🐧 Received: October 8th, 2022 🐧
🐧 Written: February 14th-March 23rd, 2024 🐧
Alternate Title: Hebereke's Popoitto [ ◯ ]
Year: 1995 | Developed by: Success | Published by: Sunsoft | [ ⬤ ]Hello, gamers and readers alike, welcome to my blog and thank you for taking the time to tune in today, I really appreciate it!
Originally Hebe the albino penguin and O-Chan the girl in a cat costume, while retaining their color palettes, were altered to an overall-wearing googly-eyed snowman named Bop-Louie and a male lizard named Freeon-Leon respectively while the sunglasses-wearing red winged cap-donning ghost Sukezaemon and green anthropomorphic angler fish Jennifer retained their designs but were renamed Shades and Gil outside Japan, for the first game alone
In 1991, Japan received a game called Hebereke (for which the name derives from the colloquialism of "drunk" and "untrustworthy"), a nonlinear sidescrolling adventure game released by Sunsoft on the Famicom in the vein of Nintendo's Metroid except it was quirky and surreal. Featuring characters designed by Ryōji Uchimichi and Yokkyun Suzuki, this game was created at a point in time when developers were in need of a mascot to represent them, with the albino penguin with a blue snowcap and white bon-bon named Hebe fitting that bill and was Sunsoft's attempt to start a franchise of their own. It would be localized a year later for the European NES market as Ufouria: The Saga which made a few alterations (including two of the main characters) but had nonetheless kept the surreal quirkiness intact. There were plans to release it in North America, but attitudes and mindsets at the time compounded with the unprecedented quirkiness factor prevented that from happening.
Image from the Hebereke Wiki fan website
Now if I had to hazard a guess as to why Sunsoft reneged on their initial changes, it's because of the cameo appearances Sukezaemon, Hebe, O-Chan, and Jennifer made on Sunsoft's 1992 Sega MegaDrive/Genesis adaptation of DMA Design's puzzle-strategy classic Lemmings in Sunsoft Special Level 18 where Hirohiko Takayama's take on the memorable Hebereke theme played in the background (presuming one made it that far at the time). Thus, Hebe and O-Chan were here to stay (Bop-Louie and Freeon-Leon were no longer needed) even if the game in question got localized in the PAL gaming region. Again, this is pure conjecture.
Image from MobyGames
Less than a year later in 1994, Hebereke no Popūn would be given an arcade formatted treatment developed by Success, a Shinawgawa, Tokyo-based Japanese company founded in 1978 whom are largely known for their work on the Cotton cute'em up franchise. This version of the game only saw a release in Japan and only came out in limited quantity.
Images from GameFAQs
The Hebereke franchise would make its grand foray on the Sega Saturn console with Popoitto Hebereke, which was programmed by Yasushi Sugiyama (who also maintained the game's balance) and Tomohide Ōshiro, debugged by Masanori Sadamitsu, with Akito Takeuchi and Akihiro Asada acting as technical advisers, and development managed by Masato Kawai, Tatsuo Mori, and Hiroshi Ito. Developed by Success in their second and last contribution to the franchise, the series' latest puzzler was released by Sunsoft in Japan on March 3rd, 1995 and would be followed by a European PAL release that December as Hebereke's Popoitto. After the Sega release it would also make its way to the PlayStation One and Nintendo 16-bit formats, with the former's Japanese edition being titled Popoitto Station Hebereke and the latter being worked on by Sunsoft themselves. This review will exclusively focus on the original Saturn release.
Left: Meeting up with O-Chan | Right: She senses a familiarity within Hebe
In the falling block puzzler Popoitto Hebereke, the blue snowcap-wearing albino penguin Hebe has found himself wandering off into a strange world (again) and meets up with his friends O-Chan, Sukezaemon, and Jennifer, who are all here under similar pretenses.
Left: "Readyyyyy? 😺 Stahto!" | Right: *POP*
When the stage starts you'll be shown a preview each time of the two cojoined Popoons that you must drop down on the playing field which you can maneuver to the left and to the right, speed up the dropping process by holding down, and rotate them counterclockwise by pressing the B button or clockwise by pressing the A button instead. Scattered all around are Popoons of varying colors, for you must align four or more of the same colors in order to clear those out and you can do that either vertically, horizontally, or in any adjoining manner depending on how they've been laid out. Each stage has also got three sets of poro-porous, color-coded blobs shaped like character faces, where the main objective is to eliminate the requisite amount until the count is down to zero for all three of them, in which case you'll be
Left: Bobodori trying to fly while Utsujin is flying around in his saucer just as you popped a chain | Right: "I won!"
given access to the next level. But don't think it is as simple as that, for unlike the Popoons which remain in their position the poro-porous have a tendency to move left and right if not up and down (and vice versa). Once in a while there'll be flashing Popoons that you can maneuver in the playing field which can be dropped and applied to any color given the scenario (sometimes it'll come in one half of the cojoined Popoons and in other times it might be both at once). The rate of speed at which you can drop the Popoons always starts out slow yet manageable at the beginning of each level, but over time it will increase which will make them a little less easy to control as they drop down at a quicker rate. Should the middle two columns be completely stacked to the top, the game is over, at which point you'll be given nine seconds to choose whether to continue or not.
Left: "At this point it will take you 256,000,000,000 years to defeat me. Ha ha ha ha!" 😸 | Right: Sukezaemon's turn to be battled now
Popoitto Hebereke is a very appealing and endearingly colorful game to look at, for the series' first Sega Saturn appearance graphic designers Teruko Ui, Takayuki Machida, Masafumi Kon, and Naoki Kobayashi have all done a very good job at converting Ryōji Uchimichi's iconic world and characters to 32-bit console format. Before engaging in the falling block puzzling match there is a brief cutscene where two characters interact with one another on what resembles a stage with theatrical curtains (where at the bottom are shadowy silhouettes
Left: Look at that blue Popoon chain inflating | Right: Another chain gets popped
of Hebe and company in the audience who appear to be watching themselves) with very well-drawn backdrops. When confronting O-Chan you're inside her castle with a grand staircase and statues devoted to her as a line of the creampuff enemies from the first game walk past during Hebe and O-Chan's conversation, at Sukezaemon's place is a beautiful night sky with a castle seen far off in the distance, when meeting up with Jennifer underwater there are fishes swimming above as the characters are standing on the warmly-colored sand bed, and Pen-Chan's location is set in the arctic tundra with a penguin-shaped house, to name some
Left: Welp, no reasoning with Jennifer, I suppose... | Right: Green Popoon/poro-poro chain
examples. During the game's matches you see the character you're currently challenging filling up the dark blue playing field, with the monochromatic field slowly and subtly changing colors depending on whether you've popped one or more chains (yellow) or if you're dangerously close to stacking just enough Popoons to reach the top (red). For each stage every character has got their own distinctive HUD window, such as Sukezaemon with his nighttime castle and the crescent moon hanging above, Bobodori with his spotted egg resting
Left: Yellow Popoon/poro-poro chain | Right: Utsujin yawning above
on its nest, Pen-Chan with the igloo and calming aurora borealis in the sky, and Unyohn with his dilapidated abode with a crumbled statue devoted to him. What I love the most about this game visually are how Uchimichi's characters will randomly pop up at the bottom of the screen as things roll along doing random activities thereby enlivening these stages, and while it might not be a wise idea to divert your attention from the core gameplay to them, you can
Left: Connecting four blue Popoon and a poro-poro of Hebe together | Right: That strained expression on the green Popoons, they know what's coming...
fortunately still watch them in action even when the game is paused. As small as the Popoons and poro-porous are they're pleasant to look at (at points they'll occasionally blink), and whenever you connect four or more of the same color they expand and inflate to the point that they pop. The level of detail on their faces is briefly seen before the tipping point, and the manner in which they pop is simple yet effective.
Left: The crowd is there below with Hebe, Bobodori, Sukezaemon, and O-Chan | Right: Jennifer is smiling, and the playing field temporarily shifted color from dark blue to brownish yellow
Popoitto Hebereke's music was composed by veteran Success composer Kenichi Hirata, marking the second musical contribution he made to the Hebereke series after the coin-op edition of Hebereke no Popūn less than a year prior.
Left: "I'll help get your egg back, after you defeat me" (man, Hebe's a dick! 😐) | Right: O-Chan refusing to watch her own face blow up alongside the orange Popoon chain
Hirata's soundtrack is very endearing and energetic for it does an affable job at complementing the quirky and surreal nature of the Hebereke universe. The title theme is welcoming and bouncily lighthearted, the main menu theme is relaxing, the map theme is short but sweet, and the theme for when the characters interact with one another during the cutscenes has got a slow tempo but is nonetheless an engrossing and engaging listen. There
Left: Sukezaemon almost dropping his sunglasses from his face | Right: *poppity pop*
are five different stage themes, and they are all pleasant to listen to in their own right: the first one is simple yet bouncy, the second one is engagingly energetic, the third one has got a fun bubbly melody, the fourth one is highly approachable and easy on the ears for it is among my favorite tracks in the game, and the final theme for when you face off against Hebe's clone has got a relentlessly foreboding do or die quality about it. The moment you're dangerously
Left: Lavender purple Popoon chain | Right: Only two Bobodori poro-porous remain to take out
close to reaching the top, however, any one of these five themes will briefly be replaced by this pressure-inducing dangerous cue until you clear enough Popoons that there is an acceptable amount of space, the continue theme is surreal and atmospheric, and the ending theme is bouncily rewarding and celebratory to listen to and in my opinion is a fantastic way to cap off this game. When inserting the game disc inside a CD player it doubles as a soundtrack, which I'm glad about because I like this game's music. 😄
I certainly got more mileage and enjoyability from listening to Hirata's Popoitto Hebereke soundtrack over the one composed by Noriaki Urata, Kazuo Nii, and Hiroshi Tsukamoto for Hebereke no Popūn. The Hebereke franchise has got an overall enjoyable quality when it comes to the music, but that 16-bit venue's aggressive techno beats never really did it for me personally as I consider it to have the weakest soundtrack of the bunch.
Left: When Sunsoft's albino penguin mascot meets up with the girl in a penguin costume, an encounter for the ages | Right: 😟 You ... made Pen-Chan cry!! Jennifer, you barsteward, what do you have to say for yourself? 😠
Since 1993, the series' four voice actors--Megumi Hayashibara (best known for lending Sanrio icon Hello Kitty her voice from 1990 until 2023) as Hebe and Pen-Chan, Mika Kanai (who's been the voice of Jigglypuff in HAL Laboratory's Super Smash Bros. franchise circa 1999) as O-Chan, Sigma Seven-affiliated veteran actor Norio Wakamoto as Sukezaemon and Utsujin and Unyohn, and Shigeru Chiba (who acted as mentor to Hayashibara and like Wakamoto has got a long list of credits, including the voice of Hyness in HAL Laboratory's 2018 Nintendo Switch platformer Hoshi no Kābi: Star Allies/Kirby Star Allies) as Jennifer
Left: A darker-shaded playing field as Popoon and/or poro-porous are being popped | Right: A horizontal chain popped, and Utsujin appears too winded to notice down there...
and Bobodori--have all taken on their respective roles starting from the Super Famicom puzzler Hebereke no Popūn. The thing is, in the case of Popoitto Hebereke you don't really hear their voices when it comes to single player mode (despite being credited), with the exceptions being Hayashibara's "Readyyyyy? Stahto!", when a match has been won, and in the game over screen as she counts down from nine to zero (to which she announces "game over" should you choose not to continue). Some of the other voice clips (also spoken by Hayashibara), mainly pertaining to two player mode, can be heard in the game's sound test.
Left: O-Chan goes "mrow~" | Right: Yet another 2-combo just as Jennifer has spewed out something
In the options screen you can alter the controls for rotating the Popoons to the right if you so choose, listen to the sound test, choose whether to enable or disable the diagonal move, choose the number of Popoons to withstand (the default number being 4), and toggle the level setting anywhere from 1 to 20 (if you're playing for the first time, I recommend starting at the lowest setting and making your way from there) as each setting requires a varying number of poro-porous to eliminate. If you allow the Popoons to touch the top edge in the middle, the match is over and you'll bear witness to all the Popoons and the poro-porous pop all the way from the upper left to the bottom right in a mesmerizingly colorful display.
Sunsoft did have plans to give this title a localized European release as "Oh-Chan's Logic" but it got cancelled, a decision most likely influenced by the fact that the Western version of Jupiter and Ape's classic Game Boy title Mario no Picross (Mario's Picross, which also came out in 1995) had a very disappointing sales figure to the point that Nintendo (and other firms) wouldn't localize any more nonogram games for the next dozen years--in their eyes, Western gamers simply weren't ready for these kinds of games yet, which otherwise made a mad profit in native Japan
O-Chan no Oekaki Logic, a nonogram-based puzzler spinoff featuring the puzzle-loving girl in a cat costume O-Chan as she travels through the world in her quest to rescue her albino penguin friend Hebe as she witnessed him being abducted by the cat in the alien costume Utsujin. First coming out on the PlayStation One, it would also come out for the Sega Saturn and on the Super Famicom. This would be the first time Mika Kanai (O-Chan's voice actress) would receive top billing in the series as opposed to second billing like in the past.
Screengrabbed while watching SUNSOFT's Ufouria: The Saga 2 Official Announcement Trailer video on YouTube; watch out for the Popoon hiding under your bed, Hebe!!
It was the last game made for the Hebereke franchise for the next twenty years, that is until Sunsoft made a surprise announcement several months back of Hebe and friends making a comeback with the recently released 2024 vehicle Hebereke 2, the sequel to the 1991 sidescrolling action-adventure Nintendo 8-bit classic, which would adopt the name Ufouria: The Saga 2 in the West published by Red Art Games (except Hebe and O-Chan and all the original names remain intact) on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X. It is the first new game in the series with "Hebereke" in the title to come out in less than 30 years after Popoitto Hebereke way back in 1995.
Left: That pop was so loud it made Pen-Chan fall on her behind | Right: Adjacent green Popoon chain, gone!
Popoitto Hebereke's reception was generally positive on the whole at the time across all three platforms, but not everyone was impressed: Famitsu magazine awarded the Sunsoft-developed Super Famicom version a 20 out of 40 (a whole 6 points less than they gave Hebereke in 1991) which is harsh, Famitsu PS was a little more lenient when it came to Success' PlayStation version Popoitto Station Hebereke and gave the 32-bit edition a 25 out of 40, Total! magazine gave it a 3- out of 5, but Play magazine gave the Sony edition the
Left: Dangerously overflowing backed up by an ominously red playing field | Right: Well, too late to whip out your hammer now, Sukezaemon, Pen-Chan just won
worst verdict with a 43% rating, fortunately it got praise from other outlets such as British-based Sega Saturn Magazine which gave the original Saturn release by Success a 68%*, the French-based Player One gave both the Sega and Sony editions of the game an 82%, Super Power gave the Nintendo 16-bit edition a 90%, and Super Play awarded the 16-bit release an 86% and placed it at number 98 in their January 1996 Top 100 best SFC/SNES list.
* They made a big blunder, however, in referring to it as "Hebereke's Popoon", which itself was never given a Sega Saturn release, instead of its actual European name Hebereke's Popoitto
Left: Narrowly dodged UFO attack 🛸 | Right: Utsujin getting his just reward
Outside of Japan the Hebereke franchise only ever received limited exposure in Europe at the time with Ufouria: The Saga on the NES, Hebereke's Popoon on the SNES, and Hebereke's Popoitto on the Sega Saturn, PlayStation One, and SNES formats.
Sugoi Hebereke marked Sunsoft's foray into the fighting genre, and was the second name the yonkoma comics starring Ryōji Uchimichi's characters adopted in 1993 (with "sugoi" translating to "amazing")
The rest, which all explored different genres--the fighting game Sugoi Hebereke, the interactive board game/puzzler Hebereke no Oishii Puzzle wa Irimasenka, the racing game Hashire Hebereke, and the nonogram-based O-Chan no Oekaki puzzle games--alas, remained exclusive to Japan*. Back when the series was still active, Sunsoft worked on Hebereke no Pair Pair Wars, a mahjong-styled puzzler in the vein of Activision's Shanghai franchise, which was destined for the Neo Geo and slated for a 1996 release but ultimately ended up being the only game in the franchise to not be given a release.* 4/11/24 Update: Sugoi Hebereke did remain Japan-exclusive until April 11th, 2024 when Sunsoft decided to release it on the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service in the West, how timely it is that it should occur on the year of its 30th anniversary~ 🥳
With the exception of the aforementioned cameo Ryōji Uchimichi's characters and Hebereke theme made in Sunsoft's 1992 Sega Genesis port of DMA Design's Lemmings (which was Hebe and company's first time appearing on a Sega format), absolutely none of the games got released in the North American market. That changed in 2010 when Sunsoft digitally rereleased Ufouria: The Saga on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console, and yet again in 2014 on the Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console. I downloaded the game on the latter's Virtual Console service back in 2015 and found it for the most part to be enjoyable. Upon learning more about Hebereke and the franchise, I was genuinely curious about trying the other games.
Left: Popped two Popoon/poro-poro chains in a row | Right: Strained purple Popoon faces
On the month of April 2022, sometime after I turned 31, I made a crazy decision to invest on an American Sega Saturn console as well as my first game for the system Sega's Clockwork Knight on eBay (using up all the gift cards I had at my disposal at that point). After personally enjoying that game (and becoming a happy Saturn owner), I wanted to catch up on more titles for it little by little (but within reason, of course). By the time mid-September arrived I owned ten games for the system and made a personal log of my journey with two Random Saturnday posts in June and in September 2022, with the latest purchase being
Left: The blue Popoons' eyes are bulging as they're literally expanding | Right: Long vertical chain popped
Sega's puzzler Baku Baku Animal: World Zookeeper Contest. A known fact about the Sega Saturn is that roughly 25% of its overall library only ever got released outside of Japan (due to Sega's legendary mismanagement of how they handled the system). Every once in a while, I would look up the near-complete list of games released for the console to see if any one of them would pique my interest, and a good number of games I was curious about were Japan-exclusive. After ten North American Saturn games, I felt I was ready for Japanese gaming, but there was one snag: I didn't yet have the means to play those as the console was region locked. I knew there was a particular cartridge that helped bypass it, and I wanted to double-check on the Action Replay Plus and its capacity. While on vacation in Italy in October, I
Left: Adjacent blue Popoons and Hebe poro-porous reaching their limit | Right: Pops followed by starbursts
knew I wanted an Action Replay Plus but I didn't wish to order it alone as I figured (just like I did with Clockwork Knight and the North American Saturn console) that I wanted to start small by getting it with a reasonably priced game. When I saw Popoitto Hebereke, I knew I wanted to give it a go. By the time my family and I returned home, both the Action Replay Plus and Popoitto Hebereke had arrived, but I was a little cautious before trying it because there was always the possibility that it might not work. Luckily, I had nothing to be concerned about, for it worked like a charm, and was thrilled to play my first physical Japanese Saturn game and eleventh Sega Saturn game overall (which I briefly shared my thoughts on in the first of my two-part Random Saturnday III back in February 2023). 😄
Left: Unyohn may gloat and/or laugh maniacally all he wishes, Sukezaemon will prevail! | Right: That said, Unyohn has got a refreshingly nice orange-colored background
I love puzzlers, they are my third favorite video game genre, and Popoitto Hebereke in my opinion was a good and consistently enjoyable game in the genre. I admit it took me a tiny bit to figure out how to play it, and after having struggled with the default 11 level setting I wisely decided to set it down to 1 and picked up from there all the way to 20. Learning the ins and outs made it very fun, and I ended up finding it a pleasantly worthwhile installment.
In terms of how this game is laid out, it does follow a similar pattern to Hebereke no Popūn in that you meet up with and face off against characters in the same order but how both titles go about it are different: in the earlier puzzler it was only Hebe that talked to each opponent, but in Popoitto Hebereke sometimes the opponents were engaged by O-Chan or Sukezaemon or Jennifer instead leading to very colorfully amusing conversations between
Left: Unyohn, get popped! | Right: A nice detail is that the starry burst effect shares the same color as the chain of Popoons you just connected together
As far as the gameplay was concerned, I honestly found Popoitto Hebereke to be a far more compelling title to play. With the fact that the poro-porous move on an occasional if not frequent basis, it added a level of strategy in terms of where and when to place down the cojoined Popoons on them if it meant having one or both land on a color that matched (or if it was flashing, on any color). Due the simple color scheme, it's easy to recognize what color the respective poro-porous are associated with (e.g. blue for Hebe, red for Sukezaemon, green for Jennifer, dark purple for Pen-Chan, and yellow for Utsujin).
Left: Unyohn speeding past below the playing field | Right: After that blue chain pops, only two Hebe, one Unyohn, and two Sukezaemon poro-porous remain to take out
It's a very colorful sprite-based Saturn puzzler to look at as well, and I honestly find the presentation to be very endearing. Because of that Popoitto Hebereke visually stands the test of time even after almost 30 years. With all the characters making an appearance in the background as you're playing, it really enlivens this game as you catch at a glimpse with the corner of your eye (or when the game is paused) Hebe sneaking about or shaking his head
Left: O-Chan rolling about | Right: Just one more stage, victory is near!
after just having tripped, Sukezaemon whipping out his hammer and floating about, Jennifer smiling or spewing out a projectile, Utsujin flying around in his space saucer in circles to the point that he becomes dizzy, Pen-Chan falling on her tail upon sneezing, Bobodori flying (or attempting to fly) with his propeller cap, and O-Chan acting like a real cat would. It's adorable and lighthearted all around and fits very well with the Hebereke mold. 😊
Left: The final round has come, and it is against... yourself?!? | Right: Dropping down a pair of red Popoons
There is a gradual flow in terms of difficulty, gradually amping up with each stage as they roll along. I really like the girl in the penguin costume Pen-Chan, she's one of my top favorite characters in the Hebereke fracnhise right alongside Sukezaemon, but I swear that any time I get to her in any game of the series I can just feel the shift in difficulty. The final stage
Left: Adjacent red Popoon chain, go! | Right: Hebe sneaking below whilst Bobodori is attempting to fly while Jennifer is meditating, or so I presume with the last one
against Hebe's doppelgänger can get pretty intense if you fail to carefully manage and maneuver the Popoons down on the playing field. It never reaches the point of being Sega's Baku Baku Animal levels of challenging, but for what this game tries to do the level of challenge is acceptable and is very fun to play every time while it lasts.
Popoitto Hebereke was clearly made under good guidance by those at Sunsoft involved who had ties with the Nintendo and Sega 16-bit conversions of DMA Design's Lemmings (by total director Akito Takeuchi, technical adviser Akihiro Asada, sales manager Masato Kawai, prints editor Tatsuo Mori, and graphic designer Hiroshi Ito), Albert Odyssey (technical adviser Asada, designer Mamoru Goto, assistant producer Kawai, super counselor Mori,
Oh, if only it did not immediately precede the release of Albert Odyssey on the very same format (that title which would become a huge hit in Japan) developed by the very same company Tokai Engineering, otherwise there might've possibly been attempts to port Micro Cabin's Xak II: Rising of the Redmoon as well, but alas it was never meant to be... 😞 Very fun game with brilliantly composed music
assistant developer Ito), Sunsoft's Sega Saturn port of Cyan's classic first-person point-and-click graphic adventure game Myst (programmed by Takeuchi and Asada, assistant produced by Kawai), as well as the 1993 Tokai Engineering-developed Super Famicom port of Micro Cabin's 1989 action-adventure breakthrough hit Xak: The Art of Visual Stage (which was program supported by Takeuchi, planned by Kawai, and promoted by Mori), et al.
Left: With each level passed, the pace picks itself up little by little | Right: Red starburst effect
and yet, as far as the Hebereke brand is concerned, the 1991 series starter is actually among the longest games of the series. Most of what followed, this game included, doesn't even exceed the hour mark. At roughly between twenty to thirty minutes, depending on how you play or how hard you've set it, I feel that hits the sweet spot for a puzzler like this one, and Popoitto Hebereke fills that sweet spot quite nicely in my book plus it only takes up 3 blocks of memory should you have scored just enough to make the top high score and billboard.
Just two perfectly good Sunsoft titles on the Sega Saturn right here! 👍 Like Perfect Entertainment's port of Clockwork Games' 3D Lemmings and Magical Formation's Arthur to Astaroth no Nazomakaimura: Incredible Toons afterward, O-Chan no Oekaki Logic supports the mouse controller but is perfectly playable (in my book) with a regular controller
A little over two weeks after having first played and enjoyed Popoitto Hebereke, that same October, I knew I wanted to add O-Chan no Oekaki Logic to my slowly growing Sega Saturn collection despite my lack of experience with the logic-based nonogram puzzle genre. After following up this game with Flair Software's 32-bit console port of Whizz (which I like, warts and all 🐰) and Sonic! Software Planning's Shining Wisdom (which I do not like, despite the occasional quirky oddity, and honestly consider it to be among the nadir in my overall Saturn collection--also it's an ugly-looking game, in my opinion), the O-Chan spinoff wound up being my fourteenth Saturn game which I ended up liking a great deal more. 😃 I admit Popoitto Hebereke is the more digestible game to play in short bursts, but O-Chan no Oekaki Logic is on the whole a more rewarding game to play with math-based logic puzzles that get progressively more challenging, it's got colorfully appealing visuals, Kazuo Nii's renditions of the Hebereke theme and O-Chan's battle theme from Sugoi Hebereke are absolutely engaging and incredible to listen to, requires 114 blocks of memory, has got a fun sense of trial and error, and is a very enjoyable game to play through while it lasts. I love it, O-Chan no Oekaki Logic quickly grew to become one of my top favorite games on the Saturn, and it got me to play Jupiter and Ape's Game Boy Picross games, which is nice! 🥰👍
Left: Oh no, Hebe lost!!! 😨 Which means... | Right: "Mwahahaha, now I am the fairest in the land!" 😈
This third-party game came out so early in the Sega Saturn's lifespan that it preceded first-party releases on the system Team Andromeda's Panzer Dragoon, Sega's Kisuishō Densetsu Astal/Astal, and their sequel to Clockwork Knight. Popoitto Hebereke is a fun sprite-based puzzler to play every once in a while, and to me is a likably good transition of Sunsoft's flagship franchise to the 32-bit console generation with an appealing soundtrack and solid sense of sound design (particularly the effective pops any time a chain has been formed). 😃
Left: Recently stacked chain of orange Popoons | Right: Victory!!!
Whether you're a fan of the Hebereke franchise, the puzzler genre, or both, or if you are curious about trying a game in the franchise, I recommend checking this game out if you've got a Sega Saturn console (and an Action Replay Plus cartridge if you're using the North American model). A colorful, worthy game in the genre, and a very nice entryway into physical Japanese Saturn gaming for me.
My Personal Score: 8.0/10
● Pen-Chan is so inconsistently colored in the series: in the official artwork and most games in the franchise her penguin costume is blue, but in the two Success-developed Hebereke puzzlers her penguin costume is a dark shade of purple. I like the blue color scheme more.
● Something I noticed when looking up the arcade edition of Hebereke no Popūn online is that Success appeared to have lifted visual assets from that game and carried those over to Popoitto Hebereke (like the personal one on one character interactions and their set animations, the ending design, and how the title sequence is somewhat similar, et al).
● Last review before I turn 33 this April 5th. ... Time, I tell ya!
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"Popoitto Utsujin"
"That penguin ripped me off!" 😐
