Play Umihara Kawase (english translation) Online

Umihara Kawase is one of those SNES games that makes you stop and go, "Wait, what?" at least three times in the first five minutes. You're this schoolgirl with a fishing rod, except it works like a grappling hook—you latch onto ceilings, swing around like a demented pendulum, and fling yourself past floating fish monsters. The physics feel weirdly bouncy at first, but once it clicks, you start pulling off ridiculous stunts you didn’t even think were possible.

The levels look like someone doodled them in the margins of a biology textbook—colorful, surreal, and just the right amount of janky. It’s hard, sure, but in that way where every death feels like your fault, not the game’s. Half the fun is figuring out how to cheese the elastic rope mechanics to skip entire sections. If you’ve ever wanted a platformer that plays by its own bizarre rules, this is it.