Hermie Hopperhead Review

Once upon a time on a side of a city, a boy is lying on a pavement wall. In front of him there is a trashcan shaking. He wonders what that could be, and a big egg came out from the trashcan! When he touches the egg, the egg releases its hands and feet and begins to jump into him. Then the egg goes back to the trashcan, the boy follows it, and he falls down into the trashcan. That was the background story of Hermie Hopperhead, an underrated platform game that was only released in Japan as Hermie Hopperhead. (Yes, it's written in Latin, although some sites call it ハーミィホッパーヘッド.)


In this review I will explain about the mechanic unique to this game. The game starts at the world map, and you are located at World 1 Stage 1 (1-1), as shown below. The player expects something big and vast by seeing the world map.


You can't go to other stage, so you enter World-1 Stage-1. Now it works like Super Mario Brothers or similar platform games - you stomp on enemies to destroy them, paying attention to certain enemies that can't be stomped on.

However, you will encounter eggs too. When you touch it, the egg will be kicked and waits for you to take it. When you take it (maximum 3), the eggs will follow you.


What is the purpose of those eggs? Well, you can switch from 3 modes:

1. Grab

In grab mode, the eggs will follow you in exactly the same movement as you. The eggs will not do anything to annoy you or to help you. This is used when you need to jump over platforms or tricky places and you don't want to lose your eggs.


2. Release

In release mode, the eggs will run and jump around you automatically. They pick up stars, destroy enemies, very stupidly, and almost useless at all. But wait... that can be very useful later.


3. Point

Point mode can only be activated at certain places with a wooden sign. When point mode is activated, the eggs will turn into a shape to help you go to certain places. It can be a bridge, moving rails, ladders, or something else.


So, what can we do with whose eggs? Is that all? There are blue, yellow, green, red, and some other colored eggs, do they mean something? How about the stars? At the end of a level, the stars you gathered will come to a use, see the shot below:


You decide to distribute the stars among you and your eggs. When you feed a blue egg with 100 stars, it changes to a baby penguin! When you feed 100 stars to a yellow egg, you get a baby chicken. Spoiler: you can feed thousands of stars and each colored egg will become some magnificent creatures.


When your eggs have hatched, they become much more useful. The penguin collects stars, stomps enemies and is the simplest. The chicken flies slowly and stomp on enemies. The turtle (green) becomes a shell and only stays there, but you can kick it to destroy enemies. And so on.

When you release your buddies (eggs or creatures), you are vulnerable to enemies. Once you are attacked, you die and need to restart the level. But when you grab them, when you are attacked, you don't die, but automatically release your buddies, at this moment you are vulnerable again. You can tap the button to quickly switch to grab mode again to avoid losing your buddies.

In release mode, the buddies can also help you to solve certain puzzle. For example, you can let them to lift up a spring that you can jump over it to reach even higher places.

Another interesting part is that the game stages are not linear. When you finish certain stages, a red circle will be shown on the world map. That indicates that the stage has multiple exit points. One is usually the normal one, but by going through hidden paths you may discover other exits.


Overall, Hermie Hopperhead is a refreshing game with unique gameplay. The cutscenes are done in English, other than that there is almost no text to understand. Musics are repetitive although memorable. The best part lies on the level design that entice curiosity to find all the possible exits. This 1995-released game is rare, you might be able to find it in import stores.

Cave Story Review (洞窟物語 - doukutsu monogatari)

Imagine a complete game made by a single person - will you assume that the graphics will be horrible, the musics are boring, and the gameplay are monotonous? Try Cave Story, a game created by a Japanese called Pixel, released in 2004. It has everything you expect from a great 2D platformer game - various secrets, hidden passages, memorable background music, detailed pixel-art graphics, and level progression that encourages you not to stop playing.

In this game you play as Quote, a creature that does not know his origin or purpose. The level starts at a cave with some bats and spikes to let you get used to the controls. You have a single weapon, Polar Star which is a familiar gun you'd encounter in a shooting game. When you kill the bats, sometimes you see triangles - these are your experience points. After gaining some points, your weapon will upgrade to level 2, higher attack and longer range.

The joy of having more powerful weapon makes you want to play this more. Afterwards, you will encounter not less than 6 kinds of different weapons, some of them are slow, rolling, needs charging, has limited ammo, etc. Not to mention that each level has different characteristics.

Don't expect a Mario Bros-like game where your task is only to kill enemies. One of the most lovable thing in Cave Story is the Story. This game really puts the story as the main element of the game. The background story is about fragile creatures Mimiga that are located in this island, they are being pressurized by some kind of doctor that experiments with red petals to make them a powerful being - not on earth exactly, but revealing that more will spoil the story. Along the game, you will find out more about yourself, your purpose of existance, and the parties that pushes you to fulfill their ambitions.


You don't play this game linearly like from Stage 1 to Stage 2 to Stage 3 with 3 lives to spare etc. Instead you have a HP, once your HP reaches zero you restart from your last save point. The world itself is a single big world, with many places to revisit, and they are not compulsory to revisit. You may get special items, extra weapons, side stories when you visit past places. In many places you get to choose Yes or No in dialogs - and mind you, your choice really matters.


Enjoy one of the town music. (Hint: this is not made using sophisticated music editor, but the maker's own song composer: OrgMaker)
Originally in Japanese, Cave Story has been translated into English by Aeon Genesis, with permission of the maker. You can enjoy the English version on your PC or Mac. Or even better, there is a PSP version that lets you choose between Japanese and English.

TV Tropes says:

What makes this game notable, however, is how good the gameplay is. A great difficulty curve that keeps it just challenging enough all the way through, a myriad of weapons with unique styles, and frequent, hectic, and exciting boss battles that are exhilarating and rewarding are just some of its better qualities.

What's also notable about this game is that only one person wrote the scenario, drew the artwork and scenery, animated the sprites, designed all of the levels, composed all of the music, and programmed the entire game engine, all over the course of five years. And it shows, in the best way possible.

For some action-packed goodness you can expect to find, see this trailer!