Collection essentials #120: Dynamite Headdy (Genesis)

I’ve talked plenty about Konami’s games already and how great they are. In the early ‘90s, some employees at Konami decided to leave the company and form their own in order to be free to make whatever games they wanted. And so, no surprise, Treasure became a legendary developer highly revered by old school gamers. Dynamite Headdy is their third game, and we’ll get to the first two later on.

In Dynamite Headdy, you control the eponymous Headdy. You’ll notice that he has no neck and a head that floats above his torso. This lack of a neck is Headdy’s greatest strength, as he attacks his enemies by shooting his head forward for a bite before it returns to his body like a boomerang. He can do this in eight directions, all around his body. On top of this, there are various temporary power-ups that improve or change his head-shooting power. For example, one of them makes his head duplicate into three which lets the head attack cover a wider range (pictured). Headdy can also use his head for non-combat things, such as pushing objects or grabbing onto something that helps him reach a higher platform.

Dynamite Headdy is an incredible game. There is a huge amount of variety in the level design, and you really never know what you’re going to see or do next. Boss fights are unique and memorable. It’d be easy for a developer to come up with a gameplay gimmick and just slap it onto a generic set of levels and call it a day, but Dynamite Headdy was lovingly crafted with inspired and creative design. Excellent graphics and music complement the experience.

It’s worth noting that the Western release of this game was changed significantly from the Japanese version, and I think most would agree for worse. The biggest thing was the difficulty, as the game was made quite a bit harder, AND you start out with no continues (as opposed to 2), not to mention it’s harder to earn continues mid-game. This might be a turn-off to those who struggle with hard games. Of course, those who like a challenge might not mind so much. Various graphics were changed too, and the game was almost completely stripped of its story, as the characters originally spoke often between levels. Speaking of levels, their names were changed in the Western releases to parody famous movie titles, which is pretty amusing, such as “Stair Wars”, “Spinderella”, “Fly Hard” and “Terminate Her, Too”. 

I first learned about and acquired Dynamite Headdy as a young teenager when my mom found it at a yard sale, but it wasn’t until about eight years later that I actually sat down to give it the play time it deserved. You see, the least fun part of Dynamite Headdy is the very beginning of the game. The sequence at the very beginning of the game is a little weird, and then after that there’s an entire town with various tutorials about how the game works, and it’s just not that exciting. Various times as a teen I would fire the game up, and then move on to something else before getting far at all. And then one day as a young adult, I actually pressed on slightly further, and was quickly blown away at how great this game is, and I felt like a fool for waiting so long to give it the play time it was due. I’ve been a huge fan ever since, and it’s one of the best and most essential Genesis games. You can play it on modern platformers as it’s included in “Sega Genesis Classics”. Go check it out!