Suzu Monogatari

New acquisition from Snesorama. This is a Capcom game from the same vintage as Breath Of Fire 4 but a lot, lot weirder. Forgive me but my Japanese isn't the best, i'll lose a lot of plot here, but going by the first 30 minutes or so this is very Japanese and for that read weird.

A god loses 7 bells when he inadvertantly drops them from heaven, tasked with returning them he's sent to modern day rural Japan to get them back, oh and play a wacky card game with folks.

For starters you have a shovel and a fishing line at your disposal, you can dig up coins and bait (usually worms) to fish with. Talking to folks with a card sign above their heads will lead you to a weird little card game that will serve as your entire battle screen. Playing a sort of rock paper scissors style game, all your cards are either wind, fire or water with a corresponding weakness to each other. Your main aim is to make your opponent lose, and you do this by exploiting his or her weakness. You'll get items and stuff if you win but seeing as you only ever battle snakes its really not worth it.

Graphics.
Nicely done they sort of remind me of a top spec GBA game with an isometric sprite style, that's quite nice. Battle graphics are a bit more shabby but still functional.

Sound.
Quite pleasant, your typical old time Japanese themes here, does exactly what it says on the tin.

Gameplay:
The card game bit is rather dull actually, so the wandering about takes up most of your time. Lovers of Japanese stuff will surely like the neat little touches such as the washerwoman hauling in a giant peach (a nod to Momotaro), or the man selling onigiri from a stall. Mainly though your tasked with fetch quests, such as giving a child buttered toast!. You also have a sidekick in the form of a fairy (though one I don't know the name of). She'll point out stuff for you to do (such as the aforementioned child) and tell you to do your best. Mainly though its you on your own digging stuff up and fighting pensioners and their snakes, in a card game.

Romanization:

I don't know about the hacking side of this much, we don't do programming, but I'd say menu possibly protection. Plus, nearly everyone you can talk to or interact with in some way means you'll need someone fluent to go through the entire script. You can see why we got Breath Of Fire 4 instead now.

Overall ? Impossible to judge.