⭐Introduction⭐
Nihon Falcom is a company that, for a little over forty years, has developed and released games and series that have fundamentally changed the face of role-playing games while also receiving international acclaim. They are often credited with pioneering the action role-playing genre, as well as popularizing the use of personal computers in Japan. While their most well-known games consist of series like Ys, Dragon Slayer, Trails, and The Legend of Heroes, I wanted to talk about a slightly more underrated game from Falcom—Popful Mail: Magical Fantasy Adventure… or just Popful Mail for short.
Popful Mail is an action-platformer developed by Nihon Falcom in 1991 originally for the NEC PC-88. Info regarding the game’s development is somewhat scarce, but what we do know is that the game was directed by Yoshio Kiya, one of the leading developers behind Brandish, the first two Ys games, and the Dragon Slayer franchise. Furthermore, the game would implement and combine many features and mechanics that were introduced in other Falcom games. For example, it uses the battle system of Ys, magic attacks like those found in Ys II, and a side-scrolling view similar to that of Ys III.
After the initial release of the PC-88 version, in the following years, it would receive a number of ports and remakes on various other systems, such as the PC-98, the PC Engine, the Super Famicom, mobile phones, and Windows PCs. However, this particular review will be focused on the version that was available for the Sega CD, since that’s the one I played, and also the only one available in English.
⭐Sega Falcom⭐
On April Fools Day in 1994, Popful Mail found a home on the Mega CD through the development of Sims and courtesy of Sega in a short-lived joint venture with Falcom called Sega Falcom. Together, they also brought ports of Legend of Heroes I, Legend of Heroes II, and Lord Monarch to the Mega Drive.
It should be noted that Falcom games, such as the Master System version of Ys I and the Mega Drive version of Sorcerian, had come out on Sega hardware before this collaboration. Additionally, there was no type of exclusivity deal, so Falcom was still permitted to release games onto other systems.
Despite Sega Falcom being founded in 1991, they didn’t release any games until 1994 and ended up folding in 1995. They advertised a number of different games they wanted to release on the Mega CD in 1992, but aside from Popful Mail, all of those games were canceled. These games in question were Hyper Lord Monarch, Sister Sonic, Super Brandish, Super Daisenryaku 3, and Ys IV: Mask of the Sun.
Out of these canceled games, the one that probably sticks out to you the most may be the one called “Sister Sonic.” When Popful Mail was being reprogrammed for the Mega CD, they wanted to rebrand this remake into a game called Sister Sonic and have it be a spin-off to the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It’s not too dissimilar from how the Genesis version of Puyo Puyo was rebranded to Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine in the US. For the longest time, it was believed that this reskin to Sister Sonic was going to apply to solely the international version of the game, but that's not entirely true.
As discovered by DidYouKnowGaming, in a November 1992 issue of Beep! Mega Drive on page 101, the director of Sega Falcom explains that the Mega CD version of Popful Mail wasn't going to be a reskin like Mean Bean Machine, but a full-on remake using the 'Sister' Sonic character. And I'm using 'Sister' in quotes, because in the same interview, it's stated that the character isn't actually Sonic's sister, but just an unspecified female relative.
This proposed game featured the titular character, Sister Sonic, a female relative of Sonic who "unlike Mail" was "more sexy and flirtatious than Sonic's more cutesy appearance."
Anyways, due to a multitude of angry fan letters from the Popful Mail community, this rebranding was canceled in favor of a more faithful remake. Which left the Sonic franchise without sword-based combat until Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.
⭐Working Designs⭐
Subsequently, in 1995, the Mega CD version of Popful Mail was localized into English and published to the Sega CD by Working Designs, a now-defunct video game publisher known for localizing exclusively niche and obscure JRPGs throughout the 90s and early 2000s. As I mentioned, this is the only version of the game available in English. Had it not been for Victor Ireland from Working Designs, who arbitrarily took an interest in this version and decided to localize it, it’s very likely that Popful Mail would have remained a completely Japan-exclusive property. These games usually aren’t lucky enough or popular enough to receive fan translations.
This version of the game is a bit notorious, however, as it has a very high difficulty ceiling. Working Designs was pretty infamous for making rebalance-esque changes to the games they localized, which usually ranged from being completely inconsequential, such as games like Exile or Lunar, to being straight-up overkill, like in Exile: Wicked Phenomenon. This version of Popful Mail isn’t what I’d say is 'overkill,' but it still leans very much into the difficult side.
In the US version of Popful Mail, they increased the HP and defenses of a few of the enemies. Likewise, they also increased the attack stats of every enemy, which is very noticeable with bosses. In the Japanese version, bosses would kill you in about five to eight hits if you keep up with all the strongest equipment and armor. Whereas, in the US version, a lot of the same bosses will consistently kill you in two to three hits no matter what.
In addition, they also increased the prices of many of the items in the shops, some of them very drastically. It's a bit annoying, but at the same time, it's also kind of funny in a manic sort of way. It reminds me of how the Lunatic modes of Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem make a number of petty changes like that just to make the game more inconvenient for the player like removing items like the Warp Staff or Silver Card.
Image taken from The Cutting Room Floor
Popful Mail’s English release isn’t as overly difficult, but it’s still a kind of ballbusting difficulty that will alienate people wanting to play the game casually. I can kind of see where Working Designs is coming from with a lot of these changes: they really wanted to force the player to understand stuff like boss patterns, managing their recovery items, and really put in the proper attention and effort to complete the game. And while I’m sympathetic to the idea of challenging the player and forcing them to learn the game, I wish they had made these changes as some sort of optional hard mode or something like that.
In my first run-through, I was able to get through the first few stages fine, but I quickly reached the infamous Wood Golem, which hard-blocked the rest of my progress. I had so much difficulty here that I opted to play the rest of the game with the Unworked Designs patch—reverting a lot of the rebalance changes of the Western release to how they were in the Japanese version.
Aside from the difficulty, Working Designs also provided a number of other changes to Popful Mail’s localization. For instance, the menu is now mapped to the C button instead of Start. Instead, Start now just pauses the game and displays your playtime.
In addition, while in Japanese, the title screen lacked music, a cute little theme was added to the title screen of the English version. The localization also added voice acting in certain places where there wasn’t any before. The ending has an added outtakes reel after the credits, which plays several bloopers depending on your playtime.
The music in the opening cinematic has been removed and replaced, which kind of sucks because it was my favorite song. Down-sampling and variable bit rates were used to compress the game's sounds from full 44.1 kHz CD quality to fit on the game disc. In animated sequences, waveform analysis was used to synchronize characters' mouths with their dialogue, and parallax scrolling was added to the cloud portions that weren’t present in the Japanese version.
Something that should be noted is that Victor Ireland really liked parallax scrolling, as it was a Working Design’s staple in most games they localized, and it was one of the first things he recalled when asked about localization changes with the game twenty years later.
Working Designs was also known for injecting humor into their localized games. With Popful Mail, they took the game's already humorous theme and amplified it, mostly by shifting the humor from 90s anime jokes to 90s American cartoon jokes. This usually incorporated elements like pop-culture references, sarcasm, light toilet humor, and fourth-wall breaks.
This last image is one of the few pop culture references that’s more relevant today than it was back in the 90s
A lot of people don’t like this script because it deviates and embellishes the original Japanese script. And while I don't blame them, I think Working Designs’ more jovial writing fits the tone of this game pretty well. The game is generally really silly, and lighthearted, so the sophomoric humor in this game blends in well for me compared to something like Cosmic Fantasy or Exile. I found the humor in this game to be a highlight, and it’s what got me to check out the game in the first place.
⭐Story and Characters ⭐
When you first start the game, you’re first introduced to the main heroine: Popful Mail, an Elven Bounty Hunter who is chasing after the infamous Technomancer and leader of the Gingerbread Grifter Gang, Nuts Cracker. Whoever manages to capture him alive and bring him back to town will be rewarded with about half a million gold pieces.
If you’re playing the game in Japanese, you might recognize the voice behind Mail, as she’s voiced by the famous Megumi Hayashibara, known for her roles as Jesse from the Pokémon series, Lina Inverse from Slayers, Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion, and much more.
Conversely, her English voice is done by Melissa Gulden, who’s done voices for Jessica and Fresca from Lunar: The Silver Story Complete, and Hikaru for the Sega Saturn version of Magic Knight Rayearth.
Anyways, Mail may not be the most skilled when it comes to capturing bounties, but her sword arm is nothing to sneeze at. However, her swords are rendered dull in comparison to her sharp tongue. This little elf is brimming with so much sass, sarcasm, and attitude that it makes every moment she opens her mouth a treat. Mail isn’t just one of my favorite female video game protagonists, but one of my favorite protagonists period.
After a sequence of shenanigans and failing to capture Nuts Cracker, a despondent Mail travels back to Bountyville to look for another job she could take up.
Back at Bountyville, she looks at the bounty list and notices a new posting for a twisted magician named Muttonhead (who’s called Material in the Japanese version) who’s been wreaking havoc and mischief.
Noticing the high amount placed on this bounty, a newly invigorated Mail sets out once again in hopes of capturing the renegade magician and being set for life. She grabs her sword, shield, and armor and sets out to Elf Woods in search of Muttonhead’s… head.
While traversing through Elf Woods you run into a dumb elven kid named Slick or Slicky Junior III, if you want to be formal. He was called “Blacky” in Japanese, and I bet you can’t guess why that was changed.
Slick is probably my favorite character in this game. He’s not playable or anything like that, he’s just an NPC you occasionally run into throughout the game. He's an elven jackass whose sole purpose in the game is to test your patience, obstruct your progress, and piss you off. He’s hilarious. And in terms of sheer stupidity and comic relief, he gives characters like Yasuhiro Hagakure and Larry Butz a run for their money.
For context for this last set of images, earlier in this same stage, you find the Slickster frozen in a block of ice, so you have to backtrack all the way to a previous stage to get the pitcher of coffee to free him in order to progress
In Japan, the Slickster is voiced by Nobuo Tobita, who’s most known for voicing Kamille Bidan from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. In addition, he also voices Noir from La Pucelle: Tactics, Aries Shion from Saint Seiya, and Milhouse in the Japanese dub for the Simpsons. In English, he’s voiced by Ashley Parker Angel who voices Alex Noa in Lunar 1, and himself in Clone High.
At the time that I initially wrote this review, I had just finished watching Clone High, so knowing a character from that show was voiced by Slick really caught me off guard. I searched more into Ashley Parker Angel and learned he was actually a musician and actor who rose to prominence as a member of the boy band O-Town. He’s played in a bunch of movies and TV shows which surprised me considering that for the most part, most of the other English VAs are just Working Design employees.
Anyways, in this first interaction with Slick, there’s not much you have to do. He got himself stuck in a tree, so you just have to alert the townsfolk to get the dumb kid down.
After traveling from Elf Woods to Treesun and defeating the Wood Golem, you then join forces with Tatto, or Tatt for short. In Japanese, the name タット can be translated as "Tatt" or "Tatto" depending on the context. So using one of those interpretations as a nickname is pretty cute.
In the Japanese version, Tatt is brought to life by Akira Ishida, known for his roles as Makoto Yuki in Persona 3, Kaworu Nagisa in Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gaara in Naruto, and surprisingly, Gordin in the Fire Emblem OVA, among numerous others. In the English version, Tatt is voiced by Shaun Watkins, whose sole credited role is as Tatt.
As a character, Tatto is a complete counter to Mail. He’s a lot more humble, patient, naïve, and polite, almost to a fault. Among the three characters, he can probably be seen as the group's straight man, and a lot of the humor around him is more about the scenarios surrounding him. Overall, he’s very level-headed.
In the last image, he almost comes off as a teacher disciplining their students.
When you meet up with Tatt, you learn that he is also looking for Muttonhead. Though, he doesn’t really care for the bounty. Instead, he was actually Muttonhead's apprentice but lost contact with him after Muttonhead went off the deep end. Tatto's primary objective is to reunite with his former mentor, seeking answers and hoping to guide him back onto the right path.
You learn from Tatto that Muttonhead’s most likely moved on to the Wind Cave, and so your party gives chase. In the Wind Cave, you run into Gaw village, where you meet a race of small, round, winged, cave-dwelling blue creatures all named “Gaw.”
You progress later on, and you run into Nuts Cracker. You learn from him that he’s been working under Muttonhead, and you have to fight him briefly in a boss battle. After you defeat him, he runs away and you progress further into the cave.
Afterward, you discover that the Gaw locked up Muttonhead, as he was trying to awaken the dragon, Goradus, at Panic Peak. You run to where Muttonhead is locked up in an attempt to bring him back for the bounty. He just kind of talks at you about how he’s going to crush the Gaw and control Goradus, and nothing else really happens.
You progress further, and you learn that despite the fact that Muttonhead was arrested, Goradus was awoken anyway. And you’re probably wondering “By who?”
Slick wakes up Goradus, and you’re stuck with defeating it as the next area boss. After defeating Goradus, one of the Gaws is especially grateful for your help and joins you as your third and final party member, completing the trifecta.
We are going to beat you to death.
In Japan, in the role of Gaw, we have the vocal talents of Shigeru Chiba, the voice behind Kazuma Kuwabara from Yu Yu Hakusho, Lau Chan from Virtua Fighter 2, Buggy from One Piece, and Nuts Cracker. His English voice actor, Blake Dorsey, voices Dyne in Lunar 1, both Ascot and Alto in the Sega Saturn version of Magic Knight Rayearth, and Nuts Cracker... again.
Gaw, as a character, is almost like a cute pet-like character. I feel if this game evolved into a long-running series like Falcom had wanted it to, Gaw would probably be the marketable mascot character. Hell, could you imagine how cool it would be if they made official Popful Mail merch and sold Gaw plushies? It’s honestly a missed opportunity. But hey, at least we still have the Ghaleon punching puppet from the PS1 re-releases of Lunar!
Gaw is pretty sassy himself, though not as much as Mail. Gaw also has a fondness for fish. The official manual characterizes him as somewhat of a baby, which is why he often refers to himself in the third person. Additionally, he tends to punctuate longer sentences with his name, “...gaw.”
With many of the dialogue scenes, while Mail and Tatt typically share variations of the same interactions—with Mail displaying confrontational attitudes and Tatt being more polite and carefrontational—a lot of Gaw's interactions often play out entirely differently. The most notable one is the interaction between Gaw, and two bosses you encounter later on, Sven T. Uncommon, and Venuncio.
These differences, to me, add a nice layer of replayability to the game and make it worth seeing the same dialogue scenes multiple times with different characters just to see how they play out.
After Gaw joins us, we also get permission to free Muttonhead. So we tie him up and carry him back to Bountyville. However, when going back to Bountyville, we learn that it’s been attacked while we were gone.
We then learn that this attack must’ve been caused by someone named Kazyr, and he may be involved with a being called the Overlord. The Overlord was the leader of a powerful trio of beings who tried to conquer the world. In the past, they were defeated by an elf, a dwarf, and a warrior and banished from the world by a black seal.
We then learn that Muttonhead has broken this black seal, and we set out to save the world from this deity known as the Overlord.
⭐Gameplay⭐
Before going into depth about the gameplay, I wanted to talk about the genre. As Working Designs was known for localizing RPGs, the similarities between this game and other games like Ys III, and the overall fantasy setting, many people erroneously refer to Popful Mail as an Action-RPG. However, that is not entirely correct; this game sets itself apart from the Action RPG genre as it doesn’t have any sort of leveling system. You don’t increase stats, you don’t gain exp, or anything like that. Your stats only increase as you equip gear you can buy from stores, and the only type of grinding you may be doing is for money.
I’ve seen some people refer to this game as a Metroidvania, but the game is very linear and doesn’t feature much utility-gated exploration. So, I just refer to this game as an action platformer in the same vein as something like Mega Man or Yoshi's Island.
You attack with the A button, you jump with the B button, and C opens the menu where you can change equipment, switch characters, use items, save, and load the game. Additionally, if you hit the down button, you’re able to shield yourself from incoming projectile attacks.
The characters run and move very fluidly, and only have a slight floatiness to them when they jump. Each character also has a variety of attacks and play styles that complement one another finely. Mail is the fastest character, but she has the lowest jumps; Gaw is the slowest character, but has the highest jumps; and Tatt is just average in both regards.
Mail starts off using her swords for attacking, but gets ranged weapons later on. Likewise, Tatto and Gaw have several different ranged weapons to choose from. Ranged weapons are also fueled by the Arms meter at the bottom of the screen. It depletes whenever you attack using a ranged attack and refills whenever you’re not attacking. If it runs out completely, you cannot attack again until you wait out the cooldown time.
You can switch between Mail, Tatto, and Gaw at any time via the menu and they share items and gold, but they don’t share equipment or health bars. During tough portions of the game, if a particular character is low on HP, it’s a valid strategy to switch over to someone else to extend your life a bit.
That said, if one character dies, it’s a Game Over and you have to continue from your last save. This is most likely to prevent the player from soft-locking. For example, if Gaw happens to die and you can't use him anymore, you won't be trapped if you need him to progress to another area. I wish the Sega Saturn version of Magic Knight Rayearth had the same mechanic...
The game features five areas that are all connected via a world map similar to a game like Super Mario World. Each area consists of three to four twenty to thirty-minute-long stages, with the final stage usually being some sort of major boss. Within each stage, there are typically instances where you’d need to backtrack to get a specific item or talk to a specific person to progress. In addition, there are areas you can explore that can net you certain items like gold or healing items, as well as shops and towns you can visit.
In terms of overall length, the game is relatively short. Depending on your play style, it can be completed in as little as two hours or extend to around eight hours depending on how long it takes you to get through each stage.
One criticism I wanted to bring up is regarding the linearity of the game. Early on, you get an optional side quest from a blue-haired elf woman named Mythia who got her wedding ring stolen. After Gaw joins you, you’re able to come back to this stage and fight a secret boss, the Tanook- er, Badger Chief, and recover her ring.
Your reward for this feat is an Elixyr, a one-time-use item that grants you a second chance at life and fully recovers your HP if you were to die with it in your inventory. The criticism here is the fact that this is the sole optional side quest available to you throughout the entire game.
Man, Mythia is really cute.
Since the game is very short, it would have been a welcome addition to have more optional side objectives like this for those inclined to explore the world and characters more thoroughly.
Even with the Unworked Designs patch, high-tier equipment becomes quite expensive as you progress, making it seem like a missed opportunity not to include more side quests that could have rewarded players with much-needed gold instead of having them mindlessly grinding money from enemies.
Moreover, with the English version's tracking of playtime, it would add an extra layer of decision-making. Where players would be faced with a choice between investing extra time in completing a side quest or opting to skip it entirely.
Another nitpick I have is the fact that there’s no “Exit Stage” option for stages you’ve already cleared. This fact always bothered me, because I would often go back to previous stages just to access their shops. In most cases, these shops are placed towards the stage's beginning or end. However, for a few of them, you’d need to traverse a substantial portion of the stage before reaching the desired shop. I noticed this, especially in stages like Treesun and Mt. Rip, where you have to play through a significant portion of the level to access the shop, make your purchase, and then clear the remainder of the stage once again.
In contrast, one of my biggest praises comes from the overall presentation. The sprites are very colorful, adorable, and expressive. The game does a really good job of portraying each character’s personality at any given moment. Even though Sister Sonic never came to be, you can tell that Popful Mail has a lot of the same charm found in the standard Sonic the Hedgehog game, particularly in the animations, like the idle animations.
Attacks feel really satisfying and you are granted the appropriate feedback for both when an enemy takes damage and when you take damage, accompanied by cute animations.
Furthermore, in spoken dialogue scenes, each character boasts a wide range of different portraits, conveying various emotions and moods. This wasn’t as common at the time and significantly contributes to the overall connection I have with a lot of the characters.
The FMVs are also a great highlight of the game and do a great job of showing off what the Sega CD was capable of. A problem that a lot of Sega CD games had was the fact that they tended to overload you with FMVs in an attempt to show off the new hardware. Popful Mail, however, does a good job of avoiding this by limiting the cutscenes to certain major events, like the intro, ending, and in-between major areas.
Something that I do find interesting about the game’s FMVs is that they use a paler and lighter color palette for the characters. In contrast, the in-game portraits use a much warmer and more saturated palette, which I personally prefer.
While the FMVs take advantage of the Sega CD’s hardware, a lot of the music actually comes from the Genesis. The music is very upbeat and energetic and does a good job of fitting into each of the game’s different scenarios. Despite that though, none of the music really spoke to me particularly, and for the most part was just alright. Aside from the Opening theme that was removed in the US version, the only other songs I found myself coming back to were the Jungle (Exploration) theme and the Final Boss theme.
Moving on to voice acting, despite the English voice actors not being professional voice actors or highly experienced, their performances were great. They succeeded in bringing the characters to life and delivering their lines naturally. The voice acting had an authentic quality, making the characters feel more believable. While it may not have been Oscar-worthy, it was still quite impressive compared to similar English dubs at the time. In particular, I found Gulden's performance with Mail to be a particular highlight.
However, one critique I have in this regard is that Angel's portrayal of Slick sometimes comes across as more sarcastic than probably intended. It reminded me of the English version of Super Danganronpa 2, where Nagito Komaeda's tone was similarly interpreted as more sarcastic than intended.
⭐Other Versions⭐
Now that I’ve talked about the version of the game that I played, I want to briefly discuss the numerous other versions of the game. Despite not receiving any sequels or anything of the sort, this singular game has been ported on various systems, and a lot of these versions play notably differently from one another.
Despite “Popful” not being a Japanese given name, it’s written in hiragana, most likely to make it look cute. It’s kind of a semi-common thing to do that in games like this, like in the game Totsugeki! Mix, where the English word “Mix” is written in hiragana instead of katakana.
The first version of the game came into existence on December 20th, 1991, on the NEC-PC8801, additionally, there was a rumored demo of this release which advertised the release of the full game.
Visually, this game resembles games from the Dragon Slayer series, such as Xanadu and Legacy of the Wizard. It featured a cool HUD border with a little sprite of the character in the top left, their HP, magic/ranged weapon attack bars, a bar for special items, an enemy HP bar in the bottom right, and equipment, keys, and gold at the bottom.
I wish games still had graphical HUD borders like this, I’ve only seen them emulated in very few modern games like VA-11 HALL-A.
Likewise, characters are represented in little sprites similar to many games on the platform. They are very cute.
Pictured are the bit-sized sprites of Mini-Mail, Mini-Slick, and the Mini-Mad Bomber
As I stated before, this version uses the same bump combat system from Ys I, the magic system from Ys II, and the side-scrolling perspective from Ys III. In addition to that, it also uses the same inventory and UI system of the early Ys games and has animations for things like reacting with pain when falling from high places, as in Dragon Slayer IV.
On May 22nd, 1992, the game would extend its reach to the PC-9801, as it was pretty common for PC-88 games to receive PC-98 ports. This version was more visually impressive, as the PC-98 was working with a resolution of 640 x 400 with 16 colors, leading to the graphics being a lot more detailed and colorful. In addition, the game now runs slightly smoother compared to its PC-88 counterpart. Additionally, the HUD was also redesigned to include some nice artwork, as well as displaying the enemy you’re currently fighting.
In terms of gameplay, aside from running smoother, some stages were changed slightly and the controls are a bit more responsive.
Then the Super Famicom version joined the party on June 10th, 1994, courtesy of Falcom. Like the Sega CD version, bump combat is absent in favor of a more traditional combat system. However, your close-range attacks require you to be a lot closer to do damage and can feel a bit unwieldy. In addition, this version does away with the beautiful HUD present in previous versions in favor of just three bars telling you your HP, MP, and enemy HP with nothing surrounding it. At least, it still appears in the shops though!
This is not one of the shops.
This version also lacks the cool opening cinematic that the Sega CD version had, for obvious reasons. The sprite art in this game is completely redrawn just like in the Sega CD version and is very vibrant and charming in its own right. It’s very reminiscent of a lot of RPGs on the same console, but that’s not a bad thing at all.
Also, Mail can crawl in this one.
This version also changes some stages around. It also has some changes to the story, such as adding in new characters, like a character named Maril, the granddaughter of Muttonhead.
Two short months later, on August 12th, 1994, the game made it to the PC Engine CD, developed by Hunex and published by NEC. This version features a full-motion video like the Sega CD version and overall has really nice visuals all around.
This version goes back to the smol chibi-like character sprites like the previous PC versions did. In addition, it also brings back the bump combat system and adds a couple of new stages.
Following this, the “series” would stay silent until 2003 when the PC-8801 version was ported onto DoJa mobile phones courtesy of Bothtec. This version was released in five parts from 2003 to 2004.
Then, Falcom released a few different versions onto Microsoft Windows. The PC-9801 version was ported with updated Windows compatibility in 2007, then updated again later in 2017 to support Windows 10. The PC-8801 version was ported onto Windows Vista, 7, and 8 in 2015. And then the SFC version was ported in 2011 for Windows XP, Vista, and 7.
⭐Conclusions⭐
Popful Mail never got any sequels, remasters, or much attention outside of niche gaming groups. However, Falcom did incorporate Popful Mail and its characters into various other forms of media. In July 1996, a manga adaptation of Popful Mail became part of Mediaworks and Dengeki Comic Gao!, with the writing credit going to Yuu Aizaki.
Furthermore, the character designer, Kunihiko Tanaka, who also did character designs for Xenogears, Xenosaga Episode I, and Xenoblade Chronicles X, was credited with work for an obscure manga called Adventurer Buttagileyer, with the leading characters looking very similar to Mail and Gaw.
Image taken from J52 on Twitter… or X, I don’t really care what it’s called.
Falcom produced two Mail drama CD series published by King Records: Popful Mail Paradise (ぽっぷるメイルパラダイス), which consisted of five CDs released between 1994 and 1995, and Popful Mail The Next Generation (ぽっぷるメイル－ザネクストジェネレーション), a two-CD series that began in 1996. Additionally, Falcom introduced Tarako Pappara Paradise (TARAKOぱっぱらパラダイス), another drama CD published by King, featuring Mail, which was released on November 22, 1995.
Falcom also once attempted to pitch an anime OVA based on the game to various anime studios. However, the pilot failed to generate hype, leaving the promotional video as the only remnant of this concept. This promotional video envisions Mail and her friends finding themselves in Tokyo as they confront a new adversary.
Additionally, Mail and Gaw, along with other Falcom characters, made an appearance as secret "Masters" in the 2002 Falcom game Vantage Master Online. Furthermore, Mail's distinctive outfit became available as a downloadable costume for Tina Armstrong in Tecmo Koei's Dead or Alive 5: Last Round.
All in all, Popful Mail is a fantastic little gem, and I greatly enjoyed my playthrough of it. I feel it stands as one of the highlights of the Sega CD, alongside games like Lunar 1 & 2 and Shining Force CD. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys silly action platformers with light RPG aspects. And hey, if I ever decide to go through the game once more, I think I may be ready to give the Working Designs Hard Mode version another shot.
That said, whether you choose to play this game or not is entirely up to you, I'm not your mom. However, I am grateful for taking the time to read this review and I hope you learned something new from it. And until our paths cross again... gaw!
No comments:
Post a Comment