THE DREAMCAST WILL NEVER DIE!

Sega’s last gasping breath at staying in the hardware market, The Sega Dreamcast is sadly left behind by today’s common populace, but with a rabid fanbase that will sing its praises all day any day, and that included the praises of its games. But for all the Power Stones and the Sonic Adventures, there were of course several games that fell through the cracks.

Today’s is one of those games, and is perhaps my favorite Dreamcast game. I just streamed it again, in fact, and if I don’t pick it up as a speedrun, it feels like one of those “I have to play this once a year or so” games. That game is, of course, Napple Tale.

title screen

Napple Tale is a 2000 2.5/3D Platformer by Chime for the Dreamcast. only in Japan, though it has an English patch! One of the only 3D platformers on the console actually, alongside Rayman 2’s Dreamcast port, Jet Set Radio, and uh… Super Magnetic NEO? Kao the Kangaroo exists too I guess. ANYWAY, Chime. They’re still around. These days they usually make games from other series, like Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, or Zero Time Dilemma, but back in 2000, a very special team at Chime developed Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream.

I say a very special team, because the team that made this game was almost entirely women! The creative team, at least. That’s rare even today, let alone back then. This gives the game a bit of a feminine vibe that I enjoy, it’s soft and pleasant.

intro

The entire game has a dream-like quality to it, actually. I’ve heard it described as “Nights into Dreams meets Klonoa”, which isn’t perfect, but it’s apt. The kind of fairy tale dream-like energy, meets 2.5/3D gameplay. It’s TECHNICALLY 3D, you can move in all dimensions, but the levels are mostly hallways. Hallways that are expressive! They have twists and turns that make good use of the 3D, but calling it a full 3D platformer is a bit disingenuous.

Mistaken identity

That dreamlike quality is shown quite early. It’s also heavily Alice in Wonderland, with our main character, Porch Arisia, being led to another world by a strange being, who is claiming to be late! He reveals himself to be Straynap, the Spirit Guide! Porch has passed on, and he’s here to guide her to the afterlife. First, they must go to the world between the land of eternal dreams and the waking world, a land of daydreams, Napple Tale! But as they get there, oops, it turns out Straynap was SUPPOSED to get a cat named Porsche. He messed up!

Wind Level

Now Porch must find her six “Petals”, parts of her being that tied her to the waking world, so she can return home! S.N is there to help her, as her guide and friend, and they must explore Napple World to find where the petals have gone! Oh, but not all is right in Napple World. The world is split into four, each corner representing the seasons, but they’ve been thrown into wack by Porch’s Petals! You need to explore 14 or so levels, all while helping out the people around town!

Napple Town

There are four worlds to Napple Tale, each representing a season. They’re in each direction of Napple Town, the hub world, where you can wander around, talk to NPCs, and do a few other things I’ll mention later. I love this game’s vibe, btw. It feels very Gamecube, and feels so nostalgic, even though I never grew up with it. Each world has 3 or so levels in them, where at the end you get one of your Petals. On top of that, you have two other petals which must be gained by helping people in town. No spoilers, because this kinda RPG Quest-ish energy is one of the highlights, you really do get to love these characters.

Ocean level

Gameplay, like I said, is a 2.5D/3D platformer. The gameplay is TIGHT, simple run and jump with a melee attack that makes enemies fly when you hit em, allowing you to chain enemies. It’s fun! The levels are unique and all have a neat flourish to them, surrounding that season. You got the windy level in spring, the level with giant snowballs chasing you in winter, or the summer festival! My only MAJOR gripe with this game is even though the levels are fun and not super long, for some of the quests you gotta replay em a few times, which CAN break the flow of the game. One quest in particular, I had to replay the first level of fall 3 times. But again, not a deal breaker.

The levels also have 16 or so treasure chests in them, and lots of coins to collect. These coins let you unlock bonuses like character cards and concept art, which is cute, and the treasure chests contain items for alchemical mixing, recipes for the mixing, or health upgrades!

Item Mixing

On top of the platforming and attacking, you also have Paffets, these cute little animal critters that the English translation names like Pokemon. They all have special abilities you can use in the levels, like Watricorn shooting a watergun, Balsemedi healing you, Booster creating a little step stool to let you get up to secret areas, and so on! You can create these little guys using mixing, by first deconstructing the items you find in levels via a mini game, then using the different elements you find to create a paffet! On top of your normal paffets, you also have furniture paffets, which can be requested by townsfolk, and you can make to help around town for extra goodies!

Paffets

This all feels really in depth for a platformer like this from 2000, but it really does feel like a proto Gamecube game to me. Lots of extra goodies and things to do and collect, lots of people to help and befriend, and it’s all so charming and gives you the warm fuzzies.

Also, I have to mention the reason anyone’s ever heard of this game. This game was composed by Yoko Kanno! Yes, THAT Yoko Kanno, the Yoko Kanno who composed the OSTs for every anime you loved when you were a teen. Stuff like Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Wolf’s Rain, Macross Plus, Turn a Gundam, and so much more. She also composed this. And the soundtrack is JAMMIN’. I find this soundtrack has four kinds of songs…

Pleasant background music, charming and cute:

https://youtu.be/c5zwSIwAvoo

Gorgeous orchestrated hits that sound somehow timeless, like they’ve existed for decades:

https://youtu.be/CQDsrv78298

Some expressive bops:

https://youtu.be/MVXMnAiRXdE

And shitposts:

https://youtu.be/ccbBREpepXc

I’d also be remiss to not mention my favorite song, Folly Fall. I will not be linking it, as it is really strangely powerful during the moment it’s in, and I don’t want to spoil it. It’s the boss theme to the Secret Garden level, and it genuinely makes me emotional when I hear it. It’s also sung by Kanno herself, which is rad, cause she doesn’t usually sing her own songs. That makes it hit even harder tbh.

Yoko Kanno unsurprisingly did an amazing job on this soundtrack. Not every song is a banger, but it’s very nice and each song absolutely fits the level its assigned to perfectly.

While I can’t say that Napple Tale is the best Dreamcast game, or even the best 3D Platformer on the console (hard to say that when Rayman 2 exists), it is almost certainly my favorite. It deserves so much more than to just be remembered as “that game Yoko Kanno composed”, or “a game made by women”. It’s never been re-released or anything, which is a DAMN shame, but at least translators have made it easy to play these days. So go out, burn yourself a .cdi file, and try it yourself!! You won’t regret it.