The story takes inspiration from The North Wind and the Sun, one of Aesop's Fables. In that fable, the North Wind and the Sun hold a competition of superiority, which is something multiple weathers get in on in Otenki Kororin - Weather Tales. The grand prize for the weather that can beat all the other weathers is to reign worldwide. There are ten weathers in total, each associated with a particular domain: Cloud (Baghdad), Mist (London), Snow (Irkutsk), Rain (Tokyo), Rainbow (Sydney), Wind (Honolulu), Sun (Rio de Janeiro), Thunder (New York City), Aurora (The Arctic), and Meteor (Sky). The first eight are default characters and the latter two special characters.
Although the game foremost draws attention with its cute cast, whimsical visuals, and easy soundtrack, it's on the challenging end of its genre. It is a Match-Three Game-type Growing Blocks game. The goal is to break through rows of weather-themed marbles to reach the ground first. There are 21 to 61 rows depending on the stage, which are kept track of in an animated center panel. A match starts with half the field filled with marbles and as they're eliminated the competitors descend to rows further down below. The field can hold eleven rows and six columns. If any column grows eleven marbles tall, a forcefield prevents further descent but if the situation lasts for too long such a column grows to twelve, which is an automatic loss. Marbles are eliminated by connecting at least four of the same type of marble by sliding a full row horizontally. An elimination also generates one marble of a random type in the opponent's field. Each competitor furthermore gets one bomb per match as a backup. It destroys the entire row selected at that time and its two adjacent ones, but does not generate marbles in the opponent's field.
For each competitor goes that aligning marbles of their own weather type generates a two-fold attack in the opponent's field. The first part of the attack is that their weather type manifests in the other's field and obscures their marbles for one second. The second part is that a bonus amount of marbles are generated in the opponent's field. At an elimination of four marbles of the same type as the competitor, the attack is not very impressive, but it rapidly becomes more effective if more than four marbles are involved. The view obstruction becomes bigger and the amount of marbles generated plentiful. This kind of big attack becomes harder to pull off in later stages, because the marble diversity goes up from five to six to seven in Stage 3 and Stage 6.
Compared to the original arcade version, the home console version adds the option to play as Aurora and Meteor. In the arcade version, those two solely act as the final opponents. The home console also has an exclusive single player pro mode in which the player has to descend through 75, 100, and 150 rows depending on difficulty as quickly as possible.
Otenki Kororin – Weather Tales contains examples of:
- Alien Invasion: Aurora, the pre-final boss, is portrayed as otherworldly. She has the power to overrule the weather globally without having to fight for it. The same goes for the even more powerful Meteor, the final boss. He is outright an alien riding in a living meteor.
- "Arabian Nights" Days: The Arabian Stage contains a fairy tale narrative. As the competitors descend, first in view is a temple or upgraded cave decorated with a statue of Cloud. It brings to mind the cave from the story of Aladdin. Its gates are open and a trail of foot steps emerges from it. Further descent reveals various treasures along the trail, ending with a still-burning oil lamp and a skeleton.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: The hot-blooded and energetic Sun not only has big eyebrows, he's also the only one of the cast with visible ones.
- Colony Drop: Meteor seeks to trample Earth with a meteorite, but the humans send out at least three ships or rockets to try and stop him. The weather that has so far beaten all the others also joins the fight and may or may not be the one to stop the invasion.
- Dem Bones: If Mist loses, the mist part of his body dissipates. This reveals that his body underneath is a living skeleton with horns.
- Desert Skull: The Arabian Stage has a human skeleton lying in the sand. Next to it is a still-burning oil lamp and a trail of foot steps suggests that the skeleton belongs to the person who stole the lamp and other treasures from a temple.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: When Meteor reaches Earth, he hijacks the airwaves to announces that he'll destroy the planet with a meteorite. He assures Earth's population that they cannot stand up to him, although that stops no one from trying.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: If a weather domain has a well-known landmark in real-life, it is in the background of the field. For London, it's the Big Ben. For Rio de Janeiro, it's Christ the Redeemer. For Tokyo, it's Mount Fuji. And for New York City, it's the Statue of Liberty.
- The Elevator from Ipanema: All of the game's music are easy tunes . This isn't unique for the puzzle game genre, but Otenki Kororin – Weather Tales has the extra bit of vertical context that the competitors are in an actual physical race down to the ground.
- Everything's Better with Rainbows: Rainbow is based on the Rainbow Serpent of Aboriginal Australian mythologies. She is a pink aquatic-looking creature with seven tails representing the rainbow's colors.
- A Foggy Day in London Town: Mist's domain is London. In the London Stage, both Mist's own water particles and the smoke from chimneys make up the whole of the fog that covers the city.
- Fille Fatale: Wind is ageless like the rest of the cast, but with her girlish pigtails and energetic emotions she is one of the weathers with a young disposition. As per her profile, she's a charming woman who can floor boys with just a wink.
- Genie in a Bottle: Cloud is djinni-like and may or may not be or once have been tied to an oil lamp. In the Baghdad Stage, there's a still-burning lamp lying next to a skeleton. A trail of footsteps leads back to a cave or temple which is adorned with a statue of Cloud. The picture suggests that the lamp was stolen from the facility by a thief who didn't get very far and by association with the tale of Aladdin, the lamp houses or housed Cloud himself.
- Gentle Giant: Cloud is the most muscular of the weathers and praised for the strength which he uses to protect the Arabian skies. His profile notes that despite this, his heart is gentle.
- Hula and Luaus: The Hawaii Stage first shows the sea with a sailboard and as the beach comes into view, so do two female dancers in grass skirts and leis.
- Mirror Match: In story mode, whichever character selected has to fight all ten available competitors, including themselves. The game gives this no more narrative effort than that there just happens to be another weather of the same type in existence.
- Multiple-Tailed Beast: Rainbow's attack and defend shots reveal that her septuple-colored dress actually is her seven tails combined.
- Noblewoman's Laugh: Aurora, a mysterious and graceful if not regal being, laughs with the back of her hand to her mouth when she wins.
- One-Word Vocabulary: Rainbow doesn't talk like the others do, but makes noises centered on the sound "bu". This can be "nbuu", "buru", "bumyu", "habuu", and so on. Everyone else ostensibly understands her or perhaps they don't care that they don't.
- Oni: Thunder is a raiki with big hair, a tiger print body suit, and a single green horn on his forehead. He surfs on lightning bolts, hunts for navels, and is noted to be a bit of a bully.
- Our Genies Are Different: Cloud is a genie whose domain is Baghdad. He is a cheery, yellow, and burly fellow with a moustache and whose lower body is shaped like a cloud. He may have his home in a perpetually oil lamp, which is lying in the sand just a few steps away from a temple decorated with a statue of Cloud. The person who took the lamp lies dead next to it.
- Polar Penguins: The Arctic Stage depicts penguins at the end of the descent, despite that penguins don't live in the Arctic. The only other animals shown in the stage are pinnipeds, which do live in both hemispheres.
- Rainbow Lite: Rainbow herself is depicted with seven tails, but any other time the rainbow shows up the amount of colors is less than that. The rainbow in the Australian field counts five lines — red, orange, green, blue, and indigo — while the rainbow in it's accompanying center panel consists only of red, orange and green. Rainbow's special attack rainbow as well as her victory rainbow is red, orange, green, and blue.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Rainbow is the one member of the group who in looks and behavior is animal-like. She's pink with a rainbow-colored tail that she can hide amidst, has stubby limbs, a cat-like mouth, and droopy eyes. The only sounds that she makes are centered on repetitions of "bu".
- Samba: Sun's domain is Rio de Janeiro. He is described as a fellow who dances to the rhythm of the samba with all his heart. The Rio de Janeiro Stage's music also is samba.
- Sentient Vehicle: Meteor, who is an alien, rides inside a meteor that in all ways looks like a regular meteor except that it has a face that can change expressions and even has lower jaw fragments.
- Shout-Out:
- Story mode opens with The North Wind and the Sun, one of Aesop's Fables. The conflict between the two weathers explains the way the weathers in Otenki Kororin – Weather Tales regard one another.
- Wind's profile emphasizes her charm and contains the brutal line "Wink hitotsu de otoko no ko nante ichikoro yo ("ウインクひとつでおとこのこなんてイチコロよ"), which translates to "With only a wink, boys so pointless are done for." "Otoko no ko nante ichikoro yo" is a key lyric of the opening theme of Majokko Meg-chan.
- Skeleton Motif: The meteor Meteor rides in looks subtly like a skull with large eye sockets in which its small eyes float and a lower jaw that consists of loose teeth only. Meteor is the final boss of the game.
- Snowlems: Snow is a living snowman with a bell around his neck, purple gloves, and a purple bucket on his head. He's always in the company of one or more snow bunnies.
- Spell My Name With An S: Meteor's name as written in Roman script on his profile is "Meteor". However, the few times his name is mentioned in the game it's spelled in katakana as "Meteorite".
- Take Over the World: Each weather seeks to subdue all the others so that they may make themselves a permanent global phenomenon. They are either oblivious to or unconcerned about the damage they cause.
- Too Many Mouths: Meteor always has his teeth bared no matter what he emotes. There also appears to be a mouth across his scalp which lips similarly never meet.
- We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: After Aurora is defeated, the world map screen jumps to the eight color bars test image with the text "Shibaraku omachi kudasari"note on it. The next jump shows what the technical difficulties are all about: Meteor has hacked the airwaves to announce his invasion.
- Weather Dissonance: The goal of each weather is to become the sole weather in existence worldwide. Regardless of who wins the competition, it leads to weathers that don't match the region or time of year. Examples include snow in Iraq, auroras in Hawaii, or year-long rainbows anywhere.
- Weather Manipulation: The cast of Otenki Kororin – Weather Tales are living embodiments of various weather types and phenomena. Each of them controls their specific type or phenomenon and can do so on a global scale.
- Wind Is Green: Wind's primary color is grass green and her secondary color is white. When she sends forth a whirlwind, it too is depicted in green and white, although the whirlwind's green is more like emerald than like grass.
- Wingding Eyes: Some competitors get funky eye designs to signify their mood. When they lose, he partially crumbled Snow gets X-eyes and the beaten-down Sun gets spiral-eyes. If Snow does bad during a match, the center panel shows him not only with X-eyes, but also with a X-mouth, while Cloud in the same situation gets U-shaped eyes. Characters who get reverse-U-eyes when they do well during a match are Cloud, Sun, Mist, and Aurora. Sun and Mist also sport reverse-U-eyes when he wins a match.
- Wintry Auroral Sky: Aurora's domain is the Arctic and she herself represents the aurora. She is described as a travelling creature of beauty in terms of both light and sound. She herself is mostly a pearlescent aquamarine cloak, but the aurora she casts is pink and purple.
- Youkai: Snow has companions in the form of living snow bunnies. There's at least one with him at all times, but if he wins four dance around him.
