So...what do we have here?

Japanese Game Box Front

The Adorable Mana and Yuzu

What do you get when you mix two parts Earthbound, one part Paladin's Quest (Lennus), add a dash of originality, and change the main protagonist into a little girl? Gokinjo Boukentai, one of the silliest, cutest RPGs that Japan has to offer for the SFC. Made in 1996 and published by Pioneer LDC, this game is similar because it potentially teeters on a love/hate relationship. The game takes place in a realistic city with cars and all that jazz. The characters are as strange as they are goofy. Just about everyone has character portraits to help illustrate this. Take control of Mana and her cat friend, Yuzu, as she travels around the city with her elementary school friends and goes on wild expeditions. On your journey, you will get helpful advice from Kami-sama (God), and you are one of the only people with the strange power to see and interact with Kami-sama (people thinks she is weird for "talking to herself" and "walking off abruptly" at times).

The game has a lot of appeal to me due to the level of interactivity within the environment and the humorous antics with our heroine. One example of the humor is if you make Mana run fast into a wall, she will smash up against it and become flat as a pancake. So where exactly does Paladin's Quest come in? During battles, you have spells and the like, but you don't have MP. Instead, you must use your HP to do special attacks. While this may sound like a bad thing, it's more forgiving than PQ in my opinion because you heal all HP after a fight. The characters have special map abilities too. Mana can dash, Doctor has this grappling hook thing, Lawrence can call a car to drive around the city, etc. Pretty cool stuff. The music is also odd, but strangely hip, cool, and highly satisfying. The battle theme has this pretty neat jazz tune that plays and it actually works in the games' favor. Actually, the music as a whole is very good.

The biggest thing that sets this apart from the aforementioned games is its quests. I feel it's not as linear as EB or PQ. You can take a number of quests, and different quests are opened depending on how you grow Mana's personality (her stats are altered this way too). It helps for replayability and further expands the story and longevity of this title. Overall, one of the less typical RPGs for SNES/SFC.

- Written by Vyse the determined -