Son Son

Son Son

released on Dec 31, 1984
by Capcom

Son Son

released on Dec 31, 1984
by Capcom

The game is a 2-D sidescrolling platformer. The screen scrolls automatically, only stopping to fight major enemies. The screen features six continuous platforms that occasionally feature small gaps. Sonson and Tonton walk automatically across these platforms. Pressing up or down will cause them to jump up or down to the next platform. Pressing left causes them to move more slowly than the screen scrolls, essentially continuing to move forward but at a reduced pace. Pressing right does the opposite - SonSon and TonTon will move across the platforms faster than the screen scrolls. The duo have only one attack - the ability to fire energy blasts from their stalves. Touching an enemy or an unfriendly projectile causes the player to lose a life. If a player has any additional lives, they will return to the screen riding on a cloud that will give them temporary invincibility. If the player presses the control stick in any direction, the cloud will disappear and the character will resume its usual walking mode. The cloud will eventually disappear on its own if the control stick is not used. Power-ups come in the form of various fruits which produce points (with enough points giving the player an extra life). Gathering certain fruit will cause all enemies currently on a screen to turn into point-bearing fruits. Walking across certain platforms will randomly cause a bamboo shoot to sprout, yielding many extra points. It is possible to play the game co-operatively with partner who plays as TonTon (who is Zhu Wuneng in the original story).


Released on

Genres


More Info on IGDB


Reviews View More

Me imagino que para la época era god, ahora hay juegos para celulares mucho más potentes. Increíble.
Buen juego, creo que fue lo suficientemente divertido como para terminarlo. Incluso en los 80' Capcom ya demostraba de lo que era capaz.

It's a little basic as a platformer and shooter, but it's got a nice art style, music, and good controls so it makes for a decent package.

What a fun, cute little game to learn. Very much in the vein of "get yourself out of unwinnable enemy patterns", with the added bonus of Sonson's movement being restricted to rather rigid platforming, a comfortable auto-scroll, and a rather short range of attack. Due to this, baiting enemy patterns is simultaneously more simplified as their patterns have less diagonals, and more harrowing as you have less of an ability to properly avoid them. It functions as it should, and that's neat! Very nice and replayable!

When Tokuro Fujiwara and Yoshiki Okamoto started to develop the two first Capcom games, they divided their work like this: Fujiwara would make a shooting game (Vulgus), meanwhile Okamoto, the shmup specialist, would make a more traditional action game (Son Son). Turned out Okamoto couldn't help himself and Son Son is actually a very weird shooting game.

The game is obviously based on Journey to the West, with Son Son being Sun Wukong. It's a horizontal autoscroller where you use your magical staff to shoot the enemies appearing on screen. The screen is divided between six platforms, and you can jump up and down to change lane. Simple stuff, but quite fun!
My favorite thing about Son Son is how it incites the player to go for score. You can get points by killing enemies, of course, or by gathering various food items. There're also hidden bamboo shoots worth quite a number of points, and the POW bonus turning every bad guy on screen into food. It forces you to be more active in the way you play, deliberately going for some group of enemies or changing lanes to get items.

As all Okamoto arcade games, Son Son is viciously hard. Your attack has a puny range (another Okamoto staple), and the screen is quickly flooded with enemies past the easy first stages.
It's a fun arcade game on its own, and Capcom clearly has a fondness for it unlike with the forgotten Vulgus. Worth a look for fans of the company.

My familiarity with SonSon is limited to his staff-swinging ancestor from MvC2, so I was a little surprised when this turned out to be an auto-scrolling shooter. It's fun! Jumping between rows and timing your shots is simple and addicting. There's definitely a world where this could have a vintage cult following akin to Mappy, Dig Dug or any other number of pre-SMB mascot arcade games.