Koko Adventure

Koko Adventure
Publisher	Daou Infosys (Korea) Innovation (US, cancelled)
Developer	Open Corp.
Console	Famicom/NES
Date	1993 (Korea), Unreleased (US)
Sound engine	Konami (Tiny Toon Adventures)
Alternate names/hacks	Buzz & Waldog

Koko's Adventure (코코 어드벤쳐) is a Famicom/NES platofrm game made by Open Corp. in 1993. It's one of the few games for the Famicom that was done by a Korean developer. This game was better well known as its unreleased, American version known as Buzz & Waldog.

Overview

The game stars two characters, Koko and Suzi who are pretty much the same other than the sprites. You can either play as either one in single player or both in multi-player. The A button is used to jump and the B button allows you to do a spin kick jump which can hit anything around you. In each level, you have to collect a required amount of keys under the time limit in order to beat it. There's 3 levels in each stage as well as a boss fight. There's 5 stages overall and after that, you fight all the bosses again before confronting the final boss. There's also question mark boxes around that you can break to get points, gems, 1-ups or a power-up. The power-up can either grant you the ability to double jump and if you already have that, the ability to let you glide in the air.

Buzz & Waldog

File:Buzz and Waldog (Prototype) -!--0.png

Buzz & Waldog's title screen

Koko's Adventure was later changed and was supposed to be released by Innovation Technology in 1993 but due to unknown reasons, it never was along with some of Open Corp.'s other games. In this version, Suzi is replaced with a male character known as Waldog and the title screen was changed. (although her name remains on the game over screen through cheating/hacking) There's also a bug where you never lose a life, thus having infinite lives.

Trivia

• This game has graphics ported from Super Mario World and the sound engine is from Tiny Toon Adventure's.
• This game shares many similarities with Toto World 3 in terms of music, bosses and certain graphics. Also the way the level tracks were arranged within Koko's Adventure doesn't match their own order of the levels but with Toto World 3's, suggesting Toto World 3 would have seen a Famicom port but was later turned into a different game instead.
• The ROM dump of the Korean version features an earlier English title hidden inside of it, showing that the game was originally going to be called "Buzz & Spinner." Also worth noting is that there are sprites (although sparse) of Waldog in the ROM, meaning that Open Corp. likely intended the project to get an English release from the start.