Guest Editorial by DIB:
Otogi Katsugeki Mameda no Bakeru: Oracle Saitarou no Sainan, or “Mameda no Bakeru” for short, is a 3D action-platformer developed by Good-Feel for Nintendo Switch. Although it received no overseas promotion whatsoever (with Nintendo refusing to include it in their English Direct), Mameda no Bakeru quickly caught the attention of Western audiences hungry for a colorful, fast-paced, unflinchingly Japanese romp.
Observers were quick to point out the game’s similarities to the Ganbare Goemon/Mystical Ninja series, developed by Konami. And it’s not hard to see why. Everything from the vibrant Japanese setting to the platforming to the giant mech battles and the design of the lead character himself feel like they were lifted directly from Konami’s now defunct franchise.
There’s actually a good reason for that.
That being, Mameda no Bakeru was developed by Good-Feel, a studio consisting primarily of ex-Konami employees who worked on the Goemon series. Company president Etsunobu Ebisu is the namesake of Ebisumaru – Goemon’s goofy, rotund sidekick who joins him on most of his adventures.
Since their founding in 2005, Good-Feel have mostly been a contract studio, developing Wario Land: Shake It, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Yoshi’s Wooly World, and Yoshi’s Crafted World for Nintendo. Mameda no Bakeru marks the second time (the relatively low-budget shooter “Monkey Barrels” being the first) that Good-Feel was able to branch out and develop its own IP. However, the game was met with muted response and poor sales when it released in Japan late last month, which likely does not bode well for an English release.
I hope my fears are proven wrong because, without putting too fine a point on it, Mameda no Bakeru is a game that I’ve waiting been for for more than 20 years.
Two whole decades.
You see, the last Ganbare Goemon game to hit Western shores was Goemon’s Great Adventure, released all the way back in 1999. My mom would rent me that game, and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (released two years earlier), from the local library all the time. Both were transformative experiences and an indispensable part of my youth.
On a skeletal level, they are both fantastically designed and loads of fun, but not exactly ‘groundbreaking’. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is essentially 3D Zelda with greater emphasis on platforming and an occasionally frustrating camera. Goemon’s Great Adventure is a 2.5D platformer that, much like its predecessors, has some light RPG elements (e.g. towns, NPCs, upgradeable armor).
What truly elevated this series and made it stand out was the pure, unbridled culture shock it contained. The Ganbare Goemon games were Japanese to their very core, so much so that the cultural references and jokes interspersed throughout would fly over most American’s heads. The world itself was steeped in Japanese culture and folklore, both well-known and obscure. The soundtracks fused pop and traditional Japanese instrumentation in a way that very few games at that time had done. The environments of Mystical Ninja are even based on real Japanese landmarks and geography – the Inaba dunes, Akiyoshidai plateau, and Bizen ruins aren’t just levels designed for a video game. They actually exist.
Perhaps this isn’t so remarkable to someone who lives in Japan and experiences these things every day. But for Americans like me, it was like being transported to another world. And that is precisely why I loved it – that sort of escapism is why I play games in the first place.
Mameda no Bakeru, being a 3D game, bears more immediate similarity to Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon than its 2.5D successor. Then, as now, you are placed within the shoes of a nimble, Japanese folklore-inspired platforming hero who sets off on a journey across his homeland (each level being named after and based on real Japanese prefectures) to thwart the plot of a comically evil villain bent on world domination, bashing heads and collecting money along the way.
Although this game lacks the RPG elements of its spiritual predecessors, the gameplay variety on display is still immense. Some levels feature race car sections wherein the player takes control of a sentient robotic dog-head. Others have you piloting said dog-head through on-rails shooter setpieces, akin to StarFox. Still others have you shrink to the size of a ladybug, or ride a rollercoaster through a theme-park bursting with neon signs, or parkouring on rooftops. I could go on for a while.
As of this writing, there is still no official word or even indication that Mameda no Bakeru will see release outside of Japan. I would often bring this game up in forums, and someone would always chime in “the Switch is region-free, you can just import it”. My response was always the same: “Yeah, but there’s just one problem: I can’t read Japanese”.
My hope is that Good-Feel will rectify that. My hope is that Mameda no Bakeru will see release in the United States and PAL territories, that it will see financial success, and that it will be the beginning of a brand new franchise.
Mameda no Bakeru may have bombed in Japan, but I believe that it can (and most likely will) do far better numbers here, if only because we in America/PAL territories rarely get to play games like this. Ganbare Goemon was a popular, long-running, and well-established series spanning more than 20+ entries in its native Japan, but Americans only got to experience 4 (yes, 4) of these games. Some territories saw even less.
And while those games that were localized didn’t exactly light the charts on fire, it must be noted that the late 90s/early 00s landscape was extremely different from the one we have now. On a macro level, American culture at the time was considerably more right-wing, and with that often comes intense xenophobia and hatred of anything deemed “too foreign”.
More pertinently, many American gamers at that point were entering their teens and early 20s. They were either lassoed in by Sony’s successful MTV advertising blitz that catered specifically to young adults, or they were themselves graduating from their Super Nintendos (or Sega Genesis, to a smaller extent) and desired something more “grown-up”.
In other words, they were tired of G-rated adventures featuring colorful, jovial mascots leaping through saccharine environments. Those experiences were increasingly considered to be “gay” (homophobia was still socially acceptable back then). They wanted to prove to the world that they weren’t nerds (being a “nerd” was also seen as a bad thing at the time) playing with expensive toys. They wanted to prove they were cool and fashionable, that they were adults, and that gaming was an art form just like Hollywood movies.
All of this culminated in the “PSWii60” generation, with its indiscernible mass of brown/grey shooters and open-world games that sold tens of millions of copies. But somewhere in all of that, a backlash happened. People got tired of the homogeneity. We wanted more diversity in gaming. We wanted something different. We wanted more color and, yes, even culture shock.
What I’m saying is, things are different now. WE are different now. We’re not the America that snubbed Wind Waker and Dragon Quest 8 back in the day because they had cartoony graphics. We’re the America that bought something as uber-Japanese as Animal Crossing by the boatloads just 3 years ago – in the midst of a pandemic, no less.
The time is ripe for a new Goemon (or Goemon-like) on these shores. That it didn’t do well in Japan doesn’t mean it will bomb here. On the contrary, what might feel mundane and dime-a-dozen in Japan could be a fresh and exciting experience elsewhere.
I’ve been waiting more than 2 decades for a game like this. I know for a fact that I’m not the only one.
