Today, on Strange Everything Akira Toriyama Draws Looks The Same Manga Friday, we see
one of his creations that wasn't Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest, Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump, Blue
Dragon... dude freakin' loves dragons, huh.
Anyway.
This isn't any of those, it's Go!
Go!
Ackman 3 for the Super Famicom, which pretty much no one outside of Japan has heard of.
Maybe it's because it's fifty-five pages long.
The whole of it, 11 one-shot chapters in some serialized manga monthly, five pages each.
That's it.
And all that ended up covered in the first of the three Go!
Go!
Ackman games.
It should speak for itself, then, that the games managed to pull their weight well enough
for two more entries in the series, encompassing all-new material.
Like this battalion of Angel Police, led by this... um... leather daddy.
So!
That's what the angels in this game look like.
The devils, on the other hand...
well, dude's almost indistinguishable from Trunks, let's face it.
Ackman there's a people-killing, soul-collecting, soul-selling demon maniac who's constantly
stymied by the cherubic (there's a word you don't get to use every day) Tenshi-kun, who's
been deposed by that aforementioned burly chap and forced into an uncomfortable alliance
with his mortal enemy.
So begins what could've been a bad buddy-cop movie, but in fact manifests itself as a freakin'
awesome platformer, pretty much the platonic ideal of what I look for in a 16-bit game.
It's got colorful levels, strange-looking enemies, upgradable and diverse weapons, boss
battles that are part pattern recognition, part trying to not to laugh too hard at the
absurdity, and you've even got a little demon-bat-dude who collects the souls you wrest from those
who oppose you!
Ackman there - or Tenshi, in certain areas - can wield swords, guns, and boomerangs,
pitch screen-clearing bombs if things get too hairy, swing with a low kick, or pull
a Mega Man-style slide.
Really, you add a fishing line and some rubber-band physics and you've got the best game ever
conceived.
Barring that, there's some significant nuance to the mechanics beyond just running, jumping,
and climbing ladders; enemies can rush in from offscreen pretty quickly and are best
anticipated by audio cues (though, realistically, they're best met with projectile weapons but
that's on another page).
The whole thing is filled with a sense of absurdity, from leather daddy on down, with
shark stepping stones and weird Opa-Opa-looking angelic police vehicle bosses and whatnot.
Plus, Tenshi-kun's power of flight opens up a diversification in the gameplay that breaks
the mold of the standard action platformer, especially when you need to get that power-up
off a high place.
That said, though, there seem to be a number of tricks that trivialize parts of the game,
like this spot on a particular boss where you're out of range of oncoming fire.
I hesitate to bring up this dude, who looks like a Clancer straight out of Mischief Makers
but can apparently be duped into using the same attack over and over again by standing
the correct distance away from him.
I'm willing to accept those, though, as I found them myself... and honestly, who's going
to stop me?
While I'm not a huge fan of the "Sweet Jesus, everything looks indistinguishable from Dragon
Ball" aesthetic, I will begrudgingly add Go!
Go!
Ackman 3 to my "Awesome stuff" shelf right between Dragon Quest VIII and Chrono Trigger.
And then in front of those, I'll put Persona 4 and Catherine and Trauma Center.