140. The Legendary Starfy (TOSE, DS, 2009)

The Legendary Starfy is actually the 5th game in the Starfy series, but is the first (and only) title that was released outside of Japan. Starfy is developed by TOSE, a Japanese developer who has done work-for-hire development work for other Japanesee companies since the 70s. TOSE historically did not even put their name on the games they developed (like a ghost writer for video games) but they have developed or co-developed over 1,000 titles since their inception for clients like Nintendo, Namco, Capcom, and Square Enix. They have had their hand in games from series as disparate as Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Shrek, and Metal Gear Solid. So it was interesting to me that the Starfy series is one of the few games that TOSE actually put their name on.

Mechanically, The Legendary Starfy is an exploration based platformer. Most of the levels take place underwater (I'm still not sure if Starfy himself is a star or a starfish, but he has no trouble swimming), so you can move around freely from the constraints of gravity, though there are a decent amount of above-water segments as well. While the levels do have multiple paths, there are lots of arrows pointing you towards the exit. This means that it's also easy to know which way is the "wrong way" i.e. the path that will get you more collectibles or minigames. There are some minigames scattered around that unlock extra levels when cleared, so exploration can lead to some pretty nice rewards.

The gameplay controls pretty well, which kept me interested through the game's first world. While underwater, you have a speed up button and an attack button, which makes Starfy do a little spin in place that sends out a coupe shockwaves. This attack is pretty close range, but that made it feel like it requires a small amount of skill to pull off, and it's got a great snap when it connects with an enemy. There are also a decent amount of destructible tiles in the environments, and smashing these with the spin attack was a nice bubble wrap popping experience. Nothing in the game has been even slightly difficult. There is a health system but I don't know if I ever saw my health decrease substantially, even with very reckless play. Still, there's something kind of nice about that after playing a bunch of difficult games.

Presentation-wise, Starfy has cute comic book-style cutscenes. Starfy himself is a not-quite-silent protagonist, as he is keen to make a bunch of cooing baby noises (a lot like Kirby in recent years). That his omnipresent english-speaking sea urchin friend can understand. The plot involves an amnesiac rabbit astronaut and some crystals that you are finding to help restore his memory. After a bit, the rabbit becomes Starfy's friend and offers him transformation abilities that make the game even easier but marginally more fun to control. There are pretty frequent dialogue sequences that really slow the pacing down, unfortunately.

4/5, a fun, varied platformer with almost no challenge