Been playing this for a few days now, and it's really very good. Probably my favourite PSP game since Lumines, in fact (though, given I'm not keen on sports or racing games or ports of titles I can get for home systems, it's not like there's been much competition until recently).
The game is a 2D side-on platformer (the graphics are a mix of sprites and 3D models) in which you play a guy who has to rescue people trapped in various dangerous situations. Although it's a platform game, the emphasis is more on puzzling than action, and you spend most of your time working out how to get everybody to the exit of each level with the items at your disposal.
To rescue somebody, you first of all need to get to them, which might mean putting out fires, breaking down walls, unlocking doors and that sort of thing. Once you've reached them, they'll attempt to follow you, but they aren't able to jump gaps that you can, or climb or drop as far as you, so you often need to instruct them to go other ways, or arrange crates or ladders so that they can get to where they need to go. Also, some of the characters you rescue have abilities you might need, such as children who are able to get through small gaps, or big blokes who can push around items that you can't move. So the game sort of ends up being a mix of old fashioned platformer (think Flashback or the 2D Prince of Persia games) and something like Lemmings. To get the top score in each stage, you need to beat a set time limit, which often means multitasking and ordering several characters around at the same time while you're off doing something in another part of the level. I'm not sure if getting 100% in all the levels unlocks anything or if it's just for replay value.
The game is broken up into 100 levels, each of which takes between 5 and 10 minutes if you know what you're doing (typically I've needed at least a couple of goes at each level, and a lot more than that on some of them), so it makes a nice pick-up-and-play handheld game. Each group of 10 levels has a different setting, which gives you different items to use and obstacles to get past. The difficulty of the game actually ramps up fairly quickly, so you aren't going to blast through the first 50 stages before it starts to get challenging. The game lets you pick and choose the order you do the levels, so if you are stuck on a stage you can go and do other ones for a bit.
Graphically, it has quite a bright cel shaded kind of a look, which looks fantastic on the PSP's screen. The main character is a 3D model and is really nicely animated, though he could do with moving a touch faster at times. The sound is less good. There's nothing wrong with it as such, but the (English) phrases spoken by the victims get quite annoying as they're repeated far too often, and there's unfortunately no way to turn them off without turning off all the sound effects.
The game is really import friendly, as it's pretty much all in English. The only bits of Japanese are the tutorial text, which you can work out easily, and a few lines of text introducing each new setting, which you don't need to understand at all. Menus and everything are English.
Taito have put support for downloadable levels in the game, and have already released three level packs (10 levels in each), with at least four more packs to come. You can either download them in-game, or via the official site. Should hopefully keep the game going a bit even after finishing the main stages.
The game is a 2D side-on platformer (the graphics are a mix of sprites and 3D models) in which you play a guy who has to rescue people trapped in various dangerous situations. Although it's a platform game, the emphasis is more on puzzling than action, and you spend most of your time working out how to get everybody to the exit of each level with the items at your disposal.
To rescue somebody, you first of all need to get to them, which might mean putting out fires, breaking down walls, unlocking doors and that sort of thing. Once you've reached them, they'll attempt to follow you, but they aren't able to jump gaps that you can, or climb or drop as far as you, so you often need to instruct them to go other ways, or arrange crates or ladders so that they can get to where they need to go. Also, some of the characters you rescue have abilities you might need, such as children who are able to get through small gaps, or big blokes who can push around items that you can't move. So the game sort of ends up being a mix of old fashioned platformer (think Flashback or the 2D Prince of Persia games) and something like Lemmings. To get the top score in each stage, you need to beat a set time limit, which often means multitasking and ordering several characters around at the same time while you're off doing something in another part of the level. I'm not sure if getting 100% in all the levels unlocks anything or if it's just for replay value.
The game is broken up into 100 levels, each of which takes between 5 and 10 minutes if you know what you're doing (typically I've needed at least a couple of goes at each level, and a lot more than that on some of them), so it makes a nice pick-up-and-play handheld game. Each group of 10 levels has a different setting, which gives you different items to use and obstacles to get past. The difficulty of the game actually ramps up fairly quickly, so you aren't going to blast through the first 50 stages before it starts to get challenging. The game lets you pick and choose the order you do the levels, so if you are stuck on a stage you can go and do other ones for a bit.
Graphically, it has quite a bright cel shaded kind of a look, which looks fantastic on the PSP's screen. The main character is a 3D model and is really nicely animated, though he could do with moving a touch faster at times. The sound is less good. There's nothing wrong with it as such, but the (English) phrases spoken by the victims get quite annoying as they're repeated far too often, and there's unfortunately no way to turn them off without turning off all the sound effects.
The game is really import friendly, as it's pretty much all in English. The only bits of Japanese are the tutorial text, which you can work out easily, and a few lines of text introducing each new setting, which you don't need to understand at all. Menus and everything are English.
Taito have put support for downloadable levels in the game, and have already released three level packs (10 levels in each), with at least four more packs to come. You can either download them in-game, or via the official site. Should hopefully keep the game going a bit even after finishing the main stages.
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