Day 11: Bravoman

Bravoman is Mega Man for preschoolers. He's Baby's First Mega Man. He's three times as big as Mega Man, he's all yellow and green and instead of shooting enemy robots, he punches them with his springy Inspector Gadget fists.


Bravoman is out to stop the presumed evil Dr. Bomb by fighting his way through stages short enough for all but the worst cases of ADHD and battling bosses with at best a vague interest in preventing him from reaching the mushroom cloud-coiffed mastermind.

Running and punching is the name of the game here (except for the third level, when it inexplicably becomes and underwater version of Super Cobra). The game is colorful and has a very playful, innocent quality to it, but there isn't a lot of variety. It's just run to the right, jump the occasional hurdle and punch a few robots.


It's not that Bravoman isn't fun. It is. But it feels a little too much like that generic Mario Bros. knock-off those of us who grew with Commodore 64s instead of Nintendos had to play. Like many Turbografx-16 games, it's missing that little extra something that turns a good game into a great game.