Napple Tale

Napple Tale
Developer(s)	Chime[1]
Publisher(s)	Sega
Composer(s)	Yoko Kanno
Platform(s)	Dreamcast
Release date(s)	JP October 18, 2000
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player
Media/distribution	1 GD-ROM

Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream (ナップルテール アリシア イン デイドリーム^?), more commonly called simply Napple Tale, is a 2.5D platform game for the Dreamcast, released on October 18, 2000 in Japan. It is notable in that the development team consisted entirely of women.

Story

The game begins with a girl named Arsia going to a carnival. While there she receives a bump to her head and passes out. She then enters a dream world where she meets Streinapp, an angel of death. Streinapp becomes her guide and instructs her throughout the game. Arsia - known as Poach to those in Dreamland - learns that Napple Town is in crisis. The seasons Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter need to be rescued by finding the six Napple Petals. Besides rescuing the seasons, the citizens of Napple Town have a vast assortment of problems (approximately seventy) with which Poach must help them. Tasks range from building a house to helping two friends stop fighting with each other.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Napple Tale takes place in two distinct sections. Similar to Sonic Adventure, there is a fully 3D hub where Poach can interact with the townspeople. The levels, found on the corners of town, and corresponding to the seasons, contain a fixed path with a boss at the end. The enemies encountered along the way sometimes drop recipe pieces or random items. The recipes show four items which, if combined, will create a Paffet. Poach wields a racquet-like weapon which she swings to battle foes. She can double-jump and attack to perform a spinning attack. Health is designated with petals and by finding certain items you can increase your maximum health. Each time Poach falls into a hole or gets attacked she loses half of a petal.

Characters

Arsia/Poach - The protagonist. At first she disliked being called Poach by Streinapp, but eventually stopped caring. She defeats enemies using a fancy key-shaped weapon. Her goal is to return to the real world.

Dragon - A stingy tax-collecting dragon. He loves money and banking.

Dryad - Dryad is the pastor of the church in Napple Town. In keeping with his name, he has the shape of a druidic tree creature.

Frocar - Frocar is the mayor of Napple Town. He is half frog and half car (hence the name). He has a large house, where he holds meetings to discuss all sorts of problems in Napple Town.

Lewis - Lewis lives in the Summer side of Napple Town and is best friends with Oliver until he is seduced by a sea spirit.

Murray - Murray owns the Hatena store in the Winter side of Napple Town. Poach has a crush on him, and he is very friendly to everybody, as shown by how he likes to give gifts to Poach and others.

Oliver - Oliver lives in the Winter side of Napple Town and is best friends with Louis.

Streinapp - Streinapp owns the ice cream shop called 13 Ice, above which Poach lives. He advises Poach and teaches her about the dreamworld.

Paffets

There are two types of Paffets. Some Paffets go to the Paffet Collection Room below 13 Ice and others go to various places in town. The Paffets that go to random places in Napple Town are usually structures or appliances (street lamps, balconies, stoves, etc). The Paffets that go to the Paffet Room are mostly animal- or plant-based. A maximum of five can be carried at any one time and they have limited numbers of uses before they return to the Paffet Room. Items dropped by some enemies will raise the number of uses if it is below the starting value. The Paffets that can be carried perform useful functions in Napple Town or in stages such as becoming tramplines or unleashing powerful attacks. There are 71 Paffets total: 28 that go to the Paffet Room and 43 that go to random places in the town.

Music

One of the most noted aspects of the game is the music written by well-known game and anime composer, Yoko Kanno. In addition, the vocal tracks were performed by her frequent collaborator, Maaya Sakamoto, with lyrics for one of the songs by Chris Mosdell.

Little Black Book (Track #21) by Yoko Kanno was also included in the soundtrack of the German movie Cherry Blossoms - Hanami from 2008 (as Track #3).

References

1. ^ "Chime Company Ltd." (in Japanese). http://www.chime.co.jp/corp.html. Retrieved 2011-04-23.