For fans of obscure Japanese games on the original PlayStation, here's some good news:
there are still plenty of great, overlooked titles that can be found in the current year
for reasonable and affordable prices. But I've also got some bad news: quite a few of
the lesser known PS1 discs out there have suddenly begun to skyrocket in price in very
little time, whether it's a “hidden gem,” or a “hidden turd,” like this game. Just
be aware that it looks like the era of cheap Japanese original PlayStation games is coming
to a close...unless it's an RPG, those are like the sports games of Japan and most will
probably always be cheap.
One PS1 title that surely falls into the “hidden gem” category but has been pretty pricey
for a while now is the 1999 2D action platforming cult favorite The Adventure of Little Ralph,
brought to us by the long defunct New Corporation. It's a game that needs no introduction, especially
here at Import Gaming FTW, since it was the subject of episode 13 back in 2014. No doubt
the reason its value shot up so early in the big retro game boom is because Little Ralph
really is a solid, fantastic game, one that sadly never got the attention it so warranted
at the time of its release, lost in the vast sea of PlayStation titles that hit store shelves
each month. Surely a shift in trends and tastes at the time moving away from the “retro”
style of the games Little Ralph paid homage to played a part in this, as did some of the
mediocre reviews it received upon release...seriously, what “professional” reviewer gives this
game a four out of ten? Maybe games journalism was always bad. But whatever the case, the
game's lack of financial success doesn't seem have come from a lack of marketing. Across
Japan, posters and advertisements for The Adventure of Little Ralph were on display
in video game retailers, which also distributed leaflets promoting the game's release. Additionally,
while it wasn't previewed as much as some of the heavy hitters of the time like Final
Fantasy VIII and the newly released Dreamcast, you could still find a bit of Little Ralph
coverage in video game magazines back in '99.
One of the most effective and popular ways to promote an upcoming game in the 32-bit
era, however, was with playable game demos, so it's no surprise that a small portion of
Little Ralph's big adventure was made available in trial form—multiple times at that. One
of these was released in the February of 1999, included in both Sony's official Japanese
PlayStation magazine, Hyper PlayStation Re-Mix, as well as the Media Works published Dengeki
PlayStation D. This demo allowed players to experience the first of the game's 8 levels,
from stage 1-1 in the city to stage 1-2 in the waterworks bureau, culminating in the
boss fight with the area's caretaker, the wise, machine-loving, Oval. Though this build
of Little Ralph is close to what would be presented in the final game, it does vary
from the finished product in a few ways. Some but not all are as follows: In the game's
introduction, a few flying minions are present during the text crawl, and Ralph's reaction
to losing Lutecia and being rendered a helpless child by dark magic is less animated. Backgrounds
are different and not as detailed in the intro, but also in the starting town stage as well
as the attract mode's autoplay of stage 4. The arrangement of the heads up display is
different as well, featuring a high score value but omitting the stage number and timer,
despite having a time limit. The gameplay tutorial is not quite as polished and complete,
and the look and placements of many of the score and power-up items would also be altered
before the final release. Honestly, they're all really minute differences, but for a fan
of The Adventure of Little Ralph, it's kind of neat looking back and seeing them.
In addition to providing the player with a raw gameplay experience, this demo promotes
the retail release in a couple of clever ways, one with the name entries in the score rankings
and another with the post fight dialogue between Ralph and Oval. The little hero questions
the defeated old hag regarding the whereabouts of Lutecia, to which she replies that all
will be known in March, followed by a playful dialogue and a screen advertising that the
“exhilarating ultimate action game” The Adventure of Little Ralph would be out sometime
in March of 1999 for the standard PS1 retail price of 5800 yen.
The dev team would work on the game for a few more months past that date, however, and
it wouldn't be until June 3rd that Little Ralph would finally hit store shelves, with
this delay also accompanied by a reduced MSRP of 4800 yen. While it wasn't quite the bargain
of something in D3's Simple Series or Success' Super Lite libraries, this price tag does
make The Adventure of Little Ralph somewhat of a budget title, surprisingly. But perhaps
more surprising than that, in the weeks just before it hit store shelves, New Corporation
would prepare even more demos in an attempt to hype up the game's release. One new trial
version was distributed once again through Dengeki PlayStation D magazine in its May
edition. This is an update of the previous demo, featuring more polished gameplay and
graphics found in the final release, two selectable stages, and an options menu that allows players
to choose between the standard soundtrack or the PSG sound mode that emulates the noises
of the Sharp X68000, where The Adventure of Little Ralph was originally intended to call
home. Similar to the other demo, character dialogue promotes the release of the retail
game, with the stage 2 boss, the devil kid Wiki, stating he'll let you off the hook until
June.
On May 21st a standalone sampler disc was also distributed in limited numbers at retailers
for customers interested in the game. This version also contained the updated graphical
assets, but had none of the sound options found in the previous magazine demo and only
granted access to stage 1. However, this disc did bring a couple of new features to make
up for that, the first of which is a score attack mode, where players start with only
one life and aim to gain as much points as possible. Regardless of whether Ralph makes
it through the level in one piece or not, finishing up this mode will provide a password
for your score on the title screen which you could send to New Corporation on a postcard
to enter a contest. The finished game would have a similar competition, one which you
could win a Sony Walkman, Sony Mini Disc player or even an Apple iMac, but the prizes were
on an understandably lower scale for this demo's contest, including PocketStations according
to this blurb in Weekly Famitsu. In addition to score attack, players could also enjoy
the first of The Adventure of Little Ralph's fighting game style segments, playing as not-so-little
Ralph against the boss of stage 4, the mutated lizardman, Travant. Like the other stages,
post fight dialogue is used as an opportunity to promote the game's street date.
So as you can see, before June 3rd, 1999, there were plenty of opportunities for Japanese
gamers to see, hear and experience first-hand New Corporation's upcoming 2D action masterpiece...but
can you believe it, there's one final thing to mention here, and it just happens to be
the most interesting promotional item of the bunch—a special demo disc called Hero Hero-kun
to Rarufu no Daibouken, or The Adventure of Ralph and...Hero Hero-kun?
This demo differs from all of the others in several ways, which we'll get into, but the
biggest and most obvious is the inclusion of the titular Hero Hero-kun, who follows
Ralph around as he hacks and slashes throughout the journey. But what in God's name is...I
mean, who is this...rather unique young individual who accompanies the protagonist here? This...Hero
Hero-kun. Well, he is the star of a series of a manga of the same name, written and illustrated
by Takahiro Kamiya. It began its run in 1994 and became popular when it was serialized
in the pages of Monthly Comic Bom Bom, which would later publish Hero Hero-kun stories
in book form with its Bom Bom Comics label. You only need a quick peek at one panel in
this manga to see it's for a younger demographic and is chock full of humor. Odd and at times
grossly bizarre humor. Because this is about Little Ralph and not Hero Hero-kun, I won't
go too much into the character or his adventures, but he can be described as strange, lacking
self-awareness and clumsy, but he's got a pure heart of gold and is a loyal friend to
the people in his life. And this is all made very apparent in the demo.
But I guess the real question is, “why is he in a Little Ralph demo?” Well, the answer
can be found by rewinding things just a little bit and taking another look at Monthy Comic
Bom Bom. A variety of manga series were published in this magazine, including adaptations from
popular video games such as Rockman-slash-Megaman, Super Mario and a personal favorite of mine,
Ganbare Goemon. This made a lot of sense, as a huge portion of the young male audience
the magazine targeted also loved video games, which is why information on new and upcoming
game releases could also be found in Monthly Comic Bom Bom's many pages. The popular magazine
must have seemed like a natural platform for advertising a new PlayStation action platformer,
so I assume that's the reason this Little Ralph and Hero Hero-kun demo tie-in was born.
Readers were able to request this disc through the mail and could also participate in a high
score competition much like the standalone disc talked about earlier, the details of
which could be found in the June 1999 edition of Monthly Comic Bom Bom. Unfortunately, as
these somewhat bukly magazines were often disposed of soon after reading, they are quite
hard to come by today and I was unable to obtain an issue of this particular magazine
myself after searching for some time.
Back to the disc itself—while it's missing the sound options and fighting game style
boss battle included in the other demos, content-wise, this is still the beefiest one of them all,
featuring the entirety of the game's first three levels playable in one go, from the
streets of Kathua and the waterworks bureau in stage 1, through the aqueducts and sewage
plant of stage 2, and ending in the desert with a showdown with the Gold Sphinx in the
colossal Pyramid of Sphio. Hero Hero-kun appears in the game's intro and joins from stage 1,
accompanying Ralph everywhere the little hero goes and functioning in the same way the sidekick
powerup creature Feirio does. Where the mysterious little creature aids Ralph's attacks with
a small, arcing explosive, Hero Hero-kun uses his natural gifts to help by shooting out
snot from his nose in a similar fashion. I think I mentioned he's kind of gross. The
connection to the world of Hero Hero-kun doesn't stop just with the main character himself,
however, and you can find all of his friends hanging around the stages as powerups, usually
in hard to reach or secret areas. There's Bari Bari-kun, Boro Boro-kun, Muka Muka-kun,
this little caveman guy who I couldn't identify, Gero Gero-kun, Pyuu Pyuu-kun, Kira Kira-chan,
and in place of where the X68000 computer would be found in the
final release is Hero Boroborotto...I never want to say that ever again.
Hero Hero-kun is not a silent partner like Feirio, and whenever there's dialogue, he
butts in and brings some nice humor and a bit of awkwardness to the conversation. For
example, when Ralph tells the stage 2 boss Wiki that kids should go home and drink some
milk, Hero Hero-kun reminds the protagonist that he too is a child, at least in his current
form. This causes Ralph to question which side Hero Hero-kun is on, and Wiki asks what's
up with the two-man comedy act. It's fun, it's playful—I like it. Additionally, the
manga star's catchphrase “uuuun, tottemo hero hero~” is spoken by all in the game
window after completing stage one and two. It's...hard to express what this means in
English, kind of like it's hard to express what Hero Hero-kun is about in any language,
even Japanese. When Ralph and Hero Hero-kun pass the trial of the Gold Sphinx in stage
3, they realize their time together has come to an end and the two must part ways. Before
heading to the lost continent, Ralph thanks the odd boy for his help and companionship,
and the demo concludes.
The Adventure of Little Ralph with Hero Hero-kun demo disc is a great collector's item, but
it's actually not as rare as the other standalone disc mentioned, and as such is cheaper and
easier to find. But out of all the demos that were made for the game, it's the most fun,
interesting and collectible, for obvious reasons. Speaking of collectibles, there isn't much
more out there for Little Ralph outside what I've shown throughout this video. Perhaps
the only other big item that I'm missing is a phone card, which may have been a prize
for one of the competitions or as a bonus for people who ordered the game directly from
New Corporation. Over a decade after the game's release date, the game's soundtrack was published
by Egg Records, but as is the case with many of the company's products, it's sadly digital-only.
While it never got the fanfare it so deserved back in 1999, The Adventure of Little Ralph
is considered by many in the hardcore gaming crowd to be one of the best titles on the
PlayStation, made with such devoted passion and craft by its very small development team.
You can learn more about the team and their vision with the project in an interview translated
over at the Shmuplations website—it's a short but fascinating look into just how much
pure passion they had making the game. But that leads to a good question--whatever happened
to New Corporation? Well, some say the stars that shine the brightest are the quickest
to burn out, and I think that can certainly be applied here. Aside from Little Ralph,
the company put out two other titles on Sony's 32-bit machine, the seminal early PS1 classic
sports simulation Boxer's Road, and oddly a fantastic port of Capcom's fantastic beat
'em up Captain Commando. Both of these were advertised with leaflets that came with the
standalone discs. Aside from those, in 1997 they worked on a now extremely rare and expensive
release of Gainax's Princess Maker for the X68000, and the last game to feature the New
name was Hajime no Ippou Victorious Boxers for the PlayStation 2 in 2000. A few years
later, the company's main staff members split ways to form three companies. Little Ralph
Designer Ryuta Aoyagi formed Grandprix in 2003, going on to produce more Hajime no Ippo
titles, but the studio went bankrupt in 2012. In 2002, producer and programmer Katsuyoshi
Yamaki founded Think & Feel, which is still in operation today and has a working relationship
with Square-Enix. After New completely disbanded in 2004, former President Yasuyuki Narushima
would keep the IP rights and assets to the company's original works and establish Ertain,
a company that put out many titles for handhelds in the mid and late 2000s, including a sequel
to Boxer's Road for the PSP. Ertain would eventually fold in 2011 and currently all
of New's old properties are owned by Collavier, who has a whole section dedicated to The Adventure
of Little Ralph on their website, in Japanese as well as English.
One final thing I want to bring up about Little Ralph is an anecdote I heard a couple of years
ago from someone in the gaming industry regarding the creator of the game—it seems like eventually
he found employment at Hudson, but when the Konami merger happened in 2012, he was one
of the many staff members laid off. At the time I had that conversation, he was currently
working as a cab driver in Chiba. I can't remember who this was specifically, but I
have a pretty strong suspicion based on the Hudson thing. Anyway, it's unfortunate—unless
the man loves driving taxis more than making games, who knows?
Well, that's it for episode 2 of Demo'ing Demos! I hope you enjoyed it, whether your
a fan of The Adventure of Little Ralph or not, and hopefully you'll stick around for
the next episode. This is Jimmy Hapa—thanks and take care.