This is, for lack of a greater descriptor, charming; a rekindling of an IP and a platforming vibe not seen rendered in such genuine trend for a while. Ufouria: The Saga 2’s simplicity is to its credit score, maintaining it actual to the supply materials and the huge catalogue of motion platform video games that knowledgeable a lot of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s ’80s rule.
The unique Ufouria: The Saga was launched for the Famicom in 1991 and on the NES in Europe in 1992. It was Sunsoft’s bid to create a band of mascots, with the intention of inserting the characters in a collection of video games, every utilising a distinct style. Sunsoft made first rate headway with this plan. Those who keep in mind the gray import scene of the ’90s may keep in mind Hebereke’s Popoon for the Super Nintendo, a Puyo Puyo-esque puzzle sport that popped with cutesy characters and vibrant gelatine blobs.
Sunsoft created a full collection of Hebereke video games that appeared on most ’90s consoles, from Wonderswan to PlayStation, with solely the Neo Geo instalment in the end getting cancelled. The firm’s solely failing was with the range of genres it had envisioned, with most entries being puzzle-based.
Fast ahead to 2024 and Hebe’s wacky world and band of zany mates are again at it in Ufouria: The Saga 2, a title that means a direct sequel. In Japan it’s merely often called Hebereke 2 — ‘Hebereke’, by the way, being a play on phrases meaning intoxicated or dishonest.
Ufouria: The Saga 2’s visible design is that of blended textiles, recalling the likes of Yoshi’s Story on the Nintendo 64. Felt timber, paper grain skies, and perler bead textual content home windows. It’s a contemporary, pastel mixture of hues, with an upbeat, childlike visible disposition: enticing with out being overbearing. You start your journey as Hebe atop your treetop house, tasked with dispatching an enemy often called Bumyon who’s littering the world with a poisonous purple agent. Hebe initially ventures out left to the Ufouria fields, encountering his pal O-Chan, reworked and crazed by Bumyon’s purple slime. After a quick battle, O-Chan is freed and joins your staff, bringing concerning the means to swim.
This is the premise for the way Ufouria: The Saga 2 capabilities. It makes use of a particularly gentle, unashamedly stripped-back Metroid-style construction, whereby areas you discover inaccessible require you to seek out and win again mates with talents of lengthy leaping, diving, and so forth. Once you purchase a brand new pal, they’re quick-swapped with a faucet of the shoulder button, permitting you to cycle your toolkit on the fly. Having them be a part of you, nevertheless, isn’t fairly as easy as successful a battle. Hebe’s house acts as a hub on the map, and when you free one in all your pals they stand by the merchandising machine on the lookout for a specific merchandise — an merchandise that gained’t turn into accessible till you accrue a sure variety of particular gadgets often called Utsu-cans, dotted across the panorama.
Economy performs a big half in how a lot of Ufouria: The Saga 2 slots into place. There are cash in all places, straightforward to brush up as you leap, butt slam, and fling popoons — Hebe’s stun blobs — at varied roaming enemies. Dispatch a boss and hitch a journey again house, and also you financial institution these cash. The merchandising machines close by boss lairs normally maintain health-increasing elixirs, however the one at Hebe’s abode provides everlasting power-ups: a number of popoons, most life will increase, the flexibility to crouch, and so forth. Some throw out objects in key areas like bouncy springs for reaching beforehand out-of-reach areas, and mine carts for thrilling cave traversals.
These components all work in concord. Adding mates to your staff, powering up your base properties, after which revisiting areas to entry new zones is a clean course of. And a straightforward one. The greatest solution to describe Ufouria: The Saga 2 is stress-free and barely taxing. One of the neatest features of its design is the best way wherein, upon revisiting areas with new talents, the layouts change to turn into harder. But it stays, at greatest, average, at the very least till you strategy the tip of the sport the place sensible character swapping and reflex ability turns into extra urgent.
Being leisurely, although, isn’t a fault, however relatively the intention. It may be fairly a bit simpler than the 1991 unique — particularly the harder European model — however, due to intelligent and considerate meeting, stays very pleasing to romp by. The world is shiny and enjoyable, wacky and inimitable, and textual content exchanges deliver spirit to a band of Sunsoft mates hailing from a less complicated time. The means Ufouria’s world broadens is pacy sufficient to remain participating, and assembling your crew and buying vended trinkets and power-ups performs on that age-old, Nintendo-perfected artwork of constant reward. There’s all the time one thing new simply across the nook, both to be seen or had, and that’s what retains you enjoying.
At the identical time, its simplistic nature can be a bit of too threadbare for some. While augmented in some ways to attraction to trendy audiences, most clearly with its merchandising machine catalogue, it’s nonetheless a really ’90s sport. You fling blobs to stun enemies that drop poop, roam round, and butt-bounce them out of existence, and that’s largely the breadth of the motion. You hop from platform to platform, often climbing up a sticky strand to achieve a coin chest, after which pop again right down to proceed your journey. Bosses are far too straightforward and samey for almost all of the journey, and will have used extra invention. Even one of many unique Ufouria’s earliest bosses required you to move stomp him to have him spit a usable projectile into the play discipline, however right here it’s only a case of flinging a popoon to briefly dispel the purple muck, and head stomp. Repeat 3 times and it’s rapidly over. This format doesn’t change till some time in whereby a bouncy spring is added to barely alter the engagement.
Conclusion
If you’re a fan of ’90s motion platform video games, there’s one thing mildly magical about this. Ufouria 2’s sunny world of papercraft and textile-built equipment is endearing and enjoyable. Its playfulness and zanier components extra recall the period of the Super Nintendo than the NES, and its laid-back strategy to linear Metroid-style adventuring is plainly enjoyable. It doesn’t ask a lot from you besides to get pleasure from a bit of exploration, a really average quantity of backtracking by very quick zones, and an undemanding job of coin amassing as you go. But its reward cycle has an addictive high quality, if little else. It’s not going to fulfil everybody’s wishes, and its ease may really feel underwhelming to some, however these on the lookout for a brand new journey in a really 16-bit trend will really feel effectively served.
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