As if just playing every #1 game in the UK wasn’t a big enough task to take on, I decided to play every #1 game in Japan, too. I won’t be writing about these at anything like the same length, but I will do a round-up at the end of each year’s coverage. Determining this list of #1s was a much easier task in that I could use a single database, compiling which must have been helped by the one magazine, Famitsu, publishing the chart consistently each week from its debut in 1986. Massive thanks to Game Data Library for doing that work! Famitsu is still going strong today, the kind of consistency British games magazines could only dream of. The magazine was fortnightly rather than weekly until 1991, and there are some big gaps in the available database, especially from 88-90, so this will be more of a sample than a complete picture until we get properly into the ‘90s. I hope it will be a worthwhile addition nonetheless.
[Note: For titles, I’m generally going with the original title in Japanese followed by whatever combination of romanisation/translation seems generally accepted. The exception is where the name is entirely in katakana for non-Japanese words, in which case I’m using the English or whatever other language they originate from. Where the game goes under a different well-known name in the West I’ll note that in the text.]
We jump in at May 1986, at a time when video games in Japan are dominated by Nintendo’s Famicom console. It will take until the final chart of the ‘80s before there is a documented #1 on any other platform.
ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 妖怪大魔境/GeGeGe no Kitaro: The Evil Yokai Mirror (Bandai, Famicom)
As a Yokai Watch player in recent years, it was delightful to me to find that when Famitsu published their first chart, three decades earlier, the #1 was a different game about yokai that was similarly also an anime. It’s a platformer.
Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, Famicom)
Do I need to give this an introduction? Worth noting that this was a year on from the original release; I’m theorising that it was back at #1 because of its Famicom Disk System re-release or excitement ahead of the next #1…
Super Mario Bros. 2 (Nintendo, Famicom)
This may not be as familiar. It was pretty much exactly the same game as Super Mario Bros., only with new levels that were fiendishly difficult, to the point where a different game got retrofitted into being Super Mario Bros. 2 for the West to avoid having to release this one and scare people off. The release on Famicom Disk System maybe helps explain a bit of it – there was a scheme where people who had bought that additional disk drive could bring blank disks to kiosks in certain shops and pay a budget price to get a Disk System game put on their disks. In a sense, Super Mario Bros. 2 is the ‘80s equivalent of downloadable content. It’s not the last time that Japan being as densely populated and video game-saturated as it is will take games in a direction there that’s not replicated elsewhere.
魔界村/Makaimura (Capcom, Famicom)
It’s the same game as the NES Ghosts‘n’Goblins I talked about on the entry for the Spectrum version, but under its Japanese name. This is the closest the British and Japanese charts come to lining up in 1986.
Volleyball (Nintendo, Famicom)
Sports games have a big part to play in the Japanese story too, even if they’re not the same ones or indeed always the same sports. This one notably has you playing as Japan’s women’s team by default. I’m not sure that the constant bum-wiggling is a standard volleyball move, though to be fair the men do it too.
がんばれゴエモン!からくり道中/Ganbare Goemon! A Tricky Journey (Konami, Famicom)
A folklore character in a roving beat-em-up. The most striking and enjoyable first impression for me was of how much its music sounds like Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s “Ninja Re Bang Bang”.
高橋名人の冒険島/Master Takahashi’s Adventure Island (Hudson, Famicom)
Slightly zany platformer, complete with skateboards in eggs.
悪魔城ドラキュラ/Akumajo Dracula (Konami, Famicom)
The game known in the West as Castlevania. Not so zany platformer/whip-em-up.
ProWres – Famicom Wrestling Association (Nintendo, Famicom)
Another Nintendo game which hasn’t had so much of a legacy (no Starman playable in Smash Bros.! Yet…)
プロ野球 ファミリースタジアム/Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium (Namco, Famicom)
Sneak preview: baseball games are very popular in Japan. It’s really interesting to look at those big cuddly players and compare it to UK #1 of the same year Hardball.