Wonder Momo, Hopping Mappy

This JTFriday brings us two new titles to the JTTHUNDR core in beta and the promotion of JTFLSTORY (The Fairy Land Story, etc.) to public core.

Wonder Momo

History

Wonder Momo, one of the Namco System 86 titles, was released exclusively in Japan in 1987. It's an action game that takes an intriguing twist as battles take place on a stage, presented as part of a theatre production. Momo is the heroine that can become Wonder Momo by hitting kick repeatedly or catching one of the small tornados. By transforming, she gains a weapon called Wondering, enhances her abilities, and takes on the evil army.

The game stood out by featuring character voices through sampled audio, seductive movements from the heroine, and the early emergence of camera-wielding "Otaku" culture, which was just starting to gain momentum at the time. If one of the reporters take a picture of Momo's underwear, she will lose focus for a few seconds and become vulnerable.

Comparison with the PC Engine version

• All backgrounds have been revamped to make them more family-friendly.

• All character voice samples have been completely removed.

• Some background music has been cut, and character motion patterns have been simplified.

• The number of stages has been reduced, and the game is no longer episodic.

• As a new feature, visual cutscenes of the heroine are now inserted after clearing certain stages.

Hopping Mappy

History

This game is a sequel to 1983's Mappy. Players control Mappy, a micro police mouse on a pogo stick, as he collects treasures while avoiding troublesome foes. The game is operated using a four-way lever and an acceleration button. Tilting the lever in any direction causes Mappy to hop one space that way. If the lever is quickly tilted in the opposite direction before Mappy lands, he will return to the original square without touching the destination. Memorizing the movement patterns of each enemy is essential. To achieve a high score, collect the same type of treasure consecutively and repeat the sequence. Watch out for moving treasures as you should get those ones first.

Technical Details

The so called Namco System 86 is not composed of a mother board containing the CPUs to which a daughter board containing the ROMs is connected. That scheme, similar to a videogame console and seen on SEGA and CAPCOM systems was not used here. Instead, the games in these series have similar hardware.

Wonder Momo and Hopping Mappy share the same main CPU and system architecture of Rolling Thunder but the second CPU uses a different chip for decoding the address map so the ROMs are not swappable. Rolling Mappy also uses one fewer chip for the background tiles, making them four color per pixel instead of eight as the other games in this system.

Thank you for your support!