Magpie and Karaoke Friends
까치와노래친구


Magpie and Karaoke Friends (까치와노래친구) is a Famicom karaoke game developed by a Korean company named Hicom (주식회사 하이콤). It boasts a selection of 156 songs, most of which are children's songs. It was released in 1993.

The game comes in a yellow plastic lunchbox. It includes the cart, a 104-page manual / song book, and a microphone. The cart is unique because it has a microphone jack at the top. I believe that the microphone audio was probably passed through the system on the original Famicom; however, I was unable to test this.

Here are some screenshots from the game.

There are 8 selectable characters in the game, including Magpie (까치), Frankenstein, Robocop, and Michael Jackson. Up to  all 8 characters can be selected, and each character chooses 3 songs, enabling a maximum playlist of 24 songs. After characters and songs are selected, the game begins.

During the game, your selected character comes out on to the stage and performs a variety of dance moves while you sing to the music. During the song, you can use the controller to change the background (which also restarts the song), microphone volume, song pitch, and song speed.

Once the song is completed,  the game calculates your score, from 0 to 99.

The game plays surprisingly well. I was impressed by the overall production quality. The songs sound good, and the words match up well to the music. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised.

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last modified on September 21, 2008