Joshua & The Battle of Jericho (1992)

Platforms: Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System
Genres: Puzzle

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The catalog in 3D

The same catalog has a room you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real games from it when you tell them what you feel like playing. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this game is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

Navigate crystal mines in this biblical-themed puzzle game originally by Color Dreams, repackaged with a Jericho story.

puzzleeducationalbiblicalactionstrategicunique

About

Crystal Mines is a 1989 unlicensed puzzle game for the NES by Color Dreams. When they established Wisdom Tree, they repackaged the game twice: in 1991 as Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land and in 1992 as Joshua & The Battle of Jericho, with Joshua labeled a sequel to Exodus. These two versions would be remade for the Sega Mega Drive in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Though the games do have a TMSS check, they will only do the $A14000 write if they detect the region of the console they are running on as US — therefore, the games will only boot on either any US Mega Drive or on any other Model 1 Mega Drive without TMSS (making that a partly useless form of region lockout). Gameplay of both versions is identical: you are the main character (Moses or Joshua, respectively) and you must collect all the bags with M on them (Joshua: coins with $ on them) scattered throughout each maze. A and C shoot; you can hold them down for rapidfire. Shooting destroys blockades and enemies. Once all the M bags are gathered, find the exit to move on to the next level. In between each level, you must answer a bunch of questions related to the story of the Bible of the game's theme; getting them wrong appears to be inconsequential to the outcome of the game (this needs investigation).

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This page is from Underplayed Gems, a catalog of older and overlooked games. Not quite it? You can browse by platform and genre, or take this one into the 3D catalog and ask the Catbot for something closer.