#2 JJ and Jeff

Acquired: June 2009

Price: $8

Condition: Complete

I had wanted this game for a good few years, ever since reading about it in "GamePro Hot Tips: Adventure Games", a garishly colored book of tips and tricks for the current games of the neon-clad early nineties. The game always seemed to look pretty interesting, and I had played the ROM back in my "I Fought the Law" days. Some friends of mine picked this up for me while they were visiting Digital Press Videogames in North Jersey. I had provided them a list of games to pick up for my newly aquired PC-Engine Duo-R (More on that later), and this is one of the ones they found.

The American version features JJ and Jeff as two detectives trying to uncover some grand mystery I'm sure. The Japanese release features the same detective motif, only your sprites are decked out in Columbo style trench coats as opposed to Law and Order style suits.

As this is the Japanese version of the game, the title is technically Kato and Ken. The gameplay remains largely the same, but with some minor differences. As the games are at core based off of the same code, I'll just call this one crossed off for now. Now as I said, there are some differences in the games US and Japanese releases, a few I noticed include:

-The characters now fart to attack instead of spraying from an aerosol can. (Awesome)

-There is more toilet humor in general - in the first level, the character you're not playing as is peeing on a light pole, and later taking a poop in the woods (Again, awesome)

-The game (naturally) has sprites changed to reflect the character changes (Understandable)

As I said, the game is pretty decent, worth picking up even. Gameplay is similar to Adventure Island in ways, falling well within that classic Hudson style of gameplay. I can recommend it fully to anyone who's reading this, especially if you like weird games, and I love weird games.

Conclusion: If you are a detective, the world is your toilet.