Downtown Nekketsu March: Super-Awesome Field Day! is so bizarre it’s almost unreal. It’s one of those NES games that just sort of starts and you have to try and figure out what the hell is going on, but you never really do.

Better known as ダウンタウン熱血行進曲 それゆけ大運動会 (Downtown Nekketsu Kōshinkyoku: Soreyuke Daiundōkai), it’s an action sports game and the work of Japanese developer Technōs Japan Corp.

It’s part of the popular Kunio-kun (くにおくん) series over there and, yes, that’s why it didn’t launch in the likes of the UK… UNTIL NOW!

Downtown Nekketsu March: Super-Awesome Field Day!

Okay, so this one launched in October 1990 as a sequel to River City Ransom (Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari).

Again, this is very much one of those “What!?” type of Japanese NES era games. One that also features a version of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 piece.

Wondering what this is all about? So are we! The epic intro screen says all you need to know… NOT! (bit of American humour there)

There’s a plot! The Reihō Academy suggests all schools have a joint sports day and the result is a set of competitions that are brutal and challenging. One with only four teams entering.

What the game is about is there are four players. You compete against three computer controlled characters simultaneously.

The goal is to score the most points and win events. And, well… let’s just say there’s a Kunio-Kun wiki and it describes the plot thus:

“The Reihō Academy student council suggested that all the schools hold a joint sports festival as an apology for the ill deeds of their former student presdient Yamada. The detailed plan was drawn up by the new student president, Tōdō Mamoru. However, Tōdō was planning to destroy the other schools, not apologize.

The competitions planned were brutal and he built and incredibly strong team. Few dared participate in such a sports festival, yet some teams were brave enough to do so. Those teams were the Nekketsu High School team led by Kunio, the Hananzono High School team led by Riki, and the union team brought together by Gōda.

And so, the festival kicked off with just four teams.”

That reads weird as it was translated from the Famicom (NES) version of the game. As for the events, they run like this:

• Yumemi Town Cross Country (this starts the game in baffling fashion, plus it’s a very brutally violent version of cross country running).
• Obstacle course.
• Ball breaking on bars (indeed).
• Battle royal.

In the Game Boy version there’s also Fighting for Bread and Bomb Tag. The former is a pitched battled where the players fight for a loaf.

You can watch how the NES edition plays out here. Behold!

First up, we’ve got to note the graphics are great for NES era 1990. Very well done! Good music, too!

We’ll note at this point we got to play the game thanks to its inclusion on the Nintendo Switch’s NES library. It launched in September and is playable for the first time in England.

It’s one of those games we were immediately drawn to thanks to its bizarre protracted name (if you were wondering why we spent time playing this).

All the in-game text is in Japanese, of course, so we couldn’t really tell what was going on. But managed to heroically navigate our way through to the main game.

What plays out is a frantic, weird rush from one screen to the next. Battering your competitors with weapons, you try to navigate first to the end.

There are various other events that just involve comically battering the living daylights out of each other.

One player bits are there, too, where you have to get a high score.

Generally, we just found Downtown Nekketsu March: Super-Awesome Field Day! to be a bit on the baffling side of things.

The game is so obscure in the west there isn’t even an official Wikipedia page documenting it. That says it all!

From what we can decipher from this one, it seems a decent enough game. Back in 1990 it may well have been a proper good one! The language barrier doesn’t help, but there’s about 30 minutes of gameplay here.

And if you ever wanted to know, this is how Downtown Nekketsu March: Super-Awesome Field Day! ends. Cracking, eh?

Yes, so not bad then. Weird and confusing, sure, although much of that is down to that language barrier.

Although the control system leaves a lot to be desired. We’re still not entirely sure how you make your character jump.

Frankly, we feel we’ll never fully know…

It’s one of gaming’s greatest mysteries. Just how in the name of bejeezus do you jump in Downtown Nekketsu March: Super-Awesome Field Day!?