Is Bandai Namco’s mysterious “Rad” actually a revival of 90’s NES platformer “Totally Rad”?
Bandai Namco recently trademarked several logos in the United States prominently featuring the word “rad”. Check them out for yourself below.
As Gematsu points out, the logos feature fallout shelter and mushroom cloud imagery, suggesting that Rad may refer to “radiation.”
Pfffft! Thanks for the expert analysis guys, but if you’ll allow us to speculate wildly for just a sec, there’s only one reason that Bandai Namco would choose such a dumb title for an upcoming game…
It’s a Totally Rad revival.
Known as Magic John in Japan, Totally Rad was a largely overlooked action/platformer released by Jaleco for the Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System in the early 90’s. Now, you may be thinking “You dumb bastard! Totally Rad was a Jaleco game, not Bandai or Namco, and Jaleco is now completely defunct. How the shit is Bandai Namco able to revive the IP?”
What you may not realize, you foul-mouthed chump muffin, is that a Japanese recording company named City Connection acquired all of Jaleco’s video game assets in 2014. While City Connection isn’t the most widely-known game publisher, they have released updated versions of other retro games such as the Nintendo Switch remake of Penguin Wars. More importantly, City Connection has also collaborated with other video game publishers, including Hamster, Taito, and yes – Bandai Namco, bitch!
What do you think? Have we cracked the code? Did we solve the “Rad” mystery?!?
Eh, it’s probably a completely different game with an equally dumb name. Totally Rad kinda sucked, anyway.
Thanks for reading!
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