The Shout! Factory knows how to tickle gamers sweet spots. They've released a plethora of '80s and '90s video game cartoons such as The Super Mario Bros. Super Show and The Legend of Zelda. Of course these series are hit and miss, but don't shoot the messenger. It's great that a company has the jewels to release such "gems."
For those unfamiliar with Captain N, basically he's a simple game player who is summoned to a parallel universe (Videoland) where fictitious video game characters are not only real, but they exist and interact with one another. The hero characters often stay together to defend their home worlds against evil doers hell bent on conquering said worlds. Is there any other way to live? Captain N comes equipped with a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Zapper and an NES controller. These tools give Captain N the powers necessary to deliver Videoland from evil.
Please note, while I can't confirm this, some Internet resources on this series claim that it (this DVD set) is in fact incomplete. Anyway (I’ll take their word that it is complete), the complete series spans four discs which consists of every Captain N: The Game Master episode, 26 in all. As with other Shout! Factory DVD sets I've had the pleasure of viewing, the video quality leaves much to be desired. Each episode has its share of dust and scratches, some more severe than others. Colors are inconsistent, sometimes muddy, but every once in a while you may get a scene that's clean. Jagged edges also appear on characters and backgrounds, but are far less annoying (and severe) when compared to other noted problems. Overall, expect a visual quality a bracket above VHS.
The audio thankfully is heads and tails above the visuals. The voice and background music recordings are crisp and clean, just the way fans will remember! The actual animation is on par with other Saturday morning offerings of the time. Nothing to write home, but gets the job done. Apparently a different animation house was used for the last episodes in the series, but fear not, the animation more or less matches up on this set.
The episodes are a mixed bag. Some are sub-par that consist of the N Team battling Mother Brain and her minions. These can be skipped. When the series focuses on certain N Team characters such as Simon Belmont of Castlevania fame, the series hits its highs. I never thought some of the most bizarre imagery I'd ever be privy to exists on this set. My favorite episode, where Simon Belmont hits himself with a "love arrow" is just too funny. He's struck with said arrow and the first "person" he views he falls in love with. It just happens that he sees the head baddie Mother Brain. For those unfamiliar with Mother Brain, she's the villain from the fabled Metroid series. She's basically an enormous grotesque brain in a jar with a spinal column, eyes, mouth, tendons, tentacles, and attitude. After Simon convinces her that his feelings for her are genuine, a montage kicks in where they prepare to be wed. The bizarre imagery lies in this montage where Simon, a blonde dashing hunk, is picking out wedding rings and the like with Mother Brain. Fucking hilarious and not to be missed!
Article comments
1 - Dynamo of Eternia
Actually, I picked this set up, and I think it is indeed incomplete.
I think what we have here are all of the complete 1/2 hour episodes(or roughly 22-23 minute episodes since no commercials are present) that were produced.
However, there were more episodes that on TV ran somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 minutes. I recall the animation being much more simplified and all around crappier for these short episodes (if you can imagine the animation being much worse than it already is).
On Saturday mornings, I believe starting in 1991, they had a 1/2 show of Captain N and the Super Mario World cartoon (the latter being based on the then-new SNES game of the same name). Each would have a cartoon that took up roughly half of that 1/2 hour + commercials.
This is purely speculation on my part, but it could be possible that the Captin N & Super Mario World thing could somehow be considered one show, and could be released together later on all in one set, which is why those epiosdes of Captain N were not included in this set.
As for Mario never appearing on Captain N, I found it kind of disapointing, myself. But, I think it never happened because there was pretty much always some other Mario cartoon incarnation running while Captain N was being made, and they probably didn't want to take the thunder away from the actual Mario Cartoons.
During Captain N's first year or so, the 5-day a week Super Mario Bros. Super Show was running.
The following year (starting in fall 1990, I believe) they started a Saturday Morning cartoon called "The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3" (which comes out on DVD in June, I beleive) which ran side by side with Captain N on Saturday Mornings (it did seem odd that they never did do a crossover between the two since they were airing side by side.
Then, the following year was the Mario World and short, crappy Captain N episodes.
2 - Dynamo of Eternia
*** an extra note that I forgot to mention in my last reply...
You will notice that Link and Zelda appear in a couple of these Captain N episodes, but if you look, you will notice that this was during it's second season, after the Mario Super Show had stopped being produced in new episodes (including the Zelda cartoons which were a part of it), thus allowing those characters to appear on the show since their individual show was no longer in production.
I did like how the incarnations of Link, Zelda, and even Ganon were cooler looking updates on the versions of them from the other cartoon series (same voices and all).
3 - Chrissy
Captin N is one of the best cartoon's made ,I still rember my brother and I watching it every Saturday morning.