The early ’90s were a fascinating time for fans of 8-bit gaming because you had the rise of 16-bit gaming right alongside the NES still being hot and getting new things like the Game Genie and a ton of higher-quality games now that the hardware was largely mastered. This led to classics like the fifth and sixth Mega Man games alongside international hits like Mr. Gimmick – a platformer that featured advanced physics for the time alongside a Sunsoft gem in the form of Ufouria. Sunsoft’s output on the NES was some of the best in the market outside of Nintendo themselves, and while some of their best games like Batman had licenses attached to them, this was their own original creation and allowed them to be creative.
The original Ufouria was a bit of a hidden gem until it was released on the Wii’s virtual console, where fans had a chance to discover many games for the first time thanks to its inclusion of many TG-16 and international games that were previously unreleased in North America. Ufouria was a side-scroller in an era full of them, and being late in the NES lifespan means that folks usually saw the system as old instead of retro – which wasn’t really a thing then. Thankfully, the passage of time opened minds to the concept of enjoying things beyond the latest and greatest and Ufouria 2 winds up being a fantastic revamping of the original game’s multi-character concept.
At the time and really even today, you don’t get a lot of multi-character platformers on the market. Mario and Sonic can usually be counted on for them, but Ufouria was a rare example in an era when the only major one was Super Mario Bros. 2, which was a key inspiration to each character having different skills to work with. With four playable characters, each one can get through the stage – but how they do so can change based on skills earned throughout the adventure. One character is great at swimming and can access hidden areas that you can’t get to with the default character. Another late-game character is fantastic at burrowing through areas and finding new areas while also being able to endure extreme temperatures – making them ideal for ice and heat-based areas.
Unlike the first game, the follow-up features an extensive attempt at setting up the world and the characters – and it does so with a lot of comedy in the mix too. The tone of the writing is light-hearted and every interaction leads to amusement whether it’s from people commenting on Hebe (the main character) having a toilet next to their bed…in a tree for all the world to see or efforts made to give each of the playable characters a sense of personality, it’s clear that a lot of work went into making sure that players always had something to enjoy throughout the adventure. If you’re in an action stage, you get a mix of action and light puzzle-solving when you finally have all character powers available to you and can figure out which character works best in a certain area.
Figuring out which character is best for certain areas is a fun challenge. Sukezaemon has a fantastic floating jump and is great for stages with a lot of secret areas to find, but less useful in areas where you need precision for things like boss battles. The orange O-Chan handles icy areas with ease and allows players to move around as if they were on regular ground. Switching out characters is a tricky thing in some games, but handled perfectly here with a bumper button press being all that’s needed to switch. That allows players to realize that they may have made a poor choice for a swimming section and switch to Jennifer to navigate the water better. Players have regular stages alongside bonus areas they can cash in-game coins in on to try and get more rewards and win special items alongside an in-game shop to gain allies and new skills.
Visually, Ufouria 2 is a stunner thanks to its vibrant art style that evokes the best of Nintendo’s Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Yoshi’s Wooly World - only using a felt-based art style instead of yarn or wool. Everything in the world shares the art style and looks incredible in still form, but even better in motion. The animation is right in line with what a platformer should be with just enough movement to be fluid, but not enough to have everything take too long to be done quickly. Each character stands out a lot personality-wise with how they do things like run and even roam under small passages – with some going for traditional crawling methods while others do a crab walk or just slink through in a snake-like manner. They’re little touches that add a lot of charm to the action and go a long way to express how each playable character is different.
Ufouria 2’s soundtrack is a bright, cheery affair that nicely fits the action. There aren’t any memorable tracks offered up, but everything is at least enjoyable and the sound design as a whole is impressive. Each kind of attack, whether it be an intense butt bounce or a more subdued ball-throw attack to stun an enemy, has a different level of intensity to it that does a fine job getting across how much damage is done with each attack type. There’s also a surprisingly high amount of variety when it comes to jumping sound effects for each character too – with a pronounced difference for things like floating down versus dropping down at a regular speed.
Closing Comments:
Ufouria 2 is a fantastic pickup for anyone seeking something different in their side-scrolling action-platformers. It feels like a game rooted in the past with a modern coat of paint and modern quality-of-life improvements and in that light, it’s a wonderful experience. Having a feltcraft world offers something no other game has and each of the different playable characters results in an experience that makes replaying stages seem more exciting than it otherwise would.
