 SEGA DRUNK Hey thanks to Kevin for requesting this on my Patreon page. It's Popful Mail for Sega CD. Not to be confused with Popful Mail on the Super Famicom, sadly that one does not have an English translation yet. It does appear to be a different game entirely with a completely different story as far as I can tell, but it isn't English friendly, so it's kind of hard to play through. In addition to that, there's also versions on the PC8801 and 9801, and the PC Engine CD. The version of Popful Mail I'll be looking at is on Sega CD since it's in English and it was released in North America. The game is made by Falcom, who also made stuff like the Ys series. They teamed up with Sega to bring it to the Sega CD, and eventually it was brought over to North America by Working Designs, the same folks who brought over the Lunar series, so the localization here is really well done. As you can see, this is a side-scrolling action RPG, similar to some of the Ys games or the Monster World series, complete with Equivable Weapons and Armor, items, all that good stuff. With no leveling system here, you grind to collect money instead to buy better gear. The settings here are the usual environments like a volcano, a mountain covered in ice, underground mines, a forest, you get the idea. You unlock each area on a world map, and you can return to them anytime you'd like. You start out playing as Mail herself, who's kind of a bumbling bounty hunter, who's looking for that elusive big target she can snag and collect a reward that will set her for life. You'll eventually meet up with two other playable characters you can switch between. There's Tat, who's a mage, and Gaw, who's this powerful little dragon guy. Popful Mail does a great job balancing these three characters. For example, Mail is very quick, but her attack range is as bad as the guy from Lagoon for Super Nintendo. Oof. Tat, however, has strong magic attacks that can kill stuff from across the screen, but his jump range is pretty lousy. Gaw has a great jump range and strong attacks, but he moves very slowly. There may not be anything too original in Popful Mail, but there's three big reasons this game stands out today. One is the simple fact that, like I said, this game is balanced so well. Not only between the three characters' strengths and weaknesses, but in how the level design is arranged so that one character isn't too overpowered, and so that you have to utilize each character's abilities to progress. You can switch between the three at any time, except for boss fights. The second reason this game stands out is that you simply do not see many Sega games like this. I'm not even sure what other early mid-90s Sega release to compare this to. The closest game is probably Monster World 4, but that game never left Japan when it was originally made, and in addition, that brings me to the third reason, which is kinda obvious. This game is on CD, the 16-bit gameplay combined with CD quality sound, complete with voice acting, are what help makes Popful Mail unique. Here, check it out. Okay, some of the voice acting comes across as pretty cheesy, but it's not Zelda's CDI level bad or anything like that. Speaking of someone that's played a gazillion action RPGs, this was a fantastic breath of fresh air. And of course, there's also the cutscenes like this. So as you can see, this is a slapstick anime along the same lines as something like Slayers or Tenchi Muyo, and holy crap, could you imagine if those series got this kind of treatment instead of the limited 16-bit RPGs they got instead? Well, instead we got Popful Mail, and the story here isn't too far removed from stuff like Slayers or other 90s fantasy anime. The opening cutscene sets the tone immediately. So yeah, Mail loses out on that bounty, but she sets her sights a bit higher when she finds out about Muttenhead. Man, what a great name. He's an evil magician who for some reason is set on breaking an ancient seal to release these three demons, so it's up to Mail, of course, and later her two companions to stop him. I won't spoil too much here, I'll just say the story is well told and has some laughs, I especially like Gaw referring to himself in the third person. So yeah, on the surface Popful Mail appears to be the same old side-scrolling RPG stuff. You grind and build up cash to buy new armor and weapons and travel to different towns and locations and all that, hacking and slashing your way through the game, using your shield like you wouldn't in East Game. In other words, nothing exactly revolutionary or anything. But the thing is with Popful Mail, it's that it does all these things pretty well, and not only that, the utilization of the CD peripherals capabilities is fantastic, from the dialogue and the humor to the cutscenes. This game does such a great job bringing you into its inclusive world. There aren't a whole lot of other games that have the kind of vibe Popful Mail does. Working Designs deserves a lot of credit for that. So if you're looking for a funny, lighthearted, swashbuckling adventure game with RPG elements, then you found it with Popful Mail.