#hebereke

A nice nonogram is always a good time for me. So after playing some Hebereke games I set my sights on this Japan-exclusive spinoff from Sunsoft's genre-spanning mascot series. I've seen it mentioned but now that I know the characters, the time was right. Apparently Oekaki Logic was a nonogram magazine, and so the puzzle designers there presumably provided the grids for inclusion in this and other games bearing the name on the Super Famicom, Wii, etc. There's actually three O-chan no Oekaki Logic instalments, and the first game has ports on various platforms. I picked the Saturn port because of all of them, I think it's the only one with a story mode.

This port (and presumably the PSX port) take advantage of the CD format by including voice acting, although it doesn't come up much, O-chan just shouts at you in some of the menus. She also hangs out on the side of the screen while you solve puzzles. It's nice for her to have a starring role over and above Hebe and the rest of the gang. The story even has Hebe go missing, and it follows O-chan's quest across some island to find him, encountering various old friends and enemies (including a green doppelganger) along the way. Then it ends with the "it was all a dream" cop-out. Ho hum.

The structure of story mode is very simple. You move to the next square on the map screen, and run into another of the cute blobby characters that populate the Hebereke world. There's a short dialogue scene, spelled out only in hiragana so it's difficult to parse, especially with how fast it scrolls by. Then you solve a set of ten puzzles. Some of the characters join you, becoming available to call on once per puzzle as a hint function, revealing squares in different patterns (O-chan's freeze breath reveals one row and column, for example, while Jennifer's bombs do a random spread of individual squares, and Sukezaemon uniquely removes mistake penalties). I only found this necessary or convenient twice near the end of the game. Beyond the Ufouria four [minus Hebe], you also get joined by Pen-chan the penguin cosplayer, Bobodori the bird, and even Utsujin the alien who is the main antagonist of Ufouria 2.

Sometimes your opponent is a silent Popoon (read blob) with a smaller puzzle set who grants temporary access to a slot machine; I never won this so I don't know what it rewards you with. I can't even guess! I also didn't note down how many puzzle sets make up the whole campaign; maybe ten? So there's a fair number to solve, especially when you add the total from the normal mode… although I only played the story for this coverage, so maybe the puzzles are reused? You can't view the solutions in any of the modes, so it's hard to say.

I'm uncomfortable with so much uncertainty, so I'll tell you what I am sure of, and that's the nitty gritty of the puzzle mechanics. Puzzles range from 5x5 to a whopping 30x30 which I've never seen before. The Saturn resolution can barely accommodate the grid at this size, and there's even a zoom button to get closer to the squares. When you get to 25x25 and above, the clues can't all be displayed at the same time, so the borders scroll depending on your cursor position. This is a bit jarring, and can make it hard to follow at a glance when the clues don't line up visually with rows and columns that aren't actively selected. I think there's a reason nonogram games usually don't go this big, because these compromises aren't the most elegant.

The puzzling is also light on features, although to be fair this game was releasing in 1995, the same year as Jupiter's first Picross games, which also feel primitive by today's standards. There's no screen wrap, and holding cross while moving the cursor can overwrite marked spaces, even though marks get corrected in story mode (make three mistakes and you have to start the puzzle over, much like Jupiter's NuPa). Most egregiously, clue numbers aren't checked either automatically or manually. In the early Picross games you could mark them yourself, but here they stay the same, which demands more concentration from the player, especially on the later giant grids. I will say the solutions look nice and are often recognisable; they get coloured in after you solve them, and a handful depict the Hebereke characters but otherwise are the usual assortment of objects and scenes I’ve come to expect from nonogram games.

I enjoyed that the story mode doesn't have any time limits. In fact, normal mode doesn't either, it just keeps track of your best solve time. This mode works like Jupiter’s “free mode”, not checking for mistakes. The puzzles here are split up by difficulty. There’s also random mode which just throws a random puzzle at you without any ado. A versus mode lets you face off with another player in some way (couldn’t test that). To round out the package, an edit mode lets you design your own puzzles and save them either to the system RAM or a cartridge; this is pretty forward-thinking for such an early nonogram game, so I have to give it props.

Sunsoft's cult classic NES game Hebereke turned out to be well worth playing, but the reason I played it is so that I could check out this modern legasequel and compare it to Good-Feel's craft-based Yoshi games. Basically, a lower budget holds it back a bit in the looks department but it gets by on its charm. And if anyone calls this a remake, I will shake my head sadly at them. Wait, Sunsoft describes it as such on the game's Steam page? *shakes head sadly*

It's been 33 years since the original Hebereke, and Hebe the penguin or whatever is still hanging out in the strange world of Ufouria (the localised release retains this PAL title, and the game even has brief cameos from Bop-Louie and Freeon-Leon!). Utsujin, an alien guy who was a boss in the first game, returns from space with a new plan to spread his gooey creations the Bumyons all over, and it's up to Hebe and friends to stop him with the aid of their trusty Popoons (the ball things with faces that you can throw around), because it turns out the two are antithetical for some reason.

In their efforts to stem the invasion and reclaim rocket parts to strike back at Utsujin's flying saucer base, they will traverse the various biomes of their little world via randomly generated levels. Yes, rather than a Metroid-like (which are more popular than ever), this sequel adopts some light roguelike qualities for its structure. Each level is made up of a few chunks that get assigned each time you venture out from Hebe's treehouse. There's not too many, so you will end up playing sections repeatedly, especially for the earlier levels that you need to pass through to get to later ones that are connected on the map (you do unlock fast-travel options later to skip around though). They also try to keep replays fresh with side-missions and button prompts for your teammates to find you bonus items.

Hebe and friends still have to stomp in mid-air to defeat enemies, but with more button mappings it's convenient to do, and you can unlock a super-butt bounce that is both financially rewarding and satisfying to pull off thanks to a bit of visual hitstun. You can now pull a Popoon out of nowhere at any time rather than them spawning from defeated enemies, but they're less useful as they only stun basic enemies; their main purpose is to destroy the sticky Bumyon blobs that act as hazards or that shield bosses. Characters also still have unlockable attacks, but you must spend health to activate them, and they're not even very useful to make up for it. I only ever used Jennifer's bombs because they're the only ones that also open paths and collectibles in stages.

As in the original, Hebe's three friends have to be fought so they join your team, but swapping between them is easy via the shoulder buttons, complete with a cute high-five animation as they tag in. They all have mobility differences that help in the various levels, but this time they all have the same basic speed and jump height so it doesn’t feel like a handicap to choose one. After your crew is complete, progression is driven via the vending machine in the hub, which stocks more items as you collect cans to recycle (these are unique collectibles that are found in levels), and you need to collect many coins [or buttons, or whatever they are] to buy everything. These will unlock new abilities for your crew, enable helpful items in the levels, let you into bonus rooms, etc. Sometimes grinding is required, or to put it another way replaying levels to find secret areas and cans also gets you money, so it depends on your mindset.

The environments each level takes place in are loosely inspired by the NES game, although they were fairly standard and barebones there so the crafty glowup is appreciated. Everything is made to look handcrafted, specifically mostly feltwork, which looks great especially on the adorable main cast of playable characters. The enemies and bosses are more or less taken directly from the original game in all their wackiness, but have been given a claymation makeover. You don’t quite get the level of detail and variety that the Kirby and Yoshi games have, but I’m just glad that other developers are trying things like this; even with a lower budget it does really stand out!

In addition to the in-game visuals, the menus and UI make use of round bead textures. The original game’s sprites also appear as dialogue portraits rendered via beads, which is a cute touch. This game has a fair amount of dialogue, fleshing out the quirky characters a little, whether it’s explaining new abilities or just chatting in the hub zone. It's not deep but adds to the overall charm.

Sunsoft was once an electronics manufacturer with a decently successful mid-size stake in the video games industry. While they're still around today, their game business has dropped off… at least, until an attempt at a resurgence starting a few years ago, with revivals/sequels for some of their cult classics like Trip World, Gimmick, and Hebereke. The latter utilises an art style featuring hand-crafted materials much like Good-Feel's Yoshi games, which is why I'm now visiting the original Hebereke so I can then play the sequel.

Anyway, Hebereke has a complicated history that can be seen on TCRF, with a lot of content cuts and a planned North American release. It did come out in Europe and Australia though, under the name Ufouria the Saga, with two of the main characters redesigned and all with new names. A recent rerelease with the subtitle "Enjoy Edition" includes some standard emulator features, achievements, and a speedrun mode, but fumbles the inclusion of the localised version, as it only lets you see images of the clumsily translated cutscenes. So I opted for a fan translation patch of the Famicom release, which has a better translation and retains the characters of the Japanese version. After all, they went on to star in many more games (puzzle, isometric racing, nonograms, etc.) and Hebe was even Sunsoft's mascot for a time, unlike Bop-Louie and Freeon-Leon who were never seen again.

Hebe is a penguin-like creature who fell in a weird hole or something, ending up in an unfamiliar land. He has to gather companions (or in the original localisation, find his amnesiac friends) in order to get back home, while contending with the hostile creatures of this land. Well, some of them act hostile but they're all quite goofy, with various flavours of blobs, cats, odd-looking birds, or even disembodied lips & tongues, etc.

The game is quick to establish a quirky tone, as you climb a rope that is revealed to be a string of drool hanging from a blobby face. One boss fight has you destroy the armour of a large cat, who you then have to attack while they sit motionless, crying. Other enemies include birds that poop on you, mice with flying propeller hats, clowns, smiley faces, and various kids wearing animal onesies.

After a boss fight, one of the latter joins your crew, that being O-chan the haughty kitty cosplayer. Despite being a penguin, Hebe is lousy at swimming and slips on ice, and somehow she is much better at these things. Later Sukezaemon/Shades the cool but old-fashioned ghost can help you jump longer distances, and Jennifer/Gil the gruff and manly fish/lizard thing has superior underwater mobility. You can swap between controlling these characters at any time, even in midair, by opening the select menu. Hebe stays relevant as he has the best run speed and vertical jumps, and even gets the ability to wall climb later.

What you soon realise about Hebereke is that it's in fact a Metroid-like, albeit a cutesy and stripped-back one that plays like a platformer; a more famous example perhaps is Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap, or the later Adventure Island 4. The game world is open and features many paths and areas that you have to come back to later, some requiring you to unlock another character or a new ability like Jennifer's bombs. You find the door to the final boss relatively early, but to get in you need to find three keys at the far corners of the world. You get a map pretty early and later unlocks will mark keys and other items on it, and getting around isn't too arduous. The original plan for the game was a bit larger but as it is, it's quite a compact experience.

I recommend reading the manual first, as it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that pressing down during a jump puts you in a stomping stance, similar to Capcom's Ducktales. This is the only way to defeat enemies initially, and they either drop a small health refill (like Metroid, you can find expansions to your health meter) or a ball projectile with a face. Picking up and throwing things is a big mechanic in the game, although enemies defeated this way won't drop health. It's not quite as developed as it is in Gimmick which builds the whole game around the projectile, but it adds some depth. Each character also has an unlockable charge attack of varying usefulness; Jennifer and O-chan's have exploration utility but all require a charge time that's a little too long to really feel good to use. They do all have that bit of weirdness about them though that adds to the game's character: Hebe chucks his head as a projectile, for example, and Sukezaemon shoots out his eyeballs which home in on enemies.