The SNES Classic Mk. II: Episode VIII: Goofs & Parodies

The SNES Classic had a sterling assortment of games from Nintendo's 16-bit star console, but it's hardly all that system has to offer a modern audience. In each installment of this fortnightly feature, I judge two games for their suitability for a Classic successor based on four criteria, with the ultimate goal of assembling another collection of 25 SNES games that not only shine as brightly as those in the first SNES Classic, but have equally stood the test of time. The rules, list of games considered so far, and links to previous episodes can all be found at The SNES Classic Mk II Intro and Contents.

Episode VIII: Goofs & Parodies

The Candidate: Capcom's Goof Troop

It's Capcom vs. Konami this week on the SNES Classic Mk. II, looking at two of the more obscure items from their respective (and impressive) 16-bit libraries. Goof Troop is notable for being part of Capcom's stellar run of Disney licensed games, which focused on both Disney's movie and TV empires and started back with DuckTales on the NES. In the late 80s and early 90s, Disney really raised the bar for what we could expect from children's animated television with their "Disney Afternoon" block, humiliating low-effort Hanna-Barbera shows with a string of hits like The Adventures of the Gummi Bears (still my favorite, and still the only one of these to not have a video game adaptation despite its made-for-games high fantasy setting), DuckTales (perhaps the best-regarded Capcom adaptation), Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, Bonkers, Gargoyles, and the basis of this fortnight's candidate game Goof Troop. Goof Troop is also notable for being one of the earliest games with a designer credit for Shinji Mikami, the creator of Resident Evil, and occasionally pops up on internet lists for that fact alone, similar to Legacy of Kain/Uncharted writer Amy Hennig's connection to the absolute slam-dunk that is Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City.

Goof Troop was the one Disney Afternoon show I could never get into. Following the adventures of single-dad Goofy and his son Max, and their neighbor (and sorta antagonist) Pete and his family, the show was a much more grounded family sitcom that only occasionally delved into DuckTales-type adventures and instead largely revolved around either Max's pre-teen school and social life issues and Goofy's well-meaning but accident-prone interruptions into same, or Goofy's contentious relationship with Pete. The low-key, genial nature of the show was a stark contrast to the swashbuckling adventures of DuckTales, Tailspin, Gummi Bears and the rest, but in retrospect I could see the sense in adding something to that line-up that would slam the brakes a little and offer something with lower stakes. Which ultimately makes it an odd choice for a video game adaptation, though perhaps not too surprising given its popularity.

Capcom were clearly similarly flummoxed with the idea of turning a family sitcom show into an action game to rival their earlier DuckTales and Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers, so instead retooled an old classic of theirs: 1984's Pirate Ship Higemaru. Pirate Ship Higemaru involved a lot of defeating pirates with barrels, tossing them across the screen whenever a pirate was directly horizonal or vertical from the player, and picking up score items along the way. Higemaru couldn't attack the pirates directly, and so had to reach new barrels to throw while dodging pirates on the way. Goof Troop builds on Higemaru's fundamentals, adding more item types and Sokoban-style block-pushing puzzles to break up the pirate murder. It also creates levels out of a Legend of Zelda-style interconnected system of single-screen "rooms", many of which required the player to use a key item or solve the room's puzzle (e.g. push blocks onto star indentations, or clear out all the pirates) before they were allowed to proceed. Up to two players can play co-operatively, as Goofy and Max, and each can hold two items: items include keys, boss keys, shovels, grappling hooks, candles, bells, and planks. Each had an application: for example, shovels could dig up loose dirt for additional bonus items, and hooks could be used to stun enemies, grab items from a distance, or create rope bridges. The bell's the most interesting item for the co-op mode, as one player could use it to distract the attention of a pirate so that the other player could ambush them. The game's health system was similarly distinctive, in that the player could gain hearts from picking up fruit and gems. After every seven hearts, they would earn an extra life. However, if they got hit, they'd lose one or all their hearts (depending on the severity of the attack), and would instantly lose a life if their hearts were all gone. This often leads to cases where you'd lose a life by the same hazard several times in a row, and made the occasional detour to grind for hearts that much more necessary.

In creating what seemed like an uninspired and incongruous (why are Goofy and Max fighting pirates?) thrown-together licensed game hastened by desperate deadlines, which is generally how most licensed games come about, Capcom almost serendipitously created one of the most clever and standout games in their Disney license canon. The pirate enemies get progressively smarter and more challenging to overcome, as do the block puzzles, and there's some great variety with the bosses and map-like level design. I'm sad I never got to experience the game's co-op element, but I could see how much easier it made everything - provided both players had a similar level of skill and some coordination - by how players could carry out ambushes on the pirates and ferry twice as many items around.

All that's left is to put it through the P.O.G.S. system and see if the chips are stacked against it:

• Preservation: Capcom never skimped on the pixel artwork back in that era, and good pixel art has aged like a fine wine in almost every case. Other bonus points: there's a relative dearth of multiplayer co-op games in the Indie market, 90s cartoon nostalgia is popular, and the game's brisk run-time of about two hours makes it ideal Indie material. I might've said the one issue here is that Capcom (by way of Digital Eclipse Software) recently put out The Disney Afternoon Collection, which would create a conflict of interest except that compilation seems to have left off Goof Troop for whatever reason. Goof Troop might still appear in a sequel compilation, but for the time being I think it qualifies for the SNES Classic Mk. II. 4.
• Originality: A combination of Pirate Ship Higemaru and The Legend of Zelda with Goof Troop characters isn't something you see every day. There aren't many top-down action-adventure puzzle games that let you take a second player along for support, either. It's easy to see where Capcom came up with the idea for this game with a little research, but that doesn't mean that what was ultimately produced hews particularly close to any game released before or since. 4.
• Gameplay: For as difficult as Goof Troop can be at times, between some instant-death trap rooms and its tough boss fights, it has a bedrock of fairness about it. The player can choose to stock up on extra lives by revisiting rooms with a lot of barrels and other projectiles, and there's some - but not universal - permanence whenever the player creates a bridge, opens a locked door, or destroys a larger threat. There's often a few optional paths to take for useful items, and the player should make special use of the versatile grappling hook in particular. I also like the way the player can catch thrown objects by adopting a hands-up pose - it reminded me of the way you could catch and then throw barrels in the excellent Donkey Kong '94 for Game Boy. You might need some tolerance for block pushing puzzles, but the gameplay in Goof Troop befits Capcom's sterling reputation. 4.
• Style: Some great pixel art and music, as is typical for 16-bit Capcom, but stylistically the game can be a little all over the place. The pirates are around in every level, but only really have two models: a skinny guy and a tubby guy. Instead, the different behaviors are indicated by the colors they're wearing: a skinny guy in blue chases you, a skinny guy in green throws swords at you, and a skinny guy in red is capable of tossing and catching barrels the same way you can. The pirates especially seem out of place when you enter a spooky castle (which also has its own unique enemies in the form of ghosts and haunted suits of armor). Still, the variation in these levels - which also include a cave system, a pirate ship, and a native village - provides some visual diversity. 3.

Total: 15.

Other Images:

The Nominee: Konami's Parodius

Until fairly recently, Konami was never one for taking itself too seriously. It's fair to say its most enduring franchises are mostly serious ones like Silent Hill or Castlevania, even they are prone to the occasional self-referential joke ending or silly Easter egg, but its other big franchises are steeped in parodic undertones, from the wonderful (but mostly sadly inaccessible) Ganbare Goemon games which feature its own producer as a lascivious, effeminate, overweight ninja, to the convoluted and frequently meta Metal Gear canon. Looking back, it's no surprise that Konami would take one of their most straightforward early successes - the horizontal sci-fi shoot 'em up series Gradius - and find a way to make it completely ridiculous.

The Parodius series is often erroneously thought to be Gradius's goofy little brother, dressing up as him and humiliating him in front of his dates but otherwise far less substantial than the real thing, when actually Parodius goes the extra mile to create a more compelling product. This is partly due to how you're never quite sure what's coming next, whether it's a pirate ship steered by penguins with a giant cat head or a colossal Vegas showgirl who tries to stomp you with her ample gams (and those are just the first two bosses of the first SNES game), or how the level geometry mutates to mess with your muscle memory of Gradius. It also features multiple protagonists, each with their own power-up trees, and merges elements from the TwinBee franchise - specifically the way the colored bell power-ups work - into its core Gradius blueprint. Later games continue to add to the absurdity, breaking from the familiar Gradius level design into something more its own.

The Super Famicom in particular saw three Parodius games all-told: this game, Parodius! From Myth to Laughter (also known as Parodius da! and Parodius: Non-Sense Fantasy), Fantastic Parodius: Pursue the Glory of the Past (a.k.a. Gokujou Parodius), and Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, the last of which was created specifically for the system instead of being an arcade conversion like the others. However, only the first of these was localized into English for the SNES, and only for Europe. (Far as I can tell, no Parodius game has ever been officially released in North America, not even on Virtual Console or in one of Konami's many compilations. Maybe the SNES Classic Mk. II could be its first American outing?) I might actually prefer one of those sequels, especially Fantastic Parodius as it includes playable duos from Ganbare Goemon, Kid Dracula, and Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa (who are both babies), as well as more of their own personality, but I figured it's sensible to go with the game that's already in English. Well, so far as any discussion of Parodius can be sensible at least.

Parodius may be big on laughter, but there's nothing funny about the hard science of the P.O.G.S. system:

• Preservation: I think people still have a lot of affection for the era where shoot 'em up games were at least halfway reasonable. As popularity in the genre waned, it started catering towards the die-hards more frequently with the era of the "bullet hells". Parodius isn't exactly easy - very few shoot 'em ups are - but it is at least manageable, with plenty of opportunities to earn life-saving power-ups and the occasional overpowered boost by way of TwinBee's bells. It still looks and sounds great - Konami's 16-bit reputation is every bit as glowing as Capcom's in that regard - and I don't think we've grown so desensitized to whimsy that Parodius's onslaught of bizarre visuals has lost much of its flair over the years. 3.
• Originality: It wasn't a common thing to remaster games with the goal of spoofing the originals, especially when people can get very defensive about their favorite franchises. Take Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, for example, which spent its prologue mocking the platformer roots of the duo in a mean-spirited move that soured a lot of Banjo-Kazooie fans on the game. Parodius earns some distinction points for that concept alone. However, it's when you get into the game and are beset at all turns by its goofy visuals and unpredictable nature that you understand that originality is the game's greatest strength. Hard to say it's wholly unique given how similarly it plays to the first Gradius, but it's hardly a run-of-the-mill experience. 4.
• Gameplay: I don't have a whole lot of affection for shoot 'em ups, if I'm being honest, but I also recognize that many do. Especially those who spent a lot of time in arcades in the 80s and 90s and earned their stripes playing Galaga and Space Invaders before the world went horizontal on them for Defender, Gradius, R-Type, Darius, and the rest. Even into the 16-bit era, where more genres had emerged to compete with them, shoot 'em ups remained a force to be reckoned with for a long time and even have their dedicated fanbases now, to the extent that people are as serious about them as they are about fighters and MOBAs. I guess what this is all building up to is me admitting that while I like Parodius, the gameplay isn't the draw for me. I'm sure its pew-pews are above average though. 3.
• Style: I absolutely love the sheer chaos that each Parodius brings with it, and the infectious sense of fun that follows. Many crossover games fall into the trap of trying to stay too close to one universe, making the visiting universe feel like the interlopers that they are. Parodius, instead, brings together several generations of Konami nonsense into one kaleidoscopic free-for-all with little consistency from one world to the next and one artstyle to the next. I can imagine it being overwhelming for some, especially as they still have to focus on dodging enemy projectiles and sudden level geometry changes, but I can't get enough. 5.

Total: 15.

Other Images:

< Back to Intro and Contents