184. Totsuzen! Machoman (Aicom, Famicom, 1988)

Totsuzen! Machoman  ("Suddenly! Machoman") debuted in 1988, and was released a year leater as Amagon in the US. Frankly, I think they should have just literally translated the Japanese title. Developed by Aicom, who went on to make some real nice NES/Famicom games like Vice: Project Doom, and Flying Hero. The company eventually became Yumekobo, who made one of my favorite games I've played this year, Puzzle Link 2 for the Neo Geo Pocket Color.

Machoman is only Aicom's second game, and it shows. All of the graphics are very simple (and frankly boring), the jump stops immediately upon release of the jump button, and you have a gun and your ammo count is always on screen despite being huge with plenty of ammo pickups. The controls are also not very inspired, as you're controlling a little cartoon guy who can move around, jump, and shoot.

The whole game is built around a power up mechanic that transforms your tiny character into the huge, titular Machoman (the first boss will comically destroy you if you neglected to grab or use the powerup). The power up is not super obvious to find, though: it is dropped by a single enemy that you don't have to interact with. Your power up health is based on how many points you have acquired throughout the level, so there is at least a nice interesting decision on when exactly to use the power up, since you will be even more powerful if you can hold off on using it. It's just a shame that the difficulty and bad controls make it so that this interesting decision is not in an interesting game.

2/5, a bland, barely interesting platformer