Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure

This game is unexpectedly really good for something I have never heard of before playing it. It's a light, simple, fun, and low-pressure adventure that is aimed at kids. But its simplicity is also probably its strongest plus, because nearly everything this game aims to do is simply done pretty well. [h1] Visuals and Story [/h1] Firstly, the game is visually really good looking. It originally came out around 2004 for... Windows.... and then later the PSP and 3DS. Visually, the game actually looks similar to other really stunning games like Mega Man Legends to me. Past the actual modelling/texturing of the game, other things don't hold up as well. The game runs at 30fps, effects are sometimes too cheap or bright, a lot of sound effects are odd and the audio balancing can be off. There are also a decent bit of mistranslations. However! I believe this somehow adds to the charm of the game, so I seriously don't mind it much. The game also has (poorly) animated cutscenes with voice acting from an accomplished cast of actors and actresses. The game's story is extremely simple and pretty predictable in just about every way, which is fine. It's not trying to be anything deep. Combined wi…

Gurumin is a badly designed game, and the late game only makes its problems harder to ignore. The controls are imprecise, the targeting is unreliable, the camera is often unhelpful, and the game repeatedly asks for more precision than its own movement and input system can reasonably provide. The Crown challenge already shows this problem with platforming that expects fine positioning from controls that are not built for it. Blackbean is simply the worst version of the same design philosophy. The boss teleports constantly, creates clones, has far too much HP, and forces you to identify and hit the real target while dealing with weak targeting and special attacks that require awkward half-circle inputs. My last two attempts lasted more than 30 minutes each. That is not good difficulty. It is wasted time. Neo Galaxy makes it even worse because the fight can demand precise defensive timing after you have already spent a ridiculous amount of time chasing a teleporting enemy around the arena. The completion design is not much better. Platinum Medals rely on obscure hidden triggers, some cosmetic items are absurdly expensive, ranking systems encourage awkward replay behavior, and to…

Just like how I remembered it 10+ years ago on the PSP

parin is MY WIFE

One of the cutest and sweetest games I have ever played. A bit clumsy controls and camera sometimes act against your own intention but you can get used to it after few hours of playing. I adore the music, extremely, I listen to it often. Falcom, you know... :-D I love the characters design. It is hard for me to kill phantoms because they look somehow cute and innocent, I feel like my heart is dying every time I send some phantom to eternal sleep. Definitely worth playing.

5/10. To look at this game you might think that you were seeing some kind of Ocarina of Time experience, from a similar era. And indeed, there's a lot of things that feel slightly like that except that the game plays very much on rails. Levels are very linear and there's no real sense of exploration. At best, you can decide sometimes which level you go to next. And the levels are pretty bland — quite self‑similar to each other in a lot of cases. Of course, part of this probably goes to the fact that it's a quite old game built for a limited system originally, the PSP. However, if the actual world was more interesting to explore, I would be happy to overlook this. I certainly enjoyed Ocarina of Time last time I gave it a try even though it is actually older and on an even more limited system. So what is this game actually? While it is an adventure game loosely of the zelda type, is more about combat than anything else. And honestly, I didn't really enjoy the combat very much. It's combo‑based and it doesn't feel very skillful at least in the first few hours that I played. There's more story line / dialog than an average zelda game, however, it's decently well written with a good se…