At least it’s not another DBZ game
A big part of the fun of doing this column is discovering old games I’ve never heard of and trying to figure out why they’ve been forgotten. Sometimes it’s because they are terrible, unplayable messes. Other times it’s because they require being fluent in Japanese, or because they were on a platform that almost nobody owned. In the case of Fuuun Gokuu Ninden, a 1996 Japan-only PlayStation game from Aicom, it’s because the game is so damn mediocre that there’s almost nothing worth writing about it. Go ahead and look — as I write this I have not been able to find a single review of it (in English) on the Internet.
You may be wondering what drew me to this game. Well, the old Chinese tale “Journey to the West,” on which Fuuun Gokuu Ninden is based, is good source material. It’s given us thousands of Dragon Ball episodes, Ninja Theory’s Enslaved, and even inspired one of my all-time favorite PlayStation games — Saiyuki: Journey to the West. So there has to be at least something interesting here, right?
The game follows a trio of heroes — a monkey, a pig and a kappa — on their quest to, uh, kill a bad guy. I’m sure there’s a little more to it, but without knowing Japanese or the original story, I can’t really tell you. What I can tell you is that the game is a fairly by-the-numbers action platformer where you jump and kill, with each level ending in a boss fight. The monkey sprays a bunch of mini-monkeys, the pig breathes fire, and the kappa throws the plate on his head. All three characters can throw enemies around the screen, which is admittedly quite fun to watch.
What makes-or-breaks a platformer, though, is enemy variety, visual style and boss design. And this game misses on all three counts. There is a very limited selection of enemies, and they are repeated constantly throughout the game. For example, you will get really sick of seeing these little Chinese soldier guys:
As you can see here, the graphics and visual style are both just really bland. It sort of reminds me of the original Gex with its pre-rendered 3D sprites. Occasionally you’ll see some nice pixel art in the background, but the developers really cut corners for the most part.
The pharaoh here is typical of the bosses in the game — cute, but uninspired. They don’t have a lot of moves, and they don’t require any strategy except hitting them until they blow up. I was having trouble with a few of the bosses until I realized my special attacks could bring them down really fast.
There are only a few cut-scenes in the game, which is good because they are terrible. The squeaky voices made me want to stab my eardrums. Maybe I’m not the intended audience.
If everything I’ve said so far wasn’t enough to turn you off from playing Fuuun Gokuu Ninden, there’s one more thing — the price. Not only is this game extremely rare, but for some reason it’s actually in-demand among collectors. Expect to pay about $100 for a complete, used copy. It’s not a bad game overall, but it’s also not “fuuun” enough to recommend that kind of purchase.
Now watch me fail at trying to kill the final boss:
