Kurukuru Twinkle: Onegai Ohoshisama
Wish upon a star...
Developer: Tomcat System
Platforms: Playstation
First Release Date: October 4th, 1996 (JP)
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 six 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 the garbage "X" 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.
Most of the characters are themed around the zodiac constellations, and story mode will pit you against all twelve of them, as well as one more 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, and they all have 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. The ball-balancing Pisces mermaid, Marina, and the pouty Scorpio woman Scorpi(?) are probably my favorites. They all play off their constellation themes really well and are a very charming bunch.
When I played this game for the first time, I was really fighting to remember all the menu options. 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.
Connie’s Challengers: The secret encounter in the higher difficulties of 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 joke. But it’s actually just the real Pop-Up Pirate- this game was published by Tomy, who also makes those toys. More games should have a children's toy guest star?
Kurukuru Twinkle is such a great example of what I love to see in this genre. It's both very familiar for a Panel De Pon fan and totally different, with just enough wrinkles to make for a unique experience. The characters are charming, and all charmingly voiced as well, and the soundtrack is nothing to sneeze at either! (Although this game does have the problem where you'll be hearing a Danger theme more than the level themes.) There's a lot to do here, with a full puzzle mode, complete with custom puzzles, that I forgot to mention earlier. I feel like I need to get more people onto this game! Come look at all the stars with me!
Thank you for reading!
