Review – SUNSOFT is Back! Retro Game Selection (Switch)

Anyone looking for familiarity will be out of their depth in this collection. All three included titles – Ripple Island, The Wing of Madoola, and Firework Thrower Kantaro’s 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō – are from 1988 and before, and never got a release outside of Japan. Each is exceedingly different in style: Firework Thrower is a side-scrolling action title with constant enemy attacks. Madoola is a labyrinthian action/RPG with so much mayhem it can be hard to tell what to do next. And Ripple Island is the most placid, relaxed point-and-click adventure this side of the Pacific Ocean, and was a total shock to find. Each title has the choice to play in English or Japanese, as well as a gallery with some promotional and concept art (Firework Thrower has next to nothing in terms of gallery content).

Once you load up one of the titles from the SUNSOFT is Back! set, you’re given a good set of options as to what you can do next. The standard customizations exist but are still appreciated: CRT filters, different visual approaches, pixel density, and the addition of borders to help make players as comfortable as possible. Save and load states are ready to go and are essential for these Famicom games that sometimes demand a good amount of time with no way to stop. The Rewind function is crucial for survival in both Wing and Firework Thrower, and has a decent memory to allow for undoing your mistakes. On an interesting note, Red Art also made sure to include the manuals for all three titles that are completely untranslated and are exceedingly unhelpful if you’re confused. Remember how verbose NES manuals can be? Now make them in Japanese.

This lovely leaflet advertised the game AND encouraged kids to make incendiary devices!

If I had to rank the three games, Firework Thrower is probably the lowest on the totem pole. With a truly bizarre storyline, you play the titular Kantaro, who is traveling the length of Edo-era Japan to showcase his fireworks and how awesome they are. But the evil Gozaemon wants to steal your fireworks to make illegal guns, so he sends a whole slew of assassins after you. Naturally, you fight back by hurling an unlimited supply of fireworks at them and running a lot. Successfully survive the trip from Kyoto up to Tokyo in twenty-one levels and set off your fireworks at the river to make a pretty show and hopefully forget about the hundreds of people you’ve just immolated. Oh, and to find your beloved, but that feels like a B story at best.

I can see why Firework Thrower  ended up in the collection, certainly. The oldest of the trio, a title from 1986 that’s full of unique levels, a good variety of characters, and some surprisingly informational detailing about traveling up the mainland of Japan. I adore how many Japanese games set their worlds in real-life Japan, and quickly jaunting through Kusatsu, Asakusa and even Shinagawa is delightful, albeit far before the times when I visited myself. Despite the concept, the game is cheerful and engaging, asking players to get into a good rhythm of destroying enemies, mild platforming and occasionally taking a risk on secret doors that may appear that could either be filled with bonuses or death. The hope is yours and yours alone!

Oh my God, WHY IS EVERYONE MAKING SUCH A BIG DEAL OUT OF THIS, I JUST DON’T WANT TO MAKE ILLEGAL GUNS.

But the gameplay is also incredibly simplistic: throw fireworks at enemies, jump, and don’t get touched once or you die. Your attack is a slow arc that has limited range, and you need to really choose your battles after a short period of time. Traditional black ninjas and such, no problem, time it right and blast them unconscious. Dude in a helmet with a sword? You need to get really good at faking jumping so he jumps then runs under him. Your drunk uncle with a gun? Run and jump and pray, just like the last barbeque. The entirety of the game is a matter of survival with serious live-and-learn consequences that, thankfully, are easier to bear with the rewind feature.

Oh, and the pickups feel randomized and inconsequential. I know a lot of the Famicom/NES era were games letting you get points for points sake, but why is it that I can pick up a talisman or charm over HERE but not THERE despite no visual clues as to when something will appear? Why is the death of a ninja in this specific spot cause for a sword to drop but not slightly to the right? It’s part of that seemingly chaotic design that permeated the early years of the NES, and it bothers me to no end.

The Wing of Madoola is a massive step up in terms of interest, if not action. The lead, Lucia, is a dope warrior woman who needs to fight through sixteen stages of enemies, traps, and secrets to defeat Darutos, who is some jerk who’s being evil in a kingdom or something. I gotta be honest, even with the English translation the story is convoluted, but that’s just how some RPGs roll. You need several days of flowcharts to really know what the hell the point of any Fire Emblem game is, so I can’t really begrudge Madoola for this one.

Giving some clear inspiration to The Adventures of Link, Lucia has to traverse forests, caverns, and sinister lairs to get to Darutos, and will find various pickups along the way. These enhancements will let her jump higher, run faster, and strike harder, all culminating in a seriously overclocked build that is necessary to survive longer than a few seconds. Rather than a health bar, Lucia has a point counter that starts at 1000, can go up much higher, and is depleted in different amounts depending on the enemies. Some foes can be defeated, some cannot, and all will murder you given enough time. A lot of enemies also are smaller than you are, so you need to be comfortable with squat striking if you want to actually deal with them instead of avoiding mobs.

The Death’s Head ogres, coming to slay me in the Foam Pit on the dance floor.

The game is wonderfully complex despite the age of 1986, and it’s one of those historical pieces that should be appreciated for what it was, not necessarily what it is. For example, several areas are dead ends, meaning that developers specifically put in hours of code and design just to have you venture off course and end up frustrated for a few seconds, which is brilliant. There are areas where you NEED to defeat an enemy before moving on: despite the door being available, you cannot enter until the gorgon/dread knight/massive spider is slain. And, if you don’t get the very first sword powerup that you encounter, you’re in for a world of hurt just trying to get through the first level.

The Wing of Madoola still looks really good as well, with solid pixel design and a fair amount of animation that brings the game to life through movement and minor expressions. The soundtrack is exceptionally chippy and high, so it can be enjoyable as long as you didn’t have a headache before starting. Additionally, the rewind feature also does a solid here, keeping Lucia alive long enough to figure out the right way to progress and sometimes giving you that extra moment of breathing room to allow an enemy to despawn and leave you alone.

Yes, what might be a bit of a cheap approach is that enemies can and will just disappear if you run them off the screen. I get that the purpose isn’t to slay the night away, but simply ignoring enemies until they are no longer a problem isn’t the most satisfying approach. Moreover, this leads to frustration with the aforementioned impassable areas, because having a key monster suddenly disappear and be SOMEWHERE in the long room with you sucks and makes it harder. This can all be prevented by you being incredible at the game and then never getting hit or making a single mistake. You know, like the developers intended!

Run, Lucia, the Smucker’s jam has become sentient and is ANGRY!

The legacy that comes from The Wing of Madoola might be slight but still important. Female protagonists in action games were still gaining traction, especially when they weren’t being overly sexualized. The approach is tough but fair, and it’s satisfying to have a title that clocks in at a bit more than two hours for a full play (less if you memorize the paths) at this stage of the home gaming evolution. Plus, SUNSOFT did put Lucia in several other games as both a standalone hero and a bonus easter egg (Phantasy Star 2 Online players may have spotted her). It’s not massive enough to have gotten a proper Western release, but it’s still notable.

Lastly, Ripple Island is easily my favorite of the bunch. You play Kyle, a frigging dude named Kyle, who’s on Ripple Island to save the king’s daughter from a massive, evil frog. Man, it was great when you could just make an antagonist and say “they’re evil” and call it a day. I miss having things that are that simple. Anyway, Kyle is going to talk to a bunch of animals and occasionally some people to do fetch quests and put together simple puzzles to get from point A to point B and save a princess. Go forward, noble knight Kyle! Not a knight? Again, just some dude? Sweet, even better, rock on, Kyle.

If you spent any time messing around with point-and-click titles back in the 80s and 90s, you get a bit of what’s going on here. Equal parts Zork and King’s Quest, Ripple Island drops you in with almost no indication of what to do. You walk around, you can look, touch, talk, and go into stuff, and, eventually, get stuff. The stuff you get can be used almost anywhere and usually has no effect unless it’s EXACTLY where to use it. For example, one of the first items you get is a berry, and nearly every animal you meet will happily accept that berry. HOWEVER, unless you give it to the right animal, nothing happens and you need to go find another.

The whole thing is wildly quirky and quaint while still trying to be very serious. The music is whimsical and light except for when you specifically are interacting with dark characters, and that doesn’t happen so often. The maps are honestly not so big, so the process of elimination for what to do isn’t as taxing as it is in modern puzzle/exploration games. Limited choices mean not having to beat your head against things too often: it’s easy enough to double back, go another direction, and find something new to try in order to move forward. With only five areas to speak of, a player can spend a few hours their first time through and then quickly narrow that to an hour or less once you memorize the way.

I mean…yes? You’re a talking stoat and I’m just trying to get over thataway?

Now, I would absolutely not recommend Ripple Island over a majority of point-and-click adventures from the 80s. For one, trying to select things on the screen with a D-pad instead of a mouse or touch screen takes a while, and it can really be challenging to know WHERE to click for certain interactions. You end up repeating dialogue and choice answers because you never know if your actions will merit one, two, or three boxes of text and nothing indicates when the speaking is over. Also, the animals are kind of snippy with me even though I’m trying to save the princess. Why aren’t talking animals more polite and invested that I’m saving a human princess?

But it is a fascinating piece, and I think it definitely deserves some closer inspection. The execution on the NES is ambitious and, mostly, successful. In a time where everything was trying to capture the arcade feel in order to draw in the quarter jockey audience, it’s refreshing to see SUNSOFT was already pushing the boundaries and making something more at home on the MSX or even just PC stations. And you rarely see titles like this from yesteryear’s Nintendo: the closest I can think of is Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom and I still don’t know if that was a real game or a fever dream from when I got kicked by a horse at my friend’s house.

All in all, these artifacts that date back almost forty years are something really special, and this is the only way to play the official English versions. SUNSOFT is Back! feels worthwhile for gaming historians and curious spelunkers like myself, and I hope that Red Art considers a physical version at some point in the future for even stronger preservation. Still, as it is, the price tag is right for a time machine to let you see all that was in the world of SUNSOFT.

SUNSOFT is Back! Retro Game Selection is available now on Nintendo Switch and Steam.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of SUNSOFT is Back! Retro Game Selection was provided by the publisher.

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