Prinny - Can I Really Be the Hero (USA) ISO

Prinny - Can I Really Be the Hero is a punishingly difficult 2D platformer in which your main job is to learn every subtle nuance of how a Prinny moves, attacks, and bounces. Once you get a feel for this, you'll have to maneuver through wave after wave of enemies and obstacles in one of the twitchiest platformers ever conceived.

This game has some unique quirks. For starters, you get 1,000 Prinnies when you start the game, and when they're all dead, it's game over. That sounds like a lot, but you can easily lose a hundred on a single boss fight if you don't know what you're doing. Your Prinny's moveset is pretty simple. You can slash with your knives, which will make you float and shoot knives downward when done in midair. You can double jump. You can butt slam, which will bounce you off of some enemies and obstacles. A successful bounce will grant you another jump. Finally, your Prinnies can spin to gain momentum for a dash, or just to get dizzy. You can't change direction in midair unless you double jump or butt slam and bounce off of something in another direction, so you have to plan jumps carefully.

Story-wise, it's a Disgaea game. It appears simple on the surface, but there's a lot going on under the hood. It all starts with a missing dessert, and the demon lord Etna is beyond miffed about it. Your job is to get the ingredients to make her a new one, but that doesn't necessarily have to be how the story goes. It's not exactly a Bioware game, but there is more than one ending.

Graphically speaking, we've got beautiful, high-resolution sprites against well-made 3D backgrounds. Can't ask for much more than that, and the art style flows extremely well. If you've played a previous Disgaea game, you'll know what to expect. If not, go do it right now. Seriously.

Overall, if you like classic Megaman games or other old-school platformers and are OK with being severely punished for slight mistakes, this game is for you. If I had to pick a game that's similar, I'd say the first Megaman Zero, but with a much lower degree of difficulty.