Aigina no Yogen

Aigina no Yogen is an action game developed for the Famicom by Vic Tokai in 1986. The full title of the game is Aigina no Yogen: Balubalouk no Densetsu Yori, which translates to "The Prediction of Aigina: From The Legend of Balubalouk." The game was never released outside of Japan, and is little known anywhere else in the world; however, in 1988, Vic Tokai reprogrammed and released it in North America and Europe to the Commodore 64 as Aigina's Prophecy. It is the spiritual sequel to an arcade game known as Balubalouk no Densetsu, which was also only released in Japan.

Many players have been mystified by how to play this game when they first encounter it. It begins with an overworld map reminiscent of an RPG like Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy. However, once you step inside an entrance, the view switches to a side scrolling view. Enemies pour out of a generator, and the method of killing them is quite unusual and unintuitive. To kill a monster, you must jump up and hit a platform to reveal an object that points left and right. Then you must jump up to the object, and stand in front of it. When an enemy lines up with you horizontally, you must then jump to fire off the two projectiles it contains in either direction, thereby killing the enemies.

The goal of the game is to kill enough enemies to make progress through six dungeons, each of which contains a hidden portion of the Aura Star which has been broken into five pieces. The final dungeon contains the kidnapped princess who knows how to restore the Aura Star, which will allow you to complete the game. While most exits from a room become visible when enough enemies are defeated, the entrances to the rooms which contain pieces of the star are hidden from sight until the player jumps three times in the correct place to make the entrance appear.

While this game was never released in English, a very early version of a partial English patch was released before the translation project was completed. You can find the path at Romhacking.net, and the patch will translate the menu items, but very little else.