Cute, cuddly, and fun are the first three words I think of when I look back
at this game called Popful Mail after having spent 12 hours playing from
start to finish. The story is just so refreshing and the animation clips
throughout the game are full of style. Have you ever played Wonderboy 3 on
the master system? Or how about Wonderboy 4 on the mighty Genesis? This
game is a lot like those, an action RPG at its best.

 You start the game off controlling a sassy money crazed babe called Popful Mail
(yeah thats her name!), but later as the story unfolds you gain a couple friends that
you can also control at will. Popful Mail is always on the quest for cash, and
her adventures take her to a city called Bounty city where she learns there
is a nice fat reward for bringing in a man called Muttonhead. In the course
of your adventure you run into a wizard named Tatto who just happens to be a
former student of Muttonhead. Shortly after you meet him and help him out
of a jam, he becomes controllable. Not too long after that you run into a
tribe of cute bat-like creatures known as the GAW. They all go by the name
Gaw and they all say gaw a lot when they are speaking. After you help the
Gaw village out of a jam one of them decides to join you and becomes a
playable character. Popful mail moves and runs fast, Tatto seems average on
the most part but has access to some cool weapons early on in the game and
Gaw is able to jump higher then both giving you access to places that the
others cannot reach. You can switch on the fly which really adds a lot to
the overall feel of the game.

There are 5 areas you will visit plus one hidden area you will get when you
beat the first 5 areas. Each area has a theme (like snow and ice for example)
and has multiple sections. Once an area has been conquered you will be able
to access each section in that area at will. You will want to go back every once
in a while to visit certain stores as they don't carry the same items. Speaking of
stores, there are plenty throughout the game. The weapon stores sell the usual
swords, armor, shields (enter the store with each character to see what can be
upgraded with that character) along with special items such as Spike shoes
(can walk on ice without slipping), amulet (invincible for a limited time but
you cannot attack while wearing this item), helmet for extra defense, ice
shoes to walk on hot surfaces and stone shoes to walk on spikes. The other
stores carry things like oranges, apples, cherries, bananas, and melons
that you eat to gain back lost health. I recommend stocking up on cherries,
apples, and oranges. Besides the stores in each area that carry different
items you will run into people who will help you on your quest and you will
also run into some pretty tough bad guys that will take a little practice to
beat (always look for that pattern!) There is a lot of voice acting in this
game and its really well done. You will find yourself falling in love with
these characters, hell even the some of the bad guys like this one guy
called Sven T. Uncommon who sounds like a wanna be Arnold Schwarzenegger!
What I really think is cool and adds a lot of replay value to this game is
the fact that every encounter you have with enemies and friends depending on
which character you are using at the time the dialog changes. I recommend
saving often (specially before you go talk to someone) and then reloading the
game and choosing a different character to see some of the cool differences.
Eventually your quest goes far beyond the simple quest for money and you
end up looking for 4 orbs that will save the world from this most evil dude
called the Overlord (by far the toughest boss...make sure you have plenty of
fruit to keep the health up ;) When it comes down to it, I was not bored at
all with this game in the 12 hours I played it and I think that says a lot
about the game. I highly recommend this game for any action RGP fan and the
only thing stopping me from giving this game a perfect 10 is that I do
compare it to the wonderboy games I mentioned above and I did like both of
those games even more then this one.

9/10

Blaze