Sayonara Umihara Kawase (Nintendo 3DS) Review

By Rudy Lavaux 23.05.2014

Review for Sayonara Umihara Kawase on Nintendo 3DS

As Cubed3 readers will probably know, the team does love our Japan-exclusive games. Who could deny that Japan keeps the goods for themselves far too often, and leaves the West with only a fraction of their great titles? This trend may indeed have lessened in recent years, but in the days of the NES and SNES, this was almost unbearable, even more so when games that wouldn't have required any big amount of translation could have perfectly fitted into the Western market! Umihara Kawase for the Super Famicom is one such title. Starring the titular school girl protagonist, the game was a fun platform game with a unique twist, the kind of which wasn't seen often in the midst of the outburst of mascot platform games that got released during the tail-end of the 16-bit era. That game would remain condemned to obscurity outside of its homeland, where it gathered a cult following over the years, prompting the marketing of loads of merchandise, right down to phone cards. The game even saw a sequel on the original PlayStation a few years later, which eventually got ported to the PSP, to mixed reviews... and both games saw an ultimate release on the Nintendo DS, combined on one single cartridge, along with plenty of bonus content and a much more faithful recreation of the original gameplay than what was available on the PSP. None of these ever saw the light of day outside of Japan. For the final instalment, however - on 3DS -Natsume took on publishing duties for the North American market, now as a download-exclusive title, releasing it under the title Yumi's Odd Odyssey, while Agatsuma Entertainment released the same game on the European eShop under its original Japanese name a month later.

Similar to the rest of the franchise, the plot or narrative of the game is not to be found in any very explicit way inside the software itself. In this case, it is not even to be found in the digital manual that comes with the game. It is, however, generally accepted that in each game of the series, the action takes place inside of Kawase's dreams. How much this explains the fishes having feet and walking on the ground, giant tadpoles laying tiny frog eggs (instead of the other way round) and what the deal is with these giant vegetables being found all over the place, is left to the imagination of those people consuming illicit substances.

The goal of the game is fairly simple: to exit Kawase's dream world! To do so, level after level of platform action must be traversed. There is a catch, though - stages may sometimes have more than just one exit, and different exits lead to different levels that may or may not be reached at all, going a different way! There are about 50 stages in total, and yet the end may be reached in no less than 10 stages, depending on the path that is chosen. This is identical in concept to how the two previous games in the series worked. In this 3DS instalment, however, the player has access to a map, clearly indicating what stages hold more than one exit and keeping the general structure of the game clear, whereas in the past, this was purposefully kept obscure so has to incite the player to explore.

Screenshot for Sayonara Umihara Kawase on Nintendo 3DS

Moreover, the player no longer has a limited amount of lives, and is not required to play through the whole game in one sitting as it saves progress in-between each stage, making it more suitable for the kind of short and quick "pick-up-and-play" sessions that are associated with portable gaming devices.

The main and distinctive aspect that sets the Umihara Kawase franchise apart from all other platform games has to be its gameplay. Kawase, or any of the other playable characters as there are several in this particular release, is equipped with a fishing line and lure, which she may throw towards walls, ground and ceiling surfaces to "hook" onto them, and swing herself in the air. This is not all there is to it as this would only make it a simple Bionic Commando rip-off of some sorts, and there is far more versatility to this basic mechanic to be found in the game. It can be used to safely lower the playable character down the edge of platforms or to swing across deadly gaps and, even as she is hanging by the fishing line, she has the power to lengthen or shorten the line as it swings, increasing the momentum and making it possible to pull off the most improbable stunts. Very early on in the game, the player's mastery of this gameplay mechanic is put to the test with the aforementioned, hard to reach, secondary exits, opening up entire portions of the game otherwise inaccessible.

Screenshot for Sayonara Umihara Kawase on Nintendo 3DS

This is far easier said than done. Mastering the mechanics of the game requires a great deal of practice. This was true in previous episodes of the game, and this is still very much true in this one. Sayonara UmiharaKawase doesn't pull any punches with the difficulty, throwing hard-to-reach platforms and collectable objects the player's way very early on in the game. Indeed, the collectable pink rucksacks from past instalments are back and this time they are not extra lives but merely collectable objects. This is a side-challenge to the main game, as there is a certain amount of those to collect in each stage, for those who fancy themselves as completionists. One thing that is a bit regrettable is the impossibility to see the whole stage to look for them, as was possible in the original game by pausing the action and scrolling with the D-Pad, and at least in the DS version of Umihara Kawase Shun by looking at the bottom screen that had a mini map of the whole stage.

Another neat feature of the game, which was already present as early as in the Super Famicom game, is the possibility to save replays of stages. Some levels require such shows of dexterity and skill that it would indeed be a shame to not be able to keep a memory of them inside the game itself, and even back on the Super Famicom the makers of the game had understood this. This is still possible here, and the game even makes it possible for newcomers to watch a tutorial video for the first ten stages to familiarise themselves with the basic techniques necessary to see the adventure through to the end.

Screenshot for Sayonara Umihara Kawase on Nintendo 3DS

Completely new to this version, however, is the online leader board, prompting the most avid players to challenge themselves to finish the stages faster than anyone else on the planet! Another neat addition to this episode is character selection. There are several playable characters, the main one still being Kawase, while the other ones have some special power making progressing through the game a bit easier, such as slowing down time or gaining a checkpoint at certain locations within the stages from where the player may start again, should they fail.

The difficulty itself may be off-putting, though. Potential buyers should not let the childish aesthetic of the game give them an impression that the game will not present any big challenge, as this is simply not the case at all. Sayonara UmiharaKawase is a concentration of pure masochistic fun, not so far off from the likes of Super Meat Boy or I Wanna be the Guy for PC, although the biggest difference is that the difficulty comes more from mastering the controls themselves than from level design or environmental hazards. With that out of the way, however, it should be stressed that the difficulty to master the controls does not mean that they are bad - quite the contrary. It only means that they defy standards and sweep players off their feet in a sense by using mechanics most are simply not used to. Playing the game long enough to understand them and watching the tutorial videos should take people by the hand just enough so that they do not give up out of frustration.

Screenshot for Sayonara Umihara Kawase on Nintendo 3DS

Cubed3 Rating

9/10
Rated 9 out of 10

Exceptional - Gold Award

Rated 9 out of 10

Sayonara UmiharaKawase represents an amalgamation of rare occurrences in the history of the video game market. Not only is it an obscure Japanese-exclusive series that never really gathered any huge sales in its homeland finally arriving in the West, but it is also a side-scrolling platform game with a cool twist to it that has not already been done countless times before it and which offers just the right dose of craziness to keep things interesting and fresh until the game is seen through. Add to all of this the fact that it does not fall into the trap of modernity that consists of making pretty much all new generations of games easier to play than the previous ones. This game does, indeed, require mastery and skill to even be completed, and this might take a lot of training before this can be achieved. Side-scrolling platform games with this much originality that are not indie projects are not seen too often these days, and it's a wonder that the creators of the original games from twenty years ago could be gathered again to create another, and probably last, faithful episode in this series that Western players have been missing out on for the last two decades. Agatsuma Entertainment, who produced the game themselves for the Japanese market in the first place, have to be commended for making it possible for European gamers to get their hands on this, after already doing so for Code of Princess. The same goes for Natsume in North America.

Also known as

Yumi's Odd Odyssey

Developer

Agatsuma

Publisher

Agatsuma

Genre

2D Platformer

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

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