Mystical Ninja 64 Starring Goemon (N64)

Gambares oh Gambares

So I was home for a while and hooked up my family Nintendo 64, dug out the memory pak and played some Mystical Ninja. And boy did I have a great time. It starts with a flying peach ship enters above the town of Ode and turn the castle into a european castle stage. Goemon and Ebisumaru sets out to save the king and princess. Traversing mount Fuji to get a chain pipe they then enters the castle and defeats a giant machine and then can leave the town. Outside of town near the wise man's house they see it destroyed with only a seashell left. The guys that took the castle appears and summons a giant robot so you blow the horn and are taken up by Impact to the best song of the whole game:

BREAKDOWN

And now you fight a giant mech battle with laser beams. And I sucked at these as a kid. Which is no surprise, you can't train the moves and can only find them in the manual which I had to look up right before the battle. But I beat him and travelled to Zazen town where you meet up with the police ninja Yae. Leaving the town you pick up the lifeless robot Sasuke. You intercept a blue dragon that have been brainwashed to kidnap children and destroy the control mechanism. You save the kids at the next castle. Find some batteries for Sasuke and start him up. Find the third castle and learn that they are striking at an island near Japan. Getting there you meet the waitress Omitsu (who Goemon have a crush on) and as she enters the island the whole thing is transported into space. You travel north to meet the witch that summons a projection of the wise one that tell you of a stone ring nearby that can take you to space if you gather the four magical items who you now have three of. In the north sea of Japan you find a submarine with food and learn that the item is in Zazen since the commander dropped it on his holiday. You battle a giant water mech and then head back to Zazen and after some fetch quest finally get it. 

TOO SPACE

After battling through the hordes of the peach mountain shogun you find Omitsu and the wise men, who was alive and built the machines and robots for the peach mountain guys. In exchange for car magazines... that got blown up as his house exploded. Which is rather ridicules and goes together with all the other absurdity in the game, but I know there were some other kind of magazine which they censored out. Anyway, entering the final stage the best music of the game plays and you reach the main bad guys that decide to put on a show... and then disappear and turn on the self-destruct. Leading to the final Impact stage. A two-stages boss battle. I survived on the minimum of health left (which is better than the time we both reached zero life points and I lost, which is rather bullshit). Afterwards we travel back to Japan and is attacked by a horde of women who wanted to see Dancin' and Kitty Lilly (the name of the bad guys), blaming Goemon and his friends. Then credits. 

The whole gang

First time I finished it on 100 % so I got some extra mode where you only fight the mecha-bosses. I finished it once before and I checked the time now, 15 hours. Damn, that isn't that long. I really like this game. The music and setting is amazing, the humour is hit and miss, but there is some laughs at the absurdity of it. The camera can be a bit wonky and the hit boxes are weird at times. But it is functional. I wish they had ported it over to a newer system or even remade it for the 3DS or something like that. I have some strong memories from childhood from this game, mostly replaying the game over and over since I couldn't save without a game pak so the first part of the game is rather ingrained into my memory almost 20 years after playing it. 

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja

 

Finally finished the Legend of the Mystical Ninja for the Snes and I gotta say, it felt a bit on the hard side if I hadn't abused the save scumming feature on the Wii U to get the most equipment... or even get the most money by cheating on the dice game. I don't think I would have succeeded otherwise. Maybe I just suck at playing those kind of game, but still, it seemed a bit unfair when the unpredictable townspeople started jumping around and throwing coins at me knocking away my newly bought piece of armor and my weapon level goes from this awesome Rygar yo-yo to a small pipe. All in all I prefer the Nintendo 64 game since there I could avoid everything pretty much without problem and my weapon stayed upgraded when I upgraded them. I even played that game a couple of times even before realizing I actually could buy armor to stop bullets and hits to damage me, but I wonder why have it when you could acquire 20 hearts or dots or whatever the life bar was.

The story then. It starts out with talk of a ghost attacking the villager and Goemon and Ebisumaru... Sorry, I mean Kid Ying and Dr Yang sets out to stop it. Then suddenly it's about saving a princess that takes you across Japan... I would guess, I don't think they ever pointed out where we were except by name and I ain't that good on the geography of Japan. Maybe I didn't like it due to playing by myself since it supports two-player and I only played it once with one of my sisters and since I suck on my own and she being worse on video games than me that wasn't the best combo. I don't think we passed the first level and since my only level was on the fourth level we couldn't cheat for more money and then armors and lives. Or I might just find someone else to play with. At least the music good and the cut scenes can be entertaining. Maybe the 64 game clouds my appreciation of this game or it might just be that you need a nostalgic connection to be willing to grind your way through the game legit.