Jikai Shounen Mettomag

Overview

Jikai Shounen Mettomag ("Magnetic Children Mettomag") is a puzzle game developed by Thinking Rabbit for the Famicom Disk System. The game was produced by Square under their "DOG" label, which was created to help publish smaller games from minor studios.

The game allowed the player to select their character's gender, which was still a novel feature in video games at the time. There is no difference in how the two genders play; it is entirely a superficial decision.

Gameplay

The player must go around each stage and collect every sphere in order to progress. Each sphere can change the polarity of the character from red to blue and vice versa. Each stage is littered with blue and red arrows: Being the same color as these arrows will magnetize the player character, which has different effects depending on the direction the arrow is pointing: For instance, an arrow pointing down will push the player to the ground if they are the reverse color but a same-colored character can hover across as the blocks will hold them up. Conversely, an arrow pointing up will allow players of the opposite color to jump far higher from the arrow, but will almost entirely eliminate the jumping power of a same-colored character as it pulls them down.

As each sphere must be collected to end the stage, the player must be careful to grab them in the right order.