Guru Guru Negetto (DS)

[Duddyroar]

Got this off Fishbowlhead the other day.

Had a quick blast last night, the presentation is excellent, there's a nice anime introduction featuring wizards and small, ball-like creatures. The game is a variant on golf.

The main aim of the game is to 'throw' your ball-like creature from one end of the course to the other. You have different throws available to you (straight ahead, overarm, roll, etc - all activated with the stylus on the touch screen - you have to spin the stylus around to build power) and along the way you have enemies that can be defeated (but hitting them throws your ball in the opposite direction so you have to be careful) and there are gaps in the course that your ball can fall down. From what I can see you have a 'par' score that you have to complete the course under (like golf, see?) and at the end of the course there's two different places you need to land on. One is easy and the other is harder, obviously giving more points if you manage to land on it. Oh, and there's also cube-like objects to collect along the way too. From the back of the box it seems your ball creature can gain other powers too, like a massive laser storm out of its mouth.

Other than that, I'm totally clueless. There are loads of menus to get through and they're all in Japanese. If anyone else has played on this game and can help, do get in touch. I think there's a good game in there somewhere!

[corpsicle]

well this sounds half decent, and it LOOKS great ... maybe its worth the $19 it is on play-asia atm

[Duddyroar]

I only paid ?5 for my copy from Fishbowlhead - so it was well worth the cash in that respect!

I just need to get hold of a decent guide as there is loads of Japanese text in this game.

[NeoDragoN]

I only paid ?5 for my copy from Fishbowlhead - so it was well worth the cash in that respect!

I just need to get hold of a decent guide as there is loads of Japanese text in this game.

I'm in your situation, seems like a cool whacky game.....but have no clue what to do apart from throw my rabbit thing

Btw i have activated a few powers, like gliding or turning red? you activate them buy touching the rabbit in the corner of the touch screen, top right or top left.

[Fuddle]

i got this too in their weekly deal thingy a while back. but i dont really know what i'm doing either.

it seems like there is only one option i can choose.
play three stages, and then it takes you back to the character selection screen to go through it again....very strange.

from just doing that quite a few times though, its unbeleivably frustrating, especially when things start to go wrong. it seems like there is a certain way to do each 'hole' and as soon as you go wrong its very hard to get back into a usefull position.

[Chief H]

I personally think GGN is quite a flawed game - it is more frustrating than it is skilful, the controls are slightly wooly and the opponent AI is a shambles. I would've felt really hard done by if I paid any more than the ?9 I did for it, tbh.

In terms of menus for gameplay, you've got:
- Main (sort of career-ish) mode
--- Train guru
here you can train your own guru-thingy by playing a series of 3-stage courses (9 stages in total)
--- Play courses
enter a 10-stage(!) competition for each course against 3 other AI competitors
- Free Play
--- Competition play
pick any single stage from any unlocked course to play on against 3 AI opponents
--- Practice
play on your own on any unlocked stage
- Mission mode
play stages with predefined missions (e.g. collect x number of cubes)
- Wireless multiplay
- Options

When you train your guru (i'll call it that for convenience) you play a few stages and it adapts its stats to your playing style, i think. eg batter loads of enemies and its power stat rises, possibly at the expense of other stats (low strength gurus can't actually beat enemies out of the way).

Actually playing the game, three different shots are avaliable, depending on which character you select and throwing seems pretty straightfoward, circling the touchscreen to build up power and then dragging off over the red line to throw (or tapping the centre of the circle if you're using the big red dude's spinning throw). the d-pad can be used to move between the three levels both before throwing and whilst the guru is in flight ( a skill the AI seems incapable of, amongst other things). the point at which you drag over the red line to throw affects your throwing angle - come off the top and it'll be a higher lob, lower down and it's a straighter pitch. When the Guru is in the air you can have up to 3 abilities avaliable to you to help it on its way. You can flap its ears to give it a bit more lift in the air by scratching zig zags across the line on the touchscreen that replaces the throwing circle. Two abilities can also be assigned to the Guru before the stage begins (the two-tabbed menu with ability icons on it). You'll have to experiement to see how each ability works but just tap or hold down the relevant icon in the corner of the touchscreen to activate each ability.

All these moves sap energy from the blue bar at the bottom of the upper screen so the amount to which you can use them is limited, though energy is added at the start of each throw. Abilities can also be used during your opponents' turns - useful for dodging them or attcking other gurus as they pass by. a guru striking another as it is thrown takes energy away from the attacked guru and when the blue energy bar reaches zero, the guru must lose as many turns as it takes to recover to full energy, adding to its shot total, though not disturbing its turn order (the same happens whenever a guru falls down a hole in the course).

The end of the course often has several 'zones', as previously mentioned. each has a numbered marker next to it, displaying the number of shots that will be deducted from the players score when they finish within them (this being a golf-style game, the lowest score possible is desired). Zones nearer the edge of the course or on awkwardly high ledges will have larger points deductions and any guru that falls off the end of the course will suffer a two shot penalty.


The one thing I find strange is that once you've trained a guru once, you can't continue to hone its stats and abilities; or at least i can't find out how to. Completing courses in the main mode unlocks new courses and items found after completing each hole can be used to fuse new gurus (press y on the guru training selection page) but it's all a little hazy really. As mentioned, the AI is awful, playing ridiculously stupid shots that often end up going backwards unnecessarily and offering little real competition so long as you're semi-competent at reaching the end of the course and not falling off. Courses are very much one-route wonders - once you fall off 'the route' to completion, it gets increasingly difficult to get back on. Especially with the inability to tactically play backwards in order to get enough space to scale high walls, for example. Often the simplest route through a stage is to just throw as hard and high as possible, using flapping to get even higher and sail over the entire stage. Ah well. I just think it's a very limited experience really

[Duddyroar]

Gotta say I agree with pretty much all you've said there. This is a badly flawed game. Thanks for the info though, very helpful.

[Bassman]

I just looked at my NOM and there was a bit about the game. There are 50 Missions (challenges) to complete though not knowing what to do (depending on the Japanese) could be a problem.

It wasn't until I read the article in NOM that that I found out how to throw the rabbit. I tried the game and managed to throw it once but never managed to duplicate the feat!!

Apparently the rabbit can jump in the air to give some extra distance and as you level up it can do more than one jump. It can also flatten out so that it will glide further or inflate so that it will float. I have no idea how to activate these various abilties. It is presumably from the rabbit on the touch screen but with more than one ability I am not sure how they can be selected.

I found some of the levels a real pain as you can end up very close to a vertical wall which makes throwing very difficult. Is there a way to throw in the reverse direction I wonder. It took me a few minutes to discover that the d-pad can be used to scan the course and to move from side to side to hit more items.