Clu Clu Land retrospective: A brief bout of Pac-mania | NES Works

[@Neverhoodian]

Bubbles: video gaming's first pole dancer.

[@GoombaKiller171]

Dang it, you beat me to it.

[@taiphonix9232]

THAT'S PERFECT!

[@sewart]

I'm struck by the reuse of some of the elements in this game in future Zelda games. Those ingots sure look like rupees. The sound when flipped is definitely reused in Zelda as well. I think the moneybag sprite even shows up in Zelda II. Nice video as always, Jeremy. I've somehow avoided playing this game for all these years. I definitely want to check it out.

[@ShyGuyXXL]

Devil World could've easily been reskinned to be without the religious references. The cross power-ups could've been magic wands or something and the bibles could've been keys. The cross on the map could be turned into one long block with 2 seperate small blocks on the side of it. Now just call the Devil a demon, rename the game to Demon World or something and voilà, no more taboo themes.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

See, that could work. The goofy ice cream cones and egg looking things could've stayed in. The Devil itself is pretty goofy all its own without altering its appearance.

[@Tom-jw7ii]

They could just license it to wisdom tree for a steam rerelease

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

Take the wings off the Devil. Call it a troll. Easy.

[@ShyGuyXXL]

@@TheSmart-CasualGamer Also, considering he turns into a bat when you win the stage, you could turn him into a Vampire.

[@gooberthoreau]

Yeah, I thought the same as many here, that localization didn't seem a huge hurdle at all. In general, many of Nintendo's censoring efforts were self imposed as branding choices in the U.S.

[@djnekroman]

Jeremy, I can't even begin to explain how happy I was to discover your channel, and how utterly stoked I get anytime I see a new upload from you. Keep up the fantastic work! Promise I'll buy one of your books when I'm a little less constantly broke...

[@Harrinsain]

I don't think i ever would have touched Clu Clu Land or Devil world before this video, despite knowing about both of them, but I'll definitely give them a play now. They look pretty fun

[@ChrisGorski]

I haven't even watched the episode yet, but given the quality of the other seven eps., I'm just going to give it a thumbs up anyway

[@kamiboy]

The maze runners had stopped being pacman clones and turned into a full fledged genre by this time. Any genre starts by a sea of clones following in the curtails of an innovator, but after enough clones are made people stop referring to them by degrading terms such as clones and instead refer to them as being a member of a genre, which is much more respectable. It is fascinating to follow the history of long running genres back to their roots to see where exactly the distinction started to be made. When did Space Invaders sire the shooter genre rather than a litter of me too clones? Most likely right around the Space Invaders formula had been so morphed as to be unrecognizable, such as with Xevious and Gradius. The maze runner "genre" though didn't have legs, and was left in the dust of the early arcade generation. It didn't even really last long enough for people to properly recognize its members as a being respectable members of a genre, rather than jus vulgar clones.

[@tringuyenminh9353]

Camous .jnhn

[@KuraIthys]

It's very true. And the use of 'clone' in a derogatory sense can also be a bit weird when the reference point is not the originator of the genre. For instance Doom and Quake 'clones'. Quake clone is especially weird given Quake is in many ways a more elaborate clone of Doom. If technology alone can define a new genre, then yes, they are distinct things, but otherwise, they aren't. And of course, Doom was an extension of Wolfenstein 3d... (Wolfenstein 3d's history in a technical sense is even weirder, since it's predecessors were '3d' engines created for first person RPG's... - though this has little to do with the idea of game 'clones'.) Speaking of which though, an older term for what would become the FPS genre, is '3d maze game'. And it follows that if you trace that line backwards, some of the earliest examples were clones of pac man in a first person perspective. So in a very roundabout way you could call Quake a pacman clone. XD

[@AndrewJohnstonerulez]

so they really reused a lot of those assets for Zelda right? The rupees, the octoroks, and even I think the XP bag's from Zelda 2 and there was at least one Zelda sound effect I heard in there

[@exactspace]

It looks like the ideas were reused, but not exact copies of what they were in this game. Cool to see where they came from though!

[@rorydropkick]

One thing I might point out Jeremy, the GG port of Pac Man actually does have a full screen mode just like the GB port. On the title screen you can push left or right on the d-pad and it'll pull up a little "1/2" icon showing that it is activated.

[@FallicIdol]

Where were you two decades ago? :)

[@christiancarrion9017]

I think the ice cream cones in Devil World symbolize temptation. It’s tempting to veer close to the dangerous moving wall to grab a bonus treat.

[@sonicmario64]

5:30 - "Soft-serve ice cream cones, for some reason..." Because everyone loves ice cream, of course! (Unless you're someone who is lactose-intolerant, that is.) ;)

[@absolite6]

Ahhh! You're telling me on the no stop movement of Bubbles. I felt my eyes spin trying to keep up with the pole movement, the developing pattern, the enemies AND any items at once. 💫

[@katt-the-pig]

With Devil World recieving a large focus, I'm surprised it didn't get paired with Clu Clu Land in the title.

[@gabrieleriva651]

Draygone RPGMmag yes, I just spent a day wondering if I had dreamt Jeremy doing an episode on Devil World...

[@MisterDrBob]

It's good to see these coming out on such a regular basis. Great thoughts as always!

[@Fryguy64]

I absolutely adore Clu Clu Land. Bubbles was even playable again in DK: King of Swing on GBA - if you unlocked EVERYTHING first... No mean feat.

[@jlc992]

I'm shocked we still haven't gotten Devil World on VC. Yeah I know Nintendo (namely NoA mostly) hasn't been the greatest at giving us it but I can't see why they wouldn't just put it up there by now.

[@Jolis_Parsec]

Hey, I’m from the future of 2024 and I just wanted to say that Nintendo finally added Devil World to Nintendo Switch Online’s NES library.

[@StewNWT]

I love this game I've always found it strangley similar to Mappy which was another favorite

[@mynie]

your reviews are far and away the best I don't know why they don't get more attention

[@KingCrimson82]

thats super cool game design and could have withstood dearly in the arcade thanks to its rich instant gameplay.

[@Jolis_Parsec]

I see the rupees from Zelda in Clu-Clu Land’s playfield. Is that an intentional Easter egg on Nintendo’s part or did the artist simply reuse a sprite that they had readily available? 🤔

[@BanditTheCat2017]

Great video as usual with lots of detail. Surprised you didn't mention those ingots(?) = Rupees. Also, that money bag looks a lot like the p-bag from Zelda 2, and from Devil World, the top of the skull looks like the flag at the end of levels of SMB, and the bible looks like the book from Zelda. I'm also a little surprised Nintendo didn't give Clu Clue Land a different title. Not only does it sound nonsensical to Americans, it also vaguely sounds like Ku Klux Klan.

[@JeremyParish]

+deathcrustpunk I thought about it, but the video's already 16 minutes long and another digression would have been the death of us all.

[@midget35]

+deathcrustpunk Also - those books in Devil World sometimes have question marks. Very much like SMB's Question Mark Blocks :)

[@Ariancia.Thystarian]

I remember mom and I loving to play this game, when I was a child

[@bluedistortions]

Is it just me, or do the devil's minions always scroll the screen in the exact opposite direction he points? Odd that never got noticed in testing.

[@unoclay]

I was curious about this game for ages and when it appeared in the WiiU and when it appeared in NES Remix, i grabbed a copy as a Christmas present from my wife. It’s pretty darn hard to get the controls straight, but I’ve progressed over time and gotten much better at it. It’s hard to define...i love the black box era, but this game feels somehow flawed. Dont get me wrong--its fun in a bizarre way. But the difficulty of mastering the controls makes it seem somehow un-nintendo, somehow. Not really, but sort of. Like they came up with a bizarre concept for a maze game and went with it, even though the controls are unintuitive and easy to mess up, even after you’ve played a lot. Never knew that Devil in Smash Bros. was from the Devil World game! Thanks as always, excellent video.

[@jjmah7]

I never got to play Clu Clu Land when I was a kid, barely any stores in the US carried it for some reason

[@AustinofEarth]

This was one of the only games I ever got in the GC release of Animal Crossing. So many, Nook didn't want em, I didn't want em, had to bury em.

[@JeremyParish]

+AustinofEarth I never got the original Clu Clu Land, but I did get Clu Clu Land D, which was really my introduction to Famicom imports.

[@k2montgomery419]

This looks fun. I’d love to try it sometime.

[@neojeets]

Loved this one as a kid. The best feature for me was the 2-player mode.

[@kenny9648]

I saw a mistake in the japanese release date, on 2:06. ;-) But anyway, as always, great video! Continue like that!

[@dallase1]

Clu Clu Land is Not a Pac Man Clone. You don't eat dots and energizers and get chased by Ghosts, you try to turn over panels and can't get energized to eat the enemies and just get frustrated by it's annoying way too awkward control and game play that is difficult due do to the annoying control of your character. When I saw it I did not see it as a Pac Man Clone or Pac Man type game, I thought it looked neat from the screen shots on the box and did not know it was going to have annoying control that is too damn complex to get used to and completely unenjoyable to play.

[@OlDirtySam]

I think it is pretty far fetched to call it a pac man clone only because it has some sligtly similar mechanics. By this standard an airplane is a bike clone. Apart from this it was a game i realy liked. Especialy the way you move made it fun for me.

[@OlDirtySam]

@Most Deadest Pool of em All. You would have lost this bet. Btw the arena is not even maze like. And by this standard why don't call out cs or diablo for beeing a pacman clone?

[@heres_hubie]

Right? Like it's just too different to be a pacman clone

[@supersmashbro596]

the music of clu clu land is actually pretty good.

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

Funnily enough, a bootleg version of this game exists called Pac Pac Land, to narrow the connection.

[@MaxW-er1hm]

I've given this game a lot of tries...it's just too odd of mechanics for me to truly enjoy. Still, no matter . I wouldn't watch anyone else cover games I don't like, but in this series, I wouldn't miss it

[@EricKlein]

Wonderful as always!

[@smawzyv9281]

what is Bubbles?

[@dezm101]

any time I have tried to play this I cannot seem to figure out the controls and become frustrated, so I have never really given it much of a chance

[@MaxW-er1hm]

I've played it over a dozen times- while I 'get' the controls now , I still don't care for it and never really gel w it. I gave it a chance and it still frustrates anyway...

[@kylegetz4917]

is it just me or does it look like they reused sprites from these games in the legend of zelda? the gold ingots from clu clu land look like rupees, and the bible in devil world looks like the book of magic.

[@stevemanart]

Ruppes and mouthless Octoroks.... hmmm.......

[@chloeadams10]

Underated masterpiece

[@jamesembry4921]

It gets a lot of hate, but I had more fun with my Wii-U than just about any other system.

[@jamesmoss3424]

Clu Clu land is a weird game and I will play it. 😀👍🎮

[@dozerfan1979]

It was the first and worst game I ever rented.

[@BanditTheCat2017]

snazzy logo

[@zxKAOS1]

I thought it was "sah-teen"?

[@Spacedoggs]

OMG, CLU CLU LAND WAS MY FAVORITE GAME AS A KID!!! J/K, I've never met another human being who ever admitted owning this game, let alone firing it up in front of me. And even if some perverse/cheap aunt gave it to them for Christmas, every one of my friends would have been savvy enough to keep it sealed long enough to get an exchange after the holidays. A commendable effort on your part with this entry, but I'll be sticking with Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge, thank you very much!

[@OlDirtySam]

My grandma owned one and i liked it. But i have to admit it was sometimes frustrating difficult