Gaming Grail pt2. Convoy no Nozo

Thanks to a friend of mine going on a well deserved holiday, and allowing himself to be put to work for me, in finding this awesome little fellow that I have been after for a number of years now.

It’s a sexy copy of the relatively awful NES game ‘Convoy no nozo’ or Mystery of Convoy.  Only released in Japan in 1986, it is a left to right scrolling shooter where you play as Ultra Magnus.


I can only assume the ‘mystery’ the title refers to is Where is Convoy?  As he doesn’t show in the game.  It is interesting in that you can transform at any time between Magnus’ two modes and use his skills differently.  This box is in pretty good condition and I am happy to finally have it.  Let’s have a squizz.

Nice little bit of artwork on the front.  In Japan, the NES was called the ‘Family computer’ or Famicom as it got shortened to.

Close up of the back and sides of the box.  After all these years the box is still in great shape!

Inside the box, the game cart is secured in a plastic backing case thing.  This one is missing the anket (survey card) assuming they had them back then, but it has a power point warning piece of paper and the instructions.  To be honest, I am not bothered all that much about the survey card.

The cart.  In pretty good nick.  I was thinking at first that it might be a fake, as a couple of years ago, I couldn’t find this anywhere, now when I ebay search it, a fair few manage to pop up.  But I see the back of the cart is worn a bit and the sticker has a slight yellow tinge.  Still, I am surpised at how well it has stood the test of time!



Size comparison shot, the instructions are really tiny.  Interesting I think, after all with the control pad and only two buttons your options are limited!  Still I do like instructions and I get annoyed now when I buy a game and the instructions are only 4 pages, or worse yet, tell me to go and look at the website of the game…  Man I HATE that!  It just reeks of laziness/cost saving.

These instructions are pretty good though, explaining the controls and what to do, although I notice you have to use the diagonal up/down to transform, whereas the instructions say just pushing up/down should do it.  Anyway, nice to see there are lost of lovely Transformers bios in there.

Game Prologue and stage explanations.  Lots of time tunnels…

Level progression map and  bios.  Is that Trypticon I spy?

Nope, its Dinozaura (Trypticon’s Japanese name.)


And finally, some footage of me playing the game.  Man I am bad at this game.  to think it probably would have cost a good $50 or more back in the day, which would have been more than $50 now!  Not only do you get frustrating crappy gameplay, the game could probably be finished within half an hour…

Assuming you could put up with it that long.


 

Finally some gameplay vids. I completely suck at this game... so please forgive.  I also don't care too much about playing it, which is partly why I suck at it.