Success Joe [Arcade] / Legend of Success Joe [Neo Geo]

[Quick_Man]

aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

If you're like me, and I know I am, you grew up only really vaguely aware of anime. I knew what a Dragon Ball was, because I had one of the PS2 games [Budokai 2 - what a game] and I knew what a "Studio Ghibli" was because I had a DVD of Princess Mononoke. But one of the very first IPs I became familiar with as I lived on the internet and did this weird thing called "talking with other people who liked video games that weren't Halo" was Ashita no Joe. A frankly amazing story about a troubled young boxer most memorable for perhaps the most legendary ending in anime/manga history. You would think an anime literally based on a combat sport would make for a fantastic arcade game. What's ironic, it didn't result in one of the worst arcade games ever.

It resulted in two of the worst arcade games ever.

How does this happen? I cannot explain how, but I can expain why - I must've been a really really bad person in a past life.

First up, Success Joe, developed by a company called Wave and published by Taito in 1990. Taito were, in my opinion, the ultimate mixed bag of arcade games. They released some absolute gold, but also some absolute tripe. Playing as, of course, Joe Yabuki, the game takes the form of something that's half Punch-Out and half "headbutting the buttons on a Street Fighter cabinet and eventually hoping you win". There isn't a lot to say about the gameplay - it feels disjointed and somewhat incomprehensible. You can hit buttons and perhaps eventually win matches, but nothing ever feels like you're definitely playing correctly. I couldn't figure this out for the life of me, eventually resorting to save scumming my arse off in order to clear it. You are then treated to a picture of Joe getting married to leading lady Noriko, surrounded by every other boxer in the game.

If you know how the actual series ends, this may make you want to puke.

This game would be a strong contender for around a D- grade as a result of the really lame gameplay, but there's a part of it that drops it straight into F zone. This game has the worst music I've ever heard in an arcade game. I can't even comprehend how this happened or what had to go so wrong for a game to sound this way - but it sounds so terrible I think it could've been improved if it was just replaced by the sounds of someone throwing a Casio down the stairs. Feel free to look up a longplay of this game to listen to the soundtrack - including perhaps the worst sounding rendition of the Wedding March ever created.

Rating: F

Well, that blew chunks. Wave apparantly, from what I can find, only ever developed one other game. And it's another Ashita no Joe game! Legend of Success Joe on Neo Geo. That game must be an improvement, they essentially figured out what not to do with this first one.

Oh.

Oh nooooo.

Released one year later, this game instead of just being a Punch Out-like that takes place solely in the ring, is a hybrid: The game alternates between side-scrolling beat 'em up stages in public areas, and 1-on-1 boxing matches in the ring. Hey, that's not a bad idea! Joe certainly got into some brawls outside of the ring. Shame that the execution of it is one of the worst things I've ever played period.

First, the positives. The sound is bad. But it's not atrocious like Wave's previous effort.

This is the end of the positives.

The game is hideous, ugly as sin with lame backgrounds, mediocre character sprites and some bizarre animation[Harimau's UPSIDE-DOWN-PUNCH genuinely looks like the game is glitching out]. The controls, for whatever reason, are confined to two buttons, despite the game having about a dozen different punch types, and Neo Geo hardware itself using four buttons! This makes it feel like you're never quite certain of anything you throw. There's a bizarre mechanic where you and your opponents have three healthbars - this represents three knockdowns for a TKO in the matches. There is no regular knockdown count for a KO. What's weird and extremely frustrating is that you only replenish the healthbar you were on after the last stage. This makes the game nearly impossible to 1CC. The AI is also practically random - I've heard there are some strats to cheese certain AI opponents, but much like the previous game, it always feels like there's SOMETHING you're doing wrong. It's just an incredibly painful game to even attempt to play if you aren't just there for the hilarious cutscene and name translations, Jose Mendoza being called HOZE MENDOZE being a highlight.

Finally, after the previous attempt butchered the legendary ending, this game doesn't even have a real ending. After punching HOZE MENDOZE so hard his hair turns white - hey that's accurate to the series. Effort made! - the game just cuts to the opening cutscene again, but with a credits scroll. Wow.

Just for a last slap in the face, I have never managed to 1CC this game before, but I decided to do it via savescumming because like hell was I going to learn the strats for such a dreadful game. It turned out that even after clearing the game in a single credit, your score is not actually high enough to beat the default.

I'm reviewing a good game next time. Jeez.

Rating: F-

[RatsTheDonkey]

I think the one upside of the Neo Geo's high price tag was that there was generally a MUCH better sense of quality control to its games compared to the more mainstream consoles of the same time period. Not as many games available for it, but it also meant Quality Over Quantity--you didn't have to shuffle thru as much shovelware like this dud to get to the good stuff, and there was more than plenty of that for it! That said, I'd feel bad for any Neo Geo owner unlucky enough to have put down a few hundred bucks for something like this!

[jon]

It’s funny seeing these reviews for the worst Neo Geo games. It made me think about my friend who, after I told him of a couple great Elvis Presley movies to see, told me he decided to watch 2, only that they were 2 of his worst movies, “Kissin’ Cousins” and “Harum Scarum”. Of course I eventually found out he didn’t watch those movies but instead some jerk trashing them. What really irked me is that he said he loves technicolor and I told him “Viva Las Vegas” is maybe the best movie ever if you like technicolor, with “Roustabout” not too far behind.