Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: October 18, 1985
This is just the type of game I was hoping to find when I started this blog. It’s one I’ve had for many years and overloooked in a flood of more famous games that I bought around the same time. It’s a game that’s barely remembered today but is at least significant as a launch title on the NES. Nintendo had four very popular arcade games when they were launching their console. Oddly though none of them were released initially. Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Popeye, and Mario Bros. had to wait until the national launch a year or so later. It’s interesting that they decided to forgo releasing their most famous games at launch. Perhaps they were worried about overexposure as all three of those games had been ported, and some of them very poorly, for other systems. Donkey Kong got bad to mediocre ports on just about every console and might’ve been too much of a symbol for the 1983 video game crash. It could also just be that the games weren’t ready yet. I don’t know the exact reason, but they decided to go with games that would be less familiar to American players. That paved the way for fun oddities like Clu Clu Land.
There really aren’t too many games out there like Clu Clu land so I hope my description does it justice. It’s a single screen arcade game where you play as Bubbles the balloonfish making her the first female protagonist on launch day. The screen is covered in pegs and your goal is to uncover pictures made of gold bars that look like rupees from Zelda. To uncover the pictures you have to swim between the pegs. Bubbles is constantly swimming in a straight line so the way to move her in a different direction is to use the control pad to grab on to a peg and swing her around. There are also deadly sea urchins and portals to watch out for but luckily her shots are infinite. I sure am glad it’s not just a couple shots because the whole game would then be running from monsters. Anyway that’s the basics of the game so yes it is as strange as its name.
It is a bit complicated for an arcade game and takes a bit of getting used to, but once I learned how to play I had a lot of fun with it. Seriously, this is a fun classic arcade game. It’s constantly exciting and has a great learning curve. I like that the pictures actually rotate in the levels so you can’t just memorize the puzzles and play the same game every time. That first level might be a smiley face or it might be a boat so you have to actually explore to figure it out. This is unusual for an era that was all about repetition. Still the more I played the better I got and I had fun every time. It never felt tedious or repetitious even though the five screens repeat over and over. That’s no easy feat in a classic arcade game. I also like how it shows off its age by having generic pictures to uncover. If it had been made just a couple years later it would be filled with stars, mushrooms, and other bits of Mario iconography. It takes us back to a time before it was all Mario and Mushroom Kingdom. It’s fun and a history lesson at the same time. My favorite kind of game!
I love how they work the obstacles into the pictures
If you were shopping on day one than this would’ve been an excellent choice to test out the new Nintendo controller. Before Nintendo, home video game controllers typically had a joystick and either one button or way too many buttons. Nintendo went with a functional minimalist approach and Clu Clu Land really shows off what it could do. I can’t imagine having to be so precise in an Atari or Intellivision game. I would miss so many pegs. With the Nintendo controller, however, new levels of gaming were now possible. So I am going to rate this one probably higher than anyone ever has before, but Clu Clu Land has earned its time in the spotlight. I am putting it right below Excitebike at #8. It breaks my heart a little to knock Metro-Cross out of the top 10, but that’s the hazards of ranking games. Maybe I’ll move Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX down a couple of spots and nobody will notice. Anyway, if you can find Clu Clu land for a good price you should pick it up. It’s a true classic arcade hidden gem.
1. Super Mario Odyssey
2. Galaga
3. Donkey Kong
4. Exodus: Ultima III
5. Pac-Mania
6. Pac-Man
7. Excitebike
8. Clu Clu Land
9. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX
10. Mickey’s Racing Adventure
11. Metro-Cross
12. Gaplus
13. Dragon Spirit
14. Pinball (NES)
15. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)
16. Red Sea Crossing
17. Baraduke
18. Gamma-Attack
19. The Legend of “Valkyrie”
20. Galaxian
21. Evoland
22. Defunct
23. Gyruss (2600)
24. Looney Tunes Racing
25. Squidlit
26. Baseball
27. Birthday Mania
28. Bad Street Brawler
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