Sunsoft was once an electronics manufacturer with a decently successful mid-size stake in the video games industry. While they're still around today, their game business has dropped off… at least, until an attempt at a resurgence starting a few years ago, with revivals/sequels for some of their cult classics like Trip World, Gimmick, and Hebereke. The latter utilises an art style featuring hand-crafted materials much like Good-Feel's Yoshi games, which is why I'm now visiting the original Hebereke so I can then play the sequel.
Anyway, Hebereke has a complicated history that can be seen on TCRF, with a lot of content cuts and a planned North American release. It did come out in Europe and Australia though, under the name Ufouria the Saga, with two of the main characters redesigned and all with new names. A recent rerelease with the subtitle "Enjoy Edition" includes some standard emulator features, achievements, and a speedrun mode, but fumbles the inclusion of the localised version, as it only lets you see images of the clumsily translated cutscenes. So I opted for a fan translation patch of the Famicom release, which has a better translation and retains the characters of the Japanese version. After all, they went on to star in many more games (puzzle, isometric racing, nonograms, etc.) and Hebe was even Sunsoft's mascot for a time, unlike Bop-Louie and Freeon-Leon who were never seen again.
Hebe is a penguin-like creature who fell in a weird hole or something, ending up in an unfamiliar land. He has to gather companions (or in the original localisation, find his amnesiac friends) in order to get back home, while contending with the hostile creatures of this land. Well, some of them act hostile but they're all quite goofy, with various flavours of blobs, cats, odd-looking birds, or even disembodied lips & tongues, etc.
The game is quick to establish a quirky tone, as you climb a rope that is revealed to be a string of drool hanging from a blobby face. One boss fight has you destroy the armour of a large cat, who you then have to attack while they sit motionless, crying. Other enemies include birds that poop on you, mice with flying propeller hats, clowns, smiley faces, and various kids wearing animal onesies.
After a boss fight, one of the latter joins your crew, that being O-chan the haughty kitty cosplayer. Despite being a penguin, Hebe is lousy at swimming and slips on ice, and somehow she is much better at these things. Later Sukezaemon/Shades the cool but old-fashioned ghost can help you jump longer distances, and Jennifer/Gil the gruff and manly fish/lizard thing has superior underwater mobility. You can swap between controlling these characters at any time, even in midair, by opening the select menu. Hebe stays relevant as he has the best run speed and vertical jumps, and even gets the ability to wall climb later.
What you soon realise about Hebereke is that it's in fact a Metroid-like, albeit a cutesy and stripped-back one that plays like a platformer; a more famous example perhaps is Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap, or the later Adventure Island 4. The game world is open and features many paths and areas that you have to come back to later, some requiring you to unlock another character or a new ability like Jennifer's bombs. You find the door to the final boss relatively early, but to get in you need to find three keys at the far corners of the world. You get a map pretty early and later unlocks will mark keys and other items on it, and getting around isn't too arduous. The original plan for the game was a bit larger but as it is, it's quite a compact experience.
I recommend reading the manual first, as it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that pressing down during a jump puts you in a stomping stance, similar to Capcom's Ducktales. This is the only way to defeat enemies initially, and they either drop a small health refill (like Metroid, you can find expansions to your health meter) or a ball projectile with a face. Picking up and throwing things is a big mechanic in the game, although enemies defeated this way won't drop health. It's not quite as developed as it is in Gimmick which builds the whole game around the projectile, but it adds some depth. Each character also has an unlockable charge attack of varying usefulness; Jennifer and O-chan's have exploration utility but all require a charge time that's a little too long to really feel good to use. They do all have that bit of weirdness about them though that adds to the game's character: Hebe chucks his head as a projectile, for example, and Sukezaemon shoots out his eyeballs which home in on enemies.
Hebereke is a great example of the "search action, but cute" subgenre. The quirky, cartoony tone is so charming and the game world is just the right scale. Add in decently tight controls and some clever mechanics and you've got a fairly solid late-era NES/Famicom game. It's generally not too challenging, although some later platforming sections and boss fights make savestates and rewinds extremely handy, whether you're doing it in your own emulator or via the Enjoy Edition. Some of the large sprites are also impressive although they're clearly taxing the aging hardware beyond its limits. So now that I've played this little cult classic, I'm interested to see what Sunsoft do to revive it 33 years later!
