The game is quite old, but only now I've been able to play it as I've got one of those new shiny PSP-2004s with component cables.
The story starts with Parin, a cute red-headed child, daughter of two adventurers, reaching her granfather's house in a mining city without any children she can play with.
With no children to play with, the demolition man tries to hit on her...no, really, that guy tries to hit on her every time you speak with him.
By the way, Parin them meets a monster girl, Pino, which introduces her to her brother Puko , and some other friendly monsters living in a hidden city.
Parin recieves a mighty drill to overcome obstacles when Puko gets kidnapped by Phantoms, one-eyed things the are just basically evil - I think.
After the first dungeon Phantoms attack monster city destroying it, scattering your friends and their furniture across the world - dark mist starts to cover the world and an evil Prince challenges Parin to defeat him.
Although the old "let's save the world from ultimate evil" looms ominously above the story, everything is told in a very funny and light way that goes well with the anime-ish style used by the game.
Gurumin is an action adventure game like Zelda, with more button mashing action and basic puzzles which involve pulling/pushing crates and breaking certain walls with your drill. At the end of each dungeon you rescue one of your monstrous friends or their furniture.
Each dungeon is short, from 10 to 15 minutes and can be replayed over and over to get an higher score, more money or junk pieces; the latter are used to upgrade Parin's equipment (just an headgear, ranging from goggles to hats, hoods and so on). Money is used to acquire the usual range of healing items, drill upgrades and special moves.
Controls are classic: you can jump, attack and guard. By holding down the attack button you can charge up drill power to perform a dashing attack and to destroy walls and almost any object in Parin's way, which will release money upon destruction. By pressing one or more buttons plus doing a full 360 with the control pad you can unleash a special attack that you previously bought with the ped...ehm, demo man.
The game automatically locks on nearby enemies, but this lock is only used to highlight a target for a jumping attack that lets Parin jump higher by hitting an enemy, there's no "true" lock as in Zelda.
The camera is free and can be controller by L and R or brought behind Parin's back by pressing triangle.
It is possible to save eveywhere as there are no save points in the game, just healing devices in dungeons.
Gurumin is not a masterpiece, there are much better action adventures out there but I think Falcom did a great job in adapting the game to the PSP: maybe I still have to get used to them, but the PSP button layout (and quality of the d-pad and the analog) isn't exaclty top-notch, performing special attacks by rotating the analog stick or operatin such a large diagonal-free d-pad can be a bit annoying, but the action is not that intense, the game gives you the time to make your moves without giving the impression of being too forgiving.
Parin's model occupy a rather large portion of the screen, so do her enemies, so expect just a few hostiles on the screen. The PSP screen, even if displayed on a 21" LCD monitor feels cramped, so the relatively slow-paced action makes partially solve this problem.
Mastiff did the localization. Written text is good, dubbing is decent but not great: a few voices are exaggerated but most of them fit their characters nicely and I think the cheesy acting is part of the game itself. This is the second localization (first was La Pucelle) I test from Mastiff and it's the second good localization, especially considering the publisher's limited resources...way to go.
The story starts with Parin, a cute red-headed child, daughter of two adventurers, reaching her granfather's house in a mining city without any children she can play with.
With no children to play with, the demolition man tries to hit on her...no, really, that guy tries to hit on her every time you speak with him.
By the way, Parin them meets a monster girl, Pino, which introduces her to her brother Puko , and some other friendly monsters living in a hidden city.
Parin recieves a mighty drill to overcome obstacles when Puko gets kidnapped by Phantoms, one-eyed things the are just basically evil - I think.
After the first dungeon Phantoms attack monster city destroying it, scattering your friends and their furniture across the world - dark mist starts to cover the world and an evil Prince challenges Parin to defeat him.
Although the old "let's save the world from ultimate evil" looms ominously above the story, everything is told in a very funny and light way that goes well with the anime-ish style used by the game.
Gurumin is an action adventure game like Zelda, with more button mashing action and basic puzzles which involve pulling/pushing crates and breaking certain walls with your drill. At the end of each dungeon you rescue one of your monstrous friends or their furniture.
Each dungeon is short, from 10 to 15 minutes and can be replayed over and over to get an higher score, more money or junk pieces; the latter are used to upgrade Parin's equipment (just an headgear, ranging from goggles to hats, hoods and so on). Money is used to acquire the usual range of healing items, drill upgrades and special moves.
Controls are classic: you can jump, attack and guard. By holding down the attack button you can charge up drill power to perform a dashing attack and to destroy walls and almost any object in Parin's way, which will release money upon destruction. By pressing one or more buttons plus doing a full 360 with the control pad you can unleash a special attack that you previously bought with the ped...ehm, demo man.
The game automatically locks on nearby enemies, but this lock is only used to highlight a target for a jumping attack that lets Parin jump higher by hitting an enemy, there's no "true" lock as in Zelda.
The camera is free and can be controller by L and R or brought behind Parin's back by pressing triangle.
It is possible to save eveywhere as there are no save points in the game, just healing devices in dungeons.
Gurumin is not a masterpiece, there are much better action adventures out there but I think Falcom did a great job in adapting the game to the PSP: maybe I still have to get used to them, but the PSP button layout (and quality of the d-pad and the analog) isn't exaclty top-notch, performing special attacks by rotating the analog stick or operatin such a large diagonal-free d-pad can be a bit annoying, but the action is not that intense, the game gives you the time to make your moves without giving the impression of being too forgiving.
Parin's model occupy a rather large portion of the screen, so do her enemies, so expect just a few hostiles on the screen. The PSP screen, even if displayed on a 21" LCD monitor feels cramped, so the relatively slow-paced action makes partially solve this problem.
Mastiff did the localization. Written text is good, dubbing is decent but not great: a few voices are exaggerated but most of them fit their characters nicely and I think the cheesy acting is part of the game itself. This is the second localization (first was La Pucelle) I test from Mastiff and it's the second good localization, especially considering the publisher's limited resources...way to go.
Comment