Friendship is Maniacal: Let's play Ufouria: The Saga

Hey kids and cats! This is your crazy neighbor to the north, OctoPrime, and wouldn't you know it? I'm doing another LP! I do a lot of them, don't I? But this one is SPECIAL! Most of the games I LP are things I haven't played through before, but always meant to. And most of the time, they ended up sucking pretty badly. Or else I overstated their failures since they're easy things to bring up. Sometimes though... sometimes I like the game a lot. Shadowgate remains one of my favorite adventure games to this day. I loved Legend of Zelda enough to LP it twice. I loved Mega Man 2 enough that I had to spread the love for it to as many people as I possibly could. Those are all games I like a whole lot.

But Ufouria?

Ufouria might be my favorite game on the dang system. And it only recently became so, since, until it came out on the Wiis Virtual Console last year, I hadn't played it at all.

Which goes ahead to prove that prior to that, every opinion I had in relation to video games was from a stance based on shaky ground. But perhaps I get ahead of myself.



Released as Hebereke in Japan (which is incredibly fun to say out loud, by the way. Try it, I'll wait), Ufouria was a exploration-platformer, Metroidvania, if you prefer, that was supposed to have come out courtesy of Sunsoft, back when Sunsoft was releasing super-fantastic games pretty much every other week. However, for whatever silly reason, despite being previewed by Nintendo Power, it never actually came out in America. Instead those lucky Europeans got it. Luckily, Victor Ireland saw that wrong be righted once he took over the rights to Sunsofts library and put it out on the Wii back in October of last year.

Mind, in releasing it here, he released a version that was meant for European TVs, circa 1990, so the game runs slightly too fast. Not enough to diminish the game in any way, just enough to make some of the platforming a weensy bit tougher.

But thats enough jabbering about what the game is. Let have me PLAY the stupid thing and then you can see for youself why its so great! Ready? HERE! WE! GO!



And here's our first screen, and the game gets off running: An adorable snowman is lost, and his friends Freeon, Shades and Gil are all missing. The Snowman is named Bop-Louie and, for reasons which will soon, and repeatedly, become clear, he is an atrocious creature.

And thats it. Thats all you get for a set-up for the plot. "Friends Missing. You're in a weird place. Go!" One block of text and BAM! You've already got a goal to work towards.



Now before starting to explore the land and the things in it, let's take a gander at what we have to work with;

The top-left corner of the screen shows our current amount of health. Each container holds 50 points of... err... dots and either continuing a game or dying puts you right back in the starting-screen of the game with only ten health points to your name. This sounds much worse then it is for reasons I will explain once they become relevant.

Other then that, as you can see from the inventory screen, we've got bupkis. But it wouldn't be much of a game about gradually building up an inventory if you started with all kinds of crazy things, now would it?



And no sooner do I close the inventory window then Bop-Louie comes across the first of the Strange Lands native inhabitants. It's a little soft-serve ice-cream monster who has no means of defending itself save for waddling forward on little stmpy legs. Due to the fact that it kind of looks like a Hershey chocolate candy, lets call it Mr. Kisses. If anything, Mr. Kisses would be comparable to, say, a Goomba.

And Bop-Louie responds to Mr. Kisses as one normally would when in a strange place and finding a harmless (and frankly, adorable) animal;



He jumps up and stomps on it with all the force he can bring to muster.

Seriously, look at that face! When Mario stomps on an enemy, he doesn't do it with any particular malice. If anything, he looks like he's so damn excited to be jumping at all that he doesn't even realize he was about to fall on and smash an innocent monster.

Bop Louie? He knows what he's doing and he revels in it. This is a guy who does not jump as a means to hit another platform. He jumps that he might crash to the earth like the Wrath of God.

Unsurprisingly (and despite the fact that I missed in the shot), Mr. Kisses does not survive having a psychopathic snowman smash him flat.



What IS surprising, however, is that rather then disappearing, or exploding, or whatever it is you might expect a video game monster to do upon being flattened... he turns into a little bean with a bewildered expression on its face.

Which is pretty understandable. I mean... think about it. You're a little mushy head on feet, you wander up to a friendly looking snowman to say 'hello' and he promptly stomps you so hard that you turn into a bean. I'd look confused too.

Anyway, about 90% of the times you defeat an enemy, they turn into a bean. And you can pick up the bean and chuck it at other enemies, acting as a fairly effective ranged weapon. It can also bounce around a bit.

I'm not sure if you picked up on this yet, but this is kind of a weird game, guys.

Anyway. We can go left, and we can go right. Lets go Left. Maybe we'll get the Maru-Mari and we'll be able to go into tight areas.



Nope, it leads to a box-canyon. Filled with little lip-monsters that move around by dragging their bodies around by using their tongues. Kind of like an oyster. Functionally, they're nearly identical to Mr. Kisses, except their movements a bit more disjointed. And they are also MUCH more disgusting. And, in retrospect, they are also much more deserving of the name "Mr. Kisses". But I made my bed on that, and I've said my goodbyes. Instead, let us call them "Mrs. Kisses".

Besides an insurmountable wall and Mrs. Kisses, there's a reason why I wanted to show off this screen. You see the top of the screen? That arrow there? Its a big part of why I love Ufouria so much. Its a subtle , but clear hint that you dunn-buggered-up in exploring. It points toward where you have to go next but, it isn't very specific. It only shows up if you're heading in the wrong direction and it stops appearing all together once you get advance the storyline enough.

Its not there to slap you about the head saying "HEY GUYS! MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO THATAWAY! WOULDN'T YOU HAVE FUN EXPLORING THIS FANTASTIC GAME WORLD IF YOU GO AND DO THIS THING I'M TELLING YOU TO DO?". No... it's just a friendly reminder that, no, you have no means to go this way, so why not explore elsewhere right now. But its okay, you're just starting the game, we're just giving you a little pat on the back and sending you along your way.

So anyway... go right.



Not too far to the right of the starting screen, you come across a lake. Well, Bop-Louie is a snowman, so I'm sure he isn't completely helpless if he was submerged in water.



And I am proven wrong pretty well immediately. The man made of frozen water is about as seaworthy as an iceburg. When in water, Louies mobility drops to the point that it pretty well ceases, and he can only get out of water by moving over to a point where his feet actually touch a piece of ground, thereby letting him hop out.

So important note: Bop Louies skill-set does not include swimming.

But that hovering, napping face has no trouble getting over the cruel pond...



And indeed, that face wakes up and looks very... err... blank... about ferrying Louie across the water.



The Face immediately goes back to sleep as soon as Louie gets off his head and, while you come across a dead-end despite the arrow popping up to point upwards, a small rope is soon lowered to allow your ascent.



Upon climbing up to meet your mysterious benefactor, you learn that it wasn't a rope you were climbing, it was a bit of drool from another hovering face. A bit of drool that is strong enough to support the weight of a snowman.

Moving right along...



Two new enemies on the same screen here; the Little Green Blobs hop towards you. There's not much else to say about them. Their movements are erratic, but none of their hops take them high enough to make your own jumping insufficient to dodge them, and isn't enough to carry them out of the path of a heaved Bean.

Whats of greater note is the bird. It looks like a standard video game enemy bird. It passes by, up high in the sky, and finds some means to attack you on the ground. Perhaps it will dive down and strike at you. Or perhaps lay an egg that will hit you (or else spawn baby birds that will take a more active role in striking out at you).

And, while close, you would be wrong.

The Bird attacks by dropping 16-ton weights on you.

This game, you guys... I love this game.



Oh, and Louie also pipes up to nobody in particular that he is in Another World, and that he should find all his friends. Which... he kind of already said a few seconds after I got past the title screen. But hey... confirmation is okay too.





Just over a little cave is a treasure chest, having the first of the games items; The Crystal. Which, as noted in that screenshot, gives you a password. This item is pretty much worthless when playing on an emulator or Virtual Console, since both allow you to pick up right where you left off anyway. But its not like the thing was out of our way any.



Our actual destination is to the left of the drooling nincompoop, a cave with a couple of Mr. Kisses inside. This room acts as something of a tutorial; if you haven't figured out that you can stomp on enemies before reaching this room, you won't be able to advance any farther.

That might sound pretty ridiculous, but since the stomp-attack isn't just a matter of jumping and landing on an enemy, but that you have to press down at the same time.

You see? Easy, in-game tutorials!



At the back-end of the cave is a giant bouncy-spring that can launch Bop-Louie hiiiiiigh into the sky.



Oh, by the way, the 10% of the time that enemies don't turn into little Bean-dudes, it's because they turn into a little dot instead. Each dot restore two health points.



Nothing fancy in the rest of the cave; another napping head you can cross dangerous terrain with, a small hop leading to a small tunnel...



Leading to Bop-Louies missing friend; Freeon-Leon! Freeon doesn't recognize Louie, however, and opts to attack him instead.

There are two kinds of boss-battles in Ufouria, and the fights against your friends all follow largely the same pattern; a Bean appears in the middle of the room and you effectively start playing Dodgeball using it. Your friends are all immune to Louies stomp attacks, so chucking the bean into their face is the only way to deal damage. Luckily, none of the friends have any any specific weak-points and they take just as much damage by bouncing the Bean off a wall and hitting them on the rebound.

Freeon rarely jumps, and Louie is a LOT faster then he is, so by bouncing the ball off the wall you can easily beat him.



I've been playing this game for, like, five minutes so far and I've already got four favorite things. But I seriously doubt that anything else in the game is going to top the sight of Freeon when he's defeated.

Dude is shocked that you beat him.





Bop-Louie gives a half-hearted justification for beating his friend nearly to death by heaving a bean at him, and then tells him, in no uncertain terms what his name and function are. Freeon is inconsolably sad to hear all this, thanks Louie for beating the hell out of him and then claims that he had no idea why he attacked.

It should be pretty damn clear by now that Bop Louie is a TERRIBLE person.



Anyhow, by employing the tried-and-true Gilligan-Method of curing amnesia, Freeon joins our merry band, thereby increasing our ability to move through water, snow and ice. Which really doesn't make a lick of sense considering how he's a lizard.

Also, I was wrong a minute ago, Freeons face when you pick him on the subscreen is the best part of the game. He is scandalized that you want to use him.

Okay, thats enough video-game for one week. BYE FOLKS!

Press Down for Murderface

Well... This sure is a thing.

A thing I will definitely be wanting more of.

Hurray! New Octo LP! (Wait, does that mean it's December? Gah!)

In Japanese, the birds just poop on you. Mildly amusing, sure. But changing it to a sixteen ton weight is probably my all-time favorite act of censorship.

There's a few other weirdly arbitrary differences, like the main character is a differently designed white blob of a something-or-other. Maybe focus groups decided he wasn't white and blobby enough. "We like the whiteness and the blobbiness," they said. "Please make him whiter and blobbier."

Sadly, none of the other Hebereke games are like this one. That's the way of things with Sunsoft. They can make a good game, but they never seem to realize when they've done it and should maybe continue in that vein.

This is the best game.

Ufouria is just fantastic, been looking forward to this LP since I saw it on the list.

(and my favorite thing about Freeon is his turning frame, like his head is so heavy it throws him off-balance for a split second)

But Mr. Octo, you need to talk about the awesome Sunsoft music! Because the game has awesome Sunsoft music! So much so I nominated its main theme for the Chiptune Funderdome (which I have faith we'll see again someday).

I think Bop Louie (whose name is Hebereke in the JP release) was originally a Penguin.

I think....

"Bop Louie" is the best name.

Double best.

This game tops itself with every sprite.

Look, let's cut to brass tacks here:

Everything about Freeon is the best thing in the game.

... With the possible exception of Gils Butt-Scootch

So you can just switch to any of the characters wherever you are? That's one of my favorite mechanics.

Ooooh, this game looks super charming. I love the weird floating face blocks. And googly eyes on everything. That's a rule to live by.

No that means its CHRISTMAS.

There's no feeling quite like discovering an awesome platformer on the NES that I hadn't heard of before. I'm not even playing it yet and it's already going to put me in a good mood for the day.

I knew about this game, but only because it had an entry at vgmaps.com. Actually seeing it in action is quite interesting, if I do say so myself.

HI KIDS! Its me, Octo! Again! Last time, a Horrible Snowman got lost in the amazingly appropriately named Strange World, and set out to beat the hell out of rescue his friends. To this end, he found his lizard-buddy, Freeon-Leon, and heaved beans into him until he agreed to be best friends again.



Rather then trekking back through the caves, Bop-Louie opts to just fall down that hole outside the boss arena and lands just by the Drooling-Nincompoop block, and heads right. Viable paths extend into a cave and over the top of that cave. Not being one to shy away from a spelunking adventure, Bop heads on down.



Heading to the left once inside the cave leads to a shallow lake. Unfortunately, despite the lake being, like, three feet deep, its still too much for Bop to navigate and he's quickly reduced to floundering madly. Bops almost total lack of mobility in the water is especially dangerous when enemies are around, since he can't do much of a vertical leap from a drowning-position.



Luckily, Freeon lakes to the water like an olympic athlete! Or at least like a dog. Which is appreciably better then Bop-Louies taking to the water like a soon-to-be-corpse. In addition to being move through the water at something faster then a ponderous speed, Freeon also has the ability to leap high out of the sea without needing his feet on the ground first.

The Malicious Ducky, incidentally, has absolutely no means to defend itself other then sometimes making poking you. Freeon smashes him by bringing the full totality of his reptillian weight down on his noggin.



On the other side of the lake is another rope leading down lower into the cave, guarded only by two Mr. Kisses.



Here's the... fourth (?) reason why Freeon is plainly the best character; the dudes "Change direction" animation. Every time he opts to head right instead of left, he runs the danger of toppling over.

God BLESS you, Freeon the Leon!



The next screen of the cave has a Boss Gate shut behind us and the Boss Fight music kick up; Ladies and Gentlemen, we now face the second boss: The Gingerdead Man!



The Gingerdead Man is actually an optional boss, but he's hardly difficult to fight, so why not take a crack at him now? Its best to use Bop-Louie for bossfights, except when another character is required, as he runs and jumps faster then the rest of the characters.

Stomping on the Gingerdead Man won't hurt him, but it WILL cause him to make a silly face and then hork up a bean, and tossing a Bean into his big, stupid shortbread face WILL hurt him. Every time you damage him via Bean Trauma, his running speed increases, but the bean disappears. Also, every time you stomp on him, the existing bean disappears and respawns wherever Gingy is standing, which is pretty annoying when you're trying to jump OVER him.



Fight, fight as hard as you can, and you'll beat him, the Gingerdead Man!

With the Gingerdead Man beaten, the boss gate disappears, leading the way to a chest containing Bop-Louie's Secret Weapon. Each character has one Secret Weapon, and of them, one is one of the few items REQUIRED for beating the game, one is needed if you want to get every damn item, one is sometimes useful for fighting monsters and... Bop-Louies is the first one you can find.

But what could a horrible snow-monster like Bop-Louie consider to be viable as a Secret Weapon? Well, let's find out.



First you hold the B button until a heart appears...



Then you THROW YOUR ENTIRE HEAD AT A MONSTER!

You might notice the bones are still connecting Bop-Louies head to his shoulders. This means that within his exterior of frozen snow, Bop-Louie has the heart of a champion.

Skeleton I mean...

the skeleton of a champion.

Anyhow, Bop Louies Secret Weapon doesn't have very good range, compared to tossing a Bean, doesn't damage bosses, and any enemies beaten with it won't drop either a Bean or a health dot. So there's precious little use to the stupid thing.



On the other side of the lake in the cave is a mysterious Blue Door, leading to an equally mysterious Ice Cave.



...where Bop-Louie promptly falls flat on his ass if he tries moving more then a couple steps at a time without waiting for the Platformer-Game-Ice-Friction to kick in. Sadly, and in a GROSS violation of Platformer Ettiquette, jumping straight up while sliding around on ice does NOT cause you to stop sliding. It just makes you collapse faster.

No, it looks like if we're going to be getting through the Ice Cave, we'll need to use Freeon.

...not that we'll be getting far, since the end of this tunnel leads to an unscalable wall.

Welp, thats all for the cave, I guess, lets head topside and move OVER the cave we just descended.



Passing the hillside over the cave is another short path, leading you past another few harmless Jelly-Babies and a couple more Black Birds of Weightlessness, leading to a path that leads, oddly, to the exact same Ice Cave. But this upper path through the Ice Cave has a new enemy: Micheal "Buttonpants" the Mouse. Owing to his natural showmanship he had to develop further in order to be the figurehead of a major media empire, Micheal Buttonpants is a skilled ice-skater and is totally unemcumbered by the frosty cave.

Luckily, Micheal is still a mouse, and Freon is a dinosaur, so, when it comes to a Head-Stomping he wins.

Anyhow, past Micheal Buttonpants is a pair of tiny pits. The right-side one I promptly fall down, because Freeon isn't especially great at this whole "jumping" thing.



Luckily, there's actually another path down that way. Falling down the left hole, incidentally, would have lead to that impassable wall from earliar. Anyhow, since there's no way to shimmy my way back up that wall, might as well soldier on and see whats further down the tunnel.



The door leading out of the Ice Cave brings us to a Mysterious Temple, and a dangerous new foe: Rumio The Klown. Rumio staggers too-and-fro and sometimes stops to attack you with horked-up, brown colored spit-bubbles, like an ESPECIALLY disgusting Bubble Bobble dinosaur. He is precisely as vulnerable to being crushed flat as every other non-boss in the game.

In addition to Rumio The Klown, this mysterious temple also has a treasure chest full of Medicine. Medicine is easily one of the most staggeringly useful items in the game; you can freely use it whenever you want out of the Inventory Screen, and it gives you 50 Health Points without needing to grind dots off monsters for weeks on end. Thats useful enough in and of itself.

But whats REALLY useful is that the Medicine chests respawn every single time you die. And there are a lot of Medicine chests in the game, most of which are crowded near the screen you start the game on.

Its like restarting in Metroid, except without being the most unimaginably frustrating thing in history!

GOD I love this game!



And besides a fantastically useful time-saving feature, the temple also has a huge, forboding Gate with a Magic Lock that will require Magic Keys to open.

You guys? I think I see a macguffin hunt



And because I didn't get a shot of them before, here's Bop-Louie and Freeons Crawling animation; opting for the "Inch-Worm" and "Dying Fish" methods of locomotion, respectively.



The other end of the Temple leads back to that box-canyon just left of the starting point. Bop-Louie drops out of the sky like an errant meteor and on top of Mrs. Kisses, ambling by at the bottom.



Anyway, retracing my steps back to the ice cave only takes a few moments, this time leading back to a large, vertical tunnel.



I missed one of the jumps and fell down to the bottom of the tunnel, which is okay, since there wasn't anything I can do up higher anyway, for now. So down and into a new cave system with us.



In the caves beneath the tunnels there's a Shrine to Saint Froggy, the central figure of the Strange World religion. It is said that people have witnessed the Statue of Saint Froggy produce, of its own accord, a never-ending supply of actual Frogs. The Pope of the Strange World has confirmed this, and registered it as being, indeed, a miracle, dubbing the spawn "The Immaculate Hoppers". The Shine of Saint Froggy draws pilgrims from all over the Strange World, looking for blessings, or simply to offer a silent prayer.

Bop Louie does not give a damn about that and smashes the statue with his feet, and stomps the frogs into frog-sauce.



Past the newly-defiled shrine is Hector Whirlyhat, Micheals cousin. True to his name, he opted to get a propeller-beanie with a strong enough motor to cause him to lift off the ground. Sadly, it doesn't give him enough control to actually steer any, he just hovers in a circle up high in the sky.

Anyway, treasure chest. Thats WAY more exciting. Lets see whats inside!

WOO! Map! Unfortunately, as of right now, the map has no points of reference, nor does it show you where you are. But at least we know the shape of the world map.



Down the hole is another deeeeeeep tunnel (filled with a great many Hector Whirlyhats) leading down to another forked path. Lets try... RIGHT.



Well, its a bit of a dead-end, actually. There's a Gummy-Pillar (which, surprised me by being an actual enemy. I thought it was just a platform.) which is immobile and hurts like hell to touch. There's also some funny looking orange blocks which are presently impassable. Oh well, lets try the left.



The left side of the tunnel leads to the Mines. Complete with Minecarts (because this is a platformer. And all mines have minecarts to ride).



The entire Mine section is something of a maze; the area you're TRYING to reach is in the upper left corner of the area, but, given the layout of the level, it requires a lot of well-timed jumps out of mine carts and into side-tunnels midway down a hole. The layout is straightforward enough that you'd have a hard time getting lost, luckily.

Even more luckily, since you have to come back through here a few times. See that treasure chest in the middle of the pool? Tempting isn't it? YOU CAN'T GET IT YET!




Right smack-dab in the middle of your way, however, is another chest which you CAN open! And whats inside it, but a Compass! With the Compass the Map becomes significantly less useless, as it will now mark your present location. HANDY DANDY!



Here's the final stretch! Another minecart!

A trip over danger!



And over fire-proof Mr. Kisses!

...honestly, you'd think that the lava would hurt more then the stomping or taking a Bean in the face, but, well, The Strange World is a weird place.



The minecart dumps you out near another rope that leads straight to another boss gate, and another one of Bop-Louies Missing Friends; the ghost, Shades!



Shades does not have amnesia and sees this as a golden chance to be free of Bop-Louies sadistic form of friendship forever. Bop has no choice but to take up arms against his already dead Friend.



Shades is definitely the toughest of the Friend Fights, as he tends to play to his strengths by jumping a lot, and quite highly. He also tends to heave the Bean when he's in midair, making his attacks harder to dodge, and making him harder to target. I happened to get lucky against him this time, which is why my health bar is so much higher then his; it took me a few attempts to beat him.



After a sufficient amount of beans to the beans, Shades gives up his pitiful resistance, and Bop-Louie informs him, in no uncertain terms, who the Alpha-Male is of their little band.

He also tells Shades (and by extension, the player) that, as the living-undead, Shades doesn't weigh very much, and can thus jump quite far. In a quick effort to appease Bop so he doesn't beat him up any more, Shades tells us that that giant door we saw earliar MIGHT lead back to the Real World.



And so, Shades reluctantly joins the group. Proving that not even DEATH ITSELF can free you from the tyranny of Bop Louies friendship.



Back outside the mines, Bop-Louie uses the spring-board and hops up way HIGH into the sky and back into the Tunnel outside the Ice Cave, where he scampers into the side-tunnel to the right of the Ice Cave.



The treasure box is too far away to jump to without Shades ability to drift downward more slowly. Mind, it still requires pixel-perfect precision, since anything less will cause you to miss the ledge. Its kind of annoying, actually.



The box contains a Hammer, which is Shades' Secret Weapon. And, logically, one might think that the Hammer would be some kind of short-ranged weapon. Perhaps one that could break walls, such as those funny blocks under the tunnels, or dreak through enemies that are defended. Something like that.

But, of course, one would be wrong in this assessment.



Using the Hammer causes Shades to beat his own brains out with enough force that his eyeballs fly out of his head and hunt down and destroy any and every enemy on the screen.

...seriously.

That is what it does.

That is QUITE PROBABLY the best damn weapon in any game on the damn system. Or perhaps the best damn weapon in any form of media.

I am so in awe of the Eyeball Mallet that I might have to take a break from this game for a week or so to appreciate it more fully...

Octo! That much eyeball mallet could turn you into...a GHOST!

The Derp is strong with this one.

Just imagine if the Pac-Man ghosts could wield the power of the Eyeball Mallet? Suddely eating them and reducing them to eyes makes them even MORE deadly! Shades must never be allowed to teach this ability to his other ghost bretheren.

Must purchase this game ASAP. Eyeball Mallet?! I'm so there.

This is PRECISELY the reaction I was hoping to get!

I can't say I'm surprised that a special weapon for one of Bop Louie's buds involves self-flagellation. One would have to be quite the sadomasochist to hang out with him, particularly given his methods for "reminding" his friends of who he is!

This... is certainly something. Words fail me...

Octo, is this your Christmas gift to the forum (and to yourself)? If so, then thanks.

I haven't been following this LP.

What the hell is wrong with me.

I must amend this.

You would think that the being made of snow would be a better choice to explore the ice cave than a being made of fragile cold blooded animal meat.

THIS GAME.