so how could the rest of the game possibly live up to a prologue like this?
well, for one, the “round start” screen looks like a megadeth album cover:
peace sells... but who's drowning in blood?
you play most of the game as Mark, a baseball bat wielding kid, which sucks. the bat has extremely limited range, most enemies are faster than you, and many fly and/or shoot things at you. every stage has at least two bosses (most have three), many of which are very large and move quickly, making it extremely difficult to avoid getting hit. Mark has an enormous life gauge, stretching all the way across the screen, but it starts out less than a quarter full, and seldom gets above half. a couple of times each level, you find a large green and white pill that transforms you into Bert, the alien bird thing. Bert can fly and shoot lasers out of his body, so why he is so desperately in need of the help of a little leaguer, i can only guess (maybe he hates earth children?). But you only get Bert for about 30 seconds at a time, and then it’s back to mark, who kind of resembles a member of devo, minus the flowerpot.
the enemies you will face include such horrors of character design as:
a dead dinosaur
that's okay... you'd probably have killed me anyway
a haunted well
killed by a plate... how embarassing!
a bouncing fried shrimp (which turns into an onion ring, and then a skewer of some sort)
with teleporters! for no reason!
a punk rocker with a washing machine
maybe he likes sonic youth?
whatever this thing is
um... i'd rather not.
royce, a caterpillar on a bed
and the severed head of tutankhamun, who was apparently related to the shredder.
and finally, after all these abominations and more, you get the ending. does it hold up to the incredibly bad intro? you be the judge. (some text repeated to show “animation”)
And, Mark went home.
ooooo... glowing treasure!
oh. the queen of spades.
moonchild, the child-like empress?
i wish that was how the neverending story ended...
BRAINS!!!
in the middle of the day. i think his pillow is a fishbowl...
if i dreamt this game, i'd leave home too.
Bandai board room, 1989:
“well guys, we’ve made a terrible game with a story that makes no sense. now all we need is an ending… something zippy, that will tie up all the loose ends. I know! It was all a dream! Or was it?”
Further research into Bandai’s other NES titles (chubby cherub, frankenstein: the monster returns, dynowarz, etc) may be required… they seem to have a thing for space knights fighting monsters. which might be even better than little leaguers fighting fried food!
