Genre: 2d platformer
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami

That's a mustache? As the first "Goemon" game brought to the Americas, this game's characters never cease to entertain. From a man pushing a machine gun-mounted baby basket to a giant boss head which grows to take up the entire screen, there is no shortage of wonderfully drawn stage and character art, nor is there a shortage of tasteful and well-masqueraded "Mode 7" effects. A pair of standouts: the shop interiors are hair-raisingly atmospheric, while the "rotating platforms" level probably inspired the Mega Drive's "Sonic 3", which came out just a couple of years later.

If the graphics design is impressive, the sound is even moreso. Nearly every Super NES game uses those same, annoying, pre-canned horn and fart samples, and just as often the games sound low-sampled and muffled. And yet this title sounds so sharp, and so original, that one could just about mistake it for a CD-based game's Red Book audio-- it's that good, and really shows off the full capabilities of the system's DSP. Compositionally, the traditional Japanese tunes work well, as they tend to no matter where they're used, whether it's in "Samurai Shodown" or "Shenmue".

The flow of gameplay in this one is extremely reminiscent of "Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari": the player walks around three-quarter overhead stages, defeating enemies and scooping up coins, then goes into shops to buy items. Unlike that game though, there are also 2d platforming stages here, which make up the title's meat. Everything about this one just feels "off" and frustrating: the attack hit box is very difficult to gauge, the jumping feels unpredictable and fussy, while enemies-- several of which are quite annoying-- endlessly stream in from both sides of the screen during the town segments.

Just like with "River City Ransom", the pacing is very choppy, as the player is constantly going into and out of shops-- not helped here by the excruciatingly slow-scrolling text. The town areas are very large, and shops aren't labelled, so it's almost required to make pen and paper maps-- adding to the pacing issues. The game can be played by two players simultaneously, but then the camera isn't centered on either participant, making it almost impossible to react to the ceaseless parade of baddies. The artistic attributes of this game are absolutely through the stratosphere, but the gameplay could have used some refinement.