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"U" game completed!

This is a "U" game because both the Western release and its 2024 sequel were titled "Ufouria," and this port for Switch and PC just happens to be the best version of it.

Before getting into why this is such a great port, I'll talk about the game itself... Hebereke is a game that feels several years before its time, absolutely squeezing every bit of tech in the NES to make a game that feels remarkably playable even today. It's something of an adventure platformer, but simplified. It's definitely a side-scrolling platformer set in what feels like one giant, contiguous map, with some really interesting mechanics. You (eventually) get four playable characters you can swap between on the fly, and each has their own powers and traversal abilities - Hebe can climb, Jennifer can dive, O-Chan can breathe ice to freeze enemies, etc. To defeat enemies, you can either jump on their heads (while holding down, or you take damage!) or pick up the 😐 lookin guys that drop from defeated enemies and toss them, as well as with the super attacks you unlock from each character.

The music here is some of the best on the system and, at least in the Japanese version, the writing is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. We'll get to that. The bosses are a lot of fun and, even though the game gets very difficult in the back half and I made liberal use of the rewind button, I was happy I completed this one.

So version differences. The version released in Europe - not North America - titled "Ufouria" is an inferior version of this game. They completely changed the sprites for Hebe (a penguin) and O-Chan (a little girl in a cat outfit) into these hideous abominations resembling a snowman(?) and a lizard. Why? I have literally no idea. They also completely neutered the dialogue segments, reducing them to their absolute most literal translations - or not translating them at all. The Japanese version is FUNNY, it has this deadpan, sarcastic sense of humor juxtaposed with this completely absurd world and scenario, and leads with an intro cutscene that essentially boils down to... "There was a big war, and stuff happened... But never mind that, I'm in this weird new world now, and I have to get back."

In short, I love this stupid little game, and even though the NES-hard difficulty and often obtuse goals and navigation make it hard to recommend in its OG form, I think it's a really special game more people ought to check out.

That's kinda why this "Enjoy Edition" release is so excellent. It uses the ROM for the Japanese version, but uses an overlay menu that not only offers the correct translation for the dialogue scenes, but also shows what the Euro version had. It has a dedicated rewind button, save states, built-in achievements, archival material, just all kinds of great stuff.

What's especially weird is that I never even knew this version came out. I knew Sunsoft released Ufouria 2, I even know they released a couple of Evercade carts, but I never knew such a lovingly-crafted version of this weird little game ever came out. I only found out about it by looking at the Wikipedia article to find a place to play this game, and I noticed Switch was listed. It's cheap, I paid $10CDN, and I definitely think it's well worth that.

I'm now a fan of the series, I got myself a copy of the sequel, and I'm really excited to play it in a few months. 🙂