About Madou Monogatari: Hanamaru Dai Youchienji

Game description from [[link:http://www.romhacking.net Romhacking.net]]:

<I>OH MY GOD CUTE. Madou Monogatari follows the adventures of the adorable Puyo Puyo mascot Arle, as she tries to find eight crystals, which in doing so will grant her one wish. You know what she wishes for? To pass kindergarten. Go on, say “awwwww”. We won’t tell.

Even though it’s based on Puyo Puyo characters (or, as Gideon Zhi is so quick to mention, Puyo Puyo is based on Madou Monogatari characters), this is an RPG through and through. So if you suck at Puyo Puyo (like me) or just plain don’t like it, well, you need to play this game anyways. It does away with your typical RPG conventions in a way that you really wouldn’t expect in some cutesy little Puyo Puyo game.

Like, there’s no indicator of your hit points at all. All you have to go on is all the dancing around that Arle does. I mean, if she’s just kinda drooping there, with her eyes all spirally lines, you better Goddamn well heal that girlie, stat. You’re a magic user, so you don’t have any actual physical attacks at your disposal. You’ve got your three core attack spells (Fire, Ice Storm, Lightning) at your disposal, which don’t use any magic power (for which, again, there’s no indicator), and then you’ve got all your other spells, like Healing and some other stuff. If you cast Bayoen on a monster, and Arle tells you she has plenty of magic power, then you’re still doing ok.

There’s a whole hell of a lot of walking around going on, but the game world is pretty small, so it’s not that bad. Plus, you’ve got these awesome flying squirrels that you can ride. It’s pretty badass, man.</I>

Unofficial English translation available:
[[link:http://agtp.romhack.net/ http://agtp.romhack.net/]]
[[link:http://www.romhacking.net/trans/386/ http://www.romhacking.net/]]