| ARCHIVE STATS |
262 games
79 downloadable
1226 MB archived |
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| INDIVIDUAL GAME LISTING |
Obake  
WARNING: to run, this game requires the Japanese language support to be activated. Click here to see what to do.
And Click here to download a patch which makes the Japanese support unnecessary, thanks to rste79 for making it!
Unfortunately, it isn't granted to work on all systems with Windows 98. So, if you are a Win98 user and the patch fails, there's no other way to run the game.
Obake is a classic-styled platformer, much in the vein of Nintendo productions, especially the Kirby saga, to which it owes some debts. But don't think of it as a simple "copycat" (like many Mario remakes), since it has enough to stand out for his own; just for a start, it's much longer and deeper than most of, if not all the free games of the same type. It has a little backstory: the main character is the young ghost Obake Kid (obake = ghost in Japanese) whose father Obake Papa, the Ghost King, has gone bad; so, he must reach his castle to stop him.For a better understanding of the game, let's examine the controls first:
Arrow keys - movement, and combination with other keys to use the abilites of some bodies
Z key - to take an enemy's body (must stand on his head) and use its attack abilities
X key - to jump, and double jump, glide... according to the body you are controlling
C key - to leave the body you are actually controlling
Space key - Pause; shows the abilities of the body you are controlling
Press C while pausing to leave a level, if previously completed.
After you beat the final boss, a special option becomes available: press X in the level selection screen to choose what body to posses from the start of a level.
Did you notice the similarity with Kirby already, in the use of enemies' capabilities? Obake Kid, despite his nature, is solid enough to take damage, and can only jump. But, luckily for him, he can possess the bodies of enemies and use them at his advantage. There are 25 types of enemies; graphically, some are just recolored versions of others, but they always have different abilities. Some are quite wacky, like the hunky, muscled giant pigs. The abilities you can get through them range from double jump to gliding, from crushing shoulder dash to wall climbing, down to my favourite enemy, the little robots with the ability to invert their gravity, so that they can walk on ceilings. There's even a shiny monster acting like Mario's stars, it gives temporary invulnerability and enemies are destroyed on touch. While some passages can be conquered with any body you like, others require the specific abilities of some enemies to be passed. There's really no lack of variety in Obake.
Each enemy has its own energy, called "Stamina". After it runs out, the body is lost and you return to the original ghost form, with which you can take real damage to your Soul Energy - restore it with heart items. There are also crosses for extra lives (one with a silver cross, three with a golden one), and little souls too, you get an extra life for every 100 you collect. Classic.
Another field where Obake shines are the levels. Like their number, a whipping total of 50 divided into eight "worlds" of various sizes, wasn't enough, they show a great care in design and variety. Some maps are only horizontal in scrolling, others are developed in both directions; other places are made of various little rooms, and there are even some sections with forced scrolling. In some levels, mainly castles, you must find six keys to open a metal door. The final level of each world has its own, classic, boss, though one, even if with different colors and attacks, is recycled at least four times during the game. Pity!
Each level has an icon with the letter G on it; they are mostly hidden in secret areas you must find. After collecting all the Gs in the game, the final eight levels will be unlocked and, with their completion, you will be allowed to say you finished Obake 100%. Notice that many Gs can be conquered only with the abilities of enemies who aren't normally found in their levels. For this reason, you first have to beat the final bosses and get the special option I mentioned earlier.
The gameplay of Obake is really great: I dare to say that, if not on par with the best Nintendo platformers, it comes very close. The game is in Japanese, so the explanations, but the control is very intuitive and I managed to find out and master the abilities of each enemy in a short time. Some bodies are great fun to use, and the very good level design helps a lot.
The graphics are clean, colorful, drawn in a simple style, and you won't find a single enemy with a menacing look. Some of them could have given better animations, though. Am I boring if I say that even these graphics remind me of the Nintendo games? Background tunes are good, there is no excessive variety but they don't get boring; I love the title and snowy levels music.
The only downside of Obake is the average difficulty level, which is low. Not taking damage to the main energy while possessing a body is a big facilitation already; enemies are rarely a big threat, and not even the two final bosses are the challenge I expected. You can get lots of extra lives easily. At times, I was able to "storm" through an entire fistful of levels in a few minutes. If I found some levels difficult, it's not because they really are - but probably for the reason they're a little more challenging than most ones!
But, if reaching the final boss is something that even the less experienced players can afford, real 100% completion of Obake is another matter (and it justifies my full rating). Before finding all the Gs and beat even the very last level, I played the game for days - few freeware games have kept me glued to the screen for so long. And, if you are really stuck, the author released maps of the levels to help, take a look here. Good work from him.
Obake is a great game that would perfectly fit on Game Boy Advance. It's a shame that, due to some filenames, it cannot run normally on western PCs and is completely forbidden to a part of them (see above). But if you can, install your Japanese language support or use the patch; else, you will miss a real freeware masterpiece.
| PC REQUIREMENTS: Pentium system 500 mhz, 128 megs of ram, Windows |
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GAME AUTHOR Samona
REVIEWED BY Gendo Ikari
STAFF RATING 10/10
USER RATING 7.6/10
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FILE SIZE 8.2 MB
FILE DATE Jan 19, 2004
UPLOADED Aug 27, 2004
DEV TOOL VC++
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NO DOWNLOAD |
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NO DEMOS 