Aoi Blink (Blue Blink)

~ BLUE BLINK ~

Hudson Soft / NHK Enterprise

HuCard

1990

Blue Blink doesn't merely fall in line with other cartoony platformers from the 16-bit era, and you won't have to look far to find the one element that most serves to make it stand out. Rather than assuming the role of a solitary goofball, you control a band of three yahoos (automatically selected from a party of five for each level). The leader at a given time determines the leaping ability possessed and the type of shot employed by the entire group. While I at once found the concept intriguing, I wasn't initially pleased with how it was executed, as switching out leaders requires you to stop whatever you're doing in the midst of battle and cycle via the Select trigger. And with each character basically being deficient in some way (for the sake of distinction within the group), I wasn't sure I'd ever really take a liking to any of them. But before long, I learned to appreciate the unique attributes of each flawed hero, from the boomerang-tossing crook to the high-jumping princess, and found that there were times and places for all of said attributes to come in handy.

You won't proceed in a traditional stage-by-stage manner in Blue Blink. There are five realms for you to explore, and each one features a number of secret-laden sub-levels, most of which aren't accessible right off the bat. You'll need to find a special key to gain access to the lair of a land's leader, and there are plenty of other goodies to nab as you hunt.

Once you do unlock the portal to a boss's den, the head honcho of your little fellowship will hop atop his trusty blue steed for a showdown with a giant (or two). These encounters are really the only instances where the action is at all challenging.

Blue Blink's parallax-devoid visuals don't quite rise to the level of excellence that its Shinichi-Sakamoto-composed soundtrack attains, but in their simplicity they do a fine job of complementing the straightforward gameplay.

BB wouldn't be completely out of place in a discussion of elite HuCards; it's a hell of a lot of fun and has plenty of neat things going for it. But it falls just short of being special in my view, as I can't help but think about what it could have been with vast Mario-World-type stages, as opposed to linear strips that simply call for you to shoot anywhere and everywhere to uncover the essential secrets. So greatness eludes BB, but that it even warrants consideration for admittance to such company speaks volumes, and it's certainly worth a play if you're at all into platformers.