Kurukuru Twinkle: Onegai Ohoshisama
When flowers bloom, the power of fairies works...
Developer: Intelligent Systems (Team Battle Clash)
Platforms: SNES
Release Date: JP: Oct. 27, 1995 NA: Aug. 11, 1996 EU: Nov. 28, 1996
KuruKuru Twinkle took me by surprise when I found it, it’s an absolute delight, and a game I can barely find anyone talking about! The cute character designs and distinct nighttime color palette pulled me right in. Kurukuru takes after Panel De Pon in a lot of ways, and thankfully that’s one of the best puzzle games you can take after. You move a cursor and swap pieces like in Panel, but your cursor is a two-by-two square- One button will swap pieces vertically, and the other will swap them horizontally. There are also steel blocks that you have to line up in a row of 6 to clear. That’s easier said than done with a two by two cursor, but you'll get the hang of it after a while. Those steel blocks also destroy all blocks below them, which gets rid of garbage blocks. In addition, you have one spell that you can choose from a list. You can use your spell by spending the stars at the bottom of the screen, and you get more by clearing steel blocks. They each have different, fairly drastic effects. This gives you a ton of power over what you can do on your board, and it's a little overwhelming. It can get pretty chaotic as you rush to line up steel blocks, as well as set up combos and deal with any garbage blocks, as well as remembering to ever use your spell. Where Panel De Pon succeeds in being simple but with infinite depth, this game is a lot more chaotic. It gives you everything to do, and just as much to deal with. I think it's really good though!
Most of the characters are themed around the zodiac constellation, and story mode will pit you against all twelve 12 of them, as well as one more secret final boss. You start out only able to play as a girl and a boy, who I want to say are named Stella and Kuruto (Kurt?). You can unlock every other character to use in other modes though, so everyone has unique ending artwork in story mode. There's a great variety in the characters- Libra is represented by a strange little clown scale creature, Gemini by two giant bodybuilders, Aquarius by a bunch of penguins in a jar, and so on. They all play off their constellation theme really well and are a very charming bunch.
When I played this game for the first time, I was really fighting to get through the menus. Below is an English menu guide for mode, difficulty, and magic selection. I'd like to make things like this for more games in the future.
This game also has a full puzzle mode, as well as the rare custom puzzle editor mode! I never feel like I can wrap my head around how to make a puzzle, but it's something I'm always happy to see
soundtrack
Connie’s Challengers: The secret encounter in Kurukuru Twinkle is none other than… Pop-Up Pirate! From toys! When I first saw this, I really thought it was some sort of abstract astrology and toys joke. But it’s actually just the real Pop-Up Pirate- this game was published by Tomy.
In conclusion something something
Thank you for reading!
