Do NOT buy the NA copy of the game, it is missing content. My actual review/rating of the game is not affected by this and I go on about it further below.

This localized version has removed content from the original at this time of purchase on release date. Specifically, it is missing the Molcar Soccer minigame.

I suspect this is because this minigame had online features in a later update and they were lazy, but it was playable singleplayer against AI on release, so there is ultimately no excuse.

Import a copy of the SEA version of the game, it has the same English, it is slightly more expensive to import ($10 more on Amazon at the time of writing), but it's a better product and worth supporting as a consumer. Don't support lazy localization!

Also, the NA version had some weird stutters during the minigames and upon exiting the games and going back to the town it would freeze for a few seconds, this does not seem to be present in overseas copies of the game.

But, on to the actual game, it's really fun! It's a very short game, and certainly not worth full price given the small amount of content, but if you're a fan of the series eh why not. A lot of the minigames feel pretty fun and enjoyable to play at least, I look forward to playing them with some friends soon.

I imagine this a game I won't really pick up again after I play it with some friends, have a few good chuckles playing the minigames, and move on. But that's okay, playing as the cute molcar and goofing off on some minigames is still a worthwhile experience.

I dedicate this work to the Muses, so that they may guide my hand as I undertake this herculean task.

We live in an age of unprecedented interconnectedness. News travels across the globe in a manner of minutes, and journeys that used to take months of careful planning and as much time to execute can now be made on a whim in an afternoon. Information is obtained, processed, and distributed without regard for national, continental, or linguistic barriers. And yet, one thing has eluded speakers of the English language for years. In December 2021, Bandai Namco Games released PUI PUI MOLCAR Let’s! MOLCAR PARTY in Japan and Southeast Asia. The game features a full English translation, but for some reason, there is almost no information on the game in English to be found online. I seek to fix that. I will brave the frontier that is PUI PUI MOLCAR Let’s MOLCAR PARTY and document my findings for the world to see. This will be my magnum opus. This will be the mark I leave on history.

For those unaware of the cultural phenomenon that is PUI PUI MOLCAR, it is a stop-motion animated series released in Japan in 2021 that follows a group of car/guinea pig hybrids as they navigate the stressful and oftentimes cruel world of being used as transportation for their human masters. This manifests in such gruesome and emotional ways as being left outside in the heat, being hijacked and used as a getaway car, or eating trash because it looked like food (Let’s! MOLCAR PARTY actually reveals that carrots, the primary food and fuel source for the molcar, are made from processed and recycled trash, which provides some much-needed context to the episode “Chewing Chewing Cleaning”). As any self-respecting game developer would, the geniuses at Bandai Namco Entertainment decided that the best way to present these complex and moving stories in video game form would be the long-standing tradition of a mini game collection. Such masterpieces as Game & Wario (2013) or Rayman: Raving Rabbids 2 (2007) no doubt influenced Bandai Namco’s decision to present the gripping story of Moltown and its inhabitants in this way.

The game itself is structured around the aforementioned Moltown, which the player is tasked with building up from zero. This is doubtless due to some kind of unmentioned tragedy leveling the town and its inhabitants, which leaves the surviving molcars with the burdensome task of rebuilding their civilization. The molcars, which are rendered in impressive detail, do this by partaking in a series of 10 sacred rituals known as “minigames” in order to win a currency known as PUI. As this PUI can be used to magically recreate buildings and to procure accessories for the surviving molcars, it is doubtless the concentrated form of divine favor, bestowed upon the molcars by whatever deity they worship. Once enough PUI is gathered, the molcars use it to restore one of 12 buildings to Moltown, which I will go through in order of their appearance.

1. The Mol Shop
The only building to have survived the destruction of Moltown, the Mol Shop is exactly what it advertises itself as, a shop. In the game itself, it only sells accessories that are used to customize your molcars, but it doubtless serves a much greater purpose in wider molcar society due to its proximity to the third building on this list.

2. The Photo Studio
The Photo Studio is a monument to eternity. The molcars use it to preserve images of themselves for future generations, and the player is tasked with arranging these images in order to best capture the essence of molcar society.

3. The Hangout Area
The Hangout Area is at the core of molcar society. This is where molcars go receive “pats” from their divine overlords. What exactly these “pats” are is unclear, but as molcars seem to be pleased by them, they are of no doubt important to their culture and belief systems.

4. The DJ Booth
The DJ Booth is where molcars go to participate in the first minigame, Mol Rhythm. Given a set of three directions, molcars are tasked with reproducing said directions to a beat. The minigame very much resembles a game that the western world knows as Simon Says, but that is a gross oversimplification of its artistic and cultural significance.

5. The Soccer Stadium
It is here that molcars go to compete against each other in a sport known as Mol Soccer. Two teams, consisting of one to three molcars each, are tasked with pushing an oversized ball into the opposing team’s goal. As molcars lack clear hands and require all four wheel-like feet to move, this is done by running and jumping into the ball. The actual sport is quite similar to the hit video game Rocket League (2015), which is most likely little more than coincidence.

6. Potato’s Driver’s House
This is where molcars go to throw their Surprise Parties. A Surprise Party is an event in which molcars gather and dance while attempting to not wake up the human occupants of a given building. The event takes on a form very similar to the schoolyard game known as “Red Light, Green Light” and being caught dancing when the human participant wakes is considered quite the cultural faux pas.

7. The Arcade
The Arcade is where PUI PUI Turf Battles are held. Four molcars are dropped onto a floor equipped with lit panels and are made to brutally fight over territory. Any panel a molcar steps on is changed to that molcar’s assigned color and awarded to them as their own turf, but other molcars can just as easily claim it as their own by stepping on the aforementioned panel. This leads to PUI PUI Turf Battles being quick, messy affairs where molcars scramble to protect their own territory while still expanding it. This nature of territorial conflict is no doubt a harsh critique of human nations and their tendency to go to war over tracts of land.

8. The Dump Site
This is where molcars take their collected trash and convert it into edible carrots in a minigame known as City Cleaning. In it, molcars are tasked with gathering bags of trash that are littered about Moltown’s streets and returning them to the dump site. When they arrive, the trash is emptied out into a machine and miraculously converted into carrots, thus preserving the ecosystem and contributing to molcar society. If only mankind could find such a use for our own refuse, but that is little more than wishful thinking,

9. The Villain’s Hideout
This is where molcars go to partake in Mol Missions. A Mol Mission is an event in which molcars run away from a giant, mechanized shark capable of launching damaging lasers in multiple directions. This is perhaps the most mysterious of the events, and there is little I can say to expand upon it further.

10. Molfes Land
This is where molcars go to participate in the event known as Molfes. Molfes very much resembles our own Fall Guys (2020), as molcars are tasked with running through an obstacle course in the allotted time. It is a relatively simple minigame, but serves as a testament to the physical prowess of these creatures.

11. The Desert
The desert is where molcars go to brave the Mol Of The Dead event. As to why the desert is considered a building, I do not know, but as that is how the molcars treat it, I will follow their example. Mol Of The Dead sees molcars run through an apocalyptic wasteland as they scrounge for supplies and avoid the zombie hordes that call the wastes home. The event, at its most basic level, resembles Pac Man (1980).

12. The Racing Arena.
This is where molcars go to participate in PUI PUI Racing. This event consists of two laps around a short, carrot shaped track. The first molcar to complete both laps is deemed the champion, leaving the remaining molcars to compete over the lower places.

13. The Bank
The site of the final minigame, the bank is where molcars go to play Hide and Mol-seek. In a game that resembles our own “Cops and Robbers”, two teams of molcars are let loose in Moltown. The robbers team is tasked with evading capture while the cops team is tasked with capturing the robbers. The two scamper through the streets, coming into close contact with each other, but often avoiding direct confrontations. If Moltown is able to turn crime into such a simple game, I wonder about the frequency of legitimate crimes.

Outside of these games, molcars spend their days wandering the paradise of Moltown and doing whatever they so desire. This is most often chewing on shrubs or squeaking in groups, but I am not one to judge the legitimacy of their actions.


Honestly, it’s just a minigame collection, so it makes sense nobody bothered to write about it. The minigame quality ranges from pretty barebones to actually kind of fun, but it never goes beyond that. I wasn’t joking when I said the molcars looked nice since the devs did a really good job of actually animating them in a way that matches the feel of the show, but other than that there’s nothing of note here. Shoutout to the guy who imported the special release edition of this game at full price and then sold it to me for like $15, though.

Also how am I worse at molcar Rocket League than real Rocket League?