Games of the Abstract: Mamono Hunter Yohko (1991)

 

Developer: Klon

Publisher: Masaya Games

One Player

Sega Mega Drive

 

Devil Hunter Yohko, as it was translated for the Northern American anime audience, is a Japanese only Mega Drive / Genesis game based on the aforementioned 1990-5 straight-to-video animated production, a six part work that come from Madhouse, an acclaimed studio who, during the nineties alone, produced titles like Perfect Blue (1997) to Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000), works still admired decades on. This review is going to entirely focus on the game, as whilst this follows its titular protagonist, a high school girl named Yohko who is able to fight demons, following in the legacy of her ancient family tradition of being demon hunters, the game Mamono Hunter Yohko is very stripped down to the point of surreal in telling her tale, with none of the side characters or any real details, including the sex comedy, from the source material as one of a handful of video game tie-ins to this production.

The game possesses a minimalist and eerie nature, and this is fascinating considering Masaya Games, as the publishers, did adapt a lot of anime to this medium as well, and brought established character illustrators and designers who worked in animation too. One of Masaya’s longer franchises was the role playing game Langrisser, where manga author/illustrator/anime director Satoshi Urushihara was a series contributor for art work and illustrations. There was clearly no issue in taking this presentation tone to this game, even if it is a curious creative choice from the developers of the game Klon. Yohko's minimalism is a distinct choice from the developer Klon, as whilst you see Yohko in between level images, her character design does not even has a face with features; Klon the same year adapted another Madhouse straight-to-video work called Cyber City Oedo 808: Kemono no Alignment (1991), for the TurboGrafx CD, which is more detailed as an adventure game based on its science fiction source material.

This is a hack-n-slash platformer, where over five stages the game exists in its strange aesthetic world, not the vividness of an anime setting but entirely the logic of video games beginning with your lead scaling giant plants in the first level. The worlds are very conventional, even rudimentary, on paper, but they are abstract onscreen. A volcano world for the second level is almost apocalyptic as it is inhospitable, whilst the ice world for the final level is yet entirely set in space in the air on floating platforms, and the water world of plants and endless deadly bodies of water, part of level three, is without real world logic to it. Anything from cute looking snakes to giant dragon creatures who, floating after you in their twisting patterns, require you to hack their segmented torsos bit-by-bit away are just as idiosyncratic, as enemies, due to the world these figures have been placed into.

Combat is also idiosyncratic as the sword attack is not really enough to survive, where instead pressing the combat button down, to generate a blue circle around your heroine, is more important. It protects you from certain projectiles, even if it briefly creates holes where they hit where you can take damage through, but it also can be flung as a projectile itself as a ring of death, staying onscreen as long as the button is held down. Considering the chaos that appears from the get-go from level one, this could not be enough for some, but this is a game you can improve from, and that energy circle becomes the most important tool for surviving. Considering my attempts with the game, it is good that for the game’s clear faults, such as platforming being awkward with certain (usually vertical) leaps, there is clearly enough power-ups and bonus lives to be more fair, and that its one distinct mechanic presents both a compelling risk-and-reward scenario and is still effective. The first attempt at level three, the water level which became a nightmare, with the glowing bullets of death and the jumping fish which produced them turning it into a gruelling crawl per section of the map, became easier in the next play through when you are learning the game. It is still a hard game, the kind not really acceptable or really marketable in the decades past barring some fan bases, but thankfully this is not cruel for the sake of it or bad design.

There is also the time limit which adds additional stress when the levels are challenges to get through, let alone reaching the bosses, though thankfully with unmarked checkpoints, this is less frustrating but adding an additional dread to the proceedings. Dread in general is a theme here, where the music by Keiichi Yamamoto is sparse and emphasises, alongside how for each level being completed an ominous bell plays in 16 bit which sounds funereal than triumphant. These little details add so much personality, all for a game tied to a now obscurer license, feeling distinct in really interesting ways despite it having a lot of tropes aesthetically and game play wise from other games. It possesses a strange aura that is compelling even if the license leaves an issue: both that you need to license Madhouse’s title to re-release it, but that it is a license in terms of Western representation. Yokho got a North American release through ADV Films, but it is within Japan itself where the franchise is still appreciated the most, getting a blu-ray re-release from Toho in 2022. Re-releasing this would, as with all licenses, be effected by the practicality of a brand which people may or may not know, a shame as this is a fascinating and obscure challenge which is rewarding.

=====

1) Toho’s own store selling the 2022 release [In Japanese].