Saving the universe and looking cute while doing it

Post 00044 | October 1st 2023

I have a rather long list of games that I want to play but can't. Not because they're impossible to find, because a server has shut down, or because my hands have fallen off. Rather, it's a case of me not having taken the time to learn Japanese which is a problem with my taste in games. I could use my spare time learning the language, but instead I spend it more productively by looking at romhacking websites, seeing which games have received fan translations. Luckily for me, the localisation teams are more productive than I am; Within the last year or so, they have managed to translate an entire trilogy of games that has been on my list of ages.

"Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Yuna", known in the West as "Galaxy Fraulein Yuna" is a series of games, anime, and audio dramas released in the 90's. I have been playing the first game with the fan translation by Supper and Mafoo343. It follows Yuna Kagurazaka, a teenage girl whose life changes after she wins the Galaxy Fraulein beauty contest, becoming a famous idol singer. One night she is woken up by one of the other beauty contestants in an armoured battle suit who's destroying her neighbourhood. Elner, a small robot fairy also shows up to bring Yuna up to speed: Yuna is the Saviour of Light and has to go on a quest to defeat the darkness that is threatening to take over the universe.

The game itself is a pretty lighthearted visual novel. After being awakened, Yuna agrees to help hunting down the Thirteen Frauleins of Darkness. Good thing she won a Space Cruiser that allows her to visit different planets in the galaxy. Rather than going to familiar planets like Uranus and Jupiter, we get taken to places such as the artificial planet Flint or the tropical Loureezus. In fact, all the planets have different themes which helps bring variation to the story. Each planet consists of about ten screens or so, so don't expect vast No Man's Sky worlds for you to explore. Instead, it each planet has a couple of story scenarios taking place, which are usually pretty humorous. For instance, before Yuna can leave Earth she has to find her misplaced cruiser license. She goes to her school to look for it, interrupting class to such a degree that her teacher challenges her to a karaoke duel. Later, at the television studio, she is attacked by one of the Frauleins of Darkness, her friend Kaede. Upon defeating Kaede, she faints and her battle suit breaks. Yuna, who doesn't want to leave her unconscious and half-naked, decides to cover her up in a sumo costume.

Apart from the aforementioned Elner, Yuna meets up with three other of robotic allies. Yuna can fuse with them to gain new abilities. Gina of the Earth can help Yuna travel land at high speeds, while Marina of the sea helps lets Yuna swim underwater. Finally, there's Erina of the sky who can help Yuna reach high places. While their abilities are only used once or twice each to help bringing the story along, the three along with Elner assist Yuna on her quest.

The game also features a battle mode where the game suddenly becomes an RPG. I have mixed feelings about this mode. On the top of my head I can't think of any 2D RPG that has cooler battle graphics than this. Rather than putting small sprites on a background, Yuna and her enemy are big, animated sprites on a black background. The animations look like they could have been ripped from an anime. That said, the underlying mechanics of the battle mode leaves a lot to be desired.

You have three attacks; You can attack with your sword, your gun or you can resort to name-calling which riles up your enemy. The latter takes a toll on your dignity meter. While the animations for the moves look great, the limited selection means they gets old pretty quickly when you have to see them ten times in a row. There isn't much of a challenge to speak of either. I only lost two battles. One because I ran away from someone I didn't want to fight (she seemed friendly), and another time where all my moves missed for no apparent reason. In both instances you just get booted back to just before the fight began, letting you try again. You aren't awarded any experience points when you win, but your stats raise every battle (and by stats I mean the health and dignity meter). All in all, while the battle mode looks cool, it's more style over substance. I'm left with the feeling it was added to follow a market trend, with the nice big sprites looking good in magazine and TV advertisements.

While one might not consider the music to be the most important part of a visual novel, it is still a difficult formula to get right. It needs to set the mood while being interesting enough to not get stale from being replayed repeatedly, while at the same time being subtle enough to allow the player to focus on reading. Thankfully, Galaxy Fraulein manages this beautifully. The games starts out with two entire CD tracks; The title screen features "P.S. I Love You" by Pink Sapphires, which is followed by an intro animation complete with a original song "Dream Girl" performed by Chisa Yokoyama. Hudson really did their best trying to fill that CD-ROM.

The rest of the soundtrack is handled by the PC Engine's built in sound chip, with the CD drive being busy loading scene changes and plentiful voice clips. The track selection is pretty good. I found myself humming the odd melody between play sessions. I was a bit worried at first: The first hour takes place on Earth which has the same tune playing most of the time. While the melody itself is decent enough, it did overstay its welcome, especially as this was the first impression you got from the game. It was a relief to hear the track change when Yuna ventured into space.

Galaxy Fraulein Yuna was released in 1992, which is the same year that Sailor Moon anime started airing. It is almost impossible not to draw a comparison between Sailor Moon and Galaxy Fraulein Yuna. They are both newly awakened magical girls who have been tasked to save the universe from darkness; Yuna from the 13 Dark Frauleins and Usagi from the Dark Kingdom. They both have companions to help them along which is a good thing, as neither don't seem to know what's going on a lot of the time. While these similarities are striking, this of course doesn't have to be a bad thing! The more the merrier if you ask me. It's not like we are drowning in intergalactic magical girl manga after all.

All in all, I enjoyed my time in space with Yuna. If you get the chance to play it, I highly recommend it. It not high culture, but it doesn't need to be. It's a relaxing journey through space with a good couple of laughs along the way.