The Collection Chamber: HELLO, MR. PRESIDENT!

Quickness, ideas, humor, and fighting skills, what if you were on top of the world?

Initial Screen
Select between fighting mode (Action Only) or adventure mode (Puzzle Action).
Should I move the picture tiles left or right? If unsure, use a Help hint.
Find the difference in the picture. Which part is wrong? It's strange over there...
Match the picture title. Every time you move the mouse, the outline of the picture is revealed...
Even if the keyboard is broken, you have to pass this game...
Q&A Quiz: If I had known this would happen, I would have studied common sense.
It's hard to turn the words upside down often, but Korean is really complicated.
If you run the slot machine, you might get lucky and win a big prize.
Crossword Puzzle: Place letters in each horizontal row and vertical column...
You have to raise the flag with quick agility...
What are the special moves of each martial arts leader?
In This One Game
Collection of hit mini and arcade games.
The type of action of a dedicated games console.
Interactive elements within P.C Game
It contains all the elements of an educational work.

~ badly translated from the back of the box

Perched somewhere between the high-class legitimacy of the Japanese gaming industry and the knock-off shovelware of the Chinese market, South Korean games of the 90's are nothing short of fascinating. They tend to have an off-beat quirkiness that hints at an alternative universe where they became a major interactive hub of the world. Korean entertainment culture may have only recently hit the mainstream, but let's see if we can big up their 90s gaming output. And what better way to celebrate the recent dive into more political turmoil than a bizarre one-on-one fighter called Hello! Mr. President.

There are eight world leaders all buffed up and ready to battle against each other as a means to solve political differences. From Japan's Morihiro Hosokawa and his Blanka-like electric shock move, to Blighty's Margaret Thatcher and her powerball projectile, each leader takes part in this blatant excuse to copy Street Fighter with its tongue firmly in its 'roided-up cheek. The Korean name for the game is YS는 잘 맞춰, roughly translated to 'YS Fits Well'. YS is the nickname given to the South Korean leader Kim Young-sam who lead the country between 1993 and 1998. At the time this game came out in 1994, the president's scandals weren't quite upon him, with the country generally seeing him in a positive light after implementing a massive and much-needed anti-corruption initiative. However, in the years to come some infrastructure disasters and the '97 Asian Financial Crisis made the first civilian to hold the highest office in 30 years vastly unpopular - at least until a recent re-appraisal of his legacy. Regardless, at the time, he was popular enough for Open Productions - a small development house mostly known for unlicensed Master System titles - to make him the subject of their first foray into PC programming.

Choose your fighter! In order; Korea's Young-sam, Japan's Hosokawa, USA's Clinton, UK's Thatcher,
France's Mitterand, Iraq's Hussein, Russia's Yeltsin & China's Xiaping (left).
List the order of countries to schedule your opponents. Full translation in the ChamberNotes (right).

Unlike many PC-based fighters of this era, it doesn't use the archaic single-button approach to controls. Instead, this is the more familiar multi-button method with a key each assigned to punching, kicking and blocking. This means that its controls are strictly keyboard-only, making those single-button joysticks that were standard at the time useless. Thankfully, the DOSBox mapper function does mean we can utilise a modern controller for a more comfortable time.

Or it would be if the gameplay were any good. While certainly not unplayable, each character's disappointingly limited move-set offers up just one special move each. These are mostly a variation on the fireball performed by inputting a quarter circle than the punch button. It's anyone's guess whether the game will correctly recognise the input, but I found spamming the move with the furthest reach to be a more winning tactic.

The UK board in Adventure Mode (left). See below for a full rundown of the mini-games.
One of them is called Break Stuff where you break stuff, like this in-use ambulance (right).

What makes Hello! Mr. President stand out a little more than the average fighter - other than seeing Bill Clinton take on Saddam Hussein in his wrestling undies - is the inclusion of a somewhat educational 'Adventure Mode'. As your chosen leader, you throw the dice and travel around a game board with each spot taking you to a mini-game. This could be one of ten mini-games or trivia quizzes and if you play badly, it will take off a chunk of your starting health when you get to the end of the board and battle that country's ruler.

Some of these game are quite fun, including one where you tap the punch button to destroy what's on screen leading to an amusing if simple animation. Others involve a surprisingly difficult spot-the-difference, a sliding picture puzzle or a slot machine. Unfortunately, most require an innate knowledge of the Korean language where even my little translation efforts in the ChamberNotes won't be of much use. By being multiple choice with a small number of questions, you can probably blag your way out of those trivia mini-games, but if you get the crossword you might as well quit and restart. You will have to select the Korean characters called Hangul from a list in order to solve it. Good luck!

Here's a full rundown on those mini-games games;

	SLIDING TILES Press the arrow buttons on the edges of the screen to unscramble the image. Click on the Hint button to aid you if you get stuck. The longer you take, the more Energy you will lose.
	SPOT THE DIFFERENCE The image is split up into a grid of tiles. Click on the 5 tiles on the image on the right hand side that are different to the image on the left. The longer you take, the more Energy you will lose.
	GUESS THE PICTURE Move the mouse curser around the screen to reveal the picture, then select the correct prompt in Korean that describes it below. The longer you take to answer, the more Energy you will lose.
	BREAK STUFF Rapidly tap the kick button (Right Shift) to build up your strength as indicated by the top bar, then hit punch (Enter) when the accuracy meter (bottom bar) reaches the centre.
	TRIVIA QUIZ A simple multiple choice quiz. Or simple if you can understand Korean. For everyone else, just guess. You will hear a happy shriek if you are correct, or a fart and some red text if wrong. The longer you take to answer each of the three questions, the more energy you will lose.
	REVERSE WORD You are presented with a sentence of Hangul (Korean alphabet) characters. The correct answer is the sentence with those characters reversed which could be hilariously nonsensical if translated. The longer you take to answer the three questions, the more energy you will lose.
	SLOT MACHINE Gamble your Help points or Energy in a game of chance played at your own pace. The numbers in the blue boxes represent your Help and Energy. Move them over to the right to place your bet, then press the bottom green button to begin. The Kick button (right shift) will stop the slots.
	CROSSWORD Fill in the highlighted circles with the correct Hangul to spell a word or sentence in Korean. Good luck with this one English speakers! You can't bluff your way through this one!
	RAISE THE FLAG Raise the correct flag as described by your opponent within the allocated time. Holding the Kick button (Right Shift) will raise the right flag while holding the Punch button (Enter) will raise the left one.
	FIGHT!! Battle against your opponent in a one-on-one fight with the health (energy) you have remaining. Win, and move on to the next board. Lose, and it's game over!

Luckily, there's an action-only 'Fighting Mode' where you can just wail on world leaders for a while. Hello! Mr. President won't beat your Street Fighters in gameplay mechanics, nor will it surpass the humour in Spitting Image - the other political fighter on this site. Instead, it's an interesting curio of another country's view of the world during the early 90s. And for me, that alone makes it a fascinating playthrough.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses the DOSBox-X build of DOSBox to bring the game to modern systems. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 23.4 Mb. Install Size: 67.9 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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