Umihara Kawase for the Super Famicom might just be one of the best pre-Ico pieces of proof for the "video games are art" argument. Everything about the game is meant to evoke feelings of childlike wonder, freedom, and expression, from the freeform grappling mechanics, to the surreal fish enemies, to the smattering of random objects like pencils around the stages, to that absolutely lovely soundtrack. My favorite trivia piece about Umihara Kawase is that some stage numbers are purposefully skipped to create the feeling that, even if you've seen everything the game has to offer, you still only feel like you've seen a piece of Umihara's vast world. It's a truly thoughtfully put together gem with a unique style and vibe unlike anything else on the console.
It also really, really wants you to speedrun it.
For the many people who've never heard of this game, Umihara Kawase was originally released solely in Japan on the Super Famicom. It, and all of its sequels, did eventually end up coming to Steam in 2015, but the game remained a cult classic. The main premise is that it's a physics-based platformer where you use a fishing rod as a grappling hook. The developers put a lot of effort into making the grappling physics feel as weighty and natural as possible, so there's a lot of freedom in how you can tackle levels. As a matter of fact, pretty much every stage is bound to have a whole slew of possible methods in which you could beat it, which of course is prime material for a good speedrun game. But the fascinating part is that it feels like the developers knew this, since pretty much every facet of the game feels tailor-made to encourage the player to speedrun it. Considering this game came out in 1994, just as the speedrunning community as we know it was beginning to form, I can't help but feel Umihara Kawase was incredibly ahead of its time.
For starters, let's go over the first act of Umihara Kawase, and what I feel most players' initial experience with the game would be like. A first-time player will start off the game not knowing anything about how to use their fishing rod, so the first few levels of Umihara Kawase all start with a cute little animation showing off some of the ways in which you can use it. When you get to the end of Field 2, you'll likely notice that this stage has two exits:
As of right now, you don't quite have the knowledge to make it to that other door, so you keep on trekking until you likely reach Field 8, the first boss of the game. Field 8's boss is a big roadblock, a tough and lengthy skill check that demands you take your first big risk: Precariously hanging off the side of a ledge.
This is terrifying, and for a first-time player, you'll probably freak out and lose all your lives here. And in this game, losing all your lives starts you back at the beginning. However, this is where the brilliance lies. When you decide to retry, you'll most likely want to get back to the boss as fast as possible to show it what for. And with all the knowledge you've accumulated, you'll start to notice different, riskier, and best of all, faster ways to get through the levels that previously gave you a hard time. But then you get back to Field 2. Remember that door? At this point, you've likely played and learned enough that you can probably make it up there, so you decide to check it out. After beating some slightly tougher levels, you'll get back to the boss fight even faster. You just discovered your first shortcut.
Routing is a big part of speedrunning, and Umihara Kawase's vast web of multiple paths and alternate routes pretty much demand it. Now let's say you try the boss again and still fail. You take the shortcut again and realize that it too has some extra doors. After a bit of finagling, you manage to get into one and realize you may have just skipped that boss entirely. The coolest part is that, this is actually the ideal speedrun route. Field 8's boss is a waiting game of around two minutes, the absolute worst thing a speedrunner could ask for.
However, if that's not convincing enough for you, there are three elements in particular that really made it clear that the developers had speedrunning in mind with this game. First is the UI:
Notice how the UI is closer to the center of the screen? Seems pretty unconventional, but I think this was done so that players can have all of the information right in front of them without having to dart their eyes to the edges of the screen. Next is the game's time limit. Not only does each stage have a time limit, but Umihara Kawase as a whole has a 30-minute time limit before it automatically sends you towards an ending. Even once you're well on your way, the developers are still encouraging you to go faster (and that's not even mentioning the cheat code that brings down the time limit to five minutes). But finally, and most damning of all, Umihara Kawase has a replay system built-in.
First, I just have to say that considering this was an SNES game, this is incredibly impressive on a technical level. But also, the developers built in an entire replay feature so you can save runs that you're proud of, or want to improve upon. If there's anything I mentioned here that proves the developers made this game with speedrunning in mind, it's absolutely the replay feature. And the sequel Shun would only expand on these ideas further, by giving you a practice mode that times how quickly you can beat each stage, as well as a bunch of preset high scores for you to try and beat.
Look, I'm not saying this is anything novel nowadays, of course it's not. Games like Bennett Foddy's Getting Over It, Celeste, and most recently, Neon White all encourage their players to speedrun, with the former two games even using several of Umihara Kawase's same tactics. Getting Over It sends the player to the start if they fall, so they're more likely to want to get back up faster, and Celeste's B and C side stages teach the player speedrun moves that could make the earlier stages even easier. However, what makes Umihara Kawase so special is that it did all this first. As speedrunning had only began to take off, Umihara Kawase managed to silently teach the player several speedrunning tactics before encouraging them to continue from there. I can't help but find that incredibly impressive.
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