Games Beaten 2018
1. Letter Quest Remastered Switch eShop
2. Batman NES
3. Little Nemo: The Dream Master NES
4. Mickey's Wild Adventure PS1
5. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros. 3DS
6. Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy 3DS
7. Nier Automata PS4
8. Legacy of the Wizard NES
9. The Legend of Zelda (starring Zelda) NES
10. Tobu Tobu Girl Game Boy
11. Rhyme Rider Kerorican WSC *NEW*
Rhyme Rider Kerorican
Rhyme Rider Kerorican is a rhythm game for WonderSwan Color. It was created by NanaOn-Sha, who are better known for other rhythm games such as Parappa the Rapper, Um Jammer Lammy and Vib Ribbon.
In Rhyme Rider Kerorican, you play as the titular Kerorican, a girl in a frog helmet who skips through a series of quirky levels. Enemies and obstacles appear in time with the music and you must react by pressing the correct button to clear the obstacle. So far, so 90s rhythm game.
Rhyme Rider Kerorican’s main gimmick is the way it utilises the hardware it’s on. The WonderSwan is known for it’s odd control layout – it has a d-pad style layout on the left with an A+B button on the right when held in landscape mode, but it can also be turned vertically, where it has a d-pad style 4 button layout on both sides of the system. Rhyme Rider Kerorican though, is unique in that it’s intended to be played diagonally – using the top d-pad on the left and the 2 buttons on the right as the primary position for your hands, causing the screen to sit at a tilted angle.
One way in which Rhyme Rider Kerorican draws inspiration from Vib Ribbon (NanaOn-Sha’s previous title) is the way it requires button combinations to react to some of the obstacles. The standard obstacles are reacted to using either the A or B button, any of the 4 X buttons on the console, or any of the 4 Y buttons, depending on the obstacle. Later stages introduce obstacles which require to to combine these – so the teacup obstacle requires a combination of the Y&A/B buttons, for example. There are 6 obstacles in total. Clearing enough consecutive obstacles will cause a crown to appear above an enemy, and getting the correct timing on this enemy will cause Kerorican to skip ahead in the level somewhat.
Mechanically, the game is solid, but it has some flaws. First of all is the button combination system – it’s OK for most combinations, but the last 2 stages introduce a spray can obstacle that must be passed with a combination of an X and a Y button – if you look at the image of the console I posted above, you can see the issue here – they’re on the same side, and it’s really hard to react fast enough to hit them.
The main issue though, is the fact that the game is short. Like super short. It took me way longer to write this review than it did to beat the 4 levels included in the game. Each level is only a few minutes long, and they’re not really all that hard until the final stage either to be honest. Rhyme Rider Kerorican feels like a satisfying demo to a full game, only there’s nothing more to see.
Overall, the game is worth a play for the colourful graphics, jazzy music and fun gameplay, but it’s ridiculously short length is really an issue holding it back. It’s over before you really have a chance to get into it, and there’s not a lot of reason to replay the game either. I wouldn’t rush out to buy a Wonderswan just for this game, but if you have one and you find this cheap it’s at least a bit of short-lived fun.
Required Listening:
So, this game is a bit obscure and I had a hard time finding any tracks to share with you this time. Instead, enjoy this sample of gameplay so you can see and hear what it sounds like to play Rhyme Rider Kerorican. It sure is high quality for an 8-bit handheld!:
Click the image below to listen