Wonder Momo was an arcade game by Namco in 1987. It is included as one of the games in Namco Museum Encore on the Playstation.
Wonder Momo is a weird action game. Momo is, strictly speaking, not a super heroine who protects the earth from alien invaders; rather, she is a character with that role in a live stage show.
The action takes place on a stage floor, with no foreground terrain and a different background (which is, in typical theater style, 'very 2-D') every one or two stages. Momo's fans are cheering in the audience's seats. The screen shows about a third of the stage floor; if Momo keeps walking to either side, the screen scrolls with her until she reaches the end of the floor, with a curtain, of course.
Every stage begins with the curtain rising. Then, weak enemies, such as actors dressed in grey alien suits (apparently raised onto the stage from underneath using a rising platform), appear, to be beaten up by Momo's splendid kicks (and serve as a source for Momo to accumulate Wonder Power). After a while, the boss-type character(s) appears, and it is time for Momo to transform into Wonder Momo. The stage ends (hopefully) with Wonder Momo defeating the boss(es), and the curtain lowering among a sea of applause by the fans.
Momo can transform by either entering the whirlwind which usually appears at a calculated moment, or she can transform any time at will by spinning rapidly in place. The former method is safer, because the latter may be disrupted by enemy attacks. In addition to better attack and defense strength (including avoiding "stunning" by enemy shots), Wonder Momo also has a powerful weapon, the Wonder Ring. In graceful gymnastic style, Wonder Momo throws the Ring at enemies and catches it as it returns. However, once thrown, unless it hits a boss-class enemy, the Ring will fly all the way off either end of the stage, where apparently offstage staff (behind the curtain) throws it back for Wonder Momo. (It may take a while for the Ring to return, especially if Wonder Momo has thrown it off the far end of the stage.) For this reason, the Ring is not very easy to use, especially for beginners, though an experienced player can hit the boss repeatedly with it and get done with the stage quickly. Wonder Momo can gain a larger advantage by grabbing one of the special power capsules, which appear occasionally. The typhoon capsule gives Wonder Momo a period of invincibility while she spins rapidly in place and shoots to both sides, while the beam capsule allows Wonder Momo to shoot beams at the enemies by the classical pose of crossing her arms. Being in Wonder Momo form expends Wonder Power (except when using Wonder Typhoon); if the transformation ends for running out of Wonder Power when fighting a boss, it can become a very inconvenient situation. A third kind of capsule (which also appears when Momo is normal) restores a quarter of Momo's health.
One thing Momo has to watch out for is the annoying boy with his camera, who appears from time to time from among the audience and tries to take a shot of what is under that sexy mini-skirt. If Momo gets photographed, she will be stunned by embarrassment for a moment.
I hope I have been successful in picturing that Wonder Momo is a silly, funny game. As in Azito, the game is based on Japanese "special effect" TV shows, except that this one goes so far as to portray a live stage show of the kind that you can view, for example, in fan conventions. The game contains lots of elements loved (for reasons that might be difficult to comprehend by others) by fans of those shows.
As an action game, Wonder Momo is a weird one. While the player character in most side-view action games have two (or one) facings, Momo has three. When facing the front, Momo will do her signature kick, the split kick (the justification for the length of her skirt?) when crouching or jumping, or she will start spinning and attempt to transform when standing, when the player presses the kick button.
The extra facing makes the controls feel very different from what most players have been used to. Momo turns around slower than most action game characters. The horizontal reach of her (standing) High Kick is very short, so she is better off crouching most of the time (when she is not moving around). Momo tends to take a step when she turns (unless she is also crouching): this makes her run into enemies easily. As mentioned above, the kick button does not do a kick when facing the front and standing. Because of these, one may actually say Wonder Momo does not control well. To make it seem worse, a significant proportion of enemies appear by being raised from underneath the stage, and most of the rest are fast enemies. It is often tough to get Momo into the right pose against a rapidly developing threat. Coupled with stunning and knock-downs by enemy attacks, (receiving) successive damage is frequent, especially for beginners.
Also as described above, the Wonder Ring is not very easy to use. You can't do normal kicks, other than the split kicks, while holding onto the Ring. There are no "collision checks" off-screen: when you throw your Ring at the boss, if the boss is off-screen even barely, there goes your Ring all the way to the end of the stage floor.
However, once the player has got used to these peculiarities, Wonder Momo is a game with a reasonable amount of action. There are 16 stages featuring a reasonable variety of enemies and bosses. Most bosses can be beaten with simple strategies, but that is often complicated by the presence of other enemies. After all, personally, I don't find the controls in Wonder Momo any more annoying than the typical vs. fighting game (with its seldom challenged nor questioned theory that "fighting command input" is one of the 'secrets' of success of the fighting genre).
The graphics and music in the game are rather simple, but they fit the theme and mood of the game quite well. There are average-quality voice samples for Momo, enemies, and fans. The background theme for Wonder Momo does sound like an appropriate tune for a transformed heroine. I have not played the arcade version, so I have no word on "arcade perfectness", though it is obvious that the Namco Museum version is much better than the PC Engine version.
The difficulty is typical of arcade games around that age: the early stages are difficult initially, but becomes quite easy once the player has got better, especially with the Wonder Ring. The late stages are hard and challenging. Continue play is handled in 4 stage blocks, but the player can do away with that and use stage selection instead.
The reader who has got an impression that I am favoring this game much over Azito may be wondering why. After all, I claim to be not a "special effect" or "sentai" fan myself. The reason is, in short, that I feel that Azito is a generic construction game coated in its current setting, while Wonder Momo is a game built on its setting from marrow to skin. From the perspective of a hard-core gamer who goes so far as to overlook graphical details (when absorbed in game play, I see any frame-rate over 12 fps as 'continuous'), seeing only the mathematical structure of the game the first thing he sees in a game, I cannot find any aspect or elements in Azito which cannot be dressed in another setting without changing the structure of the game. The elevators are Tower elevators, the alien and hero soldiers are generic infantry, the crazy merchandise are generic merchandise, and the mad scientists are generic scientists. In Wonder Momo, the action takes place literally on a stage (with its physical limitations), the Wonder Ring is a physical, gymnastic hoop, a cheesy stage tool, and so on. For this reason, Azito elements may be funny to me once, while Wonder Momo makes me smile every time I play or think about the game. While both games have their highlights on their setting, Azito has failed to capture the setting in aspects beyond its cosmetics. Besides the above reason, the game play of Wonder Momo isn't so bad once you get used to the controls, while Azito becomes irrecoverably boring and tedious once you get through the game basics.
In conclusion, if you have a craze after the kind of setting of Wonder Momo, and you don't mind an action game which doesn't control too well initially, Wonder Momo is probably your cup of tea. If you have been delighted by the general variety of past Namco games, Wonder Momo is worth checking out. If you think controls are important for an action game, Wonder Momo would be doubtful. If you think the setting of Wonder Momo is stupid and is put off by a game with that theme, if you hate this kind of silliness and want a game with more 'real' killing, big guns, blood and explosions, definitely don't bother.
Copyright 17 November 1997 Alan Shiu Ho Kwan
Alan Kwan / tarot@netvigator.com / created 17 Nov 97