Yo! Noid - NES

Yo! Noid for the NES is one of the most gloriously strange licensed games in the console's entire library — a Capcom-developed platformer starring the Noid, Domino's Pizza's beloved late-1980s claymation mascot. A green doppelgänger named Mr. Green is running wild through New York City causing chaos and framing the Noid for everything. The mayor calls on the Noid to save the city — with a massive pizza reward promised if he succeeds. Armed with a super yo-yo and a collection of magic scrolls, the Noid sprints, bounces, skateboards, and helicopters through 14 side-scrolling levels across a cartoonish rendition of early 1990s New York.

The gameplay is a solid Capcom platformer — bright, fast, and punishing. The Noid has no life bar and loses a life on any enemy contact or if the timer runs out, which gives every level genuine tension. Magic scrolls function as screen-clearing bombs. The yo-yo dispatches enemies at close range. Between every other level, instead of a traditional boss fight, players face a rival Noid in a pizza-eating contest played out as a card battle — matching numbers to fill a pizza meter faster than the opponent. It is exactly as absurd as it sounds. Stages include a carnival, a skateboard sequence, and a gyrocopter section that keep the gameplay varied.

The game is a reskin of the Japanese Famicom title Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru — the ninja became the Noid, the bird-throwing became yo-yo attacks, and the card battles became pizza contests. Capcom developed both this and the California Raisins NES game simultaneously. Half a million copies shipped on release at $40 retail. The Noid disappeared from Domino's advertising shortly after the game's release, partly due to a 1989 incident in which a man who believed the mascot was based on him took Domino's employees hostage — one of the stranger footnotes in fast food and gaming history. A fan-made sequel, Yo! Noid 2: Enter the Void, arrived in 2017 and became a cult phenomenon in its own right.

Language: English
Rating: N/A (pre-ESRB release)
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
Genre: Action Platformer
Players: 1 player
Developer: Now Production
Publisher: Capcom
Release Year: 1990 (North American release: November 1990)

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