English Review: Maruko Deluxe Quiz - Chibi Marukochan (Neo.Geo AES)

[kurush]

Maruko Deluxe Quiz - Chibi Marukochan (Neo.Geo AES) 10.01.22

A special milestone day for me as I am now part of an inner circle of AES japanese collectors owning an original copy of Chibi AND having beated the game! My japanese level language being a little rusty, the Google Translate app for smartphone and the infinite credits thanks to the Unibios were a huge help to achieve that! Nevertheless, even with a good level of japanese, there are a lot of really tough japanese general knowledge questions for the average gaijin, not to mention that most of these are nearly 30 years old! Also, the response time you are granted is very limited so you have to take a decision quickly, especially since you have to decipher all the kana and kanji in no time... Therefore, Google Translate app significantly improves the overall experience and comfort! There is always the possibility of answering completely randomly to the questions but Chibi then loses all its interest...

Developed by Takara and published by SNK, Chibi Marukochan was released in November 1995 on MVS and January 1996 on AES. As its full name suggests, it's a quiz game based on the eponymous manga, a shoujou (directed by Momoko Sakura) that features impressive longevity, from 1986 to 2009. The manga follows the adventures of Maruko-chan, a 9-year-old schoolgirl in Shizuoka prefecture, who dreams of becoming a mangaka. As you can see, there's a little autobiographical touch!

The intro cutscene sets the plot: Maruko has won a ticket to participate to the Deluxe Quiz. After having selected your level of difficulty, you land on a fixed screen which works as a tutorial explaining to you the basic principle of the game and the controls: the stick (only usable in mini-games) and the A B C and D buttons on the controller, associated with 4 different possible answers. Indeed, the concept of Chibi is childishly simple: you are asked a question and each time there are 4 different proposals, with only one possible correct answer... Basically, "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" with a main big difference, the response time is much shorter compared to the TV show! You must select 2 characters in addition to Maruko-chan (members of his family, school friends, etc.). For each wrong answer, you lose a character. If you've followed me so far, after 3 wrong answers, you've lost your trio and it's game over!

There are 2 types of quizzes:

• ''Normal'' quizzes offering eclectic themes: general culture, manga/anime, sport, fashion, primary and secondary school, dinosaurs (???), cinema, entertainment, music, accounts and Japanese literature, history, car /motorcycle, hobbies, food, the universe of Chibi Maruko-Chan, etc. There are even a few questions about video games (Samurai Spirits, the King of Fighters series, Aladdin, etc.)!!! Some questions are achievable: the atomic bombs of 1945, the city of birth of Christian Slater, the species of dinosaurs, the aboriginal tribes of Australia, MS-Dos... But some others are a a real pain for the laypersons: Japanese TV series from the 90's, Toyota chassis or some other japanese esoteric stuff!!! Below are some sample questions for Japanese speakers

• More or less complex variety quizzes (their difficulty depends on the number of stars associated with them) based on your ability to observe, your memory, your patience or your speed. For example, you will have to reconstitute an animal by combining 2 elements, find the right subliminal image in a short cutscene, group "friend" words by pair, pick-up the right katakana half-hidden in the dark, etc.

During normal quizzes only, you will be able to call on the special abilities of the characters you have selected to accompany little Maruko: choice of themes, score 2 points instead of just one, have only 3 possible answers instead of 4, or have a longer than normal response time…

A complete run will take you one hour at the very least (or even twice that), especially if you use 5-10+ continues like me... The quiz is subdivided into 7 stages which always follow the same pattern: first a normal quiz, then a variety quiz. The more you progress in the courses, the more questions you will have to answer correctly in the normal quizzes in order to be able to progress to the next stage. Each course is punctuated by a mini-game: a game of chance, a game of skill (Maruko must kill aliens with a laser gun while sparing rabbits, it can't be invented!), mental calculation to complete within the allotted time (surpisingly addictive by the way!), a maze in which you have to guide a ladybug to the exit while collecting tokens that you can then bet, a game in which you have to reconstruct a face from 3 scrolling parts (exactly like some bonus stages in Super Mario Bros. 3!), etc. These mini-games turn out to be quite fun and allow you to take the pressure off…

You will learn during the ending cutscene that Maruko-chan was actually asleep and having a dream (very much like Link in Link's Awakening on Game Boy for example), the quiz never happened for real… All that trouble for this!

Not much to report about the graphics and the soundtrack. The atmosphere is obviously very kawaii, typically Japanese. The facial animations are well done and vary completely depending on whether you find the right answer or fail miserably, the characters not hesitating to intervene vocally to express their joy or their frustration...

I was a little skeptical at first when I saw that the game "weighed" 118 Megs, which is as much as Samurai Spirits! But all things considered, Chibi is quite big in terms of memory: there are a lot of questions and themes (you never come across the same question twice during a game), many voice digits and quite a few cutscenes that must also eat up a significant amount of space…

Difficult to come up with a grade for a quiz game in Japanese... So I will pass this time! We're not going to lie to each other, if you don't have a very good level of Japanese and/or you're not a very big collector for the AES system, the software has absolutely no interest! This is why there are very few converts for Chibi… Aiming for the japanese AES jap full set, I am very happy to have gotten my hands on a totally legit copy recently (even if it costed me 2 kidneys, actually 5 figures…). It is undoubtedly the rarest title among japanese AES carts, alon with Big Tournament Golf (and Over Top to a lesser extent). It hardly ever pops out out on the Internet or even in japanese retro stores... Anyway, one big step closer to the full set!

Don't count on me to review all the other quiz games available for the AES system, my sanity is at stake...