Ganso Saiyūki: Super Monkey Daibōken

Posted on November 17, 2021 by Cassidy

“China’s Story Begins Now.”

“Let’s get into the continental spirit
with ‘Saiyūki!'”
Enlightened art by @EmilyHammersley.

We’ve covered some notable kusogē on the Bad Game Hall of Fame in the past, as “bad games” websites worth their salt all inevitably do. Logically, our journey started at the very beginning, with the very first game to be associated with the mocking portmanteau. Thus far, we’ve tackled one entry in the unofficial “Treasure Hunters Trinity,” with two more Famicom fossils still left to unearth. Hell, one might argue we’ve already seen the worst of the worst ’round these parts, as we’ve even gone and written about the oft-proclaimed, almighty “Emperor of Kusogē” itself. But today brings us another contender to that dubious throne — a game in which you play as no less than a veritable King. I suppose we should bow in the presence of bad game royalty, and bask in the discomforting glow of its dull, flickering light. And so we embark on another cursed journey: A trek which spans the Eastern Hemisphere, providing little more than the vague directive to head westward.

Hell, one might even dare to call this troublesome travelogue a “Journey to the West!”

For those not clued into the gag, here: Journey to the West (西遊記 in its native Chinese) is the title of perhaps one of the most popular and influential novels ever written, with its original publication [by an anonymous author] dating back to 16th century China. Y’all ever watch the original Dragon Ball? The whole franchise started as an homage to this story. Ever played Enslaved: Odyssey to the West? Yeah, reckon that subtitle should make a little more sense to you now. But of course, Enslaved wasn’t the first video game to base itself on the folkloric exploits of the so-called “Monkey King” Sun Wukong: I believe that honor is owed to a 1984 Capcom arcade title, SonSon? But alas, that’s still not the title we’re here today to discuss, either. Jump ahead two years in time to 1986, and to the debut software offering of one VAP Inc. — an already-established Japanese entertainment company, looking to dip their toes into this new-fangled video game fad. The end result of their efforts and investment came to Nintendo’s Family Computer in the form of Ganso Saiyūki: Super Monkey Daibōken (元祖西遊記スーパーモンキー大冒険) — roughly translated as ‘Original Journey to the West: Super Monkey Adventure.’ And boy howdy, what an adventure consumers had in store for them.

Despite its notoriety as a formative Famicom kusogē, documentation for the development of Ganso Saiyūki has remained something of a mystery for the better part of the last 35 years. Appearances and references to it within Japan’s popular culture evidently did little in the way of compelling its original creators to open up on the subject of its production — a likely low point in their professional histories, and perhaps even a personal sore spot for some. But come 2018, one of the game’s three developers stepped up to confess their role in it, and kindly helped to solve many of the mysteries behind the enigmatic cartridge. Needless to say, this article will come equipped with all the pertinent details of the game’s construction, and brief histories on the companies and major players involved. Naturally, we’ll also be undertaking the virtual expedition for ourselves, and recording our meditations on all the highs and lows. At journey’s end, we’ll try and get a handle on how the game was received in its time, its lasting legacy, and the surprising places some of the parties involved would later wind up in their careers. So come now, ye seekers of enlightenment: Vulture Peak awaits!

For what it’s worth: I played SonSon for the first time in my life in the process of writing this article. And as it turns out, it’s a ton of fun! Super intuitive arcade action complete with uncomplicated co-op play. Gets a high recommendation from me.

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Top Five: Games Cancelled After Release

Posted on November 1, 2021 by Cassidy

Cancelled games are an unfortunately common occurrence in our industry. The reasons given for their premature demises can be any one of many: A developer might either run out of money or decide to re-focus on some other project in the works, where publishers have been known to pivot on dimes and give up on games the moment the going gets rough. In other cases, a game simply can’t come together in time for a deadline, or otherwise lingers so long in development hell as to see no way forward. In any case, the consensus ultimately reached in all these verdicts is that it is better for these games to not see the light of day, rather than to de-value the companies involved — to see them fail to turn a profit, or turn dissatisfied consumers against them. Frankly speaking, the fact that video games ever actually manage to get released at all is something of a miracle, considering the staggering odds stacked against them.

Sometimes, though, something particularly odd happens: A game can be completely finished, make its way onto shelves and digital storefronts, and only later be discovered to be “cancelled” after the fact — leaving consumers and distributors alike to collectively scratch their heads while staring at the apocryphal product already in their hands. We’re not talking about games that simply sell through their allotted copies, disappear digitally due to expiring license agreements, or otherwise get delisted due to changing distribution or publishers going out of business: We’re talking about games that are put up for sale on a given day, before being promptly pulled from circulation on the next — issuing refunds to their small handfuls of purchasers, and seeing publishers apologize for ever having sold them in the first place. It’s not every day that you see game companies voluntarily turn down the opportunity to try and turn at least some sort of profit where they can, even off of knowingly sub-par products. As such, the small number of known instances where they have are all fairly noteworthy.

Needless to say, we’ll be going over several examples of this rare phenomena today — covering the subject of games “cancelled” after already being released. In order to qualify for this list, a game must have been available for purchase for at least a brief moment in time (whether appearing at physical retailers or as an online offering) and unexpectedly pulled from circulation shortly thereafter, with no plans for the game to be re-released in the future. This discounts cases like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas being temporarily pulled in the wake of the “Hot Coffee” controversy; where after having their ESRB rating changed to an ‘AO’ and seeing the title briefly pulled off shelves, Rockstar Games quickly worked to “fix” the game before just as promptly re-issuing it. Similarly, we won’t be counting cases where the games have been pulled due to unforeseen legal troubles (such as The Guy Game and X-Men Destiny), since that warrants something like its own list. Seeing publishers offer refunds is to be expected – as a gesture of goodwill and humility – but not a requisite in my books. Same goes for apologies being issued by developers / publishers in the wake of cancellation. With those ground rules laid, let’s get to listing.

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Battle: Los Angeles

Posted on October 22, 2021 by Cassidy

“Shit, I’d Rather be in Afghanistan.”

“I have a bag of C-4 on the bus.
Give this to my wife.”
XBLA release store icon.

We’ve seen licensed movie tie-in games come a long way in the past decade. Where rising to even the level of competence was once a rare treat (Enter the Matrix, Jaws: Unleashed, Scarface: The World is Yours and so forth), and genuinely great games came of it only once in a blue moon (GoldenEye 007, Spider-Man 2, The Chronicles of Riddick); the times have a-changed,[♫] and consumer expectations have changed along with them. Now when a hot new blockbuster movie comes along, players can look forward to playing absolutely nothing based on them! Yes, movie studios and game publishers finally seemed to learn their lesson somewhere around the time of the early 2010s, and movie tie-in games for consoles and handhelds have since come to a complete halt — to where the most you can expect to find now are usually just half-assed mobile games made to ape other already-successful apps. Balance has been restored, and justice has been served.

Yes, I’m deliberately playing somewhat facetious here: Production on [non-mobile] movie tie-in games never really stopped, so much as it has just dramatically diminished. When they do come out now, they’re usually homages to the glory days of legacy franchises — the likes of Friday the 13th: The Game or [INSERT STAR WARS GAME HERE]. And then every couple of years, you get something more contemporary like a Fast & Furious Crossroads to remind us why these sorts of games are usually a bad idea in the first place. It’s a cycle which does a solid job of keeping consumer expectations generally low, occasionally surprises them with something that has no right to be as good as it is (anybody ever play The Mummy Demastered?), and then swiftly crushes that enthusiasm with something expectedly soulless and wretched (anybody remember Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days?). Come to think of it, I guess that’s not really all too different from how things used to be…

If there was indeed something like a turning point for movie tie-in games, 2011’s release of Battle: Los Angeles might well serve as one of the prime suspects. As the interactive adaptation of a thoroughly underwhelming movie, Konami and Saber Interactive’s first-person shooter lives up to its source material by being a thoroughly disposable bit of interactive media; to be played once, quickly regretted, and just as soon forgotten. And with a price tag slightly higher than the going rate for a movie ticket, paired with a total playtime measuring at less than one-third the movie’s runtime, you can be sure that the disappointment on the part of unfortunate purchasers was as immediate as it was palpable. Today, we undertake the dangerous operation of discussing this ill-advised digital download — tracing its point of origin, coordinating a retaliatory review, and surveying the damage done in its wake. No bad game left behind, soldiers.

William Martinez: Looks like we’re getting into some heavy shit.
Michael Nantz: It’s been my experience, Lieutenant, heavy shit is highly overrated.

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SSFF: Resident Evil 4’s Bizarre Mobile Ports | DELISTED

Posted on October 11, 2021 by Cassidy

I had a hand in helping produce the latest couple of episodes for Stop Skeletons From Fighting’s DELISTED series! For starters, I wrote a brief on the J2ME versions of Resident Evil: Degeneration, as part of Derek and Grace’s look at the more fully-featured N-Gage 2.0 and iOS versions — for their episode titled “The Lost Resident Evil 4.5 | RE: Degeneration.” While certainly not the focal point of the video, I’m glad I got to write in a mention for them nonetheless, to help present the larger story as comprehensively as possible.

My contributions to the “Resident Evil 4’s Bizarre Mobile Ports” episode are a fair bit more substantial: I was put in charge of leading research, writing the script draft, and even capturing an odd bit of footage of the Android version. It took a lot of quadruple-checking to get some of the research details right, between a ton of misinformation regarding the game presented on the web. Figuring out so much as the correct release date was a process more complicated than it had any right to be! In any case, get a load of that Zeebo gameplay, eh? Gee, I’d sure love to share more cool facts with y’all about that odd piece of kit. Soon enough, I suppose…

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Indiepocalypse #21: Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Cassidy
( Full Title: “When Alex the Kidd Was a Very Young Lad, in Enchanted Castle He Went to the Bad.” )

Cover art by @bananpam.

Here we go again with our monthly feature for @PIZZAPRANKS‘ Indiepocalypse, with a travel guide for the scenic Enchanted Castle! Broadly, it gives us an excuse to talk about the history of the Alex Kidd franchise, while also giving us the opportunity to go into depth about the game’s most infamous mechanic: Mandatory “rock, paper, scissors” minigames gating much of the game’s content. Of course, since I’m a champion of unpopular stances, I take the position that forcing players to bet their virtual lives on dumb luck is actually an interesting mechanic, rather than an outright tedious one. There’s a writing sample to follow, but to see the whole of my argument, you’ll have to purchase the full issue and get access to a bunch of cool games as well:

So, here’s the thing about putting an entire video game on pause in order to make players gamble their in-game lives on games of chance: You can’t deny how effectively it raises the stakes, can you? To force a player to confront the fact that all their skills and abilities as gamers don’t amount to diddly-squat when pitted against the world’s dumbest, most random game. Sure, you might be able to play Dark Souls blindfolded or whatever other comparable metric it is we use to determine who are true masters of game these days (I remember back when Ikaruga was what we collectively settled on as the supposed “hardest game ever made”). But in a game of [seemingly] pure chance, you are forced to confront the fact that you are utterly powerless — if only for a brief moment in time. But it’s not enough when the stakes are just some currency that you can easily make back: To have to wager your ability to progress on chance is a daunting prospect. An understandably frustrating one to boot, when the odds don’t wind up being in your favor. But then again, shouldn’t that be the point?

Purchase the issue on itch.io!
Or, consider pledging to Indiepocalypse on Patreon!

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