Eiji Aonuma is one of the big game directors at Nintendo, best known for his work on the Legend of Zelda series. What’s interesting about him is that he began his career at Nintendo as a mere fan of the franchise. When finally given the directorial seat he decided to create a game similar in spirit to A Link to the Past. This became known as Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima. It was a rather late release for the Super Famicom and because the Nintendo 64 was already on the scene there was little point in localizing it for English speakers. I remember reading about this one in Nintendo Power, and finally decided to give it a look. “Wow” is one way to describe my reaction.
Marvelous (as I’m going to refer to it from this point forward) is one of those rare games that takes place in modern day society. The setting is a chain of tropical islands wherein there are rumors of pirate’s treasure being hidden by the long perished Captain Maverick. The game begins with a school field trip to this paradise in which three youths; Dion, Jack and Max come face to face with modern day pirates. Their teacher is kidnapped, and our trio of best friends sets out to rescue her. The quest starts off small, but eventually they’re swept up in a quest to find Maverick’s most precious treasure. It’s called Marvelous, but no one quite knows what it is.
I found this game’s sense of humor to be really neat. It’s not quite as crazy as something like Earthbound, but it has the same curious and playful spirit. Our three protagonists are silent which is kind of a bummer, but everyone else is distinct and full of personality. You’ll meet a whole lot of characters, and every single one contributes to the story in some small way. I’ve never played a game in which NPCs carried so much weight, and it encourages you to speak to everyone even when it’s not necessary. I really liked the world in which Marvelous takes place, and I was thrilled to explore it. There’s a huge sense of discovery here as you never know what’s around the corner.
Marvelous takes obvious inspiration from the Legend of Zelda, but at the same time it manages to carve out its own identity. This is an action adventure game where the screen displays from a skewed overhead perspective. You can move your character in all eight directions, and will need to in order to explore these multi-tiered environments. Like in Zelda you must use items to solve rather simple puzzles, complete fetch quests to open the path forward, or even fight off enemies and boss characters. The first thing that really sets Marvelous apart from Zelda however is the fact that this game has three different protagonists. You control a lead character while the other two follow, but you can switch between all three of them freely using the R button. That is, if they’re in range.
The three character system raises issues right away. For starters, many actions you perform leave the other two to wait in place. I found myself forgetting about them and then having to backtrack to re-unite the trio. You can summon the other boys by pressing the Y button which whistles, but if you move to a new area and they aren’t within a certain vicinity they’ll be left behind. Using specific items will cause the others to stop moving as well. The system is a little clunky to be honest, and you’ll need to have a certain amount of patience going in or else Marvelous will get on your nerves.
I hope you don’t mind switching between characters, because you’ll be doing a whole lot of it. The three boys have a few basic traits that differentiate them from the other two. Dion for example is the smallest and fastest, and therefore he can squeeze in small spaces that the others cannot. Max is a rather portly boy and therefore the strongest of the bunch. He can lift objects the others cannot. Jack is the tallest and lankiest meaning he can reach things the others can’t.
Marvelous doesn’t just leave it at that; the three boys can use different items that you’ll need throughout the quest. Now, there are a few that are universal between them but for the most part they have exclusive inventories. This begins as they’re each given a differently colored key. To make things easy it corresponds with the color of their clothing so you’ll be able to figure out who you need to open what. Chests come in four different colors; red, green, blue and a combination of all three. Sometimes this means you’ll need to bring a specific character, and other times it leads to endless switching between them in order to open a grip of different chests.
The exclusive items that the three boys can use are a direct reflection of their physical abilities or personality. That keeps things easy when you’re trying to remember who has what. Items are handled in a similar fashion to how Zelda does it. You’ll need them to reach new areas, or to destroy obstacles opening the path forward. Dion can use things such as a hammer which lets him pound pegs into the ground, a baseball mitt (his lone offensive item), dash boots which allow him to run and ram objects, and more. Max has goggles that let him dive, soccer shoes with which he can kick objects and enemies, and a few others. Finally, Jack has tools like jump boots that allow him to cross crevices, a fishing rod, remote controller for robots, and several others.
What’s interesting about Marvelous is how clear it is that, while the developers were clearly inspired by Zelda, they wanted to make something that played very differently. You’ll notice that there aren’t a lot of offensive items at your disposal. That’s for good reason; combat is actually a rare occurrence in this game. You’ll go through large portions of the game without seeing a single enemy or even encountering anything that can drain the life bar of your characters. The focus instead is on puzzle solving. Generally it’s nothing too complicated; use this item to unlock that path and whatnot. It’s a whole lot of memorization. Every once in a while you’ll have a puzzle involving a lot of different parts and written notes. These are actually very cleverly done.
As far as themes go Marvelous is on point. The child-hood treasure hunting themes harken to films such as the Goonies, but it feels more like the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. As you progress in the game you move on to new islands; each has their own side stories and characters. There’s even a central theme to each land mass. The world feels lived in and interesting. The second island you visit has a time travel theme wherein you can visit it in the past and affect the present. This seems to be a precedessor to the Ocarina of Time. It’s almost as interesting a mechanic here in Marvelous. That’s just one stage, and the rest have their own plot devices but none as interesting.
It’s pretty clear that Marvelous is running on a modified version of the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past engine. The games look very similar and even the art styles compare favorably. Dion looks like Link with different clothing, for example. The rest of the characters almost look like they could be NPCs in the Zelda world. The world design is stellar with each island having their own distinct style. Backgrounds are well drawn and there’s a fair amount of diversity. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing with some very atmospheric music. Each track harkens to the adventure aspect of the game. I absolutely loved it. There are a few nice touches as well such as the little jingle at the end of a text blurb which is stolen straight out of Link to the Past. Overall the audio is great.
I was expecting something closer to the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. What I got definitely has some similarities and was obviously influenced by it, but Marvelous is largely it’s own thing. Few games have an air of adventure as thick as this one. There’s something innocent and fun, almost child-like about the story and atmosphere here. It’s a huge difference from most action adventure titles released at this time. I would have loved for this one to be localized, or for a sequel on the Nintendo 64. It’s a crying shame that Marvelous was a one and done, and has been mostly forgotten. Marvelous could have been one of Nintendo’s big franchises; it certainly had the heart.
