Willow (Arcade) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
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- Опубликовано: 14 ноя 2018
- A playthrough of Capcom's 1989 license-based action-platforming arcade title, Willow.
Played on the normal difficulty level, default settings.
Willow is one of two separate games Capcom developed based on Lucasfilms' 1988 high-fantasy movie. But whereas the arcade version plays like a traditional side-scrolling platformer, the NES was a whole different beast - it was an ARPG somewhat like the top-down Zelda games. You can find my playthrough of that version here: • Willow (NES) Playthrou...
The arcade version, if I can hazard a guess here, is the far lesser known of the two. It is the only game Capcom published in the first year following the CPS-1 hardware's introduction to not receive a port to a console. I believe it's also one of the extreme few (along with Nemo) CPS1 games that has never seen a home port at all, even through modern emulation-based compilations. I can only imagine that licensing with LucasFilms has a lot of bearing on that. Do any of you guys know? I'm curious about that one.
The game itself is pretty good. You switch back and forth between Willow and Madmartigan as you run from left-to-right, killing anything that breathes, collecting money, upgrading at shops, and saving random babies. The control is tight - this is golden-era Capcom, after all - and the platforming feels natural. Just be sure to keep in mind that Willow is a "pure" arcade experience in how it hungers for your coins. It's very hard. Maybe it's not quite Ghosts'n Goblins hard, but if you had played this to mastery in the arcade, you would have gone broke before managing a 1 credit clear. I would've never been able to afford to play it as much as I practiced for this video if I had to drop a quarter per every two lives. Oh yeah, and instant respawns upon death? Hahahahaha, good one. No, there's a checkpoint system in place. If you can't finish off a boss in one life, you'd best figure it out. No credit spamming here - it requires legit skills and memorization of patterns.
It's fun, but it's also very old-fashioned in its design. I tend to think of Willow as the last true "80s" arcade game that Capcom produced. They released a couple more games in 1989, but Willow seems to draw the line of demarcation between their 8 and 16-bit era design philosophies. Willow sits with Strider, Ghouls n Ghosts, and Dynasty Wars in its traditional (though highly refined) style.
But following Willow, Capcom's next release, UN Squadron, established the more energetic, colorful, and flashy style that defined their arcade games for most of the 1990s. Case in point: Final Fight came directly after UN Squadron. Coincidentally, Final Fight ended up being Capcom's final official arcade release of the 1980s, just squeaking in under the wire with a December 1989 release date.
So that bit of musing on Willow's significance in Capcom history aside, it is right on part with their other greats of the time. Just like the game play, the presentation is equally as dated yet still excellent. The sprites are on the small side and the animation is a bit limited, but the quality of the artistry on display here is fantastic. The non-digitized stills of the actors are all easily recognizable, and the backdrops in the outdoor levels really make for some sights to behold. The music is great with classic old-school FM tunes that hit the fantasy mark dead-on, and the sound effects are well done, even including a few muddled digital samples of screams and bangs for good effect. And I really got a kick out of the ending - it's one of those games that rewards you with a big chunk of digitized speech for a job well done, and I found it really "neat." I know that sounds corny to say, but cool doesn't quite say it. It was "neat," and totally unexpected. The game is already hard enough to provide a sense of satisfaction once you've overcome its challenges, but that ending made it feels just a bit more special. All the more so, I would think, if you'd done if after pumping tons of money into it.
It would be easy to say this was a generic fantasy platformer, but that would unkind and unfair. There's nothing wrong with doing a game that treads familiar ground if it is done well.
And you play as a Nelwyn (midget) and as a Daikini (Val Kilmer), which normally wouldn't be that exciting, if not for after the South Park movie I can't help but think of the pair as the "midget in a bikini" from the TV news.
Lodge that association in your brain and I doubt you'll ever be able to play this again without cracking a smile.
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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Whatever Capcom's arcade adaptation of Willow may lack in originality, it more than makes up for it in its quality. It's a shame that this never got a home port - it's an excellent, well-polished old-school platformer. Any fans of classic Capcom will instantly recognize and love what's on offer here.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_(video_game)
As I recall, there was a tie-in game on the NES. IT played more like Legend of Zelda.
@@gawainethefirst And was actually pretty good for the time. It was like an alt-telling of the film with decent game mechanics.
Games like this are why ps4 dreams is neccessary. If somebody is passionate enough you can recreate this entire game in dreams
"Willow, be careful. Baumorda's fingers penetrate outside of the villa."
One of the most strange fantasy game warnings ever.
Sounds sexual 🤣
I was just about to make a similar comment: What kind of game is this? 1:52
I be amazed if Capcom brought this back among with the NES version, those games among with the movie are the reason to why Willow gained quite the cult following since the late 1980s.
Their was even talk about a sequel for the film version of Willow for years, if it ever happened, I would be interested to see how the sequel would turn out.
I remember putting a quarter in this game and dying almost immediately, like less than 5 seconds of playing. I think it was a "continue?" screen and I was like hell yeah. put my money in then died instantly falling off a cliff, and I do remember giving up at that point.
I never even knew about this game till the early days of MAME. None of our arcades here had it, and I never recall any magazines talking about it. It is a great game in it's own right, but I'll always love the NES game far more. That one is an all time classic if you ask me.
Nice! The graphics and animation are pretty top notch. There's a lot of little details that make it feel really fleshed out.
Before I grew up with LOTR series i first watched Willow and there was Val Kilmer in it. Such a wonderful movie. 💙💙💙
Damn! I remember playing this arcade game in the community E-Z laundromat! And at Chucky Cheeze!!!
Man, George Lucus is a genius!
If Willow was this proficient in the movie with magic, he could have beaten Bavmorda single handed! Also, Madmartigan is much nicer to Willow in the game then he was in the film. :D
I just released madmortigan and laughed good at how pleasant he was to willow. I was actually wondering if he would call him "Peck" at least once.haha
Early celebrity reference! I can’t believe Val was in that movie, it’s been a long time.
That wagon scene was clutch. Talk about enemy spam, lol
Great job.
Thanks for the upload, I remember this really fondly from when I was young, and now I can see why - aside from the length this could totally be released as an indie game today and it'd do well.
I LOVE this game! Capcom needs to pay whatever licensing fees they have to in order to get this game on home consoles. Seriously.
I just bought the arcade board of this, I guess they could change the look of the main sprites and title, that would get around it
I needed to see this... Thank you. It cheered me up
Looks awesome!! ^^ It's definitely Ghosts 'n Goblins-esque in terms of control style, and the presentation is just top-notch too! Yep, this is definitely a *Capcom* game!! The evil queen's minions turning a wolf into a giant wolf boss reminds me of how *Kamek* turns things into bosses in *Yoshi's Island* which is kind of funny. The narrator in the ending is great too.
*"Willow Ufgood,* a great magician. *Madmartigan,* a great warrior. Their names will live on *_FOREVER!!"_* ^^ Awesome.
It also has a Strider type gameplay too.
These graphics are actually fantastic for 1989. For real.
Some awesome gameplay. I love the powerups in this game. good fun.
Played this on a table cabinet in a old school pizza hut back in the day🥲🙏
While I prefer the NES game, I do enjoy this one a lot. I kind of miss when Capcom would do a home and arcade version of their license properties, such as this or Little Nemo. Too bad none of the Disney characters or properties they had the rights to back in the day never got the arcade treatment.
I agree with you. I love this one, but I like the NES version much more. Nemo was great too :) I would've loved to see Capcom Disney arcades - DuckTales or Chip n Dale would've been great!
But then again, Konami did a bang up job in filling in the gaps for good arcade games based on cartoons.
Definitely an extremely hard game. Wonderful game play!
Thanks!
This game still kicks ass 😁😁😁
i used to drop so many nickles on this game when i was a kid and nickle arcades were a thing
5:18 THANK
A fellow follower of LordBBH I see.
While I've never really cared about the movie this game is based on, I've always wanted to play Willow, but never got around to it. To me, this game looks like it plays like a mixture of a more balanced version of Ghouls 'N Ghosts with a little bit of Strider thrown in. It was also great to see Capcom's classic 2D sprite work and graphics in action for the first time in a while. It makes me remember their glory days when they actually gave a damn about the games they made and didn't completely cave into the pressure of 3D-graphics gaming...yet.
Considering Capcom and Sega's on-and-off business bromance from 1989 to 2000, I'm disappointed that Capcom couldn't have sublicensed this game out to Sega to convert it like their other ported Genesis/Mega Drive hits they've made. Well, sir, great playthrough, and keep up the good work.
"There's a pec with an acorn, pointing out at me!!"
This actually looks decent, wonder why it never came out on the SNES
Great game... i remember e when i was young....
phenomenal game. stays mostly true to the movie which is one of my top 5 favorite movies.
Easily .This movie is terrific
Reminds me of "Conquest of the Crystal Palace" (I think that was the name) for the NES. Good stuff.
That was a great game too
I wonder if Celeste was inspired by Willow's design. Long bright red hair, short, blue shirt
@@jaypond4368 Like the frozen Mama Celeste pizzas? I loved those as a kid!
Classic Styl,e we need more of these
loved this game
Arcade1Up needs to bring this out ASAP
How do you climb up the tall ledges?
SPENT A FEW HOURS ON THIS 1 DAY W/ A FRIEND IN THE NICKLE ARCADE & BEAT IT...BACK IN 1989
"winners don't use drugs."
Bluish-purple wolf dog thing, takes two hits to kill. Dude in a suit of armor, one. Ah, video game logic...
looks amazing for a 30 year old game. just fukkin ossum.
This game should've gotten an SNES port.
i have a friend that know this game front and back, up and down. he teachme to finish, and even know some bugs like one in the very final boss room.
I never knew this existed.
Where'd you get these seeds?!
Shop Keeper: My information is:
1 - Eat food and you will not starve
2 - Kill enemies. Do not let them kill you.
3 - If your health goes down, you should bring it back up.
4 - The enemies will throw and fire things at you. This will hurt, so you should avoid it.
5 - No, you are not the Willow from Buffy. She had a much better run than you could hope for.
6 - Nah, the sequel novels didn't get picked up either. Too much 'happy ending override' going on.
7 - Lucas still talks like this will be revived any second now. No, I don't know if the Mouse owns it now.
8 - I really don't have time for your xover fic between this, Dragon Heart and 1981's Dragonslayer.
9 - I've...never heard of this Ghosts N' Goblins thingy...have to speak to my lawyer.
10 - Bavmorda is a bad person. I do not like her. No sir, not one little bitty bit.
I have this game on my Fake psp tho aka the Gameplayer Model mp5 😅😅
how do you play this kind of arcade port?
Download MAME. It plays all of the good old arcade games
those wolf rat things in the beginning, when they howl it sounds like the roblox deathsound
Val Kilmer and Warwick Davis need to be in the next Marvel vs Capcom.
That would be frickin sweet
7:32 Hello Strider
The crystal magic seemed less powerful to me than explosive magic.
I think it's meant more for defense since it can absorb projectiles.
Not Capcom's finest but still a very good game, with some great attention to detail, like the brazier taking life during the final boss fight with Bavmorda, just like in the movie. However, there's something about the graphics that has always put me off, even back when the game was new; it feels too animesque and "cutesy" (I have no qualms with either styles, they just don't feel right here), almost like it was a different game that was quicky adapted to the movie license, while also farming those impressive cutscene portraits to a completely different artist.
Feels like another familiar Capcom game...just can't put my finger on it
Nemo?
I remember playing the NES version. Very easy game.
I can't find this movie anywhere, at least not for a reasonable price
I got my copy a couple of years ago out of a Walmart bargain bin.
Also, could you imagine how someone would react to the movie if they played either this or the NES game first?
3 bucks on ebay
I was lucky enough to find a VHS copy of this movie at the local thrift store like a year ago
From capcom and Disney interactive
Hey NintendoComplete, what did you think of the movie it was based on?
I thought it was okay, but kinda meh. I know a lot of people loved it, but I always felt like it was a second-rate Lord of the Rings type story. How about you, what did you think of it?
NintendoComplete I remember liking it as a kid and having a sleepover and his parents watching it but I haven’t seen it since I was a kid. It would be interesting to see it from an adult perspective.
And it did give us Warwick Davis before he starred in all those Leprechaun movies
CAP
COM
CAP
COM
So excited to see the new Willow series.
The OG Cuphead
Strider team made this...
Evident by this voice clip at 7:32
I wonder why the cast goes on by nicknames...
It's funny how Madmartigan is just Zero.
an entirely different game compared to its top down NES version.
33:19
So Val Kilmer has a game!
Willow Ofgood
I could never get past the first boss 💩
Why no snes port?!?! Smh
I would love this on my Vita, it seems perfect for it.
I'm not sure where the homebrew scene is at on Vita, but I'd imagine that if you installed a custom firmware, there are probably arcade emulators for it that you could this through (like Mame, FBA, or something like that)
I loved this movie. You can get it on Amozon for the low low price of.....
$130.00 😳 WTF?
Wait, seriously? I have a DVD copy I bought out of the dirt cheap bin at Walmart years ago. Hahaha who'd have thought it would ever be worth anything?
@@NintendoComplete the DVD might not be worth that much (the copies I saw on Amazon were special edition Blu ray). From what I heard though, the production company discontinued making copies of the film, so now I guess they are pretty hard to come by.
Ah okay. Not that it matters much anyway, bit it seems odd that a movie like Willow would be expensive in any form.
I realize I’m replying to a 2 year old comment, but you can watch Willow for free on Disney+
@@webbers4life146 yeah but then you have to pay for Disney+...... No thanks. Besides, about 8 months after I posted originally, another production run on blu-ray came out, so I got it for $9.00
34:30
I prefer the one that was more like Zelda
Sounds like Sega music
YM2151 is similar to YM2612
Treasure box out in the open that is easy to get to, 200 gold. Treasure box kind of hidden on the side and requires some platform jumping to get to it, 1 gold. Man, Capcom are dicks. LOL
I remember playing this before playing the NES game but was upset that the NES version was not a port of the arcade game. lol
Graphics are pretty good. Gameplay seems solid enough--challenging. Level design is kind of meh. The story follows the film well enough. But man... that music is horrendous.
Horrendous? It's awesome! It was made by the Mega Man 2 composer for christ sake!
Where did you find this? Please send me a link!
rather play as madmartican
You do in other stages
@@NintendoComplete yep just noticed right after i posted this comment
This game should be on Disney+
stage 3 is to hard wizard boss is to hard and annoying.
A shame George Lucas didn't venture to flesh out more on the Willow franchise. The movie and games were classic! It'd be cool if they came out with a sequel and Willow became like as beast as a sorcerer as he is by the end of this game. Hopefully, whoever holds the rights to the franchise wouldn't fuck up his character like Luke Skywalker's was. lol
Lucas and comic scribe Chris Claremont did a book trilogy that took place years after the film. It was garbage. :(
David S. Really? I never knew about that. How garbage was it and why?
But hey, why not just give those sequels a sort of spinoff-reboot? Some reboots can be done right...
@@CPT85 For starters, straight off the bat they kill Madmartigan and Sonya along with their kingdom off-screen. It gets way darker still. Willow who is now a full sorcerer goes by a different name, something like Drumheller or some such. He's broody, cranky, and an asshole. Elora Danen is a whiny, stuck-up Princess and the only hero character in the first book turns out to be a traitor. It retains NONE of the charm and fun of the film. They made three books, I barely got through the first, Shadow Moon. Trust me, avoid this. It's depressing.
@@DaVeO52 So let me get this straight, someone took a George Lucas movie and made a sequel set many years after the conclusion of the first movie where they completely negate the accomplishments of the first movie. Then kill off most of the established characters, then take the main character and turn him into a bitter grumpy old man? Never heard of this happening before. This was certainly the last time this ever happened.
@@riftvallance2087 LOL, I know. I think Alien 3 stole this plot from the books.
The ending sucks