Title: Hebereke: Enjoy Edition
System: Steam (PC)
Price: $9.99
Release Date: 03/27/2024

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Story

In this metroidvania from the Famicom, you take control of Hebe, who must set out to explore a strange world he finds himself in! This port brings the Famicom version to Switch and Steam, and adds a few minor features to sweeten the deal, including a strange way of translating in-game text, while comparing those cutscenes to their Ufouria counterparts. (though without the ability to play the EU version outright)

Presentation

Originally, I mistook this as another port done by Empty Clip Studios, considering how Hebereke is part of the Memory Clip line of retro ports City Connection and Empty Clip have been doing for a few years now, and at first the UI gave me similar vibes to Gimmick Special Edition.

Well, despite being part of that lineup, Hebereke was ported by City Connection themselves, and it feels a little different from prior Memory Clip ports as a result. You still get a similar UI when booting the game, and have a similar border displaying achievements to the side of the game along with the usual manual/box art scans these releases offer, but a few things feel a bit off compared to those prior ports; the scaling options are a bit different, the leaderboard UI isn’t as nice, and how some other UI elements are presented look a bit different than the prior Memory Clip games, but otherwise City Connection did an admirable job of replicating the style of Empty Clip’s work.

The game looks good enough with its varying screen size options, the audio generally sounds great and maintains the high quality NES sound Sunsoft nailed around this time (including an outstanding new arrangement of the main Hebereke theme on the menu, made to sound like later Sunsoft titles!), and the port in general is rather solid, especially on PC. Throwing it up on my dell laptop, I had next to no issues playing this port at all, and going to my steam deck, the experience there was pretty strong too, outside of an odd issue where the game defaults to a 1080P display upon boot. (leading to a minor crop you’ll have to fix by going into the game settings for it to fit the deck screen)

There’s also the interesting way the translation was handled in this game. While there aren’t too many instances of text in Hebereke, every in-game textbox is still in Japanese. However when you reach a dialogue box, you unlock a “Special Snap” which basically pulls up a screenshot that translates what each textbox says in english, along with allowing you to swap to the Ufouria the Saga counterparts, which are likewise translated into Japanese.

Since the PAL version is otherwise completely excluded from this reissue, I guess this was the best they could do to showcase the differences between versions, but I really hoped that they could have found some way to overlay the translation text over the dialogue during the actual game, rather than requiring a brief check of a translation menu.

Gameplay

In this port, you have the option to play this game in Enjoy Mode, letting you play the game like a typical emulated port with access to save state and rewind features, and a Speed Run mode, letting you play the game in a single sitting without those options, and no ability to use the password feature. Whichever mode you choose to go with, Hebereke is a pretty easygoing metroidvania, with your main method of attacking being a jump that can only damage enemies if you hold down while doing so, followed by being able to throw a dropped Poppoon every now and then; they’re funny little ball creatures with weird looking eyes. As you explore the game map, you’ll eventually run into other characters, which will challenge you to a boss fight. These require that you go back and forth throwing the Poppoon at them in order to take their health bar down and win, and are incredibly simple.

Still, upon beating these characters, they will join your team, and each of the four playable characters have their own unique traits, much like they do in the sequel. From climbing up walls, walking on ice, floating in the air with a longer jump, or sinking in water areas, all the characters here get their time to shine, and they even can find a special unlockable technique to either clear the path forward to newer areas, or take out waves of smaller enemies in a pinch. Likewise, there are also several bosses which require you to land on them and throw a Poppoon on them, with those using the traditional attack/health system the game has to offer, rather than the one on one throwing match you deal with when recruiting the other characters.

All things considered, Hebereke is a delightfully fun game, with almost nothing in terms of a way to get stuck or brick yourself into a bad situation. Dying sets you back to the starting screen of the game with little health, but all the health potions respawn, and they fill up a full container of health each time you use them, so it is much easier to get back to max HP here compared to say, NES Metroid. The in-game map also becomes super helpful upon finding the marker to track your current location, and it gets even better when the location of the other items get added to it, making it by far the most useful map on the NES. I was honestly surprised by just how modern it felt in that regard, since even Super Metroid a few years later wasn’t the best at showing you every single item on the game map.

That definitely makes the exploration pretty friendly, though the tricky boss fights can still pack a punch, especially near the end of the game. One that takes place underwater is almost impossible to finish without taking damage, and the final boss is very tough, but also incredibly satisfying if you manage to do it all in one go. These rough bumps are mitigated via the Enjoy Mode’s QOL features, along with not having to enter a Mega Man esque password every time you start the game, though the game is short enough that if you know what to do, you can finish this entire game 100% in a single 2 hour session. (Which is probably why the Speedrun mode exists, though having gotten my fill of a 100% playthrough once, I don’t think I’ll be doing another one with slightly higher challenge)

The absolute definition of short and sweet, but considering every moment outside of one boss is pure Sunsoft bliss, I definitely enjoyed the ride this time around as much as I did back on the Wii U VC. (though of course, now with proper sounding music, unlike that version!) It also helps that even if you’re fully blind to this game going into it, the game itself will provide plenty of resources and help for you to figure out how to reach the next objectives and find what you need to complete the game, and considering a lot of 16 bit Metroidvania like games failed to do that, I consider that feat alone to be one of the standout parts of this Famicom gem, and what makes it well worth a play for even modern Metroidvania fans.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Hebereke is still one of the best NES action games out there, and one of the more forgiving games in Sunsoft’s library, leading to a great metroidvania that holds up just as well now as it did back then. Honestly, considering how the original game predated both modern Metroid and Castlevania games, I’m kinda wishing the genre wasn’t labeled that, since in a way, Hebereke helped to fortify some of the standards used in the genre to this very day. You have a handy map, navigational guidelines, a somewhat-open sequence of events to follow, all done years before 1994’s Super Metroid.

Needless to say, this is one heck of a Famicom game, and this port did a damn fine job at bringing it back with as much QOL as a game like this needed; manual/box scans, a rewind feature, and a speedrun mode for those wanting to clear the game in a single sitting for online leaderboard purposes. For $10, this is a pretty darn fun game that’s well worth that price, especially considering how much the original versions go for. When the only complaint I really have is that the Ufouria version is completely unavailable to play here, that’s a pretty strong testament to the quality of this game and its port. Definitely a must own for metroidvania fans, and arguably remains the best officially licensed Metroidvania on the entire NES console.

I give Hebereke Enjoy Edition an 9 out of 10.