Bokosuka Wars??

Started by Marcos Moutta, September 29, 2022, 09:37:38 pm

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Marcos Moutta

BOKOSUKA WARS!
Has anyone played this game/beaten it? Do you think it's fun?
At first I was astounded by this game. It's so bad and primitive, how could it have been a success? But then again, Dragon Slayer was allegedly a huge success.
This game is so primitive it gives Bonk a run for his money! ;D  It uses background tiles instead of sprites, for everything. I didn't even know there were Famicom games to do this, it's such a PC thing. Also the music is awful. The melody is great, but the execution was just so poor... the graphics I like tho. They might be objectively bad, but they have a speficic charm to them. The grass in Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest looks bad to me, I prefer the black void. I also like the characters and their palettes.

It's an interesting premise - go through a forest battling an army with your army, get to the castle and beat the king. It's all a single stage, which kinda makes it a metroidvania (it really doesn't). Combat is a dice roll, you touch an enemy with your character or any member of his army and hope you win. That's it. Keep in mind, you have to fight hundreds of enemies through a game that, if everything goes well, lasts an hour for each loop. And I thought Mario Party was bad for its reliance on luck!
While on the Famicom port you start with only the main character, the PC versions start you with an entire army that you can expand. I think this is solely to make the game even more frustrating and time consuming, but I have no idea what purpose that serves. The easier versions were released before renting games was banned, and the more frustrating version was released before.
The song your army sings as it advances is something really cool.  A triumphant march to never lose focus on the mission. Although I don't think they'd be singing it during battle - the music never stops, which coupled with the bad instrumentation, gets annoying quickly.
This game is nothing special - it really sucks actually. And 1985? Crazy how in a year Japan went from this to Zelda and Dragon Quest. Historically significant? Maybe, but so is Dragon Slayer, which I have yet to meet someone who enjoys playing.  :fire:

Here's something silly. A translation of the main theme I made so you can sing along (heavy liberties taken so it sounds ok)

Let's march on, let's march on, oh brave army  :link:
進め進め者ども
Listen now, evil one, I'll destroy you  :octorok:
じゃまな敵をけちらせ
Your own fort, full of lies, now in pieces   :bomb: 
目指せ敵の城へ
Ogres, soon 'nough, you will be no more  :bub:
オゴレス倒すのだ

And before you ask, I have no idea what bokosuka means.


Now to something hilarious. You can't make this up: here's how you cheat in the game. (from gameFAQs)
"Press and hold Select + Start then press Reset. Immediately after reset, start shouting to the microphone until the title music starts. If done right, you can start a new game with some altered parameters so you can fight without losing."

And lastly, A REQUEST: Any recommendations of similar games? I'm drawn to the simple graphics reminiscent of early FC/PC88.
Oh, and in case anyone has scans of the box and manual, please share them. Can't find good ones online.

UglyJoe

I do kinda like the game.  It's got more going on for it then it seems.  I've read that it's actually a terrible port of a decent Japanese PC game.

Quote from: Marcos Moutta on September 29, 2022, 09:37:38 pmNow to something hilarious. You can't make this up: here's how you cheat in the game. (from gameFAQs)
"Press and hold Select + Start then press Reset. Immediately after reset, start shouting to the microphone until the title music starts. If done right, you can start a new game with some altered parameters so you can fight without losing."

I've gotten this to work in emulators, but I'm pretty sure it's impossible to make it work on an actual console.  The code requires the mic to register for 200 or more consecutive readings, but I'm not convinced the Famicom's microphone is good enough to continually register for that long.

Marcos Moutta

Quote from: UglyJoe on September 29, 2022, 09:51:41 pmIt's got more going on for it then it seems.
:o Care to elaborate? I don't know enough Japanese to learn more about it

UglyJoe

The Famidaily for it covers it pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCrnZC4z1Hs

It's not a good game, but it's more than just that "wow you lose" game.  You do build up a party.  Your party does gain experience (sort of...).  There are bosses.  But yeah, it's also super-clunky and leaves you at the mercy of the RNG.

P

My feelings about the game are very similar to UglyJoe's. I do like the game and comes back to it from time to time, but I have yet to beat it. I'm also drawn to its oldschool looks and the fact that it is a very early warsim. It also has a very unique style which makes it stand out.

But to clear some misconceptions. It's not really an '85 game, like UglyJoe said it's a PC game from 1983 and the only reason it looks so primitive is because it's a faithful port (for the most part) of a game made for a less capable system. Besides, although the Famicom has good spriting ability, using tiles instead of sprites means less flickering, and considering that a very large number of characters are on the screen at the same time it would flicker a lot with sprites (Famicom can do 8 sprites/scanline without flicker and 64 sprites/frame).
According to Wikipedia it was first released on Sharp X1 and ported to other systems including MSX, PC-88 and of course Famicom.

The Famicom version has some changes, instead of recruiting soldiers by rescuing them from prison buildings, you touch rocks and trees to rescue your men from King Ogereth's spell.
I personally prefer to play the MSX version which should be more like the original, no tree touching.

I also made a more literal translation of the song here. We tried to figure out the mic thing in the following posts in the same thread. If I remember correctly it must be between 200 and 255 mic reads (as it resets after 255) which is a very small window for the finicky Famicom mic. I doubt it was tested by the programmer. It seems I actually discovered the cheat from looking at the code rather than reading Japanese gaming magazines or Gamefaqs. :o I think I was searching ROMs for games that reads the mic and found this.