Surprise! 
I was recently able to check out an MSX game I've been curious about for a long time simply because of its goofy name -- "A Life M36 Planet: Mother Brain Has Been Aliving." Mostly, I just wanted to tell people that that's the name of the game I played, and then share a laugh with them, because WHAT A TITLE!
Slightly unexpectedly, though, the game turned out to be really good. Like, REALLY good! I was almost instantly hooked, and could scarcely believe a Metroidvania this sophisticated had come out of 1987. It's got a LOT of depth to it, including a really well-developed post-apocalyptic world that was destroyed by experiments on plankton gone wrong 200 years ago, with its few survivors all holed up in underground settlements beneath virus-infested research facilities, trying in vain just to live for one more day.
The gameplay, too, is quite varied, with extremely distinctive areas, unique item-driven puzzles, genuinely creepy bosses (and a sizable number of them, at that!), and shockingly smart enemy AI that's not only aggressive, but also actively attempts to dodge your shots on occasion!
It's got its fair share of flaws, including numerous glitches and a LOT of sprite flickering (like, OMG sprite flickering!), but its strong points more than make up for them, and... honestly, at this point, I'm ready to call A Life M36 Planet one of my top ten favorite MSX games! Think of it like a beautiful fusion of Maze of Galious with Cross Blaim, but superior to both titles (well, arguably superior to MoG, but definitely superior to Cross Blaim!).
...Anyway, I liked this game so much that I decided, what the hell? I might as well translate all the text in it, and write a full walkthrough while I'm at it. So over the last 5 days or so (and with the help of an 8-part Japanese Let's Play on NicoNico Video for reference), I wrote this document in MS Word 2003 -- 67 pages of translations and detailed game info!
You can download it via Sendspace here:
https://www.sendspace.com/file/mj68w3
Tomorrow, once I have access to a more up-to-date version of MS Word, I plan to double-check that the formatting looks OK (I'm very worried that certain parts of this document, like the map of the third area I drew, won't show up correctly in later versions of Word!), then convert it to PDF and submit it to CheatMSX and maybe GameFAQs or something.
But in the meantime, I figured I'd share this first draft of my work with you guys here, in hopes that maybe it'll encourage some of you who never heard of this game, or who were never able to play this game properly before (because you really do need to know Japanese for this one!), a chance to experience it -- and it really is an experience worth having!
Please enjoy, and if you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it.
-Tom
