Sunsoft is often considered to have been one of the most underrated developers of the late 80s and early 90s, known for secretly releasing some incredible hardware pushers for the NES in particular like Blaster Master, Batman, and Mr Gimmick. And that's not even getting into their visually-stunning and lovably quirky fighting games like Waku Waku 7 and Astra Superstars, the former of which ranks among my favorites in the genre. While they sadly faded into obscurity once 3D gaming hit it big, Sunsoft has recently been making a pretty big comeback, particularly through reviving their game catalog. Mr Gimmick got a rerelease, Trip World got a color version, but most fascinatingly of all, Ufouria: The Saga (also known as Hebereke in Japan) is getting a full-on sequel.
I was admittedly a bit unsure about getting Ufouria: The Saga 2. While I was always glad to see it exists, it was $25 for a sequel to an NES game and the poorly translated blurb didn't give me the most confidence that it'd be worth the price. In particular, the statement that "Familar characters and stages of the original game are back" had me thinking it was gonna be a straight-up port. However, when the game came out on the 28th, the reviews were shockingly positive, managing an 80 on Metacritic. Will Sunsoft's first big game in decades turn out to be a pleasant surprise?
Well, let me start my review by getting one thing straight. Ufouria 2 is a full-on sequel with entirely original level layouts, progression, and story. It's a genuine attempt to expand on and modernize the formula of the original game, and I think it does a pretty solid job at that. The main premise is that an alien has arrived and is spreading goop around the planet, so the usual Hebereke quartet has to team up to stop him. The story itself is pretty basic, mostly consisting of the cast running around the world chasing down the aforementioned alien, but Ufouria 2 makes up for that simplicity with pure charm. This is a surprisingly funny game with tons of cute banter between the characters, both through the game's large amount of cutscenes and voice lines that pop up while you play. The comedy feels very Japanese, with some of the skits feeling straight out of a manzai routine, but the game still managed to get plenty of smiles out of me. That being said, while Ufouria 2's cutscenes are very endearing, there can be a bit too many of them. There are a lot of points where the game just stops you to watch an unskippable skit, which can really mess with the pacing at times.
The core gameplay of Ufouria is mostly like the original. It's a pretty basic platformer where you can swap between four characters each with their own unique traits. Hebe can climb, O-Chan can float and doesn't slip on ice, Jennifer can dive, and Sukezaemon can float in the air. You also get a projectile attack called a Popoon that you can use to clean up the aforementioned goop, which is a new mechanic that's put to decent use around the game. The controls feel really tight, and the ability to swap at any time even in mid-air means that the actual moment-to-moment gameplay feels really fast and frenetic. Eventually, you even get special spells that each character can use like a screen clear or a freeze ability, and clever usage of these can help make getting some of the game's many collectibles a lot easier. Overall, it's a solid, polished moveset, no complaints here.
As for the actual gameplay loop, here's where things get a bit more interesting. The original Ufouria is a sort of metroidvania with a big open world to explore. Ufouria 2, on the other hand, is laid out a bit more like Mega Man ZX Advent. It's still interconnected, but the map is laid out like a hub and spokes system. You can enter most of the levels from the hub, and can fly back once you reach the end of an area. If anything, Ufouria 2 actually functions more like a roguelite. Yeah, seriously. Each level is generated from random pre-designed chunks every time you visit it, and you have a limited amount of lives to beat the stage or else you're sent back to the hub. You also have a pretty robust upgrade shop in the hub that you'll need to get coins and Utsu-Cans (the main collectible) to buy stuff with, so the main gameplay loop involves going on expeditions into each area, searching for treasures, and buying upgrades to allow you to access more areas and find more collectibles. This may sound really repetitive at first, but honestly, I found this loop surprisingly addicting. The random layouts for each stage keeps repeat visits fresh, and there's a ton of varied upgrades that are almost all worth going after, and I found myself unable to put the game away, always wanting to go for one more run.
Being a sequel to an NES game, the actual level design in Ufouria 2 isn't too complicated. The biomes are mostly pretty basic, and the game never gets all that challenging even with the unlockable hard mode turned on, but each level segment still feels deliberate and smartly-designed. The Utsu-Cans can be hidden in some pretty tricky spots too, which really made me rack my brain and take all my abilities into consideration. That being said, the Utsu-Cans is where my first big problem with the game spawns, and it's the 100% completion. There's 95 of these cans to find throughout the game, but due to the random generation, only three tend to show up in a run of a level max. Considering that most areas have around 10 cans, this means that you'll be having to replay the same areas dozens of times to get everything. Thankfully, the levels themselves are fairly short, but the long unskippable animation of you flying home every time you finish an area only serves to drag out the process even more. That being said, Ufouria 2 is short and fun enough that I did still enjoy fully completing it overall, but it's not for everyone. My other major gripe is just that the bosses kinda suck. They're these very basic and repetitive three-hit fights that feel ripped right out of the NES era, and they're usually lacking in any enjoyment or challenge.
In terms of its presentation, Ufouria 2 absolutely shines. Taking some pretty blatant inspiration from Good Feel's yarn series, Ufouria 2's artstyle is entirely made up of arts & crafts. I've always loved this kind of art direction in games, from Yoshi's Crafted World to LittleBigPlanet to Paper Mario to Tearaway, and it looks just as tactile and visually-impressive in Ufouria. But it's not just a pretty artstyle, Ufouria 2 has so much extra charm and attention to detail in its animations. Each of the four characters have their own unique set of animations ala Goemon 64 that all convey their unique personalities, there's a nice blend between stiffer recreations of the NES sprites and more fluid modern animations, and there's several unique level complete animations that shuffle at random. You can tell the developers love the Hebereke series through all the details they added, from the sketchbook with adorable drawings made in the artstyle of the original Hebereke, to brief cameos from the US versions of Hebe and O-Chan, to a great soundtrack primarily composed of fantastic remixes of the original game's tracks. It's all just so lovingly-crafted.
Overall, I had a great time with Ufouria 2. It's certainly a flawed experience with its exhausting 100% gauntlet, unskippable cutscenes, and lame boss fights, but the sheer fun and charm of the whole experience more than made up for that with a deceptively addictive gameplay loop, solid level design and mechanics, charming dialogue, adorable presentation, and lots of side content. Ufouria 2 does a great job of taking the Hebereke series in a new direction while maintaining all the charm of the original games, and it serves a heart-warming confirmation that, yeah, Sunsoft is back.
4/5 Stars
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