| Miruchi & Yuka | |
 | |
| Developer(s) | Traveller's Tales Azumanga Interactive |
| Publisher(s) | Bandai Namco Games |
| Platform(s) | Bandai Extreme Bandai CD Bandai PocketTurbo Plus |
| Genre | Action/Puzzle |
| Mode(s) | 1 Player |
| Ratings | K-A for Kids to Adults |
Miruchi & Yuka is a platform/puzzle game featuring the title characters from Azumanga Daioh and Azumanga Preschool, developed by Traveller's Tales and Azumanga Interactive, and published by Bandai Namco Games for the Bandai Extreme, Bandai CD and Bandai PocketTurbo Plus.
The game is similar to Puggsy for Sega Genesis, Sega CD and Amiga. The only difference is that you can either play as Miruchi or Yuka by simply pausing the game during gameplay, and selecting you character. But they have no differences on their gameplay, except that Miruchi can jump higher than Yuka for some reason.
Plot[]
Miruchi and Yuka travel to a planet, they crash land in the ocean of the planet and set off to find some items in order to fix their ship. But a raccoon army comes in and steals their ship right when Miruchi and Yuka left.
Gameplay[]
The gameplay is mostly a cross between a normal platform game, with the usual style of platformer enemies and a variety of means to kill them, and a puzzle game of sorts where Miruchi and Yuka are often required to find objects, and either carry them to a specific location or somehow use them in order to complete levels. There are also a variety of objects that have power-up effects, such as allowing Miruchi and Yuka to be hit once or twice without dying, speeding them up or making them temporarily invincible, and objects that while not necessary, can be temporarily helpful, such as a variety of pork guns (most of which have limited ammunition which can often not be refilled).
Objects react on a clever physics based system, which was an innovative feature. The system allows objects to be thrown, or to topple if stacked without care. Each object also has a different weight. Another effect of this is that Miruchi and Yuka can carry stacks of objects along a flat surface, but a slope will often cause all items except the bottom one (held by Miruchi or Yuka) to topple and scatter. Also, any objects carried out of the level exits give different score values, or in the case of the heart object, an extra life. Other objects are extremely varied, including shells, weights, matches, keys, balloons, cups, barrels, clue-giving chests, knives, and candles.
The game features 57 levels (37 levels in the Bandai PocketTurbo Plus version) in a variety of settings (16 of those levels being secret) and 6 boss characters (9 boss characters in the Bandai CD version), although not all levels and bosses have to be finished to complete the game, and 5 training levels, accessed from the "Junior" option on the title screen. Also, while you can just play through the game normally and reach the normal ending, a few secret "endings" (cinematic sequences that can only be terminated by resetting the console, or that reset the game themselves) are available by achieving certain goals, such as leaving one secret level with blocks that spelt out the word "HEROS", playing all 51 normal levels (6 of the secret levels are only accessible via a special password, and are not counted towards the normal level total), or playing through the 6 previously mentioned special secret levels. The password to obtain these levels had to be obtained by evaluation three math expressions that appeared during the credits, where they are called "a silly maths equation". In the "HEROS" ending, the player is congratulated for finding the ending, and then asked, "...but are you good at maths?".
Box Art[]
