Play Mahoujin Guru Guru on Snes Online

I picked up Mahoujin Guru Guru on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1995, a time when Enix was putting out some really interesting, offbeat RPGs. It was based on a manga, which wasn't too common for SNES games, and it had this cheerful, almost naive look that stood out from the usual fantasy epics. It felt like a side project from the developers, something playful and unafraid to be silly.

You control two characters: Nike, a boy who handles the straightforward sword swinging, and Kukuri, a young magic user who draws specific symbols on the screen to cast spells. Your main goal is to stop an ancient evil, which involves traveling across an overworld map and delving into multi-floor dungeons. The real hook is the magic system; you have to quickly sketch circles, lines, or other patterns with the D-pad during combat, and if you mess up the timing or the shape, the spell fizzles or does something unexpected. The pacing is brisk, the difficulty is fairly gentle, and the whole experience feels like playing through a cheerful, interactive cartoon where every battle is a small experiment.