Legend of Stafy

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Promo/box art for the latest game in the series, Densetsu No Stafy 4

Densetsu No Stafy (伝説のスタフィー), or Legendary Stafy, is a video game series chronicling the adventures of a starfish named Stafy and his friends (like his sister Stapy, and Kyorosuke the clam). At one point, Stafy and friends accidentally enabled the villain Ogura to escape from imprisonment, and the overreaching plot of the series is to put a stop to Ogura's evil plans, all the while helping out other undersea denizens with their problems. The series is developed by TOSE (who also developed the Game & Watch Gallery series) and published by Nintendo. Currently there are four titles in the series. At this time it seems Nintendo has no plans to release any of the games outside of Japan.

1 Games
2 Setting
3 Gameplay
4 Cameos
5 Name Controversy
6 Characters
7 Miscellanea
8 Reviews
9 External links
10 References

[edit] Games

Densetsu No Stafy - Game Boy Color (cancelled) (original schedule: December 2000)
Densetsu No Stafy - Game Boy Advance (September 6, 2002)
Densetsu No Stafy 2 - Game Boy Advance (September 5, 2003)
Densetsu No Stafy 3 - Game Boy Advance (August 5, 2004)
Densetsu No Stafy 4 - Nintendo DS (April 13, 2006)

Screenshot from Densetsu no Stafy 3

[edit] Setting

These titles always take place at the Sky Sea (or "Tenkai") Palace where Stafy lives in the beginning and the characters will somehow fall into the sea and work their way up.

[edit] Gameplay

The Stafy games play very much like other platforming games, such as Super Mario Bros. or Kirby Super Star, but it's mostly about swimming around stages, which makes this series' official game genre as Marine Platform. (In fact, the colorful graphics and level layouts have drawn many comparisons to the Kirby series.) Stafy himself can run, jump, and attack via spinning; he also gains access to various machines and animal familiars as the games progress. The games are usually comprised of multiple stages or worlds, with each stage split up into four sub-stages. Boss characters hide at the end of each world's final sub-stage. Most of the other sub-stages' goals are centered around retrieving a lost or stolen item for another character. In Densetsu no Stafy 4, the series' first appearance on the Nintendo DS, new abilities can be activated via the DS' touchscreen.

[edit] Cameos

While none of Stafy's games have left Japan, he has made cameo appearances in two games that did make it to the US and Europe: Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga for the Game Boy Advance, and Super Princess Peach for the Nintendo DS.

In Densetsu no Stafy 3, Wario makes a rather important cameo appearance. In the eighth stage, Wario breaks into a submerged castle, and comes across Stafy and friends; Wario's hunting for treasure once again, and he grudgingly enlists Stafy's aid. Stafy helps Wario swim through waterlogged tunnels while avoiding bubbles, smash through fireblocks, and even float to the top of giant halls. (All of the abilities Wario uses here are taken right out of the Wario Land games.) Later on, Wario literally used Stafy as a throwing weapon to recover four large blue jewels. Finally, Wario used the jewels he'd stolen to open a locked door, but there was a boss hiding inside. Wario was too scared to face him, so Stafy went inside and defeated the boss instead. In return for his help, Wario gave Stafy four Wario-themed treasures: his cap, a fake nose & moustache, a Game Boy Advance with a WarioWare, Inc. game, and a pile of gold.

In the Japanese version of the first Donkey Konga title, the main Densetsu No Stafy theme is one of the songs in the track list.

[edit] Name Controversy

Due to the nature of the Japanese language there has been some controversy over the proper way to spell Stafy's name in English. While the character and his games have never been released outside of Japan, in the US version of the game Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, a poster in the game features a cameo of Stafy with the spelling "Stafy." In the credits of the first Densetsu No Stafy title, it is referred to as "Densetsu No Stafy". Finally, the official Japanese Stafy series websites use the spelling "Stafy" in their URL paths and image names. As such, it's likely that this is the official spelling; however, a recent interview with TOSE^[1] on the game site Gamasutra strongly implies that "Starfy" is the proper English spelling. (Note: At least one previous interview with TOSE on Gamasutra^[2] has used the spelling "Stafy.")

Regardless, four different spellings are used interchangeably by fans: Stafy, Stafi, Starfy, and Starfi. The same thing has happened to other Japanese fictional characters.

In Super Princess Peach, he is referred to as "Starfish", and is stated to be a "prince of some land".

[edit] Characters

Stafy
Kyorosuke
Stapy
Hadehihari
Grandfather Rob(Rob jii-san)
Mermaid
Materu
Papa Star
Mama Star
Ogura
Dejiru

[edit] Miscellanea

In order to give fans a chance to contribute to the development of Densetsu No Stafy 4, Nintendo created a costume contest, and gave fans a picture of Stafy (in PDF format) to print, color, and send in. (A picture of Stafy in a rocket suit was shown to the Stafy fans as an example on how to color over the coloring picture.) Some costumes were chosen and added to the Densetsu no Stafy 4 costume collection within the game. The winning costumes also appear on the official Densetsu No Stafy 4 website.

Nintendo officially produced a manga version of the Densetsu No Stafy series with Shogakukan. Like the games themselves, it was only released in Japan.

CD soundtracks from the Stafy series have been released, but like the games and the manga themselves, they're only available in Japan. The J-pop group °C-ute recorded a song about Stafy to promote Densetsu No Stafy 4. It is based on the songs used to promote Densetsu No Stafy (released by BECKY) and Densetsu No Stafy 2 (released by Kazuki Saya). The song used to promote Densetsu No Stafy 3, by Japanese pop group Perfume, was different, which was called Vitamin Drop. They also recorded and played their own version of the Densetsu No Stafy main theme during the credits of a Japanese television show Oha-Sta, which "Oha-Sta" means "Good Morning from a studio".