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9/13/2016

The Hoshi wo Miru Hito Challenge

I've posted about Hoshi wo Miru Hito before, both as a video showcasing a few of its elements, and as a Nutshell with more of the same.  If you haven't seen those, then the short version is that it's a grievously flawed Famicom RPG full of terrible design decisions, ugly graphics, shrill music, unintuitive puzzles and poor programming that makes it all but impossible to complete.  The only reason it's rarely mentioned alongside other legendary garbage games like Big Rigs, Superman 64 and Drake of the 99 Dragons mostly just comes down to its obscurity - the game never made it out of Japan, and its release there was completely overshadowed by several other genre-defining titles that came out in the same year, like Dragon Quest II, Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star.

But of course, as with any difficult/terribly designed game, there will come those who claim it's "really easy" and that anyone who doesn't care to beat it "just sucks" and "isn't a real gamer".  So I'm going to make things interesting (and hopefully close a few loud mouths) by issuing a challenge;  namely, the first person to complete this game legitimately and show me proof that they have done so will be paid $100 USD.

More specifically, the rules are:

  • The game must be played on an actual Famicom system with no third-party modifications made.
  • The cartridge of Hoshi wo Miru Hito used must be an original, unmodified copy of the game as it was released in 1987.
  • The game must be completed without using any kind of cheat device.

Proof should be provided in the form of a video showing a start-to-finish playthrough and at least a photo or two of your recording setup.  Commentary on all of the important events going on in-game is a plus!