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(this game)The Adventure of Little Ralph (Chippoke Ralph no Daibouken in Japanese) is a 2D jump-platform action game produced by New Corporation for the Playstation. It was released on 3 June 1999.
The game is an orthodox "platform game" (jump action game) in the tradition of Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong Country. The player controls Ralph with the +-key and the jump button and maneuvers him around treacherous traps and footholds. Ralph can also use his sword to defeat enemies. You don't have hit points: you have a shield which protects you once, and after that the next hit will be fatal.
In additional to typical swordplay techniques such as the normal slash and the downward thrust, by holding down the sword button for a split second and then releasing it, Ralph can do a "swing" attack. Besides doing double damage, the swing attack can also reflect enemy projectiles, or send small enemies flying to knock down a row of enemies (just like the infamous turtle shell).
The game has its unique scoring system. When you pass through certain points, a group of fruits appear. Grabbing one gives you 100 points, and each subsequent one is worth double the current one, up to a maximum of 6400 points per fruit. However, the point value resets to 100 points at the moment when there are no fruits in play. There are two ways that can happen: when the fruits expire after several seconds, or when the player picks up all of the fruits in play. Thus, expert players maximize their scores by grabbing all but one fruit, and then hurry onwards to make the next group of fruits appear before the last fruit expires. This involves some planning and precision, and adds some strategy to the game. It is also a nice game balance mechanism: the early stages are quite easy and will not be frustrating even for novices of jump-action games, while the expert player will still find them interesting to play repeatedly because there are some "fruit lines" which are quite challenging to get perfectly. Besides mere points, when you make 8 fruits appear before the score value resets, the 8th fruit will become a heart fruit. You earn an extra life for collecting a number of these.
There are 8 stages with a good variety of settings and atmosphere. The stages contain many different kinds of traps, and a fair number of hidden routes and items. The hidden routes are not 'mindlessly' hidden, but rather, there are clever graphical hints to every hidden route: you may see the exit in plain view and wonder how to get there, or a foothold may be camouflaged as background. There are two difficulty levels. In easy difficulty, you play only the first 5 stages, and you always start each life with a shield. In normal difficulty, you play all 8 stages, and you will see the true ending if you clear them all. Against the bosses in the later stages, you fight a vs. fighting game style battle. One playing of the easy game lasts about an hour; the last 3 stages in the normal game adds about 45 minutes. The length of one playing is an inconvenience, but the game is well worth it.
Though a rather orthodox game, The Adventure of Little Ralph is a quality old-school, classic-style platform game dedicated to players who like this kind of games. The graphics are in fact quite well done, with some nice details and good character animation. The background music is average, but sets the mood for the game quite well. There is a "PSG" sound mode for nostalgic classic-game players. The game balance is close to Super Mario Bros. 3: you will die several times initially, but soon you will figure out the trick and be able to survive. There are several power-up items, but they are not of the kind that will cause game balance problems when you have or don't have them. This is a serious ('mathematically structured') classic-format game, with a sensible scoring system and a time limit. (When the game was newly released, New Corporation ran a high score ranking contest on their official home page, with good prizes for the winners. The competition ended on 31 August 99.) The game saves a play record (similar to those in classic game collections such as the Namco Museum games) to the memory card, and you can start a game from any stage you have previously reached. This game is highly recommended to players who like classic platform games. Most of the game interface is in English, and the opening demo contains nice graphical instructions for the basic controls, so language is not a problem.
One word of caution: there is a small amount of red blood depicted in the graphics in the game, mainly in some heavy-weight terrain traps. It has been used sparingly to good effect towards enhancing the atmosphere of the game. Near the end of the game, there is a section called the "13 corridors of death". Playing this section the first time can be a quite memorable experience: the deadly traps (a few with blood depicted, but most without) and the difficulty work together to give the player a feeling of struggle, fear, and despair. It is quite a contrast with the rest of the game, which has pleasant surroundings for the most part.
Copyright 16 August 1999 Alan Shiu Ho Kwan
Alan Kwan / tarot@netvigator.com / created 16 Aug 99 / last modified 25 Sep 99