Game description
City Connection for the NES is one of the thtrr ports of the Arcade original outside release, along with an MSX and a ZX Spectrum version. The NES North American version came out on May 1988 while the Japanese version came on September 27, 1985, almost 3 years before.
The NES Japanese version was included on the Jaleco Collection vol. 1 for the PlayStation and JaJaMaru Jr. Denshoki Jaleco Memorial for the Game Boy Advance. The North American NES version was released on the Virtual Console of the Wii, Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.
The game goal is to drive over all space in a level and avoid Cops and Balloon Cat. As an Arcade game, the gameplay itself is simple. To clear a level, all space must turn white in the map. Your basic movement is driving to the left or right, jumps and the ability to throw oil can. Cops serve as the basic enemy and can be defeated when you first throw an oil can to them and hit them with your car. There is also balloon appearing from time to time that awards points.
There is also strange-looking cat may appear to block your way but it cannot be defeated. Finally, if you stay in a level for a long time, some kind of brick structure may appear, forcing you to jump to another height
While you play as Clarice, a blue-haired young woman in the Arcade original, you play as an unnamed man in the NES ports. He is visible on the title screen and in some of the intermission between level. Both ride a Honda City hatchback and travel the world. However, while Clarice want to find herself the perfect man, according to the arcade flyer, the young man’s motivation is different.
According to the NES manual for City Connection, he has broken into an exclusive paint store in New York City. Because of this action, the cops are after him. He travels around the world, trying to avoid them and throwing can of oil to knock them off the road.
In both cases, you are starting in New York City, in the United States and you travel to the following city :
- London, England
- Paris, France
- Frankfurt, West Germany (the game was released before the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989)
- Delhi, India
- Tokyo, Japan
Each city has three tiers of the highway. Cops and Balloon Cats will appear more frequently and faster at later level.
City connection playthrough
The USA version of City Connection is used for the playthrough. However, the behaviour of the game is exactly the same in the Japanese Famicom version, which was made 3 years earlier.
The playthrough the goal is to get the highest score possible before the rollover (dues to the game unable to show score after 999 999. The game’s demo is shown at the beginning.
As with most arcade games of the era, many loops are required to get to the score. A loop is a term used when all different levels are completed and the player start back on the first level, with increased difficulty. In this specific case, the difficulty of the first five stages is increased to the one of the Tokyo stage.
It takes about 2 loops to get the maximum possible score before the overflow. Life is awarded at 100 000 points and at 300 000 points.
There is also a mile counter along with the score, and to get the highest possible score, the player will overflow to 0 (the limit is 9999 miles).
Emphasis was made to knock many police car in succession. However, due to the random nature of the game, this feat wasn’t always possible. As soon as an object exit the screen, a new one is created in its place and placed randomly on the field.
No cheats are used in this run. TASing tools were used to offer a high quality playthrough.