Licensed games used to be the lifeblood of the gaming industry, but aren’t seen all that often anymore. There are some exceptions of course, but for the most part that era is done with. Licensed games that are fondly remembered have an issue: because they are licensed games, they cannot just be re-released without getting the license again. This does happen on rare occasions, but there many great licensed retro games we will not likely see again. To discuss this I have teamed up with Indie Gamer Chick to look at 6 classic licensed games that likely will not get re-released. I have played some of this, but IGC has not. How will we react to these games? Lets find out.
Goonies 1 & 2
Indie Gamer Chick: Goonies 1 went unreleased in the United States except in arcades as part of the Nintendo Vs. series, the same line that gave us the unplayable Vs. Super Mario Bros. It looks neat. But Goonies II is the one everyone talks about, being an early, more complex Metroidvania. The weird first-person, Shadowgate style rooms do give me pause for concern. Apparently it’s one of those “Japanese version had clues that were lost in translation” situations like Simon’s Quest, rendering the game impossible to beat unless you had a guide. And no, this was NOT based on concept art or anything for an unmade movie sequel to Goonies. That movie is proof-positive you 80s kids would sit through the most pandering of shit. It’s boring.
IGC Hype Rating: 2 out 10 for Goonies 1, 7 out of 10 for Goonies 2.
Goonies 1 looks insanely clunky. The limited range attacks and the fact that every LP on YouTube shows the players fumbling with the controls leaves me seriously concerned. Goonies II looks a lot more slick and modern.
IGC Odds of Release: I’ll give both a 5%. MAYBE if a Goonies sequel or remake ever happens, but that seems less and less likely. Hell, they can’t even get a musical off the ground, something they’ve been trying for years. Probably the best chance this has is to strip the Goonies IP out of it and re-release them as their own thing. Honestly, you could probably do that just by changing the title screens since neither of these games look like they have ANYTHING to do with the movie. Of course, retro gamers would lose their shit over that. Which is exactly why it needs to be done.
Jon: When I see Goonies 1, it reminds almost of a generic Capcom run n gun game done in the Konami style. It is my understanding that the game was a hit in Japan, but it just looks so unappealing to me. I played Goonies II some years ago and liked it for what it was. I was really into metroidvanias then and wanted to play as many as I could. Goonies II had very little to do with the movie but the gameplay itself made it a worthwhile experience. It was fun and I need to play it again sometime soon
Jon Hype Rating: 1/10 for Goonies 1. Its just so generic that I have no real desire to try it out. I am an arcade collector and yet even after hearing about the arcade version, I have no desire to make it an addition of mine. The devs realized this and kept the console version in Japan since Americans wouldn’t care.
Goonies 2 Gets an 8/10. Its a damn good experience and the gameplay was highly polished. The devs fixed the problems and went all out having fun with it.
Odds of re-release: Im going with 1% for Goonies 1. There is no real reason to re-release it in terms of licensing and I doubt there is any desire or possibility of profit to get the license just to re-release this. Goonies 2 I give a 5%, because I could easily see a Blazing Lazers situation happening. Blazing Lazers was a movie licensed game in Japan but removed the license in the west and can thus be re-released. There is nothing really to tie Goonies 1 or 2 to the movies, and Goonies II is still well regarded. Its a very long shot but it could be re-released by removing the license.
Golgo 13
Indie Gamer Chick: I’ll be honest, I’ve never read a single Golgo 13 manga or watched the animes. And I couldn’t even watch gameplay footage of the game due to epilepsy concerns. The reason this is on the list is because I put my foot down and told Jon we couldn’t put vintage Power Ranger games on the list, because Power Ranger games suck. This was the compromise game, and even though I’ve never played it and never will.. yea it can’t possibly be worse than any Power Rangers game has been.
IGC Hype Rating: 0 out of 10. I mean, I can’t possibly play it, even if it gets a re-release. All yours, Jon.
Odds of release: 40%. It’s not as long a shot as you would think. As far as I can tell, nobody is currently using the Golgo license. And publisher Vic Tokai has had games release as recently as within the last year. Columns III, Decap Attack, and several other Sega Genesis Classics titles were actually theirs and required a deal to include in the collection. So assuming the Golgo 13 franchise becomes popular again, it’s not inconceivable Golgo 13 for the NES will see the light of day again.
Jon: Golgo 13 started out as a manga by Takao Saito in 1968 and is the oldest manga series still in production. It has been adapted numerous times into anime form, including a great series in 2008, and of course into video game form. Top Secret Mission for the NES was a genre buster, in that it combined first person mazes, side scrolling action, gallery shooting and side scrolling shooting among other genres. I’ve had a copy since I was young and this has always been a favourite of mine. It pushed the limits of what a game could be, and also pushed boundaries by including a sex scene that was retained in the US version. Its sequel had improved controls, action and graphics but is not as well known despite being superior
Jon Hype Rating:: 9/10 for both.
Chance of a re-release: 70%. Golgo 13 has been increasing in popularity over the last few years in the west and has seen new releases of the manga which as stated , has stayed in production since the 60’s. Given this, I can easily see the games getting a re-release sometime if the demand gets there.
Willow NES/Arcade
Indie Gamer Chick: Willow is a guilty pleasure of mine. I hate to break this to everyone, but it’s a bad movie. REALLY bad. And it should have been the canary in the coalmine for what we had in store for the Star Wars prequels. If they replaced the two Brownies in CGI with a pair of Jar Jar Binks clones, would you even notice? But it sure seems like it would make a good video game, and I’ve had previous generation gamers say that’s exactly the case. The NES and arcade games are completely different from each other, but both seem relatively revered. The NES Willow was designed by Akira Kitamura of Mega Man fame (we’ll be seeing more of him in this feature) and produced by Tokuro Fujiwara (who produced the Mega Man series) and looks like the closest the NES came to a more involved Zelda-style game along the lines of Secret of Mana. It’s a polarizing title for sure. Some have told me it’s the most underrated of all NES games, while others have told me it’s absolute crap. I don’t know who is right, but it certainly looks intreging. Meanwhile, the arcade port is a totally different beast. Designed and produced by Yoshiki Okamoto of Street Fighter fame, arcade Willow is a generic looking Ghosts ‘N Goblins style platformer that I doubt would be remembered at all if not for the fact that it had the Willow IP. Classic gamers insist it’s good. Yea, well, they insist Ghosts ‘N Goblins is good too, so I’ll take it with a grain of salt.
IGC Hype Rating: 6 out of 10 for NES Willow, 3 out of 10 for Arcade Willow. To be fair, the arcade Willow looks nowhere near as punishing as I found basically every game in Capcom Arcade Cabinet to be. But Arcade Willow looks like a been there, done that platformer. Sort of like a kiddie version of Magician Lord for the Neo Geo. I’m far more interested in the NES Willow, which looks a lot like Link to the Past. Yea, it’s an epilepsy risk, but at least it looks like something that a lot of time and care was given to make it tie into the movie. As opposed to just plugging the characters into a cookie-cutter platformer.
Odds of release: 15%. With Disney Afternoon, Capcom has shown if there’s a demand for their classic licensed games, they’ll put in every effort they can to get them re-released. The problem is Willow was never really popular as a movie, a video game, or a franchise. Hell, I’ll bet you didn’t know there were three sequels to Willow. Because there were in the form of canon novels with plots outlined by George Lucas himself. It’s called the Chronicles of the Shadow War: Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (2000). These are real, official continuations of the Willow story you can still presumably find and read. And they’re so popular that the series is basically all but dead today in 2019. Because Willow sucks.
Jon: Im not too familiar with Willow. I may be a movie buff but I never saw the film or played the games. I know the reputation and seen some gameplay but never experienced it for myself until recently. I must say that the arcade game is something of an acquired taste…and one I have no interest in acquiring. The NES version is something else indeed. Its not that I dislike it, but I find myself unable to get into it. I can take or leave these games and have no real emotional attachment to them.
Jon Hype rating: A solid 2 for both
Chance of re-release, 5%. The movie was a flop and its not coming back any time soon. I doubt Disney will revisit this.
Little Nemo: The Dream Master
Indie Gamer Chick: Another Tokuro Fujiwara entry on the list, this time with a game that uses a modified Mega Man engine. I have to confess that I wasn’t a big Little Nemo fan. My father is a huge fan of the 1989 American-Japanese jointly produced anime that was scripted by Chris Columbus from a story concept created by none other than Ray Bradury. It’s one of my Daddy’s top five animes, but I thought it was boring. The NES game is really just loosely based on the general Little Nemo concept that came into existence in 1905 (there’s even a 1907 silent film based on it). And it looks so fun. Of all the games in this feature, it’s by far the one that got my juices flowing the most. It has a reputation for being overly-hard. I’ve never actually met a fan of the game who actually beat it. The idea of feeding candy to animals in order to ride them and solve platforming puzzles with them is downright inspired. I really want to play this one.
IGC Hype Rating: 9 out of 10. I’d go all the way to a 10 on this one, but the universal recognition of it being one of the most difficult Capcom NES titles has be a bit concerned.
Odds of release: 20%: This is the anomaly of the list. Little Nemo as a concept is actually in the public domain and has been for a long, long time. But the game, at least in Japan, is considered to be based on the anime Adventures in Slumberland that came out there four days after I was born. Even though the game has almost nothing to do with the movie and the marketing in the United States wasn’t tied to it at all, it’s still a hurdle. An even bigger issue is that Little Nemo is never a game that comes up in casual conversation among classic gamers unless that conversation has been going on for a long, long time. Like if you had two NES-era fans start listing off their favorite NES games, you’d be an hour or two and dozens upon dozens of games in before someone said “oh did you ever play Little Nemo?” There’s just no demand for it. It looks great. Maybe there should be.
Jon: Little Nemo is a game I remember well. It was such a different type of game for Capcom that it still stands out for me to this day as one of their best licensed games. I wasnt aware of the anime for till my late teens, but I have read the comic ( I even studied it in University for a course about comics), and own some collections of it. The game is far more based on the comic than the anime ( at least in North America) and that is fine with me as the game manages to perfectly turn the whimsical nature of the comic into a fun interactive experience. This is a game that shows Capcom at their creative heights in the 8 bit era and more games should mimic it.
Jon Hype Rating: 9/10
Chance of re-release: As IGC said, this is complex. The original work is public domain but the game was based off the anime. Its possible the game can end up as another Blazing Lazers situation ( how many times will I reference that game?), where the Americanized version is used for a re-release, but I do not know. It depends how much Capcom wants to bring this back. I’m giving this a 46%
Gremlins 2 NES
Indie Gamer Chick: We all love Gremlins. They’re crazy stupid fun movies. The second flick goes so far off the rails that it actually circles the entire circumfrance of the Earth and manages to reattach to the rails. That’s how batshit it is. The NES game is developed by Blaster Master creator and director Yoshiaki Iwata (yes, as in THAT Iwata. They’re cousins) and uses the same engine as the top-down sections from Blaster Master. Of course, so did Fester’s Quest and that game apparently sucked. Gremlins 2 doesn’t look sucky at all. I watched an LP of it and it looks like it has sharp level design and some of the best graphics on the system. There’s also a Game Boy game I couldn’t find any information on, but it looks like a generic side scroller that someone simply rearranged the spirtes for to look Gremlinish. Little Nemo looks insanely fun. Gremlins is just behind it.
IGC Hype: 8 out of 10. It looks relatively short and sweet. I much preferred the top-down sections in Blaster Master anyway, and this looks like a more elegant, evolved version of those that adds jumping. It also doesn’t have the reputation of being as maddeningly difficult as Nemo, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up liking this one more.
Odds of release: 2% for a variety of reasons. #1: Gremlins is beloved. Gremlins 2 is the weird one that practically goes full Naked Gun satire. When Gremlins comes up in discussion, you can tell which person in your group is the most likely to have some strange, untold fetish just by them being the one that says “I like Gremlins 2 more!” The game we’re talking about here is based on that one. The strange one that only weird people like. People like me. #2: People bring this game up even less than they do Little Nemo. You can’t even say it has a cult following. It has no following. Despite looking really fun, I’ve never heard a single gamer gush about this, and only discovered it myself a few years ago when looking for a video of Gremlins for the Atari 2600. #3: Despite living in the era of the remake/reboot, bringing back Gremlins has been a complete non-starter for over a decade now. Every time they say “okay THIS time it’s happening” it turns out it’s not. They just announced an animated series is being developed. I’ll believe it when I see it. Trust me, if they KNEW they could make money off it, the series would already have had been brought back. But the demand just isn’t there. That’s why we won’t see this NES game on a current marketplace anytime soon.
Jon: I’ve heard of Gremlins 2 several times over the years and its supposed excellence. Its a game I desperately want to add to my collection but it just hasnt happened yet. I have managed to play it once and its like IGC said, the overhead levels of Blaster Master made as the full focus. IGC may not have heard people gush about it, but I sure have. I’ve seen people from James Rolfe to Guru Larry talk about how amazing the game is and why it is a classic, and that just makes me want to play even more. Sunsoft was on top of their game with the NES. They produced so many classics and among these were licensed games like Gremlins 2 and Batman ( more on that in a bit).
Jon Hype Rating: 6/10
I want to like this one but I need to spend a lot more time with it before I can judge it fully. It does look like what I want out of a classic though.
Chance of being re-released: 1%. Unless that long promised reboot comes, this is not happening at all. If it does, then I can see it even though its based on the second movie ( Which I saw before the first movie).
Batman: The Video Game and Batman Return of the Joker
Indie gamer Chick: Batman: The Video Game is the direct tie-in for the original Tim Burton movie and probably is the NES game that had the most projects leads ever: five! It took five people to design it. It sure looks like they got their money’s worth. The action looks incredible for it. Return of the Joker is a pseudo-sequel that’s actaully based more on the comic book. In fact, it’s the first Post-Crisis continuity-based video game. But actually, it’s not at all. Batman: Return of the Joker and a second game, Journey to Silius, were designed with the intent of being games based on the Terminator franchise. Sunsoft THOUGHT they had acquired the rights, but in fact they hadn’t. The second concept game became Journey to Silius and was given a completely unique story, while Batman was clumsily shoehorned into the first of the two prototypes. But, apparently besides changing spirtes for Batman and the Joker, no other alterations were made. So it doens’t LOOK like a Batman game at all. Because it isn’t one.
IGC Hype: 7 out of 10 for Batman: The Video Game, 5 out of 10 for Return of the Jokernator. Initially, I was hyped for both equally, but when I brought up Return of the Joker on Twitter, fans shit all over it. Well, that’s a bummer. But Batman for the NES still has a loyal following and is always brought up when people talk about the better Batman-based video games. Then again, I’ve never heard a single Batman fan argue that the original NES game is a better use of the IP than Arkham Asylum. Such lack of “my generation’s version was better” is so rare among retro purists that it makes me wonder if perhaps they over-rated this one like they do everything else.
Odds of release: 5% for Batman: The Video Game, 0.1% for Batinator II: Jokesment Day. Because, let’s face it, nobody gives a shit about Return of the Joker. As for Batman: The Video Game, unless Sunsoft strikes a deal with Warner Bros to re-release it, which Warner Bros has no reason to do, it’ll never see the light of day (legally) again. Such a shame. I’d actually love to give it a try.
Jon: I have both of these in my collection and can verify that Return of the Joker is not as good as the first game. Batman was a movie tie in game that was considered the best Batman game until the Arkham series started. There are so many memes that came from this game, but the game itself was awesome. Full of fast paced action and amazing music, there is a reason this game is so beloved. Return of the Joker just feels so clunky in comparison and is best left forgotten.
Jon Hype Rating: 10/10 for batman, 5/10 for Return of the Joker.
Batman lives up to the hype but Return of the Joker is not a worthy follow-up.
Chance of re-release : Return of the Joker is at 1% since no one besides hardcore gamers care for it, but Batman itself has around a 35% chance. Its reputation is well known and I can see a slim possibility of a deal being worked out for this.
And there you have it. Thanks again to Indie Gamer Chick for teaming with me for this. You can follow her on twitter here, visit her website here, and visit Indie Gamer Team here, (with occasional reviews and editorials by me there). She has vowed to never play any of these unless they get an official re-release or she comes in contact with an arcade cabinet of Goonies or Willow.
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