Released 1993
System: Super Famicom / Nintendo
By Banpresto
If you’ve never heard of the “SD The Great Battle” series, it’s basically a collection of games featuring SD (Super Deformed) versions of Ultraman, Kamen Rider, Gundam & Roa. Different versions of these characters appear throughout the series, but I believe Roa was specifically created just for the SD The Great Battle series.
The games are very tongue-in-cheek affairs & no two are the same. Number 3 in the series is a bit of a hybrid Golden Axe, Knights of the Round, King of Dragons parody. In medieval times the 4 warriors must do battle… why I don’t really know. The manual & game are all in Japanese. There is an animated intro which I will attempt to interpret. Firstly the gang are happily flying through space:
When their ship is hit by an asteroid which sends our heroes flying through space:
They land on what appears to be a medieval planet only to be captured by soldiers:
They are then bought before the king:
Who kits them up with weapons & armour which leads into the first battle:
You start off as the Gundam, but using Select you can switch between the other 3 characters. Each has their own strengths & weaknesses, though not being able to read the manual I couldn’t tell you what they are as they all feel pretty much the same to be honest. Ultraman is a little slower than the rest, Kamen Rider’s spear throws enemies overhead. They’re the differences I’ve managed to identify.
As I mentioned earlier, the story starts off in a village where you must fight a boss battle straight away in what looks like an arena. After proving yourself you go on your quest. A map will appear to show you here you are in the world & then you’ll jump into the level.
If you like a good side scrolling beat em up then you’ll enjoy this. The genre did develop a bit of a bad name with the main problem being the repetitive nature of play. Well this game isn’t any different, so if you’re not a fan steer clear. If you like these types of games well this is one of the better ones.
The controls are solid with attack, jump, block & use item buttons on the face of the controller with L & R cycling through items. Your character can double jump which proves quite handy though you need to time your aerial attacks well or you’ll just get knocked out of the air. You can also dash by pushing to the side twice in quick succession. I do wonder about the block button… how many people actually use block buttons in fighting games? I’d be interested to know, because I know I rarely do.
Each character has their own special move. Hold down the fire button until they start flashing & release to perform the special move. It’s a little tricky as an enemy may already be on you before you get a chance to pull off the move, but that’s the risk you have to take.
The graphics are bright & colourful & a lot of detail has gone into the characters. The medieval look really suits them & everything just seems to work in this strange little game. Little in jokes are presented such as the coins having the Banpresto logo on them.
& if you leave the characters standing around doing nothing they don’t just stand there. For example leave Ultraman standing in one spot & his helmet drops over his eyes, then he flips it back up. It’s only a small thing, but it’s a nice touch which shows a bit of care was taken with the game.
You use the coins in the shops that are placed throughout the game. Various items are available, though I don’t know what most of them do as their descriptions are in Japanese.
After each stage a password is given to allow you to continue play. The passwords are quite long… infact I would go as far as to say they are unnecessarily long. At least the option exists to continue play, which can only be a good thing.
The music has that medieval side scrolling fighter music. If you’ve played Knights of the round, King of Dragons, or the Capcom Dungeons & Dragon you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s nothing special really. The sound effects are your typical beat em up hit effects with the jumps being accompanied by bleeps. Typical platformer/beat em up affair really.
At the end the day, it’s not the greatest game in the world & if you’re not a beat em up fan this isn’t going to convert you. If you are a beat em up fan you’re not going to be blown away by anything new & revolutionary. That being said it’s a fun little romp that’s worth spending a few hours with. I give it 75%
Here’s the rundown on the Sufami Turbo. It was released in 1996 by Bandai in a rare agreement with Nintendo. In an effort to cut the costs of cartridge manufacturing, Bandai created this little system to go on top of the Super Famicom & use smaller cartridges that Bandai themselves could make in house without using Nintendo’s own expensive process. This saved Bandai money which in turn ensured they could sell their games for a cheaper price. The Sufami Turbo is often compared to the Aladdin Desk Enhancer, which was a similar device created by Codemasters to be used on the NES. The difference is that the Sufami Turbo was an official device, while the Aladdin was unofficial.
Over the very short lifespan of the device only 13 games were released:
In order:
• SD Ultra Battle: Ultraman Legend
• SD Ultra Battle: Seven Legend
• Poi Poi Ninja
• SD Gundam Generations: part 1
• SD Gundam Generations: part 2
• Gegege No Kitarou
• SD Gundam Generations: part 3
• SD Gundam Generations: part 4
• Gekisou Sentai Car Ranger
• SD Gundam Generations: part 5
• SD Gundam Generations: part 6
• Sailor Moon Stars Panic 2
• Crayon Shin Chan
These are displayed in the order of the numbers on the side of the boxes. According to the Japan Wikipedia this is not exactly the order the games were released in, but it’s close. This may the order they were manufactured in. The actual release dates are as follows:
June 28th 1996
• Sufami Turbo hardware
• SD Ultra Battle: Ultraman Legend
• SD Ultra Battle: Seven Legend
• Poi Poi Ninja
July 19th 1996
• Gegege No Kitarou
July 26th 1996
• SD Gundam Generations: part 1
• SD Gundam Generations: part 2
August 23rd 1996
• SD Gundam Generations: part 3
• SD Gundam Generations: part 4
• Gekisou Sentai Car Ranger
September 27th 1996
• SD Gundam Generations: part 5
• SD Gundam Generations: part 6
• Sailor Moon Stars Panic 2
• Crayon Shin Chan
Other games were planned for release. This pamphlet which came with the Sufami Turbo itself shows that Tetris 2 + Bombliss was planned for release, but it never saw the light of day: This is strange choice due to the fact that Tetris 2 + Bombliss was released for the Super Famicom in 1994, 2 years before the Sufami Turbo came out.
What makes this stranger is that Bandai didn’t make Tetris 1 + Bombliss. Was this supposed to be the start of 3rd party support for the Sufami Turbo? Were companies going to start releasing their back catalogues onto the Sufami Turbo? Who knows??
The Sufami Turbo could be purchased on its own or with a game. I’ve only seen 5 pack in games & own 2. The pack in games I’ve seen show up on Ebay & Japan Yahoo Auctions are:
• Poi Poi Ninja
• SD Gundam: Generations part 1
• SD Ultra Battle: Ultraman Legend
• Sailor Moon Stars Panic 2
• Gegege No Kitarou
Here are the Poi Poi Ninja pack in & the SD Gundam Generations part 1 pack in:
Notice the number codes on the side of the packaging are the same as the games themselves with an “S” next to it.
So, 13 games & the ability to link them up. Sounds great right? Sailor Moon can take on Ultraman, an SD Gundam can be ported into Poi Poi Ninja right? Well, this was believed to be the case for a long time & the WIkipedia entry even stated this was the case. Ahh Wikipedia… it kinda proves that having an online encyclopaedia that anyone can modify really is a bad idea. I rewrote the Wikipedia article when I started collecting the system & games & at the time of writing this it’s correct.
The only games that could be linked are:
Poi Poi Ninja – Poi Poi Ninja
This link up only allowed the linking of save data. So you & a friend could play with your individual cartridges in the same game.
SD Gundam – any of the other 5 SD Gundam games:
& the 2 SD Ultraman/Ultraseven games:
With the Gundam & Ultraman games the cartridge in slot A would be the main game cartridge you play on while the cartridge in slot B would contain the additional data used by the game in slot A.
Sufami Turbo games came with a very clear image in the lower left corner of the box which shows whether or not a game is linkable:
Have a look in the lower left corner of SD Ultraman. 2 cartridges are displayed meaning it has the ability to link up with another game. That other game of course being SD Ultraseven.
Ge Ge Ge No Kitarou on the other hand has only one cartridge displayed in the lower left corner meaning that a linkup with another game is not possible.
