Well, I've just finished doing a few things. Finishing the 6th HP book and ending quite depressed, I decided to try out this SNES underdog I read about in a site: Magical Pop'n. A platform game made in 1995 by Polestar (??) and distributed by Pack-in-Video (??), it obviously didnt' make much impact at all, not even coming here to Europe.

The game is surprisingly good, though. And quite fun to play, if I may add. It's the closest thing to Sonic I've seen on the SNES, actually. Fast gameplay, nice graphics (with that extra touch of kawainess on the lead character, a little girl) , and OK music. Well, the digitized voices COULD use some help - poor seiyuu was prolly just picked off the street and has as much acting talent as me in a good day (that is, nothing at all). It's sad to hear such a dull "Yatta!".

But the "Kya!" when you duck a little too long is still prime material. The girl has potential, after all.

The game's got 7 stages: first one, you get used to the game; next 5 ones, you pick up one spell every stage; and then the last one, with the final boss (and 5 mini-bosses, ugh). The fact that there's mini-bosses shows the attention to detail these guys had. Spells have two modes: normal mode, with normal strength, required stars and looks; and BIG mode, which is just plain flashy and wasteful. xD

Gameplay, as I said before, is pretty fast, and not that linear, actually.

I really recommend this game. I'll give it an 8 out of 10. Now, as usual, screenshot time!



This is the.. hmm.. 3rd stage. You can see there's no Japanese involved in the gameplay itself. xD

There's the number of tries, the energy bar (which you can expand by gaining hearts, a la Zelda), the list of spells you can use along with their cost, and the number of stars you've got to spend. Oh yes... see those little heads below the life counter? Get three of them and you get an extra life.




Ugh... this is Blogger's fault. It's screwing the order of the pictures. Anyhow, see that stone? That was what you were supposed to get back. This is part of the ending. What's she saying? Well, it's quite simple:

Princess: Yatta!







Going into a new stage. This is the 4th one, the ice one. Funnily, you actually don't get the ice spell but the _fire_ spell. Watch out for those penguins. Those have bazookas. Really.










Part of the ending as well. After beating the evil sorceror king, the princess comes back just to make hell out of her gramps' life. I hope she'll get into his old skull that pointy hats with stars and PINK clothes won't get him anything.

I wonder if he's really his gramps or he's just some old man?

"And with the spells she learnt, she pulled pranks on everyone all the time".



The bad guy, looking... quite bad. In the bad sense of the word.

Man, that was a bad joke.

... what?

Evil Sorceror King: "Guoooh... H-How can this be....?"

Kudos for the kid's victory sign.



Blogger blasting its way through my carefully ordered snapshots. This is right before you fight the guy from before.

After you beat him (which is EASY if you're fast, and I've always played fast), you'll fight the real boss, a big ugly thing which is also really easy to beat.

Bosses in this game are Megaman-ish: keep an eye out for what they do, act along and it's a piece of cake.