へべれけ

Despite the huge success of the NES in North America, many of the best Famicom titles never reached our shores. Nintendo of America exercised strict quality controls that limited the number of games that a company could publish to a mere five games per year, and sadly, not all of the games that failed to make the cut had obvious cultural barriers. Hebereke is one such title that got the axe, yet it has all the hallmarks of a classic NES title and even a bit of innovation. It did manage to be localized for PAL territories as Ufouria: The Saga, but there was no such luck across the pond. While western audiences are generally more familiar with that version, here I will focus on the Japanese original, as that is the one that I primarily have played.

By 1991, Sunsoft had firmly established themselves as a major source of quality NES games, both with great originals like Blaster Master and surprisingly good licensed games like Batman [バットマン]. Hebereke most definitely is a title that lives up to that pedigree, and even outside of Sunsoft's titles, it would stand out. The title roughly translates to "drunkenness." For such a cute and seemingly innocent game, that almost seems inappropriate, but the world of Hebereke is quite psychedelic and dreamlike, and somehow, it does fit. The game also has a great irreverent sense of humor that plays on conventions from other games. If you don't immediately start the game, the protagonist will come on the screen and start to tell his story only to change his mind and tell you to read the instruction manual, instead. This attitude makes the character more endearing than most 8-bit protagonists, although sadly there isn't nearly enough of it.

Speaking of the protagonist, you play as a beanie-clad penguin named Hebe. Although it's never fully explained, he is trapped in some kind of alternate universe and seeking to get back to his home in the real world. His quest revolves around a mysterious locked door, and over the course of the game, he teams up with several assorted creatures to complete his adventure. Each character has a distinct design, with a cat girl, O-Chan, a ghost Sukazaemon, and an amphibian/fish, Jennifer, rounding out the party. They even have distinct personalities with the ghost and his old-fashioned mannerisms sticking out the most, and each one plays significantly different from the others and will have to be used to progress through the game. Hebe is the fastest and can climb walls, O-Chan can swim on top of water and walk on ice without falling, Sukezaemon, being a ghost, can float, and last but not least, Jennifer can dive underwater. The controls do have one odd quirk, which is that you must push down in order to damage enemies by jumping, but the game at least explains this in the aforementioned intro. This is contrary to other games like Super Mario Bros., but you do slowly learn to adjust, and it becomes less of an issue.

The open aspect of the world and the focus on platforming draws a comparison to Metroid, but Hebereke actually has a number of innovations that make it stand on its own. Besides, having the variety of characters with unique controls, it also features a good mapping system, and it's one of the earliest Metroidvanias that I can recall to achieve this. The Goonies II did include a map a few years earlier, but it was not very helpful. When the player first starts, the map in Hebereke might not seem much better, but a few upgrades later, you will be easily able to see your location as well as the location of various items. The game is a bit more hand-holding than other games, as the game will literally point you in the right direction if you're heading towards an area that you cannot access. Initially, the game might still seem difficult as your characters aren't terribly durable, but luckily, there are a number of health power-ups scattered around the world, and a few are even close to the starting area. Each can only be used once, but they reappear if you have to continue the game, so once you realize this, you can easily reach maximum health and face any of the bosses without much worry of dying, including the final boss. There is a decent amount of backtracking, but the progression is mostly logical, and the visuals do a good job of creating landmarks, so even without using the map, it's not likely that you would get lost. Sometimes, going through a door will take you to an unexpected spot on the map, but it's not too terribly disorienting, and there was just one puzzle that had me scratching my head. The world isn't very large, and since the combat is easy, it shouldn't take too long to beat the game, but despite the low difficulty, it's still quite enjoyable to play.

Lastly, I'd like to get back to the audio and visuals. Again, the graphics are great by NES standards looking quite colorful, and the characters are even pretty well animated with detailed motions for some actions like a quick turn when changing directions mid-run. The soundtrack is likewise excellent, but that is hardly a surprise considering earlier Sunsoft games. There are a few pieces, like the snow and cave themes, that seem like they could be leftovers from Batman, but the main theme is quite peppy and memorable, and there are others like the water theme that seem to add to the dream-like nature of the visuals and storyline. There aren't all that many songs, truth be told, but everything here sounds good and helps to build the atmosphere of the various areas. The sound effects, however, are merely adequate.

Overall, it really is a shame that Hebereke never made it to the western hemisphere, as I think it would have been quite a popular game. Sadly, there was also never a proper follow-up, despite numerous other games being released under the Hebereke [へべれけ] banner in Japan. None of these feature similar gameplay to the Famicom title, instead inserting the characters into racing, fighting, and puzzle games that would otherwise be unrelated. As mentioned previously, the original game did manage to see an NES release in Europe and Australia, but they re-titled it to Ufouria, and several of the characters were redesigned and arguably made inferior. Hebe was turned into a creepy looking snowman with bug eyes, and O-Chan was changed into a dopey lizard. All of the characters had new names, as well. Perhaps, Sunsoft thought the game was too cutesy for European sensibilities, but the changes just seem to interfere with the charm of the game. The story also feels more generic, as the game does not have much of a sense of humor compared to the Japanese version. Other than these changes and being localized into English, though, it's essentially the same game and would be acceptable if you cannot play the original. This version did eventually get released on the Wii in North America, and luckily, there is also a fan translation of Hebereke that more faithfully translates the original game to English and does not convert the game to Ufouria. Regardless of which version you end up playing, Hebereke is a unique but accessible title that warrants more attention beyond collectors' circles, but its relative rarity may prevent it from being anything more than a cult classic.