Welcome to Gaming Entertainment, a new segment where we review gaming in other media forms. For this first edition, we check out the crossover of Captain N: The Game Master cartoon. As we all know the 80s were a time when Transformers, My Little Pony and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles defined a kid's childhood. It was also a time when the video game industry saw its first major boom of success after the Crash of 1983 thanks to Nintendo's dominance. With this success came chances a cartoon would be made from one of the many series and DIC would gain licensing rights from these companies. In 1989, TV shows like Super Mario Bros. Super-Show and Legend of Zelda premiered within a cartoon block on Saturday Mornings. Follow by these series would be Captain N: The Game Master released in the same year. The show would have a character name Kevin Keene a typical American teenage that gets transported to a place called Video Land. The story would feature Mega Man, Kid Icarus (Pit) and Simon Belmont as the heroes and Mother Brain, Dr. Wily, Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo as the villains. It's hard for me to find anything positive about this as it got many things wrong with the games' verses. The character design was the worst because their appearances were nothing like the games. Let's begin with Mega Man and since when does he have green latex armor and no arm cannon. I can't understand how DIC could mess up a blue robot's design. I found something from the early concept of this cartoon on Fil Barlow's Deviant Art page. In his description, he claimed the reason for Mega Man being green is due to another colorist handling the art. If you didn't know Fil Barlow was the original concept designer for this cartoon when it was known as Captain Nintendo. However, he was laid off by DIC and replaced with another concept artist for reasons I couldn't find out. At least we can blame DIC for this (as well as Capcom in some form) for not correcting this mistake when these companies had time. What's also wrong with this picture is they even got his height wrong and he isn't that small. DIC's take on the Blue Bomber looks like a poor imitation and where did the artists get the idea that he was a man. They must have from the title, but the artist should've realized Mega Man was actually a boy robot and not a man. The characters of Pit and Mega Man always sounded weird after they began or finished any sentence. Mega Man always would say, "Mega" before starting a sentence. For Kid Icarus this was the opposite as he would say "icus" at the end of a word including in-between his sentences. Imagine if today's gamer was in Kevin's situation they probably would ask who they are first and that's because these "game characters" are far from being what they should look like. This is how bad their designs came off as these "game characters" look like cheap knock offs to action figures you get at the dollar store. Some people don't realize that your editing is just as good as its writing and dialogue. That's no different than an editor of the most popular shows enhances the voice acting when the dialogue doesn't need it. The same thing could also be said when a character says a prefix or a suffix. When Mega Man and Kid Icarus word their sentences, the two Melvins sound completely like dumbasses. There is no character from any form of fiction that talks like this from most stories. Simon obviously got the worst of this as they thought giving him a tanned body and an explorer's outfit was a great idea. In the Castlevania series he's seen wearing metal plate armor with leather underneath like its shown in the second game's cover. I can't fathom how they could confuse an explorer's outfit with a knight's suit of armor. It's like they didn't care and decided to create their own stupid narrative of the show. His personality also is terribly written as he acts snobby who hates getting dirty and just wants to kiss himself. Simon is a knight who fights undead monsters and demons in dirty areas like graveyards and swamps. Yet, he comes off like an ass backwards Melvin to the point that I literally wanted to punch him. All I ask is for the characters to act believable and not as if they are high on drugs. Unfortunately, the villains got treated just as bad especially with Mother Brain, Donkey Kong and Dracula. Mother Brain's portrayal looks nothing like her gaming counterpart. She never had a mobile feature under her tank or tentacles coming out. The sprite from Metroid depicts Mother Brain with fangs and one eye that remained stationed in a single area. For Donkey Kong, way to take the 800 pound gorilla to the next level because last I checked he's not Godzilla's size. In the games pre-Rare he wasn't even that big with being the size of a regular gorilla. Then we have Kongo Land and since when is it called that. The Donkey Kong Arcade series always took place within a construction area and not a jungle; I mean this was pre-Rare. It's hilarious how Ruby-Spears Production managed to depict DK better with barely any lore then DIC could. Of course, what isn't a 80s style cartoon without its own Bebop and Rocksteady as the comic relief. King Hippo and Eggplant Wizard completely ripped off Ninja Turtles. Here's the thing Bebop and Rocksteady are true legends and were actually funny. Most of the time the comical dual had moments that were so childish I stared dumbfounded. There was a single moment where one would completely face palm if they saw this from the first episode. Its when Eggplant Wizard tells King Hippo he needs some lubrication to get through a warp zone's hole. Of course, they even included a fart gag after they sent Simon through a warp zone from King Hippo. Did Jeffery Scott bring a little kid into the studio to write these crappy jokes? What could I say that hasn't been said so many times? With the exception of Eggplant Wizard, none of these "game villains" looks anything like their game counterparts. These are DIC characters plain and simple and nothing from Nintendo or the third parties' verses. How they could screw up such simple concepts is still beyond me. Now, it's ridiculous that King Hippo was included with the list of villains when he's just a boxer. It's true in Punch Out King Hippo is a powerhouse character against Little Mac. However, the Samoa boxer wasn't strong enough to plow through walls easily and he doesn't have super strength. I also don't know where they got the idea he was a greenish blue guy when the man is a Samoan from Hawaii. That leads me to Dracula and the monsters of Castlevania which look as if they belong in a crappy Hanna-Barbera cartoon. As I think about this further, the Season One Castlevania enemies actually bare a horrible resemblance to the cheap Halloween decorations. That's just sad for me to compare Castlevania to holiday art you could get at your local Family Dollar. I also love how Dracula's crappy design got put together as he wears a cheap suit and white makeup on his face. DIC is really making Vinnie Stroker from the Gravesdale High cartoon look even more badass then the true vampire lord. I always feel old bringing up past shows like Gravesdale High when you kiddies don't even know what was just referenced. Yes kiddies there was a Monster High type show even back then. Of course, some of the characters who weren't based off video games did get written into the story. Do any of you remember Princess Lana and King Charles of Video Land or even Mega Girl from a Capcom title? No, because they were originals made to look like game characters. Even the places they visit through the first season DIC managed to get everything wrong. Just take Metroid, here it's a ship that Mother Brain stays on but in the game the thing is an alien creature that Samus encounters. The lore of Metroid contains many worlds as it's a future where Humanity is advance and they work side by side with Aliens. Of course, I'm kidding myself because these writers thought putting in their own narrative sounded better. Mother Brain's personality was actually ripped off from the plant monster from the remake of Little Shop of Horrors. Oh, that's great nothing like stealing a characteristic from a movie just to assume she would sound the same as that plant monster. It would've been better for her to speak in some alien language because then this comes off believable. Let's not pretend it wasn't done before because this worked with Jabba the Hut perfectly from Return of the Jedi. However, asking to go the extra mile from Jeffery Scott is a different vocabulary to him. In the first season we get introduce to characters who are not from any game. Lana, King Charles and Mega Girl are DIC exclusives which weren't be the problem if each of them didn't get shoehorned in the story with awful writing. On top of that, shouldn't Roll (Mega Man's sister) be in Mega Girl's place... Again, why do I ask such a question when I can tell these writers probably only played five minutes of Mega Man 1 and 2 before getting all they needed to write their crappy narrative. The art style and its direction probably was the worst the 80s had to offer. When you have Duck Tales and Ninja Turtles that set the gold standard and a studio doesn't follow this then there will be problems. The enemies encountered are basically made up thanks to incompetence and ignorance of the studio. I still can't comprehend why they continued to use the 70s Hanna Barbara style in the worst way possible. None of them look like they even belong in any game's world but yet the studio tried to pass it off as if this was the case. If it isn't the crude character designs then the next issue comes from the environments. At times these places fit into the average category found in other shows like He-Man. However, there are other times where the backgrounds were crudely drawn as if a six year old did it themselves. That isn't even the worst part when in Episode 2 titled "How's Bayou", there's several scenes where the background wasn't drawn in at all. I don't care how little of a deadline they were giving by the DIC or NBC at the time because this is purely laziness. In Episode 9 called "Nightmare on Mother Brain Street" — another unnecessary parody title -- Simon literally stares at the knight with his mouth wide opened. The drawers even had him make the same face twice two scenes afterwards like they couldn't design Simon with a normal expression. The portrayals of these game heroes and villains coupled with terrible writing was already bad enough. However, now I have to deal with a awful art style and constant mistakes like no backgrounds? Either you are bad at your job or down right lazy because a character shouldn't look that stupid and awkward nor should a cartoon's canvas paper show as the background. In fact these mistakes happen more then once in the same episodes which shows how much effort went into the production. We now come to the main plot of the episodes and most of them center around on Kevin Keene. The story has Mother Brain trying to invade Video Land with her forces from Metroid after King Charles vanished. Princess Lana with Kid Icarus, Mega Man and Simon Belmont were left in Video Land's hands to defend. The Power Glove states in the throne room the Game Master as stated in the Prophecy will come to Video Land to save it from evil. As you call tell the plot has a John Carter type arc where someone from this world gets sent to another to eventually become its hero. However, here it's done in the cheesiest manner possible and not in a good way. The narrative basically has the N-Team face Mother Brain and her minions of King Hippo, Eggplant Wizard and Dr. Wily in most of the episodes. Of course, in a few of them the arc has the N-Team go on misadventures. In episodes 10 of Simon the Ape-Man highlights this as after bumping his heads makes him think he's Donkey Kong Junior. That isn't even the worst one considering Simon gets the N-Team involved again in these misadventures. Remember when I said Belmont got the worst of it well this episode mentioned highlights that perfectly. The only time a character had any meaning came from Kevin and Mega Man once. In episode three Titled "The Most Dangerous Game Master" Kevin confronts his bully from the past named Mike Vincent. Even though this version of Mike Vincent was an android created by Dr. Wily, the fact Kevin mused over the events of their previous friendship showed some meaning. With Mega Man, he goes on a quest crafted on purpose by the N-Team as his birthday gift to feel more human. He even rejects his birthday because it reminds him of not being born but simply turned on like a regular machine. I know actual plots that means something but let's not get ahead of ourselves because this is literally the only storytelling found. As mentioned, the rest of the episodes always had Mother Brain trying to conquer Video Land. It either included playing in sports games or sending a bunch of Melvins to do her dirty work. Another thing I love to point out is its hilarious how she has an army of generic foot soldiers marching from the first episode. Yet for some odd reason never calls them most of the time but only when it's convenient. The same thing could be said about Lana and why are there never soldiers around the Palace of Power. I forget that asking for logic from lazy and incompetent writers is a daunting task when we all know they won't give one. As much as I enjoyed the idea of a massive crossover from Nintendo's verses however, this cartoon defines the word trash. Leave this to a lazy studio who could care less about making a quality show to ruin such a great idea. Not only did they portray the video game characters horribly but added in several others that came from the studio's own narrative. If it isn't these portrayals or their ridiculous designs then the horrid writing is the next thing. From Kevin to Eggplant Wizard, every character felt one dimensional while never growing in the plot aside a couple of moments. When the main story telling has your heroes and villains act like a bunch of ass clowns is a clear indicator of how bad the writing comes off. The art direction looks disgusting and terribly drawn to the point that this makes any other average kids' show look like a Disney cartoon. By today's standards, Captain N is just awful and terribly produced even for the show's time. I'll admit this was actually a great idea as who weren't want a cartoon where familiar game characters fight their own villains together. It's a pathetic attempt from NBC at making a quick buck from Nintendo and the third parties' success from the game industry. Rating: 3.5/10 Awful
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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