Some games just wind up being ahead of their time. Take Metroid, for example. Non-linear, free-form exploration with lots of gadgets and a huge world to explore-- sounds like any of the cookie-cutter licensed games that have been spawned since the birth of the Playstation. But none of them come back to the simple thrill of exploration and sense of "you vs. the world" that Metroid had. None except The Goonies II.
Not actually a sequel to the movie, but to a game released only in Japan, Goonies II puts you in the role of Mikey, chief Goonie who has been the only survivor of a wicked kidnapping plot. The other six Goonies-- Andy, Brand, Chunk, Data, Mouth, and Steph-- were all taken hostage by the Fratelli family, who've busted out of jail again and set up camp in the old lighthouse. Armed with only his yo-yo, Mikey must enter the lighthouse alone and free his companions, and then rescue the lovely Annie the Mermaid, held captive in the lowest levels of the labyrinth.
The game, as you may have surmised, is a side-scrolling adventure that takes many cues from Metroid-- a large map and plenty of gizmos. What separates the game out quite a bit from the pack is its unique way in which the world is presented; the map has a front side and a back side, connected by first-person perspective rooms. These rooms are where the Goonies are held captive and where the majority of the loot is found. For a game released in 1987, it's a pretty in-depth system; players new to the game will quickly get lost in the series of identical rooms and warp zones, but a little bit of patience and mapping will produce the best results.
In terms of graphics, the game isn't exactly groundbreaking, even by 1987 standards. Other games of the era were doing graphics much better and more detailed, but I suppose that Konami wasn't going for highly-articulated Mikey here. Where the graphics fall, however, the sound more than delivers. An eight-bit cover of the familiar "Goonies 'R Good Enough" theme permeates the game, while well-defined pieces help along the rest of the soundtrack.
The game has some gripes, of course-- conventions practically expected in later side-scrollers are absent here, such as jumping off of ladders and weapon aiming; though it can be argued that at that point those features were not yet de rigueur. Moreover, once you know where every Goonie and required item are, the game becomes almost laughably short; there was a day when I could complete the game from start to finish in one hour flat. Finally, some areas are unbelievably cheap; if you can manage to cross the suspension bridge without losing the boomerang, you're a better man than I.
If there ever was a game that strongly deserved an update and re-release, it's The Goonies II. Correcting its flaws and enhancing some of its features might be worthwhile if Konami manages to keep the core gameplay the same. In the meantime, it's worth hunting down the cart if you enjoy adventure games or just want to get your 80's nostalgia on for a movie that is twenty years old.
