Menace Beach (NES)

Menace Beach

Platform:	NES
Year:	1990
Developer:	Color Dreams
Buy:	Amazon

Menace Beach is an unlicensed NES game developed and published by Color Dreams in 1990. According to the instruction manual, the story is about a kid named Scooter, whose girlfriend, Bunny, gets kidnapped by Demon Dan on her way to meet the protagonist at a malt shop, so it's up to Scooter to free her. Despite the name, Menace Beach doesn't actually take place on a beach, but rather in a modern city.

The game is somewhat of a cross between Platformer and Beat'em up. The player travels through various streets and sewers, fighting with clowns, ninjas, Elvis impersonators, and all kinds of bizzare enemies. To fight, the player can either hit enemies with Scooter's skateboard or throw ketchup bottles that are randomly thrown out of windows.

Infamously, Menace Beach was also used as a basis for Sunday Funday, one of the main games included in Wisdom Tree's Sunday Funday: The Ride (NES) multicart where Scooter, instead of trying to rescue Bunny, tries to get to the sunday school, and Hacker International's Miss Peach World, where Scooter is replaced with a woman called "Miss Peach". Though unlike Sunday Funday, Miss Peach World was released in Asia and without Color Dreams' endorsement.

Screenshots

Title screen.

Asian version's title screen.

One of the cutscenes that occasionally appears in the game.

Finishing the first stage.

A sewer stage.

Fighting with bad guys on the streets.

Music

The game has a pretty poor soundtrack, especially for something made as late as 1990. Most songs are short loops that can get annoying after playing for a long time.

Interestingly, Miss Peach World added an additional track which is directly arranged from AV Dragon Mahjong (NES).

Recording

#	Title	Composer	Arranger	Length	Download
01	Title, Continue	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	0:29	Download
02	Cutscenes	John Stepan Zamecnik	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	0:05	Download
03	Stage Theme 1	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	0:35	Download
04	Stage Theme 2	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	0:16	Download
05	Stage Theme 3	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	0:40	Download
06	Life Lost	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	0:01	Download
07	Stage Clear	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	Vance Kozik, John Dwyer	0:06	Download
08	Main Theme (Miss Peach World)	Unknown	Unknown	1:01	Download