By Aaron N
The first major Godzilla game to be released on consoles was "Godzilla: Monster of Monsters." This game was released for the NES in 1988. For some reason this game was subtitled "Monster of Monsters" instead of Godzilla's usual moniker of the "King of the Monsters." This game was fun to play albeit repetitive. The concept of the game was that in the year 20XX aliens invade Earth and have to be fought off by the monster duo of Godzilla and Mothra. You move the heroic monsters across polygonal platforms as if it was a game of chess. Godzilla can move two spaces while Mothra can move four spaces. The enemy monsters would also move towards you on the game board. After your turn is over you enter a sidescroller level depending on which space you land on. These levels were typical short levels with spaceships and other enemies. Your goal in each planet is to defeat all enemy monsters and make your way to the other side where you would move on to the next planet. The amount of enemy monsters in each planet would increase as you progressed through the game. Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, and Hedorah are just a few of the monsters in this game and there were many other famous monsters from the Godzilla series in the game. It is a somewhat primitive game but "Monster of Monsters" is a fun game to play.
Godzilla would also have another appearance on the NES but this time he would be in the role as the antagonist. This was a reflection of the movie series where Godzilla was becoming the villain that mankind had to battle. Your role in this game was as the military battling off Godzilla and other monsters. It was somewhat an early Real-time strategy game. You would choose what machines to move and where they would go, it was a turn based game. The monsters are very hard to beat and the game is a bit boring but it has great music and it will be fun to play for a little bit of time.
Godzilla made the move to 16-bit with the apltly titled "Super Godzilla" for the Super Nintendo. This game was once again about aliens visiting Earth and unleashing giant monsters on the planet and only Big G can stop them. In this game you move your dot along a map toward the enemy of the level. Once you reach the enemy you have a battle with it. The battles consisted of punching the monster, or spaceship, and walking backwards until you could select an attack to use. The attacks would be tailwhip, nuclear breath, or headbutt just to name a few. Towards the end of the game you can start collecting certain items that will turn Godzilla into Super Godzilla in order to be able to fight the mammoth Bagan at the end of the game. This is a monumental game as it had the appearance of Bagan who is sort of a cult monster, but that story is for a different blog. Super Godzilla is a fun but simplistic game that features many classic monsters and it will be a fun play for any Zilla fan.
Godzilla's next release would be on the Gamecube and the Xbox and was entitled "Godzilla: Destroy all Monsters Melee." The title is a mouthful but it is a fun fighting game. I looked forward to this game because it was the first time you could really rumble with the monsters in the classic series. It touted eleven monsters ranging from Godzilla and Anguirus to Destoroyah and the new and surprise Orga. This game's storyline was the usual "aliens invade Earth" story that had been a Godzilla staple. The game was fun and it was a Godzilla fan's dream to be able to reenact classic battles.
Godzilla would follow this up with two games that were basically just updated versions of "Destroy all Monsters Melee." First came "Godzilla: Save the Earth" in 2004 for the Xbox and the Playstation 2. This game isn't as memorable because it is basically a clone of "Melee", so not much new was brought to the table. Next came "Godzilla: Unleashed" which was released for the Wii and PS2 in 2007. This was once again an updated version of "Melee" but there a few things that make it stand out. The story is different, focusing on crystals forming on Earth and you have to defeat them and Spacegodzilla. Also this game introduced two new original monsters that were made by Atari specifically for the game.
There are a few Godzilla games that are not well known that I want to focus on. The first one is "Godzilla" for the Game Boy. This is a puzzle game that consisted of going through a puzzle and punching rocks out of the way in order to reach the end. This game is not well known because, quite frankly, it is simply not a good game. It doesn't feel like a Godzilla game and the gameplay is bad and boring. Another unknown Godzilla game is "Godzilla Generations." This game is unknown because it was never released in the United States. It was released for the Sega Dreamcast. "Generations" had a story to it and you could play as multiple monsters. But for some reason it was never released in the States. I remember reading about it when I was younger and I'm disappointed it was never released here.
The history of Godzilla in video games is very vasy and long. And with the new American movie looming in
horizon, we will have to see if new games will be following it. The franchise has never really entered mainstream video games, hopefully in the future it will finally be able to do that.
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