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Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (Game Boy)

I'm planning on giving the main page a much-needed update/redesign. More details here. SpaceProtagonist (talk) 04:15, December 18, 2024 (UTC)
Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (Game Boy)
Behold, the worst Goemon game ever made.
Genre(s): Adventure
Minigames
Platform(s): Game Boy
Release Date: Game Boy
JP: December 4, 1997
WW: April 1998
3DS Virtual Console
JP: March 7, 2012
EU: August 16, 2012
NA: September 13, 2012
Developer(s): Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya
Publisher(s): Konami
Predecessor: Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (Nintendo 64)


Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (がんばれゴエモン〜黒船党くろふねとうの謎なぞ〜, Ganbare Goemon: Kurofune Tō no Nazo, lit. "Go Goemon: Mystery of the Black Ship Gang") is a Goemon series Game Boy game released in 1998. Featuring gameplay similar to the Super Famicom title Ganbare Goemon 3: Shishijūrokubē no Karakuri Manji Gatame, the game presents a new story in which Yae has been kidnapped by the Black Ship Gang. Its release immediately followed the Nintendo 64 game of the same name.

Story

After Yae is kidnapped, Goemon, Ebisumaru, and Sasuke set out to find the Black Ship Gang and rescue her. They first assault Karakuri Castle, the pirates' hideout, where they learn that Baron Skull—the captain of the group—lured Yae to his hideout. They pursue Baron to the Demon Cave, where Goemon discovers clues left behind by the female ninja. They take him to the Black Ship Skull, the flagship of the pirates moored in Gull Harbor. Goemon and his friends destroy the ship without locating Yae, and are aghast to see a second Black Ship Gang vessel sail into harbor. They board it and continue the quest, eventually wresting Yae from Baron Skull's hold.

Why It Can't Rescue Yae

  1. The graphics are terrible, even by Game Boy standards, they are so bad that sometime you will forgot what characters you play as, in fact plenty of other games on Game Boy look better such as Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden's Coins, The Smurfs, Mega Man III and even Kirby's Dream Land look better than this.
    • It doesn't help that other Game Boy games release by Konami earlier look much better like Kid Dracula or even Castlevania: The Adventure, in which the latter was released all the way back in 1989, it doesn't help that another Goemon game released for the OG Game Boy released in 1991 look better than this.
    • The main problem with them is that they lack details, which is incredibly unnaceptable for a 1997 Game Boy game, because even some games released in 1989 for the GB look better and more detailled, it also look like a poor man Pokémon game (which howewer those games look way better).
  2. The controls are very poor and clunky, and overall they doesn't feel great to use, which is why the game play so poorly. What make this worse is that most Goemon games had tight and responsive controls, howewer this game does not belong in this category.
  3. While most of the Goemon games have fun gameplay, the gameplay here is just awful, it's so bad that it's can easily be considered an insult for the Nintendo 64 version of Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon.
    • Not to mention that it quickly became boring and repetitive, because there's barely any enemies to fight aside from the bosses and even then it doesn't even feel fun to kill them, the platforming is just plain awful and the explorations isn't fun and had zero redeeming qualities.
  4. The game title is misleading as some peoples could expect a smaller version of the N64 version but it's just a completly different game genre in the Goemon franchise, even if there are earlier Goemon adventure games that was release which was the main genre of the serie until Ganbare Goemon 2 on SNES came out.
  5. The game is very short, it's can take only 1h30m to 2 hours max which is just lazy and boring compared to the other great Goemon games.
  6. The plot is very weak, especially for a Ganbare Goemon game, it is as generic as the Super Mario Bros. plot on the NES (even that game have a almost better plot) as you have to rescue Yae but that about it.
  7. The adventure part is very confusing as you can lose yourself very easily as the level design is atrocious, especially for Goemon standard, even in the first level of Doraemon on the Famicom have better level design than this game.
  8. Most of the minigames are dreadful like the minigame in which Goemon must whack octopuses or the 100m race which is the worst of them all as you have to mashing the A button extremely fast and you could easily destroy your finger.
  9. The bosses are just plain horrible and atrocious, especially the final boss as it's just luck based, remember when the Game Boy have limitation and that can't really do impact boss fight work.
  10. To make matters worse is that if you dare losing a minigame after a boss, it counts as a death and you have to restart the game from the very beginning, no kidding, or the quiz where you have to respond in only 5 second, yes only 5 second, this show how awful this game is.
  11. Unlike most games in the serie, there are no continues. Heck, not even limited continue like 3 continue only, just to show that they wanted artificial difficulty which is just plain awful.
  12. Most of the screen look the same just with small ajustments which is plain lazy, and make the game even more boring.
  13. While some of the musics are good, the soundtrack is somehow bland or just plain bad, especially for Goemon standard as most of the game, if not all have great soundtrack and the Goemon games are also know for their great soundtrack.
  14. While you can talk with peoples in the levels, they mostly don't say anything really useful.
  15. The hit detection is very awful and broken, as when you hit the enemies, it is only in case, so that mean that if the enemy is only at 1m of your weapon, they don't get hit, and it doesn't help that your weapon range is ridiculous.
  16. All the characters are the same, the only difference beetween them is how they jump far.
  17. When you kill ennemis, they don't drop anything, not even a health point, this is one of the reason why this game is very frustrating.
    • Its also don't help the fact that you have only one life and no continue.

The Only Redeeming Quality

  1. The cover arts are very cool, especially the NA one.

Reception

Unsurprisingly, this game received overwelmingly negative reviews by most fan of the franchise and bad reviews by the critics. On Gamefaq, Krisipoke gave it a 1/10 and say that he would take Castlevania: The Adventure and that it mean something.

It is also considered to be the worst Goemon game along with Ganbare Goemon: Kuru Nara Koi! Ayashige Ikka no Kuroi Kage.

Trivia

  • This was the last Goemon game on the Game Boy.
  • Unlike the first Goemon game on Game Boy, this game was release world wide.

Videos

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