Bird Week for the Nintendo Famicom, approved by Lord Karnage and Classic Game Room.

This is a game where you feed baby birds butterflies. It’s like Defender but with birds and mushrooms. I can’t believe how good this is.

I thought this was going to be terrible, but it’s actually really good. You play as a mother bird protecting her chicks from danger. Level 4 introduces flying squirrels and orange trees. Bird Week gets progressively harder as you keep playing. Collecting those butterflies and dodging enemies is quite challenging. Don’t forget to pick up the mushroom and drop it on enemies. There’s a message there. I just don’t know what it is. If you don’t feed your baby birds in time, they die. Horribly. But they leave you with some pretty rockin’ music so that’s okay.

One of the things that makes this game quite interesting beyond the art design is the controls. It’s not terribly easy to fly a bird as it turns out. This thing doesn’t move around the screen quite as well as many of the spaceships you might be used to flying in other games. It is a bird after all, and now we get the woodpecker. Watch out. For the most part, it’s a pretty simple game. You collect the butterflies, fly them back to your nest, feed your little ungrateful birds who eventually fly away and leave you, and then rack up enormous college bills.

Bird Week is more than a simple Famicom game. It’s social commentary. You’ve got birds, flying squirrels, woodpeckers, mushrooms, and this weird thing that turns into an alarm clock when you touch it. I love this game. It’s charming. Highly recommended. I couldn’t find a copy anywhere and then I found like ten of them on eBay. Fly around, collect butterflies, save your birds, drop mushrooms on enemies. It’s great.

I’ve got a Classic Game Room shout out and thank you to send all the way to Felicity from Worcestershire, England. Thank you for sending Bird Week. You know what I’ve learned about birds They don’t have lasers. At least most of them don’t. That’s true. I do feel like this game is a missed opportunity because they could have reskinned it and turned it into an awesome Godzilla game. Just think of it. Mothra, Godzilla, Rodan.

Best of Classic Game Room is on DVD, Blu‑ray and Laser Hypervision Album Set. Lighthouse.