Super Godzilla is a 16-bit Godzilla game where the player can take control of Toho's famous big green lizard as they rampage through Japan. The game is divided into two main gameplay modes, Movement and Battle. Movement has the player travel through the city using the D-pad and a map located on the bottom of the screen with the objective being to destroy certain objectives such as enemy humans and buildings as well as pick up power-ups. There is an animation in the screen above the map that shows the results of their movements and attacks. Battle mode kicks in when the player locates an enemy on the map, like Biollante or Mechagodzilla, and is taken to a side-scrolling cinematic-style battle where the player must use punches, tail whips and the famous fire breath to drain the energy of the opposing monster. However, the Fighting Spirit system is present which is in a sense a morality meter where the player must pick the right attacks at the right time in order to connect certain attacks. Choosing the wrong attacks or failing to connect with them will cause the meter to drop and make Godzilla more vulnerable to attack.
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I almost respect this one for how ambitious it is. The presentation kinda fucks, too bad everything else kinda sucks!
Kind of synthesizes the ideas of the two NES Godzilla games into something more interesting, more cohesive, and definitely more true to the source material.
... buuuuuuuuut it has a couple major problems that absolutely cripple it, and keep it from any kind of hidden gem status. And it's a REAL shame, because it's alllllllmost extremely cool.
On the positive side, the presentation is darn good. There's real work put into the story ideas, the art, and the VERY faithful music (when you get near the boss and the theme kicks in, omggggg), but especially impressive is the way the overworld gameplay is presented. The story conceit is that the humans have found a way to sort-of control Godzilla and are using him to fight off attacking aliens. So although you ARE controlling him, with your D-pad, you're also kind of not. You point him via a top-down map and he moves sluggishly forward automatically, square by square, and does not instantly respond to new directions, while also going into a little cutscene if he runs into a building he has to destroy or some tanks shooting at him. And yeah, all that SOUNDS horrible and non-gamey, but it's extremely successful at giving you the feeling that Godzilla is his own creature, a wild animal you're desperately trying to direct, and you're more or less just suggesting to him where to go and hoping he listens. (If you understand how it works, he'll always do what you want, he doesn't ignore inputs or anything, but it still feels very indirect. And I think in this case, that's actually pretty cool.) So, couple that with the other half of the screen opposite the map, in which we actually see Godzilla 'live', walking around and doing his thing, but shot from an oblique low angle as though we're watching a feed of someone on the ground relaying his actions back to the humans' home base ... this all confers a very unique vibe that replicates the movies' constant tension between man and Godzilla, even when he's being a 'good guy'. They really put some thought into it.
Unfortunately, despite its merits, this portion of the gameplay - the walking through levels to gather items and find the boss - is really, really slow, and filled with a billion unskippable mini-cutscenes. It succeeds at building up tension for the final battle of each stage against another kaiju, but you need to have some real patience if you're gonna get there. Again, it ties into Godzilla's character and is very true to the movies, but when you're playing this sort of thing as a video game, there's no way you don't just want him to hurry the eff up a bit.
Worse is the OTHER half of the game, the kaiju combat. I'm not going to try to explain it in any sort of real way here, but just suffice it to say that it is weird and dumb. An impenetrable, semi-randomized, tug-of-war, roulette wheel, ATB, rhythm-based ... I don't know what. But it sucks, and the ENTIRE time you're doing the fights you're gonna be wishing to the good lord that it was just some kind of standard fighting game thing instead. Oh and there's a cutscene every time someone does an attack. It's just boneheaded, I don't get it. Either they weren't confident that they could make good actual fighting (and judging by the first NES game, they were correct) or they were just too focused on making the battles cinematic rather than playable, and felt like if they didn't pile a bunch of non-standard weirdness on top of it, it would be too simple. Either way, sucks.
So yeah, this is really close to being the first awesome depiction of the big G in games and shows that they were still really thinking through how best to translate his unique qualities and style to games, and not afraid to take some creative risks to get there. But in a couple places they definitely overthought it a bit.
... buuuuuuuuut it has a couple major problems that absolutely cripple it, and keep it from any kind of hidden gem status. And it's a REAL shame, because it's alllllllmost extremely cool.
On the positive side, the presentation is darn good. There's real work put into the story ideas, the art, and the VERY faithful music (when you get near the boss and the theme kicks in, omggggg), but especially impressive is the way the overworld gameplay is presented. The story conceit is that the humans have found a way to sort-of control Godzilla and are using him to fight off attacking aliens. So although you ARE controlling him, with your D-pad, you're also kind of not. You point him via a top-down map and he moves sluggishly forward automatically, square by square, and does not instantly respond to new directions, while also going into a little cutscene if he runs into a building he has to destroy or some tanks shooting at him. And yeah, all that SOUNDS horrible and non-gamey, but it's extremely successful at giving you the feeling that Godzilla is his own creature, a wild animal you're desperately trying to direct, and you're more or less just suggesting to him where to go and hoping he listens. (If you understand how it works, he'll always do what you want, he doesn't ignore inputs or anything, but it still feels very indirect. And I think in this case, that's actually pretty cool.) So, couple that with the other half of the screen opposite the map, in which we actually see Godzilla 'live', walking around and doing his thing, but shot from an oblique low angle as though we're watching a feed of someone on the ground relaying his actions back to the humans' home base ... this all confers a very unique vibe that replicates the movies' constant tension between man and Godzilla, even when he's being a 'good guy'. They really put some thought into it.
Unfortunately, despite its merits, this portion of the gameplay - the walking through levels to gather items and find the boss - is really, really slow, and filled with a billion unskippable mini-cutscenes. It succeeds at building up tension for the final battle of each stage against another kaiju, but you need to have some real patience if you're gonna get there. Again, it ties into Godzilla's character and is very true to the movies, but when you're playing this sort of thing as a video game, there's no way you don't just want him to hurry the eff up a bit.
Worse is the OTHER half of the game, the kaiju combat. I'm not going to try to explain it in any sort of real way here, but just suffice it to say that it is weird and dumb. An impenetrable, semi-randomized, tug-of-war, roulette wheel, ATB, rhythm-based ... I don't know what. But it sucks, and the ENTIRE time you're doing the fights you're gonna be wishing to the good lord that it was just some kind of standard fighting game thing instead. Oh and there's a cutscene every time someone does an attack. It's just boneheaded, I don't get it. Either they weren't confident that they could make good actual fighting (and judging by the first NES game, they were correct) or they were just too focused on making the battles cinematic rather than playable, and felt like if they didn't pile a bunch of non-standard weirdness on top of it, it would be too simple. Either way, sucks.
So yeah, this is really close to being the first awesome depiction of the big G in games and shows that they were still really thinking through how best to translate his unique qualities and style to games, and not afraid to take some creative risks to get there. But in a couple places they definitely overthought it a bit.
Godzilla definitely deserved better on the SNES. The highlights of this game are the visuals and soundtrack. Unfortunately, the rest of it is kind of dull. You control Godzilla on an overhead map that just has icons on it. There is a visual of the big man himself, but it's solely cosmetic. The fights are also weird, utilizing a sort of fighting game meets slot machine system that makes what should be epic confrontations into a frustrating practice. I will say, though, when I beat the final boss with Super Godzilla's most powerful move with almost no health left... that was kinda cool.
i mean its not exactly fun to play but they certainly did go for it
This game has been a phantom to me for my entire life. Never once have I understood what in the FUCK I was supposed to do
I wanna root for this game because the presentation rocks so hard, I even like the weird martian-brained layout of the gameplay with the goji-cam on the top half. It's just dull! and you're not supposed to walk into every building?? C'mon man. I can't shake thinking that its kinda cool tho