Yo! Noid ・ 仮面の忍者 花丸 (1990)
Developed by: Now Production
Published by: Capcom
Released in: NA, JP
Just what is a Noid anyway?
Sayeth Wikipedia, “the Noid was a physical manifestation of all the challenges inherent in getting a pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less.” I don’t think we’re any closer to an answer, but that about sums up the inner machinations of Domino’s Pizza’s strange little excommunicated mascot. The Noid became an overnight hit after his 1986 debut, and somehow persisted in Domino’s ads for 9 whole years. I think that this marketing campaign was so wildly successful because it tapped into the public’s deepest, darkest fears; the only thing scarier than eating Domino’s Pizza is eating room temperature Domino’s Pizza.
As with anything that managed to achieve a speck of popularity in the eighties, a multi-million dollar media blitz forged in the Noid’s likeness rocked America. But all good things must come to an end, and the Noid eventually went the way of the dodo and faded into pop culture obscurity. Today, the Noid still lives on in the hearts, minds and blog posts of nostalgia obsessed weirdos everywhere. And also in Crash Bandicoot On The Run for iOS. Because if there’s any demographic that’ll enjoy a Noid comeback 35 years later, it’s the poor, unsuspecting children playing Crash Bandicoot On The Run for iOS.
Though the Noid themed action figures and frisbees of yesteryear might be lining a landfill near you now, one particular slice of that pop culture pizza pie that’s still worth a gander is the 1990 video entertainment spectacular, Yo! Noid on the NES.
Players must step into the Noid’s skin-tight rabbit onesie and jump, run, skateboard, and helicopter their way across 14 levels of the hellscape that is early 90’s New York. But why, I hear you ask? What is the Noid’s motivation on this journey? Let me put your wild curiosity to rest: there’s another Noid who’s a green recolour of the regular one, and he is BAD. His evil deeds apparently include “leading wild creatures to assail New York,” but most of the enemies in the game are small humans and weird inanimate objects, so we’ve got the fact checkers out on that one.
As a game, it’s surprisingly solid. Yo! Noid is a Capcom release, and it feels like one across the board; the music is tops, the graphics are colourful and aesthetically pleasing, and the controls feel great. If not for the Noid’s ugly mug, it could easily slot into their line of NES Disney titles and no one would be the wiser.
Of interest is that Yo! Noid is actually an elaborate reskinning of a pre-existing Famicom game called Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru. Hanamaru is the same game in essence, but with a feudal Japanese coat of paint. The love and attention the original title was shown by its creators would explain why the Noid edition actually turned out to be pretty cool. A leftover from Hanamaru is the unorthodox approach to boss battles; rather than a traditional fight against a big baddie, the Noid is accosted at the end of every odd-numbered level and forced to participate in a “pizza eating contest” with another Noid. As the Noid’s one and only character trait is that he hates pizza with all of his heart and soul, one can only assume this is designed as a torture method to make the Noid’s life a living nightmare. But if we had to stop and unpack each and every time the Noid’s life felt like a living nightmare, this post would never end.
The contest is a card game where the card with the highest numbers wins; spicing up this simplicity is the fact that you can find special cards to help win the contests easier scattered throughout the levels. The game’s only source of difficulty is tracking down these special cards in the later levels; they’re a necessity to win the contests, and are obnoxiously well hidden most of the time. Piling onto that difficulty is the fact that levels have a tight timer attached to them, so there’s little time for you to stop and try to sniff out all the cards in the area. This was my least favourite part of the game by a mile, and was a pain in the arse for the most part in my opinion.
Card scavenger hunts aside, Yo! Noid is a fun, simplistic time for anybody who can’t say no to a decent platformer, as well as the 12 Noid fans out there. While the platforming is mad decent, the game doesn’t exactly set the world on fire. It lacks a “wow factor” to set it apart from the 38,274 other run ‘n’ jumpers on the NES. Maybe it’s just feeling a little sluggish from all that subpar pizza.
Final rating:
NESJunk 