Popful Mail was a pretty unique side-scrolling platform game from the early 90’s that often gets overlooked by many people. Popful Mail was developed by Nihom Falcom released for a variety of different game systems between ‘91-‘95; including the PC 8801/9801, Super Nintendo, Sega CD and the PC Engine CD. While everyone had their own respective opinions on which port of Popful Mail was the best; the Sega CD version of the game probably stood out the most in terms of overall presentation. The game had an intriguing plot that revolved around a female protagonist named Mail who was a bounty hunter. The lack of creativity when it came down to the naming of the characters was one of the few drawbacks of Popful Mail. However, the fact that the game featured a female protagonist who was pretty much anti-hero was cool; especially since there were not too many high profile video games that did this during the early 90’s. Mail was a female elf-like being who wanted to collect 2,000,000 in gold. In order to collect 2,000,000 in gold Mail had capture or defeat the main villain known as Muttonhead who was a notorious wizard wanted by the authorities.
While the plot for Popful Mail was lacking in depth the gameplay features were very impressive for early 90’s standards. Popful Mail included high quality voice-over dialogue between Mail and NPC’s along with 2D animated cutscenes somewhat similar to that of an actual anime. Popful Mail had fast paced gameplay along with high quality 2D graphics & sprites which heavily contributed to the game’s overall quality.
Gaming Hearts Collection 