NOTE: This is a review for the Arcade version of the game

Originally posted here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2018/01/25/michael-jacksons-moonwalker-review-part-1-arcade/

Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker is a pretty weird film to say the least. For those not in the know, it was an anthology film, several of which were just Michael Jackson’s music vidoes, mostly using music from the ‘Bad’ (1987). Probably the most infamous segment of the film is the “Smooth Criminal” segment in which a drug-dealing mobster called Mr. Big, played by Joe Pesci, kidnaps all of the worlds children to get them addicted to drugs, so Michael Jackson comes to their rescue and defeats Mr. Big by turning into a giant robot. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie.

And then along comes the video game based on the film that the 80s and 90s seemed to be filled with. While Moonwalker seems like it wouldn’t make sense as a video game, it actually makes sense with some contect. Michael Jackson was a giant fan of video games, having a giant arcade in his masnion filled to the brim with both arcade machines and the lastest video game consoles alone with a large video game collection.

He also secretly composed music for some of Sega’s games, including the Sonic series, along with making cameos in Space Channel 5, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2, and he was even the focus for a cencelled MMO called Planet Michael. He even designed the video games based on the Moonwalker movie. Which finally brings us back to Michael Jackson’s Moonwaker for the arcade.

Of course the best version of the game is the version that came out in the arcades. Developed and put out by Sega, Moonwalker is an isometric Beat-Em-Up. You play as Michael Jackson’s character from the previously mentioned “Smooth Criminal” segment from the movie, cut up into 5 different stages. Each stage is filled with Mr. Bigs’s thugs, along with characters exclusive to each stage, and then a boss battle at the finale of each stage.

As you’re going through each stage, you can save the children that have been kidnapped by the thugs. When you save the kids, they often have extra health for you, or give you a dance power-up. That’s right, you get a dance power-up. This power-up, called “Dance Magic”, makes every enemy currently on screen dance in sync with Michael Jaskson before Michael unleashes a wave of green energy, defeating all of the thugs.

The best part of this power-up is that not only does it works with the attack dogs that the thugs, causing them to dance along too, but the thugs controlling giant robots (yes, they have giant robots) to make the robot also dance along with Michael. It’s just as awesome as it sounds.

The second power-up turns Michael Jackson into a robot just like the movie, which results in you being able to run around shooting thugs with powerful lasers. To collect this power-up, you have to collect Bubbles the chimpanzee, based on Michael Jackson’s real life pet of the same name, who appears once per level.

Of course, the soundtrack is made up entirely of Michael Jackson’s music, and is fun listening to midi renditions of Michael’s music. My only problem with the soundtrack is that in the graveyard area, Thriller doesn’t play Not even when you use the dance power-up. How do you have a graveyard level in a Michael Jackson video game and not have the iconic Thriller play. Especially when Michael Jackson himself is working on it and he’s the biggest star at the time.

The game also lets you play the game with up to three players at the same time, and watching 3 Michael Jacksons in three diferrent colored suits fight of thugs, dogs, and robots, all while dancing in unison and themselves becoming robots that fire lasers is a fun thing to witness. The entire thing is onl 30 minutes long, but it was released at a time when arcade games wucked quarters out of people, so this was probably taking at last a couple of dollars out of people for the whole experience.

The arcade version of Moonwalker is easily recommendable for anyone who loves arcade games and Michael Jackson, but there isn’t a lot of places you can find it, especially since arcades don’t really exist any more in a lot of countries. And finding one to buy for yourself is borderline impossible because it would cost an arm and a leg and take up a ton of space, both of which most people don’t have.

And since there is no way to buy this game digitally, probably due to a mix of rights issues for both the music and game, as well as Michael Jackson’s unfortunate history, there is not going to be a way for you to play this unless you download it and emulate it.

But still, it comes highly recommended.

Reviewed on Oct 07, 2022


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