 Hello, this is part 3 of a series where I talk about which Super Nintendo and Super Famicom games are tough to categorize, games that don't neatly fit into just one genre. In the past I've talked about stuff like Actraiser and Star Fox 2, to more obscure games like Fire Striker and King Arthur's World, to stuff that never left Japan like Wonder Project J and Zoku, the legend of Bishin. These kinds of games are always fun to talk about because this developer is really taking a chance and trying something different instead of replicating an old formula. I want to thank longtime viewer Josh for the original idea for these videos. Thanks Josh. One game that fits this description that I haven't talked about yet is something that never left Japan titled Ihetobo Monogatari. First of all, just look at this cover. A train, someone in a derby hat, someone playing a cello, a humanoid cat and a pirate? What? The title translates to the stories of Ihetobo, and you play in a top-down viewpoint as a fellow who decides to get off his train at an unfamiliar stop in the town of Ihetobo. Just to get out of his normal routine, and uh, what exactly do you do here? You walk around and talk to people, and depending on who you talk to, you unlock one of seven different stories that originate in Ihetobo, and you follow kind of a daisy chain of events that play out a chapter of a story before you end up back in Ihetobo to start a new chapter, with each serving as kind of a short story, all based on the work of Japanese writer and poet Kenji Miyazawa. There's no leveling or experience or even any combat here. It's closer to a visual novel than anything else, and yes, it's technically told in a linear fashion, but I have to say the dev team, Hector, did a hell of a job producing the illusion of freedom because while playing through this, I always felt like I could essentially do what I wanted. What really stands out is the art direction and music, especially the latter. This game is like a prototypical animal crossing type game, only with more of a Studio Ghibli kind of a vibe. This kind of quote unquote game isn't for everyone obviously, but I really enjoy just being able to visit this universe and just hang out and relax. Plus it fits this video series perfectly, I mean, what do you even call this kind of game? It's a bit more than a visual novel, so I guess it's kind of an exploration sim? Anyway, if this kind of thing seems interesting to you, you gotta play it with an English patch which was expertly put together by a fellow named Tom, also known as Retro Translator on Twitter, and it's available on romhacking.net. Let's go back to the states with Animaniacs. On the surface, this appears to be your typical action platformer in the same vein as the Tiny Toons games, but they're a bit different in terms of the level design and in the game structure. It's pretty much a party system here, although all three Animaniacs control the same way and all have the same skills and such, but if you take damage from an enemy or fall down a pit, you lose a character, but you can keep going with whoever's remaining in your party. There's also this weird slot machine that triggers automatically during gameplay whenever you collect enough coins and it can grant you power-ups like invincibility, or it can bring back characters you've lost. There's also levels here that have you zipping around on brooms, outrunning these rolling and bouncing balls, or using teamwork within your party, which is always fun. Yeah, at heart this is an action platformer, but Animaniacs at least presents enough of a spin on the genre that makes it a unique game. Here's a game with an utterly generic title, Ultimate Fighter, and it betrays the interesting idea this game tries to pull off. It's developed by Culture Brain, who did games like Super Ninja Boy, which mashed together RPG elements with side-scrolling beat-em-up combat. Ultimate Fighter, meanwhile, seamlessly combines a 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up with a one-on-one fighting game. For example, you'll be making your way to the right, smashing anything that moves, then suddenly a more powerful opponent shows up and the game transitions to a one-on-one fight. Defeat that guy and it's right back to the beat-em-up mode. Sometimes you even transform into what looks like a character from the He-Man universe or Power Rangers, maybe? So weird. I'll admit this game has some wonky controls that are slow to respond at times and the frame rate isn't that great, and the fighting mode isn't exactly Street Fighter 2, but still, it's definitely something different, and I like how quickly the game switches between the two fighting modes while keeping the same perspective. Big Sky Trooper is one of my favorite games I've come across since I've started this channel project thing. It's your classic, what the hell do I do kind of a game, where you start out in the middle of a spaceship with no clue how to do anything. First, you mess around with this computer, pick a planet on this map interface, then blow up incoming enemies in this asteroid style mini-game. That can't be all this game is, right? Nope, this is just the first step to protecting your satellite and your ship before you head down to the surface of the planet in a top-down action mode where you explore, find items and zap enemies with all sorts of weapons. This mode even uses the same game engine as Zombies 8 My Neighbors, since those games shared the same dev team at LucasArts. But yeah, Big Sky Trooper's structure is what defies genres. Sure, the meat of the game is top-down action, but there's a lot of exploration, puzzle solving, and plenty of other stuff going on here that may make this game tough to describe, but it's definitely worth playing. Let's head back over to Japan with another game that never came over to the States or to PAL regions with Great Battle 5. And this is one of the very best Super Famicom games never to get localized anyplace else. The game starts out as a wild gun-style gallery shooter. You clear the stage, and then the game switches to a side-scrolling action platformer. It flips back and forth between the two modes throughout the game, implementing all sorts of different weapons and characters, all the usual suspects from the Great Battle universe like Ultraman, Gundam, and Common Rider. And maybe best of all, this game is two-player co-op, and you don't need an English patch to play it. It's also important to note that all the Great Battle games have that extra polish to them, the same kind of polish games made by Capcom or Konami had, so the controls, visuals, and sound are all absolutely top-notch. Definitely check out Great Battle 5 any way you can. There are a ton of Gundam games for Super Famicom that never left Japan, as you might imagine, and some of them were hugely ambitious that tried some really cool stuff. The one I picked out was SD Gundam Gene Next, and yes, this game is pretty dang complicated, as you can see. It's a turn-based strategy game featuring a number of scenarios you can play through, each with a gigantic map you have to navigate. But what's cool here is that whenever you attack the enemy, the game switches to real-time action. If you encounter enemy units, you get a 2D side-scrolling fight that cuts a crazy fast pace, like something out of an Ease game. When you attack an enemy base or building, you have 30 seconds to bomb the Bejesus out of it from above while avoiding enemy fire. It's pretty cool. There is a kind of sort of finished English patch out there for this one that's at least translated the unit and weapon names, but that's about it. So try this one at your own risk. Still, I thought it was interesting enough to include in this video. We'll end on a game series that just cracks me up. Zero Four Champs started on the PC engine in Japan before making its way to the Super Famicom with two games, Zero Four Champ RR and Zero Four Champ RRZ. Both are racing games at their core, but they also have this really goofy simulation slash role-playing game aspect to them, with a story mode where you play as an 18-year-old trying to become a big-time race driver. But first, you gotta earn money, of course, but you don't earn money by racing. You earn it just by having a job. Seriously, you start as a security guard, and you've gotta work your way up the ladder. It's freaking hilarious. And you actually have to play through the parts of the game where you are a security guard, fighting rats and stuff, where the game switches to a turn-based RPG format. This just kills me. It is funny as hell, but unfortunately, there's no English patches for these games. They're only in Japanese, but it's still somewhat manageable to play through them as is. The racing itself is mostly just drag racing. RR in particular has no automatic transmission, so it's hugely dependent on shifting gears at the exact right time. The sequel, RRZ, introduces auto transmission, but there's a bit of a delay when it shifts gears, so there's still an incentive to stick to manual, which is kind of cool. Anyway, if anyone out there does translation stuff for fun, here's a couple of games you can add to your queue, if only because they're something truly different, not to mention, laugh out loud, funny. All right, I wanna thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.