Gaiapolis (NES)

 This is an unlicensed port of the arcade game of the same game. Double unlicensed, even, since they didn't ask Nintendo if they could make a Famicom game, nor did they get permission from Konami to make a port of their arcade game. Still, this is the game to show people when they, in their ignorance, parrot lazy old stereotypes about unlicensed Famicom games being low quality, as when it came out (circa 1994-95, according to people who probably know, like those to maintain the Bootleg Games Wiki), it might well have been the best beat em up on the console.

 

But before I get onto that, I should probably describe the arcade game for those who don't know it, and also address the inevitable differences that are going to happen in porting an arcade game to vastly underpowered hardware. The arcade Gaiapolis is a vertically-scrolling, top-down beat em up with a fantasy theme and even a little bit of RPG nonsense. The RPG stuff comes in the form of not only experience points and level ups, but also in passwords used to carry those over into future games (something Capcom would later also do in their single player-focused fighting game Red Earth/Warzard). You also get little buddies following you round to help fight enemies. A little robot knight or a little armadillo thing, etc.

 

This version is also a top-down vertically scrolling beat em up, and it does a pretty impressive job of replicating the game at this basic level. It includes all three playable characters from the original, has a simultaneous two-player mode and manages to put you up against several enemies at a time, all feats that even some SNES beat em ups famously couldn't manage. The levelling up is also present, though there's no passwords to carry it between games (and since you always fight the same enemies and get the same items, this means you always level up at the exact same rate). The little buddies are also gone, which is understandable, but still a little sad.

 

On its own terms, without compared it to the original, Gaiapolis is a good game. It looks amazing, there are very few Famicom games that can boast of such detailed backgrounds (there's some really impressive animated rivers and stuff that look amazing!), or of throwing around so many big characters around the screen all at once. There's a few points where a discerning eye can see the metaphorical strings (one big example is that your screen-clearing magic attack and the large sprites used for certain bosses are both made of background tiles, so they can only appear on alternating frames), but honestly, that kind of thing only makes it all more charming. And most importantly, it's fun to play, too.

 

Obviously, you can probably play the arcade version in 2026 just as easily as you can this one. Maybe even easier! Which does make this version a little obsolete from a totally objective standpoint, but I think it does still have some value. It's a fun game, even though it's so heavily compromised, truncated, and abridged, and more importantly: it's interesting. It's so far beyond most (maybe all) of the officially released Famicom beat em ups, and it really shows that the people at Sachen really had a handle on how to get the most out of the system, which was a decade old when this game was released. If you are interested in developers drawing miracles from ancient hardware, it's definitely worth your time.