Popeye and Urban Champion are Fascinating Failures
NES Catalog #026-27
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Popeye
PUBLISHER: Nintendo
DEVELOPER: Nintendo R&D1
RELEASE DATE: July 15th, 1983 (JP), June 1986 (US), Sept. 1st, 1986 (EU)
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: Atari (2600, 5200, 8-bit), Arcade, Commodore 64, Colecovision, Game and Watch, Intellivision, Odyssey^2, TI-99/4A
Prior to creating Donkey Kong, Nintendo had been pursuing a Popeye video game. Nintendo of Japan already had the rights to use Popeye's likeness on their trading cards, and the company had also created a Game and Watch Popeye title in 1981. Despite this, though, Popeye's owners, King Features Syndicate, did not allow Nintendo to create a Popeye arcade game. So Nintendo went and made Donkey Kong instead.
After Donkey Kong sold gangbusters, Nintendo presumably rubbed their massive success in King Features Syndicate's face - as politely as possible, of course. KFS finally acquiesced and promptly handed over the rights to make an official Popeye game. I mean, c'mon, Donkey Kong was already a classic. Plus, it's not like Nintendo could do any worse than the misguided "Popeye" film starring Robin Williams... or could they?
Even if you enjoy the spinach-eating misadventures of Popeye the Sailor Man, Popeye is an inconsequential arcade title and its NES port doesn't improve upon its shaky foundation in any way.
You play as the titular character, tasked with collecting items – hearts, musical notes, and the letters H-E-L-P – that Olive Oyl tosses down from the top of each stage. She doesn’t need to be rescued, per say. These are cries for attention and for whatever reason, Popeye is happy to comply. In your way is the jealous Brutus (or Bluto, depending), also desperate for Olive Oyl’s affections. Unless Popeye eats some spinach and is able to defend himself, one touch from Bluto will send him flying around the stage.
If you successfully avoid Bluto’s bullying and collect all of Oyl’s leavings across the game’s three stages, the whole affair repeats in a maddening loop. This repetition was acceptable and expected for a game released in 1982, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Indeed, the Nintendo-developed Popeye feels like a dramatic step backwards from both Donkey Kong games. Popeye can’t jump, avoiding Bluto gets tiresome, and gathering Olive Oyl’s crap just isn’t fun.
But here's the thing. Like Mario Bros. before it, Popeye is incredibly important to Nintendo’s future in a roundabout sort of way.
Without Nintendo failing to receive the rights to make Popeye in 1981, there's a good chance Shigeru Miyamoto and company might not have created Donkey Kong and Mario.
In 2009, Satoru Iwata, then president of Nintendo, was interviewing Miyamoto about New Super Mario Bros. Wii and the pair were reminiscing about Nintendo's attempt to make Popeye.
Iwata: "But originally [Donkey Kong] was going to be a Popeye game."
Miyamoto: "That’s right. But while I can’t recall exactly why it was, we were unable to use Popeye in that title. It really felt like the ladder had been pulled out from under us, so to speak."
Iwata: “So even though you were making a game about climbing ladders, you had the ladder pulled out from beneath you before you even got started!” (laughs)
Miyamoto: “Great gag! You deserve a standing ovation for that one! (laughs) Anyway, at the time we were at a loss as to how to proceed. Then we thought: ‘Why not come up with our own original character?”’
Iwata: “So basically Donkey Kong and Mario came about once the ladder had been pulled out from beneath you.”
Miyamoto: “Exactly.”
Iwata: Miyamoto-san, you really do lead a charmed life!
So you see, without Nintendo trying and failing to get Popeye off the ground in 1981, Donkey Kong and Mario possibly, maybe would never have existed. Or perhaps they would have appeared much later in our current video game timeline, and boy, the entire gaming industry would be different today if that were the case.
Nintendo's initial instincts were wrong. Popeye wasn't the smash hit that Donkey Kong was, financially or artistically. In the end, though, they learned a valuable lesson. When you create your own iconic characters and make excellent, ground-breaking games with them, you will earn all the money. If you have to create a mediocre Popeye game to reach that epiphany, so be it.
Popeye: D+
Nintendo's Important Business Lesson: A+
Urban Champion
PUBLISHER: Nintendo
DEVELOPER: Nintendo R&D1
RELEASE DATE: Nov. 14th, 1984 (JP), June 1986 (US), 1986 (EU)
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: Arcade, e-Reader, Virtual Console (Wii, Wii U), 3DS, Nintendo Switch Online, Switch (via Arcade Archives)
Urban Champion is a Nintendo-developed game of shockingly low quality, especially when you consider the promise of the game's city-at-night backdrop. The lit-up buildings, the street lamps, and the cheesy storefronts (Discount Shop? Book Store? What a time to be alive!) all point to something more than what's actually happening.
And what is happening? Two nameless thugs punch each other in the face and/or stomach across endless city blocks. After every third block, a manhole appears, and one of the two thugs is eventually punched into it. The winner is celebrated with confetti and a trip (for the audience) to the metaphorical gun show. The loser thug presumably drowns in a pile of unmentionable horror.
Mindless beat-em-ups and stupid fighting games, I’m here for all of it. But couldn't Nintendo elaborate a bit on the evocative city they've created? What if the cretins punched their way into the Book Store? What if they had to avoid Thomas Pynchon tomes being thrown at them by an employee while fighting? As it stands, the most personality we see from the city is the occasional shopkeep dropping a flower pot onto the fighters, and a beat cop rolling by. The latter forces the hooligans to separate to opposite sides of the block and pretend like they weren’t fighting. Creative, but annoying: once the cop is gone, your fight on that block starts from scratch.
In order to obtain the coveted "Champion" status, you as the Blue-Haired Thug must defeat the Green-Haired Thug in a total of 138 fights. Fight until the end, and nothing happens - other than the word CHAMPION appearing on the bottom right of the screen. Woo-hoo? Don't fight until the end, and nothing happens. The men will continue to punch each other into oblivion because that's what they're programmed to do. Champions, indeed.
D-
These are two early NES games that I think would do well for remakes/remasters. I’d love to see Popeye with graphics that look just like the cartoons and maybe with some gameplay additions. And Urban Champion would be fun to revisit as a full-fledged one-on-one fighter with more characters and online play.
That's an interesting bit of history on Popeye.
I commented before that I think you underrated Popeye a little, even if it's not exactly good (C/C- for me). But maybe I just have too much nostalgia for it, since I did own it and played it a good amount back then, while I probably only play it once every 5 years these days. I had "Popeye Meets Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" (from 1937!) on VHS for some reason, and watched it a ton, so I suppose that's why my parents got me the Popeye NES game.
I consider Popeye a horror game. It's basically the early NES version of Alien: Isolation. When you think you have some comfortable distance from Bluto and he suddenly jumps down from a higher level right next to you, that sure got my heart pumping as a kid.
Urban Champions is definitely the worse game. Though in the days before proper fighting games, it at least had a niche. I think you can have 5-10 minutes of fun with it with a friend, if neither of you have played it recently (or ever). To me, that's worth a little more than D-, but eh, I get it.