Two main takeaways:
1. Yoot Saito is a treasure and should never change
2. How in the holy hell did this get localized
I remember this game coming out and being intrigued by the box art and the fact that it used the mic which I had for Mario Party but I never actually went around to buying it. It always stood in the back of my mind as "that weird late gamecube game that I literally have never heard of anyone playing", and now I've finally played it so yeehaw
The game itself is a bit hard to properly explain. It's pinball, but also really not. The tables are entire battlegrounds with your army fighting against another army as you try to get a bell from point A to point B. The ball is a giant boulder that destroys pretty much anything it touches so it becomes this strange balancing act of maneuvering the ball to where it needs to go while also screaming at the microphone to get your troops out of the way of your pinball and on their way to where they need to go. Since the ball is a deadass boulder it has a lot of sluggish heft to it which definitely can ruin some runs as you watch all your guys die while your ball slowly drifts back down to the flippers again, and that's frustrating. Any level that has slipping mechanics for the troops are also aggravating as hell since accidentally hitting an item can potentially send ALL of your dudes back to where they came, so that's something. It definitely isn't the smartest idea to combine the precise nature of RTS with the imprecise nature of pinball but I honestly think that's exactly what they were going for here so can't really complain. Also the resources you end with in each level carries over to the next level, so it's one of those games that you can end up in a dead game if you aren't good enough and have to restart. The game is short though so it's not too big a deal.
I still am amazed that this game even exists, let alone officially in English. This came out in 2006 when the Wii was literally a couple of months away, and the game is so coated in its feudal Japanese setting (with your army fighting for a cheeky Nintendo pun) that I am amazed that NoA went through the effort of translating it here. Couple that with Yoot Saito's wacky usual voice command shenanigans and yea there's no way this thing was going to sell well lmao. Despite it being occasionally aggravatingly frustrating I can't help but respect this game for being as unique as it is. If you are already curious enough towards this game to be looking at user reviews here, give it a go.
1. Yoot Saito is a treasure and should never change
2. How in the holy hell did this get localized
I remember this game coming out and being intrigued by the box art and the fact that it used the mic which I had for Mario Party but I never actually went around to buying it. It always stood in the back of my mind as "that weird late gamecube game that I literally have never heard of anyone playing", and now I've finally played it so yeehaw
The game itself is a bit hard to properly explain. It's pinball, but also really not. The tables are entire battlegrounds with your army fighting against another army as you try to get a bell from point A to point B. The ball is a giant boulder that destroys pretty much anything it touches so it becomes this strange balancing act of maneuvering the ball to where it needs to go while also screaming at the microphone to get your troops out of the way of your pinball and on their way to where they need to go. Since the ball is a deadass boulder it has a lot of sluggish heft to it which definitely can ruin some runs as you watch all your guys die while your ball slowly drifts back down to the flippers again, and that's frustrating. Any level that has slipping mechanics for the troops are also aggravating as hell since accidentally hitting an item can potentially send ALL of your dudes back to where they came, so that's something. It definitely isn't the smartest idea to combine the precise nature of RTS with the imprecise nature of pinball but I honestly think that's exactly what they were going for here so can't really complain. Also the resources you end with in each level carries over to the next level, so it's one of those games that you can end up in a dead game if you aren't good enough and have to restart. The game is short though so it's not too big a deal.
I still am amazed that this game even exists, let alone officially in English. This came out in 2006 when the Wii was literally a couple of months away, and the game is so coated in its feudal Japanese setting (with your army fighting for a cheeky Nintendo pun) that I am amazed that NoA went through the effort of translating it here. Couple that with Yoot Saito's wacky usual voice command shenanigans and yea there's no way this thing was going to sell well lmao. Despite it being occasionally aggravatingly frustrating I can't help but respect this game for being as unique as it is. If you are already curious enough towards this game to be looking at user reviews here, give it a go.