GIRL'S GARDEN「ガールズガーデン」
「There's nothing quite like a girl's first love」and little Papri knows this well. That's why she must win the love of his cherished Minto over the charms of her rival Cocco who is also trying to steal Minto's heart. In order to gain Minto's affection, Papri must collect 10 flowers from her garden to create a beautiful flower bouquet that she can use to declare her feelings toward him.
Collecting flowers from your garden sounds like an easy-enough task right? The only problem here is that Papri's garden is overrun by deadly bears and deep water ponds that are real deathtraps! So an otherwise simple and enjoyable task like picking flowers from your own garden is now a daring feat of courage. (^^;;
The gameplay in Girl's Garden is just what you would expect from a game on a second-generation 8-bit system: simple and fun. The top of the screen shows Minto walking towards Cocco, Papri must complete the flower bouquet and return to Minto before he reaches the arms of her rival. Of course she must do this while avoiding the pack of hungry bears that for some reason roam her garden...
 | If the bears spot Papri around they will turn blue and start to chase her. Bears aren't fast runners though, so it will be easy for Papri to leave them behind (at least for the first 10 rounds). After Round 10 however they will become faster and more numerous, and from that point on the game will start getting more difficult. |
 | Fortunately Papri came well prepared to deal with these annoying hibernating creatures, and she's carrying a bunch of honey pots that she can use to keep them occupied for a while. Honey will be your only weapon against the bears, so it's better to save as much as possible for the later rounds where it will become indispensable for your survival. Honey pots can't be placed on bridges. |
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■ITEMS
These are the items that can be dropped by the friendly bee. Items don't remain on screen for too long so be sure to pick them up quickly.
・Grape : 500PTS
・Apple : 1500PTS
・Cherry : 2500PTS
・Flower Bouquet : Adds 5 Flowers to your bouquet
・Clock : Extra Time (brings Minto closer to Papri)
・Heart : Adds an extra heart to your love meter
・Skull : Detracts one heart from your love meter (avoid picking it up it at all cost!)
Collecting a regular flower is worth 10PTS while collecting a full bloom flower is worth 100PTS. To make a premium flower bouquet you can only use flowers that have fully bloomed, and you must avoid picking up whithered flowers at all cost because that would spoil the bouquet and force you to throw away some of your hard-earned flowers.
Once the flower bouquet is complete, Papri must return to her house where Minto will be waiting for her and then she will finally be able to declare her feelings towards him. Unfortunately Cupid is a very capricious being, and so the young couple's love moment will not be lasting long... (T^T)
After every two rounds you will get to play a bonus「Challenging Stage」where Papri can jump over bears for bonus points. Jumping over 20 bears will further reward you with additional bonus points for successfully clearing the bonus round.
Girl's Garden has only one type of field screen, however the layout pattern will be changing from round to round, thus preventing the game from becoming monotonous. It is also worth mentioning that alongside other remarkable 1984 SEGA releases like「Flicky」and「Sanrin San Chan」, Girl's Garden is all about getting the highest score and reaching the farthest round possible. Players who are used to retro games probably won't have a problem with this, but others (mainly modern players) may not enjoy this basic gameplay premise as much.
■SEGA FAN FACT!
Girl's Garden was the first game that the legendary game programmer and former Sonic Team studio director Yuji Naka (中 裕司) developed for SEGA as a junior game programmer. With Girl's Garden Naka-san earned the positive critical acclaim and fan appreciation that undoubtedly helped him to start his well-documented and successful programming career. So you can be sure to find in Girl's Garden a high-quality and fun game.
 | You can read an interview with Yuji Naka at the official SEGA Archives website concerning his involvement in Girl's Garden. In the interview Naka-San provides some very interesting facts about the game like how he doubts it was actually released in 1984 as it's officially been labeled. Naka-san states that he only started working for SEGA in April of that year and the developing and manufaturing times just don't match for a 1984 release. The interview is in Japanese, but you can use an online translation service like Babel Fish or Google to translate the page from Japanese to your language of choice. |
SEE YOU NEXT GAME ♪
SEGA SG-1000?
It is very likely that a great deal of the general gaming audience isn't too familiar with the SEGA SG-1000 which is notable for being SEGA's first home video game system. This doesn't come as suprising however, given the fact that the system had a rather short lifespan (only 2 years) and was only released outside of Asia in very limited quanitites and only in few selected countries like Australia and New Zealand. ■BRIEF SYSTEM TIMELINE : ■1981 ■1983 ■1984 ■1985 It's unfortunate that the SG-1000 was not released in 1981 when it certainly would had been the most advanced home video game system on the market. Instead the SG-1000 was released the same day that the Nintendo Company released their more advanced「Family Console System」a third-generation 8-bit game system which certainly made the second-generation SG-1000 look outdated in the eyes of the Japanese consumers. However it is also because of this that the small success of the SC-1000/SG-1000 series certainly comes as surprising. |
