Mach Rider / Onyanko Town / Pac-Land retrospective: Hey-Nyanko Alien | NES Works Gaiden
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.ย. 2024
- Somehow, sandwiched between a first-party Nintendo release helmed by HAL and a Pac-Man adventure inspired by the old Saturday morning cartoon, the standout release for this episode is a Micronics/Pony Canyon maze chase game with bad graphics and infuriating music. No, I don't get it either, but the heart wants what it wants.
Please don't mind the graphical artifacting in some of the Mach Rider footage. Apparently the track mirroring garbage is a known glitch that just happens from time to time. It doesn't affect the gameplay, but it sure does look horrible.
Production notes:
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NES/Famicom footage captured from @analogueinc Nt Mini; arcade footage captured from MiSTer with thanks to @MiSTerAddons. Video upscaled to 720 with @atemsoft xRGB Mini Framemeister.
I think I've identified why Onyanko Town has a bad rep: that music loop.
Definitely captures the atonal yowling repetition of a yard full of cats in heat
Not to slander Jeremy but I spent almost the entire time wanting his review of the game to be over already since it's just Heyankyo Alien with a jump button and awful music
"Just"
@@JeremyParish : Separate video, but I looked up the 'Flea Waltz' and now I listen to it all the time!
@@MAYOFORCE I very much feel as though that's like saying "Castlevania is just Mario with a whip."
What this all says to me is that Jeremy's love for Heiankyo Alien outweighs his dislike for Micronics
I grew up in this era, so it makes perfect sense that you can replenish your fuel by blowing up fuel barrels along the way. I wonder what kids today think when exposed to such mechanics.
True, a lot happens in 40 years.
11:45 And also the music, which is drilling into my skull at this point.
I always appreciate Jeremy's vocabulary, and thoughtful use of words he chooses to express his thoughts.
Me am glad you like when talk good
Pac-Land also has a large amount of weird codes, warps and other secrets. It’s just so hard to control! “They say” you can just use controller 2 for a more standard experience …
Mach Rider was the first NES cartridge I got after the console-included Gyromite and Duck Hunt. Still have it to this day!
I could never find it even for rent!
I appreciate this channel more than any other on TH-cam. There really is no other NES Works
I agree entirely, but if you like NES Works, you'll probably also like Chrontendo!
Finally, somebody who will stand up for the good character of dogs!
Onyanko Town looks like a really fun take on the formula. Thanks for getting into the ins and outs of the gameplay.
It's cute and looks fun, and if one don't like the music, one can mute the tv and listen to something else..!
It's SO WEIRD how Pac-Land borrows so much from that cartoon! Not just the hat and the ghost designs, but the town, and the music! I was really sad to see the fairy queen at the end of Pac-Man's journey replaced with that sign that reads FAIRY LAND. Just couldn't spare the tile data, I guess.
I looked at the HUD of Onyanko Town and the first thing out of my mouth was... "It's Micronics, isn't it?"
The Mach Rider is a woman, excellent subtle reveal there
People elsewhere were telling me I was being unreasonable for comparing the NES version of Pac-Land to Super Mario Bros. "Oh, you can't expect it to be on the level of the greatest game of all time!" Well, that was the burden Namco faced with this port. It was going to get compared to Super Mario Bros. due to the similar gameplay regardless of how "fair" it was to make that comparison, and the pressure was on Namco to deliver a quality arcade port, on the level of what Nintendo did with the NES version of Super Mario Bros. They failed, and rather miserably. Was it going to achieve 1:1 fidelity with the arcade game? Of course not, but Pac-Land could and should have been better than this.
Besides Heiankyo Alien and Lode Runner, this also reminds me of Door Door with the fixed manholes and the player's ability to open and close them, though iirc Door Door only allows one set of captures per door.
Good call!
To be fair Door Door is just "Space Panic if Space Panic was Nuts and Milk"
You used the western version of arcade Pac-Land in this video! The Japanese version gave him pie eyes and a long Pinnochio-esque nose, but Namco changed him to look more like the Hanna Barbera version for the West.
Strangely, none of the home ports on any system used the Hanna Barbera re-design.
Dang it Larry! I thought I was the only one who'd notice
@@jackandrechristopherkactat8828 Mwahahaha >:D
I do think it's weird how they still have the TV series theme song even in the JP version. I never did get that.
@@Gernam12 Be interesting to know if the show aired in Japan.
@@Larry I do know prior Hannah Barbera shows did. Wacky Races was one of their most popular ones.
Mach Rider is still cool in my books. That little tune will get stuck in my head for a bit. I found Onyanko Town in one of my multi-carts. It kept pulling me in for a bit until I just grew tired of it. Maybe I should give it another go. And my heart still desires the Family Computer Keyboard and Tape Recorder. I don't need it, but I could see it as fun for a half hour or two. Pac-Land is ok, but much better on the PC Engine.
Me and my friends played Mach rider so much. The music is burned into my brain. Wish we could’ve saved the tracks on the NES.
We have gone [0] days without a mention of Heiankyo Alien
I haven't played it in years, but Mach Rider really does one-up Hang-On in a number of ways. Like having music. It still seemed really cool when I first encountered it in late 1989. Sure, the Mark III game is more colourful and runs more smoothly, but I feel like Nintendo successfully defended their flank against the hot new hardware on that one.
Also. The name "Onyanko Town" is a pun, isn't it? It's a combination of onna and nyan, basically the Japanese version of "Meowoman."
Oh, that's way cleverer in Japanese than it is in English.
I don't think so. Nyanko is a cutesy name for kittens, and the o- prefix is usually used to make something more grand or respectable or holier.
If it was a pun with onna, it would've probably been Onnyanko town or something. Then again, it's closer to onna no ko, which means girl, but that wouldn't have much to do with the game. They don't really use the word onna in itself anyway. Woman is more like onna no hito or even more commonly josei. And when they talk about female animals, they often use mesu, or the prefix me-.
@@Krisipoke Maybe they should have called it "Josei and the Pussycats."
(gets hit with a tomato)
You're probably right. You sound more knowledgeable about the subject than I am. Still, "nyan" is basically the Japanese equivalent of "meow," is it not? So nyanko would be akin to "little mewer."
@@jessragan6714 Yeah, exactly. :D They also say wanko for puppies, literally meaning little woofy.
Yeah I think this is a weird portmanteau of "belove meow girl" and "Heian Period Kyoto" to be literal about it.
But this title is a little odd, because if the player cat is Mamma, we probably wouldn't call her "great meow girl" (O-nyan-ko)... So we are probably titling the game after the kitten. As our kitten is beloved, a baby cat, and in a town, "o-nyan-ko" town makes okay sense. (As a prefix, O in this instance is also a bit weird. You wouldn't call a baby O-something. It's too grand.)
Then again, the mouth feel of "o-nyan-ko" is very similar to "hei-an-kyo."
For my money, it's a fun lil pun title for a children's game banking off a known value in their IP vault.
Mach rider Is One of the very few black box games that isn't on NSO
according to an article on the blog 'digital antiquarian,' lode runner was very likely (almost assuredly) based on space panic (and by extension, heiankyo alien)! the original programmer based the game of a friend's description of an arcade game, and based on the timing of things (and the gameplay similarities), it was probably space panic. (i guess i just find it cool that there's a (mostly) concrete link between the two).
((i've been meaning to share this anecdote, and now it's somewhat relevant, so i figured i would)).
*Fictitious questioner:* Jeremy, how much alliteration are you going to put into your review of Onyanko Town?
*Jeremy:* Yes!
*I, as an obsessive person, add:* It is true, too. I counted 12 instances of alluring alliteration.
Are you calling me a dumbassonance??
I don't know why but i know the mach rider theme so well despite having never played it 🤣
Maybe because it appears in Smash Bros? There was a remix in Melee that’s since reappeared in ever Smash game since. That’s where I know it from.
If you play Pacland on Famicom with controller 2 you can play with dpad to move and buttons to jump.
I wonder if having player 1 jump with the d-pad and move with the A and B buttons had anything to do with the soft rubber action buttons that older Famicom systems had. Like, the developers knew the soft rubber buttons were often unresponsive, so they mapped the jumping action to the more reliable d-pad, as a way to partially compensate for that, though awkwardly, of course.
@@NAJ0202 This wouldn't be the case. The soft rubber buttons were only on the first batch of Famicom stock, and they were recalled soon after due to hardware malfunctions (the buttons being one of them)
By 1984, developers would've know now that Famicom no longer have soft rubber buttons.
Oh wow, hahaha wow! Namco's control scheme for Pac-Land just made me laugh out loud, damn that's nuts!
Namco did that deliberately for the arcade original to make it distinct from other hit games at the time. The game was a hit, but I don't know if that was _because of_ or _despite_ its control scheme. As for its NES port: yes, lifting the controls from _Super Mario Bros._ would've made it a better game, but putting the jump on the Control Pad does make the game easier using the arcade-true controls it came with.
I never want to hear the soundtrack of madness that is Onyanko town's music again
I love learning more about Mach Rider, really underrated game!
100% my dog is always trying to get the cats to play with him and they just humor him or throw their noses in the other. direction. When he was smaller than them, they'd gang up on him and attack, but now he doesn't return the favor, he just wants buddies tp play with. That's why dog > cats
Onyanko Town's music and enemies always creeped me out as a kid, and yet I still kept playing it.
Pac-Land wasn't too bad either, but I eventually got tired of just going right all the time.
Eventually you get to go left!
@@JeremyParish 😂👌
NES works is such a great series. Keep up the awesome work bro. I have a huge love for the nes
I don’t get how the Famicom port of Pac-Land can be so bad when the Famicom version of Metrocross (a game that ran on the same board as Pac-Land I think) is not just visually accurate to the arcade version, but even better in some ways. Maybe the Metrocross port used a mapper where as Pac-Land did not? Or the Famicom Pac-Land devs were too busy playing Super Mario Bros. to put real effort into it…
Both games use the same mapper chips
Honestly surprised you didn't mention Onyanko Town's "music" in the part about Micronics' hallmarks lol I've always gotten the impression that I wouldn't really have enjoyed Heiankyou Alien in any era. I would have played it as a kid, sure, because I played every game that entered my field of vision like it was the last game I'd ever see, but as with something like Mickey Mousecapade I don't think I can say I would have truly enjoyed the experience.
Onyanko Town though looks like a genuinely fun little game I can honestly see myself occasionally having put time into out of an actual desire to spend time with it, rather than that vague sense of "I don't feel like playing any of my favourites... and I haven't played THAT one in a while... it can't really be BAD, can it? A bad video game?? No, maybe it just hasn't clicked with me yet. I should give it another go..." I've never been able to figure out if that was a common feeling among child gamers or if it's just a result of my neurodivergence lol
I also like that they clearly deliberately evoked the name "Heiankyou Alien" with "Onyanko Town", right down to the totally unnecessary and borderline-nonsensical "O" prefex to "Nyanko" (which basically means kitty) to help the syllables line up better lol That music would have driven me crazy, though.
Doesn't seem fair to ding Micronics for awful music when so many games of this era suffered the same problem. They're trying, god bless ’em.
@@JeremyParish Not "awful" awful, but they just tend to go really high pitch... Compared to soundtracks from Konami and Hudson, for example
There's something about Onyanko Town's visuals I find oddly charming. The simple, cute characters + the dithery, noisy depiction of the town. At a glance the screen looks chaotic, yet it's still perfectly readable.
Onyanko Town looks cute and fun, but boy, that music is hell.
Okay, but for real if I found out there was some lost Onyanko Town manga or something, I would totally read it.
Granted, the same goes for Clash at Demonhead xD
I remember Pac-Land being in a hotel in when I was really young, I became enamoured with the game and it's presentation over the holiday, and it blew my mind when I accidentally found the secrets.
I still rate it very highly, but I played it in arcade recently and those buttons were rough. Double-tapping to dash feels horrid. Not that I can do platformers with intensive physics on a joystick much better, I can manage New Zealand Story and Ghouls and Ghosts but really struggle with something like Strider. Thank goodness for dpads.
Mach Rider used to fascinate me since I saw it listed on cart release lists etc, but I never saw it for sale anywhere in my state.
Nice! Never heard of the Onyanko game before. It's cute and reminds me of a board game. Plus the top down view of the town looks excellent! I finally discovered a game I wish I could have played then (maybe with the volume down after a few minutes!).
I find really strange that the famicom version actually seems to have a more standard controll method... if you use the 2nd controller instead, i don0t know if the manual mentions this but for some reason the controller 2 has the buttons assignements that make more sense but you don't get to pause the game at all if you do it this way!
What!! Game changer
Hi, Alex.
I love character action games like Pac-Land
That's an entirely different genre though
Growing up, I had a NES multi-cart from Supervison in Hong Kong. One of the games was Onyanko Town. I enjoyed it for what it was. But, when you're 6 years old, you don't really have discerning tastes.
Onyanko Town is good, actually
@@JeremyParish I didn't necessarily said it was bad. Just average and enjoyable for what it is. I liked it better than Field Combat or 1942.
i've always loved the weird atonal sound of the mach rider soundtrack, so many weird chords happening in the music
I'm allergic to cats, but that game looks like it would be a lot of fun! When I saw the animals in the road and a car approaching, I thought they were gonna get squished, but NOPE! haha
surprised there wasn't more to say on mach rider's protagonist! I found out recently she may have beat samus to nintendo's first female protag, I never knew!
See the NES Works Mach Rider episode. No sense covering the same exact ground twice.
@@JeremyParish So many people online just refuse to believe me when I say that Mach Rider is female. Loads of people have told me (amongst words like "Woke" and "Libtard") that Mach Rider is definitely male in the NES version.
Ah, Doraemon on the eyecatch. I'm glad that Onyanko Town looks like it plays well but my ears were not a fan of that game.
Hey Jeremy, are you ever planning on doing a reprint of Nes Works Vol 1? I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of Vol 2 thru Fangamer, but I really want a copy of Vol 1 too and I missed the original boat on that one.
This pac man game reminds me of pac man 2 on the Genesis where it was a sort of sidescrolling adventure game. And Pacman just walked around and you had to coax him places to do things by shooting a slingshot. And he was moody as hell. I rented it for a weekend and just remember Pacman stomping about pissed off as all get out constantly because I couldnt figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing. Even 30 odd years later I remember how frustrated 10 year old me was.
That being said, I played Pac Man World Repac at PAX (hows that for alliteration?) a month ago and although I dont usually enjoy 3d platformer/collectathons, but I enjoyed it. I didnt play it enough to actually say anything about its long term fun, but I found it entertaining in the half hour or so I spent with it. Probably would be a great family game to play with kids.
It’s cool to me that more and more people are beginning to realize or be informed that Mach Rider’s main protagonist is a woman.
In a way, she even predates Samus Aran, which is a novelty in itself.
Wish she had more representation in future Nintendo products, though..
And sadly was retconned to being a man in Smash Bros. Melee.
Assuming those trophy bios are canon, which I suppose is dubious, but it’s the latest appearance of that character outside of rereleases.
@@BenCol
Nah, they’re not canon
DK maybe wasn't as popular as pac man, but people really really liked donkey kong more in my circles. They talked about it more for longer as I recall. But I was pretty young then.
How did you play Onyanko Town long enough to get this footage without losing your sanity over that awful, shrill "music?" Hearing it in the background while you tell us about the game is enough to make me want to run into oncoming traffic.
looks like the black dots of the eyes and nose of the cat are left as transparent, so those pixels flicker when she's walking over bricks because the only colors in the sprite are white, pink tan and transparent. A later game would put a second sprite on her head to make up that color limitation like with Megaman, but it's a 1985 n-rom game - if it's better than 7800 then we're golden.
I really love Mach Rider!!
It’s a great game!!
Pac lands music is the hb show’s theme
You can actually play Pac-Land with more traditional controls... if you play on the second controller.
I found this out after like 10 years with this game. Why they decided to make the "arcade-like" backwards controls the default is beyond me though.
What a nightmarish control scheme for Pac-Land. I don't know if I could reprogram my brain at this point to actually pull that off. Almost 40 years of conditioning is hard to break.
Nice episode, Jeremy, I was hoping you'd do Mach Rider !
There's a more in-depth piece in NES Works 1985
@@JeremyParish Woohoo, extra content. Weird that I didn't recall watching that one. For these Famicom releases you should definitely go through the Kunio Kun games saga!
Ah, a proponent of the Lady Mach Rider-theory. Shame there's no definitive statement that I know of, but in my head-canon Nintendo has a badass biker babe that'll get a remake aaany day now. Where people can design their own race tracks and weapons... one day...
That aside, Pac-Man Land makes me a little sad. It's legacy becomes a crummy NES port and living on in smash bros ultimate, as if Nintendo parades around the mascot from which it took everything, with his lowest hour on prominent display. Hardcore, Mario. Hardcore.
Not theory... proven fact.
"Iffy"? The show was a delight. :P
Man, even back in 1983 I though it was kinda iffy, and I was just in my pupal form back then.
At least it was better than Rubik, the Amazing Cube.
@@ginormousaurus8394 I once saw someone compare Rubik: The Amazing Cube to The Real Ghostbusters. I have never been so shocked in all my life.
Jeeze, those backgrounds in Pac-Land... I've seen 1st-generation MSX games with more color and detail! Very obviously phoned-in.
Pac Man is certainly hit or miss in his platforming games, most of them being hits I'd say. Pac Man World was very enjoyable to me personally :)
2:31 - That thing looks so cool and I had no idea it existed! Why is analog tech so magical?
17:15 - Truly, we have
Great episode.
Are you saying mike ronick or my chronic?
If only there were captions with developer names listed that you could look at
You need my chronic to play a game by Micronics.
It looks like someone's Mach Rider ROM was set to the wrong mirroring type for certain footage. The track editor is present in the US cartridge, you just cannot save due to a lack of hardware needed to be put between the NES and the cassette deck.
Yes, this is all explained in (1) the video description and (2) the NES Works episode on Mach Rider.
Hello Micronics my old foe. At least Onyanko Town looks cute.
HEIANKYO ALIEN
It's been 0 days since Jeremy Parish has mentioned Heiyanko Alien.
Hey-nyanko Alien
Heinyanko Alien
Huge if true
Pacland is a great arcade game. Famicom...not so much. But idk why I enjoy playing it.
Three games you can import for three bucks (at least I did before this was released).
PacLand on the Lynx was superior, but the obvious question was “why release this?”
I like Oyanko Town. It's not fun to play, but it's so cute. First time I ever played it was on a bootleg cart.
What is it with Pac-Man and disappointing home ports released at the worst possible time?
Where's the animation you played before showing off Onyanko Town from???
It's an anime called "What's Michael"
Is Virtual Boy Works reprint out now? If that's the case I missed it again!
Tomorrow.
I almost spit my drink out when you transitioned from Super Mario Bros to the Famicom Pac-Land. What a downgrade!
Wait...the Mach Rider was a woman?
Yep!
Well, it's never specifically stated in the NES game, but she is in the Versus System version.
Nintendo should have released pac land in the first place. 😀👍🎮
That was up to Namco, not Nintendo.
@@GamingDelight I agree on that.
@@jamesmoss3424
You clearly weren't paying attention to my comment. You say Nintendo should have released Pac-Land on the NES, but *Namco* released the game in Japan, so it was up to them to localize it (or have Bandai or Tengen publish the game in North America like they did some Namco NES games in the 80s). They chose not to.
@@GamingDelight thanks for clearing that up for me.