I loved Garfield as a kid but I can see why this was passed over for US localization. Ugghh. Also it was obviously the same team that did Superman but they went by the pseudonym Mars Corp here. I wouldn't put my real name on this kusoge either.

>>11792608 (OP)
>No mention of Jim Davis or PAWS anywhere; only United Features Syndicate is credited
You can tell this was made without anybody giving a fuck.

>>11792608 (OP)
>Superman is '87
>Garfield is '91
Four years and these guys didn't improve a single iota.

>>11792776
not like in Japan they would "get" Garfield anyway

>>11792802
The Japanese Garfield twitter account actually tweets everything like oO( to mimic Garfield's thought bubbles

>>11792608 (OP)
The dialog boxes in the game are all in English suggesting that it was at least intended for a US release in fact it may have originally been meant as a Western exclusive but got rejected for being unplayable garbage so they just relented and did a Japanese release so the effort of making the thing wouldn't be completely wasted.

>>11792608 (OP)
This is one example of a Famicom kusoge that has more fame/infamy to Westerners than Japanese where almost nobody even remembers it existed. But everyone here is like ahhh it's that terrible NES Garfield game probably because they saw it on a ROM site in 2002 and played it on Nesticle.

>>11792608 (OP)
Holy flap, this was a 1991 release? It looks like 1986.

>>11792786
>>11792853
it's not '91 it came out April '89.

I never got past the first stage when I tried to play this.

>do boss fight
>his shots get stuck in Garfield's sprite and keep draining his health
'Nuff said.

>>11792776
it was a quick shoddy game they probably made in 3 months

>>11792802
I am an American and I still don't "get" Garfield. Its the worst comic strip.

>>11792836
Probably not. Tons of Famicom games are in English for no other reason than its easier to fit an English font into CHR ROM than it is a Japanese one.

>>11793963
nah generally a game that was meant with the Japanese market in mind would have Japanese text in it somewhere. the odd absence of any in AWOG lends credence to the idea that it was meant as a Western-exclusive release but got rejected after which they went ah fuck it and released it in Japan so they could at least sell a few copies and make back the cost of developing it. PAWS, Inc. had very tight standards for Garfield products back then and if they saw this thing running you can bet it would have been speedily vetoed.

>this game was 63 USD new
Damn, that was expensive but why? It was just a regular MMC1 cart with no battery save or extra RAM. also it only had a small 32k CHR ROM. was the Garfield license that pricey?

>>11793972
>>11792992
They did at least promote its release in Japan, but it certainly feels like something that was originally meant for a US-only release.

>>11792802
>Japan
it's a #$%*ing cat possessed by a NEET.

>>11793972
Since as OP said it looks like the same guys who did Superman, I wouldn't doubt that the developer was in fact Kemco given their habit of making licensed games based around Western properties and they would have originally published it themselves. However AWOG turned out to be such a complete pile of shit that it's likely PAWS Inc. rejected releasing it and Kemco out of embarrassment got Towachiki Corp to publish the game so their own name wouldn't be tainted by it, and they invented a fake name Mars Inc for the developer.

>>11793972
>PAWS, Inc. had very tight standards for Garfield products back then and if they saw this thing running you can bet it would have been speedily vetoed.

>there was a famous story of a company rep who showed Jim Davis a Garfield alarm clock they did and he was like "nah I don't like the design. tell them to redo it."
>guy is like "wtf man? they already have the plastic molds made up over in China. if we have to call them and tell them to redo the molds from scratch it's going to be a couple weeks more delay and expense."
>Davis said to him "So?"

>>11794019
Assuming the credits on mobygames are correct (though I think some names might be mis-linked to others with the same name), it looks like a few people credited on AWOG also worked on games by HUMAN Entertainment.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/41835/garfield-no-isshukan-a-week-of-garfield/credits/nes/
Given that Human sometimes functioned as a ghost developer, I wouldn't be surprised if they developed something like AWOG. Now why they would have bother to come up with a fake name instead of just leaving it with only Towa Chiki's name on it would be anybody's guess. I guess it's also just as likely that they were indeed just a new team that made an absolute shitheap for their first game and broke up afterward, with some of them going on to join HUMAN after.

>>11794091
The reason for my suggestion is that the game looks so extremely similar to Superman and has the sane mechanic of hitting random terrain to make power up "cards" pop out that I became totally convinced it was the same guys. I mean, that game was garbage too so...

>>11792802
It's a lazy cat, what's there to get?

the Genesis Garfield game was closely supervised by PAWS, Inc. btw