Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream is an import only Dreamcast game. I remember reading about it in the console’s heyday and it got rave reviews. I was excited to play this game when it was localized for English speakers. Unfortunately it never was. Sega passed it up, and Napple Tale never ported to another home console. Napple Tale has basically been doomed to obscurity. I finally got an import copy and dove in. My excitement quickly diminished as I realized that this legendary game was decent but not amazing. Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream certainly doesn’t live up to the hype. Let’s take a look at it now.
The story here focuses on a girl named Porch. She’s a normal girl (with pretty unusual clothes and a crazy haircut) but some very crazy things are about to happen to her. Porch is on her way to the Summer festival when she’s suddenly swept into a whimsical new world by a magical sprite named Straynap. She’s now stuck in Napple World. This place exists on a plane between the real world and that of dreams. This was all a misunderstanding and Straynap must now help Porch return home. This fantastical quest will take the two to fantastical lands based on the four real-life seasons. She must collect the six petals of her existence from these, but they’re littered with monsters she must first defeat!
For some reason I was always under the impression that Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream was a role playing game. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was a 2.5D action platformer instead! Napple Town serves as a hub world of sorts wherein you can interact with characters, advance the story, and even rest. It’s a fully three dimensional area that is a pretty neat contrast to the rest of the game. The action areas are side scrolling affairs with elements that come from and go into the background. Paths are straightforward but might loop into the background or foreground. This is a pretty cool effect that we’ve seen a hundred times. I was delighted with the unique elements it adds to this game.
Combat is very simple. Porch has two basic moves; she can jump and she can strike with her rod. She can’t stomp on enemy heads however so you’ll need to use the latter for dispatching foes. Monsters hit with your attack fly off-screen in a burst of energy. You can use this for a few things such as hitting other foes, or activating switches. Generally you can ignore it because the game avoids over-complicating things by requiring it’s usage.
Now, this was one of my biggest complaints with Napple Tale. Combat is very limited and there just aren’t a lot of interesting gameplay scenarios. For the most part you’re just hopping and hitting enemies that follow the same patterns over and over again. There are a few different paths you can follow which offer alternative routes through the stage, but even these are too vanilla. Enemies follow very basic patterns and their designs seem to repeat too often.
Napple Tale is very predictable which makes it easy. You have a large life bar (which can be expanded by collecting napples) and enemies are very simple to avoid or destroy. What’s more is that falling into a pit or water makes you lose a charge on your life bar. There’s very little penalty here. I wish I could tell you what happens when you die but I never got to experience that. Napple Tale offers almost no challenge and should be a cakewalk to anyone even vaguely familiar with it.
Boss encounters represent the best moments in Napple Tale. These are daunting and huge, and are easily the most challenging fights in the game. That’s not saying much however, because for the most part I could complete these by standing still and hitting the enemy repeatedly. It’s all about being in the right place and pressing the attack button fast enough. Still, for those who want to try and dodge projectiles and attacks these fights are pretty fun.
The game is also pretty short. I can’t imagine paying full price for a Dreamcast game that takes me around nine hours to complete. Thankfully there are a fair amount of side quests to complete. In Napple Town you can speak to the NPCs and they sometimes give you small tasks. Paffels are the big side quest, and they’re completely unrelated to the main adventure. These serve two basic functions; they either help you out in combat or are purely decorative. You have to understand that ‘catching them all’ was a very big theme back at the time of Napple Tale’s release. Finding paffel recipes and creating them is surprisingly addictive.
It might sound like I’m a hater, but that’s not the case. Napple Tale has a very creative style which feels natural, whimisical, and fantastical. The graphics are pretty impressive by system standards. The characters repeat a lot of animations, but the backgrounds and vibrant colors are still pleasant to look at. The environments are beautiful and full of detail. Unfortunately the backgrounds simply aren’t. You’ll hardly notice while playing. Thematically the use of different seasons is really charming and I loved the style used in each world. Napple Town is particularly impressive when in town because of the lush details and vast draw distances. I really dug the art style and the graphics engine is pretty good too.
The soundtrack is even more impressive. The game uses an Alice in Wonderland style motif with heavy use of instrumentation. You’ll hear lots of violins and piano. The intro theme is even fully voiced. I can’t understand the language it’s still bouncy and enjoyable. The music in general is slower paced than in most video games. Some will be put to sleep by it, but I thought the soundtrack was pretty incredible and fit the ambiance perfectly. I’ll surely be tracking down the soundtrack so I can enjoy the music anytime. It’s really that good.
I really don’t hate Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream. I’ve been pretty tough on the game but the fanbase built up some really big expectations in my mind. It really didn’t live up to the hype I had. If Napple Tale was released in English I’m sure it would have been lost in the shuffle. It’s certainly not, nor would it have ever been, one of the flagship titles for the Sega Dreamcast. With that said, it’s pretty enjoyable still. Just temper your expectations because it’s not mind-blowing by any means.
