As a kid, one of my favorite games was Mystical Ninja 64. I was always disappointed it was never re-released officially on any of Nintendo's services, so when I got a gaming PC emulating it was a top priority...and in the process seeing a bulk of the franchise has been translated I decided to check out the bulk of the series offerings!
Let's Go! Goemon 2: Very Strange General McGuiness - Complete
In which you do battle against a weeaboo Hulk Hogan
Of all the Goemon games I've played, this is the straightest "no thrills" platformer I've experienced. There's the usual town areas where you can walk around and buy items, but otherwise it's mostly pure platforming with a pretty linear progression. I recall there's about one level with a "hidden" exit, that I found without issue, and there's some minigames you can play that unlock a hidden bonus level (I didn't do it but I need to go back and try it), but it's mostly pretty easy to figure out how to progress and thus one of the easier titles to complete even before it was translated.
The big addition to this game is the first playable (I believe) appearance of Sasuke, the mechanical ninja and later Yu-Gi-Oh card. No Yae outside cameos. In addition to Goemon and Ebisumaru, you can choose him whenever starting up your file but to switch characters you have to reset the game each time. Each character has a starting amount of money they begin with upon each session, that seems to reset whenever you reset the game, get a Game Over, or clear a boss, or that's what I recall---using ryo to buy items is a big part of the Goemon games but I found myself kind of overlooking. Each character has a few minor differences in movement speed and the way they attack, but I mostly played as Goemon to get the purest experience as he seemed who the levels were probably designed around, just trying out the other two for a bit. Ebisu is slow and can't jump but I think takes slightly less damage, while Sasuke moves very fast and probably makes a lot of the platforming easier. It honestly felt like most jumps as Goemon just barely made it.
Oh there's also little Ride Armor parts like in Mega Man X and little vehicles here and there, but it's sort of a small part of the game not worth really remembering.
I would say the game isn't too hard due to the fact you can grind for additional health items, and the continue system is pretty lenient---you can exit out to buy items, or even get a Game Over, and pick right back up where you left off at checkpoints. Some later areas require you to redo segments before getting a chance to fight a tough boss, but this is a pretty approachable Goemon game outside the final boss which I found to be absolutely infuriating and relying on redirecting their projectiles in a way that felt obtuse and finnicky. The platforming again is kind of tight with Goemon as the standard, and the autoscroller levels can be demanding, but there's not too many extremely difficult parts. The game does seem to like to sort of surprise you with an end level trap to throw you off, though, and also the enemies are pretty unrelenting and spawn quickly when they go offscreen. You gotta really be constantly attacking as you move.
This game also introduces the now iconic Impact boss fights, a visual treat but in most cases kind of frustrating and difficult---I had to retry them multiple times. Before each Impact fight there's a little action stage that allows you to build up ryo, the currency of Goemon which also doubles as energy for projectile attacks for both the characters and Impact, and health energy for the fight. If you lose against the Impact boss, you need to redo the action segment to go into the fight with enough ammo and energy or else you'll be in for a rough time. In this game you lose energy even if you're not being attacked.
Overall I'd say this is a very solid platformer, and one of two styles the bulk of future Goemon games seem to take after. Graphics are extremely bright and colorful.
Let's Go! Goemon 2: Very Strange General McGuiness - Complete
In which you do battle against a weeaboo Hulk Hogan
Of all the Goemon games I've played, this is the straightest "no thrills" platformer I've experienced. There's the usual town areas where you can walk around and buy items, but otherwise it's mostly pure platforming with a pretty linear progression. I recall there's about one level with a "hidden" exit, that I found without issue, and there's some minigames you can play that unlock a hidden bonus level (I didn't do it but I need to go back and try it), but it's mostly pretty easy to figure out how to progress and thus one of the easier titles to complete even before it was translated.
The big addition to this game is the first playable (I believe) appearance of Sasuke, the mechanical ninja and later Yu-Gi-Oh card. No Yae outside cameos. In addition to Goemon and Ebisumaru, you can choose him whenever starting up your file but to switch characters you have to reset the game each time. Each character has a starting amount of money they begin with upon each session, that seems to reset whenever you reset the game, get a Game Over, or clear a boss, or that's what I recall---using ryo to buy items is a big part of the Goemon games but I found myself kind of overlooking. Each character has a few minor differences in movement speed and the way they attack, but I mostly played as Goemon to get the purest experience as he seemed who the levels were probably designed around, just trying out the other two for a bit. Ebisu is slow and can't jump but I think takes slightly less damage, while Sasuke moves very fast and probably makes a lot of the platforming easier. It honestly felt like most jumps as Goemon just barely made it.
Oh there's also little Ride Armor parts like in Mega Man X and little vehicles here and there, but it's sort of a small part of the game not worth really remembering.
I would say the game isn't too hard due to the fact you can grind for additional health items, and the continue system is pretty lenient---you can exit out to buy items, or even get a Game Over, and pick right back up where you left off at checkpoints. Some later areas require you to redo segments before getting a chance to fight a tough boss, but this is a pretty approachable Goemon game outside the final boss which I found to be absolutely infuriating and relying on redirecting their projectiles in a way that felt obtuse and finnicky. The platforming again is kind of tight with Goemon as the standard, and the autoscroller levels can be demanding, but there's not too many extremely difficult parts. The game does seem to like to sort of surprise you with an end level trap to throw you off, though, and also the enemies are pretty unrelenting and spawn quickly when they go offscreen. You gotta really be constantly attacking as you move.
This game also introduces the now iconic Impact boss fights, a visual treat but in most cases kind of frustrating and difficult---I had to retry them multiple times. Before each Impact fight there's a little action stage that allows you to build up ryo, the currency of Goemon which also doubles as energy for projectile attacks for both the characters and Impact, and health energy for the fight. If you lose against the Impact boss, you need to redo the action segment to go into the fight with enough ammo and energy or else you'll be in for a rough time. In this game you lose energy even if you're not being attacked.
Overall I'd say this is a very solid platformer, and one of two styles the bulk of future Goemon games seem to take after. Graphics are extremely bright and colorful.
