Dynamite Headdy

Treasure made some great memorable games such as Gunstar Heroes and McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure (thats right, i said it, lol), but if there is one game they made that drew my attention the most, its Dynamite Headdy. I never owned the game, but I've played it on the Sega Channel on more than one occasion (yep, I used to own a Sega Channel system at one point), and even though I didnt understand what the hell was going on, I was very entertained for the most part. Overall, it's a great game to play... if you're playing the better version of course. This is what I mean...

Dynamite Headdy was a game that was originally made in Japan, and for those of you that have actually played the game, its easy to see why. However, back then the US was still fickle about showing North American viewers "true" Japan games, so rather than try to make any sense out of them, the US would give it a new coat of paint, jack it up with steroids, and not explain anything at all about the characters or storyline... which they did exactly that in the US version of Dynamite Headdy. For example... in the Japan version, the characters actually have dialogue, mostly in the beginning of the boss battles. The US version took out ALL the dialogue (except for the first 3 helpers in the beginning of the second stage).

The story is that everyone lives in some puppet world and the King Dark Demon is taking everyone prison and turning the world into his little dark evil world and its Headdy's job to go defeat the king. Basic enough, unless you know who each character is and what they are all about, which the US version gives us nothing explaining them. If you've played the US version (which I'm sure most of you have) you'd only know that a yellow guy that looks like an Indian bird smashes shit with his head (sometimes to get different heads) to get to some evil king while some brown cat who always looks like he has permanent P.M.S. is chasing him and preventing him from doing so, and while all THAT is happening, everytime he defeats an enemy to take some key away, this pink female version of him takes them away from him so she can use it to kill this one robot that captures her anyway, and while all THAT is happening, this white dude with a big head and ears randomly pops out of nowhere and does all these random actions depending on where he's located. WHAT THE FUCK?!?! From our point of view it would be like the creators were on some kind of drugs when making this video game, but alas, with the power of the interwebs, the WHOLE explination is revealed.

Turns out that the brown cat is actually a bounty hunter who wants to become popular and in order to do that, he must take out Headdy so that everyone can focus on him... since the entire setting is puppets on a stage, the brown cat wants to become the #1 puppet. Speaking of which, this is another issue that this game has between US and Japan... cast of characters. First of all, the names are different from each other. Using the brown cat as an example, his name in the US is "Trouble Bruin", while in the Japan game, its "Maruyama". I guess they did this to make it sound less Japan-ish, but it doesn't help that they left the Japan name IN HIS THEME SONG TO THE US VERSION!!! Also what's the excuse for some of the other characters? Take the second boss (the wooden dancing thing), it's name in US is "Wooden Dresser" but in Japan it's "Jacqueline Dressy"... um ok, what was wrong with it's first name? Second issue with characters is color swap. I find this EXTREMELY pointless. It's most noticeable with Trouble Bruin. In the US he's brown and angry. In Japan, he's pink and cute......... HUH??? I guess they tried to make him the comic relief in the Japan game, which actually does work since he looks goofy and is always failing, but god forbid the US experiences any humor in a video game. By the way... have you noticed that if you listen to Trouble Bruin's entire theme song, the second half of the lyrics to his name is replaced with "Kuma"? And we all know that the name "Kuma" related to bears... Kumachin in Fighting Vipers/Fighters Megamix, and Kuma in the Tekken series. Thats just common knowledge. Well turns out Trouble Bruin has a "Kuma" body... so you mean he's really a bear? OK... SO WHY MAKE HIS HEAD A CAT?!?! Oh wait, i just got it... the US was trying to make him look more bear like with the brown color and angry expression. That would have worked fine if they would have EXPLAINED THAT TO US IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!

Yea so aside from THAT jumble of mess, there's Heather (known as Fingy in Japan), and she's the female version of Headdy... except wearing a green jumpsuit with a cape. What's her story? Well it turns out that Headdy isn't the only one that wants to defeat King Dark Demon, but unlike Headdy, she's ahead of the game and knows the weakness of the guard(s) that protect Dark Demon's castle (theres a reason why the word "guard" is in plural, ill explain that later), which are related to the keys she collects from the "Key Masters" (which are what the bosses are called) after Headdy defeats them. Wow... what a bitch. Just let the guy do ALL the dirty work while you just sit and watch, then collect treasure afterwords. Anywho, the two team up later, but in the US version, they decide to wait till the very end to show us that Heather falls in love with Headdy. There is NO love story in the Japan version, Heather just flies away while Headdy get's stuck with a badge on his face. This badge in the Japan game is actually reffered to as "the pupper master", and took control of the King because I guess he wasn't convincing enough as a small circular yellow badge. This is also not explained in the US version.

The bosses themselves are a mix of weird, and boring. The boring part being their personality... they dont have any. The weird part being their design... I mean, what other game is there where you can shoot the shit out of a baby's head while it spits up electric bubbles? But of course, just like everything else in this game, the enemies (actually only two) differ from US and Japan. Example 1... theres a level in the US version called "Terminate Her Too" (yea I know I hate the pun as well) where in the middle of it you fight a huge robot with a castle on its head. In Japan, it was a "Alice-In-Wonderland" like doll. The US' excuse for making such a drastic change was because they didnt like the idea of "girls" or "women" doing acts of violence or getting harmed... RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT, THATS WHY STREET FIGHTER II HAD CHUN-LI AND CAMMY, HUH?? idk, its just stupid to me. Example 2... the "guard(s)" i mentioned earlier are ENTIRELY different from the US and Japan versions. In the US its just ONE robot that goes from regular, to evil. In the Japan version it's TWO robots... dressed as Kimono girls i might add. Yes, cause apparently explaining what a Kimono girl is to people in the United States is such a difficult task. However, these two had a "Dr. Jeckle & Mr. Hyde" thing goin on, which was cool, plus the evil counterpart looked convincingly crazier than the evil robot in the US version. The whole "split-personality' thing is done again with the second to final boss called "Twin Freaks", as whenever you flip the room upside down, he turns evil, but becomes good again when you turn right side up.

Bonus stage is cool, but can be frustrating at times. Basically you have to shoot a certain amount of basketballs into your net to get a hidden number that you HAVE to remember (or if your smart like me, write it down). The good news is that it's only 4 numbers, so you wont have to waste time on the bonus stage that much, and by collecting all the numbers, you can get to the secret ending. The bad news is that each time you get a number, the amount of bombs that shoot out of the cannon increase, so if you have like 3 numbers, you'll be waitin a while for a basketball to pop out. Speaking of numbers, the secret numbers for the secret ending are ALWAYS different, so if you thought you could just keep the sasme numbers you got last time, you are dead wrong. What's the secret ending? Well, you punch in the numbers on a keypad then enter an office room where these two thugs throw money at you (which HEAVULY damage you) while beating the shit out of the office owner. In Japan, this was a poke at the back then president of Sega in the Japan branch. In the US, its explained that this dude was responsible for turning that badge evil.

Last thing that HAS to be said is the difficulty... MY GOD IS THE US VERSION FUCKIN HARD!!! I dont know what it is about US video game companies boosting up their egos by jacking up the difficulty of a "remade for US" import game to make it more "challenging" but if anything, its rather annoying and kills the actual fun of the game. I mean c'mon... One-hit K.O. super hard mode as a cheat code?? Are you out of your minds?!?! I can't pass a stage without getting hit at LEAST once or twice, so unless I become a game god (which wont happen anytime soon), its damn near impossible. Trust me, you will notice a BIG difference in difficulty if you play the two versions one after the other. The Japan version is VERY much enjoyable, balancing out everything, being generous at times. For example, after you defeat a boss, they explode and shoot out "T's", which if you collect 10 in the Japan version, you get a continue. For the US it's DOUBLE that amount, so you have to collect almost ALL the T's that shoot out or else you have to start all over if you loose all your lives... ain't that a bitch?

So overall, Japan win's this round, and fortunate for me, i stumbled upon a Dynamite Headdy rom for the Genesis emulator that is the Japanese version with ENGLISH translations for the dialogue the characters speak. It is DEFINITELY worth the download, and since I'm SUCH a good sport, i'll share it with the rest of you :) http://www.mediafire.com/?0vmbjyunt2j I hope you enjoy this rom and hope you enjoyed this review :)