Save Japan from Westernization! Let's Play Ganbare Goemon 2!

Hey gang! I'm doing that LP thing now all by myself! So let's play some



Japanese Title Screen: The Game!http://s70.photobucket.com/user/Spoo.../media/Ganbare Goemon 2 LP/

Ok fine, it's Ganbare Goemon 2: Kiteretsu Shougun Magginesu. Or, if you read it from left to right in English, 'Magginesu Kiteretsu Shogun: Goemon 2 Ganbare!'.

But for the purposes of this LP I'll be calling Magginesu 'McGuiness', which seems to be the unofficial translation most folks have settled on. That I've seen, anyway. So for the purposes of this LP the title is Ganbare Goemon 2: The Strange Shogun McGuiness!

I decided to choose this game for a couple of reasons. First of all it's a really entertaining Super Famicom platformer that we missed out on, that very well could have become a SNES classic we fondly remember had it been localized. I know the game fairly well, (well-ish), having played through it a couple of times awhile back to rip SPCs from it. (yup, the Ganbare Goemon 2 and 4 SPC packs at SNESmusic.org were ripped by yours truly. I did 3 as well, but someone else was already on that project) There are a number of cool things to show off in this game which sets it apart from your bog standard SNES platformers.

But I think the real reason I want to LP this is to help fill in the blanks for everyone else who never bothered with the Japan-only Goemon games. After all, we were first introduced to the series via Legend of the Mystical Ninja for the SNES, this game's predecessor, where we first saw Goemon as 'Kid Ying'. Then the series never showed its face in North America again until the N64 title 'Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon!', and its follow-up 'Goemon's Great Adventure', both of which are great games that I am very sad to say aren't on the Virtual Console.

Anyway, going from Legend of the Mystical Ninja (SNES) to Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon (N64) is... a little awkward, to say the least. The SNES title was certainly wacky in its own right, but it played it fairly straight, for the most part. The N64 game was much sillier by comparison, but it also dropped a whole bunch of things on unsuspecting North American players that were introduced in the time between the first SNES game and the first N64 game.

My plan is to eventually do the other 2 games on the SNES, if this LP turns out to be a success. Of course, this will come with its share of problems. The biggest one being there are no translation patches for either of these titles that I'm aware of. Which honestly kind of baffles me. Maybe some folks out there have given the games an honest try and attempted translation, and maybe some technical issues made them more complicated than they should have been. But I think it's unfair, nay unjust, that these SNES titles remain in Japanese while super obscure stuff gets the fan translation treatment.

So I'll do my best to convey what's happening in the story sequences. I first played these games back at the heights of my Japanophile phase, back when I was taking Japanese at University, and very roughly figured out the plot of each one. I won't be giving full translations of every line of dialogue, but I'll do my best to help you all understand what's going on. This won't be too difficult in Ganbare Goemon 2 or 4 (if I get to it), as they're both fairly straightforward platformers. But the text-heavy Ganbare Goemon 3 will be another thing entirely. Still, I'm up to the challenge!

And if I make an obvious mistake, someone much more fluent than I am can feel free to point it out and call me dumb. I haven't actually practiced the language in ages and am rusty as all get out, so I'm mostly be going by memory.

Anyway, let's push that start button and get ready for adventure!



And our adventure begins at a beach resort. The 'Ryukyu Resort', to be specific, where Goemon and Ebisumaru are enjoying a nice sunny holiday after saving Japan back in the first SNES game.

This is an interesting bit of continuity that would probably pass over most folks even if the game was localized, since the Ryukyu Kingdom was one of the final stages of Legend of the Mystical Ninja (though called 'Warlock Zone 9' or whatever in the localization), which meant Goemon and Ebisumaru happened to be in the area when they went out to find some R&R. Well good for them! Saving the country is hard work, and they deserve time at a resort, surrounded by gorgeous beach babes--



OH SWEET CHRIST MY EYES



NO DON'T ZOOM IN WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU AUGH



Goemon has the right idea and tells Ebisumaru to back the heck off. Though, I gotta admit, there's something oddly familiar about this sequence where Ebisumaru is completely unaware of the fact no one wants to look at his scantily clad body...



Huh. I guess this is 'a thing' with him. If it wasn't apparent by playing Mystical Ninja on the N64 Ebisumaru has an unflinching self-image that cannot be broken by any amount of facts or logic. Well that's... that's good for him I guess.



And then there was a wacky chase scene!

So anyway, Ebisumaru is trying desperately to get Goemon to dance with him, and Goemon is having none of it. I'm sure this is not what he had in mind when he signed up for this vacation. Or, maybe it WAS, he has been Ebisumaru's partner ever since the Famicom days. Still, while this opening is suitably wacky, it's missing something. It's missing the larger plot. It's missing...



The foot of a mysterious ninja! Actually, what is he standing on? For him to be that much in the foreground he has to be floating, since that's the beach below and there's nothing to stand on, yet he's casting a shadow on something.

I'll just go with mysterious ninja powers.

(EDIT: Now that I've looked at the opening again, I can see that he's standing on a cliff overlooking the beach. It's just that in still images the cliffside easily looks like the waves breaking on the beach, so it gives the impression he's floating.)



The ninja suddenly teleports down to the others, and slowly turns towards them. And I mean 'slowly' too. Not really in the sense it takes awhile, but that the animation of his turning has several unique frames, where just a moment ago Goemon and Ebisumaru were bounce-running across the beach with a single-frame sprite. It's just really odd. Take alook in the video provided blow to see what I mean.



Anyway, the ninja is Sasuke who, up to that point, was just a one-shot boss character in the previous game. But here he steps into full-blown playable character-ness for the first time. Congrats, Sasuke!

Sasuke informs the pair of big trouble in little China Japan Oh-Edo Oedo (screw it, I'll go with the North American localization, you can't stop me!). Turns out Oedo Castle has suddenly lifted off the ground and flown away! And only JUST after Goemon and Ebisumaru rescued Princess Yuki too! Gosh darnit!

He also mentions that Yae (who had a brief appearance in the previous SNES title and will become a full-fledged playable character in the next game) discovered the identity of the one behind it all: a mysterious person named McGuiness!



Goemon reacts with surprise, because as it turns out he only just recently met this McGuiness character! He was the mysterious foreigner that was behind the lottery he had won! You'd think Goemon and Ebisumaru would find it strange they would win a lottery for such a sweet vacation they couldn't otherwise afford that they never actually entered from an all-too-suspicious foreign man. I guess they thought 'what's the worst that could happen?'.



Goemon is understandably peeved that he let McGuiness take him out of the picture so easily while he literally ran off with Oedo Castle.



Ebisumaru is also impressed McGuiness dared try to trick the 'ninja of justice' or whatever. Just put your clothes back on, dude.



Regardless, Goemon isn't going to let some silly foreigner take over Oedo! He and Sasuke run off to adventure times with Ebisumaru in tow.



....after he tells them to wait up. The 'ninja of justice' needs to change, of course!

Watch the Intro on Youtube here.

So how does Ganbare Goemon 2 play? It's not too different from the first game on the SNES. It has 2D platforming stages, with towns in between. Unlike the first game, though, the NPCs in town aren't out to kill you too. Unless you attack one of them first, but more on that later.

The biggest changes from the first game are the addition of a world map, though lacking much of the depth of a map like Super Mario World's as there's only a handful of branching paths and even few secret areas, and the ability to choose to play either Goemon, Ebisumaru, or Sasuke. There's also a 2 player function, but I'll discuss that in a future post.

For now, Talking Time, I need you to choose who I start the game with. I can swap to a new character whenever I save and resume the game, so I'm not stuck playing one of the three for the entire LP. So who do I start this wacky adventure off with?


Goemon:

Goemon is the average character of the three. He attacks with his trademark pipe, that can be upgraded twice. At its strongest it's the Chain Pipe, which you might remember from Mystical Ninja on the N64. It doesn't function as a Hookshot wannabe here, though, but adds extra range on Goemon's attack.

His secondary attack is the Ryo (not to be confused with the game's currency, which is also the ryo), also familiar to anyone who's played other games in the series. All secondary attacks can be charged by holding the A button (strangely, only the A button, they can be fired regularly with either the X or A buttons, but only A charges it). Goemon's Ryo splits into three when charged, but consumes more ryo to fire it.

Goemon is the average joe, resting between Ebisumaru and Sasuke for speed and jumping ability.


Ebisumaru:

Ebisumaru is the slower character that can't jump quite as far, but not by much. It's barely even noticeable to most players. He is the only member of the usual cast of four whose weapon changes each game, this time around it's a paper fan.

His secondary ability is a shuriken, which fires straight when shot normally but when charged it splits into two and bounces off the ground and the walls and circles around. Pretty difficult to aim normally, but if you can get used to it then it's pretty darn useful for hitting enemies that are normally out of reach. The times where that actually comes in handy are pretty limited though.


Sasuke:

Sasuke is the quickest of the three, who can run slightly faster and jump slightly farther. In normal play this doesn't translate into a huge advantage, as any jump Sasuke can reach the others can, in my experience. Though Ebisumaru cuts those longer jumps a little closer. You'll never see someone do a TAS of this game while not playing as Sasuke.

He's also odd in that his standard weapon only powers up once. It goes from a short ranged Kunai to one that he throws like a projectile. While that sounds beneficial, killing an enemy with a thrown kunai reduces the chance (or outright eliminates it, I'm not entirely sure) of that enemy dropping ryo, which I suppose is Konami's way of adding balance to an otherwise broken normal weapon.

His secondary is the Firecracker Bomb, another item that may be familiar to folks who played the N64 game, which Sasuke throws forward with a very short range. Its charged up version merely has a larger explosion, otherwise it has the same short range as the normal, probably the least impressive of the three secondary weapons.

Only other thing to note is that the three characters each start with different amounts of ryo (Goemon with 100, Ebisumaru with 150, and Sasuke with 50). This is a minor issue, as any ryo a character obtains is kept when you save your game, but only on that character. Meaning if you, say, play the entire game as Ebisumaru and reach the last area with 999 ryo and save and resume with Sasuke he will only have 50 to use. But assuming you guys don't do that to me and instead give each character some time throughout the game then their ryo amounts won't be an issue.

So for now, Talking Time,


SELECT PLAYER

Goemon!

I fucking love this game. Amazing soundtracks too.

Seriously though, big fan of the series ever since I first played Legend of the Mystical Ninja on the SNES. Seeing previews for the sequels in EGM that I knew we'd never get in America broke my heart. At least we got the awesome N64 games! And the crappy Game Boy one, but yeah. Goemon!

Goemon, for traditions sake.

Having owned and enjoyed The Legend of the Mystical Ninja when I was younger, I'm interested in seeing these other Goemon games LPed. I would vote for Ebisumaru, but seeing as we can switch characters later it won't hurt to go with Goemon for now. Aw the hell with it, it works both ways. Go with Ebisumaru.

I think we would've been more likely to see the N64 Goemons on Virtual Console if Konami had put save batteries in their Nintendo 64 carts instead of falling back on the Controller Pak. But they were already freaking expensive without battery backup.

Sasuke.

Ebisumaru never gets any love. I'll toss him a pity vote.

Dr. Yang please!

The only real choice is Ebisumaru.

Don't remind me. I still remember renting Mystical Ninja several times from the local rental place and having to keep the N64 powered on over the entire weekend if I wanted to reach the ending.

Anyway, it's a good thing I didn't go ahead and start playing as Goemon, because it looks like Ebisumaru has a last minute upset! I'll make the first proper update in a day or two, whenever I'm finished. Any votes after my post here will go towards the second set.

I did that too, though replace "several times" with "one time". I'm really surprised I made it to the end in one rental with no Controller Pak.

It's not that long at all once you know exactly where to go.

My first time through the game I needed to get my bearings, only made it to the Gourmet Submarine (with its awesome BGMs).

Second time.... power outage overnight. >:|

Third time was the charm.

Music: Ryukyu Resort

And so we begin! You get one of these screens at the beginning of every Area. The orange banner at the top left says 'Area 1', while the white font is... something in Japanese I'm sure. The lone walkthrough for this game on GameFAQs calls the first area the 'Coastal Area', but who knows how remotely accurate that is.



Ebisumaru sets off for adventure and glory, leaving behind the comfortable confines of the Ryukyu Resort for the game's first stage: The Ryukyu Resort!

...it's a big resort.

The game does have a World Map, which we'll get to later, but when you start a new game you're dumped in the first stage directly. The Ryukyu Resort is a very straightforward 'first level in a platforming game', and right away the game looks much more colorful than its predecessor. Before we get going, let's take a look at the status bar!



It's all fairly easy to decipher, even without my mundane text descriptors. Hitting L or R changes your wepon back and forth between primary and secondary, though there probably aren't any zombie goasts in this game. Each bar of health is worth two hits (one brings it down to half, another empties it) so starting off you can get hit six times. Ryo serves both as ammunition for your secondary attacks and for money at shops in the towns. Your Mans (or in the Brickroadian vernacular, 'Free Guys') should be obvious. And, of course, when the timer reaches 00 in any stage you lose.

Got it? Got it.



Moving right along Ebisumaru immediately encounters an enemy, which he swats away with his fan, sending it careening into the background. This is a unique effect of Ebisumaru's weapon, and is the secret best reason to play as him.

So I suppose I should introduce our very first enemy! I don't have access to the game's instruction manual, and I'm not sure if the bad guys would even be named even if I did, so I'll just make up my own!


Name: Hoppers McGee
Function: Enemy
Disposition: Walkin' straight forward
Durability: Dead if you sneeze on it
Profile: The Hoppers are the basic grunt enemies of the game, the basic robot soldiers of McGuiness' army. One hit from anything and they're down, though there aren't a lot of non-boss enemies in the game that take more than one hit. Rumor has it these soldiers wanted to take their leader's last name as their own as a show of reveration, but didn't want to seem presumptuous, so they altered it to 'McGee'.



Ebisumaru continues on, swatting a few more Hoppers and discovers what happens when an enemy hits a piece of background scenery after they're hit: They comically stop and explode on the spot. It's a very nice little touch that serves to make the game much more amusing.



Taking out another one, a white cat statue bounces away from the enemy's remains. Item!


Name: Fortune Doll
Function: Increases the character's weapon skill to the next level.

I mentioned in my starting update that Goemon and Ebisumaru have three levels to their weapon while Sasuke only has two, but it turns out I was mistaken, they all have three. But I'll address that whenever I get to play as Sasuke.

Ganbare Goemon 2 borrows one of the more annoying points from Blaster Master, though, and downgrades your weapon whenever the character takes damage. Which is irritating, but not quite as bad. The biggest benefit from upgraded weapons is the extra range, not added damage, so you're not really handicapped in this game by not having max weapons at all times. Though it certainly helps!



And now we... huh, it seems Ebisumaru up and vanished! Perhaps he really is a Ninja!



Actually nope. He was just crawling through an invisible passage to get to the little alcove there, where he finds another item!


Name: Money Box
Function: Awards 50 Ryo for each one you find. L-l-l-lucky!



Crawling back out of the alcove and going above, Ebisumaru gets another Fortune Doll and upgrades to the golden fan. Though it's hard to tell in the screenshot, it has slightly longer range than the other two fans, and punts enemies even higher before sending them into the background.



Ebisumaru takes the high ground for more Ryo. I mentioned before that Ebisumaru's jumping ability isn't quite as good as the others. Sasuke can make that jump effortlessly, but it's possible for Ebisumaru to miss it. If you're really not paying attention.



Hopping down, we see another item just sitting out on the ground unattended!


Name: Checkpoint (later known as the Narrator in the N64 games)
Function: Does what it says on the tin. If you die in the stage after grabbing this you'll re-start where it was instead of the beginning.

After getting the Checkpoint, Ebisumaru comes across a Hoppers riding a giant fish. It doesn't take him long to realize that riding something is far better than walking the whole way. So he disposes of the rider and hops on himself!


Name: Fish Waver
Function: Hop on to go for a ride. Incredibly slow on land, super duper fast on water. Can fire a basic projectile out of its mouth.



The Fish Waver is slow indeed on land, far slower than walking, but Ebisumaru stubbornly sticks with it. Fortunately he is quite lucky, as the tide suddenly starts to rise!



Here's a picture of just how fast it gets while on water. That Hoppers right behind Ebisumaru? He was riding one of his own, which was destroyed and sent him into the air. Ebisumaru was under him and well away before he even hit the water.



Ebisumaru watches one flail around in the water for a moment before destroying it and moving on. Strange, they're robots that can't swim, yet can easily float on the water's surface. Then again, I'm playing as an chubby ninja riding a fish-shaped Ski-doo, so what kinda sense am I trying to find here?



It's also worth noting that if you jump while speeding across the surface of the water on your Fish waver you'll retain your speed even if you hit land, and hop across it at a quick pace. I did NOT do that in this shot, and got distracted just as the tide sunk out from under me.

That Gordo-looking Urchin thing doesn't get a profile, it does what you'd expect: Doesn't move and hurts you when you touch it.



A short distances ahead of the reduced tide is the stage's endpoint! A giant Tanuki statue marks the end of most every stage, and destroying it prompts a giant shower of Ryo to spill out. Now, normally when you're on foot you have to jump around frantically to try and get as much as possible. But any stage where you can reach the end while riding a vehicle of some sort you can just park it over the statue and you'll get all the Ryo automatically, since your character's sprite is placed right over their spawning point. Hooray for easy money!



And here's the world map! It's a fairly straight-forward affair. Going north from the Ryukyu Resort leads the player to Satsuma Town. Since there's nowhere else to go, Ebisumaru stops in for a nice break.



Music: Town

Upon entering Satsuma Town for the first time the game takes control away from the player and has Ebisumaru automatically enter the very first house. Inside we will see a familiar character for people who played both the original SNES title and the N64 games.

Incoming giant image in 3.... 2.... 1....



It's the Wise Ol' Man! (Well the Japanese games just call him 'Jii-san' as far as I know, but I like the added of 'Wise' and abbreviating 'Old' as Ol'. He's not just an Old Man, he's the Wise Ol' Man!)

Anyway, in that wall of text of Japanese the Wise Ol' Man basically warns Ebisumaru of the threat to Oedo, and hands over the Triton Shell (going by the N64 localization again) which summons the *ahem* Super Ultra Gorgeous Very... um... Gotsui... Gutsy (?) Giant Mecha Goemon Impact!

Well that didn't take long. Probably one of the most striking differences between the original SNES game and the N64 title was, of all things, the giant robot bearing Goemon's likeness. Here Impact is just handed to the player without a whole lot of fanfare. Granted we've seen plenty of anachronisms in the setting already, so what's a giant robot in Feudal Japan at this point?

Also, don't worry, I won't be hitting you with a giant wall of Japanese exposition like that again. Usually whenever the game is that wordy is during cutscenes with more going on to look at. This is probably one of the largest bits of text you get at once in the game.

Anyway, now that we're doing talking with the Wise Ol' Man, let's see what towns in Ganbare Goemon 2 typically have to offer!



Buildings with a green curtain are travel centers, which can warp you to any other such center in the game. I'm not sure if this really saves any time, since by the time you enter a town, find the travel center, select your destination, warp, exit the other center, and exit the town, you could have easily just traveled via World Map three times over. But hey, here they are!



Buildings with the smaller brown curtain are restaurants. Spend money, restore health with delicious food.



Purple curtains mean general stores. In this first store you can buy some armor and a rice-ball. Your basic straw armor absorbs a single collision hit from an enemy, the straw hat absorbs a single bullet attack, and the rice ball automatically restores one bar of health when you hit 0. The armors have the added bonus of not downgrading your weapon when they take the hit for you. We'll see better versions of all this stuff later, but Ebisumaru buys one of each for now.



Red curtains mean Inns, and are where you save your game (selecting the third option on the initial menu). You can also sleep and restore health that way as well.

There are other types of buildings, but this is what Satsuma Town has to offer.

The other two buildings in Satsuma Town are plain ol' houses where you talk to the occupants when you enter. For the most part I think they just give basic starter town NPC advice, or talk about how McGuiness sure does look like trouble.

You can't talk to the NPCs that are outside buildings, and I recommend against trying. More on that in a bit, but first...



These are the two NPCs you CAN interact with out on the main town map. Though they're less NPCs and act more like, well, items.

...


Name: Old Crone and Young Lady
Function: Awards 50 Ryo whenever the player 'collects' them.

I'm not even kidding. Coming into contact with either of them awards 50 Ryo. The doddering old lady immediately stands upright and walks away with a smile on her face, and the young girl runs blushing. I'm not really sure what the game is implying here, but hey, money!

It's also worth mentioning that these two are a pretty broken source of money. They appear randomly in towns among the other NPCs, and there really isn't any limit to them from what I can see. I've seen several of each appear on the same screen. This makes them a safe source of Ryo that you can earn outside of the stages. But sometimes the random number generator isn't on your side and you may not see one at all.

Finally, let's address those other NPCs seen wandering around. They do nothing for you and you can't talk to them. They serve one purpose and one purpose only: to send the guards after you. When a new player inevitably uses the 'action' button to try and talk to them, they'll instead hit them with their weapon.



That's not very nice. And no one else seems to think so, either, as the music abruptly changes, and...



Music: Here Come The Guards!

EVERY GUARD ON THE PLANET WANTS YOU DEAD.

As long as that Benny-Hill-esque chase music is playing guards will come out of the woodwork endless to hunt the player down.

Fortunately they are very easily beaten. Simply change screens. Either exit town, enter a building, or move to a different part of town. They guards aren't much of a threat and mostly feel like a funny throwback to the earlier Goemon games where nearly any NPCs in town were all basically enemies.

Oh! And because I forgot to mention, towns aren't on a pure 2D perspective like the stages, and are more oriented like Double Dragon or something similar where you can move up and down in limited capacity.

Anyway, Ebisumaru leaves Satsuma Town from the right-most exit. If you turn around and exit from the left where you entered the World Map won't let you progress, you have to walk to the end of the town and leave.



Heading back to the World Map we go to a new stage which the lone walkthrough (and my SPC sets) call 'Dusky Way'. We also get a clearer look at the rest of the area, and see a large fortress to the north, another collection of buildings to the east, and a rather large sumo-wrestler-looking dude just southeast of that. Curious indeed.



Music: Dusky Way

And here is the second stage of the game, a long wooden path set against the setting sun. We also immediately meet a brand spankin' new enemy! Finally! Besides those Gordo-Urchins there was only one enemy type in the first stage.


Name: Bamzooka McGee
Function: Enemy
Disposition: Stay put and fire
Durability: No more than one hit to do it in
Profile: Bamzookas are the ranged infantry of McGuiness' basic troops, and pretty much hunker down in one spot and fire in predictable intervals. They wield a bamboo bazooka as their weapon, which I'm pretty sure Mythbusters debunked in one episode. Or, maybe they confirmed it? I forgot. Savage and Hyneman haven't been invented yet anyway so I guess it doesn't matter.



Moving forward Ebisumaru takes on more Bamzookas, suffers a bullet hit and loses his nifty Straw Hat, and finds yet another new enemy! This game just keeps on giving!


Name: Suption Suck
Function: Enemy
Disposition: Hops all around the place
Durability: One hit wonder
Profile: Suption Sucks were born with a tragic defect, a bucket on their heads. Though most poke holes in the bucket they still cannot see very well. This often leads them to go hungry as they cannot see the meals served to them at restaurants. In a fit of desperation, they take to hopping around madly with the hopes of landing on something they can suck the life essence out of. When a Suption Suck lands on the player, it won't do immediate damage but will start draining health after a few moments. Swat it away with your weapon immediately to prevent that.



Ebisumaru merrily clears a path of destruction with his golden fan as he hops through the Dusky Way. You know, his golden fan ALMOST kind of sort of resembles Mario's cape just a little bit if you squint.



Aha! The first appearance of the platforming game's most common nemesis! The bottomless pit! Falling in that, as you'd expect, costs you one of your mans and makes you restart the stage. They're probably the single-most common hazard in all of videogame-dom, right next to lava and spikes.



Shortly after the pit Ebisumaru spies a Bamzooka riding yet another nifty vehicle! He wastes no time swatting it off its sweet ride and claims it for his own. Walking is for chumps!


Name: Mice Buggy
Function: The Mice Buggy is super duper fast on land, and fires a single projectile. It is probably the best vehicle in the game and is always a welcome sight.



The Mice Buggy makes the rest of the trip through the Dusky Way go by super fast. The sun keeps setting in the background as you progress through the stage. Though the game does throw trickier jumps at you immediately after the Buggy, to try and get you to underestimate your new jumping abilities and go head-first into a pit, Ebisumaru falls for none of it and safely bounds across the planks of the path.

Now's a good a time as any to mention jumping physics in the game, as I neglected to before. Ganbare Goemon 2's jumping more resembles that of Mega Man than Mario, as momentum doesn't factor into it at all. Once you stop letting go of a directional button you stop moving. There's no building up speed and running starts do no good. The Mice Buggy may go a lot faster, but it stops dead in mid-air like the player characters do when you let go of the D-Pad, which is useful to keep in mind.

Well would you look at that, the end-of-stage Tanuki already! Lay those big fat Ryos on me, raccoon-dog!



Ebisumaru doesn't bother going back to town to replace his hat, it's time to tackle the Sumo Fortress!

I wonder what the theme of this place is...



Music: Fortress

Huh, Sumo Wrestlers. What do ya know. Gotta admire their dedication to the theme, springing for stained-glass windows of Sumo Wrestlers and everything.



Ebisumaru is immediately ambushed by a Hoppers McGee breaking through one of windows! Hey man! Your army paid big money for those decorations, what kind of attitude is that! Ebisumaru punts him back out the way he came for his disrespect.

That's another little touch I like, the fact that you can punt enemies out of the holes made in the scenery. But sadly...



You can't punt them through unbroken windows. Alas. Oh right, I had better introduce that new enemy! I almost missed him!


Name: Sniper McGee
Function: Enemy
Disposition: Hide behind a shield until it's time to fire!
Durability: One smack = dead
Profile: Sniper McGees aren't really snipers in the strictest sense, no more than Sniper Joes are, but they sure do love hiding behind their adorable rabbit-faced shields. They'll keep their shields up until it's time to fire, but unfortunately they have the habit of flinching when the time comes and thus there's a brief opening where they're totally vulnerable.



Stepping out of the shadow of the stained glass hallway, Ebisumaru discovers a wide-open space with enormous Sumo Wrestlers in the background, and is faced with a giant.... abacus?
Okay.



Hopping across is fairly easy, though the pit below is certain death. The abacus platforms are also the first appearance, I believe, of platforms you can drop down through by holding Down and pressing the Jump button. A useful trick to know!



In fact, Ebisumaru does just that near the end of one of the abacuses (abacusi?) when he sees a suspicious tile almost off the bottom of the screen. Jumping down he finds a pot, and when he smashes it he is greeted with a most welcome sight! New item time!


Name: Golden Fortune Doll
Function: Much like their counterparts in the N64 game, the Golden Fortune Dolls will add a full bar onto your health, up to a max of five. This lasts until you either get a game over, or you save and quit, they won't carry over when you restart.



It's the best day ever as Ebisumaru is now rocking four life bars. He climbs back up the way he came and proceeds onward, encountering another new foe as he advances.


Name: Mr. P'tooie
Function: Enemy
Disposition: Rooted to the ground, occasionally rises up to spit a projectile.
Durability: Glass jaw.
Profile: Mr. P'tooie considers himself the most miserable member of McGuiness' army, and loathes the Suption Suck being the focus of everyone's pity. As far as Mr. P'tooie is concerned not being able to move is far worse than not being able to see. If Mr. P'tooie had arms and legs he would just take the stupid bucket off! But no, he's nothing but a simple head on a stick that occasionally fires an impotent projectile. When he tried to get some sympathy by telling this story everyone just laughed at him. No one understands his pain.



Ebisumaru quickly leaves the depressing head behind him, but it's not long before he spies yet another new minion of the Shogun McGuiness. This castle is full of surprises!


Name: L'il Doskoi
Function: Enemy
Disposition: Walks back and forth, sometimes stops to attack, sometimes stacks up.
Durability: Tiny and weak.
Profile: The L'il Doskois idolize their big brother, and want to be just like him. So they foolishly challenge any intruders into the Sumo Fortress, no matter how many times larger they are to them. They're small and quick and it's far more likely intruders will land on top and be damaged for the effort, so despite their small size and delusions of grandeur they're still fairly useful members of the army.



Not long after sending the first L'il Doskoi off to join his brothers in the stage's background Ebisumaru comes across a suspicious platform to the upper left of the screen. Instead of continuing to the right, he jumps up and follows it across another abacus along the top of the stage. At the end he finds a lone platform with two 50 Ryo boxes and a jar containing another Golden Fortune Doll, bringing his health bars up to five! He is now loaded for bear and feels like he can take on the world, and makes his way back.

A series of abacus platforms await him, the lightly colored tiles move up and down the rod providing trickier jumps. While it is easier to make these jumps from the bottom part of the abacus, sticking to the top will allow you to get a bit of extra cash from the boxes hidden in the ceiling.

And yes I did mix up the order of the second and third screenshot. I got confused since there are two little identical alcoves shortly after one another in this part of the stage.



Leaving the abacus behind for good, Ebisumaru finds this stage's Checkpoint (hey that reminds me I forgot to get a screenshot of the one in Dusky Way, but it was right after the first Mice Buggy) and continues onward. A number of L'il Doskois stack up to try and fool Ebisumaru into thinking they're bigger than him, but he doesn't fall for it and knocks them all aside.



He soon sees why they were so determined to stop him. Their beloved big brother was just a little further ahead. Ebisumaru, klutz that he is, winds up knocking his head off when he just wanted to swat a fly that was on his shoulder! Oh the humanity! How will Ebisumaru ever face those poor L'il Doskois now that he's destroyed their only other family!

Maybe if he climbed inside its hollowed out corpse and pretended to be the poor sumo robot he just decapitated?


Name: Doskoi Rider
Function: As an enemy the Doskoi Rider will walk back and forth and try to attack the player with a flurry of slaps. Once its head is knocked off the player can ride it. It moves very slowly, but can step over the L'il Doskois and to the hand slap as well. Unfortunately the vehicle cannot jump.



Tragically, the L'il Doskois don't fall for Ebisumaru's ruse, and tearfully rush the remains of their big brother, only to be cast aside and stepped on as Ebisumaru presses forward to the end of the stage. There will come a time where this day will haunt him, but not right now. Right now he has to be a hero and save Oedo, and it starts by facing the boss of the Fortress!



Ebisumaru enters a room with a small stage, and faces off against another Doskoi Rider! Maybe he didn't need to try and pretend to be the big brother of those poor L'il Doskois after all. However his red twin doesn't seem so happy to see him, and a boss fight ensues!

Music: Boss Battle

Ok first, I want you to let this sink in. Just let that track play.

Yes, folks, THAT is the Boss Battle theme.

The Goemon games are no stranger to silly music. The boss battle themes in the N64 game were certainly silly. But this track? This track is downright wacky.

While the name escapes me, the guy behind the sound design of the SNES Goemon games also did a lot of Konami's other SNES titles at the time, like the Parodius games and their Warner Bros licensed titles such as Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose and Animaniacs. This track would've felt right at home in any one of those games, but it's just a little awkward going from the relatively straight boss battle theme from the first Goemon game on the SNES into utter cartoony wackiness.

Still, I can't say I dislike the track, despite it's brevity. Anyway.



The first boss of the game attacks with the same hand slap fury that Ebisumaru has access to in his Doskoi Rider. But he also has a habit of charging, which can knock you right off the platform! Whenever he is about to charge he squats for a moment, and that's your warning. If you time it right you can hit him and knock him out of it.



Ebisumaru fails to do this and is pushed off the edge. He is forced to abandoned his Doskoi Rider Yoshi-style in order to escape death, as the rider itself cannot jump to avoid the massive push. Ebisumaru is now without the protection of the vehicle and has to finish the boss with his paper fan.



Which doesn't prove too difficult at all, honestly! The flurry of hits prevent the boss Doskoi Rider from getting off any charges or slaps of his own, and the rapid rate of the fans swings just tear apart the boss's health meter faster than using the Doskoi Rider did.



The Boss's health drops quickly under Ebisumaru's frantic attack, and its own head pops off revealing what appears to be another bunny robot underneath.

As a side note, I love Ebisumaru's pose in the first screenshot. That pose, plus this game's boss music just paints a really goofy picture.



Finally Ebisumaru succeeds and the Doskoi Rider is destroyed, its driver jumping out. He hops around the stage for a moment before stopping at the edge, expressing his surprise. And--

Hey wait. That is not a bunny robot. That is clearly some old dude in a full-body bunny costume! What the hell McGuiness?! What kind of army are you running here?



Anyway, what I can only assume is some sort of Bunny Man General flees after grabbing onto a descended rope ladder, essentially going 'nyah nyah nya-nyah nyah', while the entire Fortress starts falling apart. Don't you just hate those load-bearing bosses?

Well Ebisumaru isn't going to let some wannabe furry army leader get away with.... getting away and crushing him to death, so Ebisumaru decides it's time to pull out the big guns and call upon Goemon Impact!



Ebisumaru blows into the Triton Shell and.... pfft, man that expression is hilarious. We don't get to see his eyes very often, and usually when we do it's only during damage frames where they're absurdly puffed out and tear-filled.



After blowing into the Triton Shell a few loud stomps are heard while Ebisumaru panics and runs circles on the stage for a bit. He stops near the edge where he is suddenly grabbed by a giant monstrous hand!

...before I continue, I think I want a gif of Ebisumaru using the Shell...



There we go. That's priceless.

Music: Goemon Impact!



Impact swallows Ebisumaru with 'gulp' (which is way more amusing than it has any right to be)



Ebisumaru falls and falls and falls before landing in a comfy seat, and is brought all the way back up to the top again anyway.



He's set into a cockpit, and Impact's face dissolves over it, and then his eyes do as well. It looks cooler with two players.



And there he is, in his first f'real appearance! Giant Mecha Goemon Impact is here to save the day and wreck McGuiness's business...es!

I love the Japanese-y 'yoou' that accompanies his appearance in that shot.



The Bunny Man General reacts with shock when he sees Goemon Impact coming up fast behind him, and forms some sort of plan and quickly flies off. Perhaps he wants to lead us into some kind of trap?



Goemon Impact chases after the craft, carelessly mowing down trees and buildings along the way. They were probably bad guy trees and buildings though, so it's ok!



Ok, so how the 'Destruction Sequence' works. If you played Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon on the N64 it should be pretty familiar. Goemon Impact has an Energy bar that constantly counts down for the entire auto-scrolling section. However destroying things, like the trees or buildings or enemies, boosts that number back up. Ideally you want to hit the end of the section and face the boss with as much Energy as possible. Destroying stuff also grants you extra Ryo, which you can use as ammo during the upcoming Boss Battle.



If you're playing with 2 players, then the second player can also control a reticle on screen and fire Impact's Nasal Medal, which costs Ryo to use but serves to gain even more back since you can destroy more targets that way.



Otherwise, Impact can move around the screen, jump, and swing his pipe. The pipe only works on airborne enemies, of which there aren't that many in the first Destruction Sequence stage.



One thing you want to look out for is a situation like the one above, where you screw up and fall into a hole. If Impact falls into a hole or is tripped up by a ledge he'll disappear off screen for a few minutes, all while the energy meter is still counting down, and will miss destroying a whole bunch of stuff that could've given him an energy boost.



Fortunately I only fell down the first hole, and manage to properly jump all the others.



One final note: The more you destroy the more Pipe Bombs you get. Impact doesn't yet have his deathblow Mouth Laser from the N64 game, but he still has an uber-attack to fall back on. Pipe Bombs are useful things to have in the Impact Boss fights, but they rely on you 'scoring' well enough during the Destruction Sequence to get them.

I only do well enough to get one bomb. Had I not fallen down that pit like a dope I might've gotten away with two. I've seen the Tool-Assisted-Speedrun get three, but that relies on controlling a second player to use the Nasal Medal to destroy an absurd amount of stuff.

Anyway, it's time for the REAL Area 1 Boss!



Music: Impact Boss

The Bunny Man General taunts us with a battle-cry of 'Doskoi Doskoi!'. He also says a bunch of other stuff that I failed to capture. Who cares. Giant Mecha fighting time!

(Incidentally, this music likely sounds pretty familiar to anyone who's ever played Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius)



The Supersized Doskoi Robot immediately starts the fight with a giant flying headbutt, E. Honda style. I don't think that's in the official Sumo rules, but if Mr. Honda does it and this giant Sumo Robot does it, perhaps it is!



The attack is thwarted as soon as the boss gets close enough to be struck with a strong punch.

Impact Boss Control Explanation Time!
Y: Light Punch
B: Strong Punch
A: Nasal Medal
X: Pipe Bomb
L: Left Guard
R: Gilette... I mean, Right Guard

If you have a second player then they can control a second Nasal Gun Reticule. I'm not sure if they have access to any other controls, that needs more testing on my end.

The Light Punch will not do the trick to stop the Sumo Robot's flying headbutt, but the Strong Punch does the trick.

The Sumo Robo follows this up with a volley of projectiles. The Nasal Medal shoots them all down fairly easily.



The E. Honda wannabe does the flying headbutt again, and this time I'm a second too slow on the B button and miss the strong punch.

That bit of text in the top left is Ebisumaru, which translates to 'Honii~!'. I have no idea what it means, if anything, it's just something he exclaims when he's hurt. He actually voices it in the N64 game when he takes damage sometimes. Just a quirk of his character, I guess.



The boss presses his attack. After connecting with the first headbutt, he doesn't jump back into the distance, and instead goes for a combo with a furious barrage of hand-slaps.

I should also note the screenshots may look like they're out of order, especially if you look at Impact's energy. It's because I did the fight twice and some of the screenshots from the old set got mixed with the new. It happens!



He headbutts again and resumes slapping before I managed to strong punch him away. Things go my way for a bit, as I get a few lucky combos. Whenever he slides off to the side and runs up in front of you, the best method of attack is two light punches and a strong one, I've found. It's tough, if impossible, to squeeze three light punches in there and a single strong punch will send him back into the horizon again.



Finally I get him down enough that he starts shooting multi-colored projectiles like crazy. To shoot them all down with the Nasal Medal without a second player would be far too difficult, so I hit the R button and guard. It doesn't stop all the projectiles, as the ones veering furthest to the left still hit me, but the guard blocks 80% of them or so.



E. Hondabot sends another flurry of projectiles at me, but I'm finished with this fight. Its energy is low enough now that I can use my trump card I've been sitting on the entire time. With a mash of the X button I send the Pipe Bomb out and finish off the boss's HP.

An important thing to note about the Pipe Bombs is that while they're being activated and until the explosion clears any damage to you is nulled. Those projectiles he fired at me, despite them colliding with the screen, did no damage because the bomb was active. It's important to remember they can be used defensively, it's especially handy in Ganbare Goemon 3.



Anyway the Bunny Man General is baffled that the power of Sumo failed him, and explodes in a bright flash after praising Goemon Impact.



And thus Area 1 comes to an end.



In the cockpit of Impact Goemon and Sasuke celebrate their victory, while Ebisumaru seems like he's about ready to go him and take a nap. Normally when I play the game I want to smack him, but since he just did the bulk of the work I guess I can let it slide.



I don't know what the Japanese word for 'MEANWHILE' is, but it's probably that.

When Sasuke said Oedo castle took off into the sky he wasn't kidding. I haven't the slightest idea how McGuiness got the castle on top of his flying ship like that. He must've been taking notes from Bowser.



The cutscene ends with a whole group of dudes in bunny costumes apparently being chewed out by their boss. We still don't see the mysterious McGuiness, but he can't stay behind the scenes forever!

Whew! That's a good place to call it. Perhaps I should've paced myself a bit with this LP and not done three levels and a town and an Impact battle in the first proper update when so much stuff still needed to be explained and defined. I'll probably do a little less in future updates so that they don't take as much time to put together.

Now, an update to the character voting rules: Since there are six areas to the game and three characters, I'm going to use each one no more than twice. Ebisumaru just cleared Area 1, so he has one more round in him to go. I won't necessarily be doing an entire Area in one update, though, so keep that in mind.

One final thing, Area 2 features the first instance of branching paths and hidden stages. Do you guys want me to show all the stages as I go along, or make a bee-line for the Area boss and return to do the uncompleted stages in a supplementary update right before or after the final boss? I'm good with either.

If you want me to return to uncompleted stages later, then you can choose my path through Area 2. After the first stage in Area 1, Log Bridge Road, I can choose either 'Goofy Woods' or 'Log Lake'. One of these paths will lead me to a hidden stage as well, but I won't tell you which!

Or you can tell me to do it all as I'm doing the Areas. It'll take longer to reach the ending, but it'll probably flow better.

Also, who do I take with me into Area 2? Time to decide, Talking Time, adventure awaits!

Finally, you can watch a video here of summoning Goemon Impact, the Destruction Sequence, the first Impact Boss, and the Area 1 clear cutscene. Because I care.

Fantastic! Like you, I find it utterly baffling that no one has taken upon themselves to make a fan translation for this game.

Also, I think if you punch the projectiles the giant sumo robot throws at you, it destroys them and gives you some Ryo(I think)

random trivia- the first character in ebisu's name used to be pronounced 'ye'. now though, it's just a legacy letter that is pronounced 'e'.

Loving the LP so far. My vote goes to Sasuke for the next area, as well as showing the branching areas as you go along.

Man, that's the 60s Batman theme!

I've only played this game long enough to capture the Sparkster cameo, and Goemon 3 and 4 not at all, despite how good they all seem. I appreciate the thorough approach you're taking to this, and here's hoping you make it all the way through the SFC saga.


There's a certain technique in animation of moving robotic characters with a relatively high number of frames per second, effectively making their movements seem that much smoother and more mechanical compared to everyone else. That may be what they were going for.

Oh, I know this one's source. Thanks primarily to Okami.

How that translates to the gameplay reality, though...

Anyway! All areas vote.

And, the other random trivia attached to obsolete kana that is commonly known: there is a beer named [y]ebisu

why is it yebisu if the kana is for we

VVVV: agreed, as it does not appear to be differentiated from Goemon's 'e'.

You sure about Ebisumaru's name? That looks more like エ than ヱ to me. Granted, with the stylized font it's hard to be certain...

Ebisumaru uses "e," but his inspiration is Ebisu, one of the Seven Gods of Fortune, who uses the "we." I think that's what Shivam was referring to.

SPOILER: 3 and 4 are really really good!

Well, the second stage name reads as Baaten Kaidou which is pretty close. Can't remember what exactly Baaten is though.