Battle of the Ports - Cosmo Police Galivan (コスモポリス ギャリバン) Show

[@Larry]

If I recall, Ocean always advertised the game as "Galvan" as they didn't notice the sword in the logo was meant to represent an I.

[@videogamebookreviews]

Yes. I was surprised that Mark didn't mention that, as I dare say he would have seen the UK adverts at the time.

[@thepeller210]

Sorry Larry, I've been following you for years but I've never said 'but hello you' 🙂 Hope all is well, looking forward to your next vid!

[@RetroCore]

Lol, typical dumb ass Ocean.

[@RetroCore]

I had no interest in Computer games, I was all about the consoles back in the day. 👍

[@alritedave]

I seem to see you everywhere lol!

[@DurableName]

That Famicom version has some of the best use of color that I've seen on the system. It looks quite good.

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

How on Earth did I not know about this game? I absolutely adore anything Nichibutsu did back in the day and it seems like this game is probably running on the exact same hardware as Terra Cresta which is another fantastic game. After looking up this game then I find out there's a Cosmo Police Galivan 2 for Super Famicom?? Thank you sooo much for showcasing this game as now I have to drop everything and try it! Hell yeah! 😁

[@RetroCore]

You're very welcome. I actually knew about the SFC game before this original.

[@Mamiya645]

That C64 port is adorable. Today I learned it took inspiration from GAVAN (opening theme to rock out to) and SHARIVAN.

[@kenwheeler3637]

I always look forward to these videos every Saturday morning. Both for games that I've been playing for years and one's like this one, that I've never heard of.

[@RetroCore]

Nice. I'm guessing this is one of those games you've not seen before?

[@kenwheeler3637]

@@RetroCore Yes. This is the first that I've encountered it. I need to load it up in MAME and see how it plays. Looks like it's going to be challenging.

[@topofbones]

I played a lot to the CPC port in my childhood, but never known the name of this game. Good memories come to my mind... Thanks!

[@mid-jump_attack]

I've always really liked Nichibutsu arcade games. The sound and graphics are unique. I was excited about this video, because I liked the NES ports of Terra Cresta and Magmax.

[@ricmagus]

Its not a cyborg, but a "power suit". Search for "uchuu keiji gyaban" (or space sherriff gavan) and you find this game "inspiration" XD.

[@RetroCore]

I know but Cyborg sound better 😁

[@Colin_Ames]

Great to watch another BOTP while drinking my first tea of the day. Thanks Mark.

[@RetroCore]

Nothing beats that morning tea 👍☕

[@davidheremans6978]

Never heard of this game but when I saw the thumbnail I recognized that figure. It is clearly based on Space Sheriff Gavan, or as I have known it for decades under it's French name: 'X-OR' Luckily I don't seem to have missed a spectacular game :-)

[@GamayObera]

I believe the Famicom version was an attempt to surf in the "Metroid wave" (before Metroidvania became a mainstream genre). Like, the Arcade version can be beaten in less than 10 minutes and the FC version can take about 3 hours to beat it.

[@lorddalek]

Gavan + Sharivan = Galivan.

[@Charlie-Cat.]

Yes. Arrow of Justice on the SNES. Been a while since I played that one Mark. 8^) Anthony..

[@johnebbs3819]

I still remember this which nearly makes me as old as Retrocore.

[@RetroCore]

45 I am 😁

[@johnebbs3819]

@@RetroCore i believe you. millions would not.

[@romaneberle]

the Amstrad version really is something. lol. i had a hard time figuring out what, or even where the player sprite is. Spectrum is just epic, as always. diagonal scrolling rulez. I loved this game as a kid, played it on the arcade, had to get it for C64. (i was a bit disappointed by the port.) both versions gave me sleepless nights, as the entire thing was kind of uncanny to me (what is Galvan? Galivan?!), and too hard, i didn't make much progress. :-) lol, I'm working on a platform game. I should do a port of Galivan. :-)

[@psihomanijak]

This is so crazy, I've played this game yesterday on Famicom for the first time in my life.

[@RetroCore]

That is spooky

[@montarion]

Ahhh I do love this one. I first played this probably 1987 at the arcade of a travelling fair that came to town every summer. I used to really look forward to the fair coming so I could play it! Of course one year it just wasn't there anymore and I was rather sad. I did buy the Speccy version to tide me over, but as with most Speccy ports I knew what I was in for! I do love me Nichibutsu games, got Terra Cresta and Mag Max PCBs now but the Galivan board seems to be really hard to come by, I've been keeping my eyes peeled for over a decade now and I only ever see bootlegs! I probably played a bootleg board down the fair I bet...

[@RetroCore]

Nice having some real Nichibutsu PCBs in your collection.

[@darththew]

Thanks! I totally forgot about this game! Love it as a kid!

[@RetroCore]

You're welcome.

[@actuallyusingmyrealnameher5061]

Wow, I’ve never heard of this one as it didn’t reach my local arcade back then even though we did have a universal Zero Hour cabinet. Keep them coming 🙂

[@RetroCore]

Universal sure had some obscure games too.

[@DragonSlayerKyo]

Electro Plate! Uchū Keiji Gyaban! lot of Arcade to Famicom releases tended to be heavily modified in a lot of ways, for better or worse. But that said, I think the Famicom release while different does keep the spirit of the arcade original rather well. I'm still surprised that Nihon Bussan managed to get so close to Uchū Keiji Gyaban and still not get into big trouble for it.

[@RetroCore]

Back then that Japanese gaming companies were so close when it came to knocking off ideas.

[@MrRedFoxorMrelzorrorojo]

I remember playing the sequel to this game on the super famicom. It was pretty good.

[@RetroCore]

That's right. Part two was on the SFC.

[@Seth-nt9bf]

There are two versions of the arcade game: An earlier version where you have more health and enemy bullets are smaller, and the later harder version shown in this video. I like the free range aspect of this game which is impressive for 1985.

[@RetroCore]

Oh man, trust me to play the harder version.

[@LegendaryWizball88]

My parents had this in their arcade. I always thought it was decent. Got a Switch release last week.

[@RetroCore]

That's cool your parents had an arcade.

[@LegendaryWizball88]

@@RetroCore It was 1983. I was 10. I got a C64 for Christmas with a tonne of of pirated disks and they bought an arcade. Dad bought the Elevator Action arcade cabinet home for a bit. Great year!

[@Nathan-rb3qp]

@@LegendaryWizball88 I'm jealous.

[@robertdanker6193]

Wow never knew about this game before! Good video!!

[@alritedave]

I remember playing the ZX Spectrum port as a kid. I never could seem to figure it out IIRC.

[@RetroCore]

I'm not surprised at all.

[@alritedave]

@@RetroCore As obtuse as I remember then lol?

[@WMARUoriginal]

What an interesting game. Never heard of it so neat to see these.

[@SimianScience]

him as a cyborg is reminding me of vr troopers. an american show based off sentai

[@RetroCore]

Ah, I recall that had a Mega Drive game.

[@ricmagus]

Mongolianchop vr troopers was based on "metal hero" subgenre, not super sentai. Both are from toei, but metal hero is other franchise. Vr troopers used footage from spielvan, metalder and shaider.

[@SimianScience]

@@ricmagus i mistook sentai for something else

[@net_news]

wow I didn't know this game... the NES version is amazing!! it would have blew my mind as a kid back in the day!!!!!!

[@toonboy2041]

I kinda overlooked this game on the Switch Eshop but now I might check it out

[@jonraymondchua2388]

This game (well the thumbnail) actually reminds me of a Japanese show I watched when I was a kid... It was known as Shaider here... Also a space sheriff/cop

[@RetroCore]

Can't say I know that one.

[@metalcoola]

Played it on C64, but, it was named Hero 2020, title was apparently changed for US due to license issues.

[@RetroCore]

Strange. Never knew that.

[@gravious]

i had this on an old (ahem) 'white label' C90 compilation tape on my ZX Spectrum, never knew anything about it other than what i saw when playing. was deeply confusing and very clunky but i loved it. i keep meaning to play the arcade version..

[@RetroCore]

Lol, "white Lable" indeed 😁. I had a few of those too back on the Commodore Plus 4.

[@Angellmbrr]

I went a lot to the arcades, I owned a C64 and a NES, and no, I have not seen this game in my life, until now.

[@RetroCore]

It's quite an obscure Arcade I'd say.

[@jessragan6714]

Cosmo Police Galivan... Space Sherriff Sharivan. Nichibutsu was just begging for a lawsuit with this one. Of course, here in America our only exposure to the Metal Hero series was VR Troopers, so people will play this and wonder what happened to the talking dog.

[@RetroCore]

Lol, indeed.

[@thepeller210]

Reminds me of crap pre Turrican! Great vid again Mark 😉

[@Konuvis]

For a sec I thought it was Space Sheriff Gyavan

[@ricmagus]

To be fair, is a mix of gyaban and shaider. At least the arcade version

[@DragonSlayerKyo]

The game was heavily "influenced" by both.

[@WaterArk]

Same here! I was convinced this was a Metal Hero series!

[@marksanders1962]

Love this show...!

[@ynotwalk7391]

Ninja Emaki is pretty fun with that intense Nichibutsu sound

[@CorporalDanLives]

Wooow, multi-directional scrolling! On SOME of the ports, anyway.

[@JolliAllGenGamer]

Never heard of this game maybe I will try it out on MAME or my NES sometime.

[@amerigocosta7452]

There was also a sort of knock off of Galivan on the Commodore 64 called...Calvin!

[@RetroCore]

Lol, nice. I'll have to find that.

[@BlockABoots]

The C64 always with the smoothest scrolling by a country mile, what was it about the hardware that made is so much better than the ZX and CPC at scrolling??. What were the prices of these 3 micros in UK?

[@steadfastcollapse]

Hardware scrolling and hardware sprites, that's what made the c64 more suited for videogames. I've read somewhere that the CPC in fact had hardware scrolling but it was much harder to implement successfully as in the c64.

[@jasejj]

C64 was £399 on release, Spectrum was £179. The Amstrad came along a few years later at about £350 but with a monitor thrown in. The Spectrum was never designed with games in mind, in fact Clive Sinclair found it annoying that his machine was used in that way. It was an accident pretty much that it was usable as a games machine at all... Sinclair wanted maximum memory to be available for code and that meant a small screen buffer. This meant it was fast (for a non-accelerated graphics system) simply because there wasn't much memory to push about. The C64 was always a games machine first. As a home micro it's actually pretty poor; machines like the BBC blew the thing away as a computer for similar outlay.

[@jasejj]

@@steadfastcollapse Nah, it had a hack that allowed for smooth vertical scrolling of the entire screen by modifying the top of screen memory, but this was of very little use for most games, and useless for horizontal scrolling.

[@josemariapena4226]

The c64 cost three Times a zx spectrum!!! Don 't worth. The Zx Spectrum was the best price quality relation of all machines of the 80s so far!!!

[@JakZie]

The C64 version has only two levels, which loop endlessly... No wonder it was advertised as a "mission you can't complete". Not the Imagine's finest hour, there!

[@Charlie-Cat.]

Got these babies in the collection Mark. Well worth the investment. 8^) Anthony..

[@RetroCore]

Have you played part 2?

[@sheppo]

Used to love this game. It’s basically an origin story fir Turrican

[@RetroCore]

I never thought of that but yeah, you've got a point.

[@WeskerSega]

Yakumo, are you doing the first Bomberman for the PC Engine anytime soon? It's an interesting one. Aside from the original PC Engine version, it has Amiga, Atari ST, PC MS-DOS and X68000 versions.

[@RetroCore]

Bomberman is one I'd like to tackle when I have some extra time. Doesn't it also have an original GameBoy port? It's probably going to be a big show.

[@WeskerSega]

@@RetroCore I don't think any Game Boy Bomberman game is based on the 1990 PC Engine game (ie, the one which isn't either '93 or '94) like the Amiga, Atari ST, PC MS-DOS and X68000 versions were (the ones for western computers were known as DynaBlaster). The one you mean is probably Bomber Boy, which is partially based on the original 1983 game. That one also has a big share of versions, even bigger in fact. Maybe you should do an episode for the original 1983 game first and then another one for the 1990 PC Engine game.

[@shukterhousejive]

I guess we can file this one under "simple arcade action game with a full home console reimagining on the NES/Famicom and a bunch of terrible ports to 8-bit micros"

[@RetroCore]

Yep.

[@IanMicheal]

I use play it on my c64 as a kid always thought it was a good port.. out of all these it's the best the controls and feel make it a good game to play on the c64 ..

[@RetroCore]

Yep, the C64 version controls very well.

[@mightyfilm]

I like the contrast between the arcade and the Famicom version. The arcade version goes for a wackier, cartoony art style, where as the Famicom game goes out of its way to look dramatic and cool and even has that wannabe Tokusatsu intro. Of course, the arcade looks like a mashup between a platformer and a space shooter, while the Famicom version just screams basic platformer. The arcade one at least has a sense of style and flair.

[@solarflare9078]

LMAO at 2:17 from gaining and losing the powerup 3 times before keeping it. Quit it Mark, you're giving the music engine a seizure!

[@RetroCore]

Lol, quality entertainment.

[@Wizbitsrandomgaming]

Had this on my Amstrad Played the hell out of it and got nowhere lol

[@RetroCore]

Lol, that doesn't surprise me. The game is so awkward to play.

[@liambyrne3488]

The arcade version main sprite very much resembles Robocop.

[@RetroCore]

In a away. Robocop did come later though in 1987.

[@williamhowe1]

I'm surprised Toei didn't sue the makers of the game for copyright infringement.

[@TheLemminkainen]

Commodore64 to win 👍🏻

[@cristianobb13]

love your vids man top quality! i always love the amstrad CPC and spectrum colors & asthetic but sadly the gameplay is almost always a huge downgrade from the original specially when it involves screen scrolling. (for one i LOVE the way Turrican 1 looks on the speccy but the gameplay is pretty janky)

[@MikeStavola]

Karen Davies is a woman. She did a bunch of art for C64 games for Imagine and Denton Designs.

[@RetroCore]

I'd hope she was a woman being named Karen

[@euphorik3120]

where are they today? i do wonder what a lot of these developers are up to now days 🤔 hope teaching others their skill

[@MarcoPolo82]

This game was inspired on the Metal Heroes Tokusatsus, specially Shaider.

[@DennisTamayo]

Shaider was a Filipino classic, & footage of the show was featured in the 2nd season of VR Troopers.

[@jesuszamora6949]

Lack of Master System version is a bit surprising. The arcade game even looks like My Hero...

[@RetroCore]

As far as I know, NihonBusan never had any of there stuff move over to Sega Systems until the Saturn age.

[@jesuszamora6949]

@@RetroCore Interesting, that. Just that graphic style, with the saturated colors JUMPED at me, and that's the first thing I thought of. My Hero is crap, BTW.

[@spacefractal]

Im have heard some companies was forced to do some ports of abscure games, if they wanted to license one of the bigger arcade succes. This game could been one of them. Im have not heard this game. All versions does looks pretty nice, even gameplay might suffer for sure. Nice to see not a direct Spectrum ports to Amstrad, dispites its issues.

[@RetroCore]

That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

[@rasherbasher8203]

Battle of the ports❤❤♥️♥️

[@thrillington2008]

The coin op is great, CPC is so so, C64 is decent within limitations, ZX Spectrum shit in the bed and NES does something completely different but average when executed.

[@masenko2006]

Space Sheriff Gavan ripoff, neat

[@shotgunl]

I've never played the first Galivan game in any format, though I have played some of the Super Famicom Galivan beat-em-up game (which is memorable simply because it has one of, if not the absolute, worst soundtrack on the system IMO...). This game looks pretty fun, both the arcade version and the Famicom take. The C-64 version seems pretty decent too. Moon Cresta and Terra Cresta will probably remain (by far) my favorite Nichibutsu games, but I'll have to give this one a chance.

[@RetroCore]

Ah yes, Galivan 2 on the SFC has some awful music and very stuff animation if I remember correctly. It's also nothing like the original. I need to load that up again for a memory check.

[@loganjorgensen]

See it's from the "tall for no reason" era of games, I'm guessing cab conversion of Pac Man or Galaga cabinets probably. FYI when Up=Jump it's usually because the joysticks had only one button, not actually technically correct but unfortunate reality for 2600/VIC-20/C64/CPC, and then more of that limiting nonsense for Amiga and ST later on. :S Boy they really must have thought the 3:4 aspect ratio was critical to the game design or something on CPC and ZX, it's not though lol. C64 one looks pretty good, comparable to the original. NES version looks decent, a little vacant in level design but the stat building is welcome for a home version.

[@RetroCore]

I can imagine they had a load of Arcade units left over from Crazy Climber and had to use them up.

[@loganjorgensen]

@@RetroCore Yeah I could see that. ;) It's funny to think how many cabs got converted over the years where now the classic collectable game is put back in again at the end.

[@curtisnewton895]

pretty sure it's "gavan"

[@Dumbledork_Prime]

Looking at the NES port it is obvious that this is a blatant ripoff of Space Sheriff Gavan. I loved watching that series on French TV back in the 80s.

[@RetroCore]

That's a TV series that never made its way to the UK. I have no idea what it is.

[@Dumbledork_Prime]

@@RetroCore Really, even though you live in Japan? It's a tokusatsu show that was really popular in France, just like the Super Sentai shows, until they were replaced by the vastly inferior Power Rangers. I loved those shows when I was young. I remember the first one that aired in France in 1980-1981: Spectreman. I was only 5 at the time, but to little me it was the best thing ever... I rewatched the first few episodes on youtube recently and the show has aged horribly.

[@iXien]

Galivan on CPC was a real disappointment. In 1986, numerous super sentai series were broadcast on French tv, really loved by children. With its colorful GFX you could show on magazines and If you add the very nice visual drawn by Bob WAKELIN (a talented designer that drawn most of the box artworks for the Ocean/Imagine games, that sadely passed away in 2018), Galivan was very apealing title.Sadly, as soon as you started the game, you didn't really inderstand what you were looking at. We wonders if the vertical format taken from the arcade does not hide the desire of the developers to make development easier with a narrower game window (with all elements too big for a so small window). The graphics are so confusing and the scrolling totally jerky, near unplayable. No ingame music and sounds are really annoying. Sadly there is nothing to save here appart from a very nice artwork ( www.cpc-power.com/PictureZoom.php?extra=goodies&fiche=947&slot=3&part=A&type=.jpg ). One of these promising games on paper that was terribly disappointing at launch. Funny detail, the game was very well known to French players because it was part of a compilation of games often offered by Amstrad with the purchase of a CPC (fortunately, this compilation also included very good games)

[@fernandocollazo8705]

Such bad game ...

[@esathegreat]

why is the nes music always so terrible

[@RetroCore]

I guess NihonBusan has no good sound composers.