252. Robocco Wars (Pixel, Famicom, 1991)

I'll admit, I never touched Robocco Wars (Robocco roughly translates to "robo-kid") because I thought it was a strategy game. In my defense, there are so many Japanese strategy RPGs that have the word "Wars" in their title: Sakura, Famicom, Super Robot, I could go on. So it surprised and delighted me to learn that Robocco Wars is actually a platformer, and a decent one at that.

Robocco Wars puts you in control of a transforming mech, and each of the game's 10 levels has you alternating between a tank, a plane, and a submarine. While the tank levels are standard platformer fair, the submarine and plane levels play out like your average scrolling shooter: with steady movement to the right and complete freedom of movement in 4 directions. While neither of these segments are a revelation in their respective genres, they are fun and fast and not too challenging. 

The difficulty curve is just right for me. I tried not using save states, but I was still scraping by through each level. I did eventually use a save state before the final boss, just because it was pretty quick and has a smaller room for error than any other boss, but it only has one easy-to-memorize pattern, so it was not a huge challenge to overcome.

Right away my eye was drawn to the Robocco Wars' fun, colorful level designs. There is no shortage of big fluffy clouds or nice tropical beaches, and there are also more abstract Lisa Frank looking levels. Nice big sprites abound, and they are more expressive than I'm used to on the Famicom. The first boss is a train with a face and it's great when he winces after being damaged.

While the jump in the platforming stages is not amazing, it is at least very precise, and your character moves at a very nice speed. You can also auto fire your weapon with the B button, which makes the platforming levels a lot of fun and a total breeze to speedrun. While you can't speedrun the auto-scrolling shooter sections, you do still benefit from the auto-fire, and these levels have interesting, smooth enemy patterns, so they don't feel inferior to the platforming levels. Robocco Wars is the rare Famicom game that makes you forget you're playing an 8-bit game, although the music is the one component that is pretty average for the Famicom.

After you beat the game you get a little cutscene where the robot and kid piloting the robot say how appreciative they are of each other, which rules.

5/5, an easy, breezy, beautiful Famicom platformer/shooter hybrid