The Mystical Website of Goemon

Ganbare Goemon; Kurofuneto no Nazo

Screen Shots (Click to Enlarge)

A mysterious Black ship was suddenly found in Edo's Harbor. From this ship, a group of pirates calling themselves the Black Ship gang start a wide crime spree. Such wrong doings naturally would not be ignored by Goemon and his band of ninjas, who imediately investigate these mysterious bandits.

Controls

--Menu Sections-- Directional pad: Navigate menu A button: Confirm selection B button: Cancel selection Start: Fonfirem selection Select: [not used]	--Field Controls-- Directional pad: Navigate menu A button: Jump B button: Attack/Talk/Open Coffer Start: See map Select: [not used]

Playable Characters
Goemon The main hero of the game, His abilites are balanced among the three
Ebisumaru Goemon's ever trusty partner, He is a strong attacker, but has low jumping ability
Sasuke The clockwork ninja, He has the best jumping ability, but is a weak attacker

At game start, you will be given a choice of one of three characters. Whatever character you select you are stuck with until the end of a game Chapter. After a character has been used, He can not be used again until you have used all three characters in a Chapter. After this initial cycle, players will be free to pick whatever character they like for the last two chapters.

This is a standard overhead action game, with each level divided into chapters. Your goal in every chapter is to find and defeat the chapter boss. It won't be an easy romp as there are enemies abound, including a sub-boss in every stage. The chapter map isn't linear, so one must explore to find the location of the chapter boss.

Luckily, you will find help in the form of townspeople and shops. Talk to people to get information and visit shops to refill your life bar and obtain Shryukens. You will also find money and Shryukens in various coffers spread about the chapter. Be sure to keep your life bar up, as the instant it is empty, it is game over.

Instigated by townsfolk and bosses alike, you may be challenged to a mini-game! Be forewarn that mini-games instigated by bosses will result in a game over if you fail. Simply follow the rules that are set before game start.

Item List
	COFFER: These chests are your sole source of money. They also may contain other items as well
	SHRYUKEN: This throwing star is the standard long distance attack in the game. It can be obtained from coffers and from Omitsu's
	ONIGIRI: Bought from Omitsu's it will restore one bar of health.
	NINJA FOOD (ST TABLET): Bought from Omitsu, this compact food can restore all of your health
	FIRST GENERATION KISERU (1st pipe): With this weapon, Goemon's attack power increases. It can be found in a coffer.
	FAN OF HEAVEN: With this weapon, Ebisumaru's attack power will increase. It can be found in a coffer.
	LEGENDARY KUNAI: With this weapon, Sasuke's attack power will increase. It can be found in a coffer.
	CRYSTAL OF LIFE: Collect this item to increase the lenght of your life bar
	KEY ITEMS: Certain chapters of this game will require you to have one of these items to progress. Talk to townspeople to learn what is needed and of where to obtain them.

---When you are at full health, you will be able to perform a Shryuken attack as your normal attack at no cost of your Shryuken count! Besure to try to maintain your health for optimal attack ability.
---Aside from bosses/sub-bosses, there is no incentive to defeat an enemy other than to prevent it from hurting you. So avoid fighting when it isn't necessary.
---As Shryukens are limited, save them for use on boss battles only.
---You can only refill your life at Omitsu's store or at an Inn. So be extra weary of taking any damage, as stores are few and far inbetween
---Money is also limited, so conserve your money solely for use to restore your health
---Don't fall! Althought the damage taken from falling into a hole or river is minimum, you will be placed back at the start of the area after a fall.

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Honestly I can not vouch for this game favorably. It is of my humble opinion that this Goemon Game was created solely to rake in more money from the Goemon Cash Cow Franchise at the time. Take the Legend of Zelda, Take out all the cool items, tricky puzzles, developed storyline, good graphics, and make the game artificially hard, and you have this game. The game doesn't even feel a hint of Goemon, more like just some generic crappy game that happened to have Goemon's mug plastered onto it.

To start, the game has very little in terms of variety. You walk around and attack enemies on an overhead field,....and that's about it. With a slight exception of one boss, you never need any advance tactics, or even any skill for that matter to defeat an enemy. Field sequences are basically mindless exercises of killing time, which is quaduplely effect thanks to my next problem with this game.

I have emphasize that this game is artificially difficult. Without any stage puzzles, or varied items for complex boss battles, The only thing stopping players from blowing through it in half an hour is its simply unforgiving nature. Money and items are of a really limited and finite quantity in this game. Furthermore, opportunities to refill ones life energy are few and far in between. And with only one life given to a player, you are basically expected to play through a very very long Chapter almost flawlessly else face having the start over.

The final death blow to this game's artificially difficulty is the simply evil mini-game contests. If you miraculously are able to playing through a whole chapter and get to a boss intact, you will be suddenly given one shot to a specialized mini-game that you have never played before. Fail at this game, and you will have to start ALL OVER AGAIN FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CHAPTER. I really suspect that Konami was actually out to make players hate Goemon with this game. I would be very surprised to see anyone get pass the first chapter and found it pleasurable.

Ending (highlight text in window to see)
Since the English version of this game is a pretty fair mirror of the game's ending, I'll leave the telling of this game's ending to the screenshots on the right.