Circus Caper (NES)
| Circus Caper | ||||||||
 |
||||||||
| ||||||||
Circus Caper is an action adventure game developed by Advance Communication Company and published by Toho. In this game, you play as a young boy named Tim with his sister Judy. You win a ticket into the circus, but only one of you can get in since you get the last ticket. You let your sister go in. Later, when Tim comes to pick his sister up, he notices it is quiet in the big top tent. The main antagonist of the game, Mr. Magic appears and tells you he's taken your sister and you have no chance of rescuing her. It is up to Tim to defeat Mr. Magic and his cronies and rescue his sister.
Circus Caper is actually an Americanized version of a Famicom game called Moeru! Oniisan which is a different game based on the Japanese anime The Burning Wild Man, but still contains the same levels, bosses, and bonus games as the US version, just in different order. Though, the Japanese version is tougher, too because the AI is programmed to be harder. While Circus Caper offers no save feature, it does offer infinite continues, but there are no checkpoints, which means if you die, you must restart the level from the beginning. There are six levels which can be completed within 5-10 minutes, but a couple levels are mazes where you must take the right path in order to advance.
Screenshots
 |
This page needs more screenshots. |
 |
Music
The game has nice carnival-esque music to it. It even features a couple jazzy anthems. Some of the songs from the Japanese version were ported to the USA version. The music is tuned at 449.2 Hz which is pretty off-key for an NES game. Usually, NES games were tuned at 440.4 Hz or 442.1 Hz. We have listed Michiharu Hasuya as the composer for Circus Caper due to a musical comparison. For example, the Cutscene Theme 2 song uses a very identical part from the title music from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (NES). According to Michiharu, music had to be entered in hexadecimal. He was also responsible for programming the game's sound driver.
The Japanese soundtrack also has a nice fitting soundtrack. The first level has sort of a funk theme to it, plus some nice rockesque anthems for the other levels. A few of them are under minute long so they tend to be annoying from playing the same level over and over again, but they are catchy nonetheless.
The US soundtrack starts with a '1' and the Japanese soundtrack starts with a '2'.
Recording
| # | Title | Composer | Arranger | Length | Listen | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 201 | Cutscene Theme | Osamu Kasai, Masaaki Harada | Michiharu Hasuya | 1:36 | Download | |
| 202 | Title Screen | Osamu Kasai, Masaaki Harada | Michiharu Hasuya | 2:38 | Download | |
| 203 | Stage 1 | Osamu Kasai, Masaaki Harada | Michiharu Hasuya | 1:53 | Download | |
| 204 | Stage 2 | Osamu Kasai, Masaaki Harada | Michiharu Hasuya | 0:48 | Download | |
| 205 | Stage 3 | Osamu Kasai, Masaaki Harada | Michiharu Hasuya | 1:53 | Download | |
| 206 | Stage 4 | Osamu Kasai, Masaaki Harada | Michiharu Hasuya | 1:26 | Download | |
| 207 | Stage 5 | Osamu Kasai, Masaaki Harada | Michiharu Hasuya | 1:17 | Download | |
| 208 | Stage 6 | Osamu Kasai, Masaaki Harada | Michiharu Hasuya | 0:52 | Download |
Credits
- Ripper: kingshriek, Gil-Galad
- Recorder: Doommaster1994
- Game Credits (USA):
- Not Credited Composer: Michiharu Hasuya
- Not Credited Composer: Osamu Kasai
- Not Credited Composer: Masaaki Harada
- Game Credits (Japan):
- おんがく (Music) Osamu Kasai credited as かさい おさむ (Kasai Osamu)
- おんがく (Music) Masaaki Harada credited as はらだ まさあき (Harada Masaaki)
- スペシャル サンクス トゥ (Special Thanks To) Sound Routine 4 Gou credited as サウンドルーチン４ごう
(Source: 1, 2, 3, Musical comparison; USA version lacks credits.)
In Circus Caper, you are treated to an ending sequence but no staff credits. However, when you beat Moeru! Oniisan, you are not only treated to a longer ending, but credits as well which are in Japanese. The Japanese version not only credits the two main composers at ACC Osamu Kasai and Masaaki Harada, but it also credits Sound Routine No. 4, the name of the sound software used at Advance Communication Company. It is unknown why the developers left the credits out of the USA release, but seeing as ACC usually didn't put credits in their games, we should be lucky that they put them in the Japanese version.
We had Michiharu listen to the music for Circus Caper, but he says he doesn't remember if he worked on it. We have compared the music with his other works on the NES which also have a similar musical style, different than Osamu and Masaaki's.
Game Rip
Ripping NES music is beyond the scope of this Wiki.
Releases
Links |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
- Nintendo Entertainment System Games
- Games Released In 1989
- Games Developed By Advance Communication Company
- Games
- Circus Caper (NES)
- Missing Screenshots
- Games By Michiharu Hasuya
- Games By Osamu Kasai
- Games By Masaaki Harada
- Games Without Credits
- Games By Sound Routine 4 Gou
- Games That Use NSF
- Games That Use NSFE
- Games Released In Japan
- Games Published By Toho
- Games Released In USA
- Needed Song Descriptions
