City Adventure Touch: Mystery of Triangle is a fascinating, if somewhat baffling, 1987 Famicom release that recently gained new life via fan translation. Developed by the legendary Compile, the game deviates wildly from its source material—Mitsuru Adachi’s beloved baseball manga, Touch—by trading the pitcher’s mound for a surreal, overhead action-adventure world. Players control Tatsuya and Kazuya as they navigate a maze-like city, battling bizarre enemies and collecting items to rescue their dog, Punch. Without the English translation, the cryptic dialogue and fetch quests make it nearly unplayable for Western audiences, yet the patch reveals a game brimming with late-80s experimental ambition.
The gameplay loop oscillates between navigating the "Real World" and entering "Subspace" portals, where the game shifts into a side-scrolling action platformer. Armed with baseballs and power-ups, you fight through hordes of monsters that feel entirely disconnected from the slice-of-life anime theme. The difficulty curve is punishing, characterized by respawning enemies and a lack of clear direction that often results in aimless wandering. While the mechanics are functional, they lack the polish found in Compile’s more famous shooters, making the experience feel like a charming but flawed relic of early license tie-ins.
Visually, the title captures the bright, clean aesthetic of the Famicom’s middle years, though the environments suffer from excessive repetition. The soundtrack is catchy but limited, eventually wearing thin during the long stretches of exploration required to solve the game’s core mystery. While enthusiasts of 8-bit obscurities will appreciate the bizarre crossover of sports icons and supernatural combat, casual players may find the cryptic design choices too frustrating.
