If you’ve got the juice, goddamned use it.
Ganbare Goemon is a franchise that is recognized by Gogglebob.com as “great”. It was featured in one whole article! That was barely about the game at all! That is the highest honor a Konami franchise can receive! Unfortunately, Ganbare Goemon has a spotty history of seeing these shores: The Legend of the Mystical Ninja was the first GG game released in the United States, so we entirely missed the arcade and NES (Famicom) titles. Then we dodged the SNES follow-ups and anything on the Playstation, and had to content ourselves with a N64 or Gameboy title or two. Then we ducked the Mobile and DS titles before the franchise gave up forever in 2005. From there, Goemon characters could barely score so much as a cameo in horny shoot ‘em ups or pachislots. Hell, if it wasn’t for a Mii costume in Smash Bros., it would be a rarity to find someone born in the new millennium that has ever even seen the star of Goemon (it’s Goemon).
But why dwell on the dead? Well, Goemon was owned by Konami, but also produced by Etsunobu Ebisu. Etsunobu Ebisu left Konami in 2005 (oh, there’s that year again) to found Good-Feel Co., Ltd / GoödFeël. Good-Feel developed a number of well-known titles (Wario Land: Shake It!, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Yoshi’s Various Crafted Locations), and reestablished their brand as a force to be reckoned with (assuming you want goofy collectathons). In 2023, Good-Feel cashed in on this clout with Bakeru. Following in the tradition of other Konami ex-pats that went on to start their own damn kingdoms, Bakeru was billed as Goemon with the serial numbers filed off: a wacky look at Japanese culture starring an irreverent hero that occasionally pilots a giant mech to save the day. And there was much rejoicing! The Mystical Ninja has returned!
Except, with so many Ganbare Goemon titles being outside my reach, I had genuine concerns about Bakeru. What defines a Ganbare Goemon game? Who the heck knows!? I have had legitimate access to, like, two of those games. And I liked ‘em! But I could not tell you exactly what made me like them. The whole RPG-esque setup of Legend of the Mystical Ninja with towns and action stages was absent from Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, so I genuinely had no idea what Bakeru was going to be. Mighty No. 9 was a “reimagining” of the Mega Man formula that was likely best described as “rotting”, but you could still see the Mega Man skeleton under its rancid flesh. What does a Ganbare Goemon skeleton even look like? And don’t tell me “jokes about Japan”. I never understood those the first time!
So you can watch my initial impressions of Bakeru. I played Bakeru live and on stream on September 3, 2024, the game’s North American release date. According to the length of that video, I played the game for approximately two and a half hours. I enjoyed it! But, of the four games that I played (more or less) at launch that month, it was only Astro Bot that compelled me to instantly continue further after an initial play. Astro Bot was compelling, Bakeru proved to be merely “nice”. Cool platforming/collectathon action in faux-Japanese prefectures filled with visual flair and creativity. There is some gameplay variety with racing/boating stages, and your continual opponents are eclectic and… vaguely cute. A lot to like, but not gripping. I’ll go play more of the Playstation Robot game now, and get back to Bakeru when I have some spare time.
Let’s see here… I apparently stopped that stream at Level #11, Okinawa. After eventually returning to Bakeru, I learned I had stopped just short of the boss for the area, Urashima Taro. I beat said boss, and proceeded to play further through the game. I figured this was a lil’ passion project, and I had already knocked off 12 levels in three hours, this was probably a six-ish hours game with another two worlds/bosses to go. After all, the plot had been presented as “beat these rampaging fairy-tale heroes”, and there were only three of ‘em. Add in an inevitable final boss, and I was guessing at 25 stages with four bosses hiding amongst them.
So…
Turns out there are about 60 levels, and “beat the fairy-tale heroes” is akin to earning the three pendants in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. After wiping the floor with those doofs, I had to rescue seven maidens and beat the big bad and fly to space for some reason. And there was a giant robot in there, too!
Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a giant robot in your pocket, for the love of Voltron, please release that bad boy within the first two hours. I need to know about your giant robot.
It’s not just about the robot! Bakeru is an action platformer, and you start with the ability to jump, use drumming sticks to attack, and a transformation skill. You are a tanuki, so of course you can change your form. And your first transformation allows you to shrink down to Issun size. Unfortunately, Chibi Bakeru cannot attack, and this ability really only has the utility of getting you through mini-sized passages. It’s cool, but it is basically a circle key for circle doors. After that, you get the requisite “strong transformation”, Kintaro, and that makes it so your normal drum attacks have greater strength and range, but are also slower. Big whoop. I had only acquired those two powers at the end of my stream, and I was ready to write off the transformation mechanic as a redundant novelty.
Then Urashima Taro granted me fishing poles. My initial thought was this would be the “quick” transformation to balance the “strong” transformation acquired previously. And it is sorta that, but with the added caveat that the poles ricochet and absolutely obliterate any opponents that are ganging together in groups. This was literally a game changer, and even offered the bonus of extra range when obviously-gonna-get-hooked groups were not around to target. And then the next transformation? You get guns and rollerblades! So this is technically an entirely new movement technique, and you have the added bonus of being able to attack opponents at maximum range. This immediately allows you to ace platforming segments in advance by sniping potential angry birds. Eat it, Ninja Gaiden. And, if you are not in those specific situations, you can just roller-skate around and eliminate opponents that are built for a close-range combat world. They never knew what hit ‘em! Literally! You are shooting tiny peaches or something!
The only downside to these transformations is that it took four hours of my life to acquire this full set of moves. I promise you, Bakeru, I am a big boy. I can be trusted with combat options right from the first level. Fifth level? Make me wait a little bit? Fine. But 16th level? Now you are really pushing it, guys.
And I must reiterate that saving this…
How many stages do we have to wait? 21? Over a third of the game? Unforgivable!
To be as blunt as a rude ‘n crude tanuki, if the gameplay that is available 20 levels in was there within the first two hours? I would have played Bakeru ahead of Astro Bot in a heartbeat. The creativity between levels was right there at the beginning, but the gameplay felt rote. Astro Bot teased that there would be a new gimmick or powerup every stage, and Bakeru had “can be smaller, sometimes, I guess, maybe” as a selling point. There wasn’t even a taste of how cool my tanuki would control in later levels. So I moved on to Astro Bot immediately, and left Bakeru to languish.
And now in 2025, Astro Bot has literally been crowned “game of the year” by multiple publications. Meanwhile, half the impetus for this article was that nobody seems to remember Bakeru even happened. I must not have been the only one that quit Bakeru early…
You want people to play your game? Feature your best, and show it off quickly. Five hours is way too long to hide your tanuki’s biggest assets…
FGC #689 Bakeru
- System: Looks like we got PC and Nintendo Switch this time. If you want a physical edition of the Switch version, that should be available by the end of February. Was everyone who would be talking about this just waiting for that?
- Number of players: Like a certain white wolf, Bakeru always travels with Issun in his fur. Unfortunately, this duo can only be controlled by one player.
- Favorite Trivia: There are tiny poop people in every level providing trivia of (theoretically) valuable quality. My favored lil’ shit told me how to make Sakura rice. That’s news you can use!
Gotta Catch ‘em All: So every stage has five lanterns, and you must find three of those to complete a level. Additionally, there are little turds, and there are five of ‘em to a stage. On top of that, every spot has three distinct souvenirs that are usually tucked away into hidden areas. And, finally, some stages contain a hidden tanuki, which can only be discovered by bonking damn near every inanimate object in the area, and eventually finding where your buddy is disguised. So, in short, if you want to “100%” this adventure, you have a lot of exploring to do.- On the topic of Collecting: If there is one thing I hate in a videogame, it is when you have an obvious fork in the road, and one route continues the level, and the other leads to a “dead end” that contains treasure (or, in this case, collectibles). Some stages of Bakeru subvert this trope by allowing enough of a view of the stage to distinctly see the dead end from a distance, so obviously that route must be the challenge-for-prizes direction. Unfortunately, a number of later stages forget to provide this essential wedge, and you just have to guess which way is no-backtracking forward, and which one might score you a cool pennant. And, dear reader, I can assure you that I choose the path that requires replaying the stage again every time.
- Favorite Transformation: Momotaro’s hot pink guns (not a euphemism) are radical, but their wonky auto targeting means you will inevitably take some hits in heated combat. Aim for the little guys that die in one hit first, Bakeru, not the ogre that is going to take forever! So, since you cannot rely as much on peach blasts, I’m going with Urashima Taro’s dual fishing poles. You don’t need to aim when you annihilate everything with a pulse inside of three seconds.
Favorite Stage: #51 Splish Splash Time for a Bath! showcases everything that is great about Bakeru. There are unique enemies (that are trying to splash you), exclusive gimmicks based on the theme (sudsy, slippery ground in a steamy fog), and the expansion of an extremely basic concept (bath time!) to something memorable and fun. And it can only be seen about 80% of the way through the game. How many hours should be devoted to “oh this next part is cool”?- Say something mean: Kingdom Hearts learned a long time ago that you cannot have a homing air-melee attack and unforgiving platforming. Discover the lesson of Hollow Bastion, Bakeru, and my tanuki will be immolated by lava a whole lot less.
- So is this Ganbare Goemon 2024? I honestly do not know enough about the Goemon franchise to say if this is using the broad strokes of its spiritual parent franchise, or if this is dedicatedly loyal to the source material. However, I can say that all the “festival” style monsters that populate every stage remind me a lot of the festival minions of the second level of Legend of the Mystical Ninja. I recognize those guys!
- An end: The ultimate enemy of your tanuki is eventually revealed to be a kitsune. Given you then beat this kitsune into submission, I feel it must be stated that Gogglebob.com upholds both tanukis and kitsunes equally. And that is not just because Kitsune Tails is another great 2024 game.
- Did you know? Musashi and Kojirō appear as bosses. It is unknown why they were not included with the “fairy-tale heroes”, and appear to be the only two “independent”, named characters in this plot. Are they supposed to be a reference to Goemon and Ebisumaru from Ganbare Goemon? Or a reference to how BEAT always remembers my playing Brave Fencer Musashi as “Legend of the Mystical Ninja or whatever”? The world may never know.
- Would I play again: This is a collectathon, but unlike a lot of GoödFeël titles, this one is less based on unskippable setpieces. There are only, like, three rollercoasters in this one! So I may revisit Bakeru in an effort to fish out all the little bibs and baubles, and enjoy fishing bad guys into oblivion while I’m at it. There’s a lot to like here! It just takes a while!
What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Werewolf: The Last Warrior! Where wolf? Here wolf! Please look forward to it!
Well now I’m hungry