Hello, everyone. I was disappointed but not surprised in the least at the lack of any discussion on NL about this game. Well, I'm here to provide a history lesson, and hopefully get some people to talk about this game.
As you probably do not know, Yumi's Odd Odyssey is part of a twenty year old game series that began on the Super Famicom, called Umihara Kawase. It's fairly obscure, but it's loved by nearly everyone who has played it, myself included. It's a charming little platformer with an interesting gimmick. Your character, the titular Umihara, uses a rubber fishing line to sling around from surface to surface, traversing a colorful world with a strong salt- and fresh-water motif. The grappling might remind you of Bionic Commando. Bionic Commando wishes it was this game. Umihara Kawase is the epitome of "easy to play, hard to master", in that it shouldn't take you too long to simply get one of the endings, but this game was made for speed running. It includes myriad branching paths and alternate level exits, lots of fun and challenging tech to master, and even the option to save replays, which was something totally crazy for a platformer to allow in the SFC days.
About three years later, there was a sequel for the Playstation called Umihara Kawase Shun, which introduced a new art style, and slightly tweaked the physics of the fishing line, making it a bit shorter and more elastic, but not to a detrimental degree, and it's very easy to go from one UK game to the other with very little adjustment needed. It retained the branching paths and replay saving that made the first so great, and the gameplay is just as solid. There were actually two versions of the PSX game. Nine times out of ten, if you hear about Shun, they'll be talking about the second version. The first version had a few less levels than the second version, and the first version had these awkward ads sometimes between levels, which were advertisements for the company Mitchell, where Umihara would be seen with one of their products. Future releases would always use the second version.
After this, it was about a decade before another Umihara Kawase game came out, and it was a disaster. A PSP port of the PSX game with a bugged up engine. Not much to say here. It was bad, and nobody liked it. It almost came out in the US (it was going to use the name Yumi's Odd Odyssey), but almost certainly did not because of the poor reception.
About a year after this, Umihara Kawase finally got another good game, and it was for the DS: Umihara Kawase Shun: Second Edition Kanzenban. It was a compilation of the original Super Famicom game and the second version of the PSX game, with some added levels. The engine is perfect and the gameplay is as great as ever. No screw ups here, and it's probably the best way to get into the series, though the price is a bit steep. I paid about $70 for a new copy, and with some hunting you could probably do better than that if you were interested in picking it up.
About four years after that, Japan got Sayonara Umihara Kawase for the 3DS, which is supposedly going to be the final Umihara Kawase game (further ports or remakes notwithstanding?). This is what the US got two days ago: Yumi's Odd Odyssey. It added three new playable characters with slight gameplay variation between them, and introduced collectibles in the form of backpacks which unlocks some bonus content. The replay saving and branching paths are retained, as is the classic rubber fishing line gameplay, which still feels as it should. The artstyle is a bit bland, or at least takes some getting used to (background and foreground images are fine, but the character models might seem a bit odd), and I'm afraid it might make the game look a bit shovelware-esque, but I can assure you it's very far from this. Leaderboards were introduced (though they're very barren, sadly) as well. It's definitely worthy of the Umihara Kawase name, and is a fantastic game all around, with challenging gameplay that promotes practice, and is a great game for speed running with a lot of room for player growth.
I'm just disappointed in the way Natsume handled the localization. Umihara Kawase is fairly obscure, even in Japan, and even more so here. But the people who are likely going to be interested in the game are going to be the people who already knew about or are just learning about Umihara Kawase, and the name change does them no favors. Hopefully it picks up momentum and doesn't flop, but it's hard to say. Anyway, I'm enjoying the heck out of it as a big Umihara Kawase fan, and hopefully some of you are too, or are perhaps interested in checking out this awesome series. There are myriad YouTube videos showcasing gameplay from the whole series, if you're interested.
I am waiting for any review of this game, but it is taking them forever. I saw a video and it looks interesting and quirky. Plus they explain all of the game mechanics, which is nice for newcomers.
Do you have any idea how long this game is? I would not mind paying the $30, but I would like a decent length, as I am not a fan of speedrunning.
I will comment in this thread, never being able to find it again.
Hey, @1upsuper! I appreciate you taking the time out to write this brief history lesson to let people in on how important this game is. Some who may not know, won't even look twice. I only recently acquired a copy of the SFC copy (After searching for a good deal for about 2 years. It was my "unicorn".). I agree that this game has been a longtime coming, and as its first US release, I feel it COULD'VE at least gotten a retail copy. The Japanese version even has a soundtrack available! Unfortunately, I'm in the same camp as most about the steep price, especially for a digital game that will only be playable on one 3DS system. What if you have a 3DS but want to play it on an XL to see bigger sprites/models?
There's actually more curiosity & absurdity surrounding this franchise (if I may only add to 1upsuper's post):
What's really funny is that even for those of you who may have wanted to emulate the SFC/PSX/DS games, the developer had a game-ruining bug put into the game that would render it uplayable. However it wasn't just an arbitrary blank screen or reset, it was rather creative & cheeky, too. You see, the games mechanic itself relies heavily on the physics engine involving the fishing line that your character uses to swing on. On original copies, the game works fine, but on emulated ROMs, the game would be fine for about a full-minute, after which any time you would use your line to attach to anything, it would either not attach at all, or snap at only a short distance; halting your progress up to that point. Only a full reset of the game would fix it. Whether this was an F.U. from the developer or not, it was indeed a clever workaround against piracy. This bug alone is the reason that even emulator-users haven't been able to play this fun & addicting puzzle-platformer for free, making the only way to play any of these games in the franchise a rather pricey affair.
It seems even this 3DS release keeps that pricey tradition.
I hope it doesn't get pulled from the eShop before a sale of some kind.
Otherwise, download this game if you have the funds. It's a strange but special game to have in your collection.
@sinalefa The game has 50 levels, and it gets difficult enough after the first few stages that I've spent about 20 hours on the game and still only have 47/50 unlocked. I'm fairly decent at this series too (though a fair bit below the level of speedrunners for these games), so I'm sure it won't be too short for you.
@Steviis_Father That's strange, I haven't experienced the issues you mention when emulating the previous games, though I did experience some problems even starting the game when trying to run the SFC one with ZSNES. Perhaps the emulators you used just weren't accurate enough, which triggered the anti-piracy measures? bsnes seems to work fine with the game, and Snes9x as well if I recall correctly. ePSXe should work with Shun, and DeSmuME might work with Kanzenban, though admittedly I haven't played that one as much since my computer can't emulate Shun at full speed in that one.
@HeroOfCybertron: Just being paranoid if the developer chooses to do so if nobody buys it. I wouldn't put it past them, considering how their past track record shows them releasing a game late in a console's life, in small numbers, and for short production runs; the steep price tags on pretty much all the games reflect this rarity. Let's just hope it doesn't happen.
@Kosaku: Maybe you're right. I did use ZSNES. Perhaps there have been workarounds since then. I'm just happy to have found a copy of it already to play on my SNES. But if you do look around the internet, you will find the issues reported by a number of people. It's a purposeful bug that is actually pretty cool to know exists. Just makes this game all the more interesting to search for.
@Steviis_Father Yep, I did see that after looking around a bit, including people reporting the same thing with Kanzenban a few years ago.
Also, I don't think there's much to worry about with Yumi's Odd Odyssey being pulled from the eShop. Now that Natsume has already translated it and put it up there, it doesn't cost them anything to keep it there, since it's digital and they don't have to pay for manufacturing costs or anything like that. They'd only stand to lose money if they pulled it from the eShop at this point, since then they couldn't make any more sales. So no worries!
Thanks. I decided to get the game today after checking Morgan's review. And I have to say I am really happy with it. I love how they give you infinite lives, but the game still can be pretty hard and challenging, but not unfair.
The fishing line mechanic is so unique and interesting that I know I will be playing this one for a long time, trying to master all kind of jumps and swings.
I will comment in this thread, never being able to find it again.
Got it yesterday and honestly, I flipping hate this game. The fishing line feels so... rubbery, I feel like my successful platforming is just luck and at other times it just doesn't stretch in exactly the right way, so I fall into the water. Maybe I'll get used to the mechanics later, but right now it's annoying.
Maybe it's because I just played the 3DS Castlevania game, which has a lot of swinging in it as well. I still feel like I muddle the controls here and there.
Also, what do the backpacks unlock? There aren't that many blanks in the gallery or the soundtrack menu...
always thought I'd change to Gyarados after I turned 20 but hey, this is more fitting I guess. (also somebody registered under the original Magikarp name and I can't get back to it anymore orz)
I was going to pick this up today, but I missed the sale. Already added the money, though...maybe I'll site on that and decide if its worth full price later...
It's been on sale a couple of times already, so I'm sure it'll be on there again eventually.
Yeah...I guess I'll grab some VC games, I guess...
You know a superior version of the game is available on PSN for the Vita, right? Vita version runs at 60 fps and comes with the original SNES game as an unlockable bonus, if I remember correctly.
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Topic: Yumi's Odd Odyssey or: Sayonara Umihara Kawase
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