Oh. Oh my.
I’m just a bit too young to have many memories of the Noid, a late 80′s mascot for Domino’s Pizza. Wikipedia notes that this rabbit-eared…guy…was “physical manifestation of all the challenges inherent in getting a pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less [citation needed].” That sounds about right.In case there was any doubt, shovelware based on commercial properties isn’t limited to just those games sold by Burger King.
Perhaps thankfully (and surprisingly), the story of Yo! Noid is a bit more interesting than that. Capcom first released it Japan under the name Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru, or “Masked Ninja Hanamaru,” in early 1990. When localizing the game to the U.S., Capcom partnered with Domino’s to replace the game’s ninja character with the Noid, as well as change out some backgrounds and other stuff to make it more…Noid-y, I guess. The gameplay, however, stayed the same.
Yo! Noid is a fairly straight forward platformer – with the help of his yo-yo, the Noid must navigate numerous levels avoiding various pits and enemies. The Noid can get a few different powerups that help clear enemies off the screen, which are collected and powered up by obtaining scrolls.
Despite what you might expect from a game featuring the Noid, this is actually a pretty fun game. When it comes down to it, Capcom knows what they’re doing – the controls are tight, the platforming is functional, and the levels are varied and interesting. Several of the levels benefit from really cool enemy designs, such as the icy level filled with curlers and hockey players:
The gameplay even changes things up a bit here and there, such as when the Noid becomes a KICKIN’ RAD skateboarder:
The game certainly has its flaws – some enemies seem to have weird hitboxes, which leads to some pretty frustrating deaths at times. There’s also pizza-eating mini-game after some levels (since pizza obviously had to come up at some point) that takes forever and isn’t particularly fun.
Curiously, by the time Yo! Noid was released, Domino’s had largely distanced itself from the character for a rather horrifying reason – in 1989, a paranoid schizophrenic named Kenneth Noid, who believed the ads were making fun of him, went to an Domino’s location in Atlanta and held two employees hostage. Seriously. Nevertheless, the game sold pretty well and is still fairly easy to find. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a perfectly fine addition to any NES library.
In a surprising twist, some developers made a sequel to Yo! Noid at a 2017 game jam. You can download that, for free, right here.
Stop by again next week, in which I’ll be swinging into one of the true classics of early video gaming.