Stuff I Grew Up With/Video Game Corner: King of the Monsters (1992)

This was one of the first games I ever got for my Super NES (after Super Mario World, of course). I first came across it at our town's local video rental store and the box art, showing a monster resembling Godzilla blasting another monster with his fiery breath, immediately caught my eye. Naturally, already being such a fan of Godzilla and monster movies in general, I quickly picked it up. (And it should surprise no one that, when I got home and played it, I instantly gravitated to Geon, the monster that looked exactly like Godzilla, and would often play as him.) In any case, not long after that, I got my own copy, possibly for my fifth birthday, and played it a fair amount of times, both by myself and with friends. While I'd been playing video games virtually since I could pick up a controller, and have memories of playing stuff like the original Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt at my grandparents' house, as they had an NES for their grandchildren's amusement, as well as renting plenty of games for that system, King of the Monsters, being one of the first games I owned for a system that was truly mine, is a very special one to me, and the memories of playing it are especially nostalgic. However, I hadn't played it in years when I busted it out again for a quick run in order to do the initial version of this review, and the same also goes for this update. Also, when I first did this, I learned that the version I'd played was a port of a game that started out in the arcade and then came to the Neo-Geo AES console, which I'd never heard of as a kid, nor did I know anyone who owned it (likely because the system was so expensive, no one I knew could begin to afford it). Looking at footage of the Neo-Geo port alone, I can definitely say that, fond memories aside, the version we got was very watered-down in just about every way. Not only are the technical specs far inferior, but there really isn't that much to the game overall and it can be very repetitive; in other words, this is going to be a fairly short review.

As per usual with a lot of games from this era, the only real story you get comes from the instruction booklet, as the demo that follows the title screen simply shows two monsters fighting in the middle of a city (the Neo-Geo version, at least, lets you know it takes place in Japan in 1996). But it really doesn't matter. All you have to know is that this is a kaiju fighting game, and you can pick from one of four monsters and try to fight your way through eight rounds in order to ultimately emerge victorious. Rather than beating your opponent until they run out of health, you have to wear their energy bar down and then pin them for a three count. While it may sound simple, depending on the difficulty level and how far along you are in the game, even with their energy bar drained to zero, you have to pin them several times in order to finally persevere (it can actually get really frustrating the number of times you have to do so before they stay down for the entire three seconds). On the other hand, the lower your energy is, the longer it takes your monster to get up after getting knocked down, and the longer it can take for you to break a pin. If you get pinned for a three count or the timer runs out, you have to use a set number of continues to go on. When you're revived after getting pinned, your energy is fully restored, but if you continue after the timer runs out, you and your opponent's energy are only restored about halfway. What's really bad, though, is though you don't get all of your energy back after you win a match! Instead, it's only restored by about 40%, which makes playing on the harder difficulties especially frustrating.

On the main menu after the title screen, you can not only choose between a one-player or two-player game, but you also get a demonstration of what buttons perform what moves at the top of the screen, as well as the "OPTION" menu. Here, you can set the difficulty level for the one-player game, ranging from "EASY" and "NORMAL" (the default), to "HARD" and "MANIA." On these harder difficulties, your opponents are able to deal more damage, and on "MANIA," they have absurdly long health bars from the start; on the lower difficulties, their health bars increase the further along in the game you go. In addition, you get an actual ending when you beat the game on a difficulty level above "EASY." You can also set the length of each round, with options for three, five, seven, or nine minutes, and the number of continues, with options for three, five, seven, nine, and twelve.

The original version of the game had six monsters, but due to the limitations of 16-bit systems, both the Super NES and Sega Genesis versions only have four; the two that were eliminated were Woo, a giant ape akin to King Kong, and Poison Ghost, a toxic waste monster like Hedorah, the Smog Monster. Those available are Geon, the aforementioned Godzilla look alike (who I was convinced was Godzilla for many years and would refer to him as such, despite what the instruction booklet and the game itself said); Rocky, a giant Golem-like creature made of stone; Beetle Mania, a giant insect resembling a Rhinoceros beetle (my friends and I often called him Megalon); and Astro Guy, a giant superhero and obvious Ultraman expy. Each monster controls the same and has identical

attacks: punches, kicks (or tail-whip, in Geon's case), a dash attack that you pull off while running, and five different types of grappling and throwing moves, depending on the button or buttons you push when you have a hold of your enemy. These include a simple throw or body slam (which doesn't do a lot of damage), a pile-driver, Irish whip or slingshot, a move where you grab and shake your enemy before throwing (there are minute differences for this between the monsters), and a backdrop. Each monster also has his own unique projectile weapon: Geon shoots fireballs out of his mouth (Flame Crusher); Rocky's chest opens up

and fires large stones (Rocky Bomber); Beetle Mania shoots duplicates of his horn (Beetle Missile); and Astro Guy fires triangle-shaped projectiles (Flash Wave; the stance he takes when firing them is virtually identical to Ultraman's Specium Ray stance). During the fights, you can power your monster up by performing one of three grappling moves (pile-driver, shaking, and

backdrop) and collecting "P" orbs that your enemy drops. When you collect ten of them, your monster changes color and is able to fire a more powerful iteration of his projectile. You can only level up twice, though, and afterward, collecting the orbs doesn't seem to do anything. Unfortunately, the limited number of monsters is one of the reasons why the one-player mode is repetitive, as you have to fight each monster, including palette-swaps of yourself, twice (I would call Geon's palette swaps Mechagodzilla, after how he was disguised as the real Godzilla for the first act of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla). Strangely, the CPU-controlled monsters always have different color schemes than when you yourself play as them.

Another downgrade from the original version is that, instead of twelve rounds, you only have eight here, and even then, you fight in just four cities, with a round taking place during the day and night for each one (again, adding to that unfortunate feeling of repetitiveness). Here, the cities are Okayama, Osaka, Kyoto, and, finally, Tokyo (except for Tokyo, the others are given different names in the Sega Genesis version). Each city has its own, unique details: in Okayama, you battle in a port whose centerpiece is an enormous bridge that you both immediately destroy, and industrial refineries all around; Osaka has the notable centerpiece of its ancient, namesake castle; Kyoto is mostly made up of small structures, but has a few large pagodas and towers here and there; and

Tokyo has notable landmarks such as Tokyo Tower, the Diet Building, and Dome City. On the edges of each city are electrical barriers that, while they don't damage you, can be annoying, as they can interfere with pinning or attacking an opponent who's right on their edges or sling them down to a spot you didn't want them to go if you throw them into them. You can also rack up points from the amount of property damage you cause, either by just walking over the houses or, in the case of really large structures, hitting them with a dash attack, punching them three times, or throwing an opponent into them. Various attack vehicles such as tanks, Maser cannons, battleships, and fighter jets

and helicopters often enter during the fight, and they can be grabbed and thrown as projectiles, either by crushing and picking them or jumping and grabbing them out of the air (both are accomplished with the punch button). However, they can also be a nuisance, as they can damage you, albeit slightly, and can interfere with your attempt to charge up a beam attack if they hit you. 

A rather notorious aspect of the gameplay, I've come to learn, are the grappling moves. Since these are the only ways you can acquire power-ups, they're a vital part, but you can only perform one if your monster wins a face-to-face struggle called a "clinch." Clinches occur either when you and your opponent touch while you're facing each other or when you pick them up after they've been knocked down. So, how do you win a clinch? Well, upon looking it up, I've found that there's no strategy; the game itself decides. No matter how a clinch is started, whoever wins is chosen randomly, and the winner (obvious from the animation of them

overpowering the other monster) can do the move. This is really frustrating, because if you don't know that, you'll be busting your brains trying to figure out what you're doing wrong, and when you do know it, it can feel like the game has it out for you, as it's possible to lose numerous clinches in a row. I've read that you're more likely to win the clinches you initiate by picking up your downed opponent, but even that's not foolproof, as your opponent can either get up before you pick them up or can still win the clinch like normal. Yeah, knowing that takes a lot of fun out of the game.

While your dash attacks are often very useful against opponents, it's best to avoid actually running into them, as this does nothing but knock you both down, and leave you vulnerable to attack if your opponent manages to get up before you do (again, the less energy you have, the harder it is to get up, especially when pinned). Speaking of which, sometimes when you get up, your monster is momentarily "dizzy" (though it looks more like they're winded), and while it doesn't take long for them to recover, it can still leave you open to attack. When your opponent is like this, though, it makes for a good opportunity to hit them with

either a dash or projectile attack. As cool as the projectiles are, you have to hold two buttons at the same time and wait for your monster to power up, indicated by their flashing white, before you can shoot. This not only leaves you open to attack but, like I said, the military can force you to start over if they shoot you while you're powering up. You also have to start over if your finger slips off the buttons even slightly, and if your opponent is on their feet, they can easily dodge the attack. Finally, when it comes to pinning your opponent, you have to be standing in the right spot beside them when they're

down and then press the "Punch" button. This can be tougher than it seems, because if you're off in your positioning, you'll just punch your opponent and waste time before they get up. And if you get pinned with no energy, you can only break the pin, done by just mashing buttons, twice.

The game's controls are a bit on the stiff side and your monster's range of movement is very limited, coming off like you're locked on a grid. This means that, to successfully pull off dash attacks and projectiles, you have to be lined up with your enemy, which can feel obnoxiously precise sometimes. Also, you're very limited in the direction you can jump, and the only time your monster moves fast is when you hit the "Run" button, meaning you can miss chances for pins and such. In addition, the amount of button-mashing the gameplay can entail, like when you're trying to

break a pin, can wear on your fingers. And like I said, your attempt to charge up a projectile can be ruined if your finger even slightly slips off the two buttons you have to hold. Graphics-wise, the game is more on the mixed side. On the whole, it looks pretty good, with a lot of nice detail to the stage designs, and the monsters look cool, but the animation, as you'd expect, is much stiffer than the arcade and Neo-Geo versions. That's especially true of the ending you see when you beat the game on any difficulty level above "EASY." Regardless, it's still fun to see your monster do their own unique celebration poses when they successfully

pull off a backdrop (Geon fist-pumps, Rocky puts his hands together and waves them back and forth, Beetle Mania moves his arms up and down and sways, and Astro Guy puts one fist on his hip and pumps the other into the air), and when they successfully pin an opponent. You also come back to life after being pinned in a cool way: your body flashes with a loud, electric crackle, sending your opponent flying off. And looking at gameplay footage of it, it seems like the Super NES version is an improvement over the Sega Genesis, particularly in the sound department, with both the sound effects and music coming off as badly pixelated there (I say "seems like" because that could be the emulator, which tends to badly interfere with the Genesis' sound quality). Sound-

wise, each monster has his own distinct roar: Geon a short, sharp growl, Rocky a low, guttural roar, Beetle Mania a high-pitched screech, and Astro Guy a simple yell, and the sounds of buildings being crushed or destroyed, the booms of the monsters hitting either the ground or shallow water after a jump, the punches and kicks, and the electric crackling when you walk into one of the barriers have stayed with me ever since I was a young kid.

That also goes for the game's music, composed by Kazuhiro Nishida and Toshikazu Tanaka. While the quality on the Super NES is, naturally, not on the level of the arcade and Neo-Geo versions, it's still well-done music and can get you excited. When the game first starts up, you hear a series of stomps as the title screen appears, and if you don't push any buttons, the demo comes up, accompanied with some pretty nightmarish music, which I remember kind of freaking me out as a kid (the same music also plays during the ending credits). The music on the Main, Options, and Monster Select menus is really cool and fast-paced, but also urgent-sounding; it also plays during the countdown from ten where you're given the option to continue after you've been pinned, and can make you frantic in hitting the button. Not only do the arenas and opponents repeat but so does the music, with only four themes for each fight with one of the monsters. The fights with Geon have one of the most memorable, sounding something like a combination of the two themes I've just described, while Rocky is accompanied by music that starts out with a rapid beat and then transitions into a rather eerie-sounding middle. Beetle Mania's levels have the absolute strangest, most unusual-sounding music in the whole game, while Astro Guy's theme is just awesome and badass, very fitting for a tokasatsu-like superhero, and could be my favorite piece from the game. And finally, when you succeed in pinning your opponent, the music is quite downbeat.

The last thing I have to say about the game is that, despite my fond childhood memories for it, it truly hasn't aged well (this version, anyway), and the One-Player mode is, indeed, repetitive due to the limited number of monsters, stages, and how you go through each one twice. Moreover, when you increase the difficulty, the CPU's behavior, which can be downright dumb and predictable, doesn't change, but your opponents' hits are accurate, deal more damage, and they have ridiculously long energy bars, whereas yours remains fairly small and you don't deal out much damage, even when 

you level up. Thus, it feels less like a challenge and more just monotonous and unfairly tipped in the CPU's favor. The game's ending is severely compromised by the system downgrade. It depicts your monster attacking and destroying a Tokyo news studio, with an anchor getting caught in the destruction, but the animation is badly stilted (to be fair, it's not much better in the original version), the repeated sound effect of your monster's roar is annoying, and the lack of any dialogue on the part of the anchor is a shame, because the way he sounds in the original versions is hilariously bad, not only sounding as wooden as a tree-trunk but also coming off as more British than Asian. What's more, the ending is censored in the Super NES and Sega Genesis versions, as they show the anchor, in very bad animation, escape the studio; in the original version, the screen cuts to black right when a piece of rubble comes down and hits him.

That's pretty much all I have to say about King of the Monsters. It's a very simple and rather dated kaiju fighting game, with a limited roster of monsters and arenas, frustrating and downright unfair aspects of the gameplay, stiff controls and limited animation, and it can really feel monotonous when played on the harder difficulties. But there's no denying that it does have some camp appeal, with good graphics and level design, fun monsters with memorable moves, victory animations, and vocalizations, and some very catchy music. Faults aside, back in the day, it brought my monster-loving friends and I some real enjoyment, and I still have a lot of nostalgia for it. Hopefully, if it's a game you grew up with, this review brought back some fond memories.