So, if I'm right, the part you had a hard time translating should mean: "If we sell 800,000 copies, we might be able to do it." So I guess they had planned a Mexico DLC for this game had they sold enough copies?!?!
"I'm so pissed about the election. I'm gonna go play the Japanese mobile port of Takeshi's Challenge to relax." [70 floors later] "You gotta be fucking kidding me."
Jontron's playthroughs are so wildly inconsistant. On one hand, he'll slog through all of Monster Party and Dino City, and on the other, he'll give up on the second level of Monster Bash even though he claims he "loves" it. He'll pretend to play games on original hardware (even fan translated ones like Takeshi's Challenge), but he assumed Pepsiman had no music because his emulator wasn't configured correctly.
13:27 Yeah so I learned it from people who know their way around NES/FC hardware - Famicom microphone has ONE BIT OUTPUT. There either is a sound, or there isn't. There's no information for volume, pitch, nothing. There either is sound or there isn't. That's why you can bind it to a single button, because it effectively IS a glorified digital button.
@@luigimario3579 The DS microphone can actually be used to record audio, so no. Off the top of my head, Diddy Kong Racing DS lets you replace a couple default sound effects with your own shitty-quality recordings, and Warioware DIY lets you generate melodies in the music editor by whistling them.
@luigimario3579 No, it's a proper microphone that can record real audio. It's just voice recognition is hard so most developers didn't use its full potential.
Oh! Oh! I know this one! So the reason old games told you to turn off the console after saving? And froze up? It was a safety percaution! Basically, they didn't want you accidentally fucking up the cart by just turning it off when it might have been writing data. It's the same as old PCs.
@@_connorsseur Back in the day, we knew how to time pokemon cloning in gen 2 by shutting off the Gameboy when it was typing out "power" in "Please don't turn off the power." You literally interrupted the part of the process of moving pokemon where it was deleting the original data after moving it over, resulting in two of the same pokemon.
@@_connorsseurNES games were the first generation of cartridges with saving, so Nintendo was very overly cautious about preventing deletion due to user error. Some early titles with a save feature actually had an extra warning on the carts and in-game telling you to hold reset while powering off. The way they saved was by using a battery to continuously power a RAM chip. Turning off the console can cause a voltage spike. That spike has a small chance to corrupt your save file. Pressing the reset button physically breaks the connection between wall power and the save RAM. If you hold reset while powering off the console, you're essentially protecting it from the power off voltage spike.
@@Birdsflight44 Oh man I used to do that all the time. Probably still would if I ever went back to those games. I'd wager the dry cells need replacing at this point.
As someone who actually plays these kind of oldschool adventure games - you miss that by and large, they are definitely meant to be played over and over through trial and error. It is 100% normal to not beat the game on the first try. It's not 'cruel joke', it is 100% how these games used to work before around 1990 and release of Secret of Monkey Island rewrote rules on how to design adventure games. It is not uncommon in games like King's Quest or Maniac Mansion to softlock you if you didn't grab an item earlier that you can't get anymore. Normal gamer would find the hint dialogue by just repeatedly talking to every NPC with every possible tone, since you get a new dialogue each time. Similarly, you don't need logic to understand what's happening if you have trial and error. You drink twice and reject third... because nothing happens if you do anything else, and obviously the karaoke bar is important. Player will just repeat that until something works. Similarly after karaoke if you choose Apologize, I guess nothing happens... so player will repeat the action chain, and choose the second possible option at the end - because there are only two. We know to travel to South Pacific... because plane explodes if you go anywhere else, so game prevents you from wasting time on these options. Same with the languages - first three options don't make sense in South Pacific, so only Chnatara and Hintabo make sense - and that's only two options to try, so it's one or the other. The divorce is definitely the most obtuse puzzle in here, but there is a hint - the boss! If you just somehow would go on to South Pacific without quitting your job (which you might not know to do), your boss will show up to drag you back. So now you know to quit your job at the beginning, since that's an option. So logically, if you do that and now your wife shows up - you can assume you need to do the same and divorce her. Considering the fact that so far, most important place has been the bar, getting drunk isn't THAT huge of a leap of logic. Regarding the secret stash, it's more that player in these old games is expected to search everywhere for hidden goodies - like how in Zelda if you want to be 100% upgraded, you need to bomb every wall and burn every bush, or how in Metroid you shoot every wall. So trying to duck and interact by any supsicious piece of scenery makes sense. The hang glider, again, is basically a trial and error joke aimed at the player. Realizing that only hang gliding will work is the punchline, Trying to jump while crouch is not that crazy, it's definitely something players will figure out eventually just by messing with the controls. I mean, I figured out running mechanics in Super Mario Bros without reading the manual as a kid. Waiting five minutes on the end screen... I mean, you have nothing else to do. Player will try to mess with treasure for a bit, and then just leave the game alone after a while. Nobody in their right mind would turn off their Famicom on the *final screen of the game.* Similarly, the old man stealing your treasure is basically a minor annoyance - if you managed to guess all that, it's pretty obvious at what point in the sequence you fucked up (since you only see the old man once). All you need to do is to repeat all the steps, and THEN get the ending.
@@ShinoSarna interesting perspectives! One theory I liked was someone said the steps were this obtuse because Beat Takeshi thought so lowly of gamers that being such a terrible person would be obvious to them. Which is a pretty funny semi plausible one
Haha, well do remember I had the massive advantage of already knowing the steps. It's impossible to say if a community would've actually reached those conclusions or not, but it's fun to think about!
That's just one of two routes I can think of for low%! Maybe some day I'll do some streams of various runs of the game, that could be fun. I've definitely picked up on lots of tech for it haha
Wow, you've just created the most comprehensive English language resource on Takeshi's Challenge. I've known the game for decades now, seen multiple people trying to crack its mysteries, beaten it a couple times myself, and a lot of stuff you covered is still completely new to me. Fantastic job.
I'm so so glad this video essay exists, ive been wanting to see someone dissect takeshi's challenge for so long, i was so fascinated by its deliberate diabolical design and malice kaizo vibes and just all the extraneous dead ends. I'm so glad i finally got to see it happen, and much more!! I never even knew about the mobile port!!! Your essay's divisions into sections are also super great, and makes the video much easier to watch and understand!! Thank you so much for taking this gargantuan archaic journey lmao
Glad that my edits to TCRF helped out :) I actually found them as research for my own Takeshi’s Challenge video, which I’ve been very slowly working on. Your videos are great, I’m glad many people get to learn more about this game!
42:15 Second re-release. It was actually on the Japanese Wii VC back in 2007 or 2008. Great video, man. It was cool seeing an in-depth video on this game and clear up some misconceptions.
John’s content is less ‘serious game review/deep dive’ like yours and more using the video as a base for a funny video. I love how you can watch his and then yours right after and then nothing at all is lost. I feel like I’m in a English class post-reading classroom discussion
Lol love the comparison. It's the same kind of fun like deconstructing cartoon logic. Plus I found realizing he only had such a hard time because he effectively didn't save his game the entire time was a pretty hilarious discovery
@@_connorsseurmy only guess to why he didn’t try passwords is because he didn’t trust them due to the nature of the game which Yeah I be wary of them as well … honestly I’m surprised the game DOESNT pull some cruel shit if you use passwords… like all passwords keeping the old man alive so you can never win Hey takeshi if you’re reading this and you ever give the game another port you know what to do
Ngl I think JonTron was just done with the game or his brain just didn't work, like the password thing, he just didn't think it was going to work for absolutely no reason. Basically that video of "whats heavier, a kg of feathers or a kg of steel?" but unironically.
In fairness I think he may have just been wary of passwords and expected something cruel to happen if a password was used Tbh …. Fair I’m surprised nothing bad happens if you use passwords
As infamous as this game is, it really feels ahead of its time in a lotta ways. Its almost a predecessor to stuff like Shenmue kinda. I wonder if Takeshi really wanted to make a bad game because he hated video games or he was just too ambitious. Feels like it was supposed to be a game people played and shared info on to help each other eventually beat it.
@@mistertagomago7974 Yeah that's the sense I've gotten from it-- almost like the developers compromised between this ambitious vision and catering to Takeshi's odd requests while also just having a fun time crushing poor children's spirits lol. A bit like an ARG almost!
9:54 "This is why entering the pachinko parlor, wasting 100 balls, spamming the mic when you get low on them, beating up the Yakuza that enter-" Whoa, whoa, whoa!! Back up! I think we missed a few steps here!
This is a really great video. I love the details you pointed out and you have an easy and understandable way of writing. Sight gags are always hit and miss because a lot of people aren't watching the screen but I felt they didn't detract from the audio only experience at all.
@@SECONDQUEST Thanks! And yeah, I'm aware sight gags have that issue, but it should be expected from a predominantly visual medium. Good to hear the gags didn't make it incomprehensible to that audience though haha. I'll try and keep them in mind a bit more going forwards
Can't believe you researched Takeshi's challenge as a passion project. You could have ended on the fast run or dunking on JonTron, but no. You took it further. Takeshi Kitano would have been overjoyed.
This game seems to me a lot like Hitchiker's Guide To Galaxy text adventure - puzzle adventure game designed by an established artist, with the entire joke being that it's insanely hard on purpose as a joke about how obtuse adventure games of the time were.
Great vid! I started watching not expecting to learn much as i've already been exposed to the game through Joueur du Grenier, (even joking to myself when you were saying that most of us would know the game through jontron and i went "uh well no akshually 🤓☝" and feeling quite surprised when you actually mentioned him) (and yeah, if you watch some of his video commentaries, you can see that him changing the truth happens for the benefit of the gag/rhythm/else here and there, as they'll often do something in a game, learn only afterwards the actual way to do it, but will be like "eh we already wrote it this way, it's staying like that in the episode") but this was legitimately really interesting and comprehensive! Don't belittle yourself like you did at some point in the vid, sure there's no fancy editing effects, no skits or anything, but hey you don't need those sometimes! The video is already very clean and enjoyable by itself, and the research and efforts you went through to document new stuff aren't to be diminished! Keep up the great work! :> 👍
@@Lyzane aw thanks! Glad my thoroughness shined through. And I mostly did the belittling to myself as a joke, I have a bit more confidence than that haha 😅
god this is just the perfect TH-cam video. really thorough, clean, n entertaining! i was so happy to see this in my feed, keep up the great work bro!!! :]
Absolutely superb video. I could tell things sounded better and had things added- wonderful! This is going into my playlist to sleep to; the highest honor I can bestow upon you.
The problem is Jontron supposedly beat the game like that. They make content for a video without doing full research. You really think they would take years to beat a game without something like save states or even cheats?
on the topic of figuring the game out without a guide: the likely answer is you're intended to wonder aimlessly, taking note of anything you discover along the way. Every failure gives you new insight and you're supposed to play through the game over and over until you quite enough info to be able to put the pieces together and get to the end. A valid gameplay loop, and one that can be quite a lot of fun if pulled off well and you're the right type of player. Though, this game didn't quite have the means to pull off this concept. The result being something that would be interesting to get through if you had nothing better to do. Not quite something that can stand on it's own as worthy experience for most, especially if you take today's gaming landscape into account.
I knew Takeshis Challenge thru Jontron and didnt think much of it other than an obscure difficult NES game, I was completely unaware it had a mobile port with "added content (+Trump)". The fact it was originally an April fool’s joke that became real reminds me when the Yakuza series did the something similar. Its strange because most companies wouldnt praise a game like this nowadays, especially celebrity tie-in games. That’d be like if they rereleased Spice Girls or those Mary-Kate & Ashley games on modern systems
I always did wonder what all of those extra options could've meant like flying to the "Wrong" country, like maybe it'd mean there were extra areas that'd offer ways to get back on track, or in an extreme case that there'd be multiple paths to victory? Nah. Game's a troll game that basically only exists for a contest, I think. Though I guess a figure getting to make and publish his own game like that could've only really happened in those days, so that's pretty cool on it's own. Also the Daikon Root thing strikes me as some vague hint towards maybe a health-restoring item somewhere being affordable? But I would assume people would already have torn the game apart looking for it by now so maybe it was just never implemented but they didn't take the hint out of the game because no one remembered.
Since I'm not a fan of JonTron and never watched his video, my first exposure to this game was Chrontendo, where Dr. Sparkle gave up at the karaoke part and just described the rest of the game based on what he understood of it from other sources. This makes sense, given that his project's a chronological overview of the entire Famicom library and at that point (episode 13) he was still packing 15 games into each episode (he's since cut back to 10). But since I had very little to go on from there, it's nice to see a comprehensive take on the subject!
Oh Takeshi no Chousenjou, truly one of the bottom tier Famicom releases in Japan, but at least its playable unlike some other infamously bad Famicom games (Hoshi wo Miru Hito has it beat). Surprisingly I have beaten this game once, albeit I did the 20k punch method on the title screen which took about 3 hours of non-stop punching. I have the original Famicom cartridge and attempted to follow the steps on StrategyWiki but I gave up after realizing the amount of trial and error it was going to take hence why I cheesed my way to the end. I do appreciate that the controller microphone is technically optional, since otherwise this game would be impossible to play as intended on consoles without that mic such as the AV Famicom. It does make me wonder if this is how players had to overcome this section in the Wii Virtual Console re-issue but I can't know for sure.
great video!!! always a delight to find something well-researched on a game ill never play, and your voice is super soothing to boot :3 the way you structure and explain things is fantastic, i hope you keep it up!! ♥♥♥
Vinesauce Joel could've just pressed A on the second controller a bunch of times instead of singing the actual song over and over, but it wouldn't have been as funny.
Honestly its just peak fact that most popular playthrough on this game that "you shouldn"t take seriously" (as in-game Takeshi tells you personally) is how about one man did not took this game seriously so he had hard time beating it, while making a video on how not serious this game is. I don't know the man much, but i have a feeling it's what Takeshi would want to happen honestly.
Holy shit there was a mobile phone release where you meet Donald Trump. Honestly I would be kind of irritated by this except the game's a shitpost already, so it's like...just another meme for the pile. Amazing. I was kind of wanting to play this game just to experiment since it looked like there was a lot of options to mess with, but this answers pretty much all of my questions. Good video, thank you!
I first knew of this game from PanAnning, who played in the original Japanese. He didn't really explain why he did such random things beyond "because we're going on an adventure." Later, I would see Deceased Crab and Vinesauce Joel would play with an English patch. So, I had plenty of sources before ever looking into JonTron, and the fact that he cuts off the ending was rather disappointing. Thanks for the most comprehensive deep dive to date!
What's funny is that this game could've actually been the best NES game of the console because it has a lot of the vibe that yakuza games have, but because the creator hated video games and wanted to make it as tedious as possible because he hated gamers it'll never happen.
Misinformation about this game is hardly the worst crime in the world, and I doubt many people are going to be rushing to try this game, unlike Simon's Quest maybe. But it's still annoying when youtubers do such a disingenuous job covering a game.
Oh, I see the issue in the Joueur du Grenier clip. He hits "End" on the menu to generate a password, then "yes" when asked if he wants to continue, which obviously takes him back to the game; he never actually inputs the password the game gives him. So it wasn't an intentional lie.
I wanna believe that a dev saw how horrible the game is about screwing the player and decided to throw in a little bit of help for players that actually want to experience the game
i watched these when they came out and it’s great watching it all again!! also, i noticed you mispronounced Ys and i’m obligated to point that out as someone who is a huge Ys fan (it’s pronounced eese)
Great video. It's really fun to watch. One slight criticism, however. Trying to learn the steps manually should also be done by following in parallel to the manual. Reading the manual was required for any game of some complexity prior to... mid 2000s, i think.
Yes and no-- It's a remaster of the whole series. I redid most of the audio, added 10-15 mins of new content throughout, fixed errors, improved the script overall, more visuals, music etc. You'll notice really quick if you compare it to the old series. But understandable if you're still not interested!
@@_connorsseur i see, it might be best to put this info in a pinned comment or the description, as others like me may come to the same conclusion fairly quickly once they experience "Deja-vu" and see the chapter topics correlating to the individual videos. Now I might watch it a couple months from now when I have more time
It's not just a bit jontrons videos are a mix of walkthrough and comedy. The fact that he didn't get basic things right on a old region locked game is kinda misinfo.
@@mistertagomago7974 a 1hour video isn't ribbing he also pointed out that jontron is pro enthostate. This isn't what got under his skin but I don't think the take away is that he is cool with jon
@@nathanieljones8043 He didnt spend the entire video going after Jon lol. It was just a small segment, and he mentioned another guy who either lied or got something wrong as well.
From experience, Takeshi's Challenge is totally riffing on the japanese (action-)adventure games of the time which are evil like this in many ways but maybe without all the dead ends and not AS evil. La Mulana is a more modern play on them too. Check out Atlantis no Nazo or Meikuu Kyumikyoku (two much less evil games). Hell, you mention Ys in the video and that has the mandatory mask of eyes and hammer secrets right at the end of the game lol
Bless be the youtube algorithm for it has recommened good content. Great video by the way, I alway wondered if that there was more to this game then what most people portrayed. While it's clunky, obtuse and just bit vulgar, can't say it isn't a interesting piece of video game history,
@@backloggamereviews it's a complete remaster of the series, with 10-15 mins of new content throughout. So yes and no, it's muuuuch more polished than the original videos were
@@omegahaxors9-11 its facts lol, its literally something you can prove, there's nothing to argue or justify. Maybe they should stop being criminals if they don't want to be in the statistic
The deep dive was nice, then I realized you just yap about jontron (whoever that is).. I feel scammed, I thought your channel will be full of deep dives and not full desperation..
@@vedrisnightmare Hah, no long term promises! I do like my long form essays. But I'll definitely do shorter game-centric content for a while following this
So, if I'm right, the part you had a hard time translating should mean:
"If we sell 800,000 copies, we might be able to do it."
So I guess they had planned a Mexico DLC for this game had they sold enough copies?!?!
@@tasos5005 Wait what? That's wild! I wonder that could have entailed.
Can confirm that's what the caption says.
"You can't go any further."
"Maybe if 800,000 copies sell, you could..."
dlc
idk japanese that well but hachijuuman is how you say 800,000 so this is correct
potential reference to E.T. on the Atari 2600? idk
"I'm so pissed about the election. I'm gonna go play the Japanese mobile port of Takeshi's Challenge to relax."
[70 floors later]
"You gotta be fucking kidding me."
This is of course based on a meme I saw of, "I'm so pissed about the election. I'm gonna go watch Home Alone 2 for the first time to relax."
oh my fucking god
Jontron's playthroughs are so wildly inconsistant. On one hand, he'll slog through all of Monster Party and Dino City, and on the other, he'll give up on the second level of Monster Bash even though he claims he "loves" it. He'll pretend to play games on original hardware (even fan translated ones like Takeshi's Challenge), but he assumed Pepsiman had no music because his emulator wasn't configured correctly.
Apples and grapes.
Ah yes, famous gaming youtuber Jontron, he still does so many gaming videos I can't keep up, yessiree
13:27 Yeah so I learned it from people who know their way around NES/FC hardware - Famicom microphone has ONE BIT OUTPUT. There either is a sound, or there isn't. There's no information for volume, pitch, nothing. There either is sound or there isn't. That's why you can bind it to a single button, because it effectively IS a glorified digital button.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that actually how the DS microphone works as well?
Or doesn’t it also detect volume…?
@@luigimario3579 The DS microphone can actually be used to record audio, so no. Off the top of my head, Diddy Kong Racing DS lets you replace a couple default sound effects with your own shitty-quality recordings, and Warioware DIY lets you generate melodies in the music editor by whistling them.
@luigimario3579 No, it's a proper microphone that can record real audio. It's just voice recognition is hard so most developers didn't use its full potential.
Oh! Oh! I know this one!
So the reason old games told you to turn off the console after saving? And froze up? It was a safety percaution! Basically, they didn't want you accidentally fucking up the cart by just turning it off when it might have been writing data. It's the same as old PCs.
@@KururuJi ahhhhh that makes sense! I figured there was a reason. Interesting that dragon quest IX still features it though lol
@@_connorsseur
Back in the day, we knew how to time pokemon cloning in gen 2 by shutting off the Gameboy when it was typing out "power" in "Please don't turn off the power."
You literally interrupted the part of the process of moving pokemon where it was deleting the original data after moving it over, resulting in two of the same pokemon.
@@_connorsseurNES games were the first generation of cartridges with saving, so Nintendo was very overly cautious about preventing deletion due to user error. Some early titles with a save feature actually had an extra warning on the carts and in-game telling you to hold reset while powering off. The way they saved was by using a battery to continuously power a RAM chip. Turning off the console can cause a voltage spike. That spike has a small chance to corrupt your save file. Pressing the reset button physically breaks the connection between wall power and the save RAM. If you hold reset while powering off the console, you're essentially protecting it from the power off voltage spike.
"Saving data... Do not turn off your PC."
Gee, I was about to pull the plug.
@@Birdsflight44 Oh man I used to do that all the time. Probably still would if I ever went back to those games. I'd wager the dry cells need replacing at this point.
As someone who actually plays these kind of oldschool adventure games - you miss that by and large, they are definitely meant to be played over and over through trial and error. It is 100% normal to not beat the game on the first try. It's not 'cruel joke', it is 100% how these games used to work before around 1990 and release of Secret of Monkey Island rewrote rules on how to design adventure games. It is not uncommon in games like King's Quest or Maniac Mansion to softlock you if you didn't grab an item earlier that you can't get anymore.
Normal gamer would find the hint dialogue by just repeatedly talking to every NPC with every possible tone, since you get a new dialogue each time. Similarly, you don't need logic to understand what's happening if you have trial and error. You drink twice and reject third... because nothing happens if you do anything else, and obviously the karaoke bar is important. Player will just repeat that until something works. Similarly after karaoke if you choose Apologize, I guess nothing happens... so player will repeat the action chain, and choose the second possible option at the end - because there are only two. We know to travel to South Pacific... because plane explodes if you go anywhere else, so game prevents you from wasting time on these options. Same with the languages - first three options don't make sense in South Pacific, so only Chnatara and Hintabo make sense - and that's only two options to try, so it's one or the other.
The divorce is definitely the most obtuse puzzle in here, but there is a hint - the boss! If you just somehow would go on to South Pacific without quitting your job (which you might not know to do), your boss will show up to drag you back. So now you know to quit your job at the beginning, since that's an option. So logically, if you do that and now your wife shows up - you can assume you need to do the same and divorce her. Considering the fact that so far, most important place has been the bar, getting drunk isn't THAT huge of a leap of logic.
Regarding the secret stash, it's more that player in these old games is expected to search everywhere for hidden goodies - like how in Zelda if you want to be 100% upgraded, you need to bomb every wall and burn every bush, or how in Metroid you shoot every wall. So trying to duck and interact by any supsicious piece of scenery makes sense.
The hang glider, again, is basically a trial and error joke aimed at the player. Realizing that only hang gliding will work is the punchline,
Trying to jump while crouch is not that crazy, it's definitely something players will figure out eventually just by messing with the controls. I mean, I figured out running mechanics in Super Mario Bros without reading the manual as a kid.
Waiting five minutes on the end screen... I mean, you have nothing else to do. Player will try to mess with treasure for a bit, and then just leave the game alone after a while. Nobody in their right mind would turn off their Famicom on the *final screen of the game.* Similarly, the old man stealing your treasure is basically a minor annoyance - if you managed to guess all that, it's pretty obvious at what point in the sequence you fucked up (since you only see the old man once). All you need to do is to repeat all the steps, and THEN get the ending.
@@ShinoSarna interesting perspectives! One theory I liked was someone said the steps were this obtuse because Beat Takeshi thought so lowly of gamers that being such a terrible person would be obvious to them. Which is a pretty funny semi plausible one
The "Set" on the hamburgers in America are supposed to be "Meals" like in McDonalds. "Happy Set" is how the Happy Meal is called in Japan.
@@iara0 oh interesting! That's a neat factoid
Riiiight! Like that Spongebob McDonald's commercial where the children scream so loud you want to blow up the world.
"Donald Trump is in the mobile port of Takeshi's Challenge" was not information I was prepared to learn today
Ofc he'd invade even this game. There's literally no escaping that ****!
@@MasterZebulinmad online lol
Objective: Get a small loan of a Million Dollars.
😂.
16:23 I was _sure_ he was about to say "But... what if someone _did_ try to cancel Jontron?"
these clearing conditions are so specific that the part where you made sense of it all felt mind blowing
Haha, well do remember I had the massive advantage of already knowing the steps. It's impossible to say if a community would've actually reached those conclusions or not, but it's fun to think about!
punching 30,720 times to skip to the end, I see the low% speedrun in the making...
That's just one of two routes I can think of for low%! Maybe some day I'll do some streams of various runs of the game, that could be fun. I've definitely picked up on lots of tech for it haha
that was already done
Wow, you've just created the most comprehensive English language resource on Takeshi's Challenge. I've known the game for decades now, seen multiple people trying to crack its mysteries, beaten it a couple times myself, and a lot of stuff you covered is still completely new to me. Fantastic job.
I'm so so glad this video essay exists, ive been wanting to see someone dissect takeshi's challenge for so long, i was so fascinated by its deliberate diabolical design and malice kaizo vibes and just all the extraneous dead ends. I'm so glad i finally got to see it happen, and much more!! I never even knew about the mobile port!!! Your essay's divisions into sections are also super great, and makes the video much easier to watch and understand!! Thank you so much for taking this gargantuan archaic journey lmao
Glad that my edits to TCRF helped out :) I actually found them as research for my own Takeshi’s Challenge video, which I’ve been very slowly working on. Your videos are great, I’m glad many people get to learn more about this game!
@@IsabelleChiming Thanks! Nice to see you here. I'll have to check it out when it's done! I'm always curious about my obscure game mechanics haha
Aw the missing lowercase characters spell out "luv you"
@@raskr8137 somehow never occurred to me after watching this a million times in editing lol
"Poker Tower" might be named that because playing cards in Japanese are called trumps.
42:15 Second re-release. It was actually on the Japanese Wii VC back in 2007 or 2008.
Great video, man. It was cool seeing an in-depth video on this game and clear up some misconceptions.
@@commanderproton7763 oh good catch! I should've tried going to the Japanese wikipedia page now that I think about it... ah well
John’s content is less ‘serious game review/deep dive’ like yours and more using the video as a base for a funny video.
I love how you can watch his and then yours right after and then nothing at all is lost. I feel like I’m in a English class post-reading classroom discussion
Lol love the comparison. It's the same kind of fun like deconstructing cartoon logic. Plus I found realizing he only had such a hard time because he effectively didn't save his game the entire time was a pretty hilarious discovery
@@_connorsseurmy only guess to why he didn’t try passwords is because he didn’t trust them due to the nature of the game which
Yeah I be wary of them as well … honestly I’m surprised the game DOESNT pull some cruel shit if you use passwords… like all passwords keeping the old man alive so you can never win
Hey takeshi if you’re reading this and you ever give the game another port you know what to do
Ngl I think JonTron was just done with the game or his brain just didn't work, like the password thing, he just didn't think it was going to work for absolutely no reason. Basically that video of "whats heavier, a kg of feathers or a kg of steel?" but unironically.
In fairness I think he may have just been wary of passwords and expected something cruel to happen if a password was used
Tbh …. Fair I’m surprised nothing bad happens if you use passwords
"Grilled mormons?" Will forever be my favorite Jon tron moment, and honestly maybe the peak of the angry critic genre of videos
As infamous as this game is, it really feels ahead of its time in a lotta ways. Its almost a predecessor to stuff like Shenmue kinda. I wonder if Takeshi really wanted to make a bad game because he hated video games or he was just too ambitious. Feels like it was supposed to be a game people played and shared info on to help each other eventually beat it.
@@mistertagomago7974 Yeah that's the sense I've gotten from it-- almost like the developers compromised between this ambitious vision and catering to Takeshi's odd requests while also just having a fun time crushing poor children's spirits lol. A bit like an ARG almost!
9:54 "This is why entering the pachinko parlor, wasting 100 balls, spamming the mic when you get low on them, beating up the Yakuza that enter-"
Whoa, whoa, whoa!! Back up! I think we missed a few steps here!
He might have been playing the game the Arin Hanson way, don't read
This is a really great video. I love the details you pointed out and you have an easy and understandable way of writing.
Sight gags are always hit and miss because a lot of people aren't watching the screen but I felt they didn't detract from the audio only experience at all.
@@SECONDQUEST Thanks! And yeah, I'm aware sight gags have that issue, but it should be expected from a predominantly visual medium. Good to hear the gags didn't make it incomprehensible to that audience though haha. I'll try and keep them in mind a bit more going forwards
the remake we didn't know we needed, great video!
I think in order to pass the wall in the desert you must become trump again
Can't believe you researched Takeshi's challenge as a passion project. You could have ended on the fast run or dunking on JonTron, but no. You took it further. Takeshi Kitano would have been overjoyed.
@@lukecwolf it's just a neat game :)
This game seems to me a lot like Hitchiker's Guide To Galaxy text adventure - puzzle adventure game designed by an established artist, with the entire joke being that it's insanely hard on purpose as a joke about how obtuse adventure games of the time were.
Great vid! I started watching not expecting to learn much as i've already been exposed to the game through Joueur du Grenier,
(even joking to myself when you were saying that most of us would know the game through jontron and i went "uh well no akshually 🤓☝" and feeling quite surprised when you actually mentioned him)
(and yeah, if you watch some of his video commentaries, you can see that him changing the truth happens for the benefit of the gag/rhythm/else here and there, as they'll often do something in a game, learn only afterwards the actual way to do it, but will be like "eh we already wrote it this way, it's staying like that in the episode")
but this was legitimately really interesting and comprehensive! Don't belittle yourself like you did at some point in the vid, sure there's no fancy editing effects, no skits or anything, but hey you don't need those sometimes! The video is already very clean and enjoyable by itself, and the research and efforts you went through to document new stuff aren't to be diminished! Keep up the great work! :> 👍
@@Lyzane aw thanks! Glad my thoroughness shined through. And I mostly did the belittling to myself as a joke, I have a bit more confidence than that haha 😅
god this is just the perfect TH-cam video. really thorough, clean, n entertaining! i was so happy to see this in my feed, keep up the great work bro!!! :]
LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOO TIME TO WATCH IT AGAIN BUT MORE!!!!!
Absolutely superb video. I could tell things sounded better and had things added- wonderful! This is going into my playlist to sleep to; the highest honor I can bestow upon you.
@@T0XIIK.R0T Thanks! Glad the improvements are noticeable and enjoyable :)
The problem is Jontron supposedly beat the game like that. They make content for a video without doing full research. You really think they would take years to beat a game without something like save states or even cheats?
ah shit... here we go again
on the topic of figuring the game out without a guide: the likely answer is you're intended to wonder aimlessly, taking note of anything you discover along the way. Every failure gives you new insight and you're supposed to play through the game over and over until you quite enough info to be able to put the pieces together and get to the end.
A valid gameplay loop, and one that can be quite a lot of fun if pulled off well and you're the right type of player.
Though, this game didn't quite have the means to pull off this concept. The result being something that would be interesting to get through if you had nothing better to do. Not quite something that can stand on it's own as worthy experience for most, especially if you take today's gaming landscape into account.
I knew Takeshis Challenge thru Jontron and didnt think much of it other than an obscure difficult NES game, I was completely unaware it had a mobile port with "added content (+Trump)". The fact it was originally an April fool’s joke that became real reminds me when the Yakuza series did the something similar.
Its strange because most companies wouldnt praise a game like this nowadays, especially celebrity tie-in games. That’d be like if they rereleased Spice Girls or those Mary-Kate & Ashley games on modern systems
What a horrible game. Jon was 100% right. People buying this game didn't have a guide.
This is really comprehensive and interesting!! Looking fw to seeing more of the games youve gotten invested in
27:06 Ys is pronounced like "ease". The katakana used for it is 「イース」.
@@McAllen07 Apologies for messing that up!
I always did wonder what all of those extra options could've meant like flying to the "Wrong" country, like maybe it'd mean there were extra areas that'd offer ways to get back on track, or in an extreme case that there'd be multiple paths to victory? Nah. Game's a troll game that basically only exists for a contest, I think. Though I guess a figure getting to make and publish his own game like that could've only really happened in those days, so that's pretty cool on it's own.
Also the Daikon Root thing strikes me as some vague hint towards maybe a health-restoring item somewhere being affordable? But I would assume people would already have torn the game apart looking for it by now so maybe it was just never implemented but they didn't take the hint out of the game because no one remembered.
Since I'm not a fan of JonTron and never watched his video, my first exposure to this game was Chrontendo, where Dr. Sparkle gave up at the karaoke part and just described the rest of the game based on what he understood of it from other sources. This makes sense, given that his project's a chronological overview of the entire Famicom library and at that point (episode 13) he was still packing 15 games into each episode (he's since cut back to 10). But since I had very little to go on from there, it's nice to see a comprehensive take on the subject!
Oh Takeshi no Chousenjou, truly one of the bottom tier Famicom releases in Japan, but at least its playable unlike some other infamously bad Famicom games (Hoshi wo Miru Hito has it beat).
Surprisingly I have beaten this game once, albeit I did the 20k punch method on the title screen which took about 3 hours of non-stop punching. I have the original Famicom cartridge and attempted to follow the steps on StrategyWiki but I gave up after realizing the amount of trial and error it was going to take hence why I cheesed my way to the end. I do appreciate that the controller microphone is technically optional, since otherwise this game would be impossible to play as intended on consoles without that mic such as the AV Famicom. It does make me wonder if this is how players had to overcome this section in the Wii Virtual Console re-issue but I can't know for sure.
great video!!! always a delight to find something well-researched on a game ill never play, and your voice is super soothing to boot :3 the way you structure and explain things is fantastic, i hope you keep it up!! ♥♥♥
Vinesauce Joel could've just pressed A on the second controller a bunch of times instead of singing the actual song over and over, but it wouldn't have been as funny.
This has to be someone's life goal
Honestly its just peak fact that most popular playthrough on this game that "you shouldn"t take seriously" (as in-game Takeshi tells you personally) is how about one man did not took this game seriously so he had hard time beating it, while making a video on how not serious this game is.
I don't know the man much, but i have a feeling it's what Takeshi would want to happen honestly.
Amazing video! Worth the wait lol
I prefer anyone else over jontron. Good job with the elephant jokes, good way to diffuse people ready to call attention to it.
Holy shit there was a mobile phone release where you meet Donald Trump.
Honestly I would be kind of irritated by this except the game's a shitpost already, so it's like...just another meme for the pile. Amazing. I was kind of wanting to play this game just to experiment since it looked like there was a lot of options to mess with, but this answers pretty much all of my questions. Good video, thank you!
I first knew of this game from PanAnning, who played in the original Japanese. He didn't really explain why he did such random things beyond "because we're going on an adventure." Later, I would see Deceased Crab and Vinesauce Joel would play with an English patch. So, I had plenty of sources before ever looking into JonTron, and the fact that he cuts off the ending was rather disappointing.
Thanks for the most comprehensive deep dive to date!
What's funny is that this game could've actually been the best NES game of the console because it has a lot of the vibe that yakuza games have, but because the creator hated video games and wanted to make it as tedious as possible because he hated gamers it'll never happen.
Very nice video! Def watching more
Might be worth trying to use an emulator like Bluestacks if the mobile controls continue to be a pain, tbh
I actually wanna give this game a try now as a joke, thanks!
Actually gunning down random people was popular in certain atari games from the 70s
And swears and nudity
Also popular in the 70s in general.
Sega should buy the rights to this game and remake it with the dragon engine.
Amazing that you scrubbed through everything, even the mobile game! Amazing!
Misinformation about this game is hardly the worst crime in the world, and I doubt many people are going to be rushing to try this game, unlike Simon's Quest maybe. But it's still annoying when youtubers do such a disingenuous job covering a game.
painted nails? you aren’t going to survive trump’s america
Oh, I see the issue in the Joueur du Grenier clip. He hits "End" on the menu to generate a password, then "yes" when asked if he wants to continue, which obviously takes him back to the game; he never actually inputs the password the game gives him. So it wasn't an intentional lie.
Oh, perhaps? What on earth did he expect would happen then though? Lol
The A+B revive is totally a developer cheat they forgot to take off, right? It cannot be intended.
@@iara0 it very much is intended! One of the dialogue hints points towards it
I wanna believe that a dev saw how horrible the game is about screwing the player and decided to throw in a little bit of help for players that actually want to experience the game
30:40 i remember watching speedruns that abused removing enemies. Felt like an glitch run. Good times.
Holy moly, there's one video by adef at 38:00
i watched these when they came out and it’s great watching it all again!! also, i noticed you mispronounced Ys and i’m obligated to point that out as someone who is a huge Ys fan (it’s pronounced eese)
Oops, sorry! I should have looked into that given it's not a familiar franchise to me
Great video. It's really fun to watch. One slight criticism, however. Trying to learn the steps manually should also be done by following in parallel to the manual. Reading the manual was required for any game of some complexity prior to... mid 2000s, i think.
@@Shaddonius good point! I would've looked into that had it not been for the whole Japanese-only thing haha
28:49 Maybe there was a cut feature where you could buy vegetables to heal? But since it was redundant with Bar Gold drinks, it was removed?
Misread that as "Maybe there was a cut feature where you could buy vegetables in hell?"
@@AlexReynard Imagine if you could do a Hell Run like in Spelunky
ah, this is a compilation
Yes and no-- It's a remaster of the whole series. I redid most of the audio, added 10-15 mins of new content throughout, fixed errors, improved the script overall, more visuals, music etc.
You'll notice really quick if you compare it to the old series. But understandable if you're still not interested!
@@_connorsseur i see, it might be best to put this info in a pinned comment or the description, as others like me may come to the same conclusion fairly quickly once they experience "Deja-vu" and see the chapter topics correlating to the individual videos.
Now I might watch it a couple months from now when I have more time
@@snazzle9764 Good point! I'll make a note of it in the description
love this, great video!
28:50 that is a normal thing to say daikon root is like a turnip it's like saying the grocery store is having a sale.
Poker Burger? I hardly know 'er!
Nice.
Man, JonTron using this game for a comedic bit really got under your skin.
It's not just a bit jontrons videos are a mix of walkthrough and comedy. The fact that he didn't get basic things right on a old region locked game is kinda misinfo.
No it didnt? He made it clear he wasnt upset, just a bit of playful ribbing.
@@mistertagomago7974 a 1hour video isn't ribbing he also pointed out that jontron is pro enthostate. This isn't what got under his skin but I don't think the take away is that he is cool with jon
@@nathanieljones8043 He didnt spend the entire video going after Jon lol. It was just a small segment, and he mentioned another guy who either lied or got something wrong as well.
God forbid anyone clarify misinformation in a response video.
This game has an amazing ending
So what you're saying is, this was the worlds first ARG?
@@diydylana3151 kind of actually lol. I should've at least made a joke about it
Gr8 vid, very nice job 👍
What if you try punching the wall after climbing the tower?
From experience, Takeshi's Challenge is totally riffing on the japanese (action-)adventure games of the time which are evil like this in many ways but maybe without all the dead ends and not AS evil. La Mulana is a more modern play on them too. Check out Atlantis no Nazo or Meikuu Kyumikyoku (two much less evil games). Hell, you mention Ys in the video and that has the mandatory mask of eyes and hammer secrets right at the end of the game lol
55:26 Oh this dev is really **Cheeky** huh?!?
39:43 I'm guessing that Game Over screen was if you landed on the Red Country
The game is dickish enough, I don't see the reason why so many weird lies were made at its cost.
Cool video.
Is the Nuts thing a CATS reference?
Actually spamming buttons after dieing is fairly common for the time
12:06 This is not at all correct; you're *very* entertaining.
Ah yes, because Donald Trump is exactly what this game needed.
Is the best addition
Bless be the youtube algorithm for it has recommened good content.
Great video by the way, I alway wondered if that there was more to this game then what most people portrayed. While it's clunky, obtuse and just bit vulgar, can't say it isn't a interesting piece of video game history,
Is this a reupload?
@@backloggamereviews it's a complete remaster of the series, with 10-15 mins of new content throughout. So yes and no, it's muuuuch more polished than the original videos were
you had me until you pronounced ys wrong
@@maplejava I'm sorry I let down all the Ys fans 😭
yeah but what if you went to the border while looking like trump?
that's a sentence of all time
Question, why is this game in English?
@@Smilephile there's a fan translation you can find online for the game, it's never officially been translated though
Just like his politics, Jon did his own research and came to the worst conclusion.
But his politics is accurate though, like it's a real statistic that is verifiably true
@@JimMilton-ej6zi Ah hell no you aint tryin to justify the crime statistics 💀
Not a hill to die on. Not a hill to die on.
@@omegahaxors9-11 its facts lol, its literally something you can prove, there's nothing to argue or justify.
Maybe they should stop being criminals if they don't want to be in the statistic
I like this guy. He is like Gary from pokemon to Jontron's Ash 😂
The deep dive was nice, then I realized you just yap about jontron (whoever that is)..
I feel scammed, I thought your channel will be full of deep dives and not full desperation..
@@Stinkyundead I set a chapter to skip that section, it's like 10% of the video tops
We need to get this mobile rom
And make the most updated version of the original famicom
Jontron’s video ? Nah man, I know this game from Joueur Du Grenier 😎
Nice video, would love to see more about video games.
But please for the love of god don't use the video essay format, keep stuff under 30 minutes!
@@vedrisnightmare Hah, no long term promises! I do like my long form essays. But I'll definitely do shorter game-centric content for a while following this
You act as though the long form stuff ain't the point of me clicking this.
I disagree. The length and video essay format are part of what made me watch it in the first place.
Is 37:18 a pun at how the restaraunt is so cheap, it cant spell restaurant?
Like the Librarby in Deltarune.