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A lot of American gamers are used to seeing games given what a lot of U.S. game magazines have termed the "short fat guys" treatment - that is, games that use super deformed (or SD) characters. As a lot of you know, SD characters are a staple in Japanese games. In a lot of cases, a popular Japanese game series will receive the SD treatment and have a game created that doesn't necessarily fall into the series' continuity, but is made just as a parody. Usually these games will have something that is a bit different from its parent series' gameplay, just to give the player something fresh. Sometimes these parodies make it out of Japan, other times they're considered to be "too Japanese for an American gamer's tastes". Those of you who are regular readers or who know me know what my feelings are on that.

The stupidity of American game companies aside, several SD games did make it out of Japan and into American hands. More often than not they didn't leave Japan, but the ones that did were given very odd name changes. For instance, Valis SD for the Sega Mega Drive became Syd of Valis when released in the U.S. for the Genesis. Strange, but that could also be attributed to their lack of knowledge of Japanese. I'm not sure.

However, the Famicom is what I want to talk about here - specifically, the games I consider to be my five favorite SD Famicom games. Only two of these made it out in America for the NES (and both near the end of the NES' life). The other three didn't make it out here, but should have, as they're great games. So, without further ado...

Out of all the games that could have gotten the SD treatment, Namco selected Splatterhouse - and I couldn't be happier. As a change from the rest of the series, Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Grafitti uses (besides the obligatory SD artwork, wackiness and character design) an experience point system to gain levels, and Rick always carries a weapon on him. It's one of the most fun SD games I've ever had the pleasure of playing, and definitely one of the strangest. My one gripe with the game is that it was never released outside of Japan.

For more on Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Grafitti, check out my Splatterhouse site West Mansion.

One of the few SD titles to reach the U.S., Mighty Final Fight plays a lot like the original Final Fight arcade game (and also a lot like the NES classic River City Ransom), but has an experience point system to gain levels (much like the one in Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Grafitti). All three playable characters from the arcade game - Cody, Guy and Haggar - made it into this version (unlike the SNES game), and so did the majority of the enemies. It's quite fun - it moves fast and plays great, and it seems to be a bit on the rarer side (it was one of Capcom's last NES games, to my knowledge).

For more on Mighty Final Fight, read the review at the Classic Review Archive.

Konami's SD version of Castlevania... however, the gameplay is nothing like Castlevania. For starters, you don't play as a Belmont. You play as a character that Konami of America named "Kid Dracula". Apparently he's supposed to be a younger version of Alucard, but that point is still wide open to debate (personally, I'm going with the Japanese version, even though I'm not sure what the story is there). As far as the actual gameplay is concerned, the game actually plays more like a Mega Man game than a Castlevania (you can even hold down the fire button to create a more powerful fireball, much like you can do with Mega Man's Mega Buster), although your classic Castlevania standbys are in the game (bats, Frankenstein's monster, zombies, etc.). Konami did release the Gameboy version of the game in the U.S. (although slightly altered from the Japanese version), but the Famicom game remains import only.

More info on Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-kun can be found at The Castlevania Dungeon

To my knowledge, Parodius Da! was the only game out of Konami's fantastic Parodius series to make it to the Famicom. Parodius is an SD version of Gradius - even though the series does spoof other Konami titles like Twinbee and Castlevania, it's primarily a Gradius parody. Parodius Da! is definitely one of the better games in the series, and deserved a U.S. release - but like every other Parodius, it remained in Japan. Interestingly enough, gamers in Europe got the game... it was released in Europe in 1992 under the Palcom label. In other words, just about every country BUT the U.S. got this one. *sigh*

I didn't expect to see this one come out, but it did. Compile graced us with a Parodius-like version of their classic Aleste series, and in the process, created one of the finest shooters ever released for the Famicom. On top of that, Nexoft snapped it up and released it in the U.S.! On the downside, it came out very late in the NES' life and went unnoticed by quite a few people. The game is a masterpiece, though... from the rock-solid gameplay, to the shop where you can buy more weapons (unlike the other Aleste games), to the ability to reflect enemy bullets back at the enemies (a nifty little trick used in later games like Giga Wing), and even down to the strange, yet inspired, enemies. It's definitely one of the best NES shooters - and one of the best SD games - I've ever played.

For more on Gun*Nac, read the review at the Classic Review Archive.

There's a lot more out there, of course, but these five are my absolute favorites. I'd recommend that anyone that likes NES games, SD games or just plain great games in general to check these out.

In the meantime, here's some SD crossovers I whipped up earlier. Enjoy!

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Inspired by a recent piece of trivia I put up at West Mansion about the Gameboy Kid Dracula, I present to you... THE BATTLE OF THE RICKS!!!

On the left, we have the Rick lookalike from Kid Dracula, and on the right - Rick from Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Grafitti! Who do YOU think would win, eh? ^_^