Thanks to Bitwave Games for the review code

Title: Gimmick! Special Edition
System: Steam (PC)
Price: $14.99
Release Date: 07/06/2023

Story

In this port of the 1992 Sunsoft gem, you take control of Yumetaro, an Oni who must enter a fantastical world to save his owner from a band of mischievous toys!

Ported by Empty Clip Studios in the same way they did with Zombie Nation many years ago, this is the first time Gimmick has ever seen a US release at all, the second time it’s been reprinted in Japan since the PSN days, (not counting an Arcade remake for the ExA machines) and the first time it ever got a reissue in PAL regions, despite the western version squeaking it out into very limited Scandinavian territories back in the day, leading to Mr. Gimmick becoming one of the rarest NES games of all time.

Presentation

Like with the Zombie Nation set, you start off on a general menu with a few options available, along with some bonus content to look through. This menu is set to the unused song found within Gimmick, which was an excellent choice for menu music and helps to finally give that track some use after 30 years. You have the returning bonus section from the Zombie Nation set, which features what it did before; box, manual and cart scans of the EU/JP versions.

Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any photos of old advertising material like there was in that set, and due to Mr. Gimmick’s release locations, the included manual for that is in Scandinavian languages only, so there’s no english manual of any sort at all, which may make learning into the core game a bit trickier without external help or just figuring it out by playing it.

Upon booting up the game, you can toggle between a few different backgrounds and screen size options, though you can’t seem to get rid of the score HUD or the control guides on the side of the screen regardless of what choices you pick. Still, once you’re comfortable with the display, you’re presented with the Japanese version of Gimmick in all of its glory! The pixels are sharp, the audio emulation is superb, and everything looks and feels as it should in this emulator.

That’s a good thing, since Gimmick’s Famicom version goes to some pretty impressive lengths to push the boundaries of the Famicom hardware, with an outstanding soundtrack enhanced by a special chip on the cartridge, along with great background and sprite work, with phenomenal usage of the system’s colors to make one of the best looking worlds on the 8-bit system. All of that has been emulated faithfully here, and as a newcomer to this game it was a huge treat to be able to enjoy this mostly unhindered.

Gameplay

Gimmick Special Edition does offer a few variations and modes to add some extra replay value to this action platformer, though the original had its own ways of encouraging replay value in the form of some pretty tricky True Ending requirements; more on those a bit later. By default you have the same sort of rewind/save state features that the Zombie Nation set had, with this default mode not unlocking any of the in-game achievements, allowing you to play the game at your own pace with little stress, making it a great way to get used to the game mechanics with time.

Next up is the Serious Mode, which locks you out of the rewind/save state features the default game mode provides and allows you to unlock a variety of in-game achievements over time, usually being incredibly simple with most of them unlocking upon reaching the True Ending. It also keeps a high score total like the normal game mode, but Gimmick is far from being a score chaser, so it really doesn’t amount to much besides being a fun way to challenge yourself after using the normal mode for warm up purposes.

Lastly, Gimmick Special Edition also has online leaderboards for a Speedrun mode, which basically takes the rules of Serious Mode and tasks you with clearing the game as fast as you possibly can, either with the True Ending or the Normal End paths. Times and splits aren’t saved until you’ve cleared a complete run, but with the Normal route allowing for infinite continues, it does provide for a fun incentive to keep trying the game and best yourself with routing it like you would on original hardware, with true ending runs being the ultimate showcase of skill. Considering the game’s popularity in speedrunning communities over the years, this is an excellent addition, and the short length of the game overall really does make it prime for replaying in this manner.

Regardless of how you choose to play Gimmick, you’ll be getting a very clever physics-based platformer, where your lone attack is a star Yumetaro generates above his head and throws downward in an arc, which can be used to not only damage enemies, but to also hit objects, bounce off walls, and even ride as a platform, meaning that if you practice and nail down the trajectories just right, you can blaze through stages and mow over enemies, or even take huge shortcuts! This mechanic is what makes the experience of Gimmick super fun to learn, even for a newcomer like myself, and as I practiced with the normal mode features I eventually found myself getting good enough to make it to stage 3 without a single death on the Serious settings.

Luckily, you also have some handy items that Yumetaro can find on his quest, which can help out in a pinch. From a bomb that blows open passages or knocks bulkier enemies back, a health potion that refills your HP meter when you really need it, and a fireball that pierces through enemies, these items come in handy and make the punishing nature of the game a lot less annoying to deal with.

Once you get the hang of the star physics, beating the core six stages isn’t too tricky with lots of practice and determination, since the game does offer infinite continues which makes even doing this task on the serious mode not much of a pain if you memorize the stage layouts and how to deal with the bosses. Gimmick’s ultimate challenge however comes from the requirement of the game’s True Ending, which requires that you collect a hidden item in each of the first six stages, then defeat the boss of stage six without using a single continue, as using one will erase all the items from your inventory and get you the normal ending. These items are behind secret paths that are generally pretty easy to spot, but insanely tough to actually get to, almost always mandating some sort of crazy physics challenge and/or precise platforming to obtain it. The good news is these items do reward you a lot of points, and Gimmick is very generous with extra lives so working towards getting them all will give you more chances to survive the rest of the game.

Still, having to practically 1CC the game to see the true ending is incredibly tough, and with this easily being the biggest thing that could complicate Serious Mode runs, it makes a lot more sense why the Speedrun mode separates the true ending path into its own leaderboard; completely ignoring the items, you can completely blaze through the stages in no time with practice, only maybe nabbing one or two for the extra lives they provide more than anything else, and wrap up in under a half hour. Either route you take, the game is immensely fun, and one that becomes very replayable as a result of this requirement.

Since I’m playing this on Steam Deck and I did note in my review of that system that the previous Memory Clip game didn’t work on it at all, I figured I might as well chime in with how this game compares to the Zombie Nation set on Deck. The good news is, it works brilliantly for the most part! No screen distortions or scaling bugs here, everything scales up and plays as it should. I also didn’t notice much, if any major input lag whatsoever, with this game being reasonably tight and fair enough that most messups felt like they were my fault.

However, while playing this on Steam Deck I did notice the occasional oddity where suddenly all my in-game inputs would act as if they had a turbo effect applied to them, which also includes movement and jumping; considering some of the very precise platforming you have to do later in the game, plus the tough nature of the other game modes, this was really not fun to deal with late in a serious mode run when Yumetaro would suddenly shuffle his feet and jump tiny hops to his untimely death, and it seems the only remedy when this turbo input bug pops up is to open the in-game menu with Y to make the controls go back to normal.

I wasn’t able to test the game on my laptop to see if this was just a Steam Deck quirk or that of this current PC build of the game, but I feel I should note this did happen to me on the Deck several times, as it did hamper some runs of Serious mode during the review session and even brought one to an unpleasantly abrupt end.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I’m very excited to see Gimmick given a reissue after all this time, and just like the previous Memory Clip installment, Gimmick Special Edition was done in a great fashion. The speed run mode is a great idea for hardcore players, and the different routing options really do lead to some extra replay value due to how the game incorporates the branching paths for the True Ending route.

With that said, it was disappointing to see the complete lack of the EU version of Mr. Gimmick here, even as a bonus option, since it would be neat to compare and contrast the differences between the JP sound chip it used and what the west had to work around, and since the last Memory Clip title had both regional variants available, I was stunned to not see the same option here. This isn’t a dealbreaker by any means since the JP version is the one often considered superior to begin with, but for the sake of completion I do feel it would have been nice to have.

I also wish more bonus content was in the museum, since seeing some ads, game guide scans or any sort of leftover marketing material from the canceled US version of the game would have been really cool to see in addition to the usual box/manual scans these sets typically have.

Still, outside of that infuriating input bug, this is still a really good port of the Japanese Gimmick; the godly OST is perfectly intact, the input lag is very very minimal, and the QOL with rewind and save states make this a great version for newcomers like myself to experience this outstanding Sunsoft gem, and I am so happy to have played it and have had as much fun as I did. I just wish this release had a bit more extras and the PAL version of the game was included.

I give Gimmick! Special Edition an 8 out of 10.