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ARAIGUMA RASCAL - RACCOON RASCAL
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あらいぐまラスカル
©Nippon Animation Co.Ltd.
©1994 NCS
Release: 1994-06-25 (¥8900)
Cartridge SHVC-R9
Puzzle game
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Araiguma Rascal (aka Raccoon Rascal) is a cute puzzle game published by
Masaya, and based on a Japanese anime series originaly aired in 1977. The player
takes control of Rascal, a brown and cute raccoon, and must rearrange jars filled with all
kind of items (apples, candies, melons, jam) that two squirrels constantly push away from their
tree house. The raccoon can carry jars around, throw them in the air, jump, drop them right
beneath him and even push them. If he matches three or more jars of the same kind, then they
disappear and increase a green bar located at the bottom of the screen - once the bar is full,
Rascal completes the stage and jumps to the next one (although players are free to pick a
stage at the beginning of the game). In addition to the one-player mode, Araiguma Rascal
offers three two-player options that feature the young boy Sterling North (see the info
section bellow). In the first one, two players must race as fast as possible along a course while
avoiding or moving obstacles and jars strategically placed in the way. Then the two other modes
are more traditional and feature a cooperative and versus gameplay based around the one-player
puzzle formula.
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Araiguma Rascal (aka Rascal the Raccoon) was a Japanese anime series
originally aired in 1977, and based on the book "Rascal A memoir of a better era" written
by Sterling North in 1963. The book takes place at the turn of the century
and tells the autobiographical story of Sterling himself, and his experiences (and
adventures) in adopting a baby raccoon (the writter lived in Edgerton, Wisconsin,
and his house can still be visited today). The story became immensely popular and
Disney released the movie Rascal in 1969 based on Sterling's book. In
1977, the story was turned into an animation series in Japan by Nippon Animation
Company - and the cute raccoon remains an incredibly popular character in Japan
today. Interestingly, although the original story has emerged from the United States, the
popular Japanese anime series was never aired there (probably due to Disney
who owns the rights to the movie and therefore doesn't allow Nippon Animation to
promote the series in the United States)
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Add your Pov here !
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Although Araiguma Rascal features extremely cute graphics and animations, I'm
not really sure if it works that well as a puzzle game. No doubt that the game gets better as you
get the hang of it (which applies to most of the puzzle games out there based on the Tetris
formula). But, unlike other gems such as Puyo Puyo or Panel de Pon,
Araiguma Rascal's gameplay never really gelled for me. Levels take forever to complete
and chain reactions are extremely hard to pull off - but most of all, moving Rascal around
is not as quick as moving blocks or a cursor around (as in Tetris and its countless clones),
and this really hurts the gameplay in my opinion. All in all, Araiguma Rascal is a
charming and cute puzzle game, and the two-player modes are a nice extra touch - but there
is nothing groundbreaking here and I feel that its gameplay mechanics raise blood pressure rather than
adrenalite levels. In addition, the game is somewhat hard to come by and generally more
expensive than it is worth...
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