I don’t have much to say this week. I still have to work on my portfolio and get all pretty looking for possible employers.

I went on a shopping spree a few days ago. Specifically I was looking for DS games. My Nintendo DS has completely replaced all the books on my nightstand. Before I go to bed, I’m tapping away with my stylus instead of turning pages. Hell, the DS is the best system of this entire generation.

But that’s neither here nor there. What was I talking about?

Oh right, yeah the games. I was buying some new games to fulfill my insatiable hunger. During my search, I was surprised to see such low prices on considerably excellent games. They never got a fair shake and now they’re sitting in Wal-marts gigantic unsorted bargain bin. They’re all less than $20 (CAD) and some of them were a mere $10.

Sooo… I guess I’m saying that if you have a DS and you have money, you should read the rest of this post.

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As some of you know, Fukio Mitsuji passed away late last year due to medical complications. I’m sure you’ll forgive if I spare the details.

The truth is, he had ducked out of game design as a career years ago. Instead, he started a school to teach young up-and-comers about the subject. The man had a lot of great principles when it came to game design, many of which I hope his students took to heart.

This is the man that refused to retread old ground in his sequel. This is the man that can boil down the concept that guides a game and rebuild it into something refreshing and completely unexpected. He can take such a simple idea for a game and, with excellent design skills, turn it into something wonderful. It’s the sign of a true chef to do so much with such simple ingredients; MTJ is one of the legends of our time. His work proves that game design can be art and not just a job.

It really says something that his design skills are still talked about at places like Gamasutra to this day. You should pick up Taito Legends 1 & 2 just to watch his interviews and learn, if nothing else. Today, I’d like to examine his best work. I’m sure we can all learn something by picking it apart (and having some fun along the way, cough cough.)

It wasn’t easy figuring out exactly what he had done. The Japanese are infuriatingly modest when it comes to giving and taking credit and Mitsuji did some work beyond the confines of Taito. Google was no help on this one. There are some projects where he is attributed as helping out a little (such as some character design for New Zealand Story or as a publishing exec for Halley’s Comet), and there are other projects where his contributions are certainly not the main event (such as for Storming Party, Super Dead Heat, and some other obscure Arcade games.)

I’d like to focus specifically on his projects where he was lead designer. These are the games where he spent many sleepless nights sketching and dreaming. Keep in mind that these were originally Arcade games, designed for quarter-sucking over everything else. His goal was to make sure you kept playing and playing until you were broke. He did a good job.

[The downloads are for console ports. In each case, I selected what I felt to be the best or most accessible version.]

Bubble Bobble (Arcade, NES)

This game is his first work and, in my opinion, still his best. Not many people start at the top. I think Mitsuji realized it though, because he really didn’t make all that many games in the following years to come. I mean, where do you have left to go after creating such a masterpiece?

There is a very good reason that Bubble Bobble was showered with so many quarters during it’s heyday of 1986. MTJ wisely designed the game to feature co-op multiplayer, a rarity at the time. But more than that, the game was so challenging that you’d be a fool to play it alone! I gotta admit, I’m glad he made such a tough decision. To design a game that’s actually intended to be played by two people is a ballsy move. But then again, how many of us really go to the arcade alone? And isn’t it great when you find an addictive co-op game that everyone loves?

And it’s addictive for many reasons. First off, the concept of your bubble shot doubling as a weapon and a make-shift platform just doesn’t get old. The graphics are clean and bright and I’m still humming the damn music even as I write this. But you know what truly defines success? The fact that I don’t even need to explain this game to you. Everybody knows it, everybody has played it. It sticks in your head and appeals to us all on some level. MTJ set out to make a fun ‘couples’ game, giving us a guilt-free reason to bring a date to the arcade.

What a brilliant success.

Rainbow Islands (Arcade, Sega Genesis)

A follow-up to Bubble Bobble was a must. Taito was demanding and Mitsuji was willing to deliver. So what’s in the sequel? Admit it: what do you expect of every sequel? Most of us are quick to think about better graphics, more levels, better power-ups, new bosses, and more complex moves. We want to see our great game expanded to be something even better.

Mitsuji dropped the ball. Right into the net. This game is a winner in every sense of the word. Does it deliver what a sequel should? I want you to really think about what that means. MTJ thankfully wasn’t willing to settle on making a standard sequel. Instead, he put a lot of thought into what Bubble Bobble was really about.

He stripped the gameplay down to it’s basic concept: “Hey, let’s use our projectile as a platform”, and built it once again from the ground up. This game has nothing in common with the original, even throwing out the idea of two players. Instead, it’s a solid solo adventure filled with secrets and secrets within secrets and even more secrets! Did I mention the secrets? This game is deceptively simple upon first glance, but it becomes nothing short of amazing to the curious explorer.

The game-changing influence of Rainbow Islands was felt throughout Bubble Bobble even after new designers took over. Parasol Stars was another departure for the series, followed by Bust-a-move. Sure Taito eventually wrestled Bubble Bobble back to it’s original inception, but it went kicking and screaming.

[The PC-Engine version is available on Wiiware. It's the best arcade conversion, if you're interested.]

Syvalion (Arcade, SNES)

Now here’s one hell of an odd game. Moving away from platformers, MTJ decided to develop a shooter that exemplified his personal touch. He had worked on arcade shooters in the past (e.g. LSA Squad), but this time he was in charge. He came up with a crazy idea, like always. In this game, you play a serpent…lion…alien…dragon thingy. You go around shooting things in sort-of-a-top-down fashion. And stuff. It’s labyrinthine, hectic, nibblesy, and actually pretty tough (at least for a wuss like myself.) It really is quite something just trying to fully absorb the insanity of the experience.

The game was a hit in the arcades, likely due to just being so damn odd. It was released for the SNES in Japan and Taito planned on bringing it to our shore. They even had a commercial running for awhile and it was advertised in gaming magazines… but then nothing. What happened?

Volfied (Arcade, Sega Genesis)

By this point, Mitsuji was tiring of his stay at Taito and with game development in general. The guy was a born-teacher, and it wouldn’t be long before he would take up that profession full-time. Before he left Taito, he designed one more game. This game is the only sequel he ever made. I think it was a personal challenge for him, to see if he could even do it. It was conceived as a pumped-up version of Qix. It features better graphics, different enemies, and everything else you would expect of a sequel.

It’s also as hard as sin.

It’s not a great game (although it’s the best Qix you’ll ever find), but it’s obvious that MTJ was trying for something different. This is the game where he became obsessed with details. What could be the power-ups for Qix? How do they affect the game? Notice how cutting in one level leads to graphics from the second level? A lot of the enemy designs pushed the limits of what an arcade machine could do at the time. And the fact you have to cut a level down from 80% while avoiding a boss for each field certainly is a challenge. It’s a hearty effort from a great designer, if a little empty.

Magical Puzzle Popils (Sega Game Gear)

Fortunately, MTJ’s career ended on an incredibly bright note. Having left Taito, Mitsuji was offered a project at Tengen (you know them better as Atari.) He decided upon one genre in which he had no prior experience; the one genre that you would never see on an arcade machine. He made a puzzle game.

It is awesome. In each of the one-hundred stages, you must head-bash and block-punch your way to the princess, avoiding spikes and slimes galore. It may seem simple, but each step you take can alter the level into an unsolveable mess. The presentation is really catchy; after each level, the prince and princess waltz about in a silly song and dance.

What can be said of Bubble Bobble can be said here: the gameplay may be simple but it’s surprisingly deep. In this case, it’s the level design that really shines. You have to play it to see just how far MTJ pushes the engine.

Is Popils the only game he made outside of Taito’s arcades? I might never have a solid answer to that. But if you ever see a game with the initials MTJ in the hi-scores, please don’t keep it to yourself. Send it my way and I shall be grateful. Play the games on these list and you too shall be grateful.

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Personally, analyzing his works has done a few things for me:

• I have a new-found appreciation for Bubble Bobble, including Parasol Stars and all the other ones he didn’t even make.
• I’ve finally found a version of Qix that isn’t boring.
• I wasted my entire Saturday night playing Popils. Tonight doesn’t look too good either.

Seriously though, I did learn one important thing. In this day and age, we have 3D graphics and HUDs and sixteen button controllers and demanding gamers, etc. Now, more than ever, we need to really think about the future of game design. What did it mean to MTJ? Complicated gameplay is not necessarily long-lasting and even the simplest ideas can be deep and meaningful.

The confusion between deep, fulfilling games and over-complicated, long games is a trend that is likely to continue. Make sure you aren’t one of the thousands of players that falls for it. I’ll take a 2-hour kick-ass romp through Portal over a 40-hour ordeal of yet-another-JRPG drudgery any goddamn day of the week.

Keep that in mind when you watch the next trailer for FF XIII.

I came across this game on Sunday morning. The fact that I have not yet shared it with you should be considered a crime. Joakim Sandberg, the man behind the ever-lovely Noitu Love 2 has released a simple one-level arcadey take on Legend of Zelda. Like always, Sandberg hits a home-run.

It’s not often that Nintendo hands the reins over to someone else. When they did it for the CD-i, it was a disaster. Fortunately, the Capcom days have been better since. Still, would you really expect a lone developer to do it justice?

Well this one is spectacular. It’s not often that a fan-game catches my attention. I imagine it to be rather like fanfiction: most of the time it’s boring and kind of sad. Yet there are times when your eyes pop out of your head in amazement and you simply can’t look away. This is one of those times. You have to see this.
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Can this fake licensing get any more confusing? You betcha. With all the attention Tetris was attracting, it didn’t take long for a new buyer to enter the scene: The Big N. Nintendo, impressed by the phenomenon, wanted Tetris for the Gameboy. They contacted Henk Rogers of Bulletproof for help with licensing and development. An alliance was formed. Rogers called up Stein, deliberately avoiding Atari. After all, a handheld wasn’t a console, right? But it was too much for Mirrorsoft already; Stein refused to even talk to Rogers. Perhaps Stein was worried about creating another legal mess. What could be done? Henk Rogers refused to give up. He decided to fly to Moscow and talk to the original owners.

Robert Stein, sensing that Rogers was about to blow his scheme, also flew to Moscow for damage control. It was at this point that Robert Maxwell, owner of Mirrorsoft, became suspicious of Robert Stein’s activities and sent his son Kevin to keep an eye on this licensing fiasco.

Henk Rogers was warmly greeted by Belikov, the new president of ELORG. Henk explained Nintendo’s interest. They struck a deal. To demonstrate how Bulletproof would use the license, Rogers showed off his Famicom version of Tetris. You know, that version that was licensed to them by Tengen (Atari) that was licensed by Stein that was licensed by…NOBODY? Belikov’s eyes probably popped right out. ELORG was furious. Henk Rogers realized that Stein had built a house of cards with his lies. Rogers, hoping to settle all hurt feelings (towards himself at least) offered to pay royalties for all the copies Bulletproof had sold.

ELORG went from pissy to happy in no time flat. After all this time, they were finally getting some money. Mirrorsoft hadn’t given them a single cheque even after all this time. Rogers (backed by NintendO), willing to pay up so quickly, made Stein look even worse.

In return, Rogers wanted exclusive handheld and console rights for Nintendo. ELORG agreed, but wanted to wait and get a bid for console rights. There was still a huge mess to sort out with Stein and Mirrorsoft.

First up was Robert Stein. It was all behind closed doors, so I can’t tell you how it was managed. I don’t know how Stein avoided an execution. Instead, ELORG only forced Stein to revise his previous PC-only contract to be legally airtight and completely explicit. They also passed a warning: Stein would be watched closely from now on.

ELORG then called in Kevin Maxwell and demanded to know what was going on. They waved a copy of Tengen Tetris in his face, Mirrorsoft’s name on the cover, and asked for an explanation. Maxwell was surprised to learn Stein lied about having console rights. Mirrorsoft had no idea that Stein had lied to them all this time. Mirrorsoft didn’t even know that Stein had sold the rights twice to both Atari and Bulletproof! Mirrorsoft was caught with it’s pants down. Maxwell pleaded for his company to have a chance to bid on the console rights.

It didn’t matter. This was 1988. Nintendo had more money than God. They offered so much money to ELORG that every other contender backed off. Atari was told to pull Tengen Tetris off the shelves. Atari glared at Mirrorsoft. Mirrorsoft’s Robert Maxwell couldn’t believe it and wouldn’t let it go. He even politicized the situation, going as far as getting re-assurance from Gorbachev that ‘the little Japanese company’ would be dealt with. Whatever. The truth came out to everyone. Stein was exposed. The awsuit formed by Atari against Nintendo went nowhere for years. Maxwell died under suspicious circumstances and his Mirrorsoft media empire shortly unraveled afterwards.

The moral of this story? Robert Stein is a jerk. And yet, he made $250,000 off his double-dealing ways while Pajitnov didn’t see a single dime because of communism. How fair is that?

Well don’t worry, there’s a happy ending. Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers later formed the Tetris Company which has worked with Nintendo several times. They’re in charge of the international standards, they get paid for the use of Tetris, and Pajitnov has been making cool puzzle games since (my personal favourite is still Tetrisphere.)

I think this little story proves the power of Tetris. Stein jumped into his scheme, never imagining that Tetris would achieve such tremendous success. It was the huge media spotlight on such an amazing game that ultimately proved to be his undoing. But Tetris doesn’t end here. I’ll see you next week.

Did you know? Tetris is a combination of Tetra and Tennis. Pajitnov eventually made a 3D top-down sequel called Welltris. I tried it. It wasn’t much fun.

It didn’t take long for Tetris to escape the confines of Alexey’s workplace. Within a year, it was out of the country. Before it left Hungary it had already been ported to several different machines, including the Apple IIE and the Commodore 64. It was about this time that someone got the idea to license and sell the game. That’s when everything went to hell.

Seriously, I’ve got a headache just trying to sort out this mess. This is what happens when Communism meets Capitalism. Where do I begin? Well, let’s start with Robert Stein from the UK (I’m leaving out his Andromeda for the sake of my sanity.) Stein realized that Tetris was a real winning ticket and so went out of his way to get the licensing rights from Pajitnov directly. But, like an idiot, before he even signs any rights to Tetris, he sells the license to Mirrorsoft (you SNES Trekkies know them better as Spectrum HoloByte.) That’s right. Stein sold rights to a game that he didn’t yet own. Stein then flew to Moscow with a contract in hand, all ready to do business with Pajitnov. It was there he was polity informed that Pajitnov didn’t even own Tetris. The government treated him with obstinance; they didn’t even know what Tetris was. Infuriated that Russia ignored him, Stein pretended to the world that Hungarian programmers were the real inventors of Tetris and acted like he had bought the rights from them.

So now we have Stein pretending to have a license for Tetris. And we have Mirrorsoft thinking Stein gave them a legit go-ahead from Pajitnov directly, when in fact the Russian government legally had the rights the entire time. Mirrorsoft made their product. It didn’t take long for PC geeks to catch on to this great puzzle game. PC magazines heralded Tetris as the greatest puzzle game ever made. All the media attention eventually reached Russia and it didn’t take long for the government to realize that they had been screwed by Stein. Russia formed a company nicknamed “ELORG”; it’s sole purpose was to hold the legal rights for Tetris. ELORG went after Stein for his ’stealing.’ They spent months bickering with eachother. Eventually, somehow, it was settled. Stein and Mirrorsoft owed them money; in return they could keep making Tetris… but only for the PC.

So far so good, right?

You’d think that would be the end of it. Stein was finally authorized and joined with Mirrorsoft to legally distribute Tetris PC. But Stein, being a vicious bastard, wouldn’t quit. For starters, he realized there was way more money in arcades and consoles then there was in PCs. So Stein pretended that he had the console rights, even after being expressly forbidden personally by Alexinko (the first president of ELORG.) If that wasn’t bad enough, Stein then sold the rights to TWO different companies: Bulletproof and Atari. Atari was pretty pissed off when they found out about Bulletproof. They thought they were getting exclusive rights, and being the bigger company of the two, they got their way. Bulletproof was forced to buy the rights AGAIN, this time from Atari. Atari warned that the small fish could only operate Tetris in Japan. Henk Rogers, operator of Bulletproof, was not amused.

Robert Stein was getting away with murder.

After pretending he got rights from Hungary, I’m surprised ELORG was willing to cut him slack. And now look how he betrayed them. You don’t sell exclusive rights twice! And he didn’t even have console rights to begin with! Mirrorsoft, Atari, Bulletproof… everyone had the wool pulled over their eyes. How much longer could it continue?

Is this story really as black and white as I make it seem? Hell no, but sometimes I get carried away with narrative. Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion!

Let’s get back to Konami. Again! 

They made a lot of sleeper hits for the Super Nintendo, so that’s what we’ll be doing this week. Let’s take a look at the early Nineties! Cobain was still alive and well, Royal Canadian Air Farce was actually funny, and the world thought Jaleel White was awesome.

During this time, Konami put out some great hits. Axelay, Contra, Gradius 3, Super Castlevania, Bloodlines, the list goes on and on. Today I want to talk about just one particular franchise.

Ganbare Goemon / Mystical Ninja

I personally love this series. Unfortunately, it never gained ground on our shores. It’s waaay too Japanese for the masses and Konami rarely acknowledges our otaku-riddled continent.

Goemon fought people with a pipe. Sometimes he played like Ryu, sometimes he played like Billy Lee, sometimes he played like Erdrick. Whether it was a platformer, a fighter, or an RPG, Goemon never failed to captivate Japanese hearts with crazy characters and even crazier plots. Too bad we didn’t see much of it.

“What are you talking about Mike? I played Legend of the Mystical Ninja on my N64!”

Yeah, you’re right. A couple of them were actually translated and brought over. The only real successful one was that first N64 game. A musical duo called Peach Mountain comes from outer space to take over the world? There is nothing you could add or take out of the previous sentence to make it more awesome.

For those that just don’t know what I’m talking about, allow me to elaborate. The gameplay is great, the characters are hilarious, and the plots are… “original” at least. So why did Konami abandon it? Why do Goemon and Jajamaru get mentioned in the same breath of obscurity?

In total there are ~25 games in the franchise. That’s quite a bit! Let’s take a look at some of the better ones.

The NES Days – Goemon 2

I know I said we were done with NES, but we do need to make this short stop. Mr. Goemon was the original arcade game. It was a simple ‘run right and kill things in your way’. It wasn’t until it came to the home consoles that it gained speed. Karakuri Douchuu was soon released featuring Zelda/River City gameplay; too bad the levels sucked. Even though the arcade game was a simple affair and the home version was kinda bland, Konami refused to give up on Goemon and kept going. Soon Goemon 2 made the rounds in Japan. This was a far more polished effort and that’s what I provided to you for play.

If you remember Mystical Ninja from the SNES, you’ll feel at home.

After this, they decided to mix it up by giving Goemon a decidedly Dragon Quest spin; they released two more games (under Goemon Gaiden) before getting their SNES on. Let’s just jump right into that good stuff!

The SNES Days – Ganbare SNES Collection

Finally we see a US release for their first SNES Goemon game. Then they made four more right under our noses. I’ve excluded the puzzle game for obvious reasons. The rest, however, are all in the download.

That’s right, three shiny games for you to play. The series finally introduces Sasuke (Mr. Casual Murder as we call him) and gives us Yae, the cute samurai girl. These games feature some great old-school platforming with RPG elements and bright graphics.

The wackiness has been lovingly translated by some fans, so you won’t miss out on the craziness of the plot. You might wanna rethink playing the final entry, unless you’re into masochism. All in all, Goemon really had some great games for the 16-bit era.

The Later Days

Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Now available on WiiWare)
Goemon’s Great Adventure

Konami gave the US a taste of 3D Goemon by translating the N64 titles above. That last one came pretty late in the N64 lifetime and, sadly, you probably missed it.

The franchise was a firestorm over in Japan. Konami made several PS1 games, one of them in 3D (Kuru Nara Koi!) They also took the time to re-release their older games on the handheld consoles and make some genre switch-ups featuring Ebisumaru.

It’s clear that Goemon was popular all the way up to 2000. And it wasn’t just Japan. Goemon finally started catching on with US hardcore gamers (occasionally resulting in hilarity).

But then another generation of console came. Something happened which killed the franchise to a slow trickle, and your guess is as good as mine. The last game was silently released on the DS a few years ago. Have we seen the last of new adventures? It’s been nearly a decade and it looks like Goemon will continue to fade away. There’s a chance this franchise is gone for good.

If you’re interested in more, there is an excellent article over at HG101.

Did you guys have fun with the penguin game? I know I always enjoy a good Pentarou. It’s a great game to play if you’re thinking of dieting and have too much self-esteem.

Anyway back to Konami. Are you guys starting to get the picture here? Konami used to make a lot of different games, across all genres. They had a lot of clever original ideas. With the rise of Rebirth, I hope that means they’re open to new experimentation…

Screw the present! Let’s get back to the past. The following games are considered ‘classics’ by their own crowds, and rightly so.

I’m Kid Dracula!

Picture Castlevania with cute graphics, kiddy enemies, bouncy happy tunes based off the Vampire Killer soundtrack, and a delightfully silly tone. Dracula must retake his castle! Think of it as a kindergartener’s guide to Aria of Sorrow. It has a lot of fun elements which evolved and made it’s way into the series later on. Highly recommended for any Castlevania fan with a sense of humour.

Esper Dream 2

The story is about a guy in a library who has to travel into fairytale books to..um…do stuff. The combat scenes are real-time, but the rest of the time it’s like any other RPG. I guess I’m saying that if Crystalis and Final Fantasy had a gay baby, this would be it.

I’m providing an english translation (done by the phenomenal AGTP) so you won’t get lost. RPG fans will enjoy this one a lot, despite repetitive combat. There’s something about it that keeps one coming back. It’s a shame that this game, like the others on this list, were never translated. I think this one could have been a small hit over here given the chance.

Getsufuu Maden

This game is very popular with the retro samurai fans. Those that love it consider it one of the greatest games ever made. Will you be one of them? I’ll admit that I’m not. I don’t mind the game, but I can’t say I’m fond of the presentation or gameplay. It’s got a lot to it (far more than you would expect from the initial play-through), but it has loose controls and it’s quite punishing.

Moai-Kun

Now this one is right up my alley! What is it with me and action puzzle games anyway? This one gives you a good head-scratching and features the Moai head from Gradius. Use your gigantic cranium to push blocks around to finish each level. It’s got a great light-hearted aesthetic and I’m a bit disappointed I had to grow up without this title on my shelf!