Gimmick [Famicom] review - SNESdrunk

[@OldsXCool]

You know, I've seen several You Tubers mention this game, but they never put into words why this game is so good. I know I've said this to you before, but you've gotta gift my friend. I popped this in my emulator and couldn't believe that this game never made it State side. It's an absolute crime that it's never been released digitally.

[@SNESdrunk]

That's a nice thing to say, thanks

[@koopakape]

Yeah, snes drunk has a way of saying more with less words/time than most reveiwers

[@BurlapAndPlywood]

Check out the channel "Illusory Wall", he also recently made a very in depth video about the game and why it's so great

[@aayushpal6621]

Well friend I have some good news for you

[@renegade1298]

its amazing to see you cover this game, btw the "green guy" 's name is Yumetaro, a green youkai.... not "Mr.Gimmick".... Gimmick is the name of the world, Gimmick fans, take a shot everytime someone says Yumetaro is Mr.Gimmick... actually don't, you'd die of alcohol poisoning just from how many people call Yumetaro that. Also please check out Trip World.

[@AFnord]

What i find most impressive about Mr. Gimmick are all the little touches. Like if you turn the little spiny guys on their back, and stand on them, they'll push you backwards slowly, as they flail their legs. And the bugs that you see at 3:42, they're harmless, they just want to go back to their nest (if you follow them back, you can see them go into their nest). Also, fun fact: The Swedish magazine Nintendomagasinet gave this game the lowest score on their difficulty scale. They also did not give any real detail on the game in their review... While this is not the hardest game on the NES to just "beat"(and get the bad ending), it's not deserving of the lowest difficulty score either.

[@aetyate]

i also like how the AI gets smarter, like if you're on a platform the little black fuzzballs can't reach and they remain on screen long enough, they'll grow a propeller on top of their head to continue their assault on you

[@Aztyph]

I read that review on Hardcore Gaming 101, and it was both boggling and amusing. All of the reviewers were saying that the game was too easy... save for one reviewer, who basically said, "I don't know what the fuck these other guys are on, because this game is not easy *at all!"* It makes me wonder if most of them barely touched the game's first level, and judged it on its aesthetic alone.

[@rafa2002008]

This is the game I played in the first Nokia cellphones's emulators. This game was great and I always played at least one hour of it at school or home. Great music,great physics,great level design,great difficulty and reward This games is a lot of fun,and when I got a proper emulation of it,with the audio chip support,I knew I was going for a treat Thanks for reviewing this game,means a lot to me for you,who I discovered some weeks ago,put my words for this game into a video!

[@antoniojoserunez4165]

Lucky for you, but what Nokia phone? A Symbian phone or J2ME?

[@BurlapAndPlywood]

"illusory wall" channel made a really in depth and interesting video on the concepts, background, and technical stuff of this game. Definitely worth the watch man!

[@dvirarazi7351]

So we're just going to ignore how gorgeous this game is for an nes title?

[@SNESdrunk]

Whoops, I forgot to include the line, "And we're going to deliberately ignore how gorgeous this game is for an NES title"

[@chooseymomschoose]

It seems to have a few ... heavy influences.

[@LegendoftheAce1]

such faster content these days. I love it! Plus the quality has not taken a dive thank u

[@stucazzo2000]

It looks like a mix of Kirby and Mega Man. Especially with the jumping of Mr. Gimmick, he has the same look as Mega Man.

[@hypolyxa7207]

I haven't seen this since I was a kid... Totally forgot about it. Thank you!

[@xWindreaderx]

Well actually I beat this game in like, 30 minutes!

[@SNESdrunk]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bKjXgKB7np2hlZI

[@JacobRavenglass]

I was going to comment appropriately, but then I saw your name and realized you already know you are

[@DhinCardoso]

Man! This video made my day, and 'That guy' ~ ha ha ha ha ha! Laughing really hard here!

[@fredericmedina8966]

Yeah, whatever.

[@deadfr0g]

0:34 “The little girl opens her present and loves it so much that her other toys drag her into another dimension. What is this, a Roald Dahl story?” *Jane and the Giant Breach*

[@Ruudos]

PAL regions? Make that PAL region. Only releeased in Scandinavia

[@Ramjet164]

Ruudos yeah I remember watching a video years ago about this and thinking that I might actually have a chance of finding this for less than the price of a kidney in the uk only to discover it's a Scandinavian exclusive.

[@AFnord]

Yes, the Scandinavian version does sound worse than the Japanese version. If I'm not mistaken, the verison used for the US reproduction cart uses the same sound chip as the Scandinavian one (which is why it needs Batman: Return of the Joker carts). But don't take my word for that last bit, being a Scandinavian myself, I've got the original in my NES drawer.

[@Grachtnakk]

I think Stadium Events is more rare. Also (maybe) Little Samson? But it's pretty high up.

[@Grachtnakk]

Alriht, it's even more rare than Bubble Bobble 2 appearantly. And that's #2 right behind US Stadium Events.

[@ABCDEFGHdumbo]

scandinavia is multiple nations and not just one. if you've seen a flag with the 2 colors and the almost sideways cross-like design, that's a country that's part of scandinavia.

[@kylewhite5242]

I'd like to hear what you have to say on Trip World for GB, awesome video as always!

[@DubiousGamingOnline]

man i didn't realize the music was that awesome. forgot this is a sunsoft game nice.

[@patendo3510]

I will check this game out. Ty for this video Mr. Drunk :D

[@SNESdrunk]

Thanks for watching

[@BertRamDam]

Wow, never even heard of this game. Looks like it would be so simple but actually very challenging and creative. This game should have been a hit.

[@Color-Theory]

After years of waiting and ignoring overpriced ebay listings, I finally won a copy of Gimmick on a Japanese auction site. Can't wait for it to arrive. Absolutely adore this game. For people interested in Gimmick who don't have a way to play Famicom games, it has a new release on the switch!

[@Waffletigercat]

hahahah That honestly does sound like it could be a Roald Dahl story.

[@chrisbeach423]

I knew nothing about this game until pat reviewed it, this is a classic

[@koolgamzstudio]

Me after hearing someone call Yumetaro “Gimmick” 😧

[@deprecated8036]

The green guy's name is Yumetaro, a yokai

[@retrosoul8770]

Admittedly I do kind of "underappreciate" the Nes somewhat (more of a 16-bit guy), but it's titles like this that make me reconsider/reevaluate it, this looks awesome and the soundtrack is really excellent. Will play this someday.

[@ZakkHung]

ha! I just played this for the first time last night on my Raspberry Pi while scrolling through the NES ROMs. Hard is RIGHT! Maybe I'll do a little better now that you explained the star mechanics. Thanks, brother!

[@benoit1335]

best music soundtrack on the NES!!!

[@MixMasterLar]

This looks pretty legit actually. Might try and get an import of this one EDIT: Just saw the price this one goes for. Maybe I won't actually

[@manichispanic999]

Lar's Gaming Channel I recommend an everdrive

[@theallknowingsause8940]

Little known fact, only 5 people worked on this game, and the original programmer and character artist (he did 2 things) is currently working on an HD remake of Gimmick!

[@Devilman6066]

In the 2000's and 2010's we had first person shooters, in the 80's and 90's we had platformers.

[@SNESdrunk]

The 80s had platformers, the 90s had fighting games

[@niespeludo]

SNES drunk and the spin off of fighting games in the 90s...the beat em up genre. The 2010s will be remembered as the time of open worlds

[@mycabbages3538]

I just watched a speed run of this. They got the good ending in under 12 min. Watching them use the star was awesome.

[@LordShmup]

Awesome. My Friend got a repro of this we played it, it's great. Pretty challenging

[@verlandes1]

This was my favorite game on NES as a kid. Mr. Gimmick would crush it in Super Smash Bros.

[@SwowChowsk]

It’s physically painful that this game never caught on

[@bozscaggzz7475]

This looks awesome and challenging. Never even heard of it.

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

SOMEBODY is suggesting reproduction carts, eh Mr. Mod :) Anyway, dude fantastic review as always and boy am I glad this game is too hard for me and I'm too dumb to get good at it because otherwise I'd be absolutely devastated for not being able to ever own and afford it, especially since I know a guy who doesn't know a thing about games but knows they're "RARE" and "EXPENSIVE" and got this for $1

[@stephenobrien6983]

Wow this looks great. Also, Gimmick's face when he jumps reminds me of Megaman, like seriously, it's uncanny.

[@hemangchauhan2864]

Those spikes are are giving me some Mega Man flashbacks. Holy smokes this game looks hard.

[@Protoman85]

Those limited PAL regions were Sweden, and possibly limitedly in the rest of Scandinavia, wikipedia says so anyway

[@LordMarlle]

All scandinavian Nintendo games are handled by Bergsala in sweden which is probably why it says sweden on wiki

[@Spoocecow]

Such a treasure of a game. So fun, and such weird details, and -- hear me out -- maaaaaaybe the best videogame soundtrack of all time.

[@thornuhh]

Never played or heard of this game. It does look extremely fun. 👍

[@ichemnutcracker]

Wow! This game looks awesome! I wish it had come out in the US. We missed out on some fantastic imports.

[@miaouew]

This is the cutest and best hidden gem discovery I have ever made.

[@nimaiiikun]

Never heard of it until the super mario crossover and realized the Demon Return game borrowed/stole music from Gimmick. Wish it came over state side. It's pretty awesome. Music reminds me of the TG-16/PCE

[@philmason9653]

That sound chip is amazing! I wish that had been more of a thing, but I understand why it wasn't. You can't show music on the back of a box or a magazine screenshot, and a lot of people probably won't notice. And I'm guessing getting enough chips shipped around the North American market was prohibitively expensive, since this gane came out everywhere else, and Castlevania III skipped its extra sound channel for the US version. Still, a world where that became standard would have been fantastic.

[@MechanicalRabbits]

It wasn't a chip cost thing, the NES literally couldn't use them because of how it was built. It's quite the interesting story: The Famicom has an expansion port built into the cartridge slot, but when they released the NES on the USA they moved the port below the console. Nintendo did this because they had just released the Famicom Disk System on Japan, an add-on that would read games on floppy disks and added a sawtooth wave channel to allow more complex music. At the time, disks could carry more data than cartridges, so it made sense if they wanted to release better and bigger games (Zelda and Metroid were originally disk exclusive games, unthinkable on the cartridges of the time). So when bringing the console overseas, they adapted the design to make it easier to plug the disk system in, and that's why the expansion port is below the console instead of where it should be. Things didn't go as they planned though, and the technology around cartridges improved drastically, making them a better option than disks again, so Nintendo re-released the FDS games on cartidge, ditched the add-on, and never released it overseas, making the displacement of the NES expansion port completely useless. Eventually some Japanese devs realized they could use the port on the Famicom to make more advanced games with better music, but at that point the NES was already on the homes of millions of kids, so only the Japanese market could benefit from these added chips, and the soundtracks had to be rearranged to fit with the limitations of the NES when bringing the games to the rest of the world.

[@jasonz7788]

Great work Sir thank you

[@上原登]

This is one of the best games on the Famicom. Still got my original copy

[@miamimagicians]

I recently beat this game and it was so much fun I loved it

[@mukinha]

Wow, must play hidden gem!!

[@Drinkabeerandplayagameofficial]

def one i have been meaning to emulate but never got to. good vid!

[@TheGunmanChannel]

What a gimmick 😆😆

[@electricmastro]

While game has never been localized, thankfully, North America did get Sunsoft's other "lost classic" Ufouria: The Saga. It might not be as good, but I still think it's worth trying out, particularly for those that like Metroid-like games.

[@DHarpuia]

I love this game! One of the best from the NES.

[@dy120481]

Looks like Megaman and Mario 2 had a baby.

[@sidneyd.dacosta4361]

Very impressive

[@McD_James]

This game looks excellent.

[@DontKnowNoSnakes]

It's art direction look to be astonishingly similar to Kirby's Dreamland. Like it could even be a spin off series.

[@13Gangland]

Christopher Andert Except like 100 times harder than Kirby

[@thenostalgiafactor5023]

Total length of video: 300 secs. Total length of "SNES Drunk": 2.5 secs. .8333% of the video was spent listening to "SNES Drunk".

[@bromba9921]

Great soundtrack. I got my 300 dollars copy a while ago...

[@joeyparkhill8751]

This game looks interesting I'll give it a go.

[@chaser5616]

There's always that one guy that said! "Oh i beat this game in like 30 minutes"-SNES Drunk, That's what i called experience :D, i know 'that' type of guy, I've been there ;)

[@julsbarracuda9892]

This game looks like a combination of Mega Man and Kirby. Nice!

[@escaperobe]

Awesome game and I still have legit copy of this game

[@rayceeya8659]

Dude it took me 4m in before I realized it was an NES and not a SNES game. Mind Blown.

[@kromokromo7136]

What a story!!

[@Grachtnakk]

Do you take requests from Patreons only?

[@camokazi1313]

I thought this was an SNES title at first...wow. 🤤

[@LukeTopSecret]

May I request A Boy And His Blob. If you haven't done it yet. Only new here It's a pretty good game and unique.

[@MrNorbert1994]

May I ask you why are you constantly changing between emulators? It's just extremly noticable.

[@SNESdrunk]

NES flash cart and Fceux emulator, blind run with one and save state run with the other

[@joeyparkhill8751]

The soundtrack sounds like an Earthworm Jim soundtrack in my opinion

[@koopakape]

Probably the best NES game that America never got, and yet another victim of the "Well plenty of people own the older console and this would have been successful, but a new console is around now so we're gonna just not bother because we assume everyone in the universe instantly trashed the older one when the new one came out" curse

[@T4KUM4KUN]

MegaKirby bros is awesome!! ill check it, thanks drunk-san :D

[@Seegtease]

Looks like a combination of Megaman, Kirby, and little Samson.

[@SA77888]

I think this game actually SHOULD be quite easy. Its the physics that make it hard......the way your guy doesnt just stop when you stop holding left/right, he takes an extra few steps, making it VERY difficult to to perform ' tight jumps ' also he is very affected by momentum in ways you might not expect. Not like Mario, where your own 'body weight' greatly contributes to the feel of the game............rather in this game, its vertical inclines or hills if you like, that REALLY affect his movemnt in ways you wouldn expect - EXTREMLY difficult to control (once the game starts to get hard).

[@leont6813]

How did you get so far in the game?? I swear I can't even beat the third level lol I love this game nevertheless, nice video!

[@SNESdrunk]

Save states help

[@RetroReminiscence]

I just watched this and got onto eBay to pick me up a copy, and I about spit my coke out when I saw the asking price for it. Apparently it's hard to find. I was wondering why he told all he ways to play it except buying the original cartridge 😂

[@Hardworlder]

Just to reinforce your point, I have listened to this soundtrack many times, but have never played the game at all.

[@alvaroblazquez78]

It actually sounds better than most genesis games. I'm amazed by your ability to struck gold and come up with these hidden gems all the time!

[@Hadmin]

I wish that the guy who borrowed my copy of Mr. Gimmick! 20-25 years ago would return it or the money it's worth!

[@jacktaylor6155]

Worst part is I bet this will never get a remake. Even though the concept itself is a great idea for a story.

[@Fluoride_Jones]

If you beat the game without unlocking the 7th stage, the girl stays lost?! That's some dark shit!

[@ekstrajohn]

Hey why do all your NES videos have that flickering on sprites? Like some frames half of a sprite will disappear. It's kind of super annoying, don't know why. I know the NES had limitations but aren't you using an emulator? Great video otherwise, and a very interesting game!

[@deanolium]

Though on a CRT back in the day, it smoothed out the flicker so it's much less noticeable.

[@dvirarazi7351]

ekstrajohn You mean to say that there's a way to eliminate flickering on emulators? If so, I'd really like to know how

[@SNESdrunk]

Fceux emulator, from their help guide, "On real NES hardware, more than 8 sprites on the screen causes flickering. Enabling this option can reduce flickering by allowing more sprites to be visible at once. But if you prefer to stay 'true' to NES hardware, this should not be checked, because some games rely on the limitation." So I leave it off

[@halyomorpha]

I beat this game in like 30 minutes lol

[@Yordleton]

Sunsoft was really good at utilizing the full capabilities of the NES soundchip, their basslines are actually sampled so they use a channel that goes untouched for music in most games

[@jacktaylor6155]

What makes me mad is I want to play it now just by looking at it.

[@dumiclumic4423]

Cool and very hard...

[@MeinyansHusband]

somebody should make a Gimmick mod for SSB4. just slap big eyes and a horn on Kirby. thete ya go.

[@MeinyansHusband]

*there

[@coryrenshaw3666]

You sold it to me.

[@jessragan6714]

I've played this game, and yikes. It's like Kirby's Adventure by way of Dark Souls.

[@FITsthetics]

holy crap thats an expensive famicom cart!

[@PFR1930]

Do Lemmings.

[@SA77888]

" it follows its own star projectile logic, I guess " lol Not a sentence youre likel to use again in the near future.

[@aetyate]

tfw main character is being called gimmick instead of yumetaro that's ok, the game doesn't say the name ANYWHERE but a heads up of the name :3

[@SNESdrunk]

You didn't post a face

[@aetyate]

sorry i missed the memo

[@SNESdrunk]

It was your memo though, and it said "that face when"

[@aetyate]

that feel when? have i mixed up the meaning of that saying all this time? 🤔

[@SNESdrunk]

Oh, I guess I'm just old

[@safwanreza2387]

I bet this game in like 30 minutes bro

[@moviemetalhead]

Alright no 3 week old comments already in the comments.

[@MrMekmek29]

snnnnnnnnnnes drunk!

[@cgodshall]

I don't know about it, seems gimmicky.. I'll see myself out.......

[@GT6SuzukaTimeTrials]

It wasn't released in USA because we're not smart enough.

[@LilReikoGold]

First