0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - The Adventure of Little Ralph

         

The Adventure of Little Ralph original title Chippoke Ralph no Daibouken, is a single player side scrolling 2D platform game developed by New Corporation, and published by Ertain Corporation and New Corporation, for the Playstation 1 and was released exclusively In Japan on the 3^rd June 1999, the game was re-released on PSN in Japan in 2007.

The adventure begins with Ralph trying to protect his town from attack by monsters only to be turned into a kid by them and have a women who tries to protect him taken hostage, now the young Ralph must set off on a quest to resort himself and rescue the damsel in distress, while this may sound like every other platformer, it stands out more than most, through the game Ralph is able to upgrade his sword, from just a simple slash attack, using a blue power up to increase the range of your attacks, using red power up to allow Ralph to shoot fireballs alongside his slash attacks, another power up gives Ralph his furry companion, who also lobs things at enemies.

The levels are a diverse bunch with crumbling castle areas, aquaducts, pyramids, sewers, and many others which also include branching paths for you to explore, levels also include hazards like waterfalls in the sewers that need to be avoided at all cost, most levels have a low or high path, controls are easy with only square to attack and the X button to use.

During the game the player controls Ralph who has been turned back into a child by evil demons who have invaded his homeland, in order to stop them and resort him to his former self, he must go through different enemy filled areas, traps and hidden routes, Ralph is armed with swords and various magical powers, as well as assistance from a small furry companions.

Like previous Japanese only releases reviews are hard to come by with a total of two reviews all I have been able to find, with both being positive for this game especially GamesCollection who rated the game a very strong 9.5/10 their review from 2009 concludes, Chippoke Ralph no Daibouken is inducted to the Olympus of platform games. Beautiful from every angle, is one of absolute references like that. A must have, even in light of the fact that in recent times has been a reduction of its market price. It is therefore the right time to land him.

The other review comes from Retro Spirit Games who were not quite as generous with their score, however they still gave it a solid 8/10 with them concluding their review with, as a 2D platformer it belonged to a genre that was no longer in favour, seen as outdated by many due to developers mostly focusing on 3D games that took advantage of the 32-bit host software. It is a shame though as Little Ralph is a great game that deserved more attention, but yesteryear's loss is our gain and we can now enjoy this hidden gem via the wonders of emulation, or ebay if you are willing to splash out the high asking prices this game commands.

For some additional data we head to GameFAQs for some user data, with a total of 22 users rating the game, it currently has a user average rating of 4/5, with a minimum rating for the of 3/5 with the majority of users giving the game a 4.5/5.

A total of 14 users rated the difficulty of the game with over half rating the game as just right when it comes to difficulty, 35% found the game on the tough side while 7% found the game simply unforgiving, playtime wise from a total of 9 users 5 of them spent 8 hours playing the game, another 2 users spent just 2 hours with the game with 1 user spending 1 and 4 hours playing the game, with an average playtime for the game being around the 5 hour mark.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit five online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com,  eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, I will also be including Ebay.com as well

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, along with Retrogames.co.uk don’t stock this Japanese only title, so we head off to eStarland.com who do stock the game, however the game is currently out of stock, when in stock you will be looking at a cost of between $119.98 and $239.95 for a used copy of the game, if you are looking to trade in your copy, then eStarland.com will pay you $150 for it.

Moving to Amazon.com and copies of this game are rare, with just 4 on sale at the time of writing this, like you would expect from the eStarland prices they are expensive, for an acceptable quality copy of the game, the minimum you are looking at is $215.76 which converts to £167.57 in the UK, in Euro zone countries It will set you back €183.74 while in Oman it will cost you 83.06 Omani Rial, if you are looking for a better quality version then you are looking at a minimum of $292.49.

Ebay.com is no cheaper for a used copy of the game with prices starting at $294, there is one new copy of the game on the market as well this will set you whopping $513.57 which converts to 197.66 Omani Rial’s, in Euro zone countries it will cost you €437.42 and in the UK a new copy of the game will set you back £398.78.

Written by

P J Gibbon