Urusei Yatsura: Lum no Wedding Bell (NES) review "Help space alien princess Lum to grow into womanhood and wed her darling Ataru"

For those who may never heard of it, Urusei Yatsura was a 80s Anime based on the Manga by talented author Rumiko Takahashi of Inuyasha and Ranma 1/2 fame. The Anime featured alien princess Lum destined to win over the heart of womanizing narcissistic Ataru by any means possible all the while tolerating his flirtatious ways of "girl hunting." The Anime had that classic comedic flavor only Takahashi could add and was very popular among anime fans of the era, although it was not as famous as other works that made into the US years later.

With said premise, Lum No Wedding follows pretty much the same story as the Anime, Lum striving to marry Ataru all the while escaping burning school buildings in the various stages of her life. If this sounds weird to you don't worry too much about it, as the Anime would be many times a bizarre experience on each episode shown.

The game starts with little Lum inside Infant School rushing upwards escaping a blazing wall of fire as it continues rising from the ground up all while shooting enemies with her electric zaps. If one of said enemies touches her, Lum falls into her fiery demise. However if Lum is successful in arriving at the rooftop and jump into a flying UFO, she can safely go to the next building all the while growing up. Lum can shoot up to two zaps of lightning at any given time and jump into rails on the ceiling of each floor, she must also at times turn on switches to activate moving platforms that she would not normally be able to jump over. Unlike the Anime show, Lum cannot fly except on Bonus stages where the player is required to tap the jump button constantly.

Lum must go through various burning buildings in order to reach the final stage, a Chapel and finally reach her goal of marrying her darling Ataru. As for why each building is set ablaze is to anyone's guess, but it adds this sense of anxiety and challenge than just going through zapping weird looking enemies like flying fish and octopus characters. There are no power ups present, although a few points boosting items can be found here and there. The game has no continues once your lives are depleted, having you to start from the very first stage if Lum's lives are spent.

Lum No Wedding was never ported to the US market, being a Japanese exclusive for the Famicom. The only way you could try it out would be using emulation. Even if you could not find a translated game, there is really not much to worry about story wise as the game itself is very straightforward from the moment you begin playing. The difficulty is moderate, but enemy placement is at times irritating when you are busy trying to find a latter to access the next floor while the hellish fires keep rising from below.

Some enemies will take more than two hits and will also maneuver out of Lum's shooting range, forcing the player to transverse the floors by dodging enemies the best they can to make up wasted time crucial to her survival.

Graphics are colorful despite the survival theme of the game and the music is pretty average. There is really not much on each stage besides running for safety so Lum may grow up and move to the next building to face more of the same.

If anything, you probably won't make it past the first building and probably will just give up on the title after a couple tries, although taking time on getting the feel for the game and enemy patterns could give you a winning chance. The gameplay is pretty simple and so is the premise, as weird as it is. You would only play Lum No Wedding just to beat the high score more than anything else.

Community review by CptRetroBlue (February 15, 2019) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.