I've been working through some "hidden gems" I've jotted down over the years and Mr. Gimmick was the next one up.

I enjoyed the spirit of all the ideas it had. It genuinely felt like something "new" on a system I grew up with. From the slide~y environment and jumps to the interesting weapons, it's very unique for the NES. But the main weapon never "clicked" with me.

I felt I was fighting the gameplay controls more than the enemies or environments. This hurt the fun factor big time. I will admit figuring out a couple bosses or sequences was quite satisfying but just as many other times it was annoying or a chore. And I didn't even bother getting good at timing the jumping on the star itself. So I missed out on all but the first hidden area (and a final-final boss according to what I read afterwards).

Definitely a hidden gem indeed though. Worth trying for all and if it "clicks" with you, could be top tier.

[Emulated/played on Miyoo Mini v2]

Make no mistake, this game is evil in the exact same way that something like Getting Over It is. See, beyond the meme parts of Getting Over It, the actual brilliance of the game (and of Foddy's other stuff like QWOP for that matter) is offering you something just barely functional enough that you can see what it might look like to master it. It can create a yearning for that mastery, and in that yearning, do irreperable damage to your hands and overdraft hours of life out of your time bank. For those who broke through and learned how to do this well, I have tremendous respect. For many, they will see it, feel it brush against their ribcage like a panic, and either they'll pull away or press on, only to discover just what it takes and oh, by the way, there's a true ending.

I think what surprises me the most about Gimmick is just how fair it mostly is. There are a handful of cheap moments that will initially catch you off guard. However, not only are these parts few and far between, but the game is meant to be replayed. It's relatively short for an NES game, and there are many secrets and techniques that can only be discovered through repeat playthroughs. The few cheap shots become speed bumps. Moments that seem like pure chance turn out to have technique. At first, I felt the star mechanic was cumbersome and the bosses unfair, but replaying the game helped me appreciate its design a lot more.

The mileage the developers got out of the star mechanic is truly impressive. There's a unique strategy to each enemy and boss, and discovering them was gratifying. In general, the game is gratifying to play, as it rewards your problem-solving and experimentation. If you want to try to appreciate this game, please do not watch videos or quit after a few game overs. Set aside a couple of hours, go in blind, and anticipate that your curiosity will be rewarded.

That last point about curiosity pertains specifically to hidden collectibles you need to locate for the good ending (there's one in each level). The location of most of these, unfortunately, is something I was spoiled on. It's hard for me to say how many of them I could've discovered on my own, but I feel pretty much all of them can be found through intuition and thinking a little outside the box.

I have to commend the levels' sense of progression and novelty. Each of them contain multiple sections with unique enemies and artwork. The presentation is, in general, fantastic. Gimmick feels more like a homebrew or indie game than it does an officially licensed NES game. It's amazing just how close Gimmick is to modern indie game sensibilities. The animations can be very smooth, the characters are expressive in both their animations and behavior, the artwork and soundtrack are consistently great, and the sound design's variety deserves particular praise. The game is expressive, detailed, reactive, and has a "surprise factor" that I haven't seen elsewhere in the NES' library. Admittedly, I haven't experienced many NES games myself, but I believe my point generally stands. You just have to see it for yourself.

However, I have a few criticisms that keep me from giving the game absolute praise. At the beginning, I referred to Gimmick as "mostly" fair, and that is because of one particular boss towards the end. It is more difficult than any boss both before and after it. I've only been able to defeat the first phase of this boss without taking any damage once, and I've only been able to stand a chance against the second phase with items stocked up. It's strange because the bosses of the next level are comparatively fair. Additionally, one prerequisite of the good ending is beating the game without using continues (I only discovered this information through the internet, I haven't gotten the good ending). I could somewhat overlook this if it weren't for the aforementioned boss. I'm going to be a bit charitable here, and assume that there are some techniques I haven't discovered, but it is a massive difficulty spike at the very least. Finally, I feel like the game's pacing is better when you ignore the hidden collectibles. I wish the rooms containing them served as shortcuts or something like that. The levels are already somewhat short, though, so maybe the rooms could instead lead you to an alternate path through the level. While ignoring the hidden collectibles improves the pacing, it also makes the game a bit less challenging.

With all that being said, I would absolutely recommend Gimmick. The problematic boss is a bit too much of a sore point, unfortunately, but otherwise it's a pretty great game. Just make sure to give it some time before passing judgement.

EDIT: So hours after posting this review, I got the good ending. I don't think it changes what I said but it was worth it.

A technical marvel that is completely fucking miserable to play.

I'll get this out of the way, first: Gimmick might be the most impressive game I have ever seen running on a Famicom. I legitimately do not know nor could I begin to understand how a game that's only a few hundred kilobytes managed to pack visuals this pretty, sounds this pleasing, and an actual fucking physics engine onto a cart that ran on a console manufactured in the year 1983. By rights, this should not exist. People everywhere seem to constantly express surprise that Gimmick isn't actually another one of those retro throwback indie games, and they're right to be shocked. This might be the game that sells me on how drastic of an upgrade the Famicom was to the consoles that came before it. The Atari 2600 isn't shit compared to this. I digress. The point to make is that Gimmick really ought to be celebrated as a feat of engineering in video games.

Regrettably, though, video games need to be played.

Looking at Gimmick is significantly more fun than actually interacting with Gimmick. Yumetaro slides around like he's wearing ice skates long before you get to the actual ice level. Emulating rudimentary physics on the Famicom is undoubtedly an impressive feat, but it's handled in way that only manages to frustrate: downward slopes have almost zero friction, so you slide down them too quickly; it takes an obscene amount of time for Yumetaro to stop moving after you stop holding the button; enemies can turn on a dime, with none of them under any obligation to bother observing something as petty as the fundamental forces of the universe.

I was tempted to write about how I'm done giving the time of day to "cruel games", but I think that's prescribing a design intent when that's not necessarily what's here. What I'm ultimately and actually annoyed with is the fact that it's impossible to intuit certain enemy patterns or placements, which is where that feeling of cruelty stems from. The archers in Stage 4 are probably the most obvious and most unfair example, where the only shot you have at dodging their arrows is if you have prior knowledge as to where they actually are; they love shooting you from off-screen, with one placed specifically to catch you at the arc of your jump as you come out from the top of a previous screen, and another waiting at the end of a hallway to snipe you with a projectile that is literally a single pixel thick and roughly the same shade as the background. It's trivial to deal with if you know that it's coming, but that's if you know that it's coming.

This is a pattern that continues consistently throughout the game, but reaches an apotheosis at the end of Stage 5. The stage boss here is a little orb guy in a cart that moves horizontally along the top of the screen, shooting lasers down at you. To hit him, you have to bounce your star off of the top of the conveyor belt on the left, or fling it from the top of the conveyor belt down and hope that it bounces up the way that you want it to. The star, following the laws of physics, cannot bounce higher than its initial, highest bounce; essentially, you have one chance to hit the boss with a conveyor belt ricochet every time he comes near, and if you whiff, you have to wait for him to go all the way to the right and then all the way back to the left again. After he takes three hits, he fires his lasers even faster. The lasers also explode when they hit the ground, so your only option is to weave between them in mid-air. After he takes the fourth hit, he shoots the lasers so quickly that it is literally impossible to weave through them. If he takes the fourth hit too close to the left side of the screen, you won't be able to charge up your star fast enough to throw it, guaranteeing that you take damage. The fifth hit takes him out, at which point a second boss walks out from stage right to fire homing missiles and Contra spread shots at you. There is an unspeakable darkness within whoever designed this fight. A joyous mind cannot conjure these tortures.

The only part of the game harder than this is getting the Stage 4 secret item that lets you fight the true final boss, where you have one chance to jump off of your star (it has collision) and into an above alcove. If you miss it, you drop down onto a checkpoint, and you can't go back to try again. You can game over and continue to restart the entire level, but using a continue clears the remaining three secret items from the prior three stages out of your collection. You need six secret items in total — one from each level — to go to the true final stage. You either make that jump on your first attempt, or you have to start the entire game over from scratch. Again, I want to call this cruel. I don't know what word would better apply.

It's disappointing, because this is a game that I really would have liked to love. I think Yumetaro's design is so ridiculously over-the-top cute that it loops back around to being funny, and that endears me to him. I think the fact that Sunsoft were able to make all of these pieces fit together on hardware as rudimentary as the Famicom is admirable. I just wish the act of playing it didn't feel like pulling teeth.

Can I fuck 🥺

When it comes to how a character is designed, there are two archetypes that I immediately gravitate towards when it comes to my favorites. The first is the dark, evil, ominous type, and in stark contrast, the second is the small, adorable, and lovable type. There is something about both of these types of character designs that just manage to resonate with me more than any other, and when it comes to the cute designs, they can completely convince me to give whatever product they are from a shot. Obviously, not every single cute character design works with me, but there are ones that have managed to grab my attention over the years and drawn me into loving them, such as with Starfy and, obviously, Kirby. This also happens to be the case with today’s game, Gimmick!.

I knew practically nothing about this game going into it, other than that it was an NES game that was only ever initially released in Japan and… Scandinavia, for some reason. However, when I saw the cover of the game and got a good look at the main character, I wanted to then play it as soon as possible, because he is fucking adorable. Not the version of him on the cover that Backloggd has, but the one for the Japanese cover, which, again, looks really cute. However, as I would soon find out, just because a character is adorable, that doesn’t mean their game would be automatically be a masterpiece. That’s not to say it is bad, because it is still pretty good, and I enjoyed it enough, but there was quite a bit that made it very hard to fully enjoy.

The story is a pretty unique one for an NES game, where a girl gets a gift for her birthday who turns out to be Yumetaro, a toy that quickly becomes her favorite, and in spite of this, her other toys then capture her and transport her to another dimension (yes, none of this is explained, why do you ask?), so it is up to Yumetaro to rescue her, which may not be THAT creative, but compared to many other games on the system, it was refreshing to see, the graphics are really great, having a very pleasant style, with all of the characters and the enemies looking really adorable and appealing, although the environments leave a lot to be desired, the music is wonderful, having plenty of tracks that were pleasant to listen to, even if some of them blend into each other, the control is basic, and you can get accustomed to it pretty quickly, even if some of the functions like the attacking being a bit hard to get used to at first, and the gameplay is simple, yet inventive and enjoyable for the time.

The game is a 2D puzzle platformer, where you take control of Yumetaro, go through a set of six to seven levels through plenty of different environments, use your magic star power to take out many different enemies that range from simple and docile, to fast and quite threatening, gather plenty of different powerups to either give you an advantage against your foes, heal yourself, or even help out in solving some unique puzzles, and take on several bosses that will test you in both your reflexes, as well as how you can control your weapon. On the surface, it is a pretty basic NES platformer, and for a good amount of it, it is, but there is a good amount here that makes it stand out from others.

Like I mentioned before, this is moreso a puzzle platformer rather than a regular one, and when it comes to the puzzles that you need to solve in the game, they are actually pretty well-done and clever. These aren’t puzzles you necessarily need to solve if you wanna get to the end, but you do need to solve them if you wanna get all the hidden goodies, and while some of them may be cryptic, finding out how to complete them does feel satisfying. For example, in stage two, in order to get the hidden treasure in the stage, you have to push this cannon down to a ledge that is right next to it, and then you have to hop on top of one of the cannonballs to then ride over to a hidden area that has the treasure in it. It isn’t too complicated for the most part, but it does make you use your brain, and I appreciate that, especially when other games of the same genre on this system don’t do that too often. This also extends to the bosses, who also have specific means in which you need to take them out, rather then just “hit them a couple of times and win”, so that was nice to experience.

However, what wasn’t nice was the thing that ultimately made it much more frustrating to play through then I would’ve liked it to be: your main attack. Like I mentioned before, your attack consists of this star power, which you can use and throw at enemies, and it is a useful enough attack, but not only does it need to be charged up, which can be a detriment in some situations, but every time you throw the star, you throw it straight down in front of you. This means that you have to be very specific with not just where you throw the star, but also in what direction, what height, and at what speed, which does make things more interesting, but not that much more enjoyable. I found this to be incredibly frustrating in numerous circumstances, where you need to solve a specific puzzle by throwing this star in a very specific direction, or where I could only hit the boss if I throw it at a VERY specific angle and speed. Sure, this isn’t a terrible mechanic, and I am sure plenty of others could get a hang of it just fine, but for me, it does drag the entire game down quite a bit. Not to mention, the game also does that NES thing I hate, where in order to get the true ending, you HAVE to get these hidden treasures, and if you just finish it normally, it will tell you to try again and send you all the way back to the beginning. That’s just stupid, no matter what game it comes from.

Overall, despite a pretty wonky attack and the ending requirements being pretty strict, I still found Gimmick! to be a really good time, and one of the more underappreciated games from the NES’s library. I would definitely recommend it for those who love these types of puzzle-based platformers, as well as those who are fans of NES games in general, because it will manage to satisfy those cravings you may have for how short it does last. And hey, if you do wanna play it, there is a remaster of it out for modern consoles, so I would recommend giving that a shot. Although, I would wait for a price decrease first. Seriously, I don’t care how much you add onto the original game, $15 is way too much for a game like this.

Game #443

Gimmick! must be one of the most advanced games on the NES library. Even if it's brutally hard, to a point where you'll definitely need to run through the game a few times if you want to get that True Ending, I find it to be challenging and fair once you get the hang of its mechanics.

Using the star as a proyectile and platform at the same time has a learning curve, but the skill expression of each player is very noticeable once you understand how it works. Also, there are secrets hidden everywhere.

With great visuals, and an absolutely incredible OST, I find it to be quite underrated. Definitely worth a shot.

platformers are not a series of hundreds of indexes to choose from to press the right buttons at the right time to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. platformers are first and foremost, movement, and secondly, context.

the context of being catapulted over a pit passing different hazards falling on you. board a boat in order to enter a pirate ship, find a way up and confront the captain in the plank. accidentally enter a world with all its fauna simply navigating through while you go to your destination, climbing on top of each of them to navigate the terrain.

platformers are about the feeling of navigating in a world that is constantly asking you, are you here, and answering it directly, that yes, you are here. living and experiencing the world, passing through your senses, embracing you, thanking you, for being in here with them.

Hands down, everyone: Gimmick is the best-looking game on the NES catalog.
No, no, no, I don't want to hear about your Kirbys, your Batmans and your Marios: From its beautiful, detailed sprites to its masterful use of the color pallet, Gimmick manages to rival games like Asterix or Lucky Dime on inferior hardware.

The music also bops; it's Sunsoft at its finest, and you'll find yourself looking for the whole OST online after you've completed the game; that's how good it is.

That being said, it's so sad that the gameplay suffers from such a dumb, fatal flaw.
Let's just go straight to the point: Your attack sucks.
All you do is spawn a star over your head (after waiting for 2 seconds for it to appear) and throw it on the ground, expecting it to bounce right into the enemy's weak spot and yes, it's as terrible at it sounds.

Between this, Trip World's pathetic baby kick attack, and Aero the Acrobat's kamikaze bite, I've noticed an unhealthy pattern in Sunsoft games of making their protagonists as useless as possible, and it definitely damages what could have been one of the top 5 games on this system since the platform challenges are very well thought-out and the puzzles quite original too.

I'd definitely just watch a gameplay and appreciate how gorgeous Gimmick looks... from a distance, as far as possible.