This is one of the last of the classic-styled 2D Goemon platformers. This game feels just like a carbon copy of SNES Goemon 2 and 4 and Goemon's Great Adventure... It doesn't try to do anything new at all, it's basically just more of the same, which is great. It's graphics are pretty good for a 2D PSX game with 3D polygons, but not quite not as good looking as the N64 games.
Each world follows the formula of 2 stages, then a town, then another stage, followed by a castle stage with a boss at the end, and every odd world has an Impact battle. Also the stages are timed, and there's no health pickups laying around or dropped from enemies. The difficulty is toned down a bit compared to GGA, and is more in the area of Goemon 2's difficulty level.
The towns all have guards blocking the exit, and you need to complete a menial NPC quest to get the pass needed to progress. Usually this just involves going into a certain house and completing a minigame or getting an item for a character in another house... it's just a pointless way to extend the length of the game which is already very short.
You can play as any of the 4 main characters and switch between them whenever you want, they each have their own special abilities that are required for certain levels. Goemon has his chain pipe, Ebisumaru can glide by holding up fans, and Yae and Sasuke can both swim underwater... Ebisumaru is actually the most useful in this, mostly because his attack has the best range and his projectile can shoot in almost all directions.
The first castle is kind of tricky, it has these bounce pads that only bounce you high if you hold the jump button at the right time.. at the end is a boss battle against Kabuki, the same boss that was in a few other games.
Then after the first castle level is an Impact boss. The mechanics are almost exactly the same as in the N64, and I figured out the combos easily.
The 2nd world picks up in difficulty a bit, and starts having some annoyingly positioned enemies that can ambush you and make you fall in a pit if you don't see them coming. The 2nd castle is a bunch of food-based obstacles, and the boss at the end is Plasma. He has a bunch of weird electric attacks that are hard to dodge.. this is where I would've started to have a lot of trouble, except, for some reason this game lets you continue from checkpoints even after you get gameover. You can even go back to town and buy items and still resume from the checkpoint. This is one of the main reasons this game is a lot easier than GGA.
The 3rd world has a bunch of weird gimmicky levels. There's a hang gliding section where you just have to move around in the air to avoid enemies.. and a carnival level where you jump across carousel horseswhile avoiding unkillable floating spike enemies.. and an airplane ride that plays like a horizontal shooter.. The 3rd castle is almost all underwater. The boss of this stage is also entirely underwater, but he's kind of easy once you know what to do. Most of the underwater enemies in this game are very easy to avoid.
The 4th world has some really tricky chain pipe swinging sections. Then there's also a section that requires Ebisumaru's fan gliding ability. There's also an optional sidequest in the 4th world that requires you to go back to the 1st town and get a key, then come back to the 4th town and enter a locked house for a sidescrolling section... (oh god I'd be so screwed without a walkthrough).. this unlocks a completely optional stage on the map, which has even more hard chain pipe platforming.
The 4th castle is really cool, it's a direct nod to Goemon 4, with a bunch of sports-themed obstacles, like treadmills and barbells, and giant spikey baseballs.. This is probably my favorite stage in the game. It's just pure high quality platforming design... The boss of the 4th castle is Seppukumaru, the green haired villain from Goemon 4.
The 5th world is mostly icey stages with snow-based enemies... The 5th town is haunted and only has dogs and spirits walking around outside for some reason... Again, right here I'd be totally screwed without a walkthrough. What you need to do to get the pass for this town is: talk to an old lady in the 5th town, then go back to the 3rd town, talk to some guy there, buy a certain item at that town's restaurant, and then go back to the 5th town and talk to an old lady to get a pass... sheesh.
Then the 5th castle was strangely very easy. It's a direct nod to some of the stage gimmicks from SNES Goemon 2, and the boss is a guy in a rabbit-shaped vehicle.. didn't have any problem beating this stage on my first try.
It seems like all of the bosses so far are all characters from other games.. but the main villains are actually these recycling can guys. Like, actual recycling cans with eyes and arms/legs.. get it, cuz this whole game is just recycling content ...they take orders from this french dude with a really weird outfit. I can't really tell what's going on from the story other than that.. Also the cutscenes in this game are all just still images with voice acting, it feels really cheap.. but I guess they were just trying to emulate the feel of the SNES games or something.
World 6, the final world, has stages that take place in a recycling factory... There are some decently challenging mine cart sections, and steam blowing out of the walls and floors.. and more spring platforms that are hard to time.. the last castle stage has a miniboss battle where you fight all 5 of the different colored recycling can guys.. and then the the final boss, the french weirdo who flies around in a robotnik-like machine with easy patterns.
That wasn't too hard.. it was kind of fun but kind of short. Even the longest/hardest levels didn't really use their full potential.. oh, and the ending scene is as bizarre as ever.
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