"Kiku Megu Love Story" is a reference to a special mode in the Hudson Soft game Binary Land. If you hold A+B on both controllers and press Reset, the names of the two penguins are changed to Kiku, and Megu, and they will even call out to each other with those names when they are in trouble. You're right about Kikuta Masaaki, who programmed a ton of old Hudson Soft games that all have secret messages in them, being "KIKU." So far nobody actually knows who Megu is.
I have a funny story about this game. I accepted her, not for what she is. In my country, the 8-bit industry came a little later than in the rest of the world from '92 to '98. And the top games from capcom and konami published in the 90s were on collections of 4-8 pcs on one cartridge and were quite affordable. And simple, early, more arcade games were either bundled with the console or sold noticeably cheaper on compilations that had from 10 to 30 games. And having gained enough gaming experience, when, already at the sunset of 8-bit consoles, "Challenger" fell into my hands, I was sure that this was some kind of arcade, single-screen game, like "lode runner" and having failed to pass the first level 3-4 times, I abandoned it, thinking that it was all the same, nothing further interesting stuff. And years later, it turned out that for the 85th, she was ahead of her time, in terms of gameplay, but still, a sense of arcade style accompanies the whole game.
I got challenger a while ago with my famicom since it seemed like a fascinating game. After beating it a few times, I've come to like it, you just have to pay attention to the overworld's enemy ai, where they spawn and chase you, then if they contact you or a wall while chasing they will wander off in a random direction until they touch a wall, enemy or the edge of the screen and begin chasing you again. This seems like a game that could have been a contender for the NES's launch title list. I wonder how it would have been received if it was.
I think it would have probably wound up like Ice Climbers. Popular at the time, then more people becoming dissatisfied with it while still having a small fan base.
Absolutely bonkers huge overrworld - it’s one of those “programmers did it because they could.” sort of things 7:56 i love how the 8 bit era is occasionally “If we can’t license a property we’ll just rip it off!” It’s kinda fun tracing back influences from this or that popular manga artist of the time. This absolutely needed a sequel
I hate hate hate this game and i felta huge amount of relief after hearing your introduction. The final stage is ridiculous. I spent 4 hours just figuring out how to jump to the Princess AFTER killing the last boss
I've seen this one referenced a lot but was never super familiar with it. probably played it for a few minutes but only really remember the train stage. It does seem particularly close to being good just a lot of those little issues would need to be ironed out first, yeah.
"Kiku Megu Love Story" is a reference to a special mode in the Hudson Soft game Binary Land. If you hold A+B on both controllers and press Reset, the names of the two penguins are changed to Kiku, and Megu, and they will even call out to each other with those names when they are in trouble. You're right about Kikuta Masaaki, who programmed a ton of old Hudson Soft games that all have secret messages in them, being "KIKU." So far nobody actually knows who Megu is.
I have a funny story about this game. I accepted her, not for what she is. In my country, the 8-bit industry came a little later than in the rest of the world from '92 to '98. And the top games from capcom and konami published in the 90s were on collections of 4-8 pcs on one cartridge and were quite affordable. And simple, early, more arcade games were either bundled with the console or sold noticeably cheaper on compilations that had from 10 to 30 games. And having gained enough gaming experience, when, already at the sunset of 8-bit consoles, "Challenger" fell into my hands, I was sure that this was some kind of arcade, single-screen game, like "lode runner" and having failed to pass the first level 3-4 times, I abandoned it, thinking that it was all the same, nothing further interesting stuff. And years later, it turned out that for the 85th, she was ahead of her time, in terms of gameplay, but still, a sense of arcade style accompanies the whole game.
I got challenger a while ago with my famicom since it seemed like a fascinating game. After beating it a few times, I've come to like it, you just have to pay attention to the overworld's enemy ai, where they spawn and chase you, then if they contact you or a wall while chasing they will wander off in a random direction until they touch a wall, enemy or the edge of the screen and begin chasing you again. This seems like a game that could have been a contender for the NES's launch title list. I wonder how it would have been received if it was.
I think it would have probably wound up like Ice Climbers. Popular at the time, then more people becoming dissatisfied with it while still having a small fan base.
Absolutely bonkers huge overrworld - it’s one of those “programmers did it because they could.” sort of things
7:56 i love how the 8 bit era is occasionally “If we can’t license a property we’ll just rip it off!” It’s kinda fun tracing back influences from this or that popular manga artist of the time.
This absolutely needed a sequel
I hate hate hate this game and i felta huge amount of relief after hearing your introduction. The final stage is ridiculous. I spent 4 hours just figuring out how to jump to the Princess AFTER killing the last boss
I just had to play this one again last night for an upcoming bonus video and I still question its popularity.
That MSX game is also on the ZX Spectrum as 'Stop the Express', and, although it is a little different, it's cool to see it with more modern graphics
There’s an i-appli arranged version that changes the level 2 map, lets you move diagonally, and some other stuff.
Nice.
Nice.
I've seen this one referenced a lot but was never super familiar with it. probably played it for a few minutes but only really remember the train stage. It does seem particularly close to being good just a lot of those little issues would need to be ironed out first, yeah.
Garf!