| Collapsible: | no |
| State: | autocollapse |
| Italic Title: | force |
| Yūyūki | |
| Publisher: | Nintendo |
| Director: | Tatsuya Hishida |
| Producer: | Shigeru Miyamoto |
| Composer: | Soyo Oka |
| Modes: | Single-player |
| Genre: | Adventure |
, often simply titled as, is a 1989 text-based adventure game developed by Nintendo R&D4 and Pax Softnica. It was released by Nintendo on two disk cards for the Famicom Disk System. Yūyūki is the second in the Famicom Mukashibanashi series after Shin Onigashima (1987). The game is loosely based on the Chinese novel Journey to the West.
Yuyuki is an adventure game played by choosing from several text commands shown on screen. It resembles its predecessor, Shin Onigashima, in its implementation of the "Change Character" command, usage of traditional Japanese fairytales, and general screen layout and appearance. The story-line is a parody of the Chinese novel Journey to the West, where two main characters, Goku and Chao, embark upon separate journeys to find one another.
In Yuyuki, the "Change Character" command can switch between a maximum of five different characters. However, there are very few points in the game where it can actually be used to such extent. Its main use is to switch between Goku and the others accompanying him. Like Shin Onigashima, the character in use can greatly affect the descriptive text shown on screen, and the significant increase in number of characters allowed for more variety in each scene. It is possible to enjoy the game by viewing the reactions towards choosing completely unrelated characters or commands in certain situations.
While Shin Onigashima demanded rather complex puzzle-solving abilities, Yuyuki mainly focuses on having the player carefully read and understand the story-line. Puzzles are solved easily in this game, and very few choices actually lead to a "game over" screen. Easy trivia questions and simple action gameplay emerge at certain points, and players may find themselves searching for the obvious answer on screen more often than thinking hard to solve the puzzle at hand.
Main changes in gameplay from Shin Onigashima include the implementation of the "Ittaisan" command, which saves progress at any point during the game, and faster animation of game text. The shortening in load time after choosing commands, and an overall decrease in difficulty allowed Yuyuki to run at a much quicker tempo than its predecessor.
Once upon a time, a little girl named Chao lived in a small village in China. One night, a meteor fell near Chao's home, which burst open to reveal a monkey inside. Chao named the monkey "Goku" and took care of him for a while. However, Goku is led away and imprisoned by Oshakasama for the various crimes he has committed, and Chao sets off to find the "Gavel of Light" in order to save him. Several years later, the world is put under peril at the hands of the bull-monster Gyumaou, and Goku is called upon to save the world.
The links labelled "see also" are articles for each character in Journey to the West. Descriptions given here may differ significantly with that of the actual novel.
The player has the option of choosing different names for Goku and Chao at the start of the game. The "Change Character" command can be used with the first five characters listed below.
An odd commercial for the game was aired prior to its release, featuring real-life versions of the main characters (all wearing sunglasses) visiting various locations by plane in a "Tenjiku Tour" (Tenjiku is the final destination in Journey to the West, located in India) such as Japan, Hawaii and Siberia. The most striking part was the commercial's jingle; the developers employed a strange song of no particular meaning that chanted the names of the main characters. This was the last Disk System game advertised on television. [1]
While Shin Onigashima was ported to the Super Famicom and Game Boy Advance, no talk of porting or remaking Yuyuki for other systems has ever emerged. The explanation given was that the game lacked proper copyright clearance from developers and writers, but this explanation is dubious because Shin Onigashima was created by the same company and staff. The Disk System's rewriting service ended in September 2003, but rewriting for Yuyuki was terminated a year earlier in October 2002.
Goku and Chao made cameo appearances in the Kirby's Dream Land series. The appearances do not add to the game's storyline, but they play key roles in finishing each game:
Makoto Asada, a video game producer at 5pb., has expressed interest in making a remake of Yūyūki.[3]