Welcome back to another edition of Anyway, Here's WonderSwan, wherein I allow my inner-Grubb's curiosity for handheld gaming—in this case, a Japan-exclusive handheld system—lead me to all sorts of unsavory places, many of which (though not this week, surprisingly) relating to various tie-ins for once-popular anime properties. The Bandai WonderSwan and its chromatic younger sibling the WonderSwan Color have been nothing if not delightful to research as a piece of missing (to us) video gaming history and since the last couple of entries I've been discovering more games that I've been wanting to spend a significant chunk of time with, at least beyond the standard ten minutes I've put towards anything that's proven too impenetrable to parse. I've since completed two games in full—Kaze no Klonoa: Moonlight Museum and Rainbow Islands: Putty's Party—and I'm still chipping away at the increasingly challenging O-chan no Oekaki Logic. I'm hoping to add to that list with this month's new quintet, as I will for every quintet going forward, though with my meager Japanese and very few WS fan translations out there it's probably going to be a series of brief once-overs more often than not.

We have a new ruling! The Random Chooser Unnion and I are happy to introduce the Square Squared Settlement, or S²S: every square number is guaranteed to be a Squaresoft game from here on out, though the randomizer still ultimately chooses what that game will be from the remaining Squaresoft games available. There's a square number this time with #25 which, when combined with the Lucky 7s Clause (#21) and Prime Plus Plan (#23) means we're getting a triple-dose of semi-curated fun this entry. Sadly, I doubt I'll be able to squeeze any more loopholes out of this unnion: they've now joined up with the United Eastern Gacha League and the Coalition of Roguelikes, Roguelites, and Broguelikes (they tell me the last of those are games made in Ireland and Scotland, or are able to imitate same convincingly) and I suspect they even have mafia connections with New York's Procgenovese Family. Either way, they're now too powerful for me to trick. Uh, I mean, come to an amiable and mutually beneficial arrangement between all parties absent of any subterfuge or deception on my part. Frankly, I was lucky to get away with this much and with my thumbs intact.

Those looking for previous entries can find them here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.

Anyway, here's WonderSwan:

#021: Rockman & Forte: Mirai kara no Chousensha

"Mega Man & Bass: Challenger from the Future"

• Developer: Layup
• Publisher: Bandai
• Release Date: 1999-10-21
• Inscrutability: None (Fan Translated)
• Selection Process: Chosen (Lucky 7s)
• Is This Anime?: No. (If you squint, it's kind of Astro Boy though.)

Field Report: Like Konami, Capcom didn't have much of a presence on the WonderSwan preferring instead Nintendo's more reliable platforms but a few of their properties did end up on there albeit largely in an indirect, third-party contractor fashion. Mega Man is one such case, getting three WonderSwan games total (we'll probably see another of theirs later since it also got fan-translated), though this is the only one exclusive to the system. Mirai kara no Chousensha is a semi-sequel to Mega Man & Bass, the late-lifespan SNES game that gave players their first chance to play as Mega Man's edgelord chuuni nemesis Bass/Forte (first introduced in Mega Man 7). Since it's a portable iteration it's a little more compact than other games in the series with only six robot masters and a final showdown but makes up for it by giving Mega Man and Bass a different selection of weapons acquired from bosses and their own items to purchase in the game's interstitial shop.

Our developers Layup were, like Bandai, a toy and merchandizing company that broke into video game development after acquiring a game studio (in this case, Varie, which previously made 16-bit F1 racers). They worked with Bandai on several Game Boy and PlayStation licensed games (mostly Gundam-related) and naturally followed them over to the WonderSwan, where they were involved with Mirai kara no Chousensha and at least two others. Far as I know, they have nothing to do with basketball: more that the name was some Anglicized corpo speak that coincidentally sounded like a sweet two-pointer.

Chief issue with this game was one that plagued the other Game Boy and GBA Mega Mans also: the sprites are too big and the screen real estate too small and that makes avoiding enemy attacks or instant-death spikes so much harder than it needs to be. However, playing as Bass provided an unexpected benefit to the platforming sections that was offset by his relatively lacking damage output, which I found kinda backwards given Bass's whole "power is everything" vibe. Bass can't charge shots but he can fire in eight directions (actually just seven: he can't shoot straight down) but most vitally he has a double-jump, which really makes a lot of the trademark tough Mega Man stage hazards like disappearing platforms or pitfalls far easier to handle, not to mention being able to leap over most enemy projectiles (while firing diagonally down at them). Of course, the stage design has to be on board with this: many rooms in this game are very compact and don't leave a lot of room for maneuvering, forcing you to prioritize destroying enemies quickly while tanking their hits in the meanwhile. One benefit to this game is that it removes enemy post-hit invincibility, allowing you to apply a lot of damage in short succession, though the game compensates for that by giving enemies longer periods where they're temporarily indestructible due to some pattern or other. Bosses, for example, usually spend half the fight like this and unloading on them when they're in a transitory vulnerable state becomes that much more important a tactic.

The Mega Man 7 shop returns here, conferring a mixture of temporary boons and permanent upgrades provided you have the currency (which resemble screws) to afford them. An enhancement to his standard buster makes a huge difference for Bass, making it effective enough at eliminating bosses that you won't even need the weapons stolen from robot masters, while others are conveniences like doubling the effect of healing drops or ensuring all weapon recharge drops automatically apply to whatever needs them most. Speaking of the robot masters, we have four that are initially available after the tutorial fight against the "Grey Demon" (cute)—Dangan Man ("Bullet Man", and yes his associated RetroAchievement makes a B'z reference), Konro Man ("Portable Grill Man", like the ones you get for camping), Aircon Man (like Air Man, but breaks more often during the summer), and Komuso Man (Komuso doesn't have a direct translation but they're the monks that wear those basket helmet things you sometimes see in samurai fiction)—followed by two more (Clock Men, a twin fight that's similar to MM2's Flash Man, and Compass Man, a tough fight that requires targeting a very small hitbox) and then finally the game's doppelganger antagonist Mega Man Shadow. Aircon Man's stage is the only one that requires you switch to the WonderSwan's vertical mode: it almost seems like Bandai insisted every WS game incorporate that tech at least once, sort of like how early Nintendo DS games all required a stylus/touchscreen gimmick. Each stage has its own hazards and some are far harder than others (Aircon's was a nightmare, since it required navigating a room full of spikes while standing on a balloon) and they all have a mid-stage mini-boss that you need to defeat to activate the first checkpoint. The game's definitely on the tougher side, though having the shop available with its permanent upgrades does much to offset this higher challenge level especially as you keep any money earned after a game over and can always revisit completed stages for farming purposes. It could be that you feel you can't beat a boss just yet, but a little bit of cash farming and an upgrade later and maybe that'll change things.

I think I'm in the same boat here as I was with Kaze no Klonoa: Moonlight Museum in that you lose a lot trying to squeeze the game into this portable format but it's still fairly solid as far as its franchise goes and gets a lot of things right, even if it could feel constricting at times. Many appreciated QoL touches, like giving you a tiny grace period to jump away from spikes if an attack knocks you into them or the aforementioned keeping any earned currency upon a game over. I completed the game as Bass but could always go back and try it again as Mega, taking advantage of his slide and charge shots to approach stages and bosses differently. Since the site's a bit busy this week though, I think I'll just take the rare W I already have and keep on trucking with the rest of this entry's itinerary.

Time Spent: 2 hours and 40 minutes.

#022: Chou Denki Card Battle: Youfu Makai

"Super Romance Card Battle: Bewitchment Talisman of the Demon World" (maybe?)

• Developer: Kobunsha
• Publisher: Kobunsha
• Release Date: 1999-12-16
• Inscrutability: Major
• Selection Process: Random
• Is This Anime?: Close, but no.

Field Report: Chou Denki Card Battle is, as you might surmise from the name, a story-driven card battling game similar to Magic: The Gathering in which you and an opponent fight over a two-by-two grid by placing cards and powering them up, sending them to fight adjacent enemies. Fighter cards tend to depict people and monsters while enhancement cards might display weapons or magic. The game features the work of two notable talents: Hideyuki Kikuchi, the game's scenario writer who is best known for gothic horror manga like Vampire Hunter D, Darkside Blues, and Wicked City; and Ayami Kojima, an artist best known for her work on the Castlevania series (you probably figured as much just by looking at that cover art). The title took a while for me to take a stab at: it's almost all kanji (besides "Card Battle", which is katakana since it's in English) and Denki is "Romance" used in the same way as it is in Romance of the Three Kingdoms: more in the sense of a grandiose, exaggerated-for-drama retelling of a story rather than people making out. (This game may still have people making out though; I didn't get too far but it seems it'd be a waste not to given how attractive everyone is.)

Kobunsha is, like their similarly-named rivals Kodansha, primarily a magazine-publishing company that at some point briefly dabbled in game development. From what I understand most of their publications are aimed at a female audience, which may or may not have anything to do with the amount of sexy androgynous vampires in this game. This was the only game they ever developed that I can find (through a label called Kappa Games); they'd published a few others on WonderSwan though, including Flash Koibito-kun from our first entry.

I spent a little while with this but I couldn't really make heads nor tails of it, and I wasn't particularly keen on TCGs and deckbuilders to begin with. The art (and possibly the story, if I could read it) is the main draw here and there's a whole bunch of expressive character illustrations that feel like they belong to pre-existing Kikuchi properties. There's some sort of elemental bias in play—empty spaces on the playing field have little animations, sometimes a spooky face or a demon fetus, and they'll sometimes change after a card has been placed down—and occasionally the CPU will place a card and attack with it on the same turn, whereas I'm not sure how to do that so anything I place tends to get merked on the following CPU turn. There's a deckbuilding section on the main menu but I think you have to earn cards in the main scenario mode before you can put it to good use; there's also a CPU Versus mode which I suppose serves as a means of practicing with the deck you just built. I think if you were a big fan of Kikuchi's writing and worlds (or Kojima's art) this would be a strong draw, but I'm not versed enough in the genre nor equipped with the means to comprehend it to judge it qualitatively. Man, at this rate those at the top of the lower half of the ranking table will all be cases of "I couldn't understand what was going on but it looked pretty, at least?".

Time Spent: 10 minutes.

#023: Slither Link

• Developer: Tomcat System
• Publisher: Bandai
• Release Date: 2000-04-20
• Inscrutability: Minor
• Selection Process: Chosen (Prime Plus)
• Is This Anime?: Nope.

Field Report: Slither Link is a drawing-based logic puzzle originally available through print media that's similar to picross (gee, I wonder why I picked it) and Minesweeper. It has you drawing a circuitous line through a lattice of dots as directed by a series of number clues in the spaces between. A "3" would indicate that the four surrounding dots are connected by a total of three horizontal or vertical lines, for instance. Another factor is that the finished drawing will comprise of a single, unbroken loop that doesn't cross over anywhere and that information also factors into logically deducing where a line can and cannot be: a "1" in the corner means the line cannot pass around it, since that would involve at least two of its sides. As is often the case with visual puzzles like this, it's more intuitive when seen in action than it is explained verbally. Slither Link was invented by Japanese puzzle magazine publishers Nikoli, who are credited on the game's title screen, and this is the first game I'm aware of that uses both this puzzle type and this branding; it has since appeared in other puzzle games, such as Hudson's Puzzle Series for DS.

Tomcat System are contractors we've met once before with that Detective Conan game, Meitantei Conan: Nishi no Meitantei Saidai no Kiki!?, and will no doubt meet again on here. This is the only WonderSwan game of theirs that isn't attached to an anime license, though I suppose a copyrighted puzzle variant counts as a licensed game too.

Slither Link is... a lot. It's entirely driven by logic where you're constantly narrowing down possibilities until only one remains, picking up new techniques (of the "well, this can't be here because of this" sort of variety) the more you play. However, it's also kind of boring. The "drawings" that are created whenever you finish a puzzle don't resemble an actual picture of anything and are invariably instead big squiggly lines that aren't much to look at. It's rewarding to finally reach the end of a puzzle but only in the sense that the puzzle is finally over; I don't get the feeling you do with picross where you have something to show for it at the end. Granted, most puzzle types are in a similar boat where the end result just looks like "a completed puzzle" and nothing else, so I'm not sure what my real dissatisfaction is with the game. Could just be it's better suited for an incremental session type of approach rather than the marathons I tend to embark on here. I'll say that it is a little exciting to realize some new logical process to help narrow down possibilities and start applying it everywhere, only to hit a harder puzzle that needs another leap of the same magnitude.

The UI is pretty good: mistakes only penalize you by removing ten seconds from the countdown timer, and since they start at around 30-40 minutes (and you'll probably need half that) it's not a significant punishment. You have a button for lines and a button for crosses (for when you've determined no line can go there) and there's an odd feature where you have to press a different button to "confirm" a completed puzzle rather than it resolving itself automatically once the last correct line has been placed. I can't say the repetitive music really appealed but the presentation is otherwise fairly slick and clean, which is really all you can ask for in a puzzle game like this. I've completed the first set of ten but I'm not sure if this will be something I keep coming back to like O-chan no Oekaki Logic. Even so, for as dull as it can be it also has a similar "Zen mode" vibe as both picross and Minesweeper where, once you know all the tricks and processes, you can just let your higher consciousness wander while the puzzle-solving half of your brain trucks along on auto-pilot.

Time Spent: An hour and forty-five minutes.

#024: Side Pocket for WonderSwan

• Developer: Data East
• Publisher: Data East
• Release Date: 1999-11-25
• Inscrutability: Minor
• Selection Process: Random
• Is This Anime?: Nope. I couldn't even name an anime based on pool.

Field Report: Side Pocket is one of Data East's better-known arcade games—a fairly traditional top-down pool game following "9-Ball" rules with a smoky metropolitan pool hall sort of vibe to its few presentational elements, usually seen as small animations in the top corner of the screen (which this version lacks due to space limitations). Wikipedia suggests that later versions of the game were a deliberate homage to The Color of Money, a popular pool hustling movie released the same year as the original arcade game (1986) that also heavily featured 9-Ball. Later home versions of Side Pocket saw various enhancements taken from its lewd Pocket Gal spin-offs, which introduced (among other things) a trick shot bonus round feature. The WonderSwan was the last to see a bespoke port of Side Pocket, just a mere thirteen years after the game's original release.

This would be the other Data East property that found its way onto this system after Magical Drop for WonderSwan which we covered in the very first episode of this feature. Accounts suggest Data East developed this one themselves rather than relying on a third-party contractor (the Magical Drop port was handled by Gai Brain). Most (though not all) of Data East's properties have now passed to mobile game publishers G-Mode, who occasionally rerelease them on iOS, Android, and Switch. They've yet to do so for Side Pocket though, nor its FMV-tastic sequel Minnesota Fats: Pool Legend.

I opted for the main "Hasuraa" mode (I guess that's "Hustler") and was put into consecutive games against every one of the selectable players—Tony, Pole (yikes), and Misa—as the stylish, androgynous Riho. After defeating all three of them, I was challenged by a woman in a croupier's uniform called Cue (and that's usually a bad sign, playing pool against someone with a pool-associated nickname). She kinda sucked though, as indeed did everyone else, which meant my slightly less sucky pool skills led to yet another Anyway, Here's WonderSwan Win™ in just over half an hour. As has been the case with a few of these black and white WonderSwan games, some issues crop up when the original depended on colors and a higher resolution. Specifically, in 9-Ball you're meant to aim for each numbered ball in order: hard to do that when the ball sprites are too small to display numbers and too monochrome to let their distinct colors be your guide instead. Fortunately, there's a toggle you can press that switches the ball sprites with their numbers, and when starting the player's turn the directional marker is always pointing directly at the next ball (though there may still be other balls in the way, which won't help narrow down which is which).

I couldn't tell you if the physics were accurate but I'd say they felt correct enough: I didn't run into cases where the balls ricocheted off each other at wild angles nor did I ever feel like I was betrayed by the game's dinky UI due to a missed shot. It also won't let you instantly lose the game if you pot the 9-ball on a foul: it'll just be set back on the table in its initial spot (neither I nor any of my opponents potted the 9 after hitting the correct ball in the sequence; that's sometimes a quick way to win 9-Ball, but I couldn't verify it this time). Despite the graphical limitations of the platform and only four opponents to play against, this seems like a perfectly functional pocket pool game. Well, of the type of pocket pool that is permissible to play in public anyway.

Time Spent: 30 minutes.

#025: Hanjuku Hero: Aa, Sekaiyo Hanjukunare...!

"Soft-Boiled Hero: Let the World Become Soft-Boiled!"

• Developer: Sting Entertainment
• Publisher: Squaresoft
• Release Date: 2002-02-14
• Inscrutability: Major
• Selection Process: Partially Random (Square Squared Settlement)
• Is This Anime?: I wish.

Field Report: Hanjuku Hero is one of Square's lesser known properties outside of Japan, filled as it is with reference humor and parodic elements that would probably be a hard sell (and a hard thing to localize) overseas. It plays similarly to Quest's Ogre Battle franchise (which, of course, would eventually become a Squaresoft property too) in that troops move around a map in real-time as directed by the player and get into automated battles whenever they encounter an enemy troop or garrison. Many of these units have to be hatched from eggs first, explaining the title. Aa, Sekaiyo Hanjukunare...! is actually the second game in the franchise though the first to hit the 16-bit era: as a result, many of its parody characters homage the first 16-bit Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy IV. This WonderSwan Color port adds a bunch of content by way of new units to recruit as well as some graphical enhancements.

Developers Sting Entertainment dabbled in contract work for a while before settling on RPGs as their chief output, creating Treasure Hunter G (the last SFC game Squaresoft ever published), the Dreamcast's Evolution: The World of Sacred Device and its sequel, and the action-RPG roguelike Baroque before moving onto their "Dept. Heaven" series of dense anime strategy-RPGs with evocative names like Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone and Knights in the Nightmare. They also frequently work with other RPG developers like Square, Atlus, Idea Factory, and Compile Heart and remain active to this day, remastering their older games for current consoles and cooperating on other projects. Sting and Square had built up a rapport by the early '00s after collaborating on Treasure Hunter G, and the two also worked together on another WonderSwan port of a SFC Squaresoft RPG that we'll probably cover before too long.

Yeah, this isn't something I'm going to be able to navigate without a translation. After a lengthy intro in which the slovenly prince gets reprimanded by a long-suffering chancellor for sleeping too much and being too lax with his combat training, the castle is suddenly infiltrated by some manner of lady demon and suddenly we're at war with all our neighbors. As stated, it uses an Ogre Battle system where troops are told where to go and very slowly make their way over there, giving players enough of a window to change or reverse course if something troublesome starts wandering towards your capital. However, the battles aren't entirely automatic: while the two troops kind of slam against each other in an unconvincing manner (this is a comedy game, after all) the player can actually spend some of a finite "power" bar to increase the impact when the two sides connect, increasing their damage output. It needs accurate timing to get much use out of it but it can make a significant difference: sort of similar to how Mario RPGs put a lot of weight (as it were) into timed hits whenever Mario leaps on an enemy. You have a limited number of troop commanders and units both: units can't go forward without a commander, and you start with only four. I didn't see anyone levelling up but maybe that's done post-battle.

I hit an interval in the first foray and was faced with a whole bunch of menus, the idea being that this is the time when I can replenish troops and maybe heal or replace any lost commanders, but it was a bit too intimidating so I bailed. You generate money over time by taking settlements, Advance Wars style, and I'd quickly captured two other castles which probably gave me plenty to raise enough of an army to conquer the rest. Since I had no idea what I was buying however I decided to chicken out instead. Seemed apropos for a game about eggs. If I were more an RTS guy that liked the Ogre Battle games, and could follow what was going on, I've no doubt this would be a fun game to figure out especially once the silly FF4-related jokes started showing up. Maybe something about the brave prince hero happily sacrificing a pair of kindergartner twins. It's pretty much the only Squaresoft SNES RPG without either a fan translation or an official one though, so... whether that says something about the game's quality or if it's a software incompatibility issue or the challenges inherent in localizing Japanese humor I couldn't tell you. (Hey, they wouldn't have bothered to port it to WonderSwan if it sucked though.)

Time Spent: 10 minutes.

Current Ranking

(* = Don't need fluent Japanese to enjoy this and/or it has a fan translation.)

1. O-Chan no Oekaki Logic (Ep 4)*
2. Rockman & Forte: Mirai kara no Chousensha (Ep 5)*
3. Kaze no Klonoa: Moonlight Museum (Ep 3)*
4. Final Fantasy (Ep 4)*
5. Rainbow Islands: Putty's Party (Ep 4)*
6. Flash Koibito-Kun (Ep 1)*
7. Magical Drop for WonderSwan (Ep 1)*
8. Slither Link (Ep 5)*
9. Gunpey (Ep 2)*
10. Judgement Silversword -Rebirth Edition- (Ep 1)*
11. Side Pocket for WonderSwan (Ep 5)*
12. Final Lap Special (Ep 2)*
13. Densha de Go! (Ep 2)
14. Gomoku Narabe & Reversi Touryuumon (Ep 3)*
15. Guilty Gear Petit (Ep 3)*
16. Hanjuku Hero: Aa, Sekaiyo Hanjukunare...! (Ep 5)
17. Blue Wing Blitz (Ep 3)
18. Beatmania for WonderSwan (Ep 4)*
19. Super Robot Taisen Compact for WonderSwan Color (Ep 3)
20. Inuyasha: Fuuun Emaki (Ep 1)
21. Chou Denki Card Battle: Youfu Makai (Ep 5)
22. Shin Nihon Pro Wrestling: Toukon Retsuden (Ep 4)
23. Meitantei Conan: Nishi No Meitantei Saidai No Kiki!? (Ep 2)
24. Metakomi Therapy: Nee Kiite! (Ep 2)
25. SD Gundam Eiyuuden: Musha Densetsu (Ep 1)