A fine game with great gameplay but no depth. Excellent pace; so short. Seems a lot better when judged solely on itself.
User Rating: 6.9 | Ganbare Goemon: Neo Momoyama Bakufu no Odori N64
When I was a kid, I rent this game two or three times, and finished it at least once. As a French-speaking child, though with quite a good knowledge of English, I used to understand more or less what was said, but it had left a big impression on me. Now I'm 16 and I recently got struck by a rush of fond memories of Goemon and his friends. I bought it and finished it. I was left with a grin on my face. I had had a nice little time. Little time, because I didn't remember how short this game was, about 8 hours or so ; I spread this time over a week. This is telling of how this game doesn't really get under your skin ; you play it in an organized way : progress in the overworld until you arrive to the next dungeon, save, and stop ; you'll do the dungeon next time. The next time, you do the dungeon, save and stop. You got your dose. This is how I played this game, a little hour at a time. It was not a chore, it was just a pleasant pastime. It was not, say, Perfect Dark, which is a true exercise in discipline, but never feels like a chore because it is a drug. But this game, however unclear I may be, isn't bad at all ! The graphics, though very polygonal (but you get used to it), are very colorful, stylized and alive. The music is great, some tracks are definitely memorable and are good examples of how music can level up a game. The environments are well designed and are not meant to be logical or lifelike ; they are designed in a ''game'' perspective. But the strength of this game is the gameplay. It encourages you to move a lot : the movement is fluid and creates the illusion that much more is going on than what is really there. The combat is absolutely simplistic but engaging and simply fun. The light puzzles are solved intuitively and even the pace. The general impression left by Mystical Ninja is that of constant progression, highlighted by the many environments and characters you meet. The dungeons are absolute blasts of short-term enjoyment. And there lies the main flaw of the game : instead of drawing you in its episodes, it forces you along the path, giving no possibility and no reason for lingering in delight. Everything feels short. In the end, you find yourself with a game without much depth, a short length and practically no replayability, aside from catching the whole roller-coaster of it once again, which must not feel so fresh the second time around. Another thing I didn't expect was the dialogue : the text in this game is very badly written. I expected it to come off in a charming way, with lots of little jokes and references to Japan but no, the dialogue is pretty boring. The deliberately bad jokes are turned off by the bland translation. And the story, revelling in its absurdity, is not very well presented and not as outrageous as I thought it would be. Okay, so this game has no depth, no replay value, bad story and bad dialogue (not in very charming ways). But it does have great gameplay relying on lots of variety of action and good execution, and it hurtles at a good pace that just might leave you wanting more, as it did for me. Plus, it is so exceptionnally easy. This game could have been so much more, not Zelda, but a compelling work of art. It is a fine game, variably well-crafted. So, what will you do, now that you can't rent ? 
