Special thanks to Austin Russell and Oren Ronen for some translation help! Cytlan for helping get Hey Sheep! and MJ-05 properly dumped.
It’s probably not appreciated in the West how big of a thing Hudson was in the early days of computer gaming in Japan. They produced and ported their early titles to nearly every early Japanese computer starting in the early 1980s. Naturally, depending on the hardware, some ports are better than others. For being such a major part of early Japanese computers, there’s surprisingly a large amount of their work yet to be preserved. Luckily an anonymous source kindly stepped up and purchased 8 of their titles for the Sharp MZ-2200 computer from Yahoo auctions a few months back. They have been scanned and dumped by Gaming Alexandria and are now out for all to enjoy.
In order to play these you’ll need an emulator. I used EmuZ-2000 TF Edition which you can download here. You simply load the MZT files with it or drag and drop them on the emulator windows when opened to play them. Hit ALT-C to enable color mode as well.
Let’s look at the titles shall we?
Game Name – Cannon Ball (1983)
Japanese Title – キャノンボール
Catalog ID – WB-1001
Programmed by – Unknown
Download ROM (MZT)
Download 1600DPI RAW Scan Images (External Link)
Inspiration for the 1989 arcade game Pang released by Mitchell Company and later ported to various consoles, known as Buster Bros. in the West. You control a man with a hook shot and try to clear the screen of cannon balls. When the balls touch any part of the hook they will break apart into smaller balls until eventually they’ll disappear. The player must move around the screen avoiding them as if he comes into contact with them he’ll lose a life. As you advance in the stages more and more balls appear, and on the Sharp MZ-2200 it doesn’t take long for it to cause some slowdown so be aware of that.
The controls are pretty simple, press Numpad 4 to move him left, Numpad 6 to move him right, and hit space to fire the hookshot.
600DPI Scans –
Game Name – Vegetable Crash (1983)
Japanese Title – ベジタフツレクラッシュ
Catalog ID – WB-1002
Programmed by – Unknown
Download ROM (MZT)
Download 1600DPI RAW Scan Images (External Link)
Use your fork shooting ship to fight off hordes of eggplants, carrots and apples (interestingly apples aren’t clearly considered a fruit in Japan as they are in the West). Vegetable Crash is very much a Galaxian/Galaga clone as the eggplants and carrots come down at you in groups of three at times. The enemies are ruthless and nearly almost always quickly try to slam into your ship costing you a life. Your ship only allows you to fire one fork at a time and on top of all that the veggies also shoot caterpillars out as bullets when diving. Honestly this game is very difficult and not nearly as enjoyable as the games it was obviously inspired by. I wasn’t even able to get past the 2nd level!
The controls are the same as above, press Numpad 4 to move your ship left, Numpad 6 to move it right, and hit space to fire.
600DPI Scans –
Game Name – Bomber Man (1983)
Japanese Title – 爆弾男
Catalog ID – WB-1003
Programmed by – Unknown (Probably Toshiyuki Sasagawa & Y. Tanaka)
Download ROM (MZT)
Download 1600DPI RAW Scan Images (External Link)
One of Hudson’s most successful franchises has its roots on early Japanese computers. In this one his only nemesis are the balloon enemies that almost always are the first enemies you run across in any Bomber Man game. Oddly Bomber Man isn’t a robot in his first outing and seems to be man in overalls and a hat. The game plays like its later versions as well, navigate a maze avoiding enemies while dropping bombs. After a few seconds they’ll explode and the blast radius can take out enemies or take out you so be careful! Walls can be blown up as well to open up new pathways or uncover items and exits. Was also released for early European computers but renamed as Eric and the Floaters (among other ridiculous localization decisions).
Control Bomber Man with the Numpad: 8 is up, 6 is right, 2 is down and 4 is left. Spacebar drops the bombs.
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Game Name – Power Fail (1983)
Japanese Title – パワーフェイJレ
Catalog ID – WB-1004
Programmed by – Fumihiko Itagaki
Download ROM (MZT)
Download 1600DPI RAW Scan Images (External Link)
You are in charge of keeping a mischievous old man from cutting the power lines that connect to the Hudson Soft development room. Power comes from a battery on the upper left of the screen and is represented by white characters with bolts on their heads called “Electric-Kun”. They will slowly make their way to the development room and once they reach it a programmer will churn out a program and Hudson will make some money and you’ll get points! However if they run into an area without a line they’ll disappear. I’m unsure if there’s not a way to get them to come back but it seems like that once they disappear they are gone for permanently. There are two items to help you accomplish getting power to the room safely. What looks like pliers and a hammer. Only one can be carried at a time but they can be dropped at anytime by pressing space. Pliers will allow you to repair the snapped lines when you walk over them while holding them. The hammer will allow you to run into the old man and knock him out momentarily. If you run into him without the hammer you’ll be knocked out for a few seconds! The game ends when all the power people perish. The levels advance once all the power people have reached the development room and/or died. As long as one makes it to the room the game will continue to the next level. Subsequent levels speed everything up, the game is enjoyable though! Fumihiko Itagaki is responsible for creating this game according to the title screen, and apparently also went by the pseudonym Ita which you’ll see on other early Hudson Soft releases including Donkey Kong 3 Dai Gyakushū that Gaming Alexandria dumped for the NEC PC-8801.
The controls are the usual numpad configuration: 8 is up, 6 is right, 2 is down and 4 is left. Space drops your item you’re currently holding.
600DPI Scans –
Game Name – Hiyoko Fighter (Chick Fighter) (1983)
Japanese Title – ヒヨコファイター
Catalog ID – WB-1005
Programmed by – Unknown
Download ROM (MZT)
Download 1600DPI RAW Scan Images (External Link)
In Hiyoko Fighter you control a little chick who must collect eggs dropped by chickens while being chased by snakes. It takes a couple of cues from Pac-Man as it has tunnels you can walk into to warp to another part of the screen when you’re feeling trapped. There are 3 eggs laid by the chickens, a white one that gives you points, a red one enables temporary invincibility and the ability to kill the green snakes, and a yellow egg will advance you to the next level. Amusingly the manual refers to the fact that you become “Super Hiyoko Man” when you acquire a red egg. The snake AI isn’t great and honestly I got bored with this one rather quickly. It’s not overly difficult however if you’re careful.
The controls are like the other games: Numpad 8 is up, 6 is right, 2 is down and 4 is left.
600DPI Scans –
Game Name – The Spider (1983)
Japanese Title – ザ・スパイダー
Catalog ID – WB-1006
Programmed by – Toshiyuki Sasagawa
Download ROM (MZT)
Download 1600DPI RAW Scan Images (External Link)
It’s the year 2199 and your ship has been caught in a batch of strong magnetic storms and has somehow wound up near a black hole that is spewing robotic spiders and other insect-like creatures that are now attacking your ship. It’s another space shooting game and unfortunately like Vegetable Crash this game is quite difficult. Once again you can only shoot one pair of bullets at a time (likely due to hardware constraints) while the enemies are allowed to rain down hellfire on you rapidly. They fly in loops and shrink down at times making them hard to hit, though eventually they’ll go back to the black hole in the middle of the screen and re-spawn after a few seconds. As you progress in the levels the game will throw new insects at you and they’ll be worth more points as you advance. Programmed by Toshiyuki Sasagawa, who would go onto write music for many popular Hudson Soft games.
Numpad 4 moves your ship to the left, and 6 moves it to the right. Spacebar will fire a pair of missiles towards your enemies.
600DPI Scans –
Game Name – Hey Sheep!
Japanese Title – ひつじゃ~い!
Catalog ID – WB-1007
Programmed by – Kikuta Masaaki
Download ROM (MZT)
Download 1600DPI RAW Scan Images (External Link)
In Hey Sheep! you control a shepherd boy who must gather his sheep into the fencing before nightfall so he can go on a date with a girl. You can catch the sheep by running into them and then once you drag them to the top of the screen you can close the gate by pressing up on the underside of it and going in the direction to shut it. However in later levels a wolf appears and he’ll open the gate which allows the sheep to escape. If you fail to get all the sheep locked away safely by nightfall the game is over. The game is done by Kikuta Masaaki who did other romantic like games such as Nuts and Milk and Binary Land. He is known for hiding messages in his games, so I can’t help but wonder if he did in this one?
Movement is done by the numpad, 8 is up, 6 is right, 2 is down and 4 is left.
600DPI Scans –
Game Name – MJ-05
Catalog ID – WB-1008
Programmed by – Unknown
Download ROM (MZT)
Download 1200DPI RAW Scan Images (External Link)
An action game where you pilot a mech known as MJ-05 and shoot at various enemies that upon being shot split into more ships to shoot down. There’s also a fuel gauge you have to keep an eye on as if it runs out you’ll lose a life. However it can be refilled by landing in a pod that scrolls along the bottom of the screen from time to time. Thanks to Brolly for helping donate towards acquiring this tape to preserve.
Movement is done by the numpad, 8 is up, 6 is right, 2 is down and 4 is left. Spacebar shoots.
600DPI Scans –
Game Name – Help!
Catalog ID – WB-1009
Programmed by – Non
Download ROM (MZT)
Download 1600DPI RAW Scan Images (External Link)
For Help! you control a guy who swings a mean stick that will knock out snakes that come up from the ground and climb up the vines you can maneuver on. However the blue striped snakes cannot be killed and are quite fast and if they touch our hero he will lose a life and have to listen to some agonizing music and any yellow snakes will advance to the top of the tree. You can also get a game over if enough of the yellow snakes reach the top of the tree and eventually will reach the large apple above your girlfriends head. They’ll then cruelly drop it down on top of her head crushing her! Eventually if you club enough snakes you’ll move on to the next level but the amount of snakes that reached the top stay. The controls of the game are a bit difficult and make it tricky to maneuver the hero. If he’s holding on to two vines he cannot move up or down so you have to be careful.
The numpad controls the player, 8 is up, 6 is right, 2 is down and 4 is left.
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