Collection essentials #248: Snoopy Concert (SNES)

Recently I talked about Pocky & Rocky, a game so incredibly Japanese that I was surprised that it received a worldwide release in the early ‘90s. What we have here is sort of an inverse situation. Peanuts is obviously one of the most iconic, beloved franchises in the world, and one that originated in the USA. So why the heck did this game not get released outside of Japan?? Peanuts is huge in Japan and this game was made by Japanese developers so a Japanese release is certainly not puzzling, but keeping it away from the IP’s home country just seems baffling to me.

Another interesting thing about Snoopy Concert is that the game was not officially developed or published by Nintendo, but if you pay attention to names in the credits, there are several very significant Nintendo employees who worked on the game. So it’s also a little weird why Nintendo didn’t just publish it themselves, and merely quietly lent a hand in making it.

Anyways, Snoopy Concert is a point-and-click sort of game, the likes of which were generally more common on computers back then. Ideally you want to play with the SNES Mouse peripheral, but you can control it with a regular controller too, though that probably leads to an inferior experience. One charming thing is that instead of a typical mouse cursor, your mouse controls Woodstock. What a brilliant idea.

Upon starting the game, the player has a choice between a group of the series’ popular characters such as Charlie Brown, Schroeder and Linus. Snoopy intends to help out each of them, with the end goal of getting them all to come to his concert at the end of the game. Gameplay varies in each of the characters’ little segments, often involving minigames.

The game really nails when it comes to visuals and audio. The character illustrations and sprites appear to be taken right from the comic strip and displayed faithfully by the SNES. The soundtrack is a delightful arrangement of many famous tunes from the Peanuts TV specials.

The gameplay itself of Snoopy Concert is not especially remarkable. I haven’t personally played it very much so I can’t give a real good review. But Peanuts is a series that’s dear and nostalgic to me, so I had to have this stylish and interesting game on my favorite old-school console. An English fan translation is now available to make it much more enjoyable. I will spend more time with it at some point, as sure as Charlie Brown not kicking the darn football.