[I ♥ The PC Engine] Sadakichi Seven: Hideyoshi no Ohgon

Sadakichi Seven: Hideyoshi no Ōgon
(定吉七番・秀吉の黄金)

Maker: Hudson
Release Date: 11/18/88
Price: 4900 yen
Media: HuCard (2 Mbit)
Genre: Adventure
PC Engine FAN Score: 23.92 / 30.00
Kōgien: “Based from an offbeat parody novel. The gags inserted into each scene will make you laugh. The game, divided into eight chapters, features Sadakichi, the decchi with a license to kill, trying to recover Hideyoshi’s ancient documents from the evil NATTO syndicate.”

Are strip-mahjong games and simulations where you “raise” virtual idols not Japanese enough for you? How about an adventure where the cast is mostly weirdo middle-aged people from Osaka and you’re fighting a terrorist organization whose aim is to destroy the Kansai region of Japan and make the entire land safe for natto?

Sadakichi Seven, aka mild-mannered Osakan Tomokazu Yasui, is a secret agent who works for the underground Osaka Chamber of Commerce. He is the decchi (a term for a merchant’s apprentice in the Kansai area) with a license to kill, and with that kitchen knife he’s got on the game’s cover art, he keeps Osaka safe against NATTO, a group of evil Tokyo businessmen who want to destroy Sadakichi’s home. This is funny because (busts out Chris Rock impression) people from Tokyo are like this — “Wee wee wee, I like natto” — and people from Osaka are like this — “Rrr rrr rrr, I don’t like natto.” Get it?!!?!

A lot of the humor in this menu-based adventure (a surprisingly prolific genre across Japanese systems in the late 1980s) is, admittedly, rather…local. Not only will you have to know a lot about Japanese culture; you’ll also need to know a fair bit about Osaka and the differences between it and Tokyo. For that matter, you’ll also need to know how to decipher written Osaka dialect, which is laid on thick by most of the main characters here. In fact, short of a shogi simulator, I can’t think of a PCE game that’s less accessible to foreigners. Sorry. The 007-ish music‘s nice and atmospheric, at least (the Hudson Soft Lounge Orchestra back in action), and if you do know Japanese, the humorous responses you get for trying outrageous things are worth the trip.

Hideyoshi no Ōgon is actually based off a series of spy-spoof novels written by Ryu Togo starting in 1984, some of which are kind of funny — they’re all out of print, but available as cheap ebooks from the original publishers. The game’s characters and graphics were all drawn by Koichiro Yasunaga, a manga artist who’s earned some repute for his girl-laden ’80s comics. so there’s that going for it as well. (The Japanese Wikipedia cites a source that claims Togo lost the right to create further Sadakichi novels because Hudson trademarked the guy’s name and were presumably uncooperative somehow after this game came out. Odd.)

This video gives you the basic idea of gameplay. Not much else to report.