Samurai Pizza Cats - Tropes on top of Tropes dipped in Trope sauceI'm convinced that absolutely no one even has the slightest understanding of what Samurai Pizza Cats exactly is. It's never had any sort of spotlight, and frankly, I think it deserves some. Now, there might be a bit of confusion as to what it exactly is, but I'll be explaining it in as much detail as possible, since there's pretty much no one who knows anything about it.
Kyatto Ninden Teyandee or "Legendary Ninja Cats" was an anime produced by Tatsunoko Productions, the ones responsible for a lot of anime that was actually featured in Tatsunoko x Capcom. Unfortunately this didn't give Kyatto Ninden Teyandee any spotlight, as none of them made it into the game. The anime was your typical action hero mecha anime featuring a "Monster of the Day" format as well as generic battle transformations and finishing moves and was particularly average in it's native land, but it wasn't until the localization by Saban that the sensation was born. Aired under the name "Samurai Pizza Cats", the show featured mostly ad-libbed dialogue as well as containing various puns, jokes, and wall breaks. This was mostly because of the fact that the dubbers didn't have a properly translated script, or for that matter, any script at all. This gave them much better results than the original japanese airing, and because of this, they went on to give them nearly 100% writing freedom. It is probably the best example of a gag-dub to this day.
All of this gave Tecmo the opportunity to create a videogame based off of Kyatto Ninden Teyandee. The game was then given a proper translation, but some people felt as if it didn't pay homage to the english dub. This inspired someone to do their own translation, with their own ad-libbed dialogue, including similar puns, humor, and pop culture references that were present in the english dub of the anime. That is exactly what this ROM hack is.
Graphics: 5/10. The graphics, at least by NES standards, are relatively average. It's nothing incredibly detailed like Castlevania, but there's still some charm to it. The characters' portraits are probably the best part as they're very close to the actual designs. That being said, the only part of the game that isn't heavily detailed would be the backgrounds, but considering we're dealing with a traditional japanese setting it's not inconceivable that there wouldn't be too much in the background, and since all the buildings are in the foreground.. yeah. It's average, it doesn't hurt to look at, but it's not stellar either.
Sound: 7/10. Surprisingly enough, Tecmo did pretty well with the soundtrack. They haven't been known for their music so I was surprised to see such a well done rendition of Otto Dokkoi Nihonbare, which is known as the opening for Kyatto Ninden Teyandee. They did change it in this game though, to a fan version of the Samurai Pizza Cats opening. Personally I prefer Otto Dokkoi Nihonbare, but nonetheless both are done fairly well. The cutscene tunes were also great renditions of many things, such as the transformation sequence and the final blow from the original Kyatto Ninden Teyandee. As far as the stage music goes, they're all very similar, but they all fit in place as they give the traditional japanese vibe while still keeping a good tempo for platformer-fighter action.
Addictiveness: 6/10. Honestly as addictive as this game is, it's a bit difficult and because of that I was rather frustrated with some of the levels. This caused me to get as far as the last level and then put the game down for a week+ before trying again to beat it. You guys probably know that this definitely takes away from the addictiveness of the game. There've been games that beat me to a pulp and then I'm instantly ready to try again, but this isn't one of them. It wasn't until I figured out a strategy that I managed to actually get back into it. Even with that in mind, I don't expect people to instantly know what to do so that's why it's so low.
Story: 4/10. Right.. so, I'm going to have to explain the story of this ROM hack as well as the original translation, just for contrast. In Kyatto Ninden Teyandee, an evil scientist known as Dr.Purple is hired by Ko'on-no-Kami to assassinate the Nyankii, a group of high class operatives ordered by the government to stop crime and protect Edoropolis while maintaining a guise of running a pizza parlor, so Ko'on-no-Kami can overthrow Shogun lei lei Tokugawa in order to become the new Shogun. Now, in Samurai Pizza Cats, this is a bit different.. Seymour Cheese hires Dr. Whoot to create mechas to pit against the Pizza Cats as they continue to thwart Big Cheese's schemes, including occupying a TV station, and trying to find a goldfish made of gold. As you can see by this, the general plot is a bit different, and instead of Ko'on-no-Kami's ambitions being that of overthrowing the government, it's instead changed to where in each stage he has a new plot for baseless reasons. You can decide for yourself which is better, but personally I think I prefer the original. I will admit though, the plot does hold true to the english dub.
Depth: 4/10. Well, there's about... 11 stages. In those stages, you look for the boss, and then you fight the boss. While this might be a tad repetitious and somewhat boring, I've yet to go over some of the features. You can press start to switch between characters mid-game, which all have different abilities. Meowzma can burrow through walls, Spritz T. Cat can swim underwater much easier than the others, General Catton can punch through walls, and Bat Cat can fly through the air for a period of time. This is about as much variety as you're going to get out of this game though, as it is strictly linear and there's no offbranching. The only thing you can really do is choose which stages to do first sometimes.
Difficulty: 6/10. Most of the game is a cakewalk and some of the first bosses are pretty weak, but as you progress in the game things get a bit more difficult. More enemies onscreen, more projectiles, more hazards and eventually you get into more forms. One boss in particular has 3 forms, in which you must do in one fell swoop otherwise you're kicked right back to before the fight. It's quite frustrating, and sometimes it's pretty difficult to read the enemies movements and especially difficult to dodge since it plays similarly to that of Castlevania. If you can manage to beat this game, kudos. But I had to use save states because it was so frustratingly difficult.
Overall: 6/10. I honestly wish this game would get a little more popularity, as well as the anime itself for the fact that the english dub barely feels like an anime in the first place. It feels more like one of those classic cartoons you watch with the classic tropes we all know, just with a different artstyle. Overall this ROM hack is a wonderful translation and gives you a really good concept of what the english dub is like, which is something that I'm trying to give to people with this review. If you get the chance, I suggest you at least give this a try for around 10 minutes just so you know if you're missing out or not.
Graphics
5 Sound
7 Addictive
6 Depth
4 Story
4 Difficulty
6
User Notice 
