Ufouria

[yamamanama]

74 days until the vernal equinox


This game wasn’t released in North America because Nintendo hates us. Well, up until the Wii’s virtual console, which released it only in Japan, and then the Wii U, a system that flopped, which gave us the PAL version, which increases the speed and pitch of sounds.




So, the plot, revealed in the manual, is that once in times unknown to us, there existed a world called Ufouria, where four species inhabited its lands in peace and harmony. Get it? Four. One day, Bop-Louie, Freeon-Leon, Shades, and Gil happened upon a gigantic crater when out on an adventure. In the crater was a crystal. Bop’s friends went close to grab it and the ground gave way and tumbling they went into the darkness. Bop-Louie climbed down.


In the Japanese version, Bop-Louie is a penguin.


Bop-Louie can’t swim but he can float.


In the Japanese version, the crows pooped on you instead of dropping weights on you.




You get a Mega Man esque password.


I’m not actually sure but I think you have to take the hit. It’s annoying because so far I’ve found no way to heal myself.

I later learned that you can stomp enemies by holding down when jumping.



Unfortunately, his friends have lost their memory.


This is an easy fight. When he picks that blob up and throws him, he’s usually standing too far away to do any damage.


I like his expression.


In the Japanese version, he's a girl dressed as a cat.


Technically, all characters can walk through snow. Freeon-Leon is the only one who can walk on ice without slipping.








This is the world. Later items allow you to see things onn the world.


Shades is a ghost who wears sunglasses. Double the pun!


This fight is just as easy but in a different way. Instead of throwing the guy at you from the other side of the screen, he instead gets close to you, jumps, and tosses him. And you can walk under it.


In the Japanese version, he speaks in archaic Japanese.




That's where the clown was. Unfortunately, it's locked.


I bet you thought that you needed Shades to get past this.


This is for much later, although I believe you can do it now.


This guy just drops you.


Those eggs are enemies.


But if you bring this egg to that bird in the nest, she'll be happy and take you somewhere with absolutely fuck-all to offer.




It was around this time that I learned you can stomp enemies by holding down and jumping. You have to do this to make this Rick and Morty side character looking fellow cough up a blob and then you have to throw the blob at him.




You get Bop-Louie's secret power by doing this.


That guy in the cloud also helps you and he takes you to a palette swap boss.


After you defeat him in the same manner as his green buddy, he transforms into a head and you stomp on him a few times.


The most useful powerup in the game.




Gill is also easy unless you lose control of that blob, in which case, it’s difficult to get it back. Try throwing the blob against the wall instead.


I think this portrait is supposed to be Freeon-Leon but the NES can only handle so many colors at a time.


In other words, Gil can swim.


In Japan, Gill’s name is Jennifer. I’ve heard that Gill is male in Japan but I dunno because Japanese has genderless pronouns and there are species of anglerfish in which the female is the size of a football and the males attach themselves to her and degenerate into gonads. Also, in actual Cornish, it should be written as Gwynnever, you big dumb idiots.



The keys are gold, silver, and mercury. No, wait, wrong game.


I also didn't learn that chests with medicine in them respawn, so I kept saving it for boss fights.




This guy you have to fight as Freeon-Leon who is quite slow. The only thing that makes him challenging.






This guy is annoying because in his first phase his hitbox is weird and in his second phase, he’s invisible due to flicker. I’m not sure if that’s intentional or just PAL framerates being weird.






This is agonizingly slow. Gil can only remove these blocks with his secret power. It takes two seconds to activate and it blows up everything in a one block radius. Even worse, going into the menu causes the blocks to reappear. I’m not entirely sure that was intentional.


The hitbox combined with the arc makes this guy annoying. The smiley guy pukes out a blob but it’s on a delay so that can screw you a bit too.


Water of Life is a full heal. I don't know if it respawns but even if it does, you have to use Freeon-Leon's freezing power to get to it and it's annoying enough and the game is easy enough that you can really just save it for the final boss.




You have to fight him with the secret power and spears rain down from the ceiling so you're going to get hit a lot.
This guy you have to attack with the special power and that takes a few seconds to activate. I assume you can use Freeon-Leon’s power too because you needed it to get to this boss in the first place. Or, at least, that’s how the game intended for you to get here. You can bounce off the enemies with Shades, get hit, switch to Gil, and hopefully get out of the lava before you die.


But once he loses his armor, he's completely helpless.


Otherwise, the only things you need to beat the game are the suction cups, the bombs, and the keys. Technically, you can beat the game without getting Shades but that requires pixel perfect jumping.






His expression is one of utter bliss, apparently.














Sadly, this is the only game of its type. There are other Hebereke games but they're puzzle games or racing games. It's also spiritually linked to Mr. Gimmick, a game I did not play for the Twelve Days of Wonky Roms, because Nestopia, the emulator I use to take easy screenshots, had graphical glitches.


It's a bit on the easy side but it's still worth playing.


burning question: So they call this game Ufouria despite the fact that not one second of this game is spent in the land of Ufouria? That's like calling Super Mario Bros. "Brooklyn."