Game

Continuing my desire to explore random early Gameboy games, here we have Parasol Henbee. This is based off of a manga from the late 80s by Fujijo Fujio. If you don’t know, that’s the group that made Doraemon. This is basically a Doraemon wanabee, about a magical creature who comes to Japan and hangs out with kids and they go on cute little adventures, it’s a thing. Henbee is a little gremlin mother fucker with a parasol. There’s not much more to know about him.

Game

This is a game by Epoch, who were a console developer in the 80s, but after that flamed out, they’ve kept trucking along by being the only company with the rights to make games for Doraemon. And they’ve seriously just existed because of that, and that alone, for the past 35 years. And barely anything else. But they also had the rights to this, which makes sense, made by the same people.

In this game, you play as Henbee. It’s a kind of 2D platformer, but with some 3D elements. It’s almost like a 2D beat em up, with a Z axis. And yes, this DOES get very confusing in some levels. The cave levels especially, it’s like an Escher painting in there.

You can run, hop, glide using your umbrella. You pull the umbrella out in the air, and it carries you for a time. Depending on the level of your health, however, your powers increase. You can spin at higher health levels, and you can do more than just hover if your health is at the top. Using powers uses up your health, but it’s not hard to keep your health up, there’s powerups everywhere.

It’s also possible to hover almost indefinetely putting your umbrella away and back out over and over. This game isn’t very long, it’ll take you like 40 minutes, and it’s a very easy game for babies. But it’s not bad. Just… not super memorable. Just waht you’d expect from a forgotten manga/anime tie in.