Wonder Momo

About Wonder Momo

Wonder Momo (1987) is Namco's Japan-only arcade beat 'em up, a loose parody of Ultraman-style superhero shows in which the player is an actress playing a transforming heroine on the stage of the Namco Theater.

Wonder Momo in Depth

The game opens with a parody of the MGM logo, Momo in place of the lion, before cutting to a theatre stage where a play begins. Rather than a hero saving the world, the player controls an actress playing the role of Momo, a young woman who gains super-powers, in a live show at the "Namco Theater", with Japanese voice samples. As Momo, she can only kick, which builds up her "Wonder" meter. Touching a tornado icon, or spinning on the spot, turns her into Wonder Momo, who can throw the Wonder Hoop, reusable but only after it bounces back to her. Crouching, she fires small energy waves, based on Ultraman's attacks, and her strongest move, the Wonder Typhoon, sprays waves to both sides of the screen while she spins.

It was unusual for its time in having a female lead, and it included some risqué fan service: photographers in the audience try to snap under her skirt, and if one succeeds she is stunned with embarrassment for a moment.

Making Wonder Momo

Namco developed and released Wonder Momo for Japanese arcades, and Game Machine listed it as the fourth most successful table arcade unit in its 1 April 1987 issue. NEC Avenue ported it to the PC Engine in 1989, and critics liked the conversion: Aktueller Software Markt praised its large sprites, soundtrack, special effects and easy-to-understand play, The Games Machine found it "great fun" for its bizarre premise, and Famitsu praised its detailed sprites, catchy music and faithfulness to the arcade. Both versions came to the Wii Virtual Console, the arcade version also appeared in Namco Museum Encore for the PlayStation, and Hamster added it to Arcade Archives in 2022. The ShiftyLook webcomic by Omar Dogan, Erik Ko and Jim Zub, set 25 years later, followed an idol named Momoko who gains Wonder Momo's powers and ran 200 pages until ShiftyLook closed in 2014; Graphinica's five-episode anime featured Momoi reprising the original Wonder Momo.