It Came From Japan

It Came From Japan: Go Go Ackman

こんにちは For today’s entry of It Came From Japan I am going to share a very special Super Famicom game, as it was recommended to me by JewWario who passed away suddenly last week.  Today I am just going to talk about the first game in the series, but if this game interests you at all you should definitely check out all 3 games in the series which all came out for the Super Famicom.

Ackman_Portrait

If you look at the title character Ackman and think “this guy looks like he’s from Dragon Ball” you wouldn’t be half wrong.  Both Dragon Ball and the Go Go Ackman series were created and drawn by Akira Toriyama (he also did the artwork in Chrono Trigger).

 

ackmanshirt

In this game put out by Banpresto in 1994 you play as Ackman who, despite his child-like appearance, is a 200 year old demon who just happens to have a job harvesting souls for the Dark Devil Lord.  You know he’s bad based on the skull on his t-shirt!  Helping Ackman with his task is Godon, a red bat/dragon-like creature who carries a jar to gather the souls of all the people that Ackman kills.  That’s an awfully small jar considering how many souls he’s supposed to pack in there…

The “souls” that you are collecting seem to be coming from cutesy little cherubs, you earn 10 points for every one you collect and this is shown in the top right of the screen.  You defeat your enemies using hand to hand combat in the form of punches and crazy kicks.  You have 4 hit points and 3 lives when you first start the game and a time limit to complete the level in.

ackmankick

ACKMANPUNCH

This game is a sidescrolling platformer and even though I don’t totally understand the story it is still a lot of fun to play!  Like the first level boss who is a Guile wannabe with this little beret hat.  He looks to be an agent who is trying to hunt you down and capture you.

ackmanboss

For this entry I’ve recorded some game play of the first level to give you an idea what the game is like, and hopefully entice you to try it out for yourself!  Didn’t want to spoil too much of the game for you so it is just a sneak peak.  Please excuse my bad playing though :) With tight controls, nice graphics and catchy music even if you don’t speak Japanese, it doesn’t matter, this game is still a great addition to your library! Plus all of the menus are in English too, so if you want to remap your buttons or change the difficulty it is really simple to do.

ackmanoption

So please if you have a Super Famicom check out this quirky game and series!  Until next time さようなら!

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