Ganbare Goemon!: Karakuri Douchuu

Ganbare Goemon!: Karakuri Douchuu

released on Jul 30, 1986
by Konami

Ganbare Goemon!: Karakuri Douchuu

released on Jul 30, 1986
by Konami

The peasants and commonfolk of Japan are suffering from corrupt officials and insane taxes! With no releif in sight, Ishikawa Goemon takes justice in his own hands, and starts a spree of robberies to steal back the wrongly taken money. Despite earning the title of "The Great Thief of Edo", Goemon's efforts on the street are not enought to stop the suffering. Suspecting something fishy at the Feudal Lord's castle, Goemon decides to go confront the the Lord himself and put an end to the corruption.


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The first Goemon game on home consoles. It borrows a bit from The Legend of Zelda, especially with that top-down view, in that there are secret passages here and there. But the core of the gameplay is still a bit too basic to really still be interesting forty years later : all you have to do is kill enemies and find hidden keys to exit the levels. And that's it.
Not really worth anyone's time besides the historical aspect.

The very first Goemon game. I've had a very keen interest in the Goemon franchise for a very long time but never got around to playing any game. I finally started with the first in the series and I don't really like to be too harsh to NES games, but there really are much better NES games. Having said that, Goemon 1 plays like a run and gun Zelda game without any of the puzzles or creativity. There's no map and every level feels the same - randomly generated. It's honest to God repetitive. Thank God for the internet otherwise I wouldn't bare this one. I know the series gets good from the SNES games but I'm still willing to give Goemon 2 a try to see if there are any improvements. Wouldn't really recommend this one unless you're curious to see how the Goemon franchise began.

You mindlessly wander around trying to find out what to do. What riveting gameplay.

Game Review - originally written by Spinner 8

Let’s just get this out of the way here: Goemon kicks ass. Ass. Do you hear. Okay. You may remember this fellow from a few games (three I think) called Mystical Ninja. But there were a whole HELL of a lot more in Japan. Yup. This is the first one. It’s pretty simple, but it’s fun, so yay. You run around and smack people (but not the ladies, please) and collect three passes to move on. I guess Goemon’s this hero fellow who gives to the poor and stuff, but it’s hard to tell. You can upgrade your shoes to run faster, and you get a slingshot, and a candle so you can see hidden stairways, and a whole hell of a lot of items that I don’t know WHAT they’re used for, and this sentence doesn’t make much sense. Just play the game dammit. Geez.

Definitely an interesting one for sure. Like many NES/famicom games, if you don't have a guide or at the very LEAST a manual to tell you what everything means, you will be absolutely SOL. Progression through the levels is tied to finding specific passes either in first person dungeon mazes or in secret areas that can only be found by jumping over the tile on the level that the entrance is on, so without a guide you are goin to be doing a LOT of wandering/jumping around to find everything. The game does have a little bit of leeway for the guideless players in that you can purchase candles to make the secret passages visible for a limited time, and you can spend a lot of money to buy a pass just in case you REALLY can't find that last one, but on the whole I highly suggest heading to good ol gamefaqs before hitting this game up. Most of the games difficulty comes from its obtuseness as there really aren't many demanding action setpieces (with the exception of a BS difficulty spike halfway through the game with regards to some precise platforming over instant death pits), so it's not one of those 8-bit games that comes at you both with insane challenge and obtuseness.

Overall, it was aight. I guess you could probably beat this guideless if you had a LOT of graph paper on hand but I just dont got the time for that nawsay? For being the first goemon game on a console, it's a solid start.

yeah this games fun until you realize its just a bunch of annoying mazes where you need to backtrack and find secrets to even progress