your favorites but each character feels like an important part of the game compared to earlier installments of the series where who you played as wasn't very important.
There's a simple experience system at work where your characters power-up a maximum of three times by collecting canisters dropped by enemies or scattered around the level. Every character levels up at the same time, making their attacks more effective. They keep their level ups until you have to use a continue, at which point you have to deal with sucking again like in Gradius. After reaching level three the canisters you collect go towards extra lives.
Also of note, the game supports simultaneous co-op play, but I can't say I've ever been huge on co-op platforming since it tends to just make things harder.
As I said before these games like to borrow a lot from other popular games and that's definitely true for this installment. The most egregious example is Mega Man X, not just for stuff like the wall jump but certain levels have very similar settings and design. One level is a direct rip-off/homage to Storm Eagle's stage. You're also given the Mega Man-ish choice of what order you want to play three of the game's levels in. The intro-level has a distinct Cybernator/Assault Suits Valken feel and the other obvious shout-out is the wild west level which could have been taken straight from Konami's Sunset Riders, complete with a familiar looking stampede.
At the end of certain levels you occasionally have to combine your giant robot, the Compati Kaiser, to fight another boss. You're given three chances separate from your normal pool of lives to win before being forced to use a continue. Here the game changes into a simplistic one-on-one fighter, complete with Street Fighter-style special moves.
Interestingly, you have an x-ray scanner that you can use on certain parts of the enemy in order to do more damage to their weak spots or to develop a countermeasure to protect against their weaponry. This was the trickiest part of the game to figure out and the least import-friendly aspect but thanks to GameFAQs it was no big deal. Save for the ridiculous final boss, none of these encounters are too difficult (certainly not as bad as Mazin Saga's completely broken attempt at the same thing) and it's sort of entertaining to watch your little characters struggle in the cockpit view at the bottom of the screen.
The graphics are really nice with occasional touches of Mode 7 that aren't over the top and are just enough to make the visuals pop. Most of the explosions are sufficient and many of the enemies blow apart into satisfying chunks when killed, though this causes occasional slowdown. Character sprites are well animated and cartoony and genuinely fun to look at. The soundtrack, while not particularly memorable, consists of very upbeat rock that fits excellently with the rest of the game. Production-wise it's a very slick game that's come a long way from the bland first entry in the series.
The game is not without its warts though, play control is at times a little less than perfect. At times I've been hit or killed while trying hard to switch characters at the right moment. Instead of having a button to change characters you have one button to select and another to change. This works fine most of the time but it inevitably leads to screw-ups. Another annoyance is that the screen will sometimes scroll while you're at the edge of it instead of when you're in the middle leading to cheap hits and even pit-falls.
The limited continues can make the game feel a little too punishing at times, though the difficulty isn't extreme the enemies in later levels start to hit hard and cheap deaths can cause you to eat through those continues. Luckily there is a password system which somewhat negates this problem but it means you're going to probably be playing through the last level quite a few times until you manage to beat the absolute bullshit final boss.
My reaction to the level design is mixed. It's decent enough and all of the levels vary with their own specific themes. Sometimes they're very straightforward while other times there are side paths to explore. It's not half bad and most of the levels truly look great and sometimes have neat background-effects.
Though it's a licensed game, it has very little to do with its licensed properties which means you don't need to know jack about Gundam, Ultraman or Kamen Rider to enjoy it. The character switching gimmick isn't original by any means but it's used to great effect here with each character playing uniquely and having something to bring to the table.
While the game could stand to have a little more polish it's still a worthy and challenging action-platformer for the Super Famicom and in my opinion, a true hidden gem. If you can ignore the fact that it's a sequel and ignore the fact that it's an SD licensed game and you don't mind the Power Rangers inspired theme it's well worth picking up for genre fans.
I feel like this game has been buried because its original target audience is a niche of a niche but it deserves a closer look. It requires zero knowledge of Japanese and can be had for well under twenty-bucks on eBay.
Gunstar Green's recommendation: Try it!