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[WiiWare] Bonsai Barber

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    [WiiWare] Bonsai Barber

    Had a quick search and couldn't find another thread on this, only a couple of mentions in the Nintendo Download Services forum.

    I was a little bit unsure about buying this game, as I wasn't sure I'd enjoy it. After about half an hour's play, I'm pleased to say all my concerns were washed away.

    If you're not aware of the basic premise, you arrive in a village as the new barber and you have to cut the hair of a variety of talking plants and vegetables. The game is controlled with the Wii Remote and you use scissors, clippers, a comb and paint to style their hair. You must meet the guide for the haircut they desire, which is indicated on screen by a faint white line. If you go a bit too far, it can be regrown with a spray of water.

    The visual style is simple and elegant with a charm of its own. Gameplay is intuitive and instantly enjoyable.

    There are awards given for completing certain tasks in the game, which appear to be a bit like achievements.

    One notable feature is that you can only do three haircuts a day, which are on an appointment basis. With this being my first play, and not knowing about it, I found this to be frustrating, as I would have liked to play a little longer than half an hour. However, in the longer term I think this is a good restriction. I was a bit concerned I wouldn't find the time to play this game, but if I can only play for 15 minutes max, I'll easily find space for it. Similar restrictions in Seaman on the Dreamcast fitted very neatly into my schedule.

    Anyway, I just wanted to start a thread on this game because it would appear it's gone unnoticed, like so many WiiWare games. I only heard about it through an EDGE review; apparently it gets quite funny as you relationships with the village folk grows over the weeks – I look forward to it!

    The game is developed by Zoonami, which was formed about ten years ago after Martin Hollis left Rare to form his own company. I've actually had my eye on Zoonami for some time and this is the first of their games I've actually noticed!
    Last edited by egparadigm; 05-01-2010, 11:29.

    #2
    WiiWare is, probably, the most underrated and/or sleeper thing going in games right now with a huge amount of the blame for that falling squarely on Nintendo's flaccid marketing efforts in its promotion. (And, of course, the Wii isn't exactly famous for making people want to hook up their consoles for online play, which doesn't help and is part of the same marketing (as well as development) issue--if NCL would just lead the way on this (via more games w/ integral online functionality), you'd see a lot more people playing Wii games online.)

    As for Bonsai Barber, I tend to agree though I've long since stopped playing it. (Picked it up when it was new.)

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      #3
      Still enjoying this. Been a couple of funny customers, like Mr. Stickley, who's going London and wants a bowler hat because it's raining.

      Only annoyance has been a couple of haircuts which, no matter how many times I re-cut, always stay stubbornly on 4 out of 5 stars.

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