Мистикалық Ниндзя Гоэмон: N64 Ойыны

the Nintendo 64 game

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is a platform action adventure video game released by Konami for the Nintendo 64 on August 7, 1997 in Japan, April 16, 1998 in North America, and April 18, 1998 in Europe. The second Goemon game released in North America and Europe, it follows The Legend of the Mystical Ninja and features hybrid elements of platform games and action adventure games. The story follows Goemon's struggles to prevent the Peach Mountain Shoguns gang from turning Japan into a Westernized fine arts theater. The plot calls for three cinematic musical features and battles between giant robots; like other Ganbare Goemon games, it is peppered with surrealist humor and anachronisms. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon sold nearly 200,000 units worldwide. Reviewers praised its graphics, gameplay, and humorous plot, while criticizing its virtual camera and questioning how accessible its references and jokes would be to Western audiences.

Players navigate Goemon through forests, fields, dungeons, and other three dimensional models of feudal Japanese places. Goemon and his friends can walk or run, jump, attack, and use special abilities to cross terrain, pick up money, and defeat enemies. Players control only one of the four characters at a time but can cycle through them with the press of a button. Hearts at the bottom of the screen show a character's health. If damage is taken, a character loses a heart. Some items and acts replenish health, and a Maneki neko (Luck Cat) adds a heart to the overall health. If all hearts are lost, the player restarts at the entrance to the field map they died in and the player's number of lives declines by one. If the player loses all lives, the game restarts at the last point saved or at the beginning of the game if a Controller Pak is not used. Many interactive non player characters populate cities and talk with other characters to uncover plot devices or idle gossip. Players save their progress in towns with a Controller Pak at the inns or at the entrance to some dungeons. They intend to transform Japan into a stage for their talents.

While shopping in Oedo Town, Goemon and Ebisumaru feel the ground quake as a peach shaped flying object sails overhead. The vessel fires a laser at Oedo Castle, turning it into a European style castle with spires and flags. Worried for the safety of the Lord of Oedo and his daughter, Goemon and Ebisumaru retrieve a chain pipe from Mt. Fuji and assault the castle. Inside is Baron, a member of the fashion loving Gang of Four who reveals he was sent to turn the castle into a stage. Goemon shrugs him off and defeats the King Robot Congo to free the Lord and find a "miracle item". The Lord asks Goemon to catch them and gives a Super Pass for access to the roads of Japan. Goemon sets out to the Wise Man's house for assistance, but the house explodes as he approaches. A fuming Baron comes forth and mans his kabuki robot. Goemon finds a Triton shell in the rubble that can call Impact, who lays ruin to the kabuki robot. In Zazen Town, Goemon finds Yae, who claims the troublemakers responsible are Flake Gang members named the Peach Mountain Shoguns. Yae joins Goemon, and they learn that children with dancing talent have been kidnapped around the region. Goemon and his friends must also fight against Benkei, a gatekeeper blocking the Gojo Ohashi Bridge leading out of Zazen Town. In order to defeat him, Goemon needs help from a young fisherman named Ushiwaka. It is hinted that Benkei and Ushiwaka are kind of rivals. Ashamed at his loss against Goemon and his friends, the man offers Goemon the mechanical robot Sasuke, thrown there by the explosion of the Wise Man's house. Goemon accepts the unconscious, powerless Sasuke and walks to Kii Awaji island, where the dragon powered passenger ferry has been stopped by the dragon's sudden craze. Goemon teleports to the dragon and finds a Gang of Four member named Colon who used the dragon to kidnap children; he then breaks Colon's mind control device. The dragon turns back to human and crashes near a shrine. The human calls himself Koryuta, son of the Dragon God, and apologizes for the kidnappings. He pledges help in transporting the heroes across Japan, and claims the kids are at the Dogo Hot Springs. Goemon travels to Iyo but finds the Hot Springs closed; the only entrance is a mouse hole. He learns from travelers that sweets in the Zazen Town shrine can make a person smaller. Ebisumaru offers to steal the sweets. With the dwarf power the group infiltrate the Ghost Toys Castle, a dark house of traps, toys, and a giant pool table. Colon faces Goemon with the robot Dharmanyo, but is crushed and lets go his miracle item. The hidden man aboard the peach ship at Oedo comes out calling himself Spring Breeze Dancin'. He pokes fun at the group with nicknames and instructs Colon to retreat. With the children liberated, Goemon follows Colon to the Chu goku Region, where he revives Sasuke with two batteries. They enter the Festival Temple, a Peach Mountain base. They destroy a guard robot, prompting Gang of Four member Sharon to appear with Kitty Lily, the second leader of the Peach Mountain Shoguns. Lily boasts that Kyushu is a stage and asks Sharon to return to base after buying some foundation. Alarmed, Goemon and friends rush off to the bridge to Kyushu and find Omitsu on her way to deliver dumplings. Stunned by Omitsu's seeming ruggedness, Goemon forgets to warn her of danger, and the island rises into odd thunder clouds in the sky. A fortune teller instructs the group to set out north to Mount Fear to find a way to Kyushu. After necessary weight training to remove obstacles, Goemon finds the northeast Festival Village and learns of a psychic witch. The witch summons Wise Man, who tells Goemon to gather the fourth miracle items at the Stone Circle near Festival Village for passage into outer space and Kyushu. Goemon investigates reports of stolen food in the village while Yae undergoes training to become a mermaid. The two paths converge when Yae finds the Gourmet Submarine, a Peach Mountain vessel containing hordes of food. After sidestepping grills and swimming through gallons of soup, Goemon confronts Poron, the final weirdo, who jokes that he lost the last miracle item in Zazen Town. Lily enters by hologram to ridicule the party, but is rudely interrupted by Dancin', who continues to call Goemon "Fernandez". Dancin' instructs Poron to activate the ship's self destruct sequence. Goemon escapes by calling Impact and defeats a mermaid giant robot. In Zazen Town, a kappa named Kihachi desires to trade the miracle item for cucumber made by the priest's son. The son sits on a precipice inaccessible save through jumping training; Sasuke volunteers in the Chu goku Region and acquires the miracle item. At the Stone Circle, the Pemopemo God awakens and asks the heroes if they have the courage to venture to outer space. Goemon affirms their decision and the group enters Kyushu through the Gorgeous Music Castle. They discover Sogen Town has been converted to a garden city with European architecture. Goemon locates Omitsu and learns that Dancin' and Lily can be found past a rigid gate, accessible only with the help of Wise Man. Stunned to find him alive, Goemon learns that in exchange for building the Instant Stage Beam and mechanical robots, the Peach Mountain Shoguns gave Wise Man five car magazines and a muscle car poster. Enraged to learn of his home's demise, Wise Man helps Goemon enter the castle. Kitty Lily and Dancin' confront the heroes with the elaborate musical number Gorgeous My Stage before a self destruct sequence begins. Goemon summons Impact to fly into outer space, where he thwarts the giant peach ship Balberra and duels Lily and Dancin' in their personal battle robot. Dancin' mocks Goemon in defeat, and Impact sends their robot's head far into outer space to reveal a picture of Dancin' and Lily smiling among the stars. Goemon returns to Japan to find a horde of girls rushing towards him, and awaits their praise for saving Japan. The group is shocked to find the girls angry over the apparent death of their idol, Spring Breeze Dancin'.

The game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. 64 Lightland found the game prone to slowdown, and decried the inability to pause the game during Impact battles. Edge gave the game eight out of ten in two separate reviews, first saying of the Japanese import, "as the biggest thirdparty N64 game yet, it's an important release for the machine in Japan, and Konami should think hard before denying Western gamers its charms" (#50, October 1997); and later calling the PAL version "a vast and sprawling experience. The work done on the release is a trimuph for Konami that augurs well for the future" (#58, May 1998). The variety of gameplay styles was frequently cited as one of the game's best assets. Sakekan said the Impact song cultivates a heroic atmosphere for ensuing battles. Reviewers criticized the camera system as being difficult to manipulate and occasionally preventing players from seeing key parts of the environment, resulting in extremely difficult platform jumping sequences. and a critic for The Tampa Tribune wrote, "attempts at humor often come across as rather inane. Early conversations with village residents only add to the confusion." The News Tribune countered that the strange localization often compounded the surrealist humor through the use of weird, unusual English and grammar. The game sold 55,000 units in America and 141,000 units in Japan.

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon was followed by a Game Boy game of the same name. Featuring gameplay similar to the Super Famicom entry Ganbare Goemon 3: Shishijūrokubē no Karakuri Manji Gatame, the game presented a story in which Yae had been kidnapped by the Black Ship Gang. In 1999, Konami released Goemon's Great Adventure on the Nintendo 64 (a 2.5D side scroller with multiplayer support). Reviewers gave it high marks for recreating the feel of the older, 16 bit Goemon games and considered it the best side scroller for the Nintendo 64. The final Goemon entry for the Nintendo 64 was Goemon Mononoke Sugoroku, released in Japan on December 25, 1999. In Mononoke Sugoroku, players must collect Ofuda cards while navigating a board game. After a series of sequels on the PlayStation line of consoles, Konami returned to the medieval, quirky Japanese themes of Mystical Ninja and its brethren on June 23, 2005 with Ganbare Goemon: Tōkai Dōchū Ōedo Tengu ri Kaeshi no Maki for the Nintendo DS.