Famicom Mukashibanashi: Yuuyuuki: Kouhen

Famicom Mukashibanashi: Yuuyuuki (“Famicom Fairy Tales: Yuuyuuki”) is the second of two text adventure games in the Famicom Mukashibanashi series developed by Pax Softnica and Nintendo themselves for the Famicom Disk System peripheral. It shares many similarities with its predecessor Shin Onigashima: Both games required two disks that were released separately, both feature an innovative “main character switch” feature that allows the player to switch from two playable characters and both are based on ancient Far Eastern literature. In Yuuyuuki’s case the literature in question is the ancient Chinese novel Journey to the West.

The player controls Goku (Sun Wukong) and Chao (an original character) who are travelling separate journeys to meet up with each other. True to the novel, Goku is also accompanying the monk Sanzo (Tripitaka) and his other followers Hakkai (Pigsy) and Gojo (Sandy), though these three characters have been comedically reimagined as lazy and greedy.

As with Shin Onigashima and many adventure games for the system the player directs the player character via a menu of commands. They can talk, examine, pick up and otherwise interact with all sorts of people and items in the surroundings. An ability to switch between Goku and Chao is frequently available as well.