Manual Stimulation: Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe (GameBoy)

Considering how well Nintendo's GameBoy sold outside of Japan, the number of quality titles that never left the handheld's home country amazes me.

Technos' Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe: Ohanabatake wa Dai-Panic is a great example.

Its gameplay is difficult to describe, as it's unlike anything I've played before or since. If forced, I'd probably defer to something like "single-screen arcade action," but of course that doesn't give anyone much of an idea as to what they'll experience should they pick up and play a copy of this 1994 release.



Would calling it a cute tower-defense game help at all? That's basically what Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe is, although even that doesn't completely do its gameplay justice.

For some additional detail, read this 2014 write-up of mine: "Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe: Ohanabatake wa Dai-Panic is both a mouthful and an eyeful." I'd say more here, but I want this post to focus on the game's adorable instruction manual.



And it is adorable, don't you think? That's mostly due to its wonderful illustrations, of course, but I'd say it's also due to the pastel hues its designers used while printing it.



Actually, it's a good thing those pastels are present, because they really spruce up a few of the manual's handful of humdrum pages and spreads.



The map seen on the page below shows off the many different lands that host Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe's stages, by the way.



One cool thing about this game's stages is you can tackle them in whatever order strikes your fancy.

Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe: Ohanabatake wa Dai-Panic (GameBoy) is both a mouthful and an eyeful

Between May 27, 1994, and earlier this year, I was blissfully unaware of Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe: Ohanabatake wa Dai-Panic's existence.

Then, someone on Twitter pointed out this post about the game on Hardcore Gaming 101.

A glimpse of its candy-coated cover art (see photo below) was all I needed to become completely infatuated with it--which of course resulted in me doing whatever it took to track down a complete-in-box copy this Technos Japan-published title.

For those of you who've never heard of Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe before now, here's the gist: the angel and sun--Marlowe and Philip, respectively--shown on the game's box and cart-label art (see below for a photo of the latter) team up to rescue Marlowe's main squeeze, Nancy, from an evil witch named Amanda.

Oh, and along the way they do what they can to restore the wilted flowers of their world, called Bloomland.

Curiously, Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe's tower-defense-esque gameplay revolves around the above-mentioned flower-blooming campaign.  

Specifically, during each of the game's single-screen stages (there are 40 of them, according to my calculations), Philip slowly meanders around the edge while players use the GameBoy's d-pad to move Marlowe about in a far less restricted manner. (They can place him wherever they want, basically, although there are a few exceptions to that rule.) 

That freedom of movement (on the part of Marlowe) is important, as the goal in each stage is to make all of its flower buds blossom, which is accomplished by positioning a particular bud between Marlowe and Philip and then pressing the GameBoy's A button. (This action also is used to incapacitate an enemy, while pressing the B button injects Marlowe with a bit of additional speed.)

Sound like a cakewalk? It's not, to be honest, but don't take that as a complaint. Even if Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe's difficulty were a negative, it would be easy enough to overlook thanks to the game's wonderfully crafted (and animated) graphics and its ear-pleasing soundtrack.

Have any of you played this import-only title? If so, what do you think of it?