Kinnikuman / Sky Destroyer / Ninja Jajamaru-Kun retrospective: Zero sum game | NES Works Gaiden #045
874One of the games will look quite familiar to NES fans, and I apologize for that. No one likes M.U.S.C.L.E. Tag Team Match outside of Stockholm Syndrome victims, but at least we can take comfort in knowing that we share the psychic damage inflicted by that wreck of a wrestling game in common with our peers in Japan. At least we didn't have to deal with Brocken Jr., too.
The rest of this episode has more of an upbeat tone. Sky Destroyer from Taito and Home Data/Magical offers about as impressive a behind-the-cockpit shooter as you're going to find on Famicom and NES, though (like M.U.S.C.L.E.) it too had some WWII-era themes that apparently were deemed too spicy for America. Pity they didn't edit the content for U.S. release and leave M.U.S.C.L.E. in Japan rather than the reverse.
And Ninja Jajamaru-Kun didn't reach the NES until decades later, when it showed up on Virtual Console. I can't really explain that one, because it's a perfectly decent little platform action game with no troubling content and a pretty solid design. It managed to reach million-seller status in Japan and actually deserved it! I suppose Jaleco's relatively belated entry into the NES market made it a bit dated for a mid-1988 release.
Production notes:
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NES/Famicom footage captured from @analogueinc Nt Mini; arcade footage captured from MiSTer with thanks to @MiSTerAddons. Video upscaled to 720 with @atemsoft xRGB Mini Framemeister.