A Human work: Monster Party & Street Cop | NES Works 125

I'm sorry to say that this episode brings us EVEN MORE games by Bandai, a publisher not especially known for their creative integrity and dedication to quality. Ah, but we lucked out: They hired Human Entertainment to develop both games. I wouldn't necessarily rank Human in the upper echelons of NES development, but their involvement always means a given game will at least be interesting. Think of them as a counterpart to Pack-In-Video: Their work may be a bit rough, but it certainly doesn't lean on convention.

Of the two, Monster Party holds up best: A bizarre platform game with yet another character transformation mechanic. It seems like everyone wanted a slice of that Doki Doki Pie-nic! I'm sorry, that was a bad attempt at a joke. But the game is good.

Street Cop, on the other hand, doesn't fare quite as well, and not just because who in god's name would want to play the role of a Manhattan LEO in this day and age?! Controversial theming aside, Street Cop attempts to use the Power Pad in an interesting and different way, and it doesn't quite work. Points for the effort, though.

Production notes:

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NES footage captured from Analogue Nt Mini. Video upscaled with xRGB Mini Framemeister and RetroTink 4K. "Before the Storm" courtesy of Jacob Le.