aka Hammerin Harry

• It’s sorta hard to figure out all the different versions of this game, but the rom I’ve got came from the Famicom version and as far as I know has no English translation patch. This does not cause any problems, there’s hardly any text in the game until the ending screen. I think maybe it was released in English in Europe(?) but I didn’t want to deal with any NTSC vs PAL nonsense, I just wanted the original game as written
• Anyway this game is super fun, and there are several more for other consoles that came out over the years, and I’ll probably give those a try as well. It’s short and sweet, with a basically-fair difficulty curve. Nothing is too hard or too easy.
• You can tell it’s a later release because it also looks really good. The sprites are super crispy, the animations are smooth, and each level is distinct with several unique enemies.
• The controls get a little wonky when there are tons of enemies on the screen, especially when it comes to making precise jumps. This doesn’t really affect anything except in the very final level when there’s a lot going on on-screen at once during a very precise jumpy-section. This annoyed me but I couldn’t stay mad for very long because it’s not like I had to try it and fail very many times, because the final boss is super easy.
• This ending screen is only for the first loop; I did not make a run at the second loop

• This is a really awesome little platformer that I HIGHLY recommend. You don’t need to have seen the show, and you don’t need an English patch (if one even exists)
• Not just “good for a licensed game,” it’s an actual good game full stop. A little bit on the easy side, but the music and artwork and character and enemy designs are so good that you just don’t care.
• Best viewed as a pretty chilled out experience where you’re not gonna be asked to work very hard in order to see some very cool stuff. Even if you don’t think it’s easy, it’s not gonna punish you. The continue system is generous.
• By and large, the actual level design is stronger than the boss fights (especially the final boss). They are beautiful to look at, and you’re rewarded for exploring
• The area where most licensed games fall down is IMO the actual gameplay. Plenty of them can show you characters and settings that you like because you know them, but many of them sorta stop there and don’t dial in the “feel” of what it’s like to play the game. One of the more impressive things about GS Mikami is that they did not slack off when it comes to gameplay. The controls are smooth and sensible, moving around in the world feels great, and when you die you never feel like you got your ass beat by “jank”
• Depending on who you are, the following could be good or bad: When I say the game is easy, mostly what I mean is that there are almost 0 hard-memorization checks. Nearly every single thing about every level and every enemy can be reacted to. I don’t think this is always great in every game, and I like it when a game has some memorization checks, but this is the biggest contributor to that “chilled out” feeling I mentioned earlier.