Samurai
Pizza Cats was sort of a guilty pleasure of mine back when it was aired.
I'd always find it on TV when I was on vacation with my family, or on
a day off from school. For reasons beyond my understanding, I always
found myself changing the channel whenever a family member came in the
room simply because I didn't feel like explaining what I was watching.
The series revolved around the lives of three anthropomorphic cats in
armor, reduced to SD Gundam-scale. They protected the charmingly bizarre
city of Litle Tokyo from a self-destructive mouse/fox guy called the
Big Cheese, and his armies of birds and weird-ass robots. Three cats
in armor get shot out of a revolver (suiting up into MORE armor along
the way) and cut things into pieces, sometimes with the aid of even
more armor. It all seemed to me like a ploy to sell toys, but I honestly
don't remember any merchandising beyond a couple bendy figures. The
real fun came from the dialogue, though. It can only be described as
violent sarcasm. It brings to mind the Goemon games' humor that alternated
between pathetic punning and self-mockery. Usually one followed by the
other. There were also a handful of extras who seemed to wallow in self-hatred
for their own lack of purpose, especially the mom-and-son creatures
that were always gaping up at the heroes as they flew overhead.
There's
a difference between the humor in the show and the humor in the game.
The game's humor is unintentional, and therefore funnier. The opening
sequence introduces you to the Rescue Team, a quartet of mindless cats
who were the Cats' useless backup team. As the opening shows, they've
learned the English alphabet fairly well, but have a ways to go in their
kiddie workbooks. the fat guy informs us proudly that HE IS STRONG!
The ever-helpful BAT-C will FLY YOU! In a desperate attempt to justify
his presence, SPRI comments that SCUBA GEAR HELPS. And of course, MEOW
offers to let you CALL ME TO DRILL! With all due respect, the only one
of these dorks you actually need to get much of anywhere is BAT-C since
none of the cat-ninjas can exactly jump very well. Sometimes Fat Guy
can break a rock or shoot cannonballs out of his back, but he can't
bust the smaller, flimsier blocks in some areas. That's when you CALL
OTHER GUY TO DRILL. But don't listen to Spri. He's the Aquaman of the
team, and Scuba gear isn't nearly as helpful as he would lead you to
believe.
As
the game opens, you have to run around a given area, slashing things
and using your various talents to make it to the penguin robot at the
end of the level. Yes, it is the same one from the opening, and yes
it looks a lot smaller, but Nintendo couldn't program the SPC's robot
into a mere 8-bits. If you can't beat the penguin, you've either never
played Nintendo before and are operating a sandwich instead of the controller,
or you're in the middle of a seizure and are too stupid to know it.
In either case, seek professional help and abstain from using electricity.
After this, a long cinema scene. In Japanese. In SD.
Assuming
you're not in protective custody at this point, the stage select is
now available. The game programmers obviously don't trust you with such
a large decision, however, as they've labeled the parts of the city
as Level 1, 2, 3 and 4. And there's more weird bosses and incomprehensible
cutscenes. One is a flying saucer with a pig nose that shoot little
copies of itself at you and can't be hit. Another is a hopping guy in
a robe. The enemies roaming the streets are interesting, though. Bad
Birds (you'll know what they are when they walk sideways at you with
a kabuto in hand) sometimes remember they can fly and do so, making
them freaking hard to hit. There's also some things I think were just
upsettingly weird though, like these smiling faces that pointed at you
with floating hands and rained lightning from above. There's even a
guy shampooing his hair as an attack. Not that any of them is exactly
difficult. In fact, the whole game is rather unbalanced. Enemies may
take about five whacks to kill, but they also usually don't even fight
back very well. Most bosses can be easily beaten by hitting attack constantly
and jumping when they're too close. Even if they do hit you, you'll
find it takes a LOT to finally kill your character off. I got stuck
in one area once, with one of the exploding police officers. I let myself
get caught in the blast, expecting to start the level over. Nope. So,
I spent about ten minutes running on and off the screen, making him
reappear, then getting hit. Geez.