August 22, 2011 5:00 AM | Danny Cowan

Mr. Gimmick is a wonderful little Famicom platformer that never found the audience it deserved. The Sega Genesis and Super NES had firmly established themselves stateside by the time a U.S. version was considered for release, leading to its tragic cancellation in 1992. Fellow Sunsoft platformer Ufouria also suffered the same fate. Make no mistake, it was a bad time for fans of charming, difficult platformers.

A PAL version of Mr Gimmick was eventually released in Scandanavia, but even if you can find a copy (it's one of the rarest officially released NES games), it's not fully playable on non-PAL consoles. After finding and dumping a prototype U.S. version of Mr Gimmick, however, RetroUSB has produced a limited run of NTSC-compatible Mr Gimmick cartridges designed for North American systems.

I could rave for pages about how great a game Gimmick is, but I'll defer to my pal Frank Cifaldi's annotated playthrough for a more complete and entertaining explanation. The short version: Mr. Gimmick rules, and it's awesome that an NTSC version now exists.

Bonus activity! if you feel like getting angry, watch Frank's playthrough and then read EGM's vintage Mr. Gimmick review immediately afterward. Sushi-X('s ghostwriter) is kind of a huge turd!