Hit Marmot (Family Computer Clones)

The reviews on this site are the text versions of the videos on my YouTube channel. The text based reviews use (if at all) very little pictures. Please follow the link to the corresponding video in order to see in game graphics.

Hit Marmot was developed in 1991 by Mega Soft for clone systems of the FamilyComputer. Mega Soft was a label of NTDEC. In the game's story a marmot goes into the player's log house and eats a purple object, while the player is asleep.

The game consists of different variants of the famous game ''Whac-A-Mole''. In the normal modes marmots have to be shot upon appearing from holes, before they go back down. The player uses a full or semi automatic weapon with infinite capacity but limited stock of ammunition. In each round a certain number of marmots has to be shot in order to proceed to the next level. This requirement gets more and more challenging as the rounds progress. Every game mode has 30 levels. When failing to reach the requirement the final score is displayed followed by a game over screen.

In the advanced modes not all marmots must be shot as some are surrendering by waving a white flag. Shooting those marmots will result in a hit count decrease. All modes can either be played with one or two marmots on screen. Furthermore an optional machine gun can be used in every mode.

By pressing left, select, start, A and B all at the same time at the title screen, an additional option screen is accessed. Here the levels can be selected and the difficulty can be adapted via the speed of the marmots. The speed setting is inverse, 99 is the slowest setting.

The ending shows the player leading caught marmots away into the log house. A tall marmot escapes and turns into a demon after the moon has risen.

Graphically the game looks quite appealing. In particular the hit detection of the gun is well made as the screen flashes just very gently upon firing. The music is well done and matches the mood of the game. I think it's annoying to repeat easy parts of simple games over and over again, in order to play the more challenging parts. An example that comes to my mind is Shooting Gallery which I covered in episode 5. Therefore I am really happy about the difficulty settings and the level selection screen in Hit Marmot. I wished more light gun games had these.

I like the artwork on the label and I think it matches the game well.