Here's one that I played as a kid. I didn't know much about Treasure's history of making good games such as Gunstar Heroes until much later, so this was a pretty interesting introduction to Treasure as a kid.
Unlike some reviewers and magazines of the time, I still had faith in 2D gaming in the 3D world of fifth-generation gaming, so when this game popped on the Nintendo Power radar, I was more than game.
You have two save files. When you create a new game, you can name your file and also indicate your gender and age. The age changes the ending of the game a bit, but I'll get into that later.
The story begins with Professor Theo in his very Japanese flying house above Planet Clancer as Marina Liteyears scouts the planet. All off a sudden, some of the people on the planet show up, storm the house, kidnap Theo and mess things up.
Planet Clancer
1-1: Meet Marina!!
Professor Theo has been kidnapped by the "Great Empire," who have been ordered to take Theo to the emperor. Theo cries for Marina for help. Marina soon loses the Empire's trail in Nepton Village, and a villager meets with Marina. Marina finds out that the nearby village is suffering due to the Empire's actions, and the villager asks her to talk to the elder Geold.
If you want to talk to them, press L or R when next to them.
The Control Pad is used to move Marina around. Double-tapping the D-Pad (or the C buttons) in any direction allows you to use your boosters and move a little bit faster, and you can keep tapping it to keep using your boosters. They aren't very powerful, but a little goes a long way!
The B button lets you grab things. Holding a direction and pressing B lets you throw them, but if you repeatedly press Down on the Control Pad or Down-C, you can shake them to get items, usually gems.
Fire hurts. Don't touch it.
There are four colors of gem in the game. The red ones will let you continue, and the more red gems you collect, the more health you can have when you die and continue. The blue ones increase your health very slightly, while the green ones give you a good boost. The gold gem is special, however. There is only one in any given level, and if you collect it, you'll get a big health boost. You also need these gold gems for something special near the end. When you grab it, get to the exit quickly; if you take too long, you won't get credit for the gold gem.
The only thing for the heads-up display that you have is your life bar. When you go over the maximum, you can actually get another health bar. As a matter of fact, you can get two, and those are indicated by both a red circle (for the first one) and a blue circle (for the second one), allowing you to have three health bars worth of life.
You'll meet Teran and Celes near Geold's house. You'll be seeing them throughout the game.
When you talk to Geold, who will tell you that because the planet is peaceful and friendly, the Empire has persuaded many of the planet's inhabitants - known as Clancers - to become evil and help the Empire take over other planets and control the universe. Geold believes that Professor Theo is being taken to the emperor, and that Marina must rescue him before that happens.
In order to get from place to place, you must find the Warp Gates, which were sealed long ago and must be opened back up. Geold gives you a Clanbomb at the Clance Shrine to unseal the Warp Gates.
When you grab the bomb, a timer will count down from 50. When you throw it, it will explode when it hits the ground. There is a statue early on in the level, and if you get the explosion from the Clanbomb to hit the statue, you'll be able to break it open and get the gold gem for this stage.
The Clance Shrine is the set of glowing red blocks. If you see these color blocks, you can blow them up with a Clanbomb. Grab the small red star to warp upwards, then grab the larger yellow star to clear the level.
Warp Gates are one way, and you may not always be able to return. Keep that in mind.
After you complete a level, you'll see how long it took to clear the stage, your rank for that stage (which is based on your clear time, which goes from D all the way up to S), and whether or not you got the gold gem (as well as whether you got credit for it if it took a while to clear the stage).
Is this important? Well, yes. Turns out, you have to get at least A rank on all the levels to get one of the 53 gold gems in the game. Better start practicing.
1-2: Meet Calina!!
Marina shows up in another village. She soon meets a female Clancer dressed like her named Calina, who has been pretending to be her as well as copying her powers to get all the people to distrust Marina. It soon becomes apparent that Calina is part of the Empire, and Calina dares Marina to chase after her.
As you head to the right and talk to people, you will learn how to do more things. Some of the people will automatically distrust Marina upon talking to her.
The gold gem is not far from the beginning of the stage. Thankfully, you can use your boosters to get there, and if you don't know how to use them, you can learn how from the people in this village. (They're still angry at you, but still...) You'll also need the booster to get past the fire pit.
If you see a cylinder with sparkles coming out of it, duck down by holding Down on the Control Pad, then keep pressing B to grab things out of the ground. You'll find items by doing this.
Flowers can be picked up and thrown like any other object, but the one you find at the beginning of the second section will not be useful. Flowers will be useful later on, however...
1-3: Clanball Land
Now it's time for an amusement park! Here, you'll be introduced to a ton of new game mechanics.
If you see a pink Clanball (just about everything in the game starts with "Clan," unsurprisingly) with a yellow ribbon on its head, it's Ms. Hint! Grab on and shake to spend ten red gems on a hint. Here, you'll learn that the floating balls can be grabbed and used to launch yourself to higher places by holding the direction you want to go and pressing B (and then grabbing onto the next one). You can also shake the Clanballs while holding on to them by double-tapping Down like you would any other grabable object.
If you shake the white Clanballs, you'll open up Warp Gates to other parts of the park.
The Clancoils can be moved around by double-tapping in the direction you want to move it to get to other areas. You can shake them inwards to launch Marina to another area, while double-tapping in other areas allows you to re-position the Clancoil at another angle. Different angles will allow you to reach different areas.
At one point in the park is a Clanball roller coaster. If you grab onto the orange Clanball that is moving very fast, you can shake it to make the Clanball drop a Clanbomb downward. If you drop it on the flashing red blocks nearby, you can open up a Warp Gate that leads to the gold gem.
The Clanball Ferris wheel can be rotated either clockwise or counter-clockwise by double-tapping in the direction you want to go.
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