I doubt many have played the original Ninja JaJaMaru-kun for the Famicom in the US. It was an Arcade-like game that has a rather odd history involving Jaleco basically stealing from UPL. I haven’t played much of it but it’s well received in Japan and has seen many ports over the decades. It oddly got a remake on the Wonderswan of all things. It’s more than just a standard port too.
Sadly the remake fails to really reinvent the gameplay in a meaningful way. This game tries to give it an actual adventure rather than being endless and going for the score. There’s five worlds with five levels each. The end of each world has a platforming auto scroller section that leads to a boss. You’ll need to get the sakura petal from Princess Sakura in each level to get access to the fifth level and she’ll always throw it when the timer hits 90 seconds. The goal is the same as the original where you have to defeat all eight enemies with it getting harder each world.
The normal gameplay is sadly not all that interesting with the difficulty being pretty easy for 80% of the adventure. I found getting powerups a pain as they rarely show up and when they do, it was mostly just more time and that delays Sakura throwing the petal. If you collect four items, you can summon your frog to eat every enemy which sounds great but if you didn’t get the petal yet, it’s now impossible and you’ll have to redo the level. It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if they thought every idea out.
The auto scrollers are pretty okay, I do like the many hazards presented but they can feel slow and samey. The last one kind of has a moment of move or die going on when it begins but otherwise I can’t be too negative of these. The bosses are also simple but fairly enjoyable and feel like the highlight of the adventure. You don’t even have to restart the auto scroller if you die to the boss. The final boss is also similar to how fighting the bad guy in the bonus game worked in the original which is a nice callback.
The game visually is a mixed bag as a lot of it is just the Famicom game but it’s mixed with a lot of new art and portraits and the portraits are very inconsistent in quality. I’m confused why JaJaMaru-kun and the frog have different sprites everywhere besides the actual gameplay. There are voice clips but only for the intro sadly. The game doesn’t even take advantage of the Wonderswan’s gimmick. Nothing was resized either so all four floors aren’t visible at once. The music is about the same as before and barely any new tracks are here and what is here is eh.
I can’t really say much positive for this remake, it just doesn’t really do what it wants all that well. It needs some better ideas and fleshing out to be a better remake. I want to like it but I can’t even recommend it for being one of the easier games to play on the handheld. You’re better off just skipping this one. JaJaMaru-kun would get a couple more games in the future but this just isn’t it Jaleco, I know you could have done better.
Before I go, I thought I would bring up that the Game Over sequence is hilarious. If you happen to lose all of your continues and then Game Over once more, you’re treated to a bad ending. It’s similar to the real ending but the boss of stage 3 (he looks like JaJaMaru but in a different shade of grey) ends up defeating the villain and saving the Princess. You then walk back sad as the guy and Sakura head back on horse. Then JaJaMaru-Kun trips, cries, and then walks sad again with broken hearts coming out with the game saying Game Over. I don’t know why but I found this really hilarious. It's like come on guys why not just drop an anvil at that rate, he’s suffered so much already. So wait, was the third boss not even working for the villain?? Also you don’t get to see this if you choose to not continue and that’s lame.
Sadly the remake fails to really reinvent the gameplay in a meaningful way. This game tries to give it an actual adventure rather than being endless and going for the score. There’s five worlds with five levels each. The end of each world has a platforming auto scroller section that leads to a boss. You’ll need to get the sakura petal from Princess Sakura in each level to get access to the fifth level and she’ll always throw it when the timer hits 90 seconds. The goal is the same as the original where you have to defeat all eight enemies with it getting harder each world.
The normal gameplay is sadly not all that interesting with the difficulty being pretty easy for 80% of the adventure. I found getting powerups a pain as they rarely show up and when they do, it was mostly just more time and that delays Sakura throwing the petal. If you collect four items, you can summon your frog to eat every enemy which sounds great but if you didn’t get the petal yet, it’s now impossible and you’ll have to redo the level. It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if they thought every idea out.
The auto scrollers are pretty okay, I do like the many hazards presented but they can feel slow and samey. The last one kind of has a moment of move or die going on when it begins but otherwise I can’t be too negative of these. The bosses are also simple but fairly enjoyable and feel like the highlight of the adventure. You don’t even have to restart the auto scroller if you die to the boss. The final boss is also similar to how fighting the bad guy in the bonus game worked in the original which is a nice callback.
The game visually is a mixed bag as a lot of it is just the Famicom game but it’s mixed with a lot of new art and portraits and the portraits are very inconsistent in quality. I’m confused why JaJaMaru-kun and the frog have different sprites everywhere besides the actual gameplay. There are voice clips but only for the intro sadly. The game doesn’t even take advantage of the Wonderswan’s gimmick. Nothing was resized either so all four floors aren’t visible at once. The music is about the same as before and barely any new tracks are here and what is here is eh.
I can’t really say much positive for this remake, it just doesn’t really do what it wants all that well. It needs some better ideas and fleshing out to be a better remake. I want to like it but I can’t even recommend it for being one of the easier games to play on the handheld. You’re better off just skipping this one. JaJaMaru-kun would get a couple more games in the future but this just isn’t it Jaleco, I know you could have done better.
Before I go, I thought I would bring up that the Game Over sequence is hilarious. If you happen to lose all of your continues and then Game Over once more, you’re treated to a bad ending. It’s similar to the real ending but the boss of stage 3 (he looks like JaJaMaru but in a different shade of grey) ends up defeating the villain and saving the Princess. You then walk back sad as the guy and Sakura head back on horse. Then JaJaMaru-Kun trips, cries, and then walks sad again with broken hearts coming out with the game saying Game Over. I don’t know why but I found this really hilarious. It's like come on guys why not just drop an anvil at that rate, he’s suffered so much already. So wait, was the third boss not even working for the villain?? Also you don’t get to see this if you choose to not continue and that’s lame.