Mr. Bones

Ever since that fateful day I came across the longplay of "Mr. Bones" on Youtube, I knew that this was the game I was looking for. It's encouraged me to get more into Sega Saturn emulation. I used to have a Yabause emulator, though only a handful of games would could on it. I got the Mednafen emulator which allows you to play multiple game consoles granted you can find the right console model numbers to run the games and for multiple regions. 

The Mr. Bones game files came in two-disc ISOs, which needed some simple work on a notepad file to create a copy that combines them into one game file. But I digress. 

Booting the game welcomes to a cinematic of a graveyard, followed by the title of the game. Starting the game presents the intro, wherein the vampire 𝔇𝔞𝔊𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔦𝔞𝔫 raises an army of the dead.

Resurrected among the skeletal ranks, is the good-natured and kind hearted Mr. Bones, who DaGoulian notices and labels as "an impurity", DaGoulian summons his army to exterminate Mr. Bones, to which he sought refute to a blind guitarist's hut.

Mr. Bones might've once been a Blues musician in his past life, as he was very familiar with the sound emanating from the hermit's shack, and when the hermit invited him in to play alongside him, Mr. Bones got the hang of the guitar very quickly. 

When DaGoulian's army arrived at the hermit's door, Mr. Bones confronts the horde by having them listen to his guitar, which had brought them out of DaGoulian's spell. Mr. Bones, and the power of the Blues, has to venture the wilderness and realms to confront DaGoulian at his castle. 

The game switches between genres, some parts are platformers, some are run and jump segments with the sprite running behind a pre-rendered background animation. You get 'rhythm game' segments like the image above, top-down segments where you run and avoid traps under your feet, and trippy puzzle sequences, like one involving Mr. Bones bouncing on his own skull to collect his missing limbs in some void, and with each successive state, the game seamlessly cuts to an animation of Mr. Bones with his restored limb. The reverse is true if you fail, as well. 

Speaking of missing limbs, the games health bar is unique, your health is dependent on two factors: How many limbs you're able to keep, and how strong your "Skeletal electro-magnetism" is able to keep your limbs intact. Mr. Bones has the power to assemble and disassemble on command, his 'electro-magnetic' powers also serves to defeat enemies. Mr. Bones wouldn't be able to defeat enemies if he loses his arms. He would either need to relocate his missing arm, or find a spare to return to fighting condition. Mr. Bones loses he if he is struck once more, when he's been reduced to his skull and spine, only able to bounce around, triggering a cutscene wherein he turns evil. 

Even if you repeatedly reassemble yourself after getting hit, Mr. Bones would increasingly get more fragile that even moving too much could cause him to drop his limbs, catching blue elementals in the shape of a butterfly, a flower, etc could restore his ability to maintain his limbs. 

The game is, frankly speaking, mixed, there's some really memorable moments, and there are some really difficult and tedious sections. If you get a game over late into the game, and out of continues, you can expect to start back from the first disc. It's very easy to get killed in the platforming segments, play the game carefully, or as the Japan's ad branding for the game would say: play by bones. 

Mr. Bones gives you an experience like no other, it's sets a new precedent on how to play platformers that unfortunately hasn't been perfected upon by other developers. It is technically impressive for the time, in how they are able to incorporate FMV to gameplay in a very seamless manner. Mr. Bones influence in the games industry, at least until recently, has been minimal despite being made by the same team behind the Ecco the Dolphin series and it's soundtrack produced by the famous guitarist Ronnie Montrose of Montrose and Gamma fame. 

Experiencing the game for yourself, even seeing a playthrough of it, can leave you with a lasting impression.