Wow... I LOVE this game's art style. It's so vibrant and pretty. I just couldn't stop taking screenshots while I was playing. Even though I couldn't read any of the text, this game does a great job of telling its story through graphics alone.
Gameplay wise, this has a lot of improvements over the first SNES game. Here's the main things that are different.
- Goemon can now charge up coins to turn them into flaming coins.
- Goemon's pipe weapon can now get upgraded to the chain pipe, instead of the dumb yoyo.. and Ebisumaru has his own attacks now that are wider ranged.
- This game introduces various giant robot vehicles, including the village-destroying Goemon Impact! At the end of some levels is an Impact section where you rampage through a village, followed by a first-person boss battle.
- Sasuke the robot ninja is added as one of the main playable characters, he has a shorter range attack but is more mobile.
- Goemon, Ebisumaru, and Sasuke all have different play styles. Sasuke is the most agile but his weapons have lower range and attack power. Ebisumaru has the strongest attacks but can't jump very well. Goemon is the well rounded character.
Story (taken from gamefaqs guide):
After their last adventure, Goemon and Ebisumaru decide to go relax on vacation at a top holiday spot, Ryukyu Resort. Unfortunately the holiday is about to come to an abrupt end, as a mysterious figure watches them at a distance. The unknown person confronts Goemon and Ebisumaru. Goemon and Ebisumaru come to a screeching halt and look to see who this guy is... it's Sasuke the ninja! Sasuke says that he has grave news from Wise Old Man. It seems the peace of Japan is about to be disturbed by the threat of invasion. He then explains that the evil western warlord Maggenesu has sailed to Japan with his hordes of Bunny-men to invade, conquer and worst of all, westerinize Japan!
This game is arranged into a levels on a world map like SMW. The levels are just basic Mario-sized platformer levels. There are some towns where you can rest, buy equipment, and save your game. The villagers walking around in town are now friendly. They don't hurt you... unless you attack them, in which case everyone gets mad and attacks you.
I died at the first Impact boss a lot just because I wasn't used to the controls. It's not that hard though, just a matter of knowing when to attack and when to defend.
There's a secret level in world 2 that you can find by opening up a hidden passage in the town... This level is intense... There's these platforms are complete trolls and will not start moving until you get close to them... The food-based level in world 3 is amazing but really hard... One of the levels in world 4 has this annoying enemy that spawns out smaller enemies that grab onto you and hinder your jumping ability, and you have to shake left and right to get them off, these enemies combined with the tiny platforms makes this level kind of stressful.. World 5 only has a couple of snow levels, including one where you're being chased downhill by a snowball... There's just so much good level design here.
Then there's the 3rd and final Impact fight, which is ridiculously hard. I only just barely managed to beat him with a sliver of my energy left even after blocking most of his attacks and spamming punches and ryo shots whenever I could.
The last level takes place in a Japanese castle, like in all the previous Goemon games, and has a combination of overhead exploration sections and platformer sections... this part of the game I'd say is on par with some of the hardest parts of the first SNES game... It took quite a few tries with full armor/health and some memorization to make it to the end of this.
The boss here is easy.. but then just as you thought it was over, the bad guy takes control of Impact, and the real final boss fight begins. While Impact follows you with his crosshair and tries to shoot you, rabbit people are throwing bombs, and you have to hit the bombs so that they land in Impact's mouth. This wasn't that hard since this boss battle is its own stage on the map, so you could easily go back and buy armor and rice balls which gives you plenty of room to screw up...
and that's the end of the game.
...but wait! There's actually a hidden secret level back in that amusement park place. If you try hard mode versions of all 4 of the minigames, then you get access to the "Hell level". This is hardest level in the game.. but I still didn't find it that hard. Just took a few tries to memorize the level and I got to the end of it no problem. At the end, you battle Dracula.
This is such a great game. I can't believe I missed out on this until now. The lack of an english translation doesn't hinder it all that much, but I'd gladly play through it again if an english patch ever comes out.
Screenshots:
No comments:
Post a Comment