Popful Mail is a side-scrolling action-adventure game, originally made by Nihon Falcom (developers of the Ys series) for NEC's PC88 and PC98 home computers in Japan, and then ported to the PC Engine CD and Sega CD systems. Working Designs worked on the localization for the North American Sega CD version (the one that will be covered in this entry). There's also a little-known Super Famicom version.It stars a charmingly inept elven bounty hunter named Popful Mail (think Lina Inverse with Pointy Ears), who's spent much of her adventuring life chasing after the notorious criminal Nuts Cracker. She manages to corner him, but is only able to retrieve Nuts' head (as his body runs away from her during their melee), which is practically worthless. Frustrated, she takes her trophy and wanders toward a town, where she learns of an even better bounty - 2,000,000 gold for the capture of an evil old wizard named Muttonhead.
The WD localization of Popful Mail exhibits the following tropes:
Boss Arena Urgency: The Overlord shoots fireballs at the floor, turning them into spikes. Better beat him quickly before you don't have a safe spot to stand...
Chainmail Bikini: Popful Mail's outfit. In fact her name is practically an Engrish translation of the term ("mail" as in a type of armor, and "popful" aptly describes its shape.
Dem Bones: Boney Rubbler, as well as the other skeleton enemies.
Hilarious Outtakes: Clear the game quickly and you'll get to hear voice acting bloopers after the credits are finished rolling.
Hong Kong Dub: The English version uses a program that attempts to replicate natural lip movements during voiced cutscenes. Even by the admission of the localization team, there are times when the lip-synching can be...hilariously off.
Hurricane of Puns: Sven T. Uncommon's introduction, written as puns on titles of popular Arnold Schwarzenegger movies at the time of the game's release.
Lost Wedding Ring: A sidequest involving a woman in Treesun who had her ring stolen by the leader of the Badger Bandits.
MacGyvering: Slick makes his own bombs from homemade products.
Mad Bomber: The first boss. Nuts Cracker is also fond of using his (many) head(s) as an explosive device ("BOOMBA!")
Mercy Invincibility: For both you and your enemies. Yours is insignificant, but thankfully you can pass through enemies without harm when they have it on.
Mighty Glacier: Gaw can be considered this - he does the most amount of damage out of the three characters, but his movement speed is the slowest due to his stubby legs.
Mithril: Used for one of Venuncio's golems, and also as a host body for the Overlord.
Miser Advisor: Mail. She really needs the money, as she hasn't been able to land a single bounty.
Money Spider: Every normal enemy coughs up either gold or a healing item.
The best one would have to be 2 specific mummies in the Mine, they drop Gold Bullions that sell for 500 gold each! (They're there because you will need 4 gold Bullions to complete a required quest)
One-Winged Angel: Sven does this twice. Also, Draquin, the evil penguin boss of the fourth stage.
Planet of Steves: The Gaws, a species of baby dragons, do not have personal names.
Pointy Ears: All of the elves, including Mail, Slick, and several other characters.
Recurring Boss: Sven and Nuts Cracker. Lampshaded after you fight Nuts the second time, where the accompanying victory text box says "(Player) defeated Nuts Cracker! (for real this time)".
Wake Up Call Boss: The Wood Golem. It does a lot of damage per hit, has an annoying to avoid bum rush, and when you defeat its body, you have to keep hitting its head or else it will respawn its body forcing you to repeat the whole process.
Worthless Yellow Rocks: When Mail tells Slick that she's out to find magical orbs to help prevent the Overlord from rising again, Slick dismisses them as junk.
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