Since August City Connection has been digging through Jaleco’s NES/Famicom catalog and re-releasing their obscure games (to western audiences specifically) on the Nintendo Switch eShop. Unlike the Nintendo Switch Online offerings they aren’t bare bones ports. Each JALECOlle game has quality of life improvements that make the games more enjoyable than ever. Jaleco’s games are known to be rough around the edges and City Connection knew this. This week 3 additional JALECOlle games have been revealed on the official City Connection page.
First up we have Saiyuki World. This is literally a heavily edited version of Wonder Boy in Monster Land developed by Westone themselves. Just like what Hudson Soft did to Adventure Island since Sega owned the Wonder Boy IP they had to redo the sprites and the level layouts. They went for a oriental theme in this port and you seem to play as Son Goku from the Chinese “Journey to the West” fable. If you played Wonder Boy in Monster Land for Sega Master System you know what to expect here. Interestingly enough it later got a sequel Saiyuki World II which is a entirely new game from the ground up. That actually came out on North American NES as “Whomp ‘Em”.
Next we have Pizza Pop. A quirky arcade style action platformer developed by Arc System Works. Yes that Arc. The ones who later made Guilty Gear and a bunch of other anime fighters. This happens to be one of their earliest original games. Before that they ported Rolling Thunder and Final Lap for Namco and made their Rolling Thunder clone “Codename” Viper for Capcom. You play as a pizza delivery boy on a rush to get food delivered to his customer while avoiding obstacles and whacking baddies along the way. Its very reminiscent to games like Bonk’s Adventure. This is a very fun one if you’re into platformers. Just don’t expect Super Mario style depth.
Finally we have Magic John. The only game here than had a western NES release under the name “Totally Rad”. This one is a Mega Man style action platformer with a circus/theme park theme. You play as some magician boy shooting down really bizzare looking monsters, enemies, and whatnot. You also transform to other characters too. This game here has some really impressive NES graphics. Lots of parallax and HUGE screen filling bosses. I definitely recommend trying this out. Its definitely a hidden gem in the NES library for sure. Not many ever bring up Magic John / Totally Rad.
As of now no dates are confirmed when they will be on sale on the Nintendo eshop but I will assume they will all be out later Fall.
Source:
https://city-connection.co.jp/jalecolle/en/
David Medina is a hardcore gamer and Japanese import collector owning dozens of systems and games from Famicom to Nintendo Switch. He has an active YouTube channel called "The Karnov Jr Show" and posts retro gaming content there weekly showing off collections, random store tours, and gameplay clips.