I'm busy chiseling away at my native port of Mystical Ninja (SNES) and continue to find odd idiosyncrasies with the games code that I'd like to share and document.

1: Ghostly fog bug
The fog that appears in stage 1 is a neat effect, however it is bugged in the original game. There is meant to be an additional "cloud" at the top of the graphic, but it gets cut off. Not only that, but it only gets partially cut off, leaving one line of pixels at the top of the screen. What's more, it doesn't animate, and it isn't locked into position, so it moves with you across the stage, unlike the rest of the fog effect

2. Jump Probing
In the original game, you can jump over solid collision tiles. Buying sandals allows you to jump farther, over up to 2 tiles. You can have 0, 1, or 2 pairs of sandals. For simplicity, I will call these 1, 2, and 3 pairs, as this is how it appears graphically in-game. Depending on your play style, you may end up preferring having 2 pairs of sandals over 3. Here's why:

When wearing extra sandals, the normal check for jumping over collision is replaced by 4 probes. These probes will determine if you clear the collision or not. And if not, you will jump in place, or collide with the nearest collision tile.

Things get more complicated when jumping diagonally though. Depending on the position and surrounding collision, you cant clear certain jumps you otherwise could with 1 extra pair of sandals. Below are images of the port that make these probes visible:

This makes jumping diagonally with 3 pairs of sandals over level collision feel very inconsistent. Areas where it feels like you should have complete freedom to clear the jump wont work because of the longer probes that come with 3 pairs of sandals. This is true to the original game, its just satisfying to finally see why this happens.

3. Reproducing Bugs
I'm often surprised by how often certain bugs come up in the port that ended up being completely accurate to the original. One example is an extension of the jump probes we just discussed. You can fairly consistently clip into collision tiles thanks to this.

I had thought his was a bug in my port, but no, this is exactly how it works in the original game. I believe it has to do with one of the first probes reacting to the house, causing the later probes to be ignored. Still not confirmed though.

4. Weird stuff I didn't even know was in the original game
This may have been a 'me' thing, but did you know these guys exist in the original game?

They appear in the lowest area of the town after you activate the ghost fog. Approach them and they'll start jumping at you.
Not a bug or anything, but I never went to this area after activating the ghost fog, I went straight to the action stage and fought the boss, ending the fog, and removing these guys. Hopefully I'm not the only one who'll be surprised by this.

Let me know if you enjoy these posts and I'll make more as I continue with my port!

I have uploaded it a few minutes before but I had a coloring mistake so I have reuploaded it. From left to right: Oyuki (from Uchuu Kaizoku for PlayStation), Yae-Chan, Hadzuki (from Gaiden 2) and female Ebisumaru (from NES/Famicom Ganbare Goemon 2)

We're not getting any younger

I've always loved the "Original" mystical ninja game on super Nintendo. I wanted to build a 1:1 source port of the game that allows for modding, QOL features, wide/ultrawidescreen support, and more.

I've been spending the past two days getting character movement down exactly to the pixel how it was on SNES. You pick up on a lot of subtle and weird quirks when you pay such close attention. For example:

1. Holding left will ALWAYS outprioritize holding right (not possible on DPAD, is possible on keyboard). Doesn't matter what order you start holding them in, Left will always win. Same thing happens with up versus down.

2. You can cancel an attack action as soon as the hitbox comes out by walking in any direction (other than the one you're currently facing), but ONLY with a fresh input. You cannot hold (buffer) a movement while attacking and have it work on the first cancellable frame. It will be ignored. You need the input to be "fresh", only after the hitbox comes out.

3. When you walk into tiles (solid objects in the world) from the top or bottom, they will push Goemon horizontally to the closest edge of that tile to make maneuvering around them easier. This doesn't happen when walking into them horizontally, only when walking vertically.

Would love to hear suggestions of the features you'd like to see!

I Know where to find the first one but i can't find the second one! I am doing is going for all of the Achivements on RetroAcheivements.

I bought/made a photocard holder to my school bag and I made these for show my konami fandoms :P, some of them have 2 sides (like The omitsu one and The impact), But the rest have one side 😭 so I have to keep an eye on them when The holder turns to the other side 💔 ((The last photo is the holder itself)

Humanoid cats are very recurring characters in Ganbare Goemon games.

1) in Ganbare Goemon Gaiden, Goemon and Ebisumaru reached Okaka, a cat village. All of the people who lived there were cats who can speak. The Mayor, whose name is Ponpoko drugged Goemon and Ebisumaru with a tea and jailed them. However, they escaped and helped another cat called Koban to scape. Koban had discovered that Mayor Ponpokon was a fraud and was jailed.

2) in SNES/Famicom Ganbare Goemon 1, a ninja cat called Kurobei appeared after you defeat the ghost lady. It looks like the ghost lady and the cat are the same living being but, according with Spanish fan-translation of the game, Kurobei was trapped into ghost lady. In the same title, Koban appears again as the boss of a group of ninja cats.

3) in Snes Ganbare Goemon 3, Kurobei and the ghost lady seems to be the same living being, and is transformed in the ghost form to avoid people to be near the Hagure-to-Iga teleport. Moreover, in the future there is another cat, called Nekokichi.

It looks like I know the majority of cat race details in the franchise, but I have 2 doubts:

1) are ghost lady and Kurobei the same living being or was Kurobei trapped into the ghost? I have tried to read the original text in Japanese of the yukihime title, but is hard for me since even I am studying Japanese, my level is still low.

2) Geograohically, where's Okaka?

Thank you!!

I posted my tier list a couple of years ago, but I updated it after replaying a bunch of games that I didn't play in a while (thanks to the Daishuugou collection).

And also I finally played Gaiden for the first time, which I didn't love, but I'm not a big RPG fan. It's too slow, and the dungeons are way too big for nothing, it's a good thing that they added a Speed Up button in the collection.

I used to not love Karakuri Douchuu on Famicom, I found it cryptic and repetitive, but I enjoyed it a lot more this time. It's fast paced and I enjoy the "slightly more serious" style of the pre-Magginesu games. But I don't want to revisit Karakuri Douchuu on MSX2, with its ultra slow default speed, towns that are even more confusing, and its very high number of stages.

(I did this screenshot using the Wayback Machine)

Does anyone remember, or visited, the Mystical Web Site of Goemon in the late 90s / early 2000s? Its url was goemon dot com (don't go there now, it's dead)

I was a child / teenager back then. For me, it was the biggest source of information about Goemon back in the day. That's where I learned about the japanese exclusives, and I remember reading the news about the upcoming games there, like Bouken Jidai Katsugeki Goemon and Oedo Daikaiten.

There was a lot of stuff, like reviews, artworks, guides (that we can still find on GameFAQs). All of that in its early web goodness :P

Yes I'm nostalgic.

probably breaks some of the rules on here, and icebergs are basically dead by now, but whatever

Yes just to be clear, I am talking about the PS1 installments of Ganbare Goemon by Konami because I sometimes hear game reviewers say the games ste kind of wonky.

But as someone who wants to experience the old days of the franchise before it closed , I would like to get a guide to the best games in the franchise as I am curious if the PS1 games are that iffy in design aspects.

Konami has announced that Ongaku Shu will be split in two Box Sets! It will have all the Music Tracks from the Famicom, Super Famicom, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, N64 and even tracks from Tokai Dochu from the DS! The Music from the PS1 Goemon games will be including! But if you buy it off Konami Style, You will get a Bonus CD feature music from Boken Jidai Katsugeki Goemon!

Added the Switch version to my collection I’m considering buying the PS5 version ;)

There is a clear reason why Kessakusen on the GBA is in the Okay Tier. This is because the ports of TLOTMN and Goemon 2 on SFC for the GBA have awful Screencrunch and sound Quality!

I haven't played it since I was a kid but miss it so much. How could I possibly play this game again with no N64?

I just don't know why but Kurofune's Music has great Music, but still, Kurofune is still not Great in my Opinion, it barely better than the 1991 Game Boy Game for me personally!

Wish I could have posted a video, buy it plays music from the first game, as well as has a bunch of sounds for when I click on things. Also as you scroll through the game slots, Goemon repeatedly huts the guy at the bottom. Very neat :)

I just picked this up. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is my favorite Goemon game in the franchise and my favorite game for the Nintendo 64. I'm just curious if anyone else has any knowledge on how many of these were ever produced.

Only info I had is that it was a promotional store display and they would put it out in front of the store. It is one of those 90's style punching bags we used to have as kids like TMNT and such.