We’re back at it at the Bad Game Music Hall of Fame, to bring you a rather eclectic range of tracks! Tune in to a Game Boy cover of the theme to a 60’s cartoon series, a CD audio selection to an anime shmup, and Capcom’s homage to the traditional music of Thailand.
“Kuso!”
Deathly art by @Edupatilla.
We’ve talked before about the term “kusogē” on this website, and how Japan’s perspective on bad games can often differ from ours here in the States. To sum it up succinctly: Our tendency in America when faced with a piece of lacklustre software is to launch into performatively angry tirades, where we curse their names and urge the rest of the world not to waste their precious time on them. When presented with a perceived failure along the lines of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, we’re quick to condemn it as trash, and to promptly discard it. As a stark contrast: Japan’s gaming community can sometimes embrace these bad games with open arms; finding ways to appreciate these releases in the face of their flaws — or even for their flaws, as the case may be. Flying in the face of American sentiment, the stink of a “shit game” may actually serve as alluring to prospective Japanese players, in search of charmingly wretched and challengingly busted titles. In some rare instances, this sort of morbid curiosity can even occasionally correlate with increased sales, making successes of games that would otherwise sink studios here in the West.
Today’s game is one such case; where negative reception and word of mouth reportedly saved it from the hell of obscurity, and made a moderate success of what should’ve been a company-killer. Not only that, but it would go on to become the signature franchise for a developer / publisher who has continued to persist for nearly 25 years in the industry — with semi-annual fan meet-ups still centered around the release in question. And when the popular portmanteau for Japan’s shit games was eventually coined, it would fall on this title to take up the prestigious mantle of ‘クソゲーの帝王 (The Emperor of Kusogē).’ I could be referring to none other than Death Crimson: Ecole Software’s 1996 CD-ROM for the Sega Saturn, serving as perhaps the console’s single-most infamous piece of software.
In this article, we’ll be dissecting this disreputable rail shooter in order to examine all its mechanical details and historical merits. Of course, telling the story of the so-called ‘Death-sama’ also requires recapping the story of Ecole themselves, which we’ll also be doing our best to relay. Along the way, I hope to find the answers to several questions: Is Death Crimson truly the worst game the Saturn has to offer? How exactly did it come to cement its legacy? And perhaps most pertinently for our purposes: Is it still worthy of its title as the King of Kusogē? The only way to find out is to set our Crimson’s sights on the monster ahead, and to bravely combat roll forward.
“今伝説は始まる
(The legend begins now).”
In the second episode of the Bad Game Hall of Fame Podcast: Phil Salvador of The Obscuritory discusses Gooch Grundy’s X-Decathlon!
In the inaugural episode of the Bad Game Hall of Fame Podcast: The Retro Pals (Alex and Danny) discuss The Mansion of Hidden Souls and Deadly Premonition!
In this series, I’ll be asking friends and guests to talk about their personal favorite “bad” games, and getting to the bottom of what makes them stand out as special. Give bad games a chance.
(Retro Pals thumbnail art illustrated by @kunsypt)
“With only one ball left, your ability to
jump is eliminated.”
North American NES box art.
Hot dang, it’s been a hot minute since we last covered a wrestling game here on the Bad Game Hall of Fame! Needless to say, I’m a fan of professional wrestling as performance art, as well as some of the various attempts that have been made in the decades to recreate its magic in video game form. Lucky for me (for the purposes of this website), those games do end up being pretty lousy more often than not — especially titles hailing from the 8-bit era. Today, we get to cover a release that bears some historical provenance for the genre: The first wrestling game available on Nintendo’s Entertainment System / Family Computer. And which promotion was it who lent their license and blessings to this cartridge? The world-famous WWF? Perhaps Japan’s own NJPW?
As it would turn out, the brand to lend their intellectual properties to this pioneering game – also representing the console’s first third-party release and first licensed title [in North America] – weren’t even involved in the business of the professional wrestling industry. Rather, the game would be made to represent a line of collectible toys, simply made to depict fictional cartoon wrestlers. Actually, if we’re tracing things back to the source here; the toy line is the by-product of an established manga series, which the Japanese audience would more readily identify with their release of the game on the Famicom. But seeing as the toy line managed to muster up an international appeal independent of its source material, the USA too would receive a release of the game on the NES: Tag Team Match: M.U.S.C.L.E.
Now, I like to think I’m pretty well clued in to the history of professional wrestling. By contrast, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about M.U.S.C.L.E. / the Kinnikuman franchise… until the crash course I took prior to penning this article, that is. And while I’m certainly still no “domain expert” on the subject, I reckon I’ll at least know enough to take you through this unfortunate bit of video game adaptation. By my estimation, M.U.S.C.L.E. represents some of the worst of licensed laziness on the NES; with a developer putting the bare minimum effort into developing gameplay, so that the excuse can be made to plug in the pixelated likenesses of established characters and promptly call it a day. The end result is a release which not only fails to represent its source material, but which also fails to convey the basic concepts and conceits of wrestling. This article hopes to serve as the dirt sheet on this cash-grab cartridge, as well as the oddly enduring legacy that it seems to hold in its home country.
