Adventures of Lolo (Game Boy)

Adventures of Lolo
Also known as: Lolo no Daibouken (JP) Developer: HAL Laboratory Publishers: Nintendo (EU), Imagineer (JP) Platforms: Game Boy, Super Game Boy Released in JP: March 25, 1994 Released in EU: November 1995 This game has unused code. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has a hidden level select. This game has regional differences.

More egg squandering and snake rattling to solve puzzles. Released in Japan as Lolo no Daibouken and later released in Europe with added Super Game Boy enhancements.

Level Select (JP Version Only)

On the map select screen, press Select, Select, B.

Sound Test (JP Version Only)

On the map select screen, press Select, B.

Debug Replay Recorder/Player (JP Version Only)

Game Genie code 010‑51B‑2A2 re-enables some debugging functionality. Before the level starts, while the program is waiting for any button inputs, with this code press Start a number of times corresponding to the desired effect then press any other button.

• 1 time - Play previously recorded replay data.
• 2 times - Start to record replay data. Play as usual, all your movements are recorded in the RAM buffer which may be replayed with the option above after restarting the stage.
• 3 times - Play hardcoded replay data to solve current level. The hardcoded data is the same one that is used for the hint secret, but with this debug feature it completes the stage instead of just demonstrating how to solve it.
• 4 or more times - Complete current stage instantly.

Unused Music in JP Version

Music track #16 in the sound test is not played anywhere else in the Japanese version of the game, but it went on to be used as the character introduction theme in the European version! The Japanese version lacks the character introduction scenes, so either this track was first planned for something else, or plans for adding the character introductions had begun before the game's first release. The version used in the European release sounds a little different, though, due to the usual changes to the music coding such as the higher bassline.

Japan	Europe

Track #15 isn't used in either version. It sounds like a final victory fanfare, but the European version uses a different composition for that.

Unused Sound Effect

Sound effect #22 on the sound test is a simple falling tone.

Snakey's Unseen Eyelids

Removing the object layer from the European version's title art for its Snakey tutorial reveals that Snakey was drawn with closed eyes like all the other monsters, but as the first monster on the list, it is only ever shown with open eyes before being removed in its entirety.

Regional Differences

Super Game Boy Support

The European version added Super Game Boy support.

Extra Levels

The European version has three stories instead of just one: "First Steps in Eden", which serves as the game's tutorial, "Dance & Music", and "Let's go to Gentryland". The Gentryland plot is the plot from the original Lolo no Daibouken but with different levels due to being encountered much later into the game. Because of this, all of Lolo no Daibouken's levels are relocated into the first five-sevenths of Dance & Music, while Gentryland gets new, more challenging boards. Following the ending credits of Gentryland, the European version presents another five challenging levels called "Pro" which contain no story nor passwords to skip to their later entries.

In total, not counting the 19 introductory levels, their nonplayable demonstration counterparts, and the 5 extra "Pro" levels, the European version's two main stories combined total up to 120 levels, more than doubling the Japanese's 50. The last few levels of the original 50 also had their order altered for the European version: The original 48th, 49th, and 50th levels (10-III, 10-IV, and 10-V) are now encountered as the 46th, 47th, and 48th respectively (IV-4, IV-5, IV-6), while the original 46th and 47th levels (10-I and 10-II) are held back to become the new 49th and 50th (IV-7 and IV-8).

Title Screen

The title screens are completely different between versions. The Japanese title sits over an "iris" of thick circles surrounded by patches of light checkerboard patterns. In the middle is a constant animation of Lolo swinging toward and away from the camera, and he will drift and bounce around the inner circle on his own, but the player can force Lolo further in any direction with the directional pad or snap him back to the center with B. The European title sits beside a still piece of abstract art containing the face of Lolo and the back of Lala.

Japan	Europe

Password Entry

The password screen was also completely redone for the European revision.

Japan	Europe

• Gone are the thick pipe borders, the exclusive animations of Lolo pointing and Lala waving and blinking, and the little "ENTER PASSWORD" sign and angle brackets surrounding the entered password. "Enter Password" is now written in cursive at the top, and the entered password sits in an arcing bottom edge of the box that appears to have changed the color of the corners of light shapes poking into it like a lens.
• For a bit of musical theming, the four-corners selection cursor became a circle with a bouncing eighth-note flag, and each character it selects plays a pair of tones determined by its row and column, like a telephone keypad, where the Japanese version uses the game's standard menu beep.
• Choosing a character now makes it fly out into place in a stair-stepped formation. If an invalid password is entered, all its characters fly back to where they came from while the cursor stays put, whereas the Japanese version makes the cursor snap back to the zero in the top-left corner.
• The Japanese version will back out to the main menu if B is pressed with an empty password. The European version will not, so a player who can't come up with a valid password will have to reset the whole system to try the game from the beginning.
• The Japanese version's character grid begins with numbers; the European version's grid begins with letters. Both versions end in the same four symbols, although the heart and triangle were given additional pixels of shading for this font. (No, the extra light pixels on the left edges of the A, C, D, E, and 5 in the grid are not part of those characters; it's unclear why they were placed there.)
• Despite the fifty shared levels, the two versions share no passwords in any way. Their final passwords also work a little differently, with the Japanese version showing the dialogue that follows the final puzzle, while the European version starts right on the parade/fireworks scene.

Hint Dialogs

The menu brought up by Select had its option to receive a vague hint renamed from "A PIECE OF HINT" to "WOULD YOU LIKE A HINT?"

Japan	Europe

However, "A Piece of Hint" is still the title of the hint screen itself, including on the two new hint screens created for "First Steps in Eden" and "Dance & Music".

The European version doesn't let the player clear the hint screen until the hint is fully printed. After the hint, the European version displays the current level's password, a welcome courtesy to players who might have missed the password the first time it appeared.

Wait to Watch Demos

In the Japanese version, at the original Game Boy clock speed, Lolo will fall asleep after 1 minute of inactivity during an active puzzle, and after a cumulative total of 30 minutes and 10 seconds spent sleeping, a prompt called "What an idea!" will appear and offer the player a choice to view a demonstration of how to solve the current puzzle. ("Cumulative" means that if Lolo is awakened early by controller input, then after he is given another full minute to go back to sleep, he will only have to continue sleeping whatever portion of the 30 minutes and 10 seconds he had remaining when he left off before receving the "flash of idea.")

In the European version, it now takes Lolo 1 minute and 26 seconds to fall asleep, but "What an idea!" will happen after only 5 minutes of cumulative sleep time, making the total required idle time little more than a fifth of the original.

In-Game Graphics

Petrified Lolo

Japan	Europe

The sprite for Lolo getting caught by a Medusa was redrawn, adding to his eyes and shoes, rounding off the sides of his head, and removing the odd vertical stripes from his mouth area.

Warning Square

In prior Lolo/Eggerland titles, a hollow square would appear when an enemy monster that had been sunk or launched away in an egg was about to reappear there within a few seconds. Lolo no Daibouken omits this feature, making monster respawns a sudden surprise. The European revision restores the square, lasting about three seconds in addition to the original seventeen-second wait, although if Lolo collects the Jewel Box treasure while a square is visible, it will stay stuck there for the remainder of the puzzle unless an Emerald Framer is pushed over it.

As with most Lolo games, making use of alternate "Enemy Hole" spawn points requires blocking an enemy's starting location before the square appears. If any kind of block enters a visible warning square, the monster will experience a permanent death no matter how many other Enemy Holes were available. One point to note here is that the original fifty levels from the Japanese version make no use of alternate Enemy Holes at all, so these rules are seemingly untestable in that version, and the whole Enemy Hole mechanic may have also been newly implemented for the European version.

Half-Egg Pushing Glitch Fix

It is possible for Lolo to end up halfway on top of an egg, typically accomplished by destroying an egg previously, stepping halfway into the starting tile of its contents, and then shooting the monster again when it reappears. In other Adventures of Lolo titles, Lolo can push an egg he half-overlaps without a problem, and Lolo no Daibouken also allows the player to do this, but here it doesn't appear to be intended behavior: The egg's graphic pops out completely in front of Lolo, but apparently its collision box is not all moved with it, as glitches involving permanently misplaced pieces of collision can soon be observed.

The European version eliminates this glitching by simply denying Lolo the ability to push eggs while his body overlaps them, meaning players are forced to get him all the way off an egg before being able to move it.

Soundtrack Differences

In general, the European version makes every bassline an octave higher, and some tracks generate their other tones a little differently as well.

Both versions alternate between the same two music tracks for each of the first eight modules of Gentryland, but the European version starts on the opposite track from the Japanese version, swapping what's heard on the even-numbered modules with what's heard on the odd-numbered modules. This may have been done because the original 1/3/5/7 theme was also used for the tutorial section, so starting with the other theme ensures that Gentryland opens with a fresh feel. (This isn't even getting into how the original fifty levels are now accompanied by an all-new music-switching system for Dance & Music.)

The short waltz loop from Lolo no Daibouken's title screen was replaced with a new jazz piece for the European Adventures of Lolo, but the waltz is heard later on for the new "Let's go to Gentryland" title card, only with the higher bass and a tinnier main melody.

Main Title (Japan)	Main Title (Europe)	Gentryland Title

The jingle for resetting a puzzle with the B button was also changed entirely, but it has the same bouncy feel.

Japan	Europe

The jingle for solving a puzzle was replaced with two new ones: one for most levels, and another for the final level of each module of the main stories. If playing on a Super Game Boy, the final level's jingle has a sound of applause mixed in.

Japan	Europe
		Regular Victory
		Final Victory
		Final Victory (SGB)

In the cutscene between the 9th and 10th areas of Gentryland, each version plays a different sound effect when the Gentry Parade panel is first revealed. The Japanese version uses an exclusive springing, ringing sound, while the European version uses the same three-step ringing sound that both versions use for "What an idea!"

Japan	Europe

Staff Roll

Japan

Europe

Graphic Designer SEIJI MARUYAMA SATOSHI OHNO Programmer TOSHIHISA KAWAWA MAMORU WATANABE Music Composer MANAMI MATSUMAE Sound Effects MANAMI MATSUMAE Software Manager SHIGEO TAKEI AYAO NOHECHI Cooperator MIKA NAKAMURA Cooperator MAKOTO KANAI TETSUYA NOTOYA Director YUKI DENDA Producer AKIHIRO SAITO Executive Producer SATORU IWATA

Exective Producer SATORU IWATA Producer AKIHIRO SAITO Director YUKI DENDA Graphic Designer SEIJI MARUYAMA SATOSHI OHNO Graphic Designer AKIHIRO SAITO Programmer TOSHIMASA KAWAWA Software Manager SHIGEO TAKEI AYAO NOHECHI Music Composer MANAMI MATSUMAE Cooperator KIMITAKA MATSUMAE DAVID D HEILLY Cooperator MAKOTO KANAI TETSUYA NOTOYA Cooperator MEGUMI TOYOTA TOSHIYUKI UENO Cooperator NARUHISA KAWANO KEIKO IZAWA Cooperator NORIKO KOJIMA

Here are the differences going from the Japanese version to the European version:

• The Executive Producer, Producer, and Director credits were moved from the end to the beginning.

• Producer Akihiro Saito is additionally credited as Graphic Designer.

• Mamoru Watanabe was removed as a programmer.

• The Software Manager credit was moved ahead of the Music Composer credit.

• The Sound Effects credit to Manami Matsumae was removed, leaving her only credited for music.

• Mika Nakamura was removed as a cooperator.

• Kimitaka Matsumae, David D. Heilly, Megumi Toyota, Toshiyuki Ueno, Naruhisa Kawano, Keiko Izawa, and Noriko Kojima were added to the "Cooperation" credits. The two credited in the Japanese version are now credited in the second Cooperator screen, the 10th credit screen overall.

• "Executive" gained the misspelling "Exective".