Maka Maka
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 Thought Lufia II's English version was buggy? This one might be even worse.
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Maka Maka (摩訶摩訶) is a Japanese role-playing game developed for the Super Famicom by Shouei System and Office Koukan and published by Sigma on April 24, 1992. The game's development took so long that when the deadline was approaching, the developer only had a prototype ready. At this point, Sigma had to either cancel the game or release the prototype. They chose the latter, and the result is one of the most infamous role-playing games in Japan. Not to be confused with the manga Maka-Maka.
Why It Sucks
- The game is extremely buggy. Many of these bugs can render the game impossible to complete.
- First of all, there is the infamous Shuffle Bug. By repeatedly selecting a healing item and then cancelling, the game data will corrupt. This can destroy save data or completely freeze the game.
- If the player loses to Baseran, he cannot fight her again because of party members blocking the way, thus making the game unbeatable.
- During late game, certain characters' defense stat will flip to 0.
- Outside combat, only the main character's spells can be used.
- Taking the most direct route in dungeons may lead to a black screen.
- One enemy has techniques that can raise and lower your level. However, when your level is raised this way to a level where your character should learn a new spell, it will not be learned.
- It is possible to accidentally sell plot important items.
- The final boss' second form has only 1 HP. This might have been an intentional joke, though.
- The credits roll is unreadable due to a memory overflow.
- Long loading times upon going to a different location or entering a battle, which is unacceptable for a cartridge-based game.
- Frequent graphical glitches.
- A rather underwhelming storyline for a role-playing game.
- Very rough NPC movement. Instead of walking smoothly, NPCs in this game jump instantly by multiple pixels at once.
- The world map is zoomed in, which looks awful.
- Slow walking speed.
- Very difficult random encounters.
Redeeming Qualities
- Surprisingly good graphics during combat.
- While the soundtrack isn't particularly outstanding, it contains a few catchy melodies and the choice of samples creates a distinct and consistent vibe.
- The game's emphasis on wacky humor and surrealistic character designs make it stand out from the crowd since most jRPGs had a much more serious tone.
- Some of the bugs can be beneficial when used by skilled players. For example, the Shuffle Bug allows the player to gain powerful items early in the game.
Reception and Legacy
Maka Maka is considered to be the most prominent example of a kusoge ("shitty game") on the Super Famicom.[1] It can be thought of as the SFC equivalent of Hoshi wo Miru Hito or Takeshi no Chōsenjō. Despite this (or maybe because of this), it still has a small player base, with some of these players exploiting the bugs in order to speedrun the game.
Idea no Hi (イデアの日), a game released by Shouei System two years later and designed by Koji Aihara (who worked on Maka Maka as an artist) can be thought of as a spiritual successor to this game. It combines Maka Maka's wacky humor and enemy designs with actual quality control. While far from a masterpiece, it is considered to be a decent game.