There’s this little cute guy, wearing a hat, a cape and carrying a violin, that comes to a village and plays for the monsters and makes a friend. A girl in a red hat with a white bow…

This story is about the Violinist of Hameln ^_^ On Super Famicom, by Enix!

This weekend me and my friend Gabriella played through the entire game, almost twice! ;D On saturday we sat for hours playing through until the second to last boss, and then.. forgot to press continue on time when we got distracted by our 3DS’s >_< This game lacks cheats or passwords so there is no way to skip ahead, you have to play through it all in one go!! But on sunday we gave it another go, and beat it without ever even getting a Game Over and we had 25 lives to spare! :D

The best thing about the Violinist of Hameln is his buddy, the girl that can transform into almost anything!! Of course you have to discover the various powers first to unlock each creature she can turn into. The creatures will help you along the way. And if nothing else, you can always pick up and chuck the girl straight at enemies or walls :D It works!  The Violinist can only jump, glide a bit with his cape and shoot notes from his violin, so having the girl around is very helpful! Here’s a chart of all the characters you can unlock and choose from in the start menu:

And here they are in action:

The Ostrich buddy: Walks over spikes	The Frog buddy: If you stand on her you can jump up on hard to reach platforms
The Robot Buddy: Can walk over spikes and punch rock walls if you jump on her.	The Curling buddy: Can be thrown and will glide into narrow spaces and is effective against enemies
The Gorilla Buddy: Can walk over spikes, but is mainly meant for you to get passed a certain stage where you have to transform your buddy into the gorilla to impress a guy.. See the gifs below for more Gorilla action ;D	The Penguin Buddy: Let’s you swim passed water, if you jump on the penguin she dashes forward and destroys enemies in the water.

The Fish Buddy: If you step on it it will float upwards! If you press down it will drop, but you can’t steer side- ways unless the wind takes you there.	The Duck Buddy: Can swim over water but also dive if you jump on her.
The Monkey Buddy: Can climb walls! You just tag along and shoot whatever comes in your way ^_^	The UFO Buddy: Hovers around you constantly and is good when you need the girl to follow you (BECAUSE SHE SUCKS AND WALKING AND CAN’T JUMP AT ALL!!) >_<
The Monster Buddy: Is useless, but you need it to get passed a road block. A guy needs to see the monster to let you pass to the next stage.	The Frisbee Buddy: You’re actually not supposed to stand on her, just throw her like a frisbee at enemies :)
The Elephant Buddy: Can put out fires if you jump on her! Pffrrrsshh!	The Bird Buddy: Can fly!! And you can steer her! :D Be careful not to fall off though >_<
The Octopus Buddy: Let’s you swim under water! :D	The BOMB Buddy: You can throw her and she goes BOOOOOM!* Works like a charm on all following bosses :D
	Here’s a closeup of your buddy BOMB blowing up! ;D LOL

The entire screen flickers when the BOMB is thrown ^_^

There are four world maps, each filled with several stages followed by a boss at the end.
    
    

In the beginning of each world map there’s a village which you can re-enter at any time between stages on that map. Here you can talk to people, regain health at an inn and buy stuff! :D Like shields, extra time for stages, a better cape and also some of the stuff that your buddy can turn into, like the UFO (but you will find this one on a stage later) and the missile (I’m not sure if you can find this one, so I’d suggest buy to it!)

During stages you can find stars, when you have found 4 stars you will get to a bonus stage where you can find an extra life and also get loads of coins!

The stages are all very varied, and with pretty graphics ^_^

The bosses were a lot of fun! And not too hard, we only had some problems with one, which was the second boss. But eventually we figured out how to beat this one too ^_^ You’re just supposed to throw your buddy straight upwards towards the boss’ platform and he’ll fall down so you can hit him :)

Here’s screenshots of all the bosses:

First boss, not that difficult, keep throwing your buddy at his face :)

The second boss, we were stuck here for a while since it was hard to dodge all the snakes that kept spawning while also dodging his spiked he kept shooting in all directions >_< but shooting your buddy from below the platform worked like a charm :) The non-blurry screenshots were taken while we were figuring out what to do and thought the UFO was a good idea.. but just throwing the girl worked a lot better ;D

This is the third boss, some skeleton guy on a really weird horse that has no face!!! LOL He wasn’t too difficult if you had the missile. I came into the boss fight for the first time with only one heart of health and I managed to beat him, while taking photos with my iPhone!!  ^_^

During the final boss this guy with a grand piano on his back came in and joined the fight. You met him previously in the village, but I didn’t quite get what he said, so during the entire battle I wasn’t really sure if he was on my side or not.. but it turned out that he was on my side when the credits started rolling ;D

During the entire game you got the feeling that the Violinist wasn’t all that nice. He was quite mean to the girl, throwing her around and she looked pissed most of the time. And also during some cutscenes between stages this is what you saw:

But in the end it seemed like they made friends after all ^_^ This was a great game, and totally worth the high price :D