Preliminary: Ahhh back to the good ol world of Ganbare Goemon. It already feels so familiar, tho this UI is way more crowded than usual. This series really has become important to me, and to think I first missed it/hadn't had the pre-Mystical Ninja games on the backlog until I came upon the character in that all-Konami-characters arcade game. What was that game called...

Day 2

Yeah I really like this series. Sure it has its flaws, and the music is always just generic-feeling but catchy enough and not annoying. But ti has the action-adventure hook, the Metroidvania upgrades, the straightforward action fun, and always maintains the silly town segments that I've built nostalgia for since starting this series years back.

Neat to have a map feature built in to the game. Like always with this serires I want the jump shoes and speed shoes ASAP, tho I haven't found either as a drop or purchase yet hmmm

Lol I couldn't screenshot it but the sprite/animation for crawling under things is priceless.

The delay when starting the climb down a ladder is a bit annoying,e specially when that mechanic is built into quick combat. Of course, the idea with the long invulnerability of the enemies after attacking them, is to force me to go down and back up but I like fast-paced mechancis so that if I am quick and used to the controls enoguh, I could've finished the enemy off quicker. Indeed, the ladders tend to be the biggest flaw for me so far.

Well also some collision mask issues for paltforms and a slight delay in the jump. Both of which would be fine but they designed the levels to need pixel-precise jumps to reach across spikes etc, and luckily I have savestates so I was able to repeatedly try it to get to know the delay and the way your character can be a few pixels to the right of a platform and still count as landing it (which is true also of a jump, but the opposite: you need to press jump a bit sooner than the edge in that case). Point being, the sloppiness is fine and something I can learn, but if you're aware of that, don't design your levels ignoring it. Similarly, some sprite overload slowdown already on the first stage... unacceptable!

Oooo this would be a lot of fun with 2 player. I hope I don't forget to tag this so I remember that.

Nice Feel with the items in dungeons/levels that are Zelda-esque, showing the map and another item to show boss location etc.

Yeahhhh the slight delay in attacks and jumps after you press the button is quite irritating and really dragging down the amazing potential of this being a game in a series I like, great UI of menu, 2 player, great concepts, etc. Also the exploding enemies is cute and everything but... it causes sprite slowdown most the time... smh

Yea this is real disappointing and may bring what could've been a 4 or 5 star game down...

The first boss was fun albeit quite easy. And I'm still irked by the control delays and sprite slowdown (luckily, charging up your attack then jumping makes those gaps more doable, but the gameplay is slowed down by these flaws and there's nothing more important in a platformer than fast fun... certainly more important than having all enemies explode when die...)

Great music for these robot parts. And I lovvvve the frequent horizon backgrounds and twilight moments. The Look in general is excellent. Why can't the Play be better :(

Ok after dinner I am enjoying playing as Sasuke more because he has the fast-paced gameplay I was looking for. And oddly having less sprite slowdown? Maybe that was from me charging my shots as Goemon?

The horizon backgrounds continue to be a highlight. And well okay I guess I do like this game, I was just crabby earlier and disappointed with certain flaws. Luckily a) some of the other characters assuage those issues and b) the sprite slowdown and level designs are sometimes better than that beginning bit. I am even doing the optional item retrieval/trading a la Zelda sequence, luckily the Travel feature is helping with that since I didn't do step 1 earlier. Some funny items too lol, beans he just got for the sandal lace kk. I also am continuing to do the minigames for the secondary weapons for these new characters which is surprising for me (tho it seems they are necessary, at least the ones so far). I continue to be grateful for the 2 new characters' faster speeds and faster attacks, tho I can still feel the delay after pressing the button >.< Oh I also like how fast it is to switch characters and weapons

Like the other SNES Ganbare Goemons, I don't like that enemies infinitely respawn especially with wrong paths and deadends. being common in this. Also, I was going to say how I love that enemies are one hit kills, just with incraesingly difficult mechanics, the way I like it, but I am now at an area where they take multiple hits. Boo.

Argh and I was enjoying this more and more thinking it's creeping back to the 4-star-curse that most this series seems to have (only one has earned the proper 5 star and that was teh first for SNES, the great Legend of Mystical Ninja), and then I see the terrible collision masks again collecting these golden balls for the mermaid power..

So now I guess I have a plot of land? lol. K. And ugh the controls of this mermaid version is bringing back my desire to just give a 3 star and move on. Not only is the movement awkawrd, but also the collision masks for when you can change are all messed up when near land/platform. And the collision masks for being injured is super messy (albeit helpful). Yea I can take only so much of questionable level design and mechanic choices. Lots of potential here, especially with the Zelda-esque action-adventure and Metroidvania elements, but it wound up coming up short like how most the series does, but the controls and design choices push it down below the others.

Look: 8/10

Sound: 7/10

Play: 7/10 Hooking despite its flaws

Feel: 7/10

Attachment: 7/10 I'll just play the first SNES one and the earlier console games when I need my Goemon fix.

Overall: 7.2/10

Completion: On Stage 3/the water level

Playtime: 1h 43m