of Oz.

Things kicked off with little or no color at all, but soon the landscape transformed

into one of bright, vivid, fantastic colors...only to fade back to shades of gray.

Truly colorful mainstream games seem to have dropped off somewhere in the sixth console

generation, and the system at the time that was perhaps home to more hues than any other

was the Sega Dreamcast.

Nearly every game I own on the system is a chromatic tour de force, regardless of genre

or whether the publisher was big or small.

There was no lack of colorful games on the Dreamcast, for sure, but one of its brightest

and most brilliant titles is sadly one that never had the chance to shine outside of Japan,

one of Sega's very own efforts at that.

Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream.

Napple Tale was published in the year 2000 and developed by Chime, a small studio that

only worked on several other titles, including Sega Saturn Japanese exclusives Dragon Force

II and Terra Phantastica.

It's a game that is often mistakenly believed to be one of the Dreamcast's handful of RPGs,

which is understandable, since the back of the box labels it as an action RPG.

But much like Lack of Love, another great Dreamcast game that received the RPG label,

that designation is quite a bit of a stretch, and I'd say Napple Tale is an action adventure

game sprinkling in very light RPG elements, with the majority of gameplay resembling 2.5D

games like Klonoa or Pandemonium much more than true action RPGs such as Princess Crown

or the Secret of Mana.

The game is reminiscent of classic children's stories in the tradition of Alice in Wonderland

and the aforementioned Wizard of Oz, and plays out much like an interactive fairy tale.

It tells the story of a spirited, wide-eyed young girl named Arsia Porch, who just goes

by her last name, introduced to the player through Napple Tale's stylized, opening cinematic.

A deep dream about her mother's delectable stew causes her to become late for an important

date—a meetup with a couple of her friends at the town's popular Summer Solstice Festival.

Despite the rough start on account of Porch's tardiness, the three of them partake in the

evening's festivities with great joy.

However, the fun and games turn eerie, when Porch notices a strange glowing orb following

her and catches a glimpse of a mysterious figure in its light.

She's eventually lured into seeing a show in a large tent, and with a sudden flash of

light is magically transported to a fantastic, dream-like realm settled somewhere between

life and death—Napple World.

The mysterious figure Porch saw out the corner of her eye at the Summer Solstice Festival

is a meek little guy named Straynap, whom she'll ultimately refer to as “SN” for

short.

His job is that of a Tama Guide, or Spirit Guide, in charge of escorting people from

one life to the next, and it is his doing that brought Porch to Napple World.

However, it turns out that Porch wasn't meant to arrive in Napple World just yet, as she's

the unfortunate victim of mistaken identity.

Straynap is a greenhorn just starting out, and screwed up his first assignment big time

by confusing the bubbly teenage girl with someone who has a similar name...Porché...a

cat.

How embarrassing.

Thankfully, Porch can return to her own world, but only after reuniting with the six petals

that departed from her body when crossing over into Napple World.

The petals are fairies that live inside of her, which sort of represent her life essence,

and are now spread out and hidden in all corners of the dream world's landscape.

Straynap takes full responsibility for his grave error, and vows to help Porch in any

and every way he can to find her petals and see her back to the real world.

The story unfolds through the eyes of Porch and her many encounters with the whimsical

and often times plain out odd inhabitants of Napple World, either via dialogue or cutscenes

resembling a children's picture book.

In addition to the side-scrolling, action platforming gameplay mentioned earlier, Napple

Tale also features free-roaming, adventure elements.

At the center of Napple World is a town, called—what else—Napple Town, which serves as a hub

to the various locales across this strange land, and is also where many of the inhabitants

of Napple World call home.

The misplaced Porch takes up temporary residence at 13 Ice, Straynap's house, which also doubles

as the location for his ice cream business.

However, before she even has a chance to settle and take in her situation, Porch is introduced

to a fellow named Piero in his large circus tent in order to learn the various actions

she can perform in Napple World via a tutorial section.

First off, she can jump with the press of the A button, which can be pressed again to

perform a double jump.

There are a lot of objects out in the world that Porch can interact with, such as trampolines

that boost her jump, and floating lifts that she'll grab onto that propel her to higher

ground.

Out in the wild there are hostile creatures called Pamera, who can be dealt with by a

simple press of the X button, which swings the over-sized racket Porch carries around

with her everywhere she goes.

While this action is primarily used as a melee attack, it can also be used to deflect projectiles,

as well as activate certain switches.

Although the paths of each action stage in Napple Tale typically go from left to right

and vice versa, unlike many 2.5D platformers, movement in these areas is not limited to

just a single plane.

The playable game space is narrow, yet wide enough to allow Porch to move in any direction,

which is a core part of the game design.

The controls in this game feel just right, and platforming is spot on and never frustrating.

Item collection is another core part of Napple Tale's gameplay, and things can be collected

in each stage by defeating enemies or by opening up treasure chests.

Of course there are standard items like hearts that restore health, but more often than not,

the items you'll find are pretty random, like chess pieces, computer circuit boards, and

tree stumps.

These things might seem useless, but they're actually important components in the creation

of Paffets, doll-like creatures unique to Napple World.

The Remix Room is located on the second floor of 13 Ice in Napple Town, and it's in here

where you can create Paffets.

First, you'll need to break down your items into MIS, which are the Paffets' building

blocks.

By using the Decode Machine, you can rotate and search each item individually for a limited

period of time to find the three or four MIS associated with it.

The MIS are invisible, but by cycling through three filters, you can find them with ease.

Often times MIS are located on the most interesting points of the item being evaluated, and it's

never too difficult to discover them all even with a time limit.

There are dozens of different items you can break down with the Decode Machine, and it

may seem rather tedious having to do this for each one, but thankfully, you can automatically

extract MIS from items you've already successfully decoded.

Using the Remix Machine located in the same room, you can combine four MIS items to create

a new Paffet, but in order to know which items create what Paffet, you'll have to acquire

a recipe for it first.

These recipes are found in chests, but are also frequently given to Porch by NPCs.

There are 71 Paffets total, split up between two types—Action Paffets, who act as companions

to Porch, following and supporting her around Napple World, and Furniture Paffets, which

are, well, furniture for the most part, but there are some Furniture Paffets that take

the form of everyday items, such as the Dream Camera.

Action Paffets can be chosen to accompany Porch in the basement level of 13 Ice, up

to a total of five, though only one is selectable at any given time.

To choose a Paffet, you must press the R trigger to scroll through the current roster, and

pressing B performs the Paffet's action.

These Paffets have a really varied and diverse set of skills—for example, many can be used

to attack enemies, while others are used to restore hit points.

The most useful of the Paffets are those that turn into objects that help Porch get to hard-to-reach

spots, places that often hide treasure chests.

There are only a limited number of times an Action Paffet can be used, and once they're

up, the Paffet will run away.

Thankfully, though, any Paffets that run off will return to 13 Ice, and before that happens,

uses of the Paffet can be restored with items dropped by fallen enemies or by returning

to Porch's bedroom, which also recovers HP.

The Furniture Paffets are almost always made with the goal of helping out the residents

of Napple Town in one way or another.

A lot of characters will request certain paffets and provide the recipes for them, such as

the mayor of Napple Town, Frocar, who wishes to make the town more beautiful or functional.

You can help one character go from living in a trash can to having a fully furnished

house.

Some of the Furniture Paffets are necessary to advance the story, so it's always a good

idea to make as many as possible.

You'll usually receive an item from characters after completing their requests, but one of

the better rewards for helping out the people of Napple Town comes in the form of Napple

Seeds, which are given to Porch by the Church Druid every now and then as she helps the

townsfolk.

Napple Seeds are automatically planted in a pot in Porch's room whenever she returns

there, where a plant will steadily grow until four are collected, which increases Porch's

HP limit by one.

Most of the game's Napple Seeds are found in action map treasure chests, but if you

want to maximize the health bar, you'll have to complete all Furniture Paffet side-quests.

Collecting money is a pretty common staple of platforming games, so it's no surprise

that Napple Tale also contains this feature.

There are coins scattered about every level, and money bags which are dropped by decoy

Pamera treasure chests.

Coins can be used at a crank up capsule machine housed in the Collection Room, which is right

next to the Remix Room on 13 Ice's second floor.

Porch can cash in ten coins for a chance to receive a random item from this machine, a

few of which are the coveted Napple Seeds, and she can also get items to use in the Decode

Machine.

However, chances are she'll get one of several types of cards, optional collectibles in Napple

Tale.

An overwhelming majority of cards are only obtainable through the crank up machine, though

certain ones are acquired from treasure chests and by completing side quests.

There are hundreds of cards to collect, all of which can be viewed right there in the

Collection Room.

The Character, Paffet, and Pamera collections contain info on friends and foes, but also

allow you to view their 3D models with the ability to rotate and and zoom in and out.

Map Cards are all about the various locales of Napple World, and Art Cards feature a lot

of amazing promotional art from the game as well as a nice amount of concept sketches.

Finally, Music Cards let you listen to any of the songs from Napple Tale's impressive

soundtrack, which was composed by the famed Yoko Kanno, who has a prolific body of work

in television and movies, commercials, Jpop, and perhaps what she is most famous for around

the world, anime.

In my opinion, her music is some of the most underrated on the planet, as is this game's

OST.

Every single track played throughout the game amplifies the mood and experience just perfectly,

and it's arguable that the music in Napple Tale is it's single greatest asset.

There are several vocal tracks that feature the talents of one of Kanno's frequent collaborator's,

popular voice actress and singer Maaya Sakamoto, who also provides the in-game voice of Porch.

The Dreamcast has a huge library of games with phenomenal music, so it's no small compliment

when I say that Napple Tale's score is among the best on the system.

Hell, I'd say it's one of the best video game soundtracks ever put together, period.

I know I'm definitely not alone on that one, and even Sega realized how great the music

is in Napple Tale by including the elusive fan-favorite track “Folly Fall,” in SegaCon

Volume 2, the latter half of a six-CD compilation released in 2001 that collects the very best

music from the company's long and storied history of published games.

Napple Town is divided into four parts, each with a street that leads to a gate where you

can play the level of your choice via a map, of which there are three total per gate.

Time functions differently in Napple World than it does in the real world, so seasons

occur simultaneously but in different areas.

Each division of the town and the action stages attached to it takes place in one of the four

seasons.

The game starts off fittingly in the Spring area, Cherry Front Street.

The first accessible stage is "New Year's Day," which begins in the death throes of

Winter, opening up to the lush greens of Spring and culminating in a drop down an enormous

waterfall.

"The Wild Wind" is a personal favorite of mine, probably because it reminds me so much

of the first level in Klonoa.

Porch will move along floating islands, climb a mountain, and pass through windmills, at

times being carried by the wind.

At the end of the area, she'll ride a giant wind fish to another place, where she'll have