The first 16-bit Goemon title was also the first to be released in America and Europe. Each stage is divided into two parts: the first half plays out like the Famicom Goemon games, where you run around towns, gather money and buy items. However, the second half is a straight-up side scrolling platformer. Other than one level late in the game, you never need to worry about finding passes or fumbling around for hidden stuff. Many of the extra elements from the Famicom Goemon 2 are back - there are tons of stuff to do in the towns, like playing carnival games, betting on race horses, scavenging through first-person view dungeons or playing trivia games. Even cooler, one of the mini-games is the first level of the original Gradius - which, on the SNES, looks and sounds much better than both the NES and arcade versions.

As the game begins, ghosts are invading Edo. But that's only a small part of the problem: the princess Yuki has been kidnapped, and you have to ally with a band of ninja cats to help save the day. There are passwords to keep track of your progress, but they're very long and overly complicated. Which leads to a rather bizarre quirk. You see, passwords keep track of all of your items. But if you lose all of your lives, you restart the stage completely bare, meaning you'll have to spend a bunch of time in town powering up again - unless you bothered to write down the password, in which case you can pick up exactly where you left off. The game is also a little over reliant on having enough items to beat a stage. The platforming levels can be devilishly hard if you don't have enough armor or healing items. Plus, getting hit will degrade your speed as well, so getting whacked several times will slow down your character tremendously. Otherwise, it's an excellent game, with plain yet decent graphics, and an oddly infectious score filled with traditional Japanese instruments.

Considering the cultural barriers present in the game, it's surprising that most of this game made in intact when it came to America. Goemon and Ebisumaru were named Kid Yang and Dr. Ying, probably due to the fact that their names are somewhat unpronounceable to English speakers. However, they forgot to take into account that they gave Chinese games to Japanese characters. One scene involving a fart joke was also removed, most likely at the behest of Nintendo.

MP3s:
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 9 Action

Kiteretsu Shogun Magginesu, or "The Strange General McGuinness" is a not-so-subtle allusion to Matthew Perry's visit to Japan in the 19th century. Ganbare Goemon 2 features a general from the West known as McGuinness, who has invaded the country with his army of bunny men. He wants to shape Japan after his own foreign ways, and it's up to Goemon and gang to stop him.

This game takes Goemon straight into platformer territory. You move around levels via a world map stage select (similar to Super Mario World), with some occasional towns to shop in. The character sprites have been enlarged, and while they look fantastic, it makes the game feel a little bit awkward (comparable to Mega Man 7). This is where the series developed the unique art style that's been used in almost every game afterwards. There are three playable characters - Goemon and Ebisumaru are back, with Sasuke the clockwork ninja making his first appearance. Each character has their own unique attacks, although you can't switch between them ingame - you'll have to reset the console. Goemon 2 also serves as the introduction to the legendary Goemon Impact. You begin each Impact battle by running through the country-side, smashing into buildings and jumping over plateaus in order to gain energy. When you finally reach the boss, you're given a cockpit view of the action. You can't move around in these segments - all you do is guard against enemy attacks and attack when they drop their defenses. They can get very hard until you get the hang of them, but they play sort of like Super Punch-Out, except with lots of nifty Mode 7 effects.

Also new are several goofy vehicles - including mouse cars, sumo mechs and robotic fish. There are the usual assortment of mini-games, the coolest being a level from the arcade shooter Xexex. Considering the game was never ported to a console, it's a real treat to be able to play some of it, even if the slowdown is horrendous. Although the game is a little bit on the easy side compared to the other Goemon games, it has some great moments, especially the kitchen and ski resort levels.

Kessakusen! is, as the title suggests, simply a port of Ganbare Goemon 1 and 2 to the Gameboy Advance. The screens resolutions and status bars were changed to suit the GBA's screen, but the main graphics are identical. Like most SNES-to-GBA ports, the sound suffers a bit, moreso the first game than the second game. Other than the addition of a save game function for the original game, the only real difference is that you can change characters on the fly in Ganbare Goemon 2. There are also a whole ton of new minigames (accessible in the main menu, along with the Gradius and XEXEX games), including a 3D stage reminsicent of the bonus levels in Sonic CD, and various Memory-style matching games. In other words, nothing too spectacular. It's much better than Konami's Contra 3 port, and it's nice that they stuck two games together (considering most ports only have one). As usual it only saw release in Japan, most likely as a prelude to Goemon's DS adventures.

The fourth Super Famicom Goemon game - "The Glittering Journey: The Reason I Became a Dancer" - is the best of all of the Mystical Ninja games. The Goemon Impact shows on the doorstep and learns of a planet filled with people that look just like him. Mistakening him for their leader, they begin to worship him, but the planet is soon attacked by the devious Harakiri Seppukumaru. ("Harakiri" and "seppuku" are both methods of ritual suicide.) Unable to let his followers down, Impact flies his friend into outer space to save the day.

This game throws the wide-open overworld of Goemon 3 out of the window again and reintroduces the stage select screen from Goemon 2. Each character is marooned on their own planet, and each must be conquered separately before your team can reunite. You'll still need to gather special powers for your characters, retaining some of the adventure game feel. The levels are fairly short by comparison to its predecessor and primarily focused on action and platforming. There are some town segments with minor puzzles to solve, which are annoying if you don't known Japanese, but are a relatively minor impediment. While the character sprites are the same as Goemon 3, the backgrounds are some of the most gorgeous on the Super Famicom. Konami also added some voice clips for the gang, as well as some insanely catchy music with extraordinarily high sound quality. This is a 24 meg game - huge for a non-RPG title - which is probably the reason for the outstanding aesthetics.

Each boss has their own mini-game. Some are lame, like a quiz game and a Track & Field ripoff. One of the better games lets you play Taisen Puzzle-dama, Konami's answer to Puyo Puyo. By far the coolest (and hardest) is the bungee jump game - Impact is stationed on the ground, and an enemy mech bungee jumps from lower orbit. You have to catch his sword as he falls before he slices you in half. The final boss battle has Seppukumaru tossing mini-Death Stars towards Earth, and you have to catch them and throw them back. All of these can be played with four players as well. And if you unlock all of the secrets in the game, you can play Time Pilot '95, a rejuvenation of Konami's old arcade classic. It's not quite as cool as the levels from Gradius or Xexex in previous games, but it's a nice throwback. The rest of the game exudes even more the wackiness we've come to love from the series - one boss is so obsessed with sports that you fight against baseball playing soldiers in a soccer stadium. One level has your character stalked by a firearm that looks suspiciously like the handgun from Doom. Another has you fighting robots of Ryu and Guile from Street Fighter II. Another crazy (and saddeningly short) scene has you riding on a car as it plummets through the sky. It's this kind of wackiness that elevates Dancer not only above your typical side scrollers, but beyond the rest of the entire Goemon series. All in all, "The Reason I Became a Dancer" has all of the sparkle expected from Konami's best games, and ranks up next to Super Castlevania IV and Contra 3 as one of their most brilliant titles for the Super Famicom.

MP3s:
The Desert Planet - Goemon's Theme
The Forest Planet - Ebisumaru's Theme
The Water Planet - Yae's Theme