Ganbare Goemon: Hoshizorashi Dynamites Arawaru!! (GB) playthrough log

This game is pretty basic, but good... It's gameplay is in the style of the SNES Goemon games, but the platforming is much simpler and more generic. It has an overworld map like SNES Goemon 2, and a few towns between levels to rest/save/shop.. the graphics are actually decent for a GBC game.

You only play as mostly Goemon and Ebisumaru in this. There's one section with Yae where you're swimming up a waterfall while shooting/avoiding incoming enemies, and another section with Sasuke where you fly and shoot horizontally, but the main game is only Goemon/Ebi.

The story starts off with Goemon and Ebisumaru separated, they both happened to be on a trip to different parts of the continent. Then, a cat-shaped UFO appears, and the villain Seikuushi Dynamite sends out his robot cat army to try and conquer Japan. You can choose to start with either Goemon or Ebisumaru and do their separate stages in a different order depending on which you choose, but you end up doing both of their stages anyway.. Ebisumaru's weapon in this game is a dust pan, but otherwise he controls exactly the same as Goemon.

Yae and Sasuke see the enemy attacking, but they don't do anything because Goemon isn't there... lmao so Goemon is like Goku now basically.

The stages are pathetically easy and simplistic. but it's kind of enjoyable somehow I dunno.. health pickups are everywhere, and the only time I ever die is when an enemy hits me in midair over a pit, which doesn't happen often. There's also various side paths that are easy to find, where you'll either find a fortune doll or a 1up charm. There's usually about 2 fortune dolls per level to find. There's 25 dolls to find in the game and they come in gold, white, and black. The gold ones raise your health after finding 5, and there's 15 in all. Collecting all 5 white dolls gives you a new pipe for Goemon which lets you break through certain walls. Collecting all 5 black dolls gives you mini-Ebisu for getting into small areas.. these 2 abilities are really only used for finding more gold fortune dolls and 100%-ing the game.

There's this one desert level with multi-colored illuminati pyramid-eye enemies... aaaah wtf? and one of Ebisumaru's stages near the beginning is an ice stage.. The bosses range from stupidly easy to practically un-dodgable, but I was able to beat all of them easily anyway.

After beating the first boss with Goemon, you arrive at a teahouse on the central part of the map, and then switch to Ebisumaru and do his stages. And then after being the 2nd boss, Ebisumaru meets up with Goemon at that same teahouse, and you can now switch between them and use their abilities to go back to previous levels and get dolls that you missed.

The 3rd town in the game has a whole bunch of minigames that are actually kinda fun.. basic Mario Party-style stuff. it's a really quick way to grind money, but there's no reason to because this game is so easy.

Then there's an annoying stage with slowly rising/falling lava that kills you instantly. It's not hard it's just slow and I killed myself a couple times just out of impatience.. Sasuke helps you get to the enemy's base and then you get the game's first Impact battle.. It's actually really close to the gameplay of the SNES Impact battles, just the controls and enemy movements are a lot more simplified. I couldn't figure out how to do the laser but I did it once on accident.

Then there's a village of moon rabbits.. then a couple other stages and a final Impact fight to end the game. Even the final stage didn't feel hard at hard at all in the slightest.. but still I enjoyed it. The music is just classic reused Goemon tunes, which probably helped a lot to make it seem more fun than it actually is.

If you beat the game with all 25 fortune dolls found, you unlock 2 extra stages. One of them is a throwback to the giant staircase stage from NES Goemon 2, and the shrine at the top of the staircase has this old guy who lets you refight the 2 Impact bosses. The other stage is this underground area with a guy who lets you refight the non-Impact bosses.