Hanjuku Hero is the first game in the series, released in 1988 for Famicom. It was re-released on the
Virtual Console in
2007 for the
Wii, in 2013 for the
Nintendo 3DS and in April 2014 for the
Wii U. Although the game did not receive a stand-alone soundtrack album release, a bonus disc of 17 tracks from the game was included in the soundtrack album to
Hanjuku Hero VS 3D, featuring some of the earliest work by
Nobuo Uematsu of later
Final Fantasy fame. The game was re-released once again for
iOS and
Android in 2017. A soundtrack album for the game, titled
Divertimento Hanjuku Hero, was released by NTT Publishing on January 21, 1993. It features four orchestral renderings of songs from the soundtrack, and 42 tracks from the original soundtrack, composed by
Dragon Quest series composer,
Koichi Sugiyama.
Hanjuku Hero Tai 3D is the first title in the series to be in
3D. Lord Almamoon and his kingdom are sucked into an alternate 3-dimensional world and must fight off polygonal Egg Monsters. A limited edition of the game was released alongside the standard edition, and included merchandise such as playing cards, an egg monster sheet, and a sketchbook. The game sold 151,000 copies the week of its release. A soundtrack album for the game, titled
Hanjuku Hero VS 3D OST, was released by DigiCube on June 25, 2003. It features two discs of tracks from this game, totaling 58 tracks and 1:50:27, and a bonus disc of tracks from the original
Hanjuku Hero game, 17:57 long and with 17 tracks. Patrick Gann of RPGFan praised the quirky and referential album, which features humorous vocal songs, musical allusions to
Final Fantasy tracks, and numerous puns in the track titles.
Egg Monster Hero is a
role playing game spin-off of the
Hanjuku Hero. Between Egg Monster invasions, Lord Almamoon has begun slacking off. In order to counteract this, his minister Sebastian sends him to an island to train, which kicks off the story. The game was intended for a North American release but ultimately canceled due to poor reception by
focus groups. It was the 141st best-selling game of 2005 in Japan, selling 92,096 copies.
Hanjuku Hero 4: 7-Nin no Hanjuku Hero was released for the
PlayStation 2 in Japan on April 26, 2005. It was released in a normal edition as well as a limited edition titled which contained a lunch box and promotional items. In this game, Lord Almamoon discovers that he has been tricked into marrying the princess of the Katri Kingdom, who is considered to be the ugliest woman in the world. Composers
Nobuo Uematsu,
Kenji Ito,
Tsuyoshi Sekito, Hirosato Noda,
Naoshi Mizuta, and Ai Yamashita did the soundtrack of the game. Uematsu has a
cameo appearance within the game, along with Sekito and
Kenichiro Fukui, both of whom were members of his former band,
The Black Mages. The limited edition of the game came with a two-disc soundtrack album for the game, titled
Hanjuku Hero 4 - The 7 Heroes- ~Sound Collection~. The album contains 43 tracks and covers a duration of 1:51:42. ==Reception==