Rampart on Famicom is a strange twist on the formula

destructoid.com:

I once described the SNES version of Rampart as not “the most faithful” but “the version that best fits on consoles.” I maybe stand by that, but I have a contender for the least faithful. While the NES got a decent version of Rampart, the Famicom, for whatever reason, got a completely different one. This isn’t the only time this has happened. The case of the NES/Famicom disparity of Maniac Mansion is another one. An equally confusing one.

Rampart on Famicom was developed by Konami by most of the team that would go on to create games like Lagrange Point and Batman Returns. A talented team to be sure. It’s clear that the development team played Rampart, but they didn’t seem that interested in replicating the gameplay.

Rampart is an Atari arcade game about building fortifications out of Tetris blocks. In single-player, the goal is to defend your castle from invading pirate ships. Rampart on Famicom is about a variety of things, none of which involve ships. For example, easy mode has Little Red Riding Hood fortifying her way to grandma’s house. Medium is fantasy medieval, so you’re fighting dragons. Then finally, hard mode is Sengoku-era Japan. Weird.

But while the modes are labeled by difficulty, make no mistake, each one is its own unique, short campaign. The objective of each one is largely the same, but through clever level design, you’re given little wrinkles to deal with.

There are various ways to win each of the stages. You typically battle two types of enemies; big ones that destroy your fortifications and small ones that get in your way. One way to win is to destroy all the larger enemies, as the smaller ones can’t break down walls. Another is to gain points by capturing as much territory within your walls as