Happy 60th Birthday to Gojira (Godzilla)
With a new American movie, who doesn't want to load up some Godzilla video game action. Those two things should go together like popcorn and soda, but oddly, kaiju are not as popular one would think given how popular Godzilla is in Japan and across the world. Video games seem to prefer zombies, robots, nazis, zombie robot nazis, space aliens, space alien nazis or flying through rings. These are games about giant monsters - battling each other or just wreaking havoc or doing both at the same time, and not really about the fantasy heroes with big swords or anything except maybe just to give us Clint Eastwood in a sabre jet firebombing a giant Tarantula or something.
Primal Rage? War of the Monsters? Combat of Giants: Mutant Insects? It came from the Desert?
King of the Monsters? Rampage World Tour? Peter Jackson's King Kong? Ultraman?
Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee? Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters? Godzilla: Unleashed?
Crush Crumble and Chomp! was a very early Epyx game on the family computers of the 80s, where you controlled the monster (Godzilla, the Kraken, the Blob, and others) destroying real cities like San Francisco and Washington DC. More of a turn based strategy game than an action game, it was a hoot. If turn based games like Advanced Wars were more popular, maybe it would get a remake.
Any ideas of kaiju video games? (Like where is Gamera? or even Crow and Tom Servo doing color commentary)
What are some of your favorite Kaiju Giant Monster games?
Godzilla (Kaiju) Games
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JustLikeHeaven1
- Posts: 2971
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Godzilla (Kaiju) Games
Hey Scotland17...awesome topic. Just wanted to let you know that I edited out your photo, because it wasn't displaying properly. Feel free to try and post it again, but I couldn't get it to work.
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velcrozombie1
- Posts: 400
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Godzilla (Kaiju) Games
Between the ages of 6 and 10 Godzilla was my favorite actor, no exaggeration.
Which is surprising, since even as a kid I was bored half the time while watching
many of those films (I can deal with the sillier conventions of those films better
today, now that I am more knowledgeable about cinema as a whole).
I got Godzilla: Monster of Monsters for the NES as a gift when I was 7 or 8 and I
sunk a ridiculous amount of time into that game, despite the fact that it has more
filler than even the worst Godzilla film. You have to beat every single stage twice
(once with Godzilla, once with Mothra), and there are only maybe half-a-dozen
maps that are copy-pasted over and over again. Not only are the maps tedious,
they are mostly quite slow and easy; you'll often take dozens of hits each stage,
but almost every enemy or obstacle you destroy gives you a partial health refill.
The problem is, while almost every enemy you encounter is a cinch, there is one
enemy that begins to appear in the 2nd planet that can easily kill you (it looks
like a flying, flaming horseshoe), since you are an enormous target with limited
mobility, so you can never quite go into totalcruise control (even though it only
maybe appears once per world). Both Godzilla and Mothra have special abilities
(radioactive breath and poison powder, respectively)
that have their own health bars that slowly refill. However, early on the bars refill
so slowly and get depleted so quickly that it's hard to get much enjoyment out of them
(you monster levels up its health and special ability a little bit every world, and with this
the speed that your special ability refills increases, so in the later game you get to have
a bit more fun).
The early planets (you have to recapture every single planet in the solar system
from the aliens, then take over Planet X) have very few one-on-one monster battles,
which are the only semi-fun part of the game; the last third of the game is the point
when there are enough monsters to fight (and your own monsters are strong enough)
to be somewhat entertaining. The graphics are gorgeous for the NES and the giant
monsters look awesome and very movie-accurate, but the slowdown and flickering
during the one-on-one fights is maybe the worst I've seen of the system (although
this also makes them feel appropriately huge and ponderous, so it almost works to
the games advantage). The music is also pretty catchy, even though I seem to
remember there only being a few tracks.
There's probably a decent ROM-hack of a game in there: make it so you only have to
get one monster to the end of each world; make a few of the planets smaller
(seriously, Jupiter is almost unplayable at its current size); include a few more unused
monsters and maybe a few more modern ones (no Rodan?! no King Kong?! no giant lobster?!)
and it would be playable, perhaps even pleasurable. If you want to play it today (little kids
are willing to put up with way more tedious crap than I'm sure most of you are), there is
a code (DESTR0Y ALL MONSTERS, with the O in destroy being a zero) that will dump you
near the end of the game, when it is the most enjoyable. Otherwise, avoid it.
Which is surprising, since even as a kid I was bored half the time while watching
many of those films (I can deal with the sillier conventions of those films better
today, now that I am more knowledgeable about cinema as a whole).
I got Godzilla: Monster of Monsters for the NES as a gift when I was 7 or 8 and I
sunk a ridiculous amount of time into that game, despite the fact that it has more
filler than even the worst Godzilla film. You have to beat every single stage twice
(once with Godzilla, once with Mothra), and there are only maybe half-a-dozen
maps that are copy-pasted over and over again. Not only are the maps tedious,
they are mostly quite slow and easy; you'll often take dozens of hits each stage,
but almost every enemy or obstacle you destroy gives you a partial health refill.
The problem is, while almost every enemy you encounter is a cinch, there is one
enemy that begins to appear in the 2nd planet that can easily kill you (it looks
like a flying, flaming horseshoe), since you are an enormous target with limited
mobility, so you can never quite go into totalcruise control (even though it only
maybe appears once per world). Both Godzilla and Mothra have special abilities
(radioactive breath and poison powder, respectively)
that have their own health bars that slowly refill. However, early on the bars refill
so slowly and get depleted so quickly that it's hard to get much enjoyment out of them
(you monster levels up its health and special ability a little bit every world, and with this
the speed that your special ability refills increases, so in the later game you get to have
a bit more fun).
The early planets (you have to recapture every single planet in the solar system
from the aliens, then take over Planet X) have very few one-on-one monster battles,
which are the only semi-fun part of the game; the last third of the game is the point
when there are enough monsters to fight (and your own monsters are strong enough)
to be somewhat entertaining. The graphics are gorgeous for the NES and the giant
monsters look awesome and very movie-accurate, but the slowdown and flickering
during the one-on-one fights is maybe the worst I've seen of the system (although
this also makes them feel appropriately huge and ponderous, so it almost works to
the games advantage). The music is also pretty catchy, even though I seem to
remember there only being a few tracks.
There's probably a decent ROM-hack of a game in there: make it so you only have to
get one monster to the end of each world; make a few of the planets smaller
(seriously, Jupiter is almost unplayable at its current size); include a few more unused
monsters and maybe a few more modern ones (no Rodan?! no King Kong?! no giant lobster?!)
and it would be playable, perhaps even pleasurable. If you want to play it today (little kids
are willing to put up with way more tedious crap than I'm sure most of you are), there is
a code (DESTR0Y ALL MONSTERS, with the O in destroy being a zero) that will dump you
near the end of the game, when it is the most enjoyable. Otherwise, avoid it.
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scotland171
- Posts: 816
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Godzilla (Kaiju) Games
Here is Crush Crumble and Chomp playing a Rodan-like monster
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velcrozombie1
- Posts: 400
- Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm
Godzilla (Kaiju) Games
A few things:
Matt from Two Best Friends Play has been doing a new video every day this week on Godzilla games and Godzilla in general. Here the game-related videos thus far (there will be two or three more on
the way); the second one has a Japanese import 2d fighting game for the SNES that actually looks pretty decent :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTJBJpfNLXM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hebpGwWLE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zNz4Wd68OU
- The other kaiju games I played as a kid (both on the NES) were Rampage (fun for 20-30 minutes at a time with a friend; deadly boring afterwards) and Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters (a turn-based strategy game where you command the military against the monsters; didn't enjoy it as a kid, but that may have have been just because I wanted an action game where I played as the monsters). I've heard good things about War of the Monsters for the PS2, but I haven't gotten around to playing it yet.
- I'm going to the midnight showing of Godzilla tonight with my cousin. I'm pretty excited; the only other Godzilla movies I've seen in the theater are the 1998 American version (which, while not terrible, didn't feel like a traditional Godzilla movie) and Godzilla 2000 (which swung wildly between boredom and moments of pure, transcendental beauty). This is at least my 14th Godzilla movie (memories of what I watched as a kid are a little fuzzy, and there may be one or two that
I'm forgetting); my personal favorites are probably Godzilla vs. Mothra and Terror of Mechagodzilla (of the old films) and Godzilla: Final Wars and (deep breath) Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack (of the recent films).
Matt from Two Best Friends Play has been doing a new video every day this week on Godzilla games and Godzilla in general. Here the game-related videos thus far (there will be two or three more on
the way); the second one has a Japanese import 2d fighting game for the SNES that actually looks pretty decent :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTJBJpfNLXM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hebpGwWLE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zNz4Wd68OU
- The other kaiju games I played as a kid (both on the NES) were Rampage (fun for 20-30 minutes at a time with a friend; deadly boring afterwards) and Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters (a turn-based strategy game where you command the military against the monsters; didn't enjoy it as a kid, but that may have have been just because I wanted an action game where I played as the monsters). I've heard good things about War of the Monsters for the PS2, but I haven't gotten around to playing it yet.
- I'm going to the midnight showing of Godzilla tonight with my cousin. I'm pretty excited; the only other Godzilla movies I've seen in the theater are the 1998 American version (which, while not terrible, didn't feel like a traditional Godzilla movie) and Godzilla 2000 (which swung wildly between boredom and moments of pure, transcendental beauty). This is at least my 14th Godzilla movie (memories of what I watched as a kid are a little fuzzy, and there may be one or two that
I'm forgetting); my personal favorites are probably Godzilla vs. Mothra and Terror of Mechagodzilla (of the old films) and Godzilla: Final Wars and (deep breath) Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack (of the recent films).
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