Preliminary: The 2 prior Ganbare Goemon Gaiden games (both action games with first-person dungeon crawling and adventure elements) surprised me with how much I enjoyed them. I see there's an RPG too! Hmmm.

I am excited for it but based on this intro title screen it just seems very basic and NES-y for 1990. The sound and look. Hmmm. Hopefully the RPG gameplay captivates me.

Lol some cute humor in this intro cutscene tho and a nice variety of tunes. It's still very basic Look-wise, but the Sound is growing on me. Honestly I'm loving it so far. I've been missing the console RPG/adventure feel, even if it's a bit dated being NES. Grinding, upgrading equipment, turn-based combat. Yay. Each of the jingles have been nice so far. Seems it'll be a quite lengthy JRPG tho so here goes nothing.

Early Game

I think I have nostalgia already for the Ganbare Goemon Gaiden style music, since I had played entirely through the two earlier games. Even the battle music, which isn't necessarily great, reminds me of the feeling of those action-adventure games and thus is bolstered in my eyes (well, ears). Still, the pacing of all RPGs is a bit slow, walking here and there slowly, so I admit I used fast forward for many parts, namely grinds and overworld meandering. Which of course affected the music, since I didn't always hear it.

The first dungeon is quite obnoxiously complicated but luckily there are maps available and the game itself/combat seems quite easy (so far). The first boss was very easy ha but I liked the Boss music and I lovvvved the post-Boss music. And glad to see an Auto option, seems a norm now with RPGs in 1990. (tho you can't interrupt this one like you could with Phantasy Star, so that's a bit annoying)

Overall the Look is quite meh/dated, but I like the Look of these mountains

Relatively innocuous/middle-of-the-road, but I got that RPG hook with it. Some of the humor is good, I do wish there were more fantasy elements I think? But it's good. I like the basic item retrieval format and just some reasonable grinds in between areas. Again, nothing spectacular or innovative, but good. It feels most influenced by Phantasy Star, with the Auto Fight and selling equipment only at the Item Shop instead of equipment shops.

As much as I have been enjoying this, I haven't had an intensive drive to play it. Once playing it, I have the RPG hook but it doesn't have much to make me think "I need to be playing that!" Lol like now that I'm playing it, I'm giggling at this mecha person thing charging past the waterfall? Quite an absurd game.

This looks like one of the Pokemon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow dungeons!

Sometimes random battles are ridiculously frequent (also like Pokemon haha), but there are items to help with that. And thank goodness the Exit spell is learned quite early (once you get the cat character).

This waterfall Look is growing on me :-p Classic NES/SNES colors.

Towelie?!

Mid Game

The pacing of the walking is reallllly feeling slow and to think they included an item to speed it up temporarily... like if you know it's sluggishly slow why do that? at least not in towns plz lol. And the random battles are a bit draining since so far the bosses have been very easy. But at least the music continues to be cute and nice.

Ehhhh I was already a little unsure about continuing but now the questionable handling of race and speaking ability in Bahoho may push me over the edge... Butttt I suppose the point is we traveled by flight and so people don't speak Japanese here (tho all the townspeople do lol, just not the mayor). And it is nice to see different races in the game. Hm.

I really need to learn to drop games that are likely just going to get a 3 star anyway, even when they are action-adventures RPGs and/or platformers. The reality is, with the rise of the next gen, this just can't compete. Sure I'm loving the tropical area world map music, but the plot and Look should've been more engaging to warrant the hours I just dumped into this :-p

But ugh I suppose the cute things like this fast food restaurant Look while your characters seem to dance a little bit, the consistently good music (tho not great or ahead-of-its-time, it reminds me a lot of the other Ganbare games and NES Marios), and the connection to a series I've enjoyed so far means it was valid of me to push through. And I've gone too far to back out now.

Late Game

I know I keep saying this but I def would've dropped this if it weren't for the occasional cute touch, the good variety of NES vibe music, and the usual RPG hook. It just feels like it's lacking something and deep down I know it wont earn above a 3 star even if I finish it. But I want to see that ending screen haha. I feel like this wants to be Mother with its humor and RPG parody, but it just can't compare. And the NES RPG frustrations are really weighing it down, I hope I will enjoy DQ4 and FF3. (Oh and no drop item confirmation... great...)

Lol the girl fleeing on the Akira-esque motorbike after the Flying Castle falls into the lake... really all over the place here. (Oh wait I think that was the guy who gave us the Beanstalk)

So weird there's a treasure chest with a weapon downgrade right after you had to get the weapon upgrade in order to access this part of the dungeon? So many little oddities like that. Like us being transformed into one of the characters to then, simply, be un-transformed in the very next village without any meaningful lore attached to any of it lol..... and uh now there's a weapon I need to use as an item so it can't be equipped... but there's no way to unequip things except to, well, equip a different item. So I had to go to a town and buy a random weapon for the character to be able to use the item... Well-thought-out guys..

So the big final bad guy is not as cool as the Mecha boss I fought in the Flying Castle. And his motivation? I guess he wanted gold including the Golden Pipe and a wife? Or am I missing something? Again and again, the game just feels like it's missing something. Ok well I guess he's kinda cool looking once he got his equipment on

And at last the ending, feeling meh about it all (but maybe that's really cuz I haven't had a drop at Nex in OldSchool Ruenscape in over 100 kills :( )

They tried to be humorous with the ending but it just was meh compared to Mother which was released before it. Tho I'm glad they gave an update on what everybody did after the game ends, and that Goemon continues like in the first 2 games I have an odd attachment to--stealing from the rich and then throwing the money along the village :-p

Look: 7.5/10 Mostly just classic NES Look, which is nice and great and all, but a) needed more particularly cute things like the fast food restaurant look, and b) it's 1990! I just played the Ys 1 and 2 remake on the PC Engine like... cmon.

Sound: 8/10 One of the highlights, some got a bit repetitive but luckily there was a large enough variety and it maintained the fun/humorous vibe the game wanted better than any other aspect of the game did.

Play: 7.5/10 I can't deny that RPG hook, but this one just... lacked something. It had most the basics I look for in an NES RPG tho so I can't complain.

Feel: 7.5/10 Attached to a series that's been growing on me, and I know continues into the 90s for many games, so I love that. But again, something just felt missing. It should've been an easy 4 or 5 star--an RPG based on an action-adventure series I've been loving--but it felt sloppily put together.

Attachment: 7.5/10 7.5 seems to be the theme here. Decent game, good series, may return to it as my attachment to Goemon and this series grows, but in this playthrough it felt like it was lacking.

Overall: 7.6/10

Completion: Main Story