Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe’s guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo’s download service. Written by Sam C Gittins


If you're game for some Goemon then you may be in luck but everyone else won't give a care in the world for this relatively rubbish release.Anyway enough from me and on with the game!
 
Available for download this week we have...     

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon

Price: GB £2.70, EU €3
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Released: 1998
System: GameBoy

Nearly everyone will have heard of Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon but the version that they are most likely more familiar with will almost certainly be the fantastic N64 original but sadly for us this is merely the GameBoy game of the same name. Why sadly you may ask? Well unfortunately this is a case of a portable game being made simply to capitalise on the success of its bigger, better home console brethren... much like a similar case involving Perfect Dark only this time with a Goemon game.

Taking on the role of Goemon you journey alongside your friends Ebisumaru and Sasuke as you battle to save ancient Japan from the evil Black Ship Gang in an attempt to rescue your fellow ninja Yae as you restore peace to the land; a standard storyline in most respects which serves as your motivation to carry on but unfortunately this will only take a game so far escpecially if the rest of the elements aren't quite up to scratch. Seemingly suffering from an identity crisis bears a similarity to the N64 classic even bearing the same name-sake but it actually tries to be more like the classic The Legend of the Mystical Ninja which appeared on the SNES but ironically the top-down perspective makes it feel more like The Legend of Zelda except not in terms of quality.

After picking from one of the aforementioned ninjas you are left to explore each stage in a rather linear fashion as you journey across the overworld/underworld as you do battle with enemies, talk to people or just generally explore in that hope that you'll find whatever it is you've been looking for which you may think would be easy but your progress will always feel hampered by the games rather backward design for instance you can fight enemies but they don't drop anything so why not just avoid them? Bosses of coruse are the exception but they are hardly taxing, you have a staff which proves ever useful but aside from that you will need to find shurikens which are rather limited not to mention that the same applies to cash which is very rare to find indeed and can only be spent in specific shops where you can buy... you guessed it, more health and shurikens! Oh and it's also worth mentioning that you only get once life so get ready to make full use of the suspend-save feature because you're gonna need it.

Some nice visual elements are present as it looks nice enough for a standard GameBoy game but it can also becaome a bit of a mess with some screens looking rather cluttered and claustrophobic which is unfortunate when you consider how nice it looked on the SNES back in the day. Audio however is something of a highlight as there are some really beautifully composed tracks within the game, it's just a shame that they feel completely wasted on an experience that really doesn't deserve such audible quality.

It's sad that the first portable entry in the Goemon series just couldn't live up to the legacy of the games that have come before it but that's often what happens when a game is rushed out to capitalise on the success of a bigger title with the same name with little thought as to how it should play. If there's any form of ironic justic in the release of this it's that we should at the very least have a renewed sense of hope that there might be an improved chance of the N64 classic of the same name finally getting released on either the Wii or Wii U virtual console... we can but hope anyway.  

Verdict : It's a mystery as to why this was released as it's a far cry from the quality of the N64 classic.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!