Manual Stimulation: Lolo no Daibouken (GameBoy)

It pains me to admit this, but as much as I've always loved the idea of HAL Laboratory's Adventures of Lolo (or Eggerland) games, I've never been very good at them.

In fact, no matter which one I play, I only ever seem to get a handful of levels in before I bail because I become hopelessly stuck.

That includes, of course, the game that's the focus of this blog post, 1994's Lolo no Daibouken (Lolo's Great Adventure, basically).



Thankfully, I was pretty sure that would be the case when I bought the copy that provided me with the instruction manual you see here.

Speaking of this manual, it was one of the main reasons I picked up Lolo no Daibouken. So many Japanese GameBoy instruction booklets have blown me away in recent years; surely this one would continue that trend, right?



Sadly, I can't say it does. The Lolo no Daibouken manual is by no means a dud, but it's also not as fabulous as I expected it to be.



It certainly gets off to a good start, with the beautiful cover that can be seen in the first scan above.



After that, though, there's nary an illustration of Lolo or Lala to be found--other than the one that appears in the upper-left corner of nearly every page.



That's quite a missed opportunity on the part of publisher Imagineer, if you ask me. I can't help but wonder if the manual that accompanied the game's European release, which was published by Nintendo in 1995, is better in this regard or if it's similarly disappointing.



Oh, well, at least readers get to ogle a bunch of rose-tinged screenshots, right?



I say that somewhat facetiously, although I've also got to admit some of the screen grabs that are used near the end of the Lolo no Daibouken manual are pretty darn nice.



Unsurprisingly, perhaps, I like the ones of the game's enemies the best. Still, I would've preferred seeing those baddies depicted using good old pen and ink.

Now that you've had a chance to take it all in, what do you think of the Lolo no Daibouken instruction manual? And what do you think of the game itself--if you've ever played it?

See also: previous 'Manual Stimulation' posts about Bubble Bobble Junior, Penguin Land, Snow Bros. Jr., and Tumblepop

Calling all gamers who know of box art featuring toys or figures instead of drawings or renders

Yesterday morning, game developer Hayden Scott-Baron (he's had a hand in Lostwinds, Tumbledrop and Zoo Tycoon, among other titles) asked me on Twitter if I could recommend any game box art that uses photos of toys or figures instead of drawings or renders.

An example of what he was looking for, he said in a later Tweet, was the cover made for the packaging of Monster World IV, a rather lovely action RPG that was released for Sega's Mega Drive back in 1994.

Sadly, that prompt didn't help a whole lot--at least at first. In fact, the only piece of cover art I could think of was the one that was produced for the Japanese version of Advance Wars: Dual Strike, which was known as Famicom Wars DS in that territory.



Later, though, a few others came to mind, such as Teketeke! Asmik-kun World (aka Boomer's Adventures in Asmik World) for the GameBoy and HAL Laboratory's Eggerland (part of the series that later became known as Adventures of Lolo) for the Famicom Disk System.

The Eggerland box art (below) is among the most delicious things you've ever laid eyes on, right? Don't be shy--admit it.

The only other example I've been able to think of, by the way, is Atlus' Totsugeki! Valetions (see it here), which also is a Japanese GameBoy title. (Its name was changed to Spud's Adventure when it was brought to North America in 1991.)

I don't suppose any of you can think of examples of game cover art that showcases toys or figures instead of drawing or renders? If you can, please let me know about them in the comments section of this post.