A playthrough of Konami's 1993 action-adventure game for the Super NES, Ganbare Goemon 2: Kiteretsu Shogun Magginesu/がんばれゴエモン2 奇天烈将軍マッギネス.
This video was recorded using the recently released English-translation patch from DDS. You can find more information on that at www.romhacking.net/translatio...
In this playthrough, in addition to every stage in the game, I show the secret post-ending stage and bosses.
I've played this one a few times over the years, and I'm so excited that it is now available in English! Now the western world can experience this Konami classic first-hand, and with a translation that fortunately does complete justice to the original writing. I have to say I was a bit surprised - it's rare that fan translation efforts see this level of polish, but fear not. The quality of the script here is probably better than Konami themselves would've produced had they ever published the game in America or Europe.
As for the game itself, Ganbare Goemon 2, "The Strange General McGuiness," is the direct sequel to The Legend of the Mystical Ninja. It follows the same gameplay mold as the first SNES installment, but with a few significant changes.
You can find my video of The Legend of the Mystical Ninja here: • The Legend of the Myst...
Ganbare Goemon 2's gameplay is broken up between 2D platforming stages and 2.5D "adventure" stages in which you can explore town while chatting with people, buying items, and upgrading equipment. However, there is more emphasis on the action sequences this time around: smaller areas are now interconnected by a Super Mario World-style map, stages are no longer always bookended by plot sequences, and in many stages you can find alternate exits that lead to secret stages. You can pick your character now, and each one plays a bit different from the others: Goemon (Kid Ying) is the balanced one, Ebisumaru (Dr. Yang) is the strong but slow one, and the new character, Sasuke, is a fast-but-weak robot ninja... because making him human would be too mundane, I guess? Certain stages also now have robot suits that you can jump into to wreak havoc with, though it's disappointing that the judo powers from the first game are MIA in its sequel.
The biggest addition to the gameplay is the introduction of Goemon Impact, a giant Goemon robot that you pilot during major battles. If you've ever played either the N64 games, you'll recognize him right away. In these stages you smash a bunch of stuff and then go head-to-head against the enemy mech in a fight that feels straight out of an old Godzilla flick. It's all absurd, but it fits the tone of the game perfectly.
One really cool thing about this new translation is that it keeps the humor much truer to the spirit of the Japanese original than The Legend of the Mystical Ninja did. Ebisumaru's host of Birdo-like proclivities is on full display here, and Goemon is a whole lot less serious this time around. There's no doubt that GG2 is a much sillier game than GG1 ever tried to be, and I'm glad the translation reflected that. Otherwise, I imagine that Goemon Impact would seem even more WTF than it already does.
There's no Gradius mini-game in this one, but they instead did us one better. The arcade's featured game in GG2 is the first stage from Konami's arcade-exclusive shooter Xexex, which makes this minigame the only time an "adaptation" of Xexex has ever appear another machine, however reductive.
Finally, the graphics and sound - wow! In my opinion, this is the best the series ever looked in its 16-bit installments. Everything is bright, bold, well defined, full of personality, and many elements of the presentation echo the boldness of Parodius's style. It looks and sounds phenomenal, and all of those Konami character cameos are some seriously awesome fan-service. I especially loved seeing poor Sparkster bemoaning his fate.
If you loved The Legend of the Mystical Ninja or the N64 Goemon games, I'm guessing that you'll love this one too.
Check out the patch at the link above to try it yourself!
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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