The gang comprises of the following members: There is a blue one with conjoined-twins strapped to its head – The twins are masquerading as ears. There is a jellyfish crossed with a cat. The third member is an Amoeba with one eye and of cause, the final member is a pink cutesy sea anemone. They are all lead by a demon inspired oriental smiling radish - with wings. Oh - and horns.
Yep – right first time: More Warp.
Eno Kenji was (is?) the Geoff Minter of Japan. They both have a weird animal fetish. They both make freakishly addictive games. They both try and tie music and gaming. With varying degree’s of success I might add. And of cause – they are to the casual observer both three-parts to the wind. Separated only by 6,000 miles, a gene-pool and language (unless Geoff speaks Japanese of cause) – practically twins other than that.
So – what did your 2,000 Yen get you back in 1995 when you bought Flupon World?
A picture of two strapping Japanese guys stood in their traditional Japanese underpants of cause. …but that’s just the cover.
Pop the CD into your 3DO multiplayer and you got your moneys worth. Only on the understanding you like puzzle games. Three of them. Also if you hadn’t already seen a demo of Ds Diner or D2 and you wanted to, this was indeed the disk for you. The 3DO extravaganza didn’t stop there however.
Megadas makes an unwelcome appearance - it was, in my opinion, rubbish. Also on the disk is a demo of a curious attempt to cross Mahjong and Anime by means of a superhero called ‘Old Man’ or ‘Rojin’ in Japanese. I’ve seen it, I’ve played it and I still don’t get it.
The crowning glory for this disk is that it also features – as far as I can tell – the one and only 2D shoot’em-up for the 3DO. Of cause Warp being Warp they didn’t leave it at that, oh-no, they went and made the only 2D Shoot ‘em-up RPG for the 3DO.
The puzzle games are variants on what we called Trip D here in the West and they are all reasonably good. Tetris with a twist sums them all up. You are either turning blocks, deleting blocks or matching blocks up. It all amounts to the same thing and if you like this kind of game this disk will brighten your day considerably.
Megadas, covered else where on this blog, would still shame a Public Domain release and even having given it another fair crack of the whip it still down right awful. Robot Sumo in a huge 3D ring.
Finally the 2D shoot’em up RPG. What can I say? It is not Ikuaga. It is not Psyvair. It is not Raiden. It’s a radish firing blue bolts at wobbly amoeba things. It is reasonably fun, if pretty far removed from sophisticated.
Judging by the introduction to this game the story is something along the lines of: “First the Europeans came to Japan and brought the carrot and then came Aliens from outer-space and bought us Puropon-kun(?) to save us this time.” Tenuous? Possibly.
The RPG element has your squad of freakish side-kicks earning LV, traversing a map and collecting items in an attempt to thwart the invading aliens. Fun, given time, I’m sure.
The whole disc can fairly described thus: If anyone remembers the PD (Public Domain) disks you could get for the Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga by ordering from the back of the official magazines or perhaps the efforts generated by the guy labouring away on Net Yaroze (PS1 home DEV kit) then that is what we have here. Flupon World is a collection of simple games. None of them really shine, in fact the high light for me was the “Warp Rap” song but you can while away a lazy afternoon with the contents.
It is fun and well thought out – it just lacks the commercial polish we perhaps arrogantly expect today.
…and it is rare.
3DO Kid.
Great post, thank you