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AtomTwinkle Star Sprites: La Petite Princess
The success of Katamari Damacy should make one thing explicit - gamers REALLY need something different, something original. One of the most innovative games ever made is Twinkle Star Sprites, a slightly obscure title by ADK for the Neo Geo. By combining the intensity of a twitch shooter like Galaga and the competitive, combo-chaining action of a puzzle game like Puyo Puyo, Twinke Star Sprites is one of the best mishmash of genres ever devised. And now its sequel, La Petite Princess, has come almost out of nowhere for the Playstation 2.
In Twinkle Star Sprites, the screen is divided down the middle, with each player given their own half of the playing field. Shooting objects will cause them to burst, which in turn causes anything in the vicinity to explode, leading to a chain reaction. By building up chains, you send arcing fireballs over to your opponent’s side of the screen. Your opponent can choose to simply dodge your attacks, or counterattack by reflecting the fireballs back onto your side. Each player volleys attacks back and forth via this method, eventually unleashing invincible special attacks.
Creating mega chains will unleash gigantic boss attacks for the opposing player to deal with, and "fever" power-ups will unleash an overwhelming maelstrom of flaming death. The last one standing wins the match. It’s a simple game of chaos management that entrances you the moment you start playing.
At the beginning, there are a total of fifteen characters to choose from. They all vary in speed, and each has their own unique charge and special attacks. The character roster has been completely changed around for the new game. Favorites like Load Run and Realy Til are still there, but others like Nanja Monja and Arthur Schmitt have unfortunately been cast aside. Thankfully, the new cast of characters is pretty cool, the most interesting being the badass catboy named Vieru, who rides on a guitar and wails every time you unleash a power attack. The new boss character is a samurai girl named Mikoto who isn’t nearly as powerful as Queen Memory - who returns, but is unfortunately quite neutered. Much like the original, the Story Mode has cutscenes before every fight. The heroine this time is a cute little witch named Time, who is seeking the Twinkle Star to make their heart’s desire come true. All of the other characters have single player modes, but the only cutscenes occur during the ending.
The original game came out back in 1996, and it’s taken nearly ten years for a new installment to hit. Gone are the 2D sprites, replaced with fully polygonal graphics. While the game still isn’t graphically impressive, it manages to maintain the same gorgeous pastels of its predecessors. The character designs have somehow gotten even more ridiculously cute, but it’s to be expected of a game subtitled "La Petite Princess". I suppose manly men may feel threatened by the cutesy little girls and their adorable little pets, but it’s their loss.
So other than the graphical overhaul and new characters, what’s different for La Petite Princess? As it turns out, not much. The gameplay is exactly the same, although the speed seems to have decreased slightly. Most noticeably, your rapid fire shot isn’t quite as rapid any more, which forces a heavier reliance on the charge shot. In spite of the downshift, the game still inspires quite a bit of panic during the crazier moments, especially if you elect to turn off the slowdown. If that weren’t enough, even most of the soundtrack is remixed from the original.
The only real advancement is the inclusion of online play - which requires that you pay a setup fee for some Japanese matching service. In other words, if you’re not in Japan, you probably won’t get too much use out of this feature, and it sounds a little shifty to have to pay when all of the other online PS2 games are free.
Import Friendly? Literacy Level: 1
The game is full of Japanese text and speech, but the menus are easy to navigate, and the dialogue is entirely irrelevant. Even if you can’t understand what’s going on, the drawings and animations are amusing enough to break the language barrier.
US Bound?
The rumor is that SNK Playmore of America decided that Twinkle Star Sprites was too risky to release out of Japan. Which sucks, because this game, ported to the Xbox with Live support, would be a dealbreaker.
+ Pros: Incredibly fun puzzle action, especially with two players, nice new art style.
- Cons: Cutesy graphics may be offputting, very little has changed since the original.
Overall: It’s a little disappointing that, after ten years, ADK really didn’t change much of the core formula. Maybe it was already close enough to perfection, but players who spent hours upon hours with the original may feel a little bit unfulfilled, being that there isn’t much new here. Still, if you’ve never experienced Twinkle Star Sprites at all, this is definitely the way to go - in addition to La Petite Princess, the original Neo Geo game is included as an unlockable. It’s just an emulation of the original, so it lacks the bonuses from the other home ports, and the sound seems a little off, but it’s still an excellent bonus. And besides, it’s far cheaper to buy La Petite Princess new at retail price than it is to hunt down the expensive Saturn or Dreamcast ports.
Written by Kurt Kalata.
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