Title: JALECOLLE Famicom Ver. ROD LAND
System: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Price: $7.99
Release Date: 08/07/2026

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Story

In this arcade port, you take control of Rit and Tam, as they set out to rescue their mother from a horde of evil monsters! This NES version was made back in the early 90s alongside a Game Boy one, both ported by a European studio, ala Sky Shark. Is this quirky NES port worth your time, or is this a miss in the Jalecolle Catalog?

Presentation

Despite the year+ gap between the last Jalecolle game and this one, Rod Land is in the same, consistent style as the prior entries, which is a good thing since it pretty much refined the Memory Clip formula in the best way it could. You get your manual scans, screen options, and extra information to display on the borders if you so choose. Nothing fancy like a map or weapon select this time around, since Rod Land is a much simpler game than a few of the previous Jalecolles, but what you get here are still neat little extras this time around with a few hints.

The game itself comes in both EU and JP forms, which actually makes a notable difference here since the JP version has faster music and the EU version slows it down due to the game appearing to run at 50hz in this set. Of the two, I honestly preferred the EU OST more, and it makes me wonder if the developers composed the music for this port with that refresh rate in mind before sending it off to Japan. Nothing akin to Follin here quality wise, unfortunately.

Being a EU port of a Japanese game, the music and visuals are very unlike like Jaleco’s other games from the time; the main characters look weirdly doll-like, the music has instrumentation that just sounds strange, and the whole thing has a distinct vibe that at least makes it notably different from the Arcade game, though whether or not that’s a good or bad difference is up to you. Personally, I much prefer the Arcade version, but I don’t find this NES port offensive to look at or anything. Crude looking for a 90 era port, sure, but it still does an occasional gimmick like a horizontal platforming stage or the cool transition of the Jaleco logo into view.

Gameplay

Rod Land is a single screen elimination style game, not unlike Tumblepop, Bubble Bobble, etc. Your main objective here is to clear each stage of enemies in order to move onto the next level, eventually getting to one of the game’s bosses, taking them out, and repeating that until you reach the end of the tower.

So we have almost the same core structure as the Arcade version here, albeit with a few extra features and toggles the home port threw in. The local co-op makes a come back, but this time around you can toggle a rivalry option so that the game is more competitive and you can meddle with each other if you so please, but I wasn’t able to test this due to the lack of a partner. You do get funny shades when playing this way, however.

Another toggle that you can throw on, one that does impact the solo experience is the ability to jump. In Rod Land, you usually get up to the higher platforms via a ladder you create by holding Up + B, but in this port you have the option to toggle on the ability to jump alongside the ladder making, which breaks the game wide open in more ways than I expected. It usually leads to really easy situations for clearing a stage due to being able to jump quickly near enemies and take them down with your wand, while at other times being able to dodge enemy attacks far easier. You can’t kill the enemies by jumping on them, so at least you still have to put some effort into the stages here, but I cannot stress enough just how much easier this one mechanic makes Rod Land as a whole, and it feels like a cheat code more than anything else.

Thankfully, you can disable it, and with a few other silly customizations like hair color and whatnot the extra toggles here are fun additions to play around with to make the game to your liking. You can even rename the characters, not that it does anything. Unfortunately, this port does have a few general problems that apply even if you try to play as “pure” as possible. Every now and again you get a sidescrolling stage, which clearly wants you to jump. They’re pretty lame, and while you can beat them without the jump just fine, choosing to have the jump doesn’t help make them fun, even if they throw a boss fight at the end.

The other gripe is that the second quest of the game is completely missing. Yes, the entire Pyramid section of the game is just gone, so only the main quest remains, which is fine and I guess was decently ported to the NES despite the annoying extra stages, but for a port that came out in the early 90s, you’d think they could be capable of throwing in both quests vs goofing around on adding extra toggles to the game. It makes Rod Land feel sorta incomplete on NES, and this Jalecolle release doesn’t really offer any unique gimmicks to spice up this port. You can rewind and save state per usual, but there’s not much to “track” here secret wise, so you just get a straightforward emulation of both NES versions.

Conclusion

The Jalecolle reissues keep on trucking, even if it took a long while for this one to come out, but after giving both versions a good play I think I can sorta see some appeal from this one. The extra modes in the EU version and gimmicks exclusive to the NES version as a whole like the competitive mode and platforming stages make this an interesting remix of Rod Land, and considering how Rod Land never got a sequel, those few platforming sections are a taste of how one might turn out, albeit probably as a worse sequel.

The boss fights still remain plenty fun, the scoring system remains enjoyable, and while the new jump power may make the normal stages feel like you’re cheating in them, this is still a very decent port of the Arcade game, albeit with the second quest completely removed, and co-op should provide just as much fun as it would in the original Arcade version. Still, I was pleasantly surprised by how this remixed version had more quality than I anticipated for a Euro NES port, even if half the game is missing, and that really holds this version back from the potential greatness it might have had. If you don’t mind the missing content, you’ll still have a fun time with this interesting little remix.

I give JALECOLLE Famicom Ver. ROD LAND a 6 out of 10.