Magical Chase Review: Is This Expensive Classic Worth the Plastic?

Magical Chase

Platform: PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16

For whatever reason, Ripple's original sprite, along with the aesthetics for stage 1, were reworked for the Western release (bottom). Which version is superior?

What do spaceships and witches have in common? They both lend themselves well to the shooter (or “shoot ‘em up”) genre in which a vessel flies against scrolling graphics, blasting all kinds of incoming baddies.

Not surprisingly, the planes and futuristic starships that “starred” in the earliest of these fodder-fests were not exactly personable; players might enjoy piloting a war machine or jet fighter, but they weren’t exactly empathizing with the hypothetical pilot inside. And so, as a possible response, the so-called "cute ‘em up" came into being, a sub-genre that still maintained the gun-heavy tropes of its more serious counterparts while adding humor and at least a hint of personality.

And Magical Chase is a good example. It replaces the ship with a pink n’ frilly witch, a cutie-pie named Ripple who must traverse six outrageous stages casting spells and zapping nasties. From a developer’s standpoint, a witch makes the perfect vessel—like a ship, she still flies and fires, still cavorts with all sorts of strange and unsavory threats. But she’s also endearing in a way a sprite of mechanical, metallic design could never be. If the intent was to create a shooter of humor and approachability, implementing a witch of Ripple’s whimsy was the natural, even obvious choice. This is a game that, with its similarly outlandish cast of baddies and bosses, stops just short of parody.

But despite its classic status—the U.S. release is one of gaming’s rarest treasures—the game has been a mite overhyped in recent years. Ripple, for all her mischievous potential, is a character better defined in the manual than anything onscreen. Per the booklet, she’s the one responsible for releasing her demonic nemeses into the world. And now, she's the one forced to reign them in. She's more an anti-hero, in short…but without the manual, it’s an important detail all-but impossible to discern. For most players, Ripple and her adversaries never fully transcend being cursor and target; for an experience spun around larger-than-life characters and winsome kitsch, the enemies still feel like mobile props, the witch still more a starcraft than a person of real witchcraft.

It's a missed opportunity that limits Magical Chase’s, and its heroine’s, overall appeal and greater legacy--especially when juxtaposed against Cotton, gaming’s other preeminent (and amusing) spellcaster. Ripple’s game focuses on spectacle, on impressing players with its hardware-pushing tricks and upbeat tunes. But despite that manic wonderment and accompanying fast-action, players will still leave the game much like one leaves behind a passenger met on an airplane.

She was nice…we talked almost the whole time…and yet, I still know nothing about her.

Ripple is the girl everyone notices, but nobody knows.—D

Publisher: Palsoft, Turbo Technologies Inc.

Developer: Quest

Release: 1991/1993

Genre: Horizontal Shooter

The occasional shop offers new spells and other buffs...so long as enough gems are grabbed.

Stage 3 (top) is probably the game's most clever, with a giant gunship that "chomps" like a giant mouth. Stage 5 (bottom) sports a vague Miyazaki (Ghibli) influence.

In 2000, a Game Boy Color version was also released. It's a surprisingly faithful port, sporting even many of the PC Engine version's special effects (the parallax scrolling in particular).