A game by TNN and Studio Saizensen for Super Famicom and PC, originally released in Japan in 1994, and released in the US in 2015.
UmiharaKawase began its life as a Japan-exclusive Super Famicom title. The game stars the eponymous Umihara, a young girl carrying a pink backpack and fishing gear as she travels across the world contending with a variety of sea life, most of which wanders about on land. What truly sets the game apart from its contemporaries – and most other games in general – is the use of Umihara’s fishing line as a grappling hook. There are very few games with grappling mechanics, and even fewer where the player is free to grapple any surface he likes… but no other game takes things to quite this extreme.
Instead of the rigid grappling line seen in games like Bionic Commando or Ninja Five-O, Umi’s fishing line is elastic, causing her to bounce around wildly when she leaves the ground. This makes her movements less predictable and more difficult to control, while simultaneously opening up a number of opportunities for advanced gameplay. Advanced techniques involve retracting the grapple with the proper timing to send her flying through the air, grappling the floor for a speed-assisted long jump, wrapping the grapple line around corners, and performing some wild last-minute grabs.
