Gaming Sayonara Umihara Kawase / Yumi's Odd Oddysey controls help?

[hippy dave]

This game talk forum is pretty quiet..

So this funky platform puzzle game, Sayonara Umihara Kawase, was released retail in Japan, and on the eshop in Europe (original title) and USA (as Yumi's Odd Oddysey). Anyone been playing it?

I saw it in the UK eshop, and it looked interesting, but it hasn't been dumped yet so I decided to check out the Japanese rom dump. It was easy enough to navigate the menus into the game, and figure out most of the basics, and watching the first few levels of a youtube playthrough helped to see the popup hints in english, so I feel like I can play it now but there's at least one thing I'm still missing. The popup circle thing when you press L (in the default control setting, or X in another setting), what does it do/what do you do with it? I seem to be able to choose a direction, but then nothing happens.

Does anyone like this game anyway? Seems fun.

Cheers!

Edit: so I gather the different characters are meant to have different abilities (suspect this may have something to do with the circle thing)? Can anyone elaborate?

 

[cearp]

ok, i'll try to make this simple
pressing L as the default character freezes the game for a little bit, allowing you to choose a direction, make sure it is the one your want, and then get back to the game and fire it in that direction. i use it when i want to be really really sure that i will fire in that direction.

the different characters, well, you can unlock different ages for them, which act the same, as in... you start with the main girl, the oldest, then there is a younger girl, and then a youngest one.
the main is the 'hardest', the younger one can move when you freeze time, and the youngest one comes back at a check point ONCE, if you die.
you can play the main girl as her younger self when you unlock it, which means she will come back when she dies once... just like the youngest girl character

i laugh when i see a name changed so completely from the original name
it's good fun climbing up a vertical wall haha
anyway, the game is fun.... but very tough! i'm sure most people will not have the patience for it. some levels, near the start, have taken me so many attempts.

 

[hippy dave]

Thanks mate, much appreciated Yeah it's a tough game. I'll try and stick it out a bit further, see if I get any better at it

 

[cearp]

i spent like 40 attempts on the first boss before i realized i was doing it all wrong...