Preliminary: Early Japanese computer adventure games sure did like games of chance/rock-paper-scissors type minigames. I feel like every one I've been able to get access to incorporated that somehow, even the goofy sex-focused adventure games heh. But what a cute concept this has; what an advanced menu/look to it; and what a story behind its development and eventual American release. But as per usual with this project, I have to play the original Japanese version, fortunately it looks like the MSX version was released alongside the NEC ones so I should be able to paly this, and it seems I have some English hints that should help me through the language barrier heh. Here goes nothing!

Look: 9/10 Welp, I was wrong: the MSX version was not readily available, so I went with the much-praised PC-88 version (which proved surprisingly easy to load up). And wow people weren't kidding, the look of this on PC-88 is the best version and just so beautiful. Even better than the much later NES version.

Every screen had such a delightful way of presenting itself, and made it worth looking at every one solving these low-stakes, enjoyable puzzles. It wasn't so bad not having the room descriptions, because the graphics were so well-done. Still, with the language barrier, I couldn't have solved this without an English-language guide, so I certainly didn't get to have the proper experience of solving these goofy situations on my own. Luckily the guide provided translations of the room descriptions so I often challenged myself to figure some of it out on my own. Plus, it's not a command-by-command Solution, so it didn't take away allll the fun heh.

Yesss giving me Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker / Humongous Entertainment vibes

The wilderness renditions were amazingggg, I almost screenshotted like 7 screens in a row but I spared you the headache lol... I could have screenshotted sooo many screens, but this one pushed me to. Such Putt Putt Goes to the Moon vibes

Sound: 7/10 Redundant to include this in an early text adventure with minimal sound, but I did like the ending jingle.

Play: 8/10 Wow, I'm so glad I didn't just move this to Wishlist and move on. I gave this a preliminary play, and because it proved way better than I expected, I had to return to it later tonight so I didn't rush it. I was contemplating streaming OSRS tonight, but this definitely just took precedent heh. Fortunately, I have played some Japanese adventure, particularly Hudson Soft, games before so I knew the little differences like instead of N E W S (North, East, etc.), it's typically F R L B (Forward, Right, etc.). So, conveniently, and with the quick access to the game, there weren't a lot of the usual frustrations as I just jumped right in! In the end, it was way too illogical with the navigation (well, not so much that it was illogical, but the use of Forward/Back and Left/Right wound up being very reliant on the graphics, and sometimes it just convoluted the situation), and wayyyy too many repeated Talks (at least on the NEC versions). I'd be curious to try the NES version tho. Pro-Tip: Commands may be English even for the NEC versions, but it has Japanese formatting. For instance, you do Verb Object-You-Do-It-To Object-You-Use. Eg, Stab Banana Saber.

Feel: 8/10 Well darn, actually that guide was decidedly different enough to make this a game I had to solve on my own... despite the language barrier heh... at least I had the basic format from the NES version guide lol... But still, the Look and Feel of this game got me to keep pushing through, despite all the barriers. I know the NES American version would eliminate all these headaches, but I want to stay true to the concept of this project.. even when frustrating. The Look, concept, and execution of this (despite some headaches) made the Feel of this so amazing. Kept reminding me of so many games, and kept making me wanna screenshot it.

Attachment: 8/10 The fact I really want to try the English-language NES version says a lot. And the similarities to Pajama Sam No Need to Hide and the vegetable one (the third one I think) were innumerable. Lmfao the banana peel as the dead bodies after you stab with the saber. And gosh I love the word Precipice. At last, despite the language barrier and different-versions complications, I reached the end!

Completion: Main Story Playtime: ~1 hour