Popful Mail
After the failed attempt to bring the game to the west by reworking it to be the part of "Sonic the Hedgehog" series, the Sega CD version of the game was localized by Working Designs and released in North America in late 1994. Most versions of "Popful Mail" are for the most part similar to each other, but the Super Famicom and Sega CD versions differ significantly both from each other and from the previous releases. Gameplay. "Popful Mail" is a 2D platform game with several RPG elements - excluding the ability to level-up characters. The controls allow  the player to jump, attack, open doors or treasure chests, and speak to another character. Additionally, the player can summon a menu to change some of the game's attributes, the current character, the current character's equipment, use or activate an item, read the game's status, save, load and quit. At the start of the game, the only playable character is Mail; however, as the game progresses, Tatt and Gaw will be available, and the player may switch between them at any time through the use of the "character" option in the menu (except in the middle of  dialogues). Each character has different attacks and armors, as well as differences in walking speed and jump. Mail is the fastest character, but is the one whose jump is lowest. Tatt is balanced—slower than Mail but faster than Gaw—and his jump is similarly in between. Gaw is the slowest of the three, but his jump and attacks are usually the highest. The character encounters enemies as well as non-playable characters. Often, when encountering an important character, dialogue begins immediately, with the player having no control over it. These important dialogues are by default always voice acted: however , text accompanies them, and the voiced speech can be turned off in an options menu if so desired. The character has 100 health points, and attacks from enemy characters diminish it according to the strength of the attacker. Similarly, all enemies have a 100 health point bar that has to be brought down to 0 for the enemy to be defeated. How much damage is dealt depends on the strength of the character, although an attack always causes the same amount of damage to the same enemy. The character also has a blue-grey bar that is depleted as a  distance weapon or a magical attack is used. When the bar reaches 0, the character can still perform the weapon motion, but the magical or long range portion of the attack will fail. The bar regenerates quickly if given time to do so (if the character uses no attacks or switches to a melee weapon). Use of a distance weapon or magical attack while the bar is regenerating halts the regeneration, which resumes if no attacks that deplete it are made. Each character can acquire up to five different weapons and various items. Each subsequent weapon is stronger than the  preceding one, although the player may switch to any weapons possessed at any time if so desired, through the menu. Weapons include a sword, dagger, boomerang, staff, fireball, and claw. Items, different from weapons and armor, affect either the health bar or the character's status, or are plot devices. They may confer invulnerability at a price, stability in snow, or replenish health, among other things. They can be obtained from other characters, treasure chests, shops, or bosses. The game has a practical save game feature. Games may usually be saved and loaded at any point in the game (except  during dialogues, world map travels, and the animated sequences); if a game that was previously saved in a room with a boss is loaded, the game resumes just before the battle, before the character has entered the room. The state of the game, including the hours played and the level, will be displayed. Three save slots are supplied, for storing up to three different states. Plot. Though portrayed differently from port to port, set in an unnamed fantasy world, a prologue tells of a grand legend related to the realm, of how long ago, three fallen gods of darkness known  as the Masters of Evil attempted to lay siege to the mortal plane. They were known as Morgal, the Lord of Beasts, commander of the feral and the most voracious of monsters and beasts; Necros, the Master of War, corruptor of men and the inciter of temptation and vice; and Ulgar, the Overlord, the leader of the Masters of Evil and wielder of the most evil of magics. At the end of the great war that threatened all who lived in it, the Masters of Evil were sealed away in a floating tower far from the reach of anyone, and  only three warriors, an elf, a human, and a dwarf, survived to tell the tale. Into the modern day, the main character and local bounty hunter, Popful Mail, makes her rounds; eventually, her day escalates to the point where she squares off with her bounty, the criminal golem maker and technomancer, Nuts Cracker, into the nearby forest. Though defeated, Nuts Cracker's body manages to escape, as always, and Mail thus cannot claim any bounty. Frustrated once more, she indifferently takes Nuts Cracker's head and wanders back into town. At the bounty post, she attempts to trade the  head in for cash, but like with many who have sought to capture Nuts Cracker before her, duplicates of his head are all they could retrieve, making the attempt a failure. Instead, however, she learns of a new bounty and becomes reinvigorated when she spots a 2,000,000 gold reward poster for the wizard turned criminal, Muttonhead, near the post. With sword in hand and hope in heart, Mail makes leads into the nearby forest for clues. Eventually, her quest to undertake the biggest catch of her career, will turn out greater, more perilous, more dangerous- yet more important, and even  more rewarding- than she imagines. Development. Falcom developed the NEC PC versions of "Popful Mail" with features used in previous games in the company's "Dragon Slayer" and "Ys" series. They use the , magic attacks like , and a side-scrolling view similar to that of "". Characters react with pain when they fall from high places, as in "Dragon Slayer IV" (released as "Legacy of the Wizard" in North America). The original releases incorporate features from the popular game "" ("Dragon Slayer II") as well. The gameplay of "Popful Mail" was compared to the Metroid game series by some critics, and is  retroactively considered part of metroidvania genre. The game was released for the NEC PC-8801 computer on December 20, 1991, and for the PC-9801 in 1992. It was later ported to the Sega CD by SIMS Co., Ltd. and "Sega Falcom", a partnership of the original developer Nihon Falcom and Sega, in April 1994, and to the PC Engine CD by NEC Home Electronics and its subsidiary HuneX in August 1994. "Popful Mail" also received a remake by Falcom themselves for Super Famicom in June 1994. A mobile phone version similar to the original NEC PC-8801 release for DoJa-supported systems  was published in five parts from 2003 to 2004 by Bothtec. The latest release of the game is the unchanged port to the Microsoft Windows, released on December 28, 2006, in Japan. A soundtrack titled containing music from the game in the CD format was published by Falcom Sound Team on August 24, 1994, in Japan. Localization. Plans to localize "Popful Mail" for an English release were first made by Sega, which wanted to replace the characters with characters from the "Sonic" franchise"." This project, called "Sister Sonic", was to star Sonic the Hedgehog's long lost sister. "Sister Sonic  was announced as a role-playing game in the Sonic the Hedgehog" series with no mention of it being a rework of "Popful Mail". Sega planned to reveal it at the American International Toy Fair in June 1993, but the game was never revealed. Upon hearing reports that the game was a rework of "Popful Mail", fans launched a campaign, sending letters to Sega urging them to release "Popful Mail" in its original, Japanese state. Due to the negative feedback, "Sister Sonic" was delayed and eventually cancelled. "Electronic Gaming Monthly" cited the incident as an example of the power of  consumers to influence video game companies. The localization of "Popful Mail" was later handed to Working Designs, which made several changes and adjustments for its North American Sega CD release. Enemies were made more difficult, downsampling and variable bitrates were used to compress the game's sounds from full 44.1 kHz CD quality to fit on the game disc. In animated sequences, waveform analysis was used to make characters' mouths match their dialogue. Two teams worked on the English translation for four months. Reception. Famitsu gave the SFC version 24/40, the PCE version 23/40, and the Sega CD version 22/40 . The Sega CD version received a score of 31 out of 40 (average 7.75 out of 10) from "Electronic Gaming Monthly". They especially praised the game's "cinema scenes". "GamePro" likewise gave their greatest praise to the cinema scenes and extensive voice acting, saying they "add great color to the game, setting these quirky characters apart from the standard mold of RPG heroes and villains." They also commented positively on the game's linear, undemanding gameplay. "Retro Gamer" included it on their list of top ten Mega CD games. "Next Generation" reviewed the Sega CD version of the game, rating  it three stars out of five, and stated that "If your sense of humor is off-kilter enough, it shouldn't matter how old you are." Legacy. Falcom used "Popful Mail" and its characters in various other media. "Popful Mail" was adapted into a manga that was a part Mediaworks and Dengeki Comic Gao! in July 1996, and was written by Yuu Aizaki. The company created two "Mail" drama CD series published by King Records: , a series of five CDs released between 1994 and 1995; and , two CDs released beginning in 1996. Falcom created , another drama CD published by King  that features Mail, on 22 November 1995. GameMusic.com sells "Tarako" and "Paradise" dramas 2 through 5 in the United States. As with "", an attempt was made to pitch an anime OVA based on the game to various anime studios, but the pilot failed to garner interest. The promotional video is all that came of the idea, which imagines Mail and friends finding themselves in Tokyo upon fighting a new foe. Mail and Gaw, along with other Falcom characters, would return as secret "Masters" in the 1997 Falcom game "Vantage Master". Mail's outfit was featured as a downloadable costume for  Tina Armstrong in Tecmo Koei's "".