Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru


Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru, also referred to as The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls, is an action role-playing video game developed by "Team Shikamaru" of Nintendo's Research and Development 1 division, in cooperation with the external company Intelligent Systems. It was published by Nintendo for the Game Boy and released in Japan on September 14, 1992.
The title is a play on Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is itself an allusion to John Donne's famous Meditation XVII. A similar game engine was used for . In 2011, an English fan translation was released.

Plot

In a land far away, the two princes—Richard and the game's main protagonist —have shared a friendly rivalry since they were small children. They often compete, although it usually ends in a tie or close win. In Fencing however, Prince Richard is always the victor. One day a messenger arrives from a small neighboring kingdom, warning the princes that the evil King Delarin has invaded the Mille-Feuille Kingdom and captured the beautiful princess Tiramisu. In yet another boastful attempt to best the Sablé Prince, Richard grabs a boat and rushes towards the kingdom. The Sablé Prince is left trying to catch up. While on his journey, he and Richard are transformed into frogs in an attempt to reveal the true happenings in this kingdom.

Major characters

The Sablé Prince only gets stronger through the acquisition and use of items, thus placing the title as an "Action-Adventure" game, the same as the Legend of Zelda series.

Gameplay

The game's movement is divided into two ways:
When players make the Sablé Prince touch an enemy, the game does not shift to a battle scene. Instead, it kicks up a dust cloud as the battle ensues out of sight. As a further separation from the RPG genre, the player does not select from a series of menu commands. Instead, the player just watches the battle. This causes a back-and-forth loss of physical strength while the Sablé Prince and the enemy engage each other. If the Sable Prince is significantly stronger than the enemy he faces, the enemy will instantly be defeated, essentially letting you skip that battle. Victory or defeat in a typical battle is gauged by the Sablé Prince's strength and weapon, attack speed, armor and defense, and the opposing enemy stats. If a button is pressed during a fight, the player can choose to use an item or run away. Items do various things in battle. For example, wasabi temporarily stuns enemies and saws deal massive damage to tree enemies. Running away can fail, and it is impossible to run away from certain enemies, usually bosses. For bosses, the player must fill up the Sablé Prince's life bar and have the most powerful items found at certain points before battling each boss in order to win against them. If the Sablé Prince is victorious, he will gain money, hearts or other items. If he loses, he will restart from a "hospital" in the town he last visited, but will retain the money he had when he perished. Upon being revived at the hospital the prince will only have 3 hearts, requiring you to pay for healing or leave the town to seek hearts elsewhere.

Transformations

As the story advances, the Sablé Prince will have the ability to transform into a frog, then later on, a snake. Frogs, Snakes, and Humans each have their own special abilities- some of which are required to switch to in order to progress through the game.

Virtual Console