Goemon's Great Adventure (N64) playthrough log part 3/3

The 5th world, Floating Castle, has some really insanely cool looking levels. Took the bottom Sasuke-only path through Cloud Fortress, which lead to Sky Garden.. this stage has paths that twist around so much I have no idea which direction I'm going in most of the time.. Again I just kept to the bottom-most path with Sasuke, and found an underwater section that has tons of money pots. This is a great place to grind money for the last few passes or to stock up on lives. I dunno what else I'm missing with this level's other paths, but there's no alternate exit here anyway, only reason to go through other paths is to check out more of the level's scenery.

The other exit from Cloud Fortress leads to Wind Castle Wall. This stage involves going overtop of a castle wall, and has some windmill platforms that you can only land on while they're on a certain part of the Z axis. There's also a gold fortune doll near the end that Goemon can get, a convenient way to prepare for the last castle.

Then got to Floating World Town... That's a very silly name for a town. I like the music here... This is another huge town that's easy to get lost in. It has a really long circular outer path that borders the whole town and leads to a dead-end place with a tree.. and if you go there at night there's a ghost merchant who wants to sell his last item, a pass, so that he can move on from the earthly world.. Also there's a dumb sidequest where you have to deliver lunch to a speedy messenger guy who runs almost as fast as you.

Goemon's Great Adventure (N64) playthrough log part 2/3

This 3rd world... this is where I started having a lot of trouble with this game... The main thing that's causing me to get game over multiple times per stage is the new enemy introduced in this world, the lantern ghost.. These jerks start charging towards you as soon as they appear on the screen, and if you try and attack them like you normally would on reflex, they'll explode and damage you. It's the most unfair bullshit in this game so far. It seems the way you're supposed to deal with them is by jumping back out of the way to avoid their explosions.. But I usually get killed often enough by these things that I eventually memorize where they are and just shoot them from offscreen.

The 3rd town is "Spook Village", there's a cutscene with Wise Man.. he tells us about the great demon Dochuki who nearly destroyed the ghost world. Dochuki has been sealed for 300 years, and now Bismaru is trying to revive him. There's also a bunch of weird Iguana people in this town who give you a pass for doing a trading quest with them, and at night there's a fireworks minigame just like the one at the beginning of Goemon 3.

This world has 2 stage-based sidequests. One of them you're hunting roadside guardian statues and putting hats on them, but if you put a hat on a "fake" statue you'll lose. The "puzzle" to figure out which statues are fake is really dumb, but the main difficulty in this challenge is the time limit and the fact that enemies get in your way a lot here. The other sidequest involves hunting mushrooms in a stage with all enemies removed, and it's just a matter of figuring out the best route to take to get all of them in the time limit.

Goemon's Great Adventure (N64) playthrough log part 1/3

This is reminding me a lot of SNES Goemon 2, except it starts off a LOT harder. I'm getting game overs even in world 1. The movement is entirely 2D sidescrolling, but sometimes the 2D path twists and turns through the environment in 3D, which adds some depth to the stages.. I think the main thing that's making this harder than I'm used to is that the screen is way zoomed in, so I have to constantly take my time inching forward when I don't know what's coming up, otherwise I get ambushed by enemies and die right away. Also there seems to be some lag with your jumps and it's really easy to miss a jump and die.. It takes some getting used to this unforgiving difficulty, but it's very fun and each level is satisfying to beat.