It’s unfortunate that North America didn’t see more of Ganbare Goemon. Of the 20-or-so games the series contained, we only saw five-or-so. None of them were on the PlayStation.

It sort of makes sense that we didn’t see more of the series over here, since Japanese culture was extremely alien to Westerners at the time. In 1992 when we got Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Ganbare Goemon: Yukihime Kyuushutsu Emaki), the internet was practically non-existent. Anime (which was still often referred to as “Japanimation”) was a microscopic niche, and most of the stuff that did make it over here was whitewashed to hide the strange culture. Ganbare Goemon is about a thief in Feudal Japan. It’s as Japanese as baseball and onigiri. In fact, Legend of the Mystical Ninja changed the onigiri healing item to pizza. Heaven forbid our children be exposed to balls of rice.

Growing up in rural Ontario, I wasn’t a worldly child, so games like Legend of the Mystical Ninja and Pocky & Rocky fascinated me. When I got old and my mind opened up to Japanese video games, Ganbare Goemon was high on my list to seek out. For whatever reason, it’s taken me this long to start hitting the PlayStation titles.

But now’s a good time, since fan translations are beginning to trickle out. I’m starting at the beginning, with 1996’s Ganbare Goemon: Uchū Kaizoku Akogingu, courtesy of Adventurous Translations.

ABSOLUTE BUTT

Gosh, this game sucks, which isn’t something I thought I’d say about a game that opens with a shot of Goemon’s pert butt.

I’m not even sure how to describe the story, even though it’s entirely straight-cut. A spaceship crashes near Goemon’s house, and while there’s a terrible inferno at first, the fire quickly subsides and with it any urgency. The spaceship belongs to Baban, a member of the space police. Baban is after an alien named Akogingu, who has arrived on Earth to steal its treasure.

And that’s the lot of it. From there, it’s pretty much a straight shot to find one of the treasures he’s after, and subsequently Akogingu himself.

Setting that aside for now, the gameplay is similar to Ganbare Goemon 3: Shishijūrokubē no Karakuri Manji Gatame. There are top-down sections similar to Zelda through which you reach side-scrolling dungeons. Ganbare Goemon 3 was pretty weak, but this is worse. The towns are ugly, the combat sections are mazes where the best strategy is to just try and follow paths along the edges of the map, and the side-scrolling is just shit.

SOFT IMPACT

What torpedoes platformers in general the most often is poor controls, but that’s not Uchū Kaizoku Akogingu’s problem (I wish there was an easier way to refer to this game). It controls about the same as the series always has. The major issue is that its levels have absolutely no flow to them. Barriers are thrown up constantly, the jumps are often stretched out to their absolute maximum, and there’s very little room to breathe.

Before even meeting Baban, you recruit Goroku, giving you a party of four. You can swap between the members, because each of them has a different ability, and what a pain in the ass that is. Swap to Goroku to move a block, swap to Baban to hover over a gap, swap to Ebisumaru to grab a hook.

That damned hook. There are sections where you need to climb vertically by swinging from hook to hook, and, like most of the jumps, they’re very spaced out. You have to be very precise, or you fall right back down and have to start over. It got me swearing. My thumbs were getting sore from gripping the control, trying to get through these areas. 

Insult to injury, there’s a part after one of these climbing segments where you ride an elevator down a shaft and have to navigate it away from the walls. If you scrape the wall too much, the elevator explodes and kills you instantly. There’s no lead into this, no way to prepare yourself, it just happens, and then you’re dead, and then you have to do the dungeon from the start, including that climbing section. Just infuriating.

LESS THAN GORGEOUS

It’s unfortunate because the art style is stellar. It’s still full 2D pixel art, but the characters have a lot more detail in them than they had in the Super Famicom days. They’re more expressive and colourful, making them a joy to watch. The backgrounds aren’t as good, but they’re not terrible either. The towns, however, are drab and lifeless.

I’m also not in love with the soundtrack. In theory, it remixes a lot of old tunes, but in practice, it sucks the life out of them. Legend of the Mystical Ninja has one of my favourite soundtracks of all time. Realistically, it would be a challenge for any game to have a soundtrack as solid as that, but Uchū Kaizoku Akogingu doesn’t even come close to touching it.

The overall flow of the game sucks. It’s largely a push forward from unremarkable area to unremarkable area. It’s a far cry from the feel of travelling the country that can be found in some of the best titles. It’s so devoid of personality. Comparing it to the first N64 title, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (Ganbare Goemon: Neo Momoyama Bakufu no Odori), one has to wonder how this one wound up so unimaginative. Its best ideas are either borrowed from previous games or were done better. The rest of its ideas are bad.

TASTE OF BUTT

I love Ganbare Goemon. I’m always hoping something new comes from the series, because I think there’s a lot of untapped potential. Thankfully, I still have quite a few to play through. I just hope that they’re not as drab as Uchū Kaizoku Akogingu.

My advice for you, if you’re thinking of hopping into the series, is to skip this one. It’s pretty safe to, because, as far as I can tell, nothing in it was ever referenced again in the later games. Baban and Goroku never appear in another game, which is a good thing, since mainstays Yae and Sasuke are far better characters.

Uchū Kaizoku Akogingu is also singleplayer-only. Co-op multiplayer feels like a key hallmark to the series, so its absence is felt. It’s worth nothing that Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon also excised multiplayer, so it’s far from alone in its lonesomeness, but I feel it has less excuse since it’s so similar to Ganbare Goemon 3, which did manage to fit in co-op.

So, lameness all around. What a drag. I need to move on and wash this taste out of my mouth.

3/10

This review was conducted on a PSOne using an image burned to CD-R and booted via a memory card hack. The translation was done by Adventurous Translations.