PuLiRuLa

Part of the Arcade Gears series of games PuLiRuLa is, unsurprisingly, a port of an arcade game. After playing through this game multiple times, I still cannot see why this game was deemed worthy of a home release. Obviously there has to be something to it. I mean, they wouldn't port an average game while many other great games are always left in the arcade. Would they?

PuLiRuLa is a sidescrolling beat em up akin to Final Fight on acid. This is one of the most off the wall games I have ever played. Taking a cue from Sonic, when you defeat enemies they turn back into animals, which you can then collect for more points. Character designs look as though they were pulled directly from your local drug addicts nightmares. There is some really messed up stuff here. Like the enemies who remove their head, stick a straw down into their body to get ammo and then return the head, only to shoot spitballs at you. Let's not even mention the booger flinging baddies. And perhaps one of the most unusual boss battles since the first boss in Choaniki (Saturn). This boss is nothing more than a bulbous head with an extremely long phallic nose that it uses to bounce around on. Did I mention the purple tutu? How about the eye lasers? Still not doing it for you? We can't forget the attack where it kisses you. What's worse, once you kill this boss it turns into a sherpa!

I almost forgot, PuLiRuLa contains one of the most disturbing scenes in videogame history. Near the beginning of level 3 you reach an area with a large set of women's legs sticking out of doorways. Her assumed naked body is behind the wall with a conveniently placed doorway between the legs. Now, the more adventurous gamer may hit this doorway to see what is inside. I'd tell you here, but I'm not about to spoil the surprise. Let's just say that it fits in with the drunken nature of the game. Truly twisted stuff.

Gameplay is very simple with a mere three buttons. One for attack, one allows you to jump and the final casts your magic attack. The goal of the game is to go from point A to point B while beating the crap out of these oddball baddies. Your character comes equipped with a walking stick, or maybe it's supposed to be a wand. There are three attacks each performed by hitting a direction on the dpad and the attack button simultaneously. Or, for the more lazy, you can just mash on the attack button and he will switch it up on his own.

The action is decidedly average and the only thing that keeps you going is the desire to see what's next. Just how crazy can the game get? Eventually the oddities grow tiresome and it is at this point you realize that you are really bored. The game relies too heavily on it's gimmick and boils down to nothing more than a simplistic and repetitive beat em up with an altered state coat of paint.

PuLiRuLa features some slick 2D visuals and looks rather nice for an arcade game circa 1991. Everything animated smoothly with little to no slowdown. There is an area at the start of level two that features a wonderful graphical effect. Everything on screen has a real time reflection. Pretty impressive. The only things that look out of place are the few digitized items that are present in some areas. Such as a lady hanging onto a flag poll with about two frames of movement. It sticks out like a sore thumb, but then, that was likely the intention.

The music is a sort of drug induced carnival sound mixed with typical midi tunes from early 90's arcade games. Pretty annoying stuff. Sound effects are similarly annoying and you will quickly grow tired of the attack sound.

The game is a beat em up, so language doesn't really come into play. The story is in Japanese, but is obviously not needed to play the game. The menu screens are entirely in English, so no worries there. The only thing that might not "translate" is the often times strange humor.

I'm not sure I'd recommend this game to anyone. I don't feel it has anything to offer apart from the insane imagery. Two player mode can be kind of fun the first time through as you and a friend point out the "wacky" situations. Everything gets stale rather quickly. This game is nothing more than a boring beat em up with an LSD flavored shell.

©2003 Ed Finnegan

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