Game:

Mayhem (2011)

Duration: 2:37:49

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0

Originally recorded: February 25, 2024
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Well, this stream definitely went better than the first. In fact, KI was a little surprised that I didn't just keep going and wrap up the game this time. Looking back, I probably could've done that... but since I had work in the morning, I didn't want to risk it. Besides, I prefer starting new games on Sundays anyway. Who knows? Maybe I'll even manage to wrap up this game before midnight... giving me one last completed game in February, all thanks to Leap Day.

I think I finally understand why KI's memories of this game didn't mesh up well with their replay and it all stems from completing the first four worlds. The second I got to use all of the characters in tandem -- which got a nice test run, while I was scooping up those missed Cat Statues -- the game improved substantially. I don't think it'll boost its score, just due to what I had to get through the get there, but it's on far more solid ground at this point, as opposed to just getting a decent score "because none of these games are as painful as the one we actually got".

KI likes to brag about having a photographic memory for games, but apparently it only kicks in after they beat it twice. That's why they said they weren't going to watch the rest of this game, as some save data shenanigans and irritation at the first four-fifths of the games essentially killed any chances of them completing that replay any time soon. My guess is that the warm fuzzies they remembered came from the point of the game where you can use the entire cast together, which would've been probably much fresher in their mind than the difficulties one would have to endure to get to that point. But that's purely theoretical: if KI wants to call me an idiot for being completely off the mark, so be it.

In a lot of ways, Kirakira Dochuu reminds me a lot of the third Donkey Kong Country game. Both are the last games in their respective series for the SNES and they're both a little too experimental for their own good. But while DKC3 was essentially developed by a fledgling B-Team at Rare who decided to throw everything they could at the wall in the hopes that something would stick, I think the mindset behind "Goemon 4" is a lot easier to trace. The first two games essentially kept all of its characters (Goemon/Kid Ying, Ebisumaru/Dr. Yang, Sasuke) relatively equal in terms of their abilities, since each player was stuck with a character for their entire play session but could also choose to switch them out when loading a save. The third game, on the other hand, gave its entire playable cast their own unique abilities, since both players could literally switch them out at will.

This fourth game decided to take that shift to its logical conclusion, attempting to craft levels for each character's moveset specifically. Granted, some characters are definitely more equal than others and the fact that you can actually return to stages later with the full cast in tow makes things easier in the long run. Couple that with replacing boss fights with mini-games and the sheer amount of prerendered 3D graphics in the game and it seems more like this game was built to push the Super Famicom to its limits than provide a send-off to the series on the platform. After all, by 1995, both the Saturn and PlayStation were already available in Japan -- and the PS1 would see its own Goemon game the following year.

Huh, in fact, it looks like that game has an English translation of its own. Good to know. Good. To. Know.

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