Goonies II, or; Beating My Hero to the Punch

Perhaps my only professional hero, one whom I aspire to be like in one of several careers I wish I had, is none of ther than 1up.com and EGM staff writer Jeremy Parish. Jeremy's sharp wit and love of handheld games and all things retro is only slightly less important than his astute reviewing, which points me in the right direction more often than not (and I am still hoping to play Steambot Chronicles, a Jermey Top Pick, if anyone wants to get me an early Birthday present ...). Jeremy has a little project he terms "Metroidvania," a reference I will not explain, but in this series he goes back and takes a look at the games which defined a genre. His upcoming Metroidvania piece will look at a game near and dear to my own heart, and one which owned many many hours of my young life (and more still had it not been for the Official Nintendo Player's Guide); Goonies II.

"A video game about a movie that never existed?" you ask? NO! DON'T BE STUPID! Goonies II is the sequel to the arcade "classic" the Goonies, which was a loose adaptation of the movie "the Goonies" in which the hero, Mikey, runs around a haunted dropping giant bombs on mice with sunglasses. Wait, was that the movie or the game? One more wrong note and we'll all be flat ...

So Goonies II sees the return of Mikey, who is the only Goonie left after the Fratelli Gang has kidnapped not only all of the other Goonies, but also Mikey's love interest, a mermaid. No, seriously. Did you even WATCH the movie?!

Mikey, armed only with his truty Yo-Yo, must traverse a new haunted house/mansion/labrynth of caves collecting new powerup items and rescuing all of the kidnapped Goonies and his Merfriend.... no, I mean his Girlmaid ... no ... and that fishtailed girl he loves so they can make 1/4 fish babies or something like that and I don't even really fully understand how that would work out but I am sure in a game like this the writers obviously thought of that kind of thng and perhaps the intricacies of mermaid/human relations is beyond me because I don't even know how Mikey met a mermaid to begin with.

Goonies II was a great game for a number of reasons which now seem outdated and wrong. At the time of Goonies II, which very well may have been called somehting else entirely in Japan, gamers were only happy to have good content. Things didn't have to make as much sense back then, like why a character from the real world was suddenly fighting monsters with a yo-yo he never had in the movie. I mean, look at Mario ... a plumber that grows when he eats mushrooms, shoots fireballs and kills turtles?! If we didn't say WTF then, it was only because we didn't know any better. As for Goonies, the game didn't have to stink of actual Goonies dialogue or content in order for gamers to enjoy it; we simply disregarded the title in relation to that other thing also named Goonies but which was obviously unrelated. And we were happy to have a game with more depth than the prominent side-scrollers or "sports" games of the day.

Action in the game was the two-button NES variety; jump and attack. As the game progressed, Mikey receieved new items to assist in his adventure, like a ladder, or Molotov Cocktails. Because what's more useful in a fight against a nasty snake, a children's toy, or a bottle of whiskey with a rag in it and lit on fire? I know thats what I choose when our apartment has roaches.

The cool thing about Goonies II was the way the game map was laid out. The basic premise of the map was somehting akin to Alice and the Looking Glass. By entering through doors and navigating a brief 1st person section (in which there was plenty there), Mikey would emerge on the other side of the rooms in a new section of the labrynth, with a different stylized theme (red cave, blue cave, green cave, etc.) and a new set of enemies. This expansive map made things a bit confusing at times, but once players learned their way around things got really interesting. Having a ladder meant being to climb through a hole in the ceiling, while having super jump shoes allowed Mikey to jump to previously inaccessible ledges. Sure, it was just the Metroid forumla, but instead of a wildly original sci-fi theme with all the trapings of detailed perfection, players were allowed to enjoy a present-day house and cave scenario with yo-yos!

Okay, so it doesn't sound so hot in retrospect. But this really was a deep and enojyable game in its day. While other games involved mostly static characters moving forward in increasingly difficult jumping puzzles, Goonies was another helping of a wonderful and under-utilized formula of dynamic characters growing as they moved forward. Games like this paved the way for the popularity of console RPGs to the same generation who wanted character growth in addition to plot and molotov cocktails.

But more importantly, Goonies II had an amazing soundtrack which mostly involved the Cyndi Lauper in Nintendo music form on repeat ad nauseum. And thats the way we like our Cyndi Lauper.

Ultimately, Goonies II does not stand the test of time. It would be an unfair recommendation now, too riddled with terrible grammar and nonesense elements to be even slightly enjoyable. Its a game from an age when developers wanted players to have to work for their progress, making puzzles as transparent as a brick wall and leaving the gamer clueless as to the proper approach. I doubt any level of fun could still be had form this once-masterpiece. As such, I present you with the ending of this truly epic game. Imagine hearing a MIDI version of Cyndi Lauper's "Good Enough" as you view these scenes.