Yo! Noid

By: The J Man

I'm not going to lie to you, I'm only reviewing this game because I need a "Y" for the menu page. There are surprisingly few games that start with this letter, outside of Japan at least, and this one contains something I at least recognize. Back in the 80s, Domino's Pizza created a pretty strange mascot called the "Noid". As I hail from Boston, I presume the name is taken from "Nerd" spoken like a Massachusetts native. I cannot confirm this was their plan. According to Domino's, a Noid is a short ugly man, dressed up in a red spandex bunny costume, who plays with a yo-yo and is obsessed with ruining your tasty Domino's Pizza. That sounds pretty nerdy to me.

According to my sources, the game Yo! Noid is a hacked version of "Kamen no Ninja - Hanamaru", a Japanese game involving, surprise, surprise, a masked ninja. Domino's took this game that was never released in the states, possibly paid for the rights, and edited its marketing in. Basically, the game is entirely the same as the Japanese original, but with the Noid character and other pizza-related propaganda pasted over the top. This doesn't surprise me. Companies releasing simple video games featuring their mascots is not unheard of. 7Up's Cool Spot for the Genesis comes immediately to mind, but that was a pretty good game. Domino's Yo! Noid, is not.

Noid is a standard platform game, and deeply suffers from not being its own original title. According the intro screens, New York is being overrun by animals, and the "mayer" requests the Noid use his super yo-yo to stop the vile "Mr. Green." First question: what the hell does this have to do with pizza? The answer: absolutely dick. Second: wasn't the Noid the villian in Domino's campaign? So why are you playing as him and apparently doing good on their behalf? The plot screens are clearly written in an afternoon to justify why the Noid is running around town, fighting men with harpoons and ice skating hockey bears. Along the way, the Noid must pick up scrolls that allow him to cast magic spells. These scrolls featured prominently in the Japanese game, which explains their existence here, but does not bother to explain why the Noid uses ancient Japanese magic. They didn't even bother to change the scrolls to pizza, or to ingredients to make a pizza between levels.

Am I actually complaining that the game doesn't foist enough pizza marketing upon us? Yes, yes I am, because what we have here just doesn't make sense. I can't really make this clear enough - this is another game with a totally unrelated character hacked in. It's absolutely blatant that someone spent an afternoon erasing the Japanese main character and drawing in a Noid character, then shipped it off to the printers. It's like nobody even cared. Probably because they didn't.

In fact, aside from the Noid himself, the only other pizza reference in the game is for a minigame that has also been half-assedly painted over by Domino's. God only knows what it was in the Japanese version, but here you've got a "Pizza Eating Contest". This is a simple card game where your opponent picks a numbered card and you pick a higher-numbered card to gain more points. What do you get for winning this game? Zip.

Graphically, Yo! Noid is reasonably detailed, which is surprising, given the apparent lack of concern for the plot. The backgrounds are nice, and despite the fact that it is meant to be New York City but looks nothing like it, the levels themselves still work well. They're a collection of platform game clichés, from the "waterfront level with holes in the boardwalks" to "icy level that causes you to slip around uncontrollably." Still, Noid pulls them off competently. The characters have a very cartoony look, and are drawn sharply. The game's music is campy and upbeat, which is proper for the game this is trying to be. Similar story for the effects - cartoonish and forgettable. The Noid does control responsively, and has to make a number of harrowing jumps throughout the levels. The controls allow you do to this solidly.

I can't quite figure out if this game is meant to be marketed to kids or not. It's pretty difficult, but not so much in a skillful way, more in a tedious way. It's a very average platformer with some decent skateboarding and flying levels tossed in, but it's not like this hasn't been done before, and done better. Its only real ingenuity is in the pizza eating cardgame, but that's not saying a lot. This might have been something worth noting if they gave it out free with two large pizzas, but the pizzas would still have been the better part of the deal. Instead, this was an actual release that cost money to buy. I would never recommend this game to someone, but if you're looking for an average, playable platformer with an overweight hero in a bunny costume, well, I think you know where to go.

Otherwise... Avoid the Noid. [drum fill]

-reviewed 6/27/04 - game copyright 1990 Capcom

Average U.S. marketing tool ripping off an average Japanese platformer.

Like Domino's pizza, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

	7
	5
	7
	5
	52%

Yo! Noid on MobyGames
Gameplay video at NESGuide
Noid entry on Wikipedia

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