Anyway, a group of alien evil-doers known as the "Peach Mountain Shoguns" have come to Goemon's town of Oedo in a flying Peach spaceship and have attacked Oedo Castle! Oh no! So, now our hero Goemon (who was once named Kid Ying in "Legend of the Mystical Ninja (SNES)" -- yuk!) and his blue-haired pudgy friend Ebisumaru must find out what's going on! You'll also meet up with Agent Yae and the mechanical ninja Sasuke, both of whom will assist you on your travels by joining the party.

The game plays like Super Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie does. You walk around (and crawl if you hold down the Z button -- and if you want to see something funny, watch Ebisumaru crawl), destroying enemies with your pipe (or mallet or whatever), collecting money, and finding out what's going on and solving any problems that may arise. You will eventually each get magic spells too. Ebisumaru, for example, gets to become Mini-Ebisu! Way cool. However, the walk-and-whack isn't the only type of game action you'll see. In certain parts of the game, you'll need to summon your giant Goemon-lookalike robot buddy, Impact! He's HUGE! Put Goemon in the cockpit and you've got a mean fighting machine here! You'll have a view through the eyes of Impact during battle scenes (your second boss battle in the game is this, but it's quite difficult actually -- expect true challenge here). You can use your orbish hands to punch, a chainlink to clasp to your opponent to swing him around, and more. Gameplay is always a key factor, and so it delivers.

Graphically, you can expect nothing REALLY special (aside from a few expressions on faces which are funny). The scenery is bright most of the time, and you shouldn't have trouble seeing anything important. You WILL however, get lost in towns often. Anyway, all of the characters in the game are well-animated, especially Ebisumaru crawling (on his back, however unlikely it may look or seem)! Goemon still has strange spiky hair, and now with some new polygon hair gel, it's spikier than ever!

Sound...now that's funny funny schtuff. There are a few songs with actual sung lyrics, but unfortunately for us, the lyrics remain in Japanese...with English subtitles though. There ARE a few English phrases in there, but they feel out of place. Anyway, many songs are quite decent, and worth getting up and dancing to. Can't explain why, but that's how it is.

In any case, this game features a huge amount of Japanese stereotypical jabberwocky and settings. They (whoever they may be, is a mystery to thee) say that games like this would make no sense to American players, but it is actually to the contrary! We think that the humor is corny in a funny way! So make your way to your local game renting service and rent Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, or its N64 sequel, Goemon's Great Adventure. I haven't played GGA, but if it's like this game, it should be good. Enjoy watching Ebisumaru crawl!

While the original Gradius featured only one ship with four different versions to fly, Parodius offers four different ships altogether: Pentaro the penguin, Takohiko the octopus, Vic Viper the regular ship, and Twinbee from the Twinbee series, also by Konami. The action in the game is parallel to its Gradius counterpart. In order to increase your attack power (and attack circumference), you must collect power-ups that appear after defeating certain enemies. Available upgrades include increased speed, missiles, and lasers. The basic principle behind the game is to upgrade yourself, and all the while shoot your way through barrage after barrage of enemies. Wow.

The graphics are pretty darn good for the power of the NES. The enemies are detailed well, and all the sprites on screen are colorful and bright. Some of the graphics are so big, it's hard to keep them on the screen, with room for anything else! The ship later in the game is so large that the whole thing will not fit on the screen, so it takes a few minutes to get rid of it. Your eyes will not become tired playing this game.

As for music, there is a lot of variety in the game. Many of the songs in the game are modernized versions of classical music. The sounds, however, are very limited to only the sounds of your shots, enemy explosions, and a few other sounds. So, while the music is ultimately pleasing, the sounds leave something to be desired.

The game's control is so simple, it deserves a perfect score in this category. I found that I had no troubles controlling my ship (I always use the octopus in Parodius games). This leads me to conclude that the reason I die a lot is because I don't watch all the things that are flying around. Bad me.

Anyway, Parodius is a great game to get into. It can get difficult even in easy mode, but I guess you'll feel good after you've beaten it. Unfortunately, this game was NOT released in North America, but was released only in Europe and Asia. For some reason or another (probably because of the occasional sexual innuendos or some of the anti-American enemies found in the game), it was considered inappropriate for North American residents. But either way, if you can grab a copy of this game, do so! You will not regret it.

Apparently, the story of this game is another one of those "rampant robot" stories. A new robot named King has stolen plans from Dr. Wily for some new Robot Masters, and now is trying to take over the world with them. This game is different in the sense that not only can you play as Mega Man, but you can also play as Bass (Forte in Japan)! Each of these two 'bots has their own reason for stopping King; Mega Man wants to save the world as usual, but Bass wants to beat King simply to prove that he's the best fighter around. Of course, Mega Man proved him wrong in Mega Man 7...

The graphics in the game are like a mirror image of Mega Man 8 (PSX/SATURN). The game is VERY well colored, and all the characters (even the minor enemies) have plenty of smooth animations. Some of the bosses are rather large, and that will really make you glad that you played this game (if you CAN get that far, that is, since this game is pretty darn hard...especially the second fortress stage...YIKES!!).

The music is not all that interesting, but it will keep your sense of sound occupied, I suppose. Sadly, the CD Database music was my favorite tune of them all. The sound effects also fall into such a category; no sound effects are out of the ordinary here, so tough luck.

By far, the most interesting and intensive task in this game is to go through all eight Robot Master stages (as well as the opening Museum stage, which can be re-accessed at will) and search for CDs to add to the Database. There are 100 CDs in total, and every CD provides information on a different character in the Mega Man universe. Some of the CDs are just sitting out in the open, some need to be dug up by Rush, and others require special techniques to get to them. Once you get all 100 CDs, you will get...the satisfaction of finding them all!

If you have played this already, you know how I feel about this game already. For those who haven't applied themselves to the Rockman & Forte experience, I strongly suggest you look into this game. It's one of the best SNES games to date, but it's a shame Americans don't get the priviledge of playing as one of the most high-nosed 'bots in the video game business. I'm referring to Forte.

Kemco, legends of the Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle series, have emerged again to give us a splendid game. It is based on the life of Del, a caravan rider who was attacked by the castle's guards and taken prisoner in the castle dungeon. His quest to survive the trials of Castle Shadowgate, as well as his eventually obtained quest to rid the lands of an evil wizard, are documented in this game as you live out his every move. Del must use any and every item he finds to help solve the various puzzles that lay within the castle's tall stone boundaries. Will he, as well as you who controls him, be able to solve the mysteries of Castle Shadowgate?

This game has been generally classified under the RPG genre; however, this game is hardly the type of game you would expect from a Final Fantasy title, for example. There is barely any fighting at all in this game (which is good for parents who don't want their children succumbing to the visuals of senseless violence), with the exception of the destruction of a Warlock at the end of the game. It is more walking around, using and picking up items, and just generally thinking about what could be done next. Do not leave any corner unturned or any stone untouched; looking over certain parts of the game may leave you dazed and confused for hours on end. However, if you happen to get a walkthrough for this game, it will prove to be a very short game altogether.

If you'd like to discuss graphics in this game, then you could say that they are average. There is nothing truly spectacular to see in this game, ALTHOUGH the part with the dragon, as well as the opening sequence with the caravan certainly is different from what you'd normally see in a Nintendo 64 game. Instead of these cinematic scenes being all polygonized and 3-D bing-banged, the game takes very two-dimensional sprites and works them into the scenes. You may think that this is cheesy -- and it is -- but these sprites actually work pretty well with the rest of the game, which IS in 3-D, if you were about to lose all hope in Shadowgate 64. There are many places to visit BUT there are not too many characters in the game, so you might feel a bit lonely after a while...but don't worry. You'll feel better when a holographic image of the wizard master Lakmir (who was mentioned in the NES/GBC version of Shadowgate) pops up and gives you a lecture.

It is interesting to note that sound is also not the strong suit of this game, as there is not a lot of heavy music in this game, nor are there a lot of wacky sound effects. However, I did find the music in the church very pleasant and it also had a great tune, so that would be the highlight of the sound department. As you can probably already tell, everything is kept simple so you can focus on your goal and not wander off with your eyes or ears.

So, let's recap the situation. The game has average graphics, average sound, no fighting, and a lot of braincrunching. So, if that's the case, why would Shadowgate 64 be featured at such a fine site as the Game of the Week? Well, maybe it's because I forgot to mention the fact that it's just a fun package altogether! Certainly, you will not mind the graphics or sound as long as you just meld yourself into the game's internal atmosphere and enjoy yourself. Remember: as long as a game is fun, it's a good game. Shadowgate 64 has that quality, and I give it a seal of approval regardless of others judging the book by its cover, or the game by its outer texture.