Takeshi's Challenge

Takeshi's Letter of Challenge (たけしの挑戦状) is a famous kusoge game made by Taito Corporation.

Contents [hide]

1 Overview

2 Related Illustrations

3 Related Articles

4 External Links

4.1 English

4.2 Japanese

5 Article in Other Languages

Overview

Takeshi's Letter of Challenge (たけしの挑戦状, Takeshi no Chōsenjō), officially translated as The Ultimate Challenge from Beat Takeshi, popularly known as Beat Takeshi's Challenge or just Takeshi's Challenge is a Family Computer game released by Taito on December 10, 1986.

Although this game is famous as a legendary awful game, it was not a flop in terms of sales, but rather sold quite well, selling 800,000 units, according to the developer. This is most likely due to it being a tie-in celebrity game with Takeshi Kitano, commonly known by the stage name Beat Takeshi.

Because the puzzles were so unreasonable, many people were unable to clear the game. Moreover, the first strategy book that was released did not even contain a strategy, and there is an anecdote that the editor who responded to a phone call from a user protesting the game was so fed up with the number of complaints that he lied and said, "The person in charge of the game is dead".

The game's avant-garde and surrealistic content is similar to that of Takeshi's later works, and the high degree of freedom to indiscriminately attack people on the street and one's own family, and to receive various services at a wide variety of stores, is said to be similar to the Grand Theft Auto of the future.

It is said that Takeshi really had a lot of ideas, most of which could not be realized with the capabilities of the Family Computer at the time, and Taito had a hard time making them.

In fact, the game could be completed only by defeating the town's residents, the president of the company where the player worked, his wife and son, and even the benefactor who gave him the treasure map, and then beating him to death.

The catch copy of the game was "common sense is dangerous" because of the extreme difficulty of the game if played with the "common sense" of the time.

In other words, Takeshi's Challenge was about noticing insane ideas and finding the correct answer hidden in the insanity.

The message on the back of the package, "First of all, please do not think of this work on the same level as previous Famicom softwares.", is a serious message to the players.

Therefore, it can be said that the game has a strong character of "a stupid game that is too difficult to understand" even if it is a bad game.