Ripple Island is a 1988 SunSoft adventure game (where no one gets murdered, yay!), developed by their Tokai Engineering subsidiary. It also appeared on the PlayStation many years later, as part of Memorial * Series: SunSoft Vol. 4, where it was bundled with Blaster Master of all things. Amusingly, due to the way Japanese characters are translated to English the game title is sometimes written as Lipple Island. A fan translation dropped in 2018.
The eponymous Ripple Island is in fact the game's setting: an idyllic land that's recently come under threat by one Emperor Groaker, a self-styled "Prince of Darkness" whose true form only becomes unveiled at the tale's conclusion. The protagonist here is a young boy named Kyle, the only individual brave enough to confront the forces of evil. Of course, the promise of winning King Dotella's daughter's hand in marriage provides a sliver of additional motivation. As Kyle's journey begins, he soon meets another youth, a cute girl named Cal, who quickly becomes an ally. As is the case with Yuji Horii's Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken, much of the dialogue presented in Ripple Island is a back-and-forth between the two heroes, something vastly preferable to a sterile dry narration.
First things first: the game is gorgeous, and absolutely adorable. It looks like an 80s anime, boasting an art style that would make Miyazaki proud. The outdoor environments are beautifully crafted, and a fine change of pace from the gritty urban landscapes that characterized most Japanese adventure games. While the occasional human being can be encountered, most of Kyle and Cal's interactions are with the animal populace. Chattery squirrels, aggressive foxes, lazy turtles, ravenous owls, playful bunnies, drunk raccoons, and much, much more. The writing is fantastic, compelling the player to continue forth to save these fluffy and scaly buddies. Moreover, the animals aren't presented as simple stills, but as fully animated characters, complete with lip movements while speaking. The game's fully scored, too. The soundtrack isn't particularly riveting, but exudes a quaint relaxing vibe that complements the visuals nicely.
Ripple Island is split into five discrete chapters, with no backtracking to those which have been completed. The interface is icon-based. The first icon is used for navigation. Unlike, say, Portopia, players do not choose a specific location to immediate "warp" to, but instead advance in one of four cardinal directions. Thus, the game is laid out like a grid (or five grids, really), and is relatively easy to map. Other options available to Kyle and Cal include looking, talking, picking up items, using items, entering buildings, pushing, and pulling. There's even an option to call up a password at any time, to resume progress after shutting off the game. But these passwords are just as long and heinous as you'd expect.
Given the altogether soothing art style combined with the icon-based progression, the game has a bit of a "kiddie" feel to it, as if it was designed to be an introductory adventure title for younger gamers. And, to its credit, Ripple Island is pretty good about giving blatant hints to the player. Animals will explicitly state things like "I won't let you by unless you possess a red flower" and so on. Actually finding said items is where the challenge lies. There's a lot of pixel-perfect clicking required to complete the game, and plenty of trial and error. Some items need to be combined with others, which is always a bit dubious, while others need to be acquired and used multiple times, which necessitates some backtracking. Fortunately, it doesn't seem possible to become permanently stuck by discarding something plot-specific. Ultimately, I recommend playing the game with a walkthrough in tow: to deduce the locations of well-hidden treasures, and to be able to finish things off in one fell swoop, thus disregarding the password system altogether.
Offering up multiple endings in this era was unique enough, but Ripple Island puts an additional spin on the formula. For starters, no endings are truly "bad." At their worst, some endings are bittersweet, leaving the player with a nagging feeling that events could have (and perhaps should have) unfolded differently. Additionally, not all endings are presented at, ya know, the end of the game proper. Kyle and Cal can wraps things up prematurely, leaving the citizens of Ripple Island to their own devices. There's a surprising amount of morality injected into this tale, as "doing the right thing" is likely to lead to the best possible outcome. No matter what, though, you still have to aid that raccoon in getting himself sloshed.
Honestly speaking, the early SunSoft Famicom selection with pretty rough, replete with some really half-baked arcade ports. With the advent of games like Ripple Island the developer really started hitting their stride, showcasing some brilliant programming skill, writing talent, and attention to detail. At the time of its release, Ripple Island was one of the better adventure games to be found on the Famicom, if not the best overall, and it remains a true hidden gem.