For reasons unclear, I woke up early this morning and chose pain. Mamono Hunter Youko carries a bit of a poor reputation among Mega Drive enthusiasts. Give it five minutes of your time and it's not hard to see why. Youko, the hapless heroine, spends her world-saving adventure beleaguered by monsters from every direction. Her legs are hobbled by a Castlevania-esque stiffness, ensuring that the slightest miscalculation in a jump will send her tumbling into deadly waters or lava. I can't even begin to describe how woefully underequipped the poor lady is. Whereas the Alisia Dragoon protag had full-screen auto-targeting lightning to protect herself against the swarms of fiends and their projectile spam, Mamono Hunter has a sword with hardly any range. Oh, but she's got a charge attack that flings a boomering in whatever direction she's aiming. Big whoop.
The best part is when the music changes and you approach what you believe to a boss battle. Instead, it's an awkward climb up a massive vine. The boss is flying from one side of the screen to the other, using its wind powers to push Youko around the instant the jump button is pressed. Either you adapt to the changing winds, or who am I kidding? There is no "either", because hardly anyone is willing to give this game more than five minutes. I don't blame them (or you for that matter). This title is one I've been dodging since forever ago. When Mamono Hunter Yōko: Dai 7 no Keishō showed up in Sega Saturn magazine's "Top 25 Worst Mega Drive Games" list, I figured that I was in the clear. HOWEVER, one or two people stood up and said they were fans of the game. Well shit, if this game has fans, then who am I to willingly blind myself to the meritorious qualities it might possess?
And so... instead of 5 minutes, I pushed myself to give this game 10 minutes. Then 10 turned into 20, 20 into 30, and 30 into oh, thank goodness it's already over. This is neither a long adventure nor an overly punishing one. Yes, mistakes are often rewarded with a miserable death, but checkpoints are frequent, and there's a large stack of lives & continues to chew through. More to the point, Mamono Hunter Yohko isn't a bad game. It's just not for everyone. If you find this copout answer dissatisfying, then stick close while I try to figure out who this game is actually for.
Before going further, we should take a closer look at Youko's powers, because mastering them gets us one step closer to understanding what makes this game work. That boomering I mentioned earlier is actually a shield, a powerful shield at that. It has limitations though. While it'll block a projectile from any direction, anything larger will fly right through. Also, a blocked shot creates a temporary hole in the heroine's defenses, so it's up to the player to keep her moving and make at least a valiant effort to avoid (or destroy) whatever is spitting all those bullets.
The boomering functions as a ranged attack when the attack button is released. Also, you can send that ring in the same direction or somewhere else by pressing attack the instant it returns (mashing works if you struggle with timing presses). Basically, you can and likely will rush through areas, throwing the ring every which way and saving yourself a lot of hassle. There is one other important detail worth considering, however. It feels weird saying this, but enemies don't respawn. Take a moment to destroy everything in your immediate area before attempting difficult jumps. I'm a bit weirded out that this game is thoughtful enough to avoid having its monsters just reappear endlessly. This isn't typical licensed schlock. The development team approached their game with confidence and clear intent.
Since yellow paint hadn't been invented yet. Mamono Hunter Youko's methods for showing players when and where to jump is to have them fail several times. Jumps are always going to be stiff, so all you have is your agency. Before long, you'll be able to accurately gauge whether you'll under or overshoot the platform you want to leap on. Just be mindful of the environment. Stage 5 is packed with slopes that'll add a ton of momentum to every jump. Mess up and the heroine is flying into the nearest pit. I don't think I had fun playing this stage, but I didn't feel cheated either. I understood what the developer wanted me to do, so the blame for every death landed squarely on me. Well... almost every death. There are a couple of instances where it isn't 110% clear what's expected, and it's not like the strict time limit allows a moment to experiment.
This game's approach to health is also pretty unique. Everything does quite a bit of damage, but at least 2/3rds of the lost health will restore itself if Youko can get out of immediate danger. Basically, it's possible for the 3-hit heroine to survive until hit 7 or 8. There's still a lot of opportunities to die horribly though. Streams of fire in stage 2 will melt a full health bar in a second. Several deaths will be attributed to enemies or bosses clumsily bumping into the protag. The finale is especially annoying because of this issue. For the most part though, you can get pretty far while only suffering minor scrapes if you use the environment and shield properly. There's a small hill in the third boss arena that the heroine can stand on. It provides a good angle for her to reach the boss and eliminate its projectiles before they can become a problem.
I'll also show a bit of appreciation towards the complete absence of power-ups. There are health restoratives and 1ups lying around, but no "grab this to increase the sword level" nonsense. I like that I don't have to account for these variables while learning the stages. I don't have to worry about getting screwed over because I brought the wrong subweapon to a boss battle. It's a refreshing twist on the genre.
Even with all of this praise, don't act so surprised when you reach the end of this review and see Yuko's shocked and appalled face. I respect and even admire what the developers of Mamono Hunter Yohko accomplished here. This is a unique take on a formula that had already become exhausting. It's clearly designed to create an antagonistic relationship with its players, but it doesn't rely on cheap deaths to artificially extend playtime. The game could've given its players three lives and no continues but instead chose to give them 5 lives and 7 continues. It's inviting them to learn how to survive in the world as well as the intricacies of the sword.
Basically, I just couldn't find very many moments where I enjoyed what I was doing. Yes, mechanics were clicking into place, and I saw exactly what the developer was going for, but I wasn't having much fun. Normally in a game you put up with the lows so you can experience the highs. Yet the closest I got to a high was a section of stage 4 when Youko was effortlessly blocking and destroying scores of foes while running at full speed. It wasn't enough to win me over, especially considering the effort required to make the tiniest jumps in stage 5 or getting around the 2nd boss and its brutal hitboxes.
Still, if you're the academic type who values games as learning experiences, then I think you should check this out. The mechanics are interesting to explore, and there is real consequence to every action or inaction by its players. Mamono Hunter Yohko isn't like most action-platformers.
It's just not for me.
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| "Oh my God!" (respectfully) |
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