Over 8 million people purchased Halo 3. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sold a whopping 12 million. And Nintendo can’t defecate out Pokémon and “Wii Insert Random Thing To Do Here” games fast enough to completely satisfy the masses. But with all these amazing successes, there have been numerous games and even complete series that have fallen to the wayside. Remember: for every Super Mario Bros., there’s a Shutokou Battle 2: Drift King Keichii Tsuchiya & Masaaki Bandoh. As a proud gamer, I feel that it is my privilege—nay, my duty—to take some time and offer a brief glimpse at many of the games that disappeared into bargain bins and trash bins alike due to overshadowing from more prominent titles, as well as titles that will forever remain sequestered within one region of the world. You’d better be prepared to be educated a little, because there is much that you haven’t seen.

MAY 2010: Wakataka Oozumou: Yume no Kyoudai Taiketsu

WELL, WELL…YOU HAVE THAT SAME SCRUNCHY LOOK AS LAST MONTH.

No kidding. You don’t understand what kind of torture I have to put up with just to whet the appetites of GameCola’s two avid readers. It’s the lowest level of mental fecality, I’ll tell you that!

HEY, THEY PAY YOU GOOD MONEY FOR THIS. OH WAIT…SCRATCH THAT. ANYWAY, YOU USUALLY BRING ME SOME WONDROUSLY OBSCURE GAMING NUGGET, A SHARD OF PURE GAMING GOLD.

Oh, it’s gold, all right…about enough to buy myself a hash brown at McDonalds! I sincerely hope that I find a game next month that won’t give me brain tumors just by watching the title screen. This month, I present to you Wakataka Oozumou: Yume no Kyoudai Taiketsu for the Super Famicom. Yes, it’s Japanese, and thank goodness it stayed over there. I wouldn’t have wanted this to be released here even if there was a severe drought of all other games in 1993. This game makes Lester the Unlikely look like Super Mario Bros. 3.

LET’S SCAN THE AUDIENCE TO SEE HOW MANY OF THEM HAVE PLAYED LESTER THE UNLIKELY...NEITHER OF THEM.

And it stars a character who looks like me. And it’s STILL better. I don’t understand. Anyway, Wakataka Oozumou: Yume no Kyoudai Taiketsu was brought to the public by Imagineer, known for their mostly subpar library, including Quest 64, that lousy Wolfenstein 3D port for the SNES, and enough Sanrio games to cause children with lower immune systems to implode. Its name is partially translated on the packaging and reads, “Waka Taka Ozumo: Brothers Dream Match.” I take it that Waka and Taka are brothers, and that this is some sort of title involving incest. But actually, it’s a sumo wrestling game of the utmost dullness.

SUMO WRESTLING, EH? CAN’T SAY WE HAVE MANY OF THOSE ‘ROUND THESE PARTS.

Yeah, and I blame Imagineer for sealing up any possibilities of us WANTING one of these. But anyhow, after looking at the ridiculously cartoony sumos do the sumo shuffle on the title screen, you have to go through a significant amount of Japanese text, none of which I can read. I don’t even remember seeing any numbers, though that wouldn’t really have helped me much because when I become immersed in a videogame, I end up having a numeracy level equivalent to a blinding stink. But I survived and made it to the ring. Right above your head, three cards appear, each outlining a move (in Japanese, so I have no clue what I’m doing), and each with a Japanese symbol telling me how strong the move is. Couldn’t be in numerical format, eh? You have about one second to select which card you want to play. Suddenly, a weird paddle arises from the ground. Then both of you (or you and the computer, if your friends are smart enough to leave you the hell alone when you whip out your Waka Taka) tap the controller button at just the right time as the paddle lands over your opponent. That description of the paddle sounds weird, and that’s because it IS weird. He or she who taps the button with excellent timing without tapping prematurely (a problem for many gamers) gets to perform his or her move of choice.

Yet sumo wrestling shouldn’t be about stupid cards waving about. Forget a card and button-tapping system. Why don’t they get the programmers from Street Fighter II in the mix and have them prepare a REAL sumo wrestling game. I want to be able to genuinely try to push my opponent outside the ring with strength, agility, and strategically-placed underarm fur clumps, not play a terrible game of sumo euchre.

I LIKE EUCHRE.

And I like good games, but that doesn’t mean life is beautiful. But that’s the entire game. Just selecting cards and hoping you have better reflexes than a videogame console processor from 1990. Oh, and reading excessive blots of Japanese text. And the graphics and sound don’t impress me either, and I’m easily impressed. Remember the graphics from Kirby’s Adventure, which came out the same year but on an inferior console? That was a hell of a lot more pleasing than this.

SO…I HAVE TO ASK BECAUSE IT’S IN MY CONTRACT. SHOULD I SEEK OUT THIS GAME?

Who gave you a contract? And no, don’t find this game. Instead, go find a bucket of sulfuric acid from the curbside and burn right through this sorry excuse of a medium. I don’t want to play anymore sumo games for the rest of my life now. Not even Super Mario Sumo. That would probably be awful, too. Guaranteed, even.

YOU SURE ARE ANGSTY TODAY. MAYBE A GOOD GAME NEXT MONTH WILL CHEER YOU UP?

I’d better make damn sure I find one, or I’m going to start tearing new holes in people.