None of the gameplay is too good, but I definitely think it's more playable overall than the first Golgo 13. Two things that stood out for me after playing the NES version are the story, which has more tragic and heavy overtones than you'd expect toward the end, and the excellent music. This soundtrack is seriously underrated. It's oddly atmospheric and somehow pairs perfectly with surreal subterranean sci-fi adventure.
I had a weird arc with this game, because I had this as a kid and loved it (even if I could never get anywhere and never beat it), and found out the connection to Golgo 13 when I saw some gameplay clip of that game years later and noticed the menus similarity. Kind of wish I still had it since it's one of the few games I bought new with my own money back in the day, strangely I think I bought it from Blockbuster as a budget release? Maybe it wasn't new, but it sure wasn't as expensive as it is now.
Wurm/Bazolder has excellent presentation. The graphics and sound are wonderful. The gameplay is a bit so-so... At this point in the system's life, this presentation is the norm. The clever use of tiles makes Moby look bigger and more colorful than other Fami/NES sprites. She has a RED suit and GREEN hair! It's a fantastically designed sprite. The darker shades of colors for the background tiles help them blend in with the black looking really nice on a CRT. To your question at the end: There's tons of shades of green and blue on the Famicom, but not many for yellow. The yellow shades are all fairly "ugly" looking, either brown or greenish in tint or just almost too close to white. They most likely wanted Moby to have a light green-yellow shade going by the box art and they probably designed her first only to realize later the Fami did not have those shades needed. Then they shipped the game off with the current box art because they didn't want to pay for a re-painting.
The idea behind this game is awesome. "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" but sci-fi and with some drama? That's seriously neat. Great music, some of the graphics look good too (though a lot of it reminds me of Golgo 13)... but gameplay is so-so. It's worth a playthrough, but probably not more than that.
I played this one last year and yeah I'm one of those people who tried it just because I liked the female on the cover. I find this one still kind of overlooked nowadays which surprises me considering it even had a US release. It's one of those games that makes me go "I wish there was a sequel to this" because I'd love a more refine take on this kind of game but you know, that's far long gone.
Supposedly Shoichi Yoshikawa translated this one himself... there was a webpage about this game that he'd maintained for a long while, until 2015 or so. If you use Wayback Machine, you might be able to find it. There was a lot of interesting info there, like the fact that this game was supposed to come out 'much' earlier than 1991 (in 1989, I think?), but bugtesting took a lot of time.
The one thing I know about this one is that it was supposedly completed in 1989, but it took about 2 years to bugtest the game. I'm sure it'd be less expensive if they'd actually released the game around then 🤑
the cover art thing makes me think of that old simpsons clip 'do *you* come with the car?' luring them to enter the contest. so maybe it's like that, IDK. as for the game, seems like it had some neat ideas like the multiple game modes but when none of them are particularly great it doesn't quite come together in the end. not one I ever really got around to on NES but doesn't sound like I was missing a whole lot.
I had forgot about this game entirely up until last year. A local collectibles shop started to get games about a year earlier after a move and it came in maybe 6-9mo ago and it caught my eye, so did the $40 price tag which was even then fair which is sad. It's a good game, B tier entirely, you can do better. But the thing is it does the mix that Golgo-13 did but notably better. The box art I remember in the day put me off it, looked stupid/trashy reminded me of that fake ass Atari art that looked nothing like the blocky disasters on the carts. Had i known it had anime roots, I would have got it probably around 1995-96 when I started buying cheap NES games second hand local to where I was then. The thing is with this one, it excels at largely nothing, but does all the random bits pretty well and a solid little story holds it together well. The story and modes, it makes it like a living series of episodes of some 80s anime TV or OVA series. You have your various bits of action, the discovery with the crew, then some epic battle where everyone working some machinery in the big ship(or mecha) converse, think, team up and attack together to pop a hole through the big bad monster, followed with victory and more story progression. It just works.
It’s interesting to see Japanese dudes be more into female centered series than western dudes do. I don’t really know why, but I remember as a kid feeling weird playing video games and watching movies with girls on the cover. It’s really strange. It’s like oiled up dudes is fine, but not women. Probably because of how much manliness is pushed in America.
>Why is her hair green ingame but blonde in the boxart? Allegedly none of the NES/FamiCom colour palettes include a true "banana-lemon" yellow hue to use for sprites, only a 'dirty gold' off-yellow and a very bright lime-green as alternatives to chose from, which can't really be used for a stand in for bright-blonde hair all that well.
None of the gameplay is too good, but I definitely think it's more playable overall than the first Golgo 13. Two things that stood out for me after playing the NES version are the story, which has more tragic and heavy overtones than you'd expect toward the end, and the excellent music. This soundtrack is seriously underrated. It's oddly atmospheric and somehow pairs perfectly with surreal subterranean sci-fi adventure.
I had a weird arc with this game, because I had this as a kid and loved it (even if I could never get anywhere and never beat it), and found out the connection to Golgo 13 when I saw some gameplay clip of that game years later and noticed the menus similarity. Kind of wish I still had it since it's one of the few games I bought new with my own money back in the day, strangely I think I bought it from Blockbuster as a budget release? Maybe it wasn't new, but it sure wasn't as expensive as it is now.
Wurm/Bazolder has excellent presentation. The graphics and sound are wonderful. The gameplay is a bit so-so... At this point in the system's life, this presentation is the norm. The clever use of tiles makes Moby look bigger and more colorful than other Fami/NES sprites. She has a RED suit and GREEN hair! It's a fantastically designed sprite. The darker shades of colors for the background tiles help them blend in with the black looking really nice on a CRT.
To your question at the end: There's tons of shades of green and blue on the Famicom, but not many for yellow. The yellow shades are all fairly "ugly" looking, either brown or greenish in tint or just almost too close to white. They most likely wanted Moby to have a light green-yellow shade going by the box art and they probably designed her first only to realize later the Fami did not have those shades needed. Then they shipped the game off with the current box art because they didn't want to pay for a re-painting.
The idea behind this game is awesome. "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" but sci-fi and with some drama? That's seriously neat. Great music, some of the graphics look good too (though a lot of it reminds me of Golgo 13)... but gameplay is so-so. It's worth a playthrough, but probably not more than that.
I played this one last year and yeah I'm one of those people who tried it just because I liked the female on the cover. I find this one still kind of overlooked nowadays which surprises me considering it even had a US release. It's one of those games that makes me go "I wish there was a sequel to this" because I'd love a more refine take on this kind of game but you know, that's far long gone.
Supposedly Shoichi Yoshikawa translated this one himself... there was a webpage about this game that he'd maintained for a long while, until 2015 or so. If you use Wayback Machine, you might be able to find it. There was a lot of interesting info there, like the fact that this game was supposed to come out 'much' earlier than 1991 (in 1989, I think?), but bugtesting took a lot of time.
This looks like it was straight out of 1989
The one thing I know about this one is that it was supposedly completed in 1989, but it took about 2 years to bugtest the game. I'm sure it'd be less expensive if they'd actually released the game around then 🤑
the cover art thing makes me think of that old simpsons clip 'do *you* come with the car?' luring them to enter the contest. so maybe it's like that, IDK. as for the game, seems like it had some neat ideas like the multiple game modes but when none of them are particularly great it doesn't quite come together in the end. not one I ever really got around to on NES but doesn't sound like I was missing a whole lot.
I have a soft spot for the Famicom sci-fi games even if it feels like a slightly less epic Guardian Legend 😊
I had forgot about this game entirely up until last year. A local collectibles shop started to get games about a year earlier after a move and it came in maybe 6-9mo ago and it caught my eye, so did the $40 price tag which was even then fair which is sad. It's a good game, B tier entirely, you can do better. But the thing is it does the mix that Golgo-13 did but notably better. The box art I remember in the day put me off it, looked stupid/trashy reminded me of that fake ass Atari art that looked nothing like the blocky disasters on the carts. Had i known it had anime roots, I would have got it probably around 1995-96 when I started buying cheap NES games second hand local to where I was then. The thing is with this one, it excels at largely nothing, but does all the random bits pretty well and a solid little story holds it together well. The story and modes, it makes it like a living series of episodes of some 80s anime TV or OVA series. You have your various bits of action, the discovery with the crew, then some epic battle where everyone working some machinery in the big ship(or mecha) converse, think, team up and attack together to pop a hole through the big bad monster, followed with victory and more story progression. It just works.
It’s interesting to see Japanese dudes be more into female centered series than western dudes do. I don’t really know why, but I remember as a kid feeling weird playing video games and watching movies with girls on the cover. It’s really strange. It’s like oiled up dudes is fine, but not women. Probably because of how much manliness is pushed in America.
>Why is her hair green ingame but blonde in the boxart?
Allegedly none of the NES/FamiCom colour palettes include a true "banana-lemon" yellow hue to use for sprites, only a 'dirty gold' off-yellow and a very bright lime-green as alternatives to chose from, which can't really be used for a stand in for bright-blonde hair all that well.
80s Zero Suit Samus.
is it me, or do these graphics suck for 1991? It looks like a game from the late 80s