For a first entry this sure left a sour taste in my mouth, great presentation and very fun style, even better when you play the translation but good god if it isn't a mess of a game, weird hitbox (for both you and the enemies) sessions where you have to grind to progress (within a time limit mind you), at some point i ran out of time cuz i had to grind coin to progress and ended up having to re-do the entire level despite being 1 hit away from killing the boss.
may the blockbuster era of games die and be only remembered for its style and fun moments, because not everything was gold as everyone seems to say the last boss surprisingly is the easiest of all, you can just get in a corner and cheese him to death, so its both unfair and anticlimatically easy at the same time

Another genre hybrid very early on in the SNES' lifespan, though a lot more subtle than ActRaiser. Each level consists of a beatemup section and a platforming section, the former also including some adventure game elements such as stores and townsfolk to interact with and sometimes minigames to play with them. It all comes together very nicely, with a lovely little soundtrack as the cherry on top that fits like a glove with the feudal Japan aesthetic going on here.

Very pleasant stuff all around. It does get pretty rough in the endgame as far as difficulty goes, and I had to use a guide somewhere in stage 8's overworld, but those aren't really enough to detract from the overall experience. There are of course bigger highlights in the decade-spanning SNES catalogue, but this one makes for a great playthrough if you're looking for something on the quainter side.

Played the retranslation patch.

This game is a short and solid time that's a bit mean and oddly grindy in two instances which broke the flow for me. Some bosses were also a bit tough mainly due to how precise some maneuvers are to avoid them despite the game not having the movement to back up that precision too much.

It's a solid enough start to Goemon's SNES journey. The music and visuals are nice though, if you ever want to check this out, peep the retranslation patch since it also adds a proper save feature.

When I first started playing the game, I assumed it was an RPG-like experience where you start off in a town, grind for money, purchase equipment, and eventually go out into the wilderness to conquer the rest of the world. What I did not expect, was that the wilderness never came. Instead, you spend the entire game inside these towns, a boss hidden in each one, which defeating immediately brings you to the next town.

The gameplay loop is certainly unique in that sense, but with my expectations set in the wrong place, the game never quite clicked with me, as it always felt like there was a major piece of game missing from it. It would've been interesting to check out for 20 minutes and leave it at that. Each new maze-like stage lost my interest further and further, until there was nothing left. Which is a shame, as stylistically it's certainly an expressive and colorful little game, and it had its moments of charm (being able to play a mini-Gradius was fun). It just wasn't enough to carry the whole thing, and it has mostly left my mind at this point.

Goemon is one of the few Konami franchises I don't have much experience with, this and...Quiz Magic Academy? I don't really know why it's taken me this long to really play this game, I've played it a few times at parties or when messing around with rompacks as a kid, but recently I finally sat down and played the first SNES game. I mostly just wanted to get to the later SNES games, because they've all been translated now and look fantastic, but it didn't feel right to skip this one.

Now, I just want to say, this game is great, very charming and polished, great sprites, music, level design, all of it is proper Konami. However, the last stage on a first playthrough is...I don't want to say brutal or difficult, because it's not that, I was annoyed more than frustrated. My problem was that you have to grind for gold in order to dig yourself out of the prison, grinding wasn't so bad in the earlier stages because there were many ways to go about it. But with this stage, you're forced to go through hoards of enemies, really annoying ones with spreadshot rifles and spears. When you don't have a buddy with you and have lost all of your upgrades, this is a slog. I know this isn't the games' fault, it's a short arcadey game that wants you to replay it with your friends and breeze through it after learning it through your first couple of runs, but man I just want to get to the sequels.

I'll come back to this game later and properly finish it, it was really fun, but there are other Goemon games I'm more interested in.

This game is tight. Love the sprite work and music. The gameplay is really fun save for the more frustrating mechanics like losing your weapon upgrades when damaged. Admittedly I abused the shit out of save states while playing the game because life is too short. While I despise limited lives and replaying levels, I don't hold it against the game. It is a product of its time. The bosses were mostly awesome and I enjoyed fighting them when they didn't feel unfair.

I like the premise of playing mini games and making money so you can stock up and take on the main level. Although, it can feel a bit grindy and frustrating. The timer was never an issue for me but I don't know why it should be there.

The Goemon franchise is definitely one of those series I'd like to play more of. It feels like the kind of thing that would be right up my alley (Ebisumaru my beloved), but a lot of the early games feel a little too primitive for my taste. I decided to stick with the series' first foray into 16-bit graphics (and the first game to be localized, albeit horribly. Thank god for fan patches), and it was a pretty fun time! You can still see some of the roots of the original Famicom Goemon games shine through at times but for the most part it's just a really solid, really fun if slightly difficult 2D platformer

What's more, you can play it with a friend! Definitely gives me a reason to come back to it at some point. Looking forward to play the next games in the series once I get the time.

This is a game I owned as a kid on Wii Virtual Console, and I never got too far in it. I gave a good ol' try to get through it last year, but I got stuck on the final boss. I beat the 4th SFC Ganbare Goemon game on the actual hardware years ago and loved it, and this is one I've always wanted to see to completion before venturing on to the other two mainline 16-bit titles. After playing through one of the N64 games a week before, I decided to give this one another shot but this time on my SFC Mini instead of on the Wii VC, so I had the power of save states on my side this time XD. I actually managed to fare pretty well, and I even managed to beat the final boss in just two attempts (and I beat the second attempt taking only one hit the whole time, much to my own surprise).It took around three hours to beat the Japanese version of the game with some limited save state uses to save time re-grinding through certain objectives.

Mystical Ninja is the localization of the third mainline game in the Ganbare Goemon series, and the first 16-bit incarnation of the series as well. Goemon and his very effeminate friend Ebisumaru (localized as Kid Ying and Dr. Yang) are a pair of ninja based on the great thief Goemon of Japanese myth, but here he's just a wacky character effectively out of a gag anime. As is the case with the rest of the series, you travel around Japan to save the country (in this case, Princess Yuki and her father, the emperor) in an adventure full of anachronisms, risque humor, and a tone with the aesthetic trappings of feudal Japan but the tone of a gag anime. There isn't a ton of dialogue in this one, as this is much more of an action game than an adventure game (unlike later games in the series), but what is there is silly in an overall inoffensive way (which is more than I can say for later games in the series ^^;).

The gameplay is largely a refinement of the Famicom games, and they're for the most part sorely needed refinements. Both Goemon and Ebisimaru can go on these adventures (continuing a co-op tradition started in the Famicom games), and there are two different kinds of gameplay: town sections and platforming segments. The town sections are a sort of top-down view where you go around usually just looking for the entrance to the platforming segment where the boss awaits you, but sometimes you'll need to get money for a gate pass or some other key item. Only the last stage really has much of a puzzle element to its town segment, and it's mostly there to give you an opportunity to not only earn but spend money on things like armor, health, and extra lives. There is overall a lot less grinding in these sections than the Famicom games, and the villagers within them have responses ranging from just silly to helpful information on where to go next (although in most cases, just wandering around will get you where you need to go eventually). The hit detection on enemies and yourself in these areas is a bit awkward, some stages lack armor/health shops simply for the sake of being mean to you, and they definitely get a bit too punishing later in the game as far as enemy range goes, but they're a net neutral for the game, in my book.

The platforming sections are where the game shines a lot stronger for me. Each of the game's nine stages has one of these with a boss at the end, and it's Konami's 16-bit days at their finest. Jumping and hit detection feel way better than they do in the town sections, and the level design never has any nonsense with leaps of faith. You can use your money as projectiles or use your melee weapon to fight stuff, and you can power up your melee weapon Castlevania-style by finding lucky cats from defeated enemies. Though sadly, unlike most Castlevania games, your weapon power goes down when you get hit (continuing a tradition from the Famicom games).

This isn't the hardest 16-bit Konami game, for sure, but it ain't no slouch. Unless you can find the hidden golden lucky cats to increase your health bar (and those health bonuses go away when you beat a stage), you're generally only 4 or 5 hits away from death. You can mitigate this during the town segments by buying food to revive you upon death or armor to take more hits for you, but those are only gonna be useful for one life. The game has a pretty fair and reasonable difficulty curve until about stage 6 or 7, where it throws the kid-gloves off and starts barely even giving you shops to go to. That said, the bosses are all well designed with most of them having reasonable tells for when they're gonna do their attacks (the kabuki boss is awful and I hate him though XP). I suppose sticking to Goemon's origins as a legendary bandit, it's sometimes better to run by enemies than actually fight them, especially if you wanna conserve your money/ammo (which is often one of the best weapons to use at any point), and I largely chalk up me beating the game this time compared to failing before to my willingness to use money as a weapon (where before I saw it as too wasteful).

The presentation is really what you expect from 16-bit Konami: heckin' awesome. The game has a bright, cartoony art style that all sorts of colorful and charming. That's all peppered in with fun character designs and an absolute banger of a soundtrack. Goemon games are just about always good in these departments, and this game is no exception. As far as regional differences go between the SNES and SFC releases of the game go, there are very few. It's largely down to a couple partial-nudity based jokes being removed as well as the revival food being changed from rice balls in the SFC version to pizzas in the SNES version (which still fit the irreverent tone of the game pretty well).

Verdict: Highly Recommended. As is the case with just about everything Konami did on the SNES, this is an excellent action/adventure game. It's got some issues with difficulty curve and signposting here and there in the later game, and it's definitely pushing the bounds of reasonable co-op game design during the platforming segments, but it has nonetheless stood the test of time very well regardless. It's definitely outshined by its Japan-exclusive sequels, but the first game should not be forgotten as a powerful debut into the 16-bit era for the series.

Just exploding with creativity. Huge levels split up into belt scrolling beat em up-esque town sections and 2D platforming areas. Each town has it's own identity and is loaded with things to do and secrets to find. The platforming sections always have some new gimmick to throw at you to keep things fresh. Mystical Ninja also has some really outstanding boss fights. The bosses can be really challenging as your base weapon range is rather pathetic and you rank down your weapon every time you get hit. This is offset by the fact that you can throw money as a projectile. Money however is an incredibly valuable resource as you will need a minimum of 1960 Yen to beat the game. Recourse management is the name of the game, Mystical Ninja is a game where if you put the time in to learn the game you will get much better. From knowing what gear to buy when, picking up tricks to make fast cash, and knowing where to find golden cats the game is quite deep.

Goemon is a bite-sized game bursting at the seams with charm. Like gushers candy. Who doesn't like gushers? Great music, great visuals, and the gameplay?

It's a blend of solid 2D platforming along with sections that I want to liken to the River City games, even though you could probably just call them beat 'em up levels. The River City comparison mostly comes from the quirkiness and the so-bad-they're-kind-of-funny quips. The rest lies in the gameplay loop while you're in towns: beat goons, collect money, and visit shops (food/upgrades/new skills). There are also a bunch of minigames you can hang out with when you're tired of being assaulted by everything.

Strange hitboxes are a problem in a few places and there are maybe two sections of the game where you have to hit something at the right spot the correct number of times. That said, I blasted through this in one good sitting that clocked in at just over 3 hours. Minimal suffering given the amount of enjoyment I got out of that short time.

Also, shoutout to Goemon for non-traditional weapons. His smoking pipe upgrades into a yo-yo for some reason, but yo-yos own. Your gold can also be used as a projectile. Sick stuff.

Started out as something that seemed like it'd be one of my favorites in the system, ended as a fairly irritating game that I couldn't be bothered to finish legit - I abused the hell out of rewinds

Gets very cheap towards the end, the final boss for example has an attack that requires an incredibly tight jump. Also has two instances of paywall that requires grinding money.

If the other games in the series are like this, but better balanced, I'm looking forward to them however.

It's fun but also it sucks.

It's a shame this is the only SNES Goemon that was released in the West because the later ones are great. And you can see hints of that greatness here. The platforming sections are often fun and challenging. But several factors work to make it ultimately not good.

The first is that localisation. I get the reasoning behind it - this game is very Japanese and that was a hard sell at the time, harder even than just a few years later. But it's so Japanese that the localisation changes here feel futile. Changing rice cakes for pizza, for instance just feels utterly incongruous and wrong. This is isn't helped by a really poor script that doesn't seem to properly engage with the original and feels like you're just getting bare scraps of context and information a lot of the time.

But the core systems of the game really don't help. It's so incredibly grindy, which is bizarre for an action platformer. Progress is frequently gated by money, which you have to earn by mainly farming civilians and creatures in the "Warlock Stages". But as you get deeper into the game that becomes more difficult, requiring you to continually buy health boosts, armour and, most annoying, sandals to boost your movement speed, all of which you lose every time you get hit. Yet if you buy too many of these, the price is ratcheted up, leaving you potentially stuck in a position where you can't make any progress because you can't ever comfortably earn more than your living expenses and I thought this was meant to be an escapist action platformer not a cost of living sim.

And then there's the password system. I'm not totally opposed to password systems - they do have some benefits over save files - but this one is incredibly clunky and laborious to use.

Ultimately this feels like a rough, scrappy first draft before the much more refined sequel and so it's a real shame we in the West only got this and not that.

(This is the 44th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

The SNES just keeps delivering. Here, we have a game I heard way less about than the other SNES titles I have played already. This game is called The Legend of the Mystical Ninja and is part of the Ganbare Goemon series. The game released in Japan on July 19, 1991 and is the first game of the series to release in the West (in 1992). It doesn't move the needle necessarily in its gameplay, however in its presentation and in its content, where many other games would have to be described as lackadaisical copy-cats, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja proves to be an exciting game that tries and succeeds in offering a lot of fun activities outside of its core gameplay loop.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10

You are Kid Ying (or Goemon originally), and if you play this in two-player coop, the other player would be Dr. Yang (or Ebisumaru originally). You are two ninjas who go on a heroic adventure, which has the ultimate goal of finding and freeing Princess Yuki. On your journey, you will meet many characters, both named and simple NPCs, who will each at least have one line of dialogue, typical of most action adventures of this time. Some more important characters have a bit more to say, and in addition, the end of each level comes with a quick recap of what just happened and where Kid Ying and Dr. Yang are going to next. It's simple. It gets the job done.

GAMEPLAY | 15/20

I played this on my own, so I'm going to describe this through the perspective of Kid Ying. He has multiple weapons he can upgrade towards, starting with a pipe-type of weapon, which can ultimately transform into a yo-yo with much larger reach. An upgrade is made with each time you collect a cat item. Your main combat ability is to press Attack and swing the melee weapon. Most enemies die to one hit and that's what you do for the entire game combat-wise. There are also multiple types of Judo attacks you can learn in Dojo's. These are special abilities that usually don't last long and can only be used in the zone/level you acquire them, like riding a Tiger, flying yourself or shooting lightning that kills everyone on screen. It's a simple but neat mechanic.

All zones are interspersed with tons, and I mean TONS, of mini games to partake in. There is dice rolling, a memory game, a paint game, whack-a-mole, a lottery game, damn arcade games like Gradius, a quiz show and a lot more. These require you to pay a pretty big amount of money to play, and the goal usually is to do well enough to try and come out of it with more money than you put in. I can't say I wasn't vary of how this would introduce kids to gambling at a very young age. Some levels require you to buy items for up to $1000, whilst each enemy you kill would only give you $10. So to pass the grind, the fastest way to make money would be to try to double your money with dice rolling for example. Luckily for me, a loss isn't a big deal, because thanks to the power of emulation, I can rewind and try again, but for all the kids playing back in the day, this actually adds more stakes to the gambling by locking progress behind money, so I can't say I was a fan of all of these mini games. Notwithstanding that, most levels have no money requirements and you can kill a few enemies and play a bunch of different mini games to break up the monotony, which overall is a major plus here.

Finally, the absolute highlight here for me is the variety you find in the boss fights. Just do yourself the favor and go take a look at them. The amount of creativity put on display here with the technological availabilities at the time is just insane. The graphical presentation of the bosses just puts the icing on the cake. The only bad part here is that some bosses are very difficult, and unfairly so in my opinion, which is definitely a shame, but it doesn't take away from the fact that these boss fights have been among the most pleasant I've experienced since starting this challenge.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10

There is no voice acting. The soundtrack here is truly wonderful, it has a great theme befitting a "ninja hero" adventure with lots of great tracks.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10

This is one of the first SNES games ever and the game certainly takes advantage of the 16-bit capabilities of the console by creating this colorful world that at times does lack in diversity, but makes up for it through attention to detail in many areas like the circus one. You'll find lots of environmental pieces to appreciate here, like in the bark of the trees or the water, which looks excellent for a game of this time. And as mentioned previously, the graphical presentation for the boss fights is top notch, and the same goes for the enemy design in general.

ATMOSPHERE | 7/10

The music, the art style and graphical presentation overall certainly makes for a great overall game from an atmospheric standpoint, however it does feel odd to have all these mini games present for the main character in an environment where he fights dozens of hostiles.

CONTENT | 8/10

Lots and lots of side content here to get distracted by. Minus points for not offering the same diversity in the main gameplay and for making certain levels too grinding or gambling focused.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10

You find yourself in many different zones, each with a few map slides that you can walk through and fight enemies or play mini games in. In most, you are free to choose whether you want to grind for money, play those games or move on to the platforming type area with the boss at the end. You reach these areas by finding a bear guarding the entrance to them. Before you enter, he warns you that you are about to approach a "dangerous area".

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10

I haven't seen any other game that offers this many mini games next to its main content, and that's certainly a unique concept. Apart from this, the game plays like a basic adventure/platformer, which is not a bad thing.

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any other motivation given to play this game again. You could certainly go back and play some of the mini games you missed the first time through or use more of the Judo attacks.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

The game worked well at all times.

OVERALL | 71/100

Definitely one of the few games in this challenge so far where I would recommend to go back and play it, though I wouldn't say it's a recommendation to all gamers like with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and Super Mario World, but rather a recommendation to those who enjoy retro games, as I'm sure plenty of retro gamers actually missed out on playing this game, which to me is pretty underrated due to what it has on offer here.

Trying to find this game on Backloggd's list with just "Goemon" in the search field reminded me of the early 2000s spin-off series where they tried to make Goemon attractive and, I assume, more self-serious. I never played those and I have no desire to. Unless Goemon looks as hideous as he does on the cover of The Legend of the Mystical Ninja then I am not interested in any off-model Goemen.

Anyway, I have surprisingly little to say about this one. Normally I can whip up a tome about even the most asinine of SNES games, but surprisingly I keep coming up blank on this one. It's Goemon! Those games are pretty good. This game is also good. That's my review, please check back next week when I write 12 paragraphs about Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko!

Mystical Ninja is pretty funny, though not quite as absurd as the N64 sequel, which was able to get away with a bit more. There's still some really great bits like finding the Gradius minigame, and the boss and enemies designs are appropriately silly. The soundtrack is also really good, Yae's theme in particular stands out to me as a favorite.

Platforming feels solid, Goemon controls great both in the side-scrolling stages and during the more isometric town sections. It's just a solid little platformer that's worth your time, and which I probably should've played again to refresh myself on, because I'm sure there's more to say about it, but I sure as shit don't have anything else to talk about so I'm going to go clean the lent out of my dryer duct or something bye.

So to say I've been slacking on Goemon games this year would be an understatement. This is just an off topic thing for why it's taken so long so skip this paragraph if you don't care. You see I was trying to go chronological order for the ones I could play so the next one was the RPG on the Famicom and I tried so hard to get through it but it's so boring. So I just took my L and skipped to this one and honestly I'm glad I did. Apologies to anyone who would have wanted me to finish the RPG, I'm not doing it.

The first year of the Super Famicom was an interesting one as while it had some duds like Final Fight (yes I will die on this hill that port is bad and idc if it was the best for the time.) But you also had stuff like Chou Makaimura, Super Mario World, F-Zero, Sim City, Area 88, Actraiser, and some more that were pretty good. Konami was part of the good stuff. Sure Gradius III is controversial on the 16 bit platform but we also got Akumajou Dracula, the retelling of the FDS game of the same name. We would also get this game, Ganbare Goemon: Yukihime Kyuushutsu Emaki.

This is a sequel to the two action games on the Famicom and it's easily an improvement over those two. It not only keeps the charm and adds even more then before but it refines the gameplay, adds lots of 2D platforming and not the awful platforming of the past and it's not nearly as cryptic or maze-like as past games.

Goemon still can upgrade his weapon and fight enemies to get more money to use to buy items or play events like Gambling, betting on horse racing, or even playing the first stage of Gradius 1 for fun. While these parts can be samey after a while, they don't last too long so you won't be frustrated. If you are unlucky with money though you might have to grind.

This game also has 2 player co-op like the 2nd Goemon game on the Famicom. I'm not sure if Ebisumaru has different weapons like he did in the 2nd game but I assume he does. Or is it a she? Are they still doing that bit from the end of the 2nd game anymore or was that dropped? It's really cool just how much to the two can interact in events, I could see this being a really fun co-op game.

The platforming stuff isn't too bad though I still hate pits are instant death. You can buy all this stuff to protect yourself but one pit just means nothing, it bothers me. The controls are also a lot better for these too as it'll most of the time not feel like your fault. The bosses though are pretty easy, in fact the whole game is not too hard which surprises me. Or maybe I'm just so used to how hard the previous games were.

The game looks pretty good for an early game on the console. While you could argue some of this could have been done on the Famicom, there are a lot of good looking locations that also use a lot of good colors. This also marks the first game to use Goemon's iconic design. Yeah he had the design on the cover of Gaiden but for some reason it's not used in game. The music is also really good but why does some of it remind me of Kiki Kaikai? I really love the song that plays in Area 8.

If you're looking for Goemon games to play and don't know where to start, play this one. It's really fun and worth a try. I would also recommend you play the fan translation of the Japanese version if you don't know the language. The original localization cut stuff out and lost some of the charm of the original. I'll probably play the sequel sometime next year and I hear great things about it so hopefully I love it.