First 50:
51. Ys: The Vanished Omens (Sega Master System)
52. Code of Princess (3DS)
53. Ys (PSP - Ys I & II Chronicles)
54. Ys II (PSP - Ys I & II Chronicles)
55. Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi (PSP - Sega Genesis Collection)
56. Gradius (PSP - Gradius Collection)
57. Shinobi (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection)
58. Otomedius Excellent (Xbox 360)
59. Deathsmiles (Xbox 360)
60. Sonic the Hedgehog (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection)
61. The Lost Vikings (SNES)
62. The Lost Vikings (Genesis)
63. Final Fantasy II (Game Boy Advance - Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls)
64. Final Fight (PSP - Capcom Classics Collection Remixed)
65. Alien Syndrome (PlayStation 2 - Sega Classics Collection)
66. Exile (Genesis)
67. Ristar (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection)
68. Final Fight (Xbox 360 - Capcom Digital Collection)
69. Classic NES Series: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (Game Boy Advance)
70. Classic NES Series: Metroid (Game Boy Advance)
71. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Xbox 360 - Konami Classics Vol. 1)
72. Ys (DS - Legacy of Ys: Books I & II)
73. Ys II (DS - Legacy of Ys: Books I & II)
74. New Super Mario Bros. (DS)
75. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (PSP - Sega Genesis Collection)
76. Golden Axe III (PSP - Sega Genesis Collection)
77. Muramasa Rebirth (Vita)
78. Magic Sword (PSP - Capcom Classics Collection Remixed)
79. Mega Twins (PSP - Capcom Classics Collection Remixed)
80. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
81. Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (Game Boy Color)
82. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom (PlayStation 3 - Dungeons & Dragons: Mystara Eiyuu Senki)
83. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara (PlayStation 3 - Dungeons & Dragons: Mystara Eiyuu Senki)
84. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (SNES)
85. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Genesis)
86. Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PSP)
87. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection)
88. Contra (NES)
89. Sonic & Knuckles (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection)
90. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
91. Ys IV: Mask of the Sun (Super Famicom)
92. Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys (PC Engine CD)
93. Ys (Famicom)
94. Ys (Turbo CD - Ys Book I & II)
95. Ys II (Turbo CD - Ys Book I & II)
96. Popful Mail (Sega CD)
Popful Mail is Falcom's 2D platformer/action-RPG on Sega CD. Actually, "RPG" is a bit of a misnomer as there are no experience points in this game. Any grinding is done solely for money.
In the game you can switch any time between three heroes: the cutesy elf Popful Mail (yes, that's her name), the wizard Tatt, and this fat little dragon named Gaw. All have their strengths and weaknesses: Mail is the fastest while Gaw is slow but can jump high. Tatt is kind of a middle-of-the-road character but has some cool projectile spells. One of the game's challenges is deciding which character should take on any given boss - though once I recruited Gaw I seemed to use him constantly.
Being a Sega CD game, there are cutscenes here. And they are fantastic. Though I noticed that Mail looks different in the cutscenes compared to her game sprite. And she looks like a grown ass woman in this version of the game compared to looking like a little girl in some other ports and the official artwork. Strange. Moving on, Popful Mail was localized by Working Designs who claims that the game contains over three hours of voice-acting. While this may be true you can't hear it all during one playthrough (unless you save/reload constantly) since the dialogue is dependent on your lead character. I always chose Mail to interact with the NPCs as she has the funniest lines. Being a Working Design game the localization is mixed. The script is mostly solid, but the pop culture references make me cringe. There's one character whose lines consist of nothing by Arnold Schwarzenegger references. Listening to this in 2014 is painful.
Graphically, Popful Mail is bright and pretty. Though it does looks like a typical 16-bit game of the era - the "oh wow I'm playing a Sega CD!" realizations only occur during the cutscenes. The music is laid back and pleasant, and not nearly as memorable as something like the Ys OST (no Yuzo Koshiro this time around).
The game is mostly fun to play with smooth controls and well-designed levels. The "typical" video game environments - snow, fire, caves, forests - are all featured here with meticulous attention to detail. The one obstacle that prevents this from being a
great game is the difficulty. It's tough to explain to those who haven't played it - Popful Mail isn't a particularly
hard game, it just has a tendency to be irksome far too often. Working Designs is known for increasing game difficulty, and the way it was implemented here is quite lazy. Essentially the defenses of your playable characters have been lowered while the enemies' defenses have been heightened. Mail and co. expire in two to three hits, this is consistent throughout the entire game. And there's no recovery time either. On the other hand, enemies do have recovery time and many require quite a wallop before they expire. Some bosses require 34 hits(!). You can save anywhere you choose in Popful Mail and you simply return to the beginning of the last "screen" you saved in after a Game Over. This sounds nice theoretically,
however as you play you'll obtain a small cache of rare/expensive "elixyrs" which refill your health automatically when a character's HP hits zero. It's best to save these for the challenging final stretches of the game so wasting them at any old Game Over is a real bummer. For that reason, I found myself reloading whenever an elixyr activated or whenever my HP was low enough to cause concern. It's a tedious way to play a game and very reminiscent of the final stretches of Ys III. I'm not sure why Working Designs felt the need to tweak the difficulty of this one - a lighthearted cutesy game like this was well-suited to be "easy."
Overall, I enjoyed my 9 hour romp through Popful Mail, but I have no desire to play this particular version ever again. I may check out the Super Famicom and PC Engine CD ports down the road. Is Popful Mail worth the insanely high price it commands? Probably not, unless you're a Falcom collector or lover of old games with plenty of anime-inspired graphics and cutscenes.
One final note: I played Magic Knight Rayeath earlier this year. That game feels very much like a top-down version of Popful Mail. Not too surprising, as it was developed by Sega who also collaborated with Falcom on the Popful Mail Sega CD port. I don't think I've ever heard anyone compare the two games before, which is surprising.
I do plan to play at least one more Sega CD game before the year is out. Glad I dug this out of storage.
