Hebereke is a 1991 side-scrolling Famicom game that stars a white penguin in a beanie, featuring nonsensical enemies like huge red lips, fire-spitting clowns, and crows that poop. Ufouria: The Saga is the 1992 English revision that was only released in Europe, which modified most of the main cast and removed any semblance of potty humor. Ufouria: The Saga 2 is the 2024 "sequel" in the latter's name only, at least in English releases; everything else about the game, ironically, is essentially unchanged, such as the main cast retaining their original appearances, personalities, and names, not to mention the potty humor being reinstated. If you listen closely, you can even hear a muffled voice say "Hebereke 2" at the title screen!
But despite what's stayed the same, there's a ton of updates and changes in this three decades-later follow-up. Visually, you'll notice quite the impression when the opening sequence plays out; gone are the cute, simplistic 8-bit sprites that make up the surroundings, now replaced by a colorful three-dimensional diorama-style world constructed out of fabric. The devs doesn't take this switch for granted, as you wander landscapes with distant mountain backdrops that actually look like cut sheets of fabric on top of one another. Traveling to the east of the starting forest will lead to a leaky cave, which then segues into another forest; but this particular forest is beautifully-designed with red and orange hues, from the hills to the abundance of trees. A wonderful vibrant showcase of art.
Credit: Sunsoft/Red Art GamesAs for the gameplay, Saga 2 takes after its predecessor in some aspects. This sequel follows a similar progression system in which you start out with a singular character, Hebe the white penguin, who gradually gains switchable allies with differing abilities after defeating them. On your journey to save the planet from an alien invasion, you'll meet O-Chan, a girl in a snugly cat girl costume who is skilled at swimming on water surfaces, Sukeaemon, a ghost who is good at float-jumping to distant platforms, and Jennifer, a green angler fish dude who is, shockingly, capable of swimming underwater.
In Hebereke 1, you would take this eventual gang of four and explore a Metroid 1-style open world, roaming into specific areas after only meeting certain criteria, such as gaining powers or said characters. Would it be safe to say that you'll be doing the very same thing in this sequel? Far from it. In perhaps the biggest twist, you'll no longer explore an open world from the get-go, but instead play Saga 2 more as a traditional stage-by-stage action platformer. That actually sounds like a neat change of pace had the developers executed this idea properly.
Credit: Sunsoft/Red Art GamesThe weirdest thing about the new design is that the dev team is treating this like it's still open world, and that leads to some bizarre structure and pacing issues. Basically most of the world is instantly inaccessible, and the game is extremely blunt in telling you where to head next every single time. Stages can be revisited to venture into previously blocked off locations with your new allies to access new stages, but even calling this aspect "open world" is a stretch. Once a stage is entered, you can no longer exit through its starting point. For something that has several stages connected to one another that you must go through repeatedly, that's a strange choice.
Another odd change is how you obtain items and powers. Due to Hebereke 1's design, you naturally find these through the fun of exploration, but Saga 2 makes them all purchasable in a vending machine. The method of buying something is usually a combined effort: you have to collect coins scattered throughout stages just to reach a price, plus you have to search for soda cans in out-of-the-way spots. The reason for the latter is that you need a specific number of cans for an item to be available for purchase. So... Saga 2's "fix" of making discoverable items from Hebereke 1 into purchasable items in this sequel involve the act of... looking for discoverable items. You know what's just as bad? As if gaining an ally wasn't enough, the game then forces you to BUY them at the vending machine as a means of inflating play time through collecting more coins and soda cans.
Unlike its predecessor, where progression felt more organic and natural, the sequel makes it feel like you're unlocking one sealed door after another at every tiny step. If the actual stages themselves were genuinely entertaining to play, this wouldn't be an issue, but alas. A very large chunk of stages feature very dull and short side-scrolling platforming portions with minimal effort put into them; you jump on some platforms to collect coins, stomp on some enemies that are barely threatening unless you accidentally bump into one, and then the stage concludes in under two minutes. There are two stage types in the entire game that either feel riveting or challenging: the vertical ice shafts you have to descend while avoiding enemies on small platforms, and the fast-paced mine cart sequences over lava pits.
Credit: Sunsoft/Red Art GamesIn what seems like a fluke, the devs manage a minuscule of creativity in terms of revisiting stages. Saga 2 actually reshapes their landscape: sometimes the end portion is near the beginning, sometimes the beginning is in the middle, sometimes new portions are switched in, and sometimes portions are reversed. However, stuff like this doesn't drastically reshape the quality of said stages, and oftentimes you just wish additional stages were made instead. Also, because the stages have to be very simple structurally in order for the reshaping to function decently, three-fourths of the items in the vending machine are trivial. However, with great annoyance, actual useful items are typically stuck behind useless items you need to purchase first.
Now say you want to continue playing the game post-credits to find all 90+ cans and buy all the vending machine items for completion's sake; would this somehow fulfill your exploration needs, even if just a little? 100% no. In fact, this actually reveals how shoddy and lazy the overall design is. The majority of stages have a limited set of cans to collect, which is indicated on a hub map that, what a surprise, you have to buy to view. Logic would dictate, since there's a set amount, that the devs have intelligently placed all of them in specific spots within each stage.
Credit: Sunsoft/Red Art GamesBut the team didn't bother with that. Instead, they've decided you should only collect approximately two cans per revisit, and that's only after you've obtained certain abilities to get through certain barriers. In a worst case scenario, you will only get one can per visit due to the randomized stage structure. So if you really, really want to collect all the soda cans, then you'll have to suffer replaying stages an absurd amount of times because of questionable design choices.
The biggest "compliment" one can give to Saga 2's gameplay is that it functions. You can play through just fine and eventually beat the game... but the whole thing is so dull. The stark contrast between the first game's fun sense of exploration in a simplistic, cutesy world and the downright by-the-numbers, soulless execution of this sequel is startling. It's unfortunate, because you want the whole product to work, especially after witnessing the delightful visuals and hearing the first game's soundtrack making a return in updated form. Regrettably, the whimsy charm of Ufouria: The Saga 2 isn't enough to save it from its needlessly messy structure, a structure that makes playing the game a chore.
