Mawatte Mucho!
It's been awhile, and it feels like it might be fun to pull out some more oddball imports that don't get attention even with all of the retro game content put there. I don't think I've ever known anyone to play Mawatte Mucho! for the Playstation, but it's a really fun one, and has completely english menus to boot.
After a cutscene in which an old magic monster is awakened and promptly does some princess kidnapping, a group of her loyal subjects set out to rescue her and bring her chibi butt home. There are initially five playable characters (and an unlockable sixth after your first clear) who travel through six levels with four stages each. Each character has his or her own unique speed and attacks, such as a knight with a sword, a sorceress with her magic staff, a... um... parrot... with a beak... and a mariachi musician with a guitar that can fire notes?
Each stage is set up on a square grid that can be zoomed in or out and rotated. The format recalls classic overhead action puzzlers such as Lolo or Kickle Cubicle, but has the unique, um, spin, in that you can rotate the tile you are standing on along side adjacent tiles by pushing the circle button, allowing you to comnect pathways to traverse the area. X allows you to use your character-specific attack, and square serves two functions. First, if you have a "jump" power-up (of which you can stock 3), it allows you to jump over a gap instead of rotating tiles. Secondly, it activates teleporters, which allow up to three total grids per stage with sub-areas. Each stage is littered with both enemies and treasure chests, which can be blue or red. Red chests contain power-ups- more time, jumps, a shield, life, 1ups, etc. Blue chests are your primary objective. Find all three in each stage to open the exit and clear the area. You get 90 seconds that can be extended with power-ups.
The fourth stage of each area is a boss fight, and these call to mind the boss fights in the 16 bit Bomberman games. Only the last boss presents any real challenge, but once you figure him out, even he is a pushover. For an experienced player of these kinds of games, there really isn't much challenge at all, save maybe some tension with time limits here and there or the odd control issue. These are the lone frustrating part of the game, as there are two really finnicky irritants. First, using square to activate both jumps and teleporters can lead to you jumping when you mean to activate the teleporter, and it will absolutely happen unless you are squared up in the center of the teleporter tile. Throughout most of the game, it's not really a big deal, but on a couple of later stages when there are more enemies and you're in a hurry (especially with the sorceress and her obscenely long attack animation), it is really infuriating to rush to a teleporter barely in time, then accidentally jump, giving an enemy a chance to catch up and whack you. Second is that there are invincibility frames when rotating tiles as they rise into the air and spin. This can be used by the player to help avoid damage in a pinch, but can drive you nuts while you're jamming on the attack button while an enemy just keeps spinning tiles.
Overall, Mawatte Mucho! is a really fun little game for fans of old single-screen action puzzle games. It's short and easy, but very accessible to english speakers. I should mention it has a versus mode, but it's honestly garbage. The idea is to be the first player to open all chests in the arena or have the most when time runs out, but the characters are not at all balanced for this mode of play, with the mariachi guy being grossly overpowered with one of the fastest attack animations coupled with an extra tile of range. Still, if you enjoy stuff like Lolo, Kickle Cubicle, Solomon's Key, etc., there's a really fun time with a game that still seems to be pretty under the radar.
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