Doraemon: Nobita to Midori no Kyojinden DS [JPN DS]

[importaku]

Doraemon:Nobita & the green giant


Been playing this for a few hours & im really loving it, historically doraemon has appeared in quite a few games over the years but very few have them have been pretty good. Luckily this one is in the good catagory, based on the movie thats just been released in the cinema.

It's part adventure & part platform game based closely on the events of the film. Nobita finds a strange tree in a junkyard near the woods by his home, using doraemon's automation liquid Nobita brings the tree to life & thats where all hell breaks loose

Theres 2 parts to the game theres the aventure part where Nobita & Doraemon walk around the town, some people require items & others will give you items too. Theres also items hidden away on platforms out of reach that will require certain items to reach them. The platform sections are your standard side scrolling type but the graphics are wonderful all the sprites are big & beautifully animated, theres hidden paths in some levels that will lead to ingredients which means you will have to play through them multiple times. Each level usually has an objective like get to the end or find a certain item or defeat a boss.

Now for the best bit, the game heavily uses Doraemon's himitsu dogu (secret tools) these inventions from the future are fantastic & are the same as in the anime. In the game you have control of Nobita & doraemon (not always though) each character as you play gets more of doraemon's tools, starting with the bamboo hobby horse that you can ride to give you a higher jumping ability, theres also weapons including the air cannon & the marble gun & lots more. Each character holds certain items so you need to switch characters as you play to use their items to get past certain obsticles, for example Doraemon has the air brick making machine, needed quite often where you can't reach a certain ledge so you make steps out of thin air. As you go through the levels you will find ingredients these are used with the Dogu range (aka Tool cooker) with this device, once you have a recipe can create new tools & weapons for your characters to use, some with cool effects. Theres a lot of them too i have counted 10 pages of them in the menu.

As you play & find your friends you can summon them into the game to help you out by using the anywhere door, you will be able to select them using the touch screen in your room. I haven't gotten far enough in yet to have found them though.

Finally in the adventure bit you will occasionally come across mini games, in one bit doraemon lets you borrow the air cannon & tests you in a duel against the kids in your neighbourhood. You have to shout bang to fire the cannon (just like the anime hehe) however you can just blow in the mic if your feeling self conscious. Another minigame involves getting your comic back from Gian, holding your ds on its side like a book Doraemon uses the big light to turn you into a giant & you go stomping after him godzilla style using the touch screen to dodge obsticles.

Anyway enough impressions for now as i doubt anyone else will buy it but you never know, only other thing is theres quite a bit of text in the story parts but it dosent hinder the game that much, plus its all in kana for those with basic reading ability

oh & heres a vid

[wakka]

This looks really cool, and a good opportunity to practise my kana. Nice impressions

[Kaladron]

That looks great and kind of reminds me of the Goemon games.

One question though, Importaku. How do you discover some of these unearthed gems? Do you just blind-buy and hope for the best?

[importaku]

I normally scour japanese websites for pics & movies & info, most major japanese games have their own website. For the ones that don't i use my flash cart & trial it, if its good enough then i just delete it off & buy the original, If its crap it just gets deleted.

Im about 4 hours in & it is still fantastic, finally Suneo, Gian & Shizuka chan are in my team now. When you need their help you can touch them on the bottom screen & they use the anywhere door to come to your aid. Each of your friends has items that doraemon gives them to give them certain abilities they only get one at first but eventually they all get 3 in total.

Gian has the baseball cap that let's him summon balls from thin air, then he has the mogura gloves (mole gloves) that lets him dig through dirt walls & then finally the karaoke mic that lets him kill everything on the screen with his terrible singing.

Suneo has the maths bread that lets him fix machines & destroy the X blocks that are dotted round, next item he has is the portable battleship which targets & destroys all enemies on the screen & finally the sherlock holmes set that reveals hidden rare ingredients in a level.

Shizuka has the cheergirl pom poms which when used restore your hearts back, funny as hell as she prances along behind you doing cheers, then she is given the magic hat that lets her fly round the level taking out enemies as she goes, not gotten her last item yet.

Found out theres 3 types of dogu you can make with the oven, the first type are ones you can equip to give you extra abilities, for example the tranpoline gas gives you extra jumping height when equipped. The second type are help dogu like the conk food or the gourmet tablecloth these restore your hearts but are only one use items. There are also other help items but they dont vanish after using them, however they have a cost to use them you pay in bells that you find round the levels, the funniest of them is the Mitsubiki angel its a little puppet that tells you where to go & keeps screaming left right up ect if you ignore it, it will jump on your head & start beating you with its fists The 3rd set of items look like furniture for your portable bedroom, not sure if they affect anything or are just for decoration, so far placed a few in but they dont seem to do anything.

Also throughout the game there is an old man robot that will increase your heart meter or sometimes give you a choice to increase your bell amount or turn you temp invincible.