Unironically one of the best Game Boy games ever. A shame Nintendo barely remembers this. Sadly it won't ever see the light of day outside of Japan, but thankfully the fan translation patch that tributed Link's Awakening font was the best way to enjoy this.

It's an amazing mix of platform and RPG but losely based on explorintg and collect power-ups both on snake/frog abilities and statistic (attack and defense). Automatic battles are basically a judgement from the game to see if you actually progressed right or missed something.

For a Game Boy game it's impressive and a breath of fresh air.

It's charming! That's about all I can say about this game.

Well, okay, I'll say a bit more. Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (officially translated as "The Frog For Whom The Bell Tolls", or as "For the Frog the Bell Tolls" in the fan translation) was an odd little release from Nintendo R&D1 in 1992. It was co-developed by Intelligent Systems (yes, that one) and was what I would personally consider a fairly experimental title. It also served as a precursor of sorts to Link's Awakening, helping provide a base upon which that game would be built. There's even a reference to this title in Link's Awakening - just in case you weren't sure what that house with the prince and the frogs was all about. The aforementioned fan translation was released in 2011, and the game has received numerous allusions and shout-outs from Nintendo themselves outside of Link's Awakening, including the game's protagonist appearing as an Assist Trophy. As such, you're far more likely to know about it today than you might have ten or even twenty years after its release. It still has yet to be released stateside, and it's never had any sequels. At first blush, it appears to be just another weird one-off from Nintendo's early years. So what makes it so special?

You play as the Prince of the Kingdom of Sablé (whom I will simply refer to as Sablé from now on), who has an intense rivalry with his friend Prince Richard of the Custard Kingdom. Both princes harbor a strong affection for the lovely Princess Tiramisu, who rules over the Mille-Feuille Kingdom. When the serpent King Delarin abducts Tiramisu, Sablé and Richard both rush off to save her, hoping to defeat the evil king and earn her favor. Also, people are getting turned into frogs. Yeah. There's a few twists and turns along the way, but it's a very simple and light-hearted adventure.

Defining this game is a bit difficult. It frames itself as an action-adventure or RPG game, having an overworld and towns much like the the latter but having dungeons that are explored in much more the style of the former. It's really neither - it would be much more appropriate to describe it as a puzzle game serving as an affectionate parody of those genres. Throughout his adventure, Sablé can pick up new items and equipment that will help him overcome challenges, as well as have statistics such as his HP increased periodically. However, all of this happens as a matter of course, and is pretty much just window dressing. There is no true "combat system" in this game - foes appear on the overworld map or in dungeons, frequently blocking your way forward. When you enter a fight with them, both you and your enemy disappear into a cartoonish cloud of dust, automatically trading blows until somebody emerges victorious. Overcoming these foes isn't a matter of skill or even grinding (except for money, maybe) but rather obtaining all of the relevant items and upgrades the game wants you to have before proceeding. If a bad guy kicks your butt, you probably just missed something, or didn't approach the situation the right way. Thus, the majority of your struggle comes from figuring out how to get the stat boosts and abilities needed to solve the problems the game throws at you. Some of them require a bit of rooting around on your part, while others will be conferred unto you as the plot rolls along. I don't want to tell you too much about it all, as pretty much anything I could say would constitute a spoiler due to the game's short runtime.

Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru is not a challenging game. It's not really meant to be. The main reason you're here is for the experience of accompanying Sablé on his quest. The game does not take itself seriously at all. It's a goofy, comedic story, with lots of gags and pokes at RPG standards. I've only played the fan translation, and while I'm given to understand it's quite faithful, I'm uncertain of how much may have been altered or lost in translation. However, it did manage to get a good few chuckles out of me, and the cute aesthetic combined with a delightful OST brings everything together into a rather enchanting little journey. You really need to be smitten with it to care, though. The puzzles you encounter don't require a lot of brain power to overcome, and the fact there's no real "gameplay" otherwise means there's nothing else here for you if the jokes aren't landing. Even still, it's only a few hours long, so it can't hurt to at least give it a try.

Weirdly enough, KnTnKwN (or FtFtBT) feels remarkably ahead of its time. It's a game from 1992 - and on the Game Boy, no less - that just wants to do a little jig and make you laugh. I'm reminded of games like The Stanley Parable or Jazzpunk where the goal is largely to wander around and be entertained. Like those games, our tale of reptiles and amphibians really lives and dies by whether or not you're invested in the writing and slapstick. As such, it's a bit hard for me to imagine Nintendo doing something like this now as anything other than a small digital-only release. This was a full retail package! I'm not sure how it really stacks up to other titles for the handheld considering I can't imagine anybody wanting to dive right back in even if they enjoyed it. It's very unique in that regard. But hey, you're probably playing it for free anyways, so I guess you don't have to care.

You can find the fan translation here. Give it a go and see if you catch yourself grinning by the time the credits roll. I'm personally quite fond of this tale of rambunctious royals and I hope Nintendo properly revisits it some day, either by finally giving us a proper overseas release or a remake. As long as they don't charge out the nose for it.

All I knew about this game was the Assist trophy in smash bros and the passion a friend of mine had fot it. Out of curiosity I tried in and...... Legit I don't get why nintendo never ported this game to the west.

One of the best Game Boy titles, that can rival Link's awakening in terms of charm and quality.

It's a goofier adventure compared to the one in Koholint Island, but it's able to entertain and make you laugh despite the limitations of the hardware it was made for.

It doesn't have the cleanest gameplay and combat ever made, but honestly.... it doesn't have to. The way the story of this dumb prince unfolds leads to some of the wackiest shenanigans.

A big pleasant surprise. Nintendo, bring it back!

Also known as "For Frog the Bell Tolls," AJ convinced me to check out this 1992 Japan-Exclusive Nintendo release whose engine would go on to be used for Link's Awakening. He said it was a neat adventure game with lots of very silly humor, and he was right! I got it for 400 yen on the Japanese 3DS eShop and played through it over a weekend, and it took me about 7 hours all together. While it was a game whose engine would go to be used for a Zelda game, the game itself is a pretty far cry from a typical Zelda game, and is much more a straight-up adventure game with a surface-coating of action and a big heaping pile of platforming on top of that.

The story sees you as the Prince of Sablé, who chases after his rival Prince Richard of the Custard Kingdom to save Princess Tiramisu from the dreaded Keronian Army attacking her kingdom of Mille-Feuille. Over the course of the game, you gain the ability to turn into a snake as well as a frog to get past all means of obstacles, and meet all sorts of colorful characters in all manner of locations. My personal favorites being the extremely stereotyped and eccentric "Japanese Businessman" Junbei (whose speaking style indicates he's a foreigner despite being in a Japanese game made for a Japanese audience) and Professor Arewo Stein, the eccentric wasabi-loving president of the Nantendo Company which you go visit (who actually would make cameo appearances in games all the way up to Wario Land 4!). The game has all sorts of silly fourth-wall breaking jokes and Junbei especially just sorta had my mouth agape whenever he was on screen because he's SUCH an odd character. I can't speak to the English fan translation's style of humor, but I really enjoyed the silly writing in the Japanese original ^w^

The overall design of the game is mostly adventure with platforming elements as well. It's VERY linear, with small sub-areas to explore for treasure, but a LOT of the game is talking, puzzle solving, and platforming. And I mean a LOT of talking, probably more than any other Nintendo game of the 8- or 16-bit eras I can think of that isn't Mario RPG. The signposting is excellent, and there was never a single time I was lost. The game always makes very explicit points of telling you where to go (even occasionally saving you the walk and teleporting you there via a cutscene), and there are literally signposts in the case of giant billboards in each town that have a "news bulletin" of what you just did and what you should be expected to do next. It's a fairly easy, relaxing game to spend a day or a weekend with.

The game has no actual combat, per se. Combat is decided by touching an enemy, and that initiates a kind of scuffle where you each take turns hitting each other until one of you dies. There is (almost) never any active element to the combat aside from just dodging enemies, and combat serves more as a puzzle barrier than anything else. Almost every boss battle relies on you having explored the map/dungeon to the point where you've found all the new weapons, stat boosts (attack, speed, max health) to the point where you can kill that boss with one heart remaining. If you can't kill a boss, you haven't explored enough, or there's an item you should be using.

The game also has a lot of side-scrolling sections which do a good job of breaking up the pace of walking around in a bird's eye view of the overworld. The overworld map and the side-scrolling sections should be immediately familiar to anyone who has spent time with any of the GB/GBC Zelda games, but the side-scrolling sections here are far longer, more numerous, and a lot harder. They're probably the hardest part of the game by a significant margin, as there are multiple points in the game where if you don't make a jump quite right, you'll fall in lava and be sent back to the hospital where you'll need to walk back to the dungeon and do the whooole thing over again. This is where playing it on the 3DS Virtual Console with save states was a real patience-saving godsend for me. It's honestly a bit of a shame they are so hard (and often at odd difficulty spikes in the game as well, as one will often be easier than the last and vice versa), because they make what's otherwise a fairly chilled out, silly adventure game have a much higher skill ceiling to enjoy than the lighthearted adventure portions would imply.

You solve many puzzles by talking to people to learn information or by changing form into a frog or snake. The frog can jump high, talk to frogs, and not die in water; the snake can talk to snakes, turn some enemies into blocks, and get small to fit in snake-sized holes; and human Prince (whom you name at the start) has average jumping, can talk to humans, and is by far the best at fighting. It sounds like a gimmick, but it really never felt like that. Never once did I find myself thinking "oh well now it's time for the obligatory frog bit of this dungeon," as I so often do with these types of games. Some later dungeons even make the dungeons a little more open and you are encouraged to try out two of the forms to progress, as each may be able to reach different treasure or a different way forward.

The main fault I'd say the game has, and it's a tiiiiny one, is how these transformations are handled though. You just enter water to turn into a frog, which is fine, but to turn back into a human, or to turn into a snake, you need to eat a consumable item, and if you didn't bring enough of those to the dungeon, you gotta warp out (which the game gives you an item to do) and go buy some at the town and do the whole dungeon over again. the game is pretty good about giving you a few of these consumables in dungeons, but it's never enough to do the dungeon. You'll need to have brought some. Money is really quick and easy to earn and you can carry a TON of those items at once, so it's a mistake you'll only make once, but it's still annoying to be worrying about whether you should just exit now or hope you have enough to finish the dungeon.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is definitely one of my all-time favorite Japan-exclusive games that I've played. I imagine it was for translation reasons (very text-heavy game with some awkward elements to translate adequately) that it was never brought over to the States, but it's a really fantastic game that's well worth playing with the fan translation patch. There really aren't any other adventure/side-scrolling games quite like this I can think of off the top of my head, but this has to be one of the best out there by a fair margin.

-Loved the simplicity of everything while still making it fun.
-Story was fun and quirky and I was always interested in seeing where it would go next.
-Characters followed stereotypical tropes but were still interesting with strong personalities.
-Platforming was unexpectedly smooth.
-Usually played in 15~45 minute increments as there was a lot of Japanese that was above my level and I had to take my time looking up and researching words.
-Played on Analogue Pocket using a ROM.

Link's Awakening has long been one of my favorite Zelda games, and the uncontested peak of the Gameboy's library. For the Frog the Bell Tolls is its direct predecessor, both in the tech used and in much of the tone and personality that lies at the core appeal of both games. Threaded throughout this game you can feel the bones of the trading quest in Link's Awakening especially strongly, which is one of the best bits that game has to offer. The princely protagonist here is on a wild goose chase being strung along from favor to favor in order to get back his squandered wealth and save the day.

All the major characters have really strong personalities and go through their own little arcs in ways that I just would not expect from a game of this age on the platform its on. From your spoiled rich kid protagonist, to the thief that plunders that wealth, everyone gets a little more care put into them than you might expect. Punching above its weight is something this game does consistently, from the writing to the game design at its core. For a puzzle-heavy adventure game like this to have such smooth progression is miraculous. I only felt stumped in a couple of instances where I didn't exhaust everyone's dialogue, and I was consistently impressed by the creativity behind the solutions to the myriad of puzzles even with such a limited arsenal at your disposal. In particular, the culmination of your quest for gold had me damn near clapping at the screen when I figured out what I was supposed to do. This is all without even mentioning the way that the overworld and the dungeons seemlessly work together to utilize your toolset in unique ways.

Really the only thing dragging down For the Frog the Bell Tolls for me is that sometimes the overly punitive action gets in the way of the joy of puzzle solving. There are just times where you miss a platform and fall into an instant death pit, or you accidentally run into an enemy you have no hope of defeating and the escape command fails 5 times in a row with no recourse. It just feels really frustrating to get sent back to town, having to redo an entire dungeon just because of one little mistake, in a game where the emphasis is not at all on the action. I do appreciate how the combat system is handled more broadly, it's used more to gate you out of areas you're not supposed to be in yet and funnel you in the right direction which is neat, but in dungeons it can be a bit too much.

Overall this is a really really charming game, and without a doubt one of the best in the Gameboy library. It's always a treat to see the lineage behind games you love too, I feel like this experience only enriches my love of Link's Awakening even more.

Genre: Action RPG | Released: 1992 | Platform: Game Boy | Developer: Nintendo R&D1 and Intelligent Systems | Publisher: Nintendo | Language: Japanese | Length: 10 hours | Difficulty: Easy | Do I Need To Play Anything First: Nope | Accessibility Options: None | Monetization: Single Purchase | Microtransaction: None | Gambling Elements: None | Content Warning: Very mild cartoon violence | Parenting Guide: All ages | How Did You Play It: I played the fan English translation via my Steam Deck | Did you need a guide: Never | Mods: English Translation

Is It Good: It’s charming.

Back of the Box: Nintendo, please translate yo games.

This was a fun one. This is a game that never made its way to the west and was trapped on the ol’ black and white (green) Gameboy, but thankfully via the interwebz fans have translated it (extremely well too) into English. It is baffling to me why Nintendo chose not to localize it, as The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls stands up even today. It’s a top down RPG with fun dialogue, characters, and a clever mechanic where the main character changes into a frog and a snake for some light puzzle and platforming.

Now a cult classic, this is a great dip into the well of lost games for those looking to see what could have been. Easy, fun, and short, what else could you want?