one of his creations that wasn't Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest, Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump, Blue

Dragon... dude freakin' loves dragons, huh. Anyway. This isn't any of those, it's Go!

Go! Ackman 3 for the Super Famicom, which pretty much no one outside of Japan has heard

of. Maybe it's because it's fifty-five pages long. The whole of it, 11 one-shot chapters

in some serialized manga monthly, five pages each. That's it. And all that ended up covered

in the first of the three Go! Go! Ackman games. It should speak for itself, then, that the

games managed to pull their weight well enough for two more entries in the series, encompassing

all-new material. Like this battalion of Angel Police, led by this... um... leather daddy.

So! That's what the angels in this game look like. The devils, on the other hand... well,

dude's almost indistinguishable from Trunks, let's face it. Ackman there's a people-killing,

soul-collecting, soul-selling demon maniac who's constantly stymied by the cherubic (there's

a word you don't get to use every day) Tenshi-kun, who's been deposed by that aforementioned

burly chap and forced into an uncomfortable alliance with his mortal enemy. So begins

what could've been a bad buddy-cop movie, but in fact manifests itself as a freakin'

awesome platformer, pretty much the platonic ideal of what I look for in a 16-bit game.

It's got colorful levels, strange-looking enemies, upgradable and diverse weapons, boss

battles that are part pattern recognition, part trying to not to laugh too hard at the

absurdity, and you've even got a little demon-bat-dude who collects the souls you wrest from those

who oppose you!

Ackman there - or Tenshi, in certain areas - can wield swords, guns, and boomerangs,

pitch screen-clearing bombs if things get too hairy, swing with a low kick, or pull

a Mega Man-style slide. Really, you add a fishing line and some rubber-band physics

and you've got the best game ever conceived. Barring that, there's some significant nuance

to the mechanics beyond just running, jumping, and climbing ladders; enemies can rush in

from offscreen pretty quickly and are best anticipated by audio cues (though, realistically,

they're best met with projectile weapons but that's on another page). The whole thing is

filled with a sense of absurdity, from leather daddy on down, with shark stepping stones

and weird Opa-Opa-looking angelic police vehicle bosses and whatnot. Plus, Tenshi-kun's power

of flight opens up a diversification in the gameplay that breaks the mold of the standard

action platformer, especially when you need to get that power-up off a high place. That

said, though, there seem to be a number of tricks that trivialize parts of the game,

like this spot on a particular boss where you're out of range of oncoming fire.

I hesitate to bring up this dude, who looks like a Clancer straight out of Mischief Makers

but can apparently be duped into using the same attack over and over again by standing

the correct distance away from him. I'm willing to accept those, though, as I found them myself...

and honestly, who's going to stop me? While I'm not a huge fan of the "Sweet Jesus, everything

looks indistinguishable from Dragon Ball" aesthetic, I will begrudgingly add Go! Go!

Ackman 3 to my "Awesome stuff" shelf right between Dragon Quest VIII and Chrono Trigger.

And then in front of those, I'll put Persona 4 and Catherine and Trauma Center.