Godzilla: Monster of Monsters!


Godzilla: Monster of Monsters! is a Nintendo Entertainment System video game released in Japan in 1988 and in 1989 in the US by Toho Co., Ltd. The North American version removes all references to Toho Cenfile-Soft Library and Compile, crediting the game to Toho Eizo on the title screen instead.

Storyline

In the year 2XXX, the mysterious Planet X appears when Pluto and Neptune switch positions in the Solar System, and its inhabitants begin an attempt to conquer the Earth, using a legion of space monsters as their primary attack force. The King of Monsters, Godzilla, joins forces with the guardian monster Mothra and the forces of Earth to repel the invasion forces.

Gameplay

The game features two playable monsters, Godzilla and Mothra. The player uses both monsters in turn by selecting the desired character on a virtual gameboard, representative of the planet it is on, and moving it like a chess piece. Each space is a hexagon that represents playable, side-scrolling levels. There are rocky zones, jungle zones, city zones, and hyperspace zones. The hyperspace zones feature fights with the Matango, Dogora, and the Goten. The alien space ships resemble the design of Atragon and The War in Space.
Each board contains several monsters from the Godzilla series and some from other Toho movies and the objective is to clear each board of enemy monsters before advancing to the next board. Battles are fought when the player moves Godzilla or Mothra adjacent to an enemy monster, and are reminiscent of a match from a fighting game. The player plays a small side-scrolling level for each space advanced, and if one has moved adjacent to the monster, a battle follows the side-scrolling stages. More monsters appear on each stage until nearly every monster in the game is featured. When the player reaches Planet X, every previous monster is present along with King Ghidorah himself. The monster battles have a time limit of forty seconds but lack a countdown timer.
The monsters from the game :
  • Earth: Gezora - A giant squid or cuttlefish-like creature
  • Earth: Moguera - A giant robot
  • Mars: Varan - A giant gliding lizard
  • Jupiter: Hedorah - A giant alien creature that feeds off of pollution
  • Saturn: Baragon - A fire-breathing dinosaur
  • Uranus: Gigan - A cyborg monster with blade arms
  • Pluto: Mechagodzilla - A robotic replica of Godzilla
  • Planet X: King Ghidorah - A giant three-headed dragon
The titular mushroom kaiju from the 1963 film Matango appear as mid-bosses throughout the early stages of the game. In later stages, that role goes to Gohten, the space battleship from the 1977 sci-fi film The War in Space.
In addition, Dogora from the 1964 film of the same name and the creature Manda from the 1963 film Atragon appear as common enemies throughout the game.

Reception

Godzilla: Monster of Monsters received generally unfavorable reception from critics.

Legacy

In 1992, Toho released a sequel called Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters for the NES. The player controls the Army, trying to protect Japan from the Godzilla monsters. Syracuse Herald-Journal commented that while the game is "OK" as a strategy title, a more action-oriented approach would have been preferable.
This game was the focus on a popular creepypasta titled "NES Godzilla Creepypasta", where a fan of the game ends up playing a twisted version of the game possessed by a vicious demonic entity called Red. He is a skeletal red monster who heavily distorts the game to hellish and unrealistic depths and has a history with the narrator's late girlfriend. The story is notable for also featuring a heavy amount of "screenshots" from the fictional version of the game. A fangame has been in development with a demo being released in 2017, however it has closed down production in 2023.