Although I've previously covered The Tower of Druaga on Game Boy Works, this version precedes the portable rendition by half a decade and stands as the more towering achievement of the two. So to speak. Another solid arcade-to-Famicom conversion by Namcot, Druaga's move to consoles felt like a figurative as well as literal homecoming: As an arcade game, Druaga feels frankly unfair thanks to its harsh one-hit-kill combat and mandatory secrets hidden behind abstruse and unintuitive rules. As a home game, however, Druaga offered a more expansive role-playing-style adventure than had ever been seen on consoles, and its design comes off as far less punishing when you don't have to drop 100 yen into the machine every time you run out of lives (which happens frequently). I don't know that I'd recommend Druaga today, as many games followed in its wake that built and improved on its design... but would those games have had a design to improve on without Druaga? I say they would not.

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OK, this week we have the ACTUAL debut of Irem on Famicom, but it's hard to say TOSE's take on Zippy Race makes for a splashier debut than 10-Yard Fight would have. At least 10-Yard Fight had the benefit of not having been shown up by a conversion of the same game to technically inferior hardware more than a year earlier. TOSE also helps a second publisher make its debut here with Sunsoft's first Famicom release: A similarly underwhelming arcade-to-console conversion of the game Arabian. If you love Ice Climber's jump physics (spoilers: you don't), you'll love Super Arabian (spoilers: you won't). Finally, wrapping up the episode, we have another arcade port from Taito. Front Line more or less invented a genre, but does that mean this version has any value besides its place in history? (Spoilers: it doesn't.) Yes, it's dark times for Famicom.

Video Works is a patron-funded project. For early video access, exclusive podcasts and mini-zines, and more, please support my work at patreon.com/gamespite — thank you!

Well, I goofed on this episode—the production order list I work for ended up getting scrambled due a copy/paste error, and I accidentally covered Geimos and 10-Yard Fight out of sequence (they shipped right after Robot Gyro, not Robot Block). This means that 10-Yard Fight wasn't actually Irem's first Famicom! Since I was on the road when I realized this during final caption edits, I couldn't rework this episode. So please look forward to next episode, where I walk it back a bit. Overall, though, the details and sentiments here are otherwise correct—Robot Block is a waste, Geimos is interesting if derivative and shallow, and 10-Yard Fight's history largely holds true. Anyway.

Video Works is a patron-funded project. For early video access, exclusive podcasts and mini-zines, and more, please support my work at patreon.com/gamespite — thank you!