More penguin gaming!

The first Ufouria: The Saga was released by Sunsoft for NES in 1991, originally as 'Hebereke'. The characters became Sunsoft mascots and appeared in various puzzle game releases, but there never was a proper follow up... until now.

Ufouria: The Saga 2, released by Sunsoft and Red Art Games in 2024, is a sequel / soft-reboot of the story, starring the white penguin Hebe joining forces with three other characters – Ō-Chan, Sukezaemon and Jennifer – to repel the Utsujin Invasion of Earth.

Watch on YouTube

The game is a cutesy 2-D platformer Metroidvania, with Hebe's home tree working as the hub. Each character – whom you can switch on the fly – has their own strengths and unlockable powers, leading to the ever-so-addicting cascade of new routes, secrets and levels. Additionally, Hebe's house has a vending machine from which you can purchase more elements to the levels – like jump springs for reaching high-up secrets – meaning revisiting levels you've already seen stays fresh for quite a while.

And speaking levels staying fresh, there's a map randomisation system at play, with each level having multiple different variants, each of their own secret collectibles – so not using the fast travel is beneficial. The levels are kept short and snappy, so traversing across the entire map won't take forever.

Hebe isn't the only penguin in the game, mind. The enemies include Pen-Chan – a penguin-costumed girl – and then there's this hidden little guy:

I have to stress that absolutely love the presentation; Ufouria: The Saga 2 is perhaps the most adorable looking game I have ever seen! Everything is as if made of felt – and partially they are, as the designers apparently used real felt crafts to design at least some of the elements. The results are pixel-perfect. The music is also stellar, but as you might have guessed, I'll write more about that in the future.

The game is great, as long as you don't expect a nail-biting challenge. The game is on the easy side – closer to Kirby than Mario – but as such I could imagine this working great as an introduction to Metroidvanias. Or, like in the case of a hardcore geezer like myself, as a chill wind-down kind of game.

Ufouria: The Saga 2 is available on all the digital platforms, as well as a physical version via Red Art Games for all the consoles.

Finally:

As a closing note, some old-school folks who do remember the original Ufouria: The Saga from NES might be really confused about how is Ufouria a penguin game series. It is – the western localisation just got heavily altered as Hebe was replaced with 'Bop-Louie', a marshmallow-man looking character. The other characters had their names swapped, but retained their looks for the most part. Bob-Louie does make a brief appearance in this sequel as an Easter Egg, but let's face it – Hebe is better.