Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
ジャイアントエッグ～ビリー・ハッチャーの大冒険～, Jaianto Eggu: Birī Hatchā no Daibōken, lit. “Giant Egg: The Great Adventure of Billy Hatcher”
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (or simply Billy Hatcher) is a 2003 3D platform game developed by Sonic Team (the same creators behind the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise) and published by Sega for the Nintendo GameCube. A Microsoft Windows PC port was released in Europe in 2006. Yuji Naka (now arrested twice for insider trading in late 2022) is the game’s producer. Shun Nakamura, Atsushi Kanno, and Mizuki Hosoyamada are the game’s designers (the latter is the game’s director), and Mariko Nanba and Tomoya Ohtani are the game’s composers. There’s also Easter egg rolling in real life (but don’t roll the actual eggs unless they are hard-boiled!).
The gameplay revolves around growing and hatching eggs to defeat the Crows. The player controls Billy, who cannot do much by himself aside from moving and jumping. However, his abilities greatly expand while holding an egg. While rolling an egg, Billy moves faster and is more agile. He can also perform several techniques with an egg, such as egg dunking, slamming, dashing, and shooting.
The game features 72 different eggs to hatch, most with unique designs. As Billy rolls over fruit collected from the world or dropped from enemies while holding an egg, the egg will grow in size and power. When the egg’s gauge fills, the egg reaches a maximum size and flashes, indicating it is ready to hatch. Billy can perform a rooster call to hatch fully matured eggs, which can hold contents such as helper animals, hats, and items. Certain eggs are required to hatch to progress through the game, as they are necessary to clear objectives or get past obstacles.
Eggs can be damaged by enemies, large enough eggs, and the environment. An egg’s damage is represented by cracks appearing on the egg’s meter in the corner of the screen. When the egg takes enough damage, it is destroyed and nothing hatches from it. Eggs can also be ‘lost’, i.e. put into positions or situations that the player cannot retrieve them from. In such cases, the egg will disappear from its position after several seconds of inactivity and will appear back at its nest at its smallest size. Eggs with a Sonic Team logo on them can be found and hatched in certain levels after collecting enough chick coins, holding animal friends of Sonic Team characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog or NiGHTS.
Eggs will grow at a faster rate depending on the size of the fruit collected. Some eggs are easier to hatch than others and require less fruit than others. Eggs that contain items usually hatch faster than animals, except eggs that contain Game Boy Advance minigame download titles.
Characters
- Billy Hatcher (v.b. Kobayashi Hikaru): The main protagonist of the game. A slightly mischievous boy from the human world. With courage bestowed upon him, he has been chosen by Menie-Funie to save the Chicken Elders and return the Light to Morning Land. Billy would appear in various other Sega titles, as he did including Sega Superstars, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.
- Rolly Roll (v.b. Yamaka Yuka): The game’s sole female playable character. A lighthearted and carefree girl. She always tries to help others in trouble, but can sometimes be a bit “scatterbrained”. Her outfit is similar to that of Amy Rose from Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Chick Poacher (v.b. Takahashi Kento): Chick may look small but his spirit is strong, giving him a misplaced air of superiority. He tends to act before thinking, which always makes his friends a little nervous. He wears teal goggles on his head and seems to have the biggest of the chicken combs on his head. He is the only one who wears mittens and goggles, and his outfit is similar to that of Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Bantam Scrambled (v.b. Nagasawa Hideaki): The heavy and powerful friend of Billy, Rolly, and Chick. He wears the largest and most distinctive clothing of the entire human crew. Bantam is a gentle giant and only uses his strength to look after his friends. Despite his rough outward appearance, he adores cuteness but hates injustice. His name is misspelled as “Bamtam Scrambled” in the NA manual.
I didn’t own the actual game, but saw the game’s commercial… if you have this game with the (dusty) old GameCube, you need to make sure it works. We’re waiting for an HD rerelease, which is likely not happening.
