This Patreon project and all associated essays and articles are meant for education and analysis only, and are not meant as original Goemon content. Ltd.and Konami Holdings Corporation, 1986-currently. [Disclaimer: Goemon, all characters, elements, and video game titles, including Ganbare Goemon, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, and others are copyright © Konami Co. I feel the articles are good examples of what I hope to accomplish: in-depth examinations of the game, as well as related history and background that led to the development of the game, accompanied by related materials and translations of these materials and interviews from Konami staff from around that time. Goemon (the proto-game in the series) and the first proper Ganbare Goemon game, Karakuri Dochu. I have already written a few articles about the arcade game Mr. I don't expect this to be a walk in the park-I'm prepared for all the effort needed to construct a rounded picture of the Ganbare Goemon series, and I hope you'll agree the depth and substance of my work merits funding. My aim is to take a very different look at these games-different from something you'd expect from content you'd find about retro games on "mainstream" video game media.
So I will be playing through and analyzing on a granular level all the games in the Ganbare Goemon series: 22 games in total, plus 3 spin-offs, and, if I can get access to them, other related goods as well, such as table-top games, LCD games, and the anime and manga series that were made concurrently with the games. (1850s-now, which is also roughly the timeline the Goemon games are set in.) I have also really enjoyed the Ganbare Goemon games I have had the experience of playing, and a passion for this kind of game experience. (Most of my work can be found at the indie UK site Bordersdown.) Nevertheless, I am fluent in Japanese (with a level 1 JLPT), I have lived in Japan for more than a decade, and I have a Masters degree in Japanese Cultural Studies, with a heavy emphasis on modern Japanese history. I have been playing games for close to three decades but I have very little experience in the video game press.
I started this project as a sort of diary of my video game travels, but I came to understand that a lot of background context and understanding was needed to dig into the games from a historical and cultural perspective. The mid-1980s to the beginning of the 20th century saw a tremendous amount of change not just within Konami, but across the video game industry, and the Ganbare Goemon games are, for the most part, beacon points that can be used to understand video game history during that period.
The Ganbare Goemon games were a twenty-year time capsule of sorts of Konami's history during that period. I finally decided to start a sort of game diary this year, but, after playing through the first 30-plus-year-old Famicom games, I realized that there was something bigger here. I encountered the Goemon games first when I played Legend of the Mystical Ninja on the SNES (the first Ganbare Goemon game localized internationally), and I'd always been curious about what I had missed.
Created and produced by Konami, starting on the Famicom (the NES in Japan) in 1986 and ending on the Nintendo DS in 2005.Īt first, this wasn't supposed to be such an expansive project. What are the Ganbare Goemon games? It's difficult to pin them down to one genre, but roughly speaking the games follow Goemon, a Robin Hood-esque folk hero and his group of friends on a variety of adventures across a surprising amount of genres and play styles. A few months ago, I made it my goal to play through all the games in the Ganbare Goemon series in chronological order.