COLUMN: Game Time With Mr. Raroo: 'Love Stung: My Affair With Hudson Soft'

[In a GameSetWatch-exclusive article, Mister Raroo catches up with one of his first gaming loves, Hudson Soft. Hudson have had an interesting presence in the game industry over the years, and Mister Raroo explores not only Hudson Soft's history, but how his personal experiences and feelings have intertwined with the company's software.]

First Kiss, First Love

Two things happened during my eighth grade class’s trip to the East Coast in 1990: I awkwardly kissed a girl for the first time, and I fell in love. However, other than the fact that both happened while I was in New York, the two events are not related to one another. The kiss, in all its embarrassing whoops-our-teeth-just-knocked-together glory happened during a makeshift game of Spin the Bottle while on a late evening bus trip. The falling-in-love, however, occurred one afternoon at FAO Schwartz toy store.

Fresh off its cameo in the Tom Hanks flick Big, FAO Schwartz was a destination that excited many of us eighth graders, if only because we wanted to visit the store we had seen in the movie. Thankfully, we were not disappointed, and our senses were almost overwhelmed with the many dazzling sights and sounds that surrounded us. But for me, my attention was focused on a wall of television screens working in unison to display an incredible sight: Alien Crush for the Turbografx-16.

I was not unfamiliar with the Turbografx-16, and in fact I had brought along a number of video game magazines jam-packed with information about the system on the trip with me, but this was the first I had seen any of the system’s games in motion. Put simply, I was blown away. Alien Crush sported a level of graphical detail the likes of which I’d never seen outside of an arcade, and I declared then and there that I’d do whatever it took to own a Turbografx-16. Unfortunately, this was easier said than done.

With an allowance of five dollars per week, it would take a ridiculously long period of time to save up for a Turbografx-16, not to mention a game or two to play. To my mom, a video game system was a video game system, and she didn’t understand why in the world I needed another game system when I had a perfectly good Atari 7800 at home. It took months of effort on my part to even get her to the point of considering the prospect of buying me a Turbograx-16, and it wasn’t until my birthday in 1991 that I finally got my mitts on the system.

One of a Kind

As far as I knew, I was the only person at my high school who owned a Turbografx-16. Everyone else who was into video games was either a diehard Nintendo or Sega aficionado, and nobody seemed to care about the strange little system I was so enthralled by. In some ways, the fact that I was the only person who seemed to understand how great the system was made the Turbografx-16 seem even more special to me, but looking back it was also an indication the lack of mainstream success it would have in the United States.

In fact, by the time I was able to get my own Turbografx-16, the poor console seemed to already be on its way out. Many of the local stores had already stopped carrying the system, and my mom resorted to ordering it for me through our trusty Sears catalog. It took a few weeks for my Turbografx-16 to arrive for pick-up at our local Sears, and the wait was grueling. But when the day actually arrived, it was pure magic.

The pack-in game, Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, wasn’t particularly impressive, but its visuals and sound were head and shoulders above the best of the bunch on the Atari 7800, and I couldn’t believe I had something so amazing in my own home. I had purchased Splatterhouse with money I’d received for my birthday, and while admittedly it was easy enough that I beat it the first night I played it, I thought the game was so neat I revisited it countless times after that.

Soon I began saving up every last penny to put all my money towards buying new games and before long my collection began to grow. Not only did I reunite with Alien Crush at long last, but I became a big fan of the likes of the Ninja Spirit, Legendary Axe, Final Lap Twin, Soldier Blade, Air Zonk, and one of my all-time favorites, Bonk’s Revenge. I spent so much time playing my Turbografx-16 that my parents actually had to hold a mini-intervention of sorts to encourage me to partake in other activities!

Over the next couple years I expanded the Turbografx-16 itself, adding the ahead-of-its-time CD-ROM drive so I could play games like Ys Book I & II and Valis III. And, in the twilight of the Turbografx-16’s run in the U.S., I upgraded my system with the incredible SuperCD Card, allowing me to play titles like Gate of Thunder, Loom, and Lords of Thunder. In my heart I knew that the Turbografx-16 was having its last hurrah, but it sure felt like a heck of a great way to go, and I was happy to be a part of it.

Discovering Hudson

Despite being a manic video game player during the Turbografx-16 era, I knew little about its Japanese counterpart, the PC-Engine. To be honest, the few times I saw any information about the PC-Engine in game magazines, I thought it was a different system altogether! Soon, however, I learned that the Turbografx-16 was actually the Americanized version of the PC-Engine, and furthermore I was rather shocked to learn how much more successful the system was in Japan than in the United States.

Beyond seeing their name on many of the games I played, I also didn’t realize Hudson Soft had actually worked with NEC to develop the PC-Engine. It wasn’t until the Turbografx-16’s last days, when NEC and Hudson formed a joint venture in the U.S. called Turbo Technologies Inc., that I began to understand that Hudson Soft had much more to do with the Turbografx-16 than I had previously known. It was at this point that I began to not simply care about the games—I started caring more about the companies behind them.

Formed in 1973 by Yuji and Hiroshi Kudo and reportedly named after the Hudson trains the brothers liked so much, Hudson’s beginnings was as a store in Sapporo, Japan. Within five years Hudson transitioned from being a vendor for electronics such as the CQ Radio Transmitter to developing and selling its own software. This move eventually led to Hudson Soft creating games for Nintendo's Famicom game console.

Hudson Soft was the first third-party company to release games on the Famicom, starting with the mid-1984 releases of Lode Runner and Nuts and Milk. Additionally, Hudson worked with Nintendo and Sharp to co-develop the Family BASIC, which was both a software language and Famicom peripheral that allowed users to program software. And, of course, a few years after their Famicom debut Hudson would go on to work with NEC on the creation of the PC-Engine. All the while, Hudson’s warm relationship with Nintendo continued, and despite their strong ties to NEC, Hudson never stopped creating games for Nintendo’s system.

One of the mysteries I had always wondered about was how Hudson Soft chose to have a bee in its logo. According to Hudson Soft’s Director of Marketing, Mike Pepe, the older of the Kudo brothers was heavily into ham radios. The island of Hokkaido, where the brothers lived, had a radio identification number of 8. In Japanese, the word for the number 8 is “hachi,” which also happens to phonetically be the word for bee.

Thinking back to all the wonderful Turbografx-16 games Hudson Soft were responsible for, I can't help but have a warm place in my heart for a developer capable of such a wide array of interesting and enjoyable games. Without a doubt, Hudson Soft really came through on the Turbografx-16 with memorable shooters, platformers, role-playing games, and so much more.

I never necessarily become a rabid Hudson fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but I have always taken notice of their games whenever I happen across them. Hudson Soft may not be in quite the same league as some of the larger developers like Namco or Capcom, but all the same I can’t help but love their output. And even though not every Hudson Soft title personally resonates with me, on the whole their games have always had a slightly different and unique feel that I find noteworthy.

This Party’s Da Bomb!

Despite the fact that I’d enjoyed many of Hudson’s games since the Turbografx-16 era, it wasn’t until the Gamecube was in full swing that Hudson Soft once again became front and center on my gaming radar. At this time our niece Autumn was in elementary and middle school, and she’d come spend every weekend with my wife and me. One of our Friday and Saturday night treats was for the three of us to play the Gamecube’s Mario Party and Bomberman games.

Both Mario Party and Bomberman are series that often get criticized for having frequent releases, but one has to applaud Hudson Soft’s efforts for delivering a solid product with some fresh ideas each and every time. The Mario Party games are always filled to the brim with minigames, and while a small percentage may be duds, the majority are usually cute and creative, harkening back to the simpler days of gaming. The Bomberman games, too, always include a variety of modes to spice up the tried and true core gameplay, for better or worse.

Personally, I think the major factor that made the Mario Party and Bomberman games so enjoyable is simply the fact that we were playing them with Autumn. Jaded gamers might thumb their nose at the idea of spending a Friday or Saturday evening sitting on the sofa, eating junk food and battling to be the Party Star, but for us there was nothing more fun. Autumn’s infectious enthusiasm made playing the games all the more fulfilling, and soon my wife and I felt like we were kids again.

Beyond Mario Party and Bomberman games, Hudson Soft also grabbed my attention with a series of games they created for both the Gamecube and Playstation 2. Only available in Japan and released at a budget price, the “Hudson Selection” consisted of remakes of four classic Hudson games: Lode Runner, Star Soldier, Bonk’s Adventure, and Adventure Island. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the releases, finding them to simple, affordable fun. Looking back, it was with these four games that I believe Hudson Soft set the stage for the happy niche they’d eventually find for themselves with the Nintendo Wii.

The Calm Before the Storm

Though Hudson Soft found great success with mobile phone game releases, things actually weren’t so hot for the company with their first few Wii games. Despite featuring charming bird characters, Wing Island was an altogether lackluster flying game that only made Wii owners long all the more for a new entry in the Pilotwings series.

Kororinpa: Marble Mania was a much better game, but despite containing some cute fan-service like Star Soldier music, it was light on content. And even though Mario Party 8 had some very creative board designs and made some decent use of the Wii Remote’s functionality, it wasn’t quite the revolution to the series fans were hoping for.

Meanwhile, Hudson Soft didn’t seem to be doing too well on other systems, either. For example, Bomberman: Act Zero for the Xbox 360 was a critical and commercial flop, with the game’s darker tone being all but rejected by series fans, most of whom probably didn’t even bother to play the game. However, as my friend Joel pointed out, Act Zero’s gameplay does not suffer one bit from its new coat of paint, and in fact in many ways the game’s new aesthetic made it the freshest spin the series has seen in years.

Given their fairly lackluster game line-up, I didn’t take much notice to Hudson Soft’s Wii output at first. Although I had purchased and enjoyed Kororinpa: Marble Mania and Mario Party 8, most of my attention was focused elsewhere. However, while I was busying myself with games like Super Mario Galaxy, No More Heroes, and Mario Kart Wii, Hudson Soft were slowly but surely building a library of diverse, intriguing, and worthwhile game releases for the Wii.

Virtual Buzz

Recently, I’ve grown to appreciate Hudson Soft possibly even more than I did during the Turbografx-16 era. I credit the company’s WiiWare line-up for this reinvigoration of my interest. The amount of affordable and attractive games Hudson Soft has released for Nintendo’s downloadable service is commendable. But what makes me happiest of all is that many of the games are really bizarre.

Pit Crew Panic!, in particular, is a simple and straightforward strategy game of sorts in which you oversee a crew of six women and assign them to fix different parts of vehicles as quickly as possible. It’s easier said than done, and the pace of the game makes keeping track of which ladies are hard at work and which need new job assignments amusingly frantic. With vehicles ranging from automobiles to flower pots to toilets, you’ll never know what’s going to pull into your pit next.

I’ve also spent far too much time goofing around with a title that isn’t even a proper game: My Aquarium. Beyond decorating your fish tank, selecting what fish to put on display, selecting background music, and dropping in fish food or tapping on the glass, there isn’t much to do in My Aquarium except sit and watch the virtual fish swim around. However, there is something oddly hypnotic and addictive to My Aquarium that I can’t quite put my finger on, and I’ve visited my virtual aquarium more times than I can count.

But not all of Hudson Soft’s offerings are so esoteric. Tetris Party, for example, is a slick, addictive, and fresh offering for the series, featuring a number of inventive new game modes I’ve never seen before in a Tetris game. My personal favorite is Field Climber, in which you strategically drop blocks to help a tiny man pick up flags and reach the goal at the top of the screen. Tetris Party also features smooth online battling against friends or random opponents, though I don’t play online very often because I always end up losing!

Hudson Soft also has a large amount of Virtual Console games available through Nintendo’s Shopping Channel, including some titles previously only available in Japan. It was a treat to be able to finally play Bomberman ‘94, which is notable as being the last major HuCard game created for the PC-Engine. It never found its way to the United States, but for a mere $7 I was able to download the game and soon I was experiencing the game that many of my friends had told me was arguably the best Bomberman game ever created.

Even on other systems, Hudson Soft’s downloadable games have been worth checking out. While Bomberman Live was an excellent return to form for the series on the Xbox 360, my favorite Hudson release for the system was their publication of Natsume’s beautiful shooter, Omega 5. Feeling like the type of game I would’ve sunk countless quarters into as a kid, Omega 5 is pure arcade goodness in a gorgeous, glossy coat of paint. I probably would’ve paid full price for such a short but infinitely sweet game at retail, so considering it was $10 on Xbox Live Arcade, it felt like a steal.

And, putting aside the fact that I don't even have a cell phone with decent gaming capabilities, it's worth pointing out that Hudson Soft has found great success as a publisher of mobile games. With titles like Lode Runner, Bomberman, Adventure Island, Military Madness, and plenty more, there are a substantial amount of titles available to choose from. I don't think mobile incarnations of these titles are necessarily enough to sway me to break down and upgrade my cell phone to a meatier model, but if Hudson releases a mobile version of Ninja 5-0, that may change!

Roar at Retail

Beyond downloadable games, Hudson Soft has also seemed to find their stride in terms of their retail releases. As the total number of Wii releases rises, companies need find a way to make their games stand out to consumers browsing the game aisles. Hudson Soft seems to have taken this idea to heart, and consequently their strategy seems to be to release inviting, family-friendly games at a bargain price.

With so many people on tighter budgets these days, Hudson’s plan not only makes perfect economic sense, but if Deca Sports is any indication, it’s seriously paying off. Deca Sports received lukewarm reviews from the gaming press, but with over two million copies shipped to retail worldwide, the game has performed exceptionally well. Obviously Hudson Soft’s $30 price point for retail games played a big part in Deca Sports’s success, but I also believe that even though the game may lack the polish of its closest competitor, Wii Sports, its bright tone and quirky aesthetics make it hard to resist.

Speaking of quirky, Hudson’s retail releases have been anything but stale. Marble Saga: Kororinpa takes what made the original game fun and improves upon it by providing plenty of content, more control options, a level creation mode, and even Balance Board support. In addition, Marble Saga: Kororinpa is a big hit in the Raroo household because my son loves to dance to the vibrant music that plays whenever a stage is cleared. That’s almost worth the price of admission alone!

Meanwhile, Help Wanted may just give WarioWare: Smooth Moves a run for the money as the Wii’s most amusing collection of minigames yet. With a madcap storyline revolving around earning money to save the world from destruction, Help Wanted puts players into 50 different occupational roles, be it a farmer, a bodybuilder, or my favorite, a haunted house employee. Help Wanted, like Deca Sports, is the type of game that has the potential to move a significant amount of units without anyone really noticing.

Traveling on the Hudson Train

It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Hudson Soft’s game releases. Obviously, the company has shifted its strategy to supply the types of games a large percentage of Wii owners are looking for. In other words, a great deal of Hudson Soft’s Wii output has been of the “casual” and family-friendly variety. But, at the same time, just about all of their games have still retained a lot of the distinctive flavor that personifies the type of content I expect from Hudson.

Hudson doesn’t seem afraid to take chances, which is something I admire. When Hudson Soft became a Konami subsidiary in 2005, I was worried that it would mean the end of the Hudson I knew and loved. Thankfully, this has not been the case. In fact, since being acquired by Konami, I think Hudson Soft’s games have been just as zany as ever—if not more so!

If anything, Hudson Soft’s track record has proven that they are an adaptable and innovative company, ready to meet the demands of an ever-changing consumer base. No matter what genres they decide to tackle or which platforms they create games on, chances are Hudson’s releases will continue to be worth paying attention to. It’s doubtful Hudson Soft will create the next Metal Gear Solid or Gears of War, but that’s fine by me. As long their games continue to contain the distinctive qualities I’ve come to expect in Hudson Soft releases, I’ll be abuzz with admiration.

[Mister Raroo is a happy husband, proud father, full-time public library employee, and active gamer. He currently lives in El Cajon, CA with his family and many pets. In addition to writing for GameSetWatch, Mister Raroo irregularly writes content for his blog, Moments. You may reach Mister Raroo at mister.raroo@gmail.com.]