/vr/ - Retro Games

>One of four launch titles when the Mega Drive debuted in Japan in fall 1988, Osomatsu-kun: Hachamecha Gekijo was a video game adaption of a popular '60s manga, recently adapted into an anime. Iyami and Chibita have kidnapped five of the Matsuno brothers and the remaining one, Osomatsu, must rescue them. Osomatsu uses a slingshot as his weapon against baddies, with each boss he beats its range gets slightly longer and you can purchase gear from shops along the way.

>This was the first platformer made for the Mega Drive and the first game for it that was not an arcade port. It did not receive positive reviews in the Japanese gaming press, in part because of several maze levels (apparently a popular gimmick with Sega in this period as several other of their late '80s games feature them). Although Osomatsu-kun was meant to use a 4 megabit (512kb) ROM featuring eight levels, Sega ended up cutting it down to 2 megabits (256kb) reportedly due to a ROM shortage. The game ended up with only three levels and it is suspected the addition of the mazes was an attempt to pad out the game length. Bugs, poor physics, and overly easy difficulty were also criticized. Fujio Akatsuku, the creator of the Osomatsu-kun manga, reportedly threw an ashtray at one of the programmers in disgust (although being in his 50s and predating the video game generation by some way probably didn't help).

>There were rumors that Sega initially intended for it to be an adventure game rather than a platformer; in fact an Osomatsu-kun adventure game came out for the Famicom the following year. Whatever the case, it repeatedly made magazine polls for worst Mega Drive game beaten only by a few Western lemons such as Sword of Sodan.