This game was published by Namcot, a label used for home releases by arcade giant Namco (Pac-Man, Tekken) in the early 1990's. The character is based on an autobiographical manga series by Momoko Sakura about a precociously perceptive little girl, and this PC Engine game was released under license based on the television anime adaptation.
In the story, as far as I can make out, cute robots are invading and have begun their rein of comical terror by kidnapping Maruko's friend Tama-chan:
The game is aimed at younger players -- that is, younger players who can read Japanese. For my part, I found the basic action straightforward and entertaining as I helped little Maruko fend off attacking cats, birds, and robots by beating them with her explorer's helmet:
Where I ran into difficulty was with the quiz questions and possible answers displayed at the top of the screen -- Maruko-chan has no life bar per se, though running into enemies does slow her down. And there isn't a lot of landscape to cover. The only way to proceed to the next level is by answering a series of quiz questions correctly, without getting more than 3 wrong during the stage. Maruko answers the questions by defeating enemies, who drop tokens labeled A, B, C, or D; the tokens bounce discreetly out of each other's way, so it's not too hard to grab the correct one.
Picking up the correct token to answer the question scores a point and moves to the next question. Selecting the wrong token costs a chance and presents a new question. Of course, knowing which token to pick up requires knowing the right answer, which further presumes an ability to read the question, both woefully out of my reach.
I plugged away at it for a while, but making random guesses at four-to-one odds didn't help me make any progress, and the questions are randomized, so I wasn't able to find any patterns by trial and error. I don't think our protagonist was too happy with my performance:
Sorry, Maruko-chan!
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