The Violinist of Hamelin (SNES)

 
Also known as Hamelin no Violin Hiki, this is a tie-in platformer based on the anime of the same name. The anime is about a bard named Hamel who goes around a European-style fantasy world fighting evil with his adventurer friends, which is pretty much the premise of the game too, though the only friend accompanying him here is his suffering sidekick Flute. It's a little smarter than most licensed 16-bit platformers, though, and it actually uses the presence of a sidekick character as a major mechanical gimmick.

 

The way it works is that you traverse the stages mostly in a traditional platformy manner, and Flute follows you around. At the start of the game, you can also stand on top of Flute, or you can pick er up and throw her at breakable walls. You quickly start to build up a collection of costumes for her, though, and you can change her costume in the pause menu. This is where the real meat of the game's puzzles and challenges lie.

 

Each costume gives Flute different abilities, that Hamel can exploit to get around the stages (mainly by standing on her head): the frog suit lets her jump really high, the robot suit lets her walk on spikes and punch through walls, the duck suit lets her swim, and the fish suit... lets her float around in a semi-uncontrollable manner? If you remember my Kid Chameleon post from a few years ago when I said that that game was like an edgy teenage re-imagining of Super Mario Bros. 3, I guess you could consider The Violinist of Hamelin to be a combination of Super Mario Bros. 3 with the AI-controlled sidekick aspect of Sonic 2, with both concepts expanded in a significantly more cerebral direction. It's a bit unweildy, but you know what I mean, right?

 

In pretty much every respect, it's a cut above most licensed platformers in terms of quality, and I'd even go so far as to say it was the equal of the Disney games being put out by SEGA and Capcom in the early nineties. And as much as I usually dislike puzzle platformers, this game does a good enough job of balancing puzzles and action that it didn't come close to being a deal breaker for me. I recommend giving this game a try, though obviously, don't pay the £100+ that legit copies are currently selling for.

Other Stuff Monthly #21!

 So, think back a couple of months to the post I wrote about Chibi-Pop Manga magazine, when I said I'd eventually get around to posting about the bilingual self-published manga Hanamaru Angels? That time is here! And, a quick search online earlier today makes me think that I might be the first person to write about this manga in English, which is nice. It's happened plenty of times for games, but it's not so easy with other stuff.

 

Anyway, Hanamaru Angels isn't anything especially original, especially in the nineties: it's a light hearted fantasy story about a trio of massively powerful (but still quite incompetent) students at a magic academy in a fantasy world. Very similar in feel to things like Ozanari Dungeon, Dragon Half, Slayers, and so on. That's not a bad thing, though, that kind of silly TTRPG-flavoured fantasy comedy isn't really around much anymore, replaced by much less appealling isekai power fantasies. The book starts with them breaking into the headteacher's office to change their grades, and quickly escalates into them having to go and save the kingdom from an unsealed demon (and the two adventures are causally linked, surprisingly enough).

 

Though the story as a whole isn't particularly original, there are little bits of originality here and there, and they really make the book and its world shine. Little details like how all the computers are shaped like little desktop dinosaurs with monitors in their bodies, psychic cannons powered by armies of meditating monks, and evil sand, each grain of which is a tiny black hole that sends anything that touches it straight to hell. They really add a lot of charm to the whole story, and it's that cretivity that makes me wish that there was more of Tsugumi Nishino's work available, since they definitely have a lot of imagination and talent. It also makes me wish that the bilingual nature of the main story extended to the two pages of design sketches and notes at the back of the book, too.

 

Anyway, despite the obscure nature of its existence, it's surprisingly easy and inexpensive to get a copy of Hanamaru Angels, and if you're a fan of those many two-to-four episode fantasy OAVs that were so numerous in the nineties, I think it's definitely the kind of thing you'll enjoy. The back cover promises "Action! Suspense! And fun!", and the comic inside delivers on that. Definitely worth seeking out.