Bravoman
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| Bravoman | |
|---|---|
 Bravoman confronting robotic totems |
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| Developer(s) | Namco |
| Publisher(s) | Namco |
| Release date(s) | 1988 (Arcade) 1990 (PC Engine) |
| Genre(s) | Platform game / beat-em-up |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Up to 2 players, alternating turns |
| Platform(s) | Arcade Game, PC Engine |
| Input | 4-way Joystick, 2 Buttons (PC Engine), 8-way Joystick, 6 Buttons(Arcade) |
| Arcade cabinet | Horizontal |
| Arcade CPU(s) | 6809 |
| Arcade sound system(s) | Sound CPU : 6809 MCU : HD63701 Sound Chips : YM2151, Namco advanced 8-channel stereo WSG, DAC |
| Arcade display | Raster, 288 x 224 pixels, 24-bit RGB color |
Bravoman or Bioboxer (complete Japanese title: 超絶 隣人 ベラボーマン, Chozetsu Rinjin Beraboh Man, roughly translated Unequaled Man Beraboh Man, sometimes referred to as Berabow Man) is a humorous combination of a platformer and a beat-em-up arcade game originally developed by Namco for the arcades as Beraboh Man in 1988 and later translated to English and ported to the NEC TurboGrafx, Duo and PC Engine as Bravoman in 1990, which is also the most popular version of the game to date.
The plot involves a bionic superhero called Bravoman who has to defeat Dr. Bomb, an evil scientist who has set an "End the World" weapon.
Bravoman possesses telescopic members which can be used as weapons against Dr. Bomb's henchmen.
The game takes a light and humorous approach to an otherwise trite theme, by using a lot of humorous elements inside the game, both graphics, plot and sound-wise, usually ridiculing or parodying stereotypical elements of superheroes and videogames, in a manner similar to the Konami game Parodius.
The game reminds some players of Mega Man (Bravoman himself looks a lot a like Mega Man and Dr. Bomb is quite like Dr. Wily).
Contents |
[edit] Gameplay
Bravoman can mainly use his telescopic limbs to attack enemies. Depending on his position (jumping, crouching etc.) he will either use his arms, legs or head to attack. Pressing on the fire button for a long time will result in a ranged but slow attack, while pressing it shortly results in a quicker, though less ranged attack. Note: the arcade version uses three different attack buttons to modulate attack power.
When walking normally, he can either attack frontally or perform a diagonal forward and upwards kick, by moving the joystick up and right (or left) while attacking.
Most enemy projectiles can be blocked by Bravoman's attacks. Also, Bravoman can occasionally collect some bonuses giving him greater range, temporary invincibility, increased speed, powerful punches or the ability to fire energy bolts for a short while.
Bravoman can reach quite high when jumping, but some places require a slightly more advanced technique, the so-called Bravo jump. It essentially means performing an attack at the top of one's jump, which will cause Bravoman to stop for a while in mid-air. At that point, pressing the jump button again will result in a smaller, mid-air jump. This technique gives Bravoman a little extra jumping height, which is essential in some stages of the game. This can only be done once per jump. Note: the arcade version uses three different jump buttons and has no "Bravo Jump" technique".
In underwater stages, Bravoman turns into a submarine, and the game then works like most side scrolling shoot-em-up games.
[edit] Lottery Man
Lottery Man is a sort of Bravoman's partner, aiding him with various bonuses during gameplay, and even being rescued by Bravoman in one stage.
Lottery Man looks like a yellow robot riding a unicycle, and floats in the game's screen each time Bravoman collects a special bonus, offering him a random item, usually points, health or power ups.
Also, during most stages, Bravoman can collect some special "lottery tickets" bonuses. After a stage's boss is defeated, Bravoman meets Lottery Man, who asks "Hey Bravoman, want to eat?" and then gives Bravoman some health bonuses, depending on how many "tickets" he has collected during the stage.
Some of the humour of the game comes from the fact that Bravoman can hit Lottery Man when he appears at the end of a stage, thus prompting some increasingly annoyed comments from Lottery Man, like:
- "OHCH (sic) what are you doing?"
- "Hitting me will lose you a friend!"
- "The strain is too much for my patience"
- "I hate you"
etc. up to a final, after about 7 or 8 hits:
- "You jerk, I will give you nothing."
Lottery Man's anger is cumulative, and if hit 10 or more times total, he will refuse to give any health to Bravoman at the end of a stage, and will appear only to mock him. After a few more stages, his anger will be reset and he'll start helping again, but angering him only makes the game harder, without his aids.
[edit] Stages
The NEC version of the game has a total of 22 stages while the arcade one has 32, being in both cases a relatively high number for a side scrolling platform game, although there are only 5 stage designs, which eventually become repetitive:
- City (Urban Area)
- Ninja Dojo
- Caverns
- "Heavenly" stages, used as bonus collections stages, only 2 in the entire game.
- Plus, there are several "underwater" stages where Bravoman turns into a Bravo-submarine and can shoot missiles and depth charges.
Many stages have got two alternative paths to the end of the level, or multiple paths to choose from inside a stage.
[edit] Enemies
What has gained the game a certain degree of ridicule is, among others, its selection of enemies, which are supposed to be Dr. Bomb's "Robot Corps".
In the first stages at least, it seems that Bravoman's enemies consist mostly of contraptions such as flying toasters and slow remote controlled cars, but on later stages Bravoman gets to fight more powerful and dangerous enemies, including flying bombs, electrocuting robots, ninjas, stone golems, bats and various traps. However, in underwater stages, Bravoman's enemies are mostly underwater animals such as squids, jellyfish and frogs, which do not seem robotic in nature, though making some reviewers ironically criticising Bravoman for "destroying fragile ecosystems".
At the end of each stage there is a big boss, although many of them show up more than once. They are, briefly:
- Robotic totems (only appear once as bosses, then appear as regular enemies on a later stage)
- Missile-shooting Robot (only appears once)
- Pistol Daimyo, another bizarre Namco character who appears twice as a boss in Bravoman, who fakes being defeated. Bravoman gets to face him twice. He eventually spun off into his own game in 1990.
- Anti-Bravoman (Known in Japan as Black Berabow), an "evil" Bravoman twin in a black Bravoman suit, appearing several times within the game, even as an underwater boss, only to reveal to Bravoman before the final boss, Dr. Bomb, that his purpose was to "make him (Bravoman) stronger" and even helps Bravoman with a health bonus.
- Shadow dancer: blonde flying ninjas appearing several times in the game, usually in pairs.
- Mechanical harpy-man: a robotic winged harpy shooting energy bolts and using an "indestructible" shield.
- Yuwa-princess: a purple haired ninja woman, called "Yuwa-princess" by Pistol Daimyo.
- Two-headed dragon: underwater enemy.
- King of Atlantis: a fat green frog-like triton commanding an army of smaller frog-like tritons.
- Dr. Bomb: the final villain, has two forms: at first he looks like a tall man with a weird hairdo (described variously as a purple mushroom cloud or purple broccoli), which is also his vulnerable spot. When damaged enough, he turns into a flying Dr. Bomb head which shoots laser rays and can teleport.
[edit] Trivia and Humour
The game, along with Pistol Daimyo no Bouken (released in 1990) and Wonder Momo (released in 1987) is usually looked upon as one of Namco's less successful or obscure games, and usually receives humorous comments and reviews, because it is perceived as a ripoff of Mega Man as well as for its odd storyline and humour as well as its use of Engrish texts.
Some of the most notable/comical aspects of the game are:
- The game uses an unusual text message popup system, similar to Wonderboy in monster land or Cadash.
- Bravoman constantly shouts "Bravo" each time he performs an attack, something which has gained the game and the character a lot of ridicule.
- When jumping, Bravoman shouts something unclear, although some players can hear him saying "Tonga!" all the time, something which would, ironically, link Bravoman to the Internet Ninja memes of today.
- Bravoman can hit many friendly characters appearing in the game, and they will answer back with comments such as "Ouch!! I am your friend!", "You fool, what are you doing?", "This is more than I can tolerate", "Hitting me will lose you a friend" etc.
- Bravoman can also attack phone booths inside the game, and the message "Hello, I'm Japanese telephone box" will appear.
- A post box on stage 3 can also be attacked, and will result in it saying: "OUCHH!!! OUUUCCHHHHH!!!!".
- After losing all of his energy, Bravoman has got the option to continue, up to 4 times. Strangely, he is encouraged continuing the game by the villain, Dr. Bomb himself, who says "You have 4 more, push run". Then a 10 second timer appears, and Dr. Bomb says "Push it in 10 seconds", and if the player doesn't push the "run" button in time, Dr. Bomb comments: "Why not push it?".
- Dr. Bomb, the villain, appears at the beginning of each stage informing Bravoman of the stage's number, e.g. "Bravoman it's stage 2", and performing a strange stabbing motion with his dagger, strikingly similar to a masturbatory gest [1].
- An alien character, claiming to be "Bravoman's friend from planet Alfa" occasionally appears floating in mid air mostly for giving Bravoman some mostly useless or obvious tips, and to remind him of his mission.
- Dr. Bomb repeatedly makes hilarious or trite statements, such as "I'm a nice grey-haired guy" and, when defeated, repents for having trying conquer the world, and offers as an excuse: "But I was alone, can you understand?", "It's tough to be single."
- At the end of the game, Bravoman morphs back into an ordinary Japanese working man with a family, wife and children , since it turns out that he was only temporarily transformed into "Bravoman" by the alien from planet Alfa mentioned above.
- Bravoman appears in Namco x Capcom alongside many enemies from his game. Sadly, Dr. Bomb only makes a token appearance in an early dialog sequence. In the game, Bravoman is partnered with Wonder Momo.
[edit] Original arcade version
The original arcade version of the game was released exclusively in Japan in 1988 under the title of Beraboh Man or Berabow Man and ran on Namco System 1 hardware. The graphics and sound are considered superior to the console version.
Key differences between the arcade and PC Engine versions:
- The arcade version contains more extensive use of speech sampling, and Beraboh Man's attack call is "Beraboh" instead of "Bravo."
- The arcade version features a series of screens detailing the game's backstory, including Beraboh Man's origins and Dr. Bomb's plan for world domination.
- The first level of the arcade version provides a walkthrough of the game's controls.
- The arcade version contains ten more stages, although the various secret areas of the console version are lacking. Dip switches can be set to give the player a choice of starting stage.
- The control scheme is much more complicated than the console version, with three buttons each for attacks and jumps.
- The text messages provided by various objects only appear once, rather than continuously.
- The infamous Bravo Jump glitch does not appear in the arcade version.
The original Japanese title, "Chouzetsu Rinjin" roughly translates as "Unequaled Man", thus underlining the humorous point of view of the game vs the superhero concept, arguably making the hero, Beraboh Man, appear egomaniac and ridiculous, when combining all of the game's elements together.
The exact name of the game is somehow of a mystery, since sources tend to vary between "Chou Zetsurin Jin" and "Chouzetsu Rinjin", and the words "Berabow" and "Beraboh" seem like an Engrish form of the word "Bravo", and Namco's references themselves tend to be cryptic and error prone.
[edit] External links
- Mystery Videogame Theater 3000 - Episode #21: BRAVOMAN a cynical review of the game.
- Bravoman as game of the week at classicgaming.com a more thorough review of the game.
