Video Game / Maru's Mission

Oh, he better not have diplomatic immunity.

"This is the mighty warrior I've been waiting for? I will scatter your body to all parts of the world, for I am Muramasa, ruler of all!"

—Muramasa.

Maru's Mission is a Side View Platform Game with a light horror theme by TOSE and Jaleco for the Game Boy. In Japan, it's known as Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken (おいらじゃじゃ丸！～世界大冒険～, I'm Jajamaru! World-Wide Adventure) and the fifth game in the Ninja Jajamaru-kun series; seventh if the Ninja-kun games are counted. Maru's Mission debuted in Japan on September 28, 1990, followed by an American release in March of 1991. It was the first Ninja Jajamaru-kun game to be released in America. In contrast, there was no European release despite earlier Ninja-kun games making it there.

Befitting its Japanese title, Maru's mission takes him across the globe. This is a first for the series and so far it's the only entry to do so, as the games normally take place in Japan and deal solely with Japanese culture and folklore. In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, Jajamaru and Princess Sakura are out for a walk in a field in Japan when Satan shows up to abduct Sakura. Jajamaru gets on his large frog and goes after the fiend's henchmen, each defeat providing him with a new destination to pursue Satan and Sakura to until he finally catches up in the USA. In Maru's Mission, Maru and Cori are out for a walk in a city in the USA when Muramasa shows up to abduct Cori. Maru gets on his turtle and goes after the fiend's henchmen, each defeat providing him with a new destination to pursue Muramasa and Cori to until he finally catches up in Japan.

There are six levels total, each divided in two halves. A mid-boss is fought at the end of the first half and the level boss at the end of the second half. The look of two complementary halves are usually the same, but Romania and Brazil consist of a mountainous first half and a cemetery-centered second half. There are also special stages that take place underwater and require Maru to battle sharks and rays. They occur after the first level and after Egypt in both versions while Maru's Mission has a third instance after Brazil. Gameplay in the normal levels consists of trekking from left to right, fighting mobs, picking up power-ups and souls of defeated mobs, and the occasional jumping. The level order is set.

One point of intrigue about the American localization is that Muramasa's post-defeat speech is much more longwinded than Satan's. He accuses Maru of cheating and offers a proper fight if Maru sends him "the secret to [his] success." This is followed by Jaleco's USA address. Much as it looks like one could write in to Jaleco to get instructions for a hard mode or something of the kind, the few reports that exist of people having written in state that all they got was a generic letter along the lines of "Thanks for your interest in our product."

An exclusive Game Boy Color version of the game was later released in 2023 in the Jajamaru Legendary Ninja Collection.

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Maru's Mission contains examples of:

• Alliterative Title: The English title, Maru's Mission, repeats the "m".
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: A lot of sprites and portraits were changed between the Japanese and American release. Some become different characters, like Satan and Muramasa, but most changes are done for purely aesthetic reasons. Most Japanese sprites have super-deformed proportions and look cute if not silly. The American sprites are more realistically proportioned and look more like they're out for blood.
• Artistic License – Geography: The world map is crudely drawn to begin with, but worse are the approximate locations of the countries the hero visits. These are represented by dots on the map and half the time are quite a way off from where they should be. Greece is positioned north of Turkey roughly where Ukraine is in real-life. Romania is positioned somewhere in North-West Russia. And Brazil apparently has traded places with either Bolivia or Chile.
• Asian Fox Spirit: In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, kitsune are enemies encountered in Japan. They do not exist in Maru's Mission. The kitsune appear as single-tailed foxes that can phase in and out of existence.
• Attack Reflector: The hero receives a mirror shield from the golem, which is either a mystical mirror that floats around the hero (Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken) or a highly shiny shield (Maru's Mission). This tool is essential to take down the gorgon Medusa, because only her eyebeams reflected back at her can harm her.
• Beelzebub: In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, the mid-boss of the USA is Beelzebub, modelled after his depiction in the Dictionnaire Infernal. He has two forms: as one large bug and as a swarm of small bugs. His swarm form is invulnerable, but on occasion he returns to his easy-target singular form during combat. In Maru's Mission, his role is switched with the nioh, meaning that Beelzebub, heavily reworked into Insector to ditch the religious connotations, appears as the end-boss of the first level.
• Be the Ball: In Maru's Mission, the golem comes rolling in tucked into a ball to meet and beat the hero. He doesn't do so in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, but in either version he can take the form of a ball during combat. He is invulnerable in this form and still capable of throwing around boulders.
• Blob Monster: There are crawling blob critters to be found among the enemies in the USA. They get vomited out by devils and sicced on the hero.
• Bowdlerise:
  • In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, the final level's bosses are Beelzebub and Satan. They are replaced by Nioh and Muramasa in Maru's Mission. Satan is removed altogether, while Beelzebub's sprite got altered and used as the boss Insector in the first level.
  • The cover of Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken depicts Satan with a Star of David on his forehead. The covers of Maru's Mission feature a creature very similar to this Satan (even though he's not in the game) but omit the Star of David imagery.
  • After being defeated, the wolfman gives Jajamaru crucifix shuriken to use against Dracula in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken. In Maru's Mission, he hands him garlic for the same purpose. This change isn't only to remove religious imagery, though. When Maru throws the crucifix shuriken, they look remarkably like swastika. Garlic is definitely more neutral imagery.
  • There are a lot of crosses spread out across the Romanian cemetery and some in the Brazilian cemetery in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken. They're nowhere to be seen in Maru's Mission although some are left as unidentifiable stalks.
  • In the world map of Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken prior to a swimming level, Jajamaru swims between the waves with a bare chest. In the world map of Maru's Mission prior to a swimming level, Maru is in full ninja outfit. In both games, he's in bare-chested swim gear in the level itself.
• Breath Weapon: Chimeras, dragons, the hydra, and Kerberos all spit balls of fire at the hero to end him.
• Call a Pegasus a "Hippogriff": The end-boss of Egypt in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken is the Mesopotamian deity Pazuzu (rendered as "Pazusu"). His inclusion is most likely inspired by Pazuzu's role in The Exorcist. Between the two games, Pazuzu looks like a blobby generic devil in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken while his sprite is majorly reworked in Maru's Mission to look like the mythological Pazuzu. Yet despite this improvement he's instead identified as the Egyptian goddess Isis. Why the boss's identity was changed is whatever guess. Anyone familiar with Isis knows that the double-winged and mohawk-sporting enemy looks nothing like her and anyone who doesn't is unlikely to care either way.
• Character Portrait: All bosses and Maru have character portraits that show up during short conversations prior to and after the boss battle. All boss portraits were redone from Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken to Maru's Mission to be at a different angle and give the bosses a more intimidating look with sharp lines.
• Classical Chimera: Chimeras roam around in Romania. When hit with a shuriken, they fall apart into their three component animals: a lion, a goat, and a snake. Each of these can be defeated for a soul and if due to a power-up a chimera is offed in one go, still three souls are left behind.
• Collision Damage: All enemies and some landscape pieces do damage to the hero upon collision, but don't get hurt in return. There is no momentary invincibility after collision either. Especially the sharks and bosses can prove costly matches. However, there is a cart power-up that temporarily makes the hero invulnerable but does damage any enemies he touches.
• Creepy Cemetery: The second halves of both Romania and Brazil are spacious cemeteries filled with all kinds of hostile entities. In Romania, it is the hideout of Dracula and in Brazil, it is the hideout of Kerberos.
• Cultural Translation: There are several changes from Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken to Maru's Mission implemented to make the game more accessible to American audiences. For one, in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, the hero is Japanese and has to follow the villain to his hideout in the USA. In Maru's Mission, the hero is American and has to to follow the villain to his hideout in the Japan. Although the hero's sprite remains obviously a ninja between the two games, the American artwork depicts him as a typical Western '90s kid, baseball cap and all. Meanwhile, the main villain is changed from the Christian Satan to the folkloric take on Maramusa.
• Difficulty by Region: Maru's Mission is a lot easier than Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken by virtue of gameplay tweaks. For one, in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, if the hero falls into a hole to be impaled on a stalagmite, that's the end of the run. In Maru's Mission, that has to happen thrice before it's game-over. The hero gets transported back to start the level again the first and second time. Souls are only worth five points in Maru's Mission while they are worth fifteen in the original, but bosses in the original don't drop any souls at all. In Maru's Mission, they drop a lot of them, although there's only a second or so to collect as many as possible. Lastly, three surprise power-ups have been added to Maru's Mission that are all depicted as a pouch: a bouncing ball multishot, a rain of comets streaking across the screen from left to right, and a wall of lightning in front of the hero that lasts until it hits and kill an enemy.
• Doppelgänger Spin: The Book of Ninjitsu power-up causes a string of doppelgangers to emerge from the hero if he's standing still. The string whips around him, destroying any enemy caught in its radius and picking up any items to boot.
• Dracula: Dracula is the end-boss of Romania and resides at a cemetery. His main move in battle is to disperse in a swarm of bats that jointly attack the hero. In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, when the bats disperse, the katakana "バサバサ" ("basabasa"; "rustle") emerges from the center and floats in the air for a bit before disappearing. Dracula can only be harmed when he's in humanoid form and, depending on the Japanese or American version, only the crucifix shuriken or the garlic given to the hero by the wolfman can effectively strike the vampire.
• Evil Doppelgänger: Exclusive to the American version are two sub-boss fights against a doppelganger of Maru. He is encountered in the second half of the USA and in the second half of Japan. He doesn't talk and nobody talks about him, so who he is and what his deal is is unknown.
• Feathered Serpent: Flying serpentine critters terrorize the hero in Brazil. They fly by at high speed and sprinkle damaging dust in their wake, but they can also take the form of a hurtling sun to take on the hero head-on.
• Frankenstein's Monster: Frankenstein's monsters are enemies encountered in Romania. They have a 1970s disco look to them and walk around with pronounced shoulder motion. They throw boulders that burst into smaller chips when they collide with something.
• Healing Potion: Occasionally, defeating an enemy yields a health potion that ups the health count by 75 points.
• Hellhound: The end-boss of Brazil is Kerberos, though in the American version it is rendered as "Kelbelos". In addition to having three heads, he has a snake for a tail, sports stripes, and spits fireballs. He resides at a cemetery in Brazil and can only be defeated with the fire shuriken donated to the hero by the hydra.
• Horse of a Different Color: As is par of the course for the Ninja Jajamura-kun series, Jajamaru rides a huge frog in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken to travel the world. In Maru's Mission, the frog is replaced by a large turtle.
• In a Single Bound: By keeping the button pressed, Maru can jump as high as the screen allows and under circumstances even walk on the ceiling. However, he can not change direction mid-jump and letting go off the button drops him like a rock.
• Invincibility Power-Up: On occasion, an enemy will drop a little cart upon defeat. The hero can sit in it for temporary invincibility.
• Japanese Ranguage: There would be no transliteration oddities in Maru's Mission if not for Kerberos, whose name inexplicably gets rendered as Kelbelos.
• Medusa: The end-boss of Greece is a random gorgon in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken and Medusa specifically in Maru's Mission. She is woman with snakes as hair and a snake-like lower body. Nothing can harm her but her own eyebeams, which can be reflected back to her with the mirror shield the golem gifts the hero. Aside from her eyebeams, she also unleashes snakes from her hair to fight for her.
• Mummy: Mummies are encountered in Egypt. They have a shred of loose bandage blowing forth in front of them which gives them a little big of extra range to attack the hero.
• No Honor Among Thieves: After being defeated, four of the mid-bosses graciously hand Maru a weapon to defeat the level's end-boss with.
• Only Smart People May Pass: The sphinx acknowledges that the hero has to possess brawn to have made it as far as he has, so the sphinx opts to test him for brains and depending on the version asks three questions or poses one riddle.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons are encountered in Brazil. Aside from breathing fire, they have the passive quality that the screen stops scrolling until they are defeated.
• Our Hydras Are Different: A hydra is the mid-boss of Brazil. How many heads it has varies between versions and between sprite and portrait. It attack the hero by either shooting its very heads at him (Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken) or by shooting fire from its multiple maws at him (Maru's Mission). Once defeated, he donates the fire shuriken to the hero to be used against Kerberos.
• Precision-Guided Boomerang: In Maru's Mission, one of the surprise power-ups is a set of three target-seeking bouncing balls that can take out many enemies across the screen before returning to the hero and disappearing.
• Rescued from the Underworld: Despite Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken being clear that Satan is residing in the USA, the final level looks a lot like hell. There are demons flying around, pits of fire burn steadily, there's a lot of death symbolism and skeletons, and of course it takes place underground. In Maru's Mission, the hell aspect is toned down because the Japanese monsters of the first level are switched around, and tengu and sumo wrestlers don't particularly evoke hell. In any case, the hero rescues his girlfriend from that bad place and the fiend who rules it.
• Ribcage Ridge: In the underground lair of Medusa in Greece, several ginormous bones are set up as stylish columns.
• Riddle of the Sphinx: The sphinx poses this particular riddle for Maru to solve in Maru's Mission only. It asks something different in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken. Either way, Maru has to answer "Man" to be let through.
• Riddling Sphinx: The sphinx is the mid-boss of Egypt and unlike the other bosses doesn't need to be fought. The hero does have to answer its questions instead. In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, there are three questions the sphinx may ask and it'll continue asking them until Jajamaru gets one right. The question are what the capitol of Egypt is called (Cairo), which Egyptian deity carries the title of mother goddess (Isis), and how tall the Pyramid of Khufu is (146 meters). In Maru's Mission, the sphinx only poses one riddle, the ever-predictable "what has four legs at dawn, two at noon, and three legs at night."
• Satan: In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, Satan abducts Princess Sakura to the USA, where Jajamaru tracks them down and defeats Hell's emperor. Why ever he abducted Sakura is not revealed. In Maru's Mission, Satan is replaced by Muramasa.
• Save the Princess: Whether Sakura gets abducted by Satan or Cori by Muramasa, no villain motive is provided. All her abduction means to the plot is that Maru has a reason to travel the world and fight monsters.
• Scorpion People: In Maru's Mission, scorpion people replace the zombies from Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken in Greece. They retain the ability to recover themselves after falling into pieces once.
• Soul Eating: As per usual for the series, defeated enemies leave their soul behind which Maru can collect to add five (Maru's Mission) or fifteen (Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken) points to his own lifeforce. In Maru's Mission, but not in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, defeated bosses leave multiple souls.
• Spikes of Doom: Not all levels have pits to avoid, but if Maru doesn't watch out in those that have and trips into a pit, he'll fall a long way and be skewered by a stalagmite in hell. In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, this is an instant game-over. In Maru's Mission, Maru is transported back to give the level another try. Only after three falls does a game-over occur.
• Stock Ninja Weaponry: The ninja protagonist's main weapon are shuriken, which reach to about half a screen in front of him. With a power-up, he can also temporarily throw small bombs. Three times during a boss battle, the hero will get a stronger kind of shuriken. Against the first boss, either the nioh or insector depending on the version, he gets mirror shuriken. Against Dracula in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, he gets crucifix shuriken. And against Kerberos, he gets fire shuriken, although the art in the Japanese booklet while still calling them shuriken depicts them as kunai.
• Sumo Wrestling: Maru's Mission replaces the kitsune of Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken with sumo wrestlers to give the level in Japan a more obvious Japanese feel for its American audience.
• Super Spit: Devils can spit up blob monsters that come after the hero on their own accord.
• Temporary Substitute: Normally, Sakura's abductor and the monster master is Namazu-Dayū. As far as Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken is concerned, he's replaced by Satan. In the game, Satan looks as one might expect Satan to look, but in the cover art he has the same catfish-like moustache as Namazu-Dayū and rather fish-like ears too.
• Tengu: Hanataka tengu are among the Japanese enemies. They cast miniature lightning bolts from the sky to rain down on the hero.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, there are two underwater levels that occur each time Jajamaru has to cross a sea or ocean, which he does by riding his frog. The first occurs between Japan and Romania. Then there are no underwater levels as he travels to Greece and Egypt, after which there is another underwater level as he makes his way to Brazil. In Maru's Mission, the order of countries visited is the USA, Romania, Greece, Egypt, Brazil, and Japan. There are still underwater levels after the USA and Egypt, but there's also an additional third one after Brazil as Maru heads over to Japan on his turtle. The underwater levels put the hero up against several sharks and a ray, all of which need to be killed for unexplained reasons. Killing one nets forty health points, but touching one rapidly takes away health points. The underwater levels take place in a set basin rather than a scrolling level and the sharks can come from either side. Maru's usual weapons are replaced by a harpoon gun, which kills its target in four shots. If the shark count is down to one, the last one will start swimming faster and more erratically.
• Unsound Effect: In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, the gorgon's petrifying stare is depicted as a line of the kanji "石", which means "stone".
• Vampires Hate Garlic: In Maru's Mission, the wolfman gives Maru garlic after he's defeated him so Maru can use it to also defeat Dracula.
• Video-Game Lives: Notable for the series, there's only one life. It can be boosted up to 999 health points, but if those run out, it's game-over.
• Wolf Man: The wolfman is the mid-boss of Romania. He is the leader of a pack of regular wolves that precede him and likely get a few hits in on the hero before the wolfman makes his appearance. The wolfman summons wolves during combat too, but not in quantities that are difficult to dodge. Other than this, the wolfman has no ranged attacks, but has the advantage that nothing can harm him unless his maw is open. Once at low health, he splits into two wolfmen of which one permanently has its maw closed and the other open. The closed-maw wolfman is a decoy as only the open-maw wolfman can and needs to be dealt with.
• The Worm That Walks: Insector and its counterpart Beelzebub are giant insects that disperse into a swarm of tiny ones to attack the hero. They are invulnerable in this form. Dracula disperses into a colony of bats and follows the same principle.
• Written Sound Effect: In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, when Dracula turns into a colony of bats and they disperse to attack the hero, the katakana "バサバサ" ("basabasa"; "rustle") emerges from the center and floats in the air for a bit before disappearing.
• You Don't Look Like You: In Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken, the Satan that abducts Sakura during the intro looks nothing like the Satan encountered as the final boss, even though they're the same character. The abductor has some dithering, distinct hair and wings, a tail, and is naked. The final boss is kind of a tailless flat blob with a distinct cape.
• Youkai: The mid-boss encountered in Japan in Oira Jajamaru! Sekai Daibōken is an ushioni. It can stretch its neck across the screen and uses its head to attack while his body, which is the only part of him that can be hurt, stays out of the hero's reach. Once defeated, the ushioni hands the hero mirror shuriken to defeat the nioh with.

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