Transformers: Mystery of Convoy

This article is about the game of death and suffering. For other uses of "Mystery of Convoy", see Mystery of Convoy (disambiguation)

Japanese Generation 1 continuity Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers » Toyline Cartoons Commercials Comics Story pages Video games

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: Mystery of Convoy
Ignore the racist logo in the corner!
戦え! 超ロボット生命体トランスフォーマー　コンボイの謎 (Tatakae! Chō Robot Seimei Tai Transformer Convoy no Nazo)
Developer	ISCO
Publisher	Takara
Platform	Family Computer, Virtual Console
Release date	5 December 1986 (Family Computer) 10 June 2008 (Virtual Console)
Rating	CERO: A

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: Mystery of Convoy — or, per the packaging's English-translated sub-title, Mystery of Comvoy, and often referred to by its Japanese transliteration as Convoy no Nazo — is a 1986 video game developed by ISCO and distributed by Takara for the Nintendo Famicom. The player controls Ultra Magnus in the fight against the Decepticons, taking on the mantle of leading the Autobots after the death of Optimus Prime.

The game was followed by The Headmasters, an exclusive to the Famicom Disk System peripheral. It would be officially re-released in 2008 on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service in Japan (costing 500 "Wii points", or five dollars in human money), up until the service was sunset in 2019. A direct sequel (and simultaneous parody) of sorts would be released in 2014 with the Q-Transformers: Mystery of Convoy Returns mobile app.

It has since become a cult title for its infamously poor critical reception and, especially, for being frustratingly hard.

Plot

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a 1980s action game, Mystery of Convoy's story is pretty barebones: although it would receive a completely different — and, actually, outright contradictory — account of its events in a tie-in-manga (see below), the narrative as told only by the game itself and the short one-page prologue in its accompanying manual is fairly straightforward.

Mystery of Convoy is presumably set as an alternative account to the events of The Transformers: The Movie (which would not be released in Japan until 1989 — three years after the game's release — although its events were first summarized to Japanese audiences through TV Magazine), filling in the gaps between the the second and third seasons of the show, the latter which had just premiered in Japan as Transformers 2010. The story begins as Optimus Prime is gravely injured in battle and perishes, passing on the Matrix to Ultra Magnus, who carries on the fight against the Decepticons to reclaim peace on Earth. Along his quest, Ultra Magnus faces various threats including Seeker-type infantry, floating Decepticon insignias, the Nemesis, the combiners Menasor and Bruticus, Megatron, and a final battle against Trypticon. Later on, Rodimus Prime joins him in his quest and... does all the same things Magnus did, again.

Gameplay

Ultra Magnus tries not to get his ass kicked by the first enemy.

As a licensed game released four years into the lifespan of the Famicom, Mystery of Convoy's gameplay is... let's politely call it unrefined.

The game is a simple 2D platformer with the player making their way through ten levels, while under constant attack from various enemies. Killing enemies earns the player points and occasionally various power-ups such as extra defense or temporary flight. At every 20,000 points, the player is awarded with an extra life. Many of the levels are simple horizontal fields where Magnus must go from left to right until the level stops scrolling, while the various "Time Tunnel" levels are vertical, one of which is a frustrating labyrinth where escape depends on a very specific route through the level or else it will loop back in upon itself. At the end of each level is a boss which must be repeatedly shot in a small glowing weak point to be defeated. In most cases, the boss simply floats up and down on the right side of the screen while randomly firing projectiles at the player, who must navigate floating platforms to reach said weak point.

Ultra Magnus fights with a rapid-fire horizontal shooty-gun, which he can improve by grabbing the "P" power-up from certain defeated enemies, which adds a second diagonal shot. He can also transform into truck mode, which makes him fire directly upwards (he retains the second diagonal shot if he has the power-up) and makes him harder to hit, but his ability to jump is replaced with a downward-arcing forward shot (severely reducing his shot range on flat surfaces) with a very low fire rate. Naturally, this makes it a lot harder to avoid attacks, and oh boy is that a problem. Unless he's got the "B" power-up, Magnus will die from a single hit of any kind, whereas the majority of enemies require multiple hits to be destroyed.

There are also a few secrets in the game, such as special red jet enemies that appear in certain stages. If Ultra Magnus manages to kill these, Bumblebee appears and lets him skip a few levels. Another secret is the seven hidden letters that spell out "RODIMUS", which are obtained by killing specific enemies. If the player collects all seven letters by the end of the game, they are given the option of playing through the game again, this time as Rodimus Prime. Rodimus Prime has a new vehicle mode sprite, but his in-play robot mode is simply a recolored Ultra Magnus (which does look snazzy we admit), and the gameplay remains exactly the same as during the Magnus run.

This game is notorious for being extremely difficult to the point of frustration, thanks to sluggish, slippery controls and dodgy hit mechanics, in addition to the small size of Magnus's projectiles requiring very accurate aiming, as well as the copious amount of enemies who can kill you in one hit, and the color choices making it exceptionally difficult to discern important objects like enemy shots or even whole enemies from massive background elements like brightly colored mountains (seriously, look at the screenshot to the left), and there are "D" power-ups, which are easy to mistake for the others, that actually remove your other power-ups. On top of everything, there are no apparent continues; there is a hidden continue code, but you have only seconds to put it in or right back to the title screen you go. And for some extra salt, the difficulty gets cranked up with each subsequent playthrough, first by increasing the speed of enemies and projectiles, then by decreasing the player's acceleration. Yeah. This game is a pretty perfect example of "Nintendo hard".

Also the short looping music which rarely changes between stages will eventually break you. Enjoy!

Stages

1. Wasteland Zone
2. Temple Ruins
3. Time Tunnel I
4. Subspace Zone
5. Floating City
6. Time Tunnel II
7. Glacier Zone
8. Time Tunnel III
9. Underground Machine City
10. Time Tunnel IV

Endings

Surprisingly, the game features multiple endings. A bad ending of sorts occurs if the player defeats Trypticon in the final boss fight without collecting all the letters to unlock Rodimus Prime, leading to the following end screen:

Oh boy, I get to replay this game again but now my sprite has a different color!

“

EMERGENCY ORDER Using a new power, Destron has revived and become even more powerful. Retrieve Rodimus' Energon Cube and destroy Destron once more. Scramble! Ultramagnus!

”

Players are then thrown back to the first level, where they'll have to go through the entire game again to grab Rodimus' letters (presumably, the aforementioned "Rodimus Energon Cube(s)").

If players fail to grab the letters again, they'll be met with the same end screen and once more be thrown back to the beginning. If they do manage to grab all the letters, however, a new end screen will be unlocked:

“

Magnus won the final battle. However, a new battle approaches! Go, Rodimus! Attack! Rodimuscomvoy!

”

Now playing as "Rodimus" (whose sprite is, as mentioned, just a color-swapped Ultra Magnus), the player is rewarded with going through the entire game... Yes, again.

Finally, after beating the game as Rodimus, the "real" end screen is unlocked, featuring an English-written message that simply says...

“

CONGRATULATION!

”

Yes, an erroneously-spelled end screen is your reward for the many, many hours you've deprived of your life to reach it. Say what you will about Big Rigs, but at least getting the "YOU'RE WINNER" screen in that game is not a torturous task.

Characters

This character listing is augmented by a promotional video released to hype the game. Its claims as to which established Decepticons are actually in the game as common enemies are... let's go with "dubious". Those unlikely ones are presented here in italics.

No, you see, making Rodimus' model identical to Magnus was essential to saving half a kilobyte! (Pictured: every sprite used in the game)

Autobots	Decepticons
Bumblebee Optimus Prime Rodimus Prime Ultra Magnus	Common Enemies Azak Burcane Ball Blitzwing Crack Frenzy Ganzo Gau Gido Gosupu Hammer Heru Kabusu Jetron Laggar Laserbeak Maara Marakirasu Pressure‎ Rabu Ramjet Ratbat Ravage "secret guardian" Skywarp Snow Commander Starscream "strange old man" Tairasu Thrust Thundercracker Tosher Wasta Zaffuru Zunonbat Bosses Devilstar Destron Mark Destron Boat Menasor Bruticus Megatron Trypticon

Cheat codes

Trust us, you're going to want these.

Memory Address Cheat Codes

Address	Value	Game Genie	Effect	Side Effect
0069	3	LATEPA	Always have three lives
0053	20	AZIALA	Indestructible	Music restarts every time you are hit
0053	40	AGIALA	Shot Power Up
0053	60	ATIALA	Indestructible and Shot Power Up
0022	00	AAZAZA	Indestructible (alternate)	Freezes player select, intro, and prevents level transitions while active
0074	01	PAEAAAGY	Play as Rodimus Prime
82BE	B0	EULETA	Infinite Lives
924F	90	EPGOYZ	Always have flight	Doesn't work in Time Tunnels
9777	90	EPYPYY	Always have weapon power-up	Doesn't work facing left
C4D4	00	AEIGGG	No enemy collision damage
C68D	00	AEAKIT	No enemy weapon damage
8B0E	A9	OZAEVU	Play with Rodimus colours	Doesn't affect altmode
9A5C	A9	OZIOKX	Rodimus' altmode
CF67	A9	OZTGNN	Show Rodimus at pre-stage screen

Tie-in material

Story sold separately.

The events of Mystery of Convoy were adapted into manga form by Ikuo Miyazoe in a one-shot special published in the December 1986 issue of Comic BomBom. Considering how little storytelling the game has, this often-overlooked manga can actually be considered pretty integral to contextualizing the overall events of the game... assuming one does not mind how absolutely bizarre it is in the first place. Contradicting the game's manual, Optimus Prime is still alive in this version of Mystery of Convoy's story, and rather than Ultra Magnus, the protagonist is — no joke — Ultra Magnus Jr., the shrunken down son of Ultra Magnus (a character that, yes; exists only in this manga and hasn't been mentioned in any other Transformers media since). The game's plot occurs as he enters a "House of Mysteries" attraction in a theme park, wherein a strange power merges Magnus Jr.'s mind with that of Shunichi, an accompanying human, and takes them to the "Decepticon World of Nightmares" where the actual events of the game presumably occur.

As unconventional of a story as Miyazoe's manga might be, it is nonetheless loosely compatible with the game itself, just not with the manual and promotional material: whether you want to treat this or the manual's premise as the the core narrative thrust of your gameplay experience really is entirely up to you.

The game would also be backed by an official strategy guide, published in Comic BomBom Winter Vacation Special: Family Computer Certain Victory Dojo Vol. 12, in January 1987. This guide would include yet another short manga adaptation of the game's premise — albeit in a far more truncated strip format that more closely follows the premise as provided by the game's manual — from mangaka Akira Tanizaki.

Reception

Despite the extreme difficulty, terrible controls, mediocre graphics, frustrating level design, and... really, everything, it might come as a surprise that Mystery of Convoy seems to have actually been a relatively well-performing title in terms of sales: while no publicly known figures seem to exist, the fact that it's one of the most common loose cartridges you'll usually find in bulk lots of Famicom games (a console with an otherwise massive library, roughly double that of its international equivalent the NES) suggests that Mystery of Convoy was at least a moderate success in its home country. As mentioned, it even did well enough that Takara would follow it up with another Famicom Transformers game and later release it on the Wii Virtual Console.

What should not come as a surprise, however; is that the critical reception of Mystery of Convoy — both contemporary and retrospective — is nonetheless overwhelmingly negative. All of the aforementioned aspects, but especially the unfairly frustrating difficulty more than any other, have endowed this title with a staggering amount of infamy amongst both Transformers fans and general retro gaming enthusiasts alike. As a result, it is pretty common to see Mystery of Convoy cited as not just one of the worst games in the franchise but, also, as one of the worst NES / Famicom games ever released overall.

Legacy

"Somehow, Mystery of Convoy returned."

Despite Mystery of Convoy's negative reputation — or, perhaps more accurately, because of it — the game has earned a small cult status of sorts. In Japan, Mystery of Convoy is considered legendary among kusoge (クソゲー, "shitty game") enthusiasts. As a result, it took on a sort of memetic life in the early 2000s, with plenty of parodies and remixes poking fun at the game's difficulty on sites like YouTube and NicoNicoDouga, and even a 2005 appearance on the GameCenter CX web series. When the game was released on Virtual Console in 2008, TakaraTomy put out an official blog post talking about the game's legendary status and warning that "just because you're an adult now doesn't mean you'll be any better at it than you were as a kid. Please be careful to avoid being traumatized." Yes, really.

In the West, a lot of the game's allure came from scarcity. Outside of the often-forgotten two titles released for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum home computers (which, being on more "adult-oriented" platforms, never quite reached widespread popularity among younger kids), virtually no other Transformers videogames were published in English-language markets during the 1980s: thus, with Mystery of Convoy being largely unknown outside of Japan up until the internet brought about knowledge of its existence to the world, many fans were fascinated by the discovery that the Japanese equivalent of the NES had received a fully-fledged Transformers videogame... until they actually played it and were collectively baffled by how much it sucks. Mystery of Convoy would also be famously featured in a 2009 episode of the Angry Video Game Nerd web series, making it even more well-known to western audiences. (Perhaps the most famous meme to come out of the series is, in fact, taken partly from the Mystery of Convoy episode — you can even hear the level restart jingle right at the beginning!) The game also has a tiny but dedicated speedrunning community, with the current record holder having managed the incredible feat of beating it in just under 5 minutes.

In 2014 TakaraTomy released Q-Transformers: Mystery of Convoy Returns, a mobile game based on Mystery of Convoy that serves as a sequel of sorts to the original game, made to tie into their Q-Transformers toyline. It was accompanied by a cartoon in which the characters often discuss the difficulty and peculiarities of the original Famicom game, and ends with the revelation that the titular mystery of Mystery of Convoy was... The self-referential mystery of the title itself. Yup, you had to wait 28 years for this groundbreaking revelation.

Merchandise inspired by this game

Official Convoy no Nazo merchandise? In this economy?!

A line of merchandise based on Convoy no Nazo would be released by Japanese apparel companies Games Glorious and Thunderbox in 2025. This collection included shirts, hats, keychains, clear files, and acrylic pieces featuring pixelart of both Magnus and Rodimus as seen in-game as well as other Transformers characters reproduced in a similar style.

Wave 1 T-shirts (Two types: "Stage 1 with Ultra Magnus" and "Megatron the Great Emperor of Destruction") Clear file Sticker Collection Convoy No Nazo Cap Convoy No Nazo Pins Pixel art acrylic mascot (Seven types: Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Hot Rod, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave)

Wave 2 Cushion cover Reversible stadium jacket Backpack Logo keychain Socks

Notes

Just be glad that you don't have even more things that can kill you in infuriating ways.

• While there a no credits provided for Mystery of Convoy, ISCO listed the game among several other titles they developed, while Locomotive founder Hiroshi Okamoto confirmed his company (a sole proprietorship he formed with his wife prior to Locomotive) was a subcontractor on the project; it was the first game he had worked on, with Okamoto acting as producer/manager, his wife as graphic designer, and an outside part-timer responsible for programming.
• There are several enemy sprites that weren't used in the final game. There was a red and orange Laserbeak that fired bullets while flying at the player, a red eyeball-spider that moved vertically and fired four diagonal bullets, and a spinning blade-wheel that rapidly fired bullets at the player; the latter two were meant to only appear on boss screens. The other unused enemies didn't have routines programmed, like the unused insect enemies. Additional unused sprites resemble the Matrix and, inexplicably, a turtle. The most likely reason for these omissions is a simple technical one: the game can only handle a maximum of 64 unique stage "enemies" (which actually includes powerups), and the game absolutely hit that limit.
• Despite his Japanese name being in the title of the game, Optimus Prime only appears in-game twice: first during the start screen, when his head explodes and reassembles as the player's sprite, and later his head reappears colored gray right at the end of level 7.
  • Partly as a result of this, a common running misconception regarding the game's narrative is that it involves Optimus Prime going missing and Ultra Magnus heading out on a quest to find him, this thus being the titular "Mystery of Convoy". As we've mentioned, this is not the case: the game's commercial already declares Optimus as dead and Ultra Magnus as his successor, and eventually, this same story point would be reiterated in the game's manual. Likely, this confusion also stems from the title invoking other games with similar plots like Mario is Missing! or Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, but alas, as satirized in the end of Q-Transformers: Mystery of Convoy Returns, the only mystery in Mystery of Convoy is why the hell the game is called that in the first place.
• The Alternity story, "To Die Game!", retcons this game as being part of a cross-dimensional game between the hyper-dimensional guardian Optimus Prime and the equally powerful Megatron, wherein Optimus had to choose one avatar (Ultra Magnus) to fight endless hordes of Decepticons empowered by Megatron.
• The Bee Team plays this game at the end of the 2015 Robots in Disguise comic book's first issue.
• Issue 2 of the SD SG comic features a mirror universe counterpart to the game, Transformers: The Super Obvious Truth of Optimus Prime.
• This game uses a strobe effect popular in Japan at the time. Such effects have become controversial due to concern over people with photosensitive epilepsy, and fell out of use altogether following the infamous "Electric Soldier Porygon" incident in 1997. This effect was reduced for the Virtual Console re-release.
• Upon starting the game, a cover of the opening melody to the Transformers 2010 theme plays.
• Ultra Magnus's robot mode sprite appears to be based on the original box art (or directly on the early deco on which said box art was based) with the white chestplate rather than the final blue.

External links

• Perhaps the most comprehensive Convoy no Nazo site online, with screencaps, hints, and .ROM files.
• Convoy no Nazo commercial on YouTube
• Takara's promotional video for the game (using an unfinished build with cheats running)
• Strategy Wiki
• Game Genie codes
• Translations of the game's endings
• Rom de-compilation and editing project