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Legendarily Obnoxious Famicom Game to Be Revived on Smartphones

This summer, Taito will resurrect the 1986 Famicom game Takeshi no Chōsenjō (Takeshi's Challenge) for play on smartphones. The game was designed by prolific Japanese director Takeshi Kitano (Beat Takeshi), even though he is not a gamer professionally. The game was essentially intended to prank its players; according to Tetsuo Egawa, a Taito salesman, the developers incorporated Takeshi's personal suggestions into the game, even those offered while he was drunk.

The game is notorious for its difficulty. Gameplay restarts from the very beginning anytime there is a game over. A hang-gliding sequence results in a game over anytime the player is hit, and the player must reach a few scattered wind gusts to move up. It tries to annoy and humiliate its players, for instance by forcing them to sing karaoke over and over again into the Famicom controller's microphone and wait an hour for a secret treasure map to appear on screen. Its protagonist is a salaryman who frequents hostess bars and keeps getting into brawls with the yakuza or random NPCs. The game allows you to divorce your wife and beat up your family.

"CEO's room"

"Karaoke/hostess bar Azemichi"

In Japan, Takeshi's Challenge is noted as a "shitty game"; even Taito's website acknowledges this. However, if modern gamers wish to experience Takeshi's trolling, they can do so again — and this time with unspecified new material. Taito has also re-released the 1985 arcade game Time Gal, which follows a time-traveling heroine with full-motion anime video, and will re-release the 1990s arcade shooters RayForce, RayStorm and RayCrisis. A virtual reality version of Takeshi's Challenge was also announced on April 1, but that turned out to be an April Fool's joke. The game just won't stop trolling!

Sources: IT Media News, Taito Classics, Now It's Personal: On Abusive Game Design: Douglas Wilson and Miguel Sicart, Netlab and JonTronShow; Image from Wikipedia