This is Console History, a special sub-series of my more general History Lessons series, covering console role-playing games, action role-playing games, Metroidvanias, and action-adventure games in nominally chronological order starting in the late 1980s. The chronology is garbled in the beginning as the scope of the series expanded, but it gets more organized later on. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.
We are in the midst of the Great Console History Reorganization, as I go back to fill in games I missed in the haphazard early days of the series. If I’d had my timeline in order, the earliest game would have been The Legend of Zelda, followed by our first (and most recent) Reorganization post, The Mysterious Murasame Castle. Next would have been Dragon Quest, followed by Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord. Then we would arrive at our current entry, Ganbare Goemon! Karakuri Douchuu, which was released by Konami on July 30, 1986 for Nintendo’s Famicom. It was later ported to the MSX2 home computer system, and much later to the Game Boy Advance and several of Nintendo’s virtual console marketplaces, but it was never localized outside of Japan. Fortunately, there’s a fan translation for the Famicom version from Spinner 8 (who also provided a translation for The Mysterious Murasame Castle), Xeur, and Dirk Grundy that let me play it in English. I’m glad I got the chance, because Ganbare Goemon! Karakuri Douchuu (the title is a reference to mechanized puppets from 17th-19th century Japan, I think?) combines disparate design elements into an unusual whole. It also spawned a larger series that ran for nearly 20 years, and a few titles even came to the West under the name Mystical Ninja.
