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A little Princess' quest for a magic jewel.

Magical Pop'n is a Super Famicom platform game developed by Polestar and published by Pack-In-Video in Japan in 1995.

The game tells the story of "Princess", an energetic little girl who lives in the peaceful kingdom of To'ahl with her mentor and caretaker, Gramps. One day, Gramps was lecturing Princess on the rules of magic in the kingdom when suddenly the Crystal Ball glows and floats off the table. Gramps views this mysterious event as a bad omen, but Princess is too busy enjoying the pretty shiny ball to notice.

Just that night, an army led by "The Demon King" invades To'ahl and steals the Magic Jewel, so the Demon King can rule the world with it's power. Princess jumps into action, dons a little pink sword and gives chase to get the magic jewel back from the Demon King.

Magical Pop'n is a standard 2D platformer. You take control of Princess as she runs, jumps, slashes enemies with her sword, and uses magic. She starts out with a standard laser beam spell, but as the adventure continues, she gains new magic abilities, like a Grappling hook, Ice Spells, and even a speedy wall-climbing rolling ability. Pressing the Select button lets Princess do a Limit Break version of her current power, destroying every unfortunate thing on the screen, with the cost of few extra stars in her inventory.

Princess starts out with a tiny Life Meter with three hearts, but grows if she finds the ever-useful Heart Containers that litter the stages, but as the game is run on linear progression, there's no way to backtrack, so make sure you find them in the stage they're in, or they're lost for the rest of the game.

As the game was released near the end of the Super Nintendo's lifespannote , it unfortunately never got a release outside of Japan, but good folks have translated the game and some reproductions carts have been made.


This Poppin Adventure contains examples of:

  • Adorable Evil Minions: The Demon King's army is filled with small penguins and little bat creatures.
  • An Ice Person: The ice magic spell. Useful for freezing flames.
  • Asteroids Monster: Large blobs split into three small ones when attacked.
  • Badass Adorable: Princess. Weilding a cute but deadly pink sword, and destructive magic, mowing through the Demon Kings' forces like a knife through butter.
  • Badly Battered Babysitter: Poor Gramps. Dealing with the very energetic and playful Princess is tough enough, his job gets tougher when Princess gets powered up with her magical powers in the end...
  • Big Bad: The Demon King. Wants to rule the world with the power of the Magic Jewel.
  • Big Fancy Castle: Stage 5. Dangerous Keep. Though there's very little "fancy" about it.
  • Boss Bonanza: Stage 6 is filled to the brim with bosses. Princess, depending on the routes she takes, will face up to at least three bosses (Not counting the final showdown with the Demon King.)
  • Captain Ersatz: Princess resembles a blue-clad version of Link.
  • Collision Damage: Played straight, though most of the enemies would rather hit you with their weapons or long ranged attacks instead of merely walking into you.
  • Death Mountain: Stage 3. The Mountain Temple.
  • Death Throws: Lose all of your health and Princess falls off the screen while weeping.
  • Didn't Need Those Anyway!: The one-eyed rock boss has four-destroyable cannons.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The main character Princess doesn't really have a name. She's just called "Princess". Same goes for the Big Bad. He doesn't have a name either. He's just called the "Demon King".
  • Genki Girl: Princess, she stays just upbeat as ever regardless of wherever she is or what horrible monster she takes on.
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: A lot of the very strange bosses in this game seemed to be here just to get in Princess' way.
  • Graffiti Town: Stage 1 takes place in the buildings and rooftops outside the castle.
  • Hair-Raising Hare: Princess will run into these in the Mystic Forest. They hop along and try to land on her. A single room in Stage 6 has a swarm of bunnies.
  • Heart Container: Scattered through the various stages.
  • Hearts Are Health: You start out with three, and can increase them with Heart Containers.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Princess carries a small pink toothpick sword, but it is still quite effective.
  • Ice Palace: Stage 4 is the Cloudy Ice Palace. With Slippy-Slidey Ice World elements and a Snowlem boss.
  • Item Get!: Whenever Princess grabs a very special item.
  • Jumped at the Call: When things get desperate and bad in To'ahl, Princess grabs her sword and jumps out the window to start her adventure.
  • Kamehame Hadouken: The Laser special attack.
  • Kid Hero: Princess is battling evil and saving the world, at a very young age no less.
  • Knock Back: Its here, and just as cumbersome as its ever been. Take a hit and Princess flies back a considerable distance. The game is lacking in Bottomless Pits, so theres no worry of Ledge Bats here, though it can still be annoying to knocked off a platform and having to climb your way back up.
  • Law of 100: Averted. Stars are the most common collectable in the game, but stars serve as your Mana Meter, so grabbing 100 stars doesn't give you extra lives, instead you have to collect three golden heads of your player character to get an extra life.
  • The Lost Woods: Stage 2 is the The Mystic Forest. Princess leaps and climbs trees and even explores a few underground sections underneath the trees.
  • Magic Knight: Princess is extremely versatile, she can whack enemies with her sword, or blast them from a distance with her magical spells.
  • Mana Meter: Stars. You have a limit of 100.
  • Marathon Level: The final level. Stage 6. The Demon's castle. The game had been fairly linear up to this point. Stage 6 goes into into straight up Metroidvania territory. There are also a LOT of miniboss battles.
  • Militaries Are Useless: As one of the Demon King's minions makes off with the Magic Jewel, the Kingdom Guards (the two of them) do nothing to stop him.
  • Mineral Macguffin: The Magic Jewel. The Demon King has stolen it and you have to get it back.
  • Mini-Boss: This game is filled with TONS of them.
  • The Mentor: Gramps.
  • Nintendo Hard: This game is very cute, but don't dare underestimate it. It will kick your ass if you're reckless.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: A weird Ostrich robot is the boss of Stage 5.
  • One-Winged Angel: The Demon King pulls this off thanks to the Magic Jewel.
  • Orbiting Particle Shield: The flying skull boss has multiple skulls that constantly spin around him. He can also throw the skulls at you.
  • Permanently Missable Content: Missed out on a very valuable Heart Container in the previous level? Tough luck.
  • Pick on Someone Your Own Size: Princess, a little girl takes on the Demon King, who is most likely much, much older than she is.
  • Playing with Fire: The fire spell. Useful for destroying Ice blocks.
  • Poison Mushroom: Be careful when going around whacking treasure chests for power-ups. Some chests contain active bombs that can hurt you.
  • Post-Defeat Explosion Chain: Upon defeat, normal enemies explode three times and bosses explode repeatedly.
  • Power-Up Food: Candy (yes candy), Cake Slices, and even full cakes restore your hit points.
  • Primary-Color Champion: Princess wears a blue hood and tunic, red leggings, and has blonde hair. She's the hero of the story.
  • Rolling Attack: Zigzagged with the Ball spell. Princess can roll into a ball and zip around at high speed, and has the added utility of climbing walls, however she can't roll into enemies without suffering Collision Damage. The special version of the spell has Princess turning into a ball and bouncing around the screen, bashing foes in her way.
  • Slapstick: When Princess falls from a high place, she humorously lands on her rump. Fortunately, Falling Damage doesn't exist in this game and she's totally fine.
  • Snowlem: One (with a fancy mustache no less) serves as a miniboss in Stage 4.
  • Special Attack: Princess' special Magic abilities. Pressing the select button unleashes a special move that causes quite a bit of destruction.
  • Spikes of Doom: Several stages have them.
  • Stab the Sky: Princess' victory pose when she clears a level.
  • Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: If you ever come across a hallway with no enemies and you find full-life-restoring cakes and big stars to restore your Mana Meter, something big and bad is coming up.
  • The Goomba: Sword-Wielding Penguins?
  • This Cannot Be!: The Demon King doesn't take losing to Princess very well. Especially since she is a little girl who managed to overcome his monstrous power.
    Demon King: H-how can this be? I'd gained limitless magical power... And yet, defeated by a mere child... agck...
  • Throw Down the Bomblet: The Bomb magic. Useful for destroying walls.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: This game seems to have two of them. Stage 5 as the preultimate stage, with Stage 6 being the real deal.
  • Tomboy Princess: Since she can be a troublemaker, the Princess who serves as the game's hero can qualify.
  • Voice Grunting: Every time Princess swings her sword.

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