Doraemon: Nobita no Dorabian Night (video game)

Doraemon: Nobita no Dorabian Night (video game)
The first truly awesome movie tie-in Doraemon game.
Protagonist(s): Doraemon Genre(s): Platform Platform(s): PC-Engine PC-Engine CD Release Date: Original December 6, 1991 CD version May 29, 1992 Developer(s): Hudson Soft Publisher(s): Hudson Soft Series: Doraemon

Doraemon: Nobita no Dorabian Night is a game developed by Now Productions Co. Ltd. and published by Hudson Soft on the PC Engine in December 6, 1991. The game was re-released on CD on May 29, 1992.

Plot

While Nobita was walking with Shizuka, Gian and Suneo interrupt them. After Nobita tells them about the shoes that allow them to go into stories, Nobita, Shinzuka, Gian, and Suneo go inside the books, when Doraemon came to Nobita's room, he realized his friends are gone, however Doraemon sees that his friends are inside the books and need help, so Doraemon goes inside each book to save them.

Why It Rocks

1. The graphics are quite awesome for 1991 standards, as it had really colorful color palette and is incredibly detailed, even by comparison to the previous Doraemon game on the PC-Engine, this also shows how great Hudson Soft are at making their games good looking, the sprites are also stunning, even for a PC-Engine game.
2. The game is surprisingly challenging even for a Doraemon game, since it will require you brain and some strategy to beat this game, the difficulty is also decently balanced for the most parts, although it became quite unbalanced at the end of the game, starting on the beginning of world 3.
3. Awesome and incredible soundtrack that is full of great songs that are really catchy, and also barely are repetitive, not only that, but the rendition of the theme song is also well done, especially in the PC-Engine CD version that had the original theme song of Doraemon.
   • Some of the best examples of the great soundtrack would be the 1-4 theme and especially the bosses' music, since they sound impressive even for the system it was released on, and are of course catchy and awesome to listen to, and they decently fit their respective places.
   • Also, the music tone is consistent, since it managed to be either epic, calm and even relaxing in a fitting level, and this works really well with the game tone.
4. Amazing cutscenes for the PC-Engine CD version since they are really well animated and had really great voice acting that surprisingly feels like the show voice acting, thanks to how good they did made the cutscenes for this game. The cutscenes on the original are pretty decent, but lackluster compared to the CD version.
5. Tight and responsive controls that are some of the best from a Doraemon game, since they will never, ever be unresponsive and are so well programmed that when you start using the D-pad, you will move until you stop using it, where Doraemon will immediately stop moving, much like Plok! on the SNES.
6. Decent voice acting for the PC-Engine CD version, and they also sounds clean even by the system standards, for a 1991 game, that kinda impressive.
7. You can use the Take-Copter for the final boss, which is cool, like if you would want less struggle than just being on the ground and just wait until you will be fully able to hit the final boss.
8. The length is actually pretty long for a platformer released back in 1991, since it takes at least 2 hours to beat the game, most platformers at the time take 30 minutes or 45 minutes, but howewer this can be a problem due to an issue (See BQ#3).
9. Amazing presentation for time the game was released, it's almost on par with a Sega Saturn game due to how great it is, showing how well made this game truly is.
10. Good boss fights, like the final boss and the knight boss. And it's very simple to defeat them, just shoot at them once they are finished, and the World you have played is just behind you, meaning it's completed.
11. Lots of power ups and weapons to choose from.
12. The hit detection is flawless for a PC-Engine game.
13. The bonus stages are decent and fun to play, they also are a bit challenging.

Bad Qualities

1. While the controls are awesome, they had a few problems, which will be listed in the sub pointers:
   • The controls when jumping for the platforming are somewhat heavy, especially when Doraemon had grabbed a part of platform, and because of that, you might get some trouble doing platforming, but this is mostly if you don't know how the controls work.
   • While they are responsive, they also are a little bit slow, as a result, if you don't like game that had slow controls, then there are chances that you might not like this game.
2. There are no continues, which is a big problem since the game is really long and also hard, and there are no save feature either.
3. The cutscenes have no music and are hard to listen to on emulators, at least for the CD version.
   • Speaking of music, when trying to play the game on emulators, the music is slower and it can hurt your ears for a while.
4. The CD version is barely changed from the original, the only true change is the cutscenes that look more like the show and slighly better graphics, but other than that, there aren't many changes, it is even worse when you realise that it's also Hudson Soft who did that version, who did an excellent job for the Bonk 3 CD version, but howewer the version is still not bad, just barely changed.
5. Level 3-3 is the worst level of the entire game, since there is a lot of terrible enemies' placements, it is horribly frustrating and tedious, also the level lasts very long, like 6 minutes, it is also repetitive compared to the other levels of the game.

Reception

Despite there being no reviews online, most people in Japan like the game and like how it's an tie in for the movie.

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