is a

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

-exclusive series of real-time strategy

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

s. It is directed by Takashi Tokita and published by

Square Enix is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational holding company, production enterprise and entertainment conglomerate, best known for its ''Final Fantasy'', ''Dragon Quest'', ''Star Ocean'' and ''Kingdom Hearts'' role-playing video game ...

(formerly Square). The series contains four main titles and a spin-off game. The main titles are ''Hanjuku Hero'' (1988), ''Hanjuku Hero: Aa, Sekaiyo Hanjukunare...!'' (1992), ''Hanjuku Hero Tai 3D'' (2003), and ''Hanjuku Hero 4: 7-Nin no Hanjuku Hero'' (2005). The spinoff is a Nintendo DS game called ''Egg Monster Hero'' (2005), which is a role-playing game with an emphasis on touch-based gameplay. The series is known for its humor and is centered on Lord Almamoon, the protagonist who must save his country from danger in each game.

Games

''Hanjuku Hero''

is the first game in the series, released in 1988 for Famicom. It was re-released on the

Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Unix ...

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

for the

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, in 2013 for the

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and in April 2014 for the

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. Although the game did not receive a stand-alone soundtrack album release, a bonus disc of 17 tracks from the game was included in the soundtrack album to ''Hanjuku Hero VS 3D'', featuring some of the earliest work by

Nobuo Uematsu is a Japanese composer and keyboardist best known for his contributions to the ''Final Fantasy'' video game series by Square Enix. A self-taught musician, he began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton Jo ...

of later ''

Final Fantasy is a Japanese video game, Japanese science fantasy anthology media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square (video game company), Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and ...

'' fame.

''Hanjuku Hero: Aa, Sekaiyo Hanjukunare...!''

is the second game in the series. The Egg Monsters featured in the game are parodies of '' Final Fantasy IV'' characters. The game was re-released on the

WonderSwan Color The (ワンダースワン) is a handheld game console released in Japan by Bandai. It was developed by Gunpei Yokoi's company Koto Laboratory and Bandai, and was the last piece of hardware Yokoi developed before his death in 1997. Released i ...

in 2002. This version features a graphical overhaul and twelve new summons. The game will be re-released once again for

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and

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in 2017. A soundtrack album for the game, titled ''Divertimento Hanjuku Hero'', was released by NTT Publishing on January 21, 1993. It features four orchestral renderings of songs from the soundtrack, and 42 tracks from the original soundtrack, composed by ''

Dragon Quest previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a franchise of Japanese role-playing video games created by Armor Project (Yuji Horii), Bird Studio (Akira Toriyama) and Sugiyama Kobo (Koichi Sugiyama) to its publi ...

'' series composer,

Koichi Sugiyama was a Japanese composer, conductor, and orchestrator. He was best known for composing the music for the '' Dragon Quest'' franchise, along with several other video games, anime, film, and television shows. Classically trained, Sugiyama was ...

''Hanjuku Hero Tai 3D''

is the first title in the series to be in 3D. Lord Almamoon and his kingdom are sucked into an alternate 3-dimensional world and must fight off polygonal Egg Monsters. A limited edition of the game was released alongside the standard edition, and included merchandise such as playing cards, an egg monster sheet, and a sketchbook. The game sold 151,000 copies the week of its release. A soundtrack album for the game, titled ''Hanjuku Hero VS 3D OST'', was released by DigiCube on June 25, 2003. It features two discs of tracks from this game, totaling 58 tracks and 1:50:27, and a bonus disc of tracks from the original ''Hanjuku Hero'' game, 17:57 long and with 17 tracks. Patrick Gann of RPGFan praised the quirky and referential album, which features humorous vocal songs, musical allusions to ''Final Fantasy'' tracks, and numerous puns in the track titles. Additionally, a single for the game's theme song was released by DigiCube on April 23, 2003, with the theme song "Fight! Hanjuku Hero", the song "Without Yolk...", and instrumental versions of the two, totaling 16:02 in duration.

''Egg Monster Hero''

is a

role playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal a ...

spin-off of the ''Hanjuku Hero''. Between Egg Monster invasions, Lord Almamoon has begun slacking off. In order to counteract this, his minister Sebastian sends him to an island to train, which kicks off the story. ''Egg Monster Hero'' was released on the

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...

in Japan on March 24, 2005, and was the first game Square Enix published for that console. Players primarily interact using the stylus to drag Egg Monsters towards the enemy and perform special attacks. A

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version of the game became available in Japan on June 6. The game was intended for a North American release but ultimately canceled due to poor reception by focus groups. It was the 141st best-selling game of 2005 in Japan, selling 92,096 copies.

''Hanjuku Hero 4: 7-Nin no Hanjuku Hero''

was released for the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

in Japan on April 26, 2005. It was released in a normal edition as well as a limited edition titled which contained a lunch box and promotional items. In this game, Lord Almamoon discovers that he has been tricked into marrying the princess of the Katri Kingdom, who is considered to be the ugliest woman in the world. The game contains two types of battles: 100 on 100 battle using a mix of 2D and 3D, and three-on-three party-based Egg Monster vs. Egg Monster battles. Composers

Kenji Ito , also known by the nickname , is a Japanese video game composer and musician. He is best known for his work on the ''Mana'' and ''SaGa'' series, though he has worked on over 30 video games throughout his career as well as composed or arranged m ...

, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Hirosato Noda,

Naoshi Mizuta is a Japanese video game composer and musician. He is best known for his work on ''Final Fantasy XI'' (with Nobuo Uematsu and Kumi Tanioka), but has also composed music for ''Mega Man & Bass'', ''Street Fighter Alpha'', and '' Parasite Eve II''. H ...

, and Ai Yamashita did the soundtrack of the game. Uematsu has a

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly eit ...

within the game, along with Sekito and Kenichiro Fukui, both of whom were members of his former band, The Black Mages. The limited edition of the game came with a two-disc soundtrack album for the game, titled ''Hanjuku Hero 4 -The 7 Heroes- ~Sound Collection~''. The album contains 43 tracks and covers a duration of 1:51:42.

Reception

Review scores of the ''Hanjuku Hero'' series have been fairly good. The Japanese magazine ''

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

'' has scored the WonderSwan version of ''Hanjuku Hero: Aa, Sekaiyo Hanjukunare...!'' a 30, By February 1994, sales of the first two ''Hanjuku Hero'' games had totaled 400,000 units in Japan. ''Hanjuku Hero Tai 3D'' was the second best-selling game on the day of its release at 49,904 copies. The game sold over 169,000 copies during 2003. ''Egg Monster Hero'' debuted on the Japanese '' Dengeki'' sales charts at number 6 during the week of its release and stayed in the top 50 until the week of May 31, 2005. The game has managed to sell approximately 92,096 copies of November 2008.

Media Create is a Japanese company that gathers and analyzes data from the digital entertainment industry, specifically focusing on the Japanese console gaming market. Business operations include publishing, market research and consulting. It is a popular webs ...

sales data suggests that ''Hanjuku Hero 4'' sold around 42,819 copies by the week ending June 5, 2005.

Notes

References

External links

* (archived) {{Square Enix franchises 1988 video games Japan-exclusive video games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo Entertainment System-only games Square (video game company) games Square Enix franchises Square Enix games Video games scored by Kenji Ito Video games scored by Koichi Sugiyama Video games scored by Naoshi Mizuta Video games scored by Nobuo Uematsu Video games scored by Tsuyoshi Sekito Video games developed in Japan Virtual Console games Virtual Console games for Wii U WonderSwan Color games Real-time strategy video games Single-player video games