The Episode
I dunno about the Nerd, but when I was a kid this game looked really bland and boring in the magazines that featured it. So I’ve never played it until today… and it’s indeed a horrible game, gah! I’m glad my parents didn’t waste any money buying or renting this for me back in the day!
A Look at the Game
Okay! First, let’s take a quick look at the Japanese release and the North American release.
Here’s what the cartridges look like – I actually like both designs!
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And although the Nerd didn’t show the box, here’s the both boxes look like:
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And here’s the back of the boxes:
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I couldn’t help but notice the big “5300 yen” price thing on the Japanese box, so I decided to do some math! Checking the currency conversion rate for April 1988, I calculated that 5300 yen at the time was approximately $42 in the United States. But wait! Accounting for inflation, $42 in 1988 is actually around $83 now! HOLY CRAP!
Offhand, I don’t have the original price of the NES game, but I’m sure it was right around there too. I pity anyone who paid full price for this game back then, yikes!
A Mad, Mad Commercial
I didn’t realize it at first, but there was actually a commercial for this game in Japan! I’ve translated it and subtitled it here:
Tiger Time
Early on in the video, the Nerd mentions that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is so bad that even those Tiger electronic games are better than it. This made me wonder if Japanese gamers were familiar with the crappy Tiger electronic games. Like, I’m sure everyone in the world is familiar with crappy LCD games, but I was curious to know if the Tiger games specifically were ever released in Japan.
…And, it looks like they were!
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Although it actually sounds like they weren’t released in very big quantities in Japan, and maybe only certain titles were released. In an unexpected twist, it seems it was Sega that released these games in Japan!
If anyone knows more about these Tiger games in Japan, please let me know!
Title Screens
Now let’s take a look at the title screens:
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| Houma ga Toki (Famicom) | Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (NES) |
The full Japanese title is ジキール博士の彷魔が刻 (“Jekyll-Hakase no Houma ga Toki”) which translates roughly to something like, “Dr. Jekyll’s Hour of the Wandering Monstrosity” or “Dr. Jekyll’s Hour of the Wandering Demon”. Something along those general lines.
Anyway, the Japanese title screen only features the second part of the full title – the “Hour of the Wandering Monstrosity” part.
This was changed to “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” for the NES release, which makes sense. The NES release also includes publisher and licensing info on the title screen; the original release just has the title and the spooky “Press Start” stuff.
Game Changes?
Right off the bat, it looks like the game’s been changed in a big way – the very first stage is different!
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| Houma ga Toki (Famicom) | Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (NES) |
I REALLY don’t want to play through this game to see what’s different, but from what I can tell the first stage of the NES version might be the second stage of the Japanese version. I don’t know if any other stages were rearranged – if you happen to know, please share your wisdom!
Who What?
The Nerd asks at one point who all these characters in the game are and why they’re harrassing Jekyll. This is actually covered in the instruction manual, so just for quick reference here’s a look:
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And, if you’re interested, here are the manuals:
I haven’t been able to find an actual, physical copy of the Japanese manual. If you have one and you’re willing to send it to me, or if you’re willing to scan it in yourself, contact me!
Japanese Responses to this Episode
Even though this was an early episode and there wasn’t a whole lot going on in it, Japanese fans loved it! Here are some random quotes from Nico Nico that I’ve translated for reference:
So skinny!
He’s got hair!
Whoa, he’s hot!
I really like these outbursts of anger from before the AVGN character was a thing
It’s the AVNN!
So young!
The pale skinny look fits the character much better rofl
Looks like Shinji
BOOZE lolol
He’s been drinking the same beer for years
When’s E.T. coming oooout
Secret Nerd Technique: “Anger from Memories”
Makes ME wanna have a beer too
Just get to it already!
I guess this is still before he had his game room
This feels like it’s a video will or something
THAT’S the cover they had overseas?!
I thought it was 89 dollars at first! But it’s 89 cents rofl that’s like 100 yen!
He doesn’t even wanna buy it for that much
He’s filming the screen rofl
You can’t even make a game this crappy on purpose
THIS MAKES NO SENSE
Early Nerd is great too!
LOL don’t even emulate it
The only way to play it is drunk I guess
I wanna show this to the developer
Summary
There wasn’t much to this particular AVGN episode, so there wasn’t much for me to dig into. Much, much later he revisits the game, though, so maybe I’ll revisit both versions of the game later on too!
For now, I can’t help but feel drained of my soul after researching this disasterpiece.
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