GOTD 7/6/2016: Dynamite Headdy (Sega Genesis)

[bb_hood]

Treasure is well known for creating awesome games, and they made three really awesome games for the Sega Genesis: Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy and Alien Soldier. For me it is kinda hard to choose a favorite between the three, but if I had to I would have to choose Dynamite Headdy.

Dynamite Headdy is an action/platforming game where the main character Headdy sets out to destroy Dark Demon, the final boss who stole all your puppet friends or something like that. Anyway, in the game you use your head to shoot enemies, grab onto platforms, and hit other triggers. You can get power-ups which transform your head into different weapons or useful tools. The game seems to take place on a large stage. The backgrounds show off props, panels, ropes and other things typical of an actor's stage. Headdy's lifebar is also a spotlight that diminishes as you take damage. This game has a truly original concept, and it is complimented with excellent graphics and some seriously awesome music.

If you have ever played this, you probably know how wacky some of the characters, enemies, and backgrounds are. My favorite boss is a character apropriatley named "Baby Face", which starts out as a large babies' head, which after taking enough damage transforms into a young adult, than an adults face, finally an old mans face. And this is during the side-scrolling shooter part of the game. It is so wierd but really awesome at the same time. And speaking of strange characters, throughout the game you are constantly being hounded by a crazy kitty-cat guy who goes by the name of 'Trouble Bruin'. Sometimes he is the boss, and you can often find him leering at you from the background. He is just a mean kitty who doesnt like you for some reason..

Dynamite Headdy is a fairly challenging game, and the continues need to be earned by collecting what I think are 'keyholes' after the boss explodes. This can sometimes be tricky, and you can easily run out of continues. The final boss is pretty tough, and beating him after going through the entire game is a challenging task. Probably the most difficult aspect of this game is locating all the 'Secret Bonus' points in the game. There is also a basketball sub-game that will reveal a safe combination used at the end of the game.. I have beaten the game, but I have not located all the secret bonus points nor unlocked the safe.

Dynamite Headdy is probably my favorite Sega Genesis game. Anybody else really really like this game? Also feel free to coment on your favorite Treasure game for the Genesis. There are a few others, but I really think that Dynamite, Gunstar and Alien Soldier are video game masterpieces and are probably the best three games on the Genesis.

[FoxNtd]

Took a lot of patience to find a well-priced copy of this game for my Mega Drive. Note that Treasure's games are region locked on Mega Drive! As stated yes this is a masterpiece much like damn near every game Treasure ever made. I never played the US release, and I hear it's missing all the dialogue (which can be really amusing and if this is true you're missing out) and that the US version is also somehow less difficult.

This game delivers just like any other Treasure title, just like you would expect it to. Makes use of the hardware very well, absolutely creative game -- can't really think of one bad thing to say about it. Surely Dynamite Headdy is on the must-play/must-own list of Mega Drive games.

[celerystalker]

I think that for me, it goes Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, Alien Soldier. I like Headdy pretty well, but I like a lot of the games that built on it later more, like Mischief Makers and Silhouette Mirage, but it's still a really excellent platformer. I didn't grow up with it, but picked up a copy about 17 years ago and really enjoyed it.

This one I also have on PS2 in the Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box, which has all three of the games mentioned. That collection also includes the Game Gear and Master System versions, and also region selection. I'll have to check when I get some time to see about the dialogue removal question. Great game, though!

[Scissors]

Wow, I thought I was the only one who liked Dynamite Headdy more than Gunstar Heroes. It's certainly one of my favorite Genesis games. I liked just about everything about it, except for the Basketball mini-game, which was kinda annoying.

I have both the Japanese and American versions and can confirm that the Japanese one has dialogue that's not in the American one. Some of the graphics are different too.

[Gameguy]

There is a translation patch for the Japanese version to convert all the dialog into English, just an option to not miss out on all of the dialog that was cut out of the North American version. So far I've only played the North American version. I really like it, it's one of the top games available on the Genesis.

[FrankSerpico]

One of the console's all-time greats. It's a shame the holiday season it came out we also had Donkey Kong Country, The Lion King, Sonic and Knuckles and so many more mainstream platformers hogging the spotlight. It was superior to pretty much all of them

[calgon]

My favorite game of all-time

[Bloodreign]

The safe combination is for a secret last boss fight after the credits roll. You face a corporate head guy who throws money at you as an attack, quite odd.