Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure (PSP) Review

Our first PSP review of 2010 actually comes to us from a game that came out in 2007. It's a charming little dungeon-crawler you probably haven't heard of. It's Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure.

Drill, Baby, Drill.

For a system whose software sales are abysmal first party and third, you can imagine there's a lot of overlooked treasures on the system. That's pretty much because there are. The following is one of those games that if you can get past the too cutesy outer coating of paint is one that dungeon-crawlers should look into. It's Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure for the PSP.

You play as Parin, a little girl who just moved into a town where she's the only child around. The men of the village spend their days working at a nearby coal mine. One day, Parin encounters another girl in the town close to her age, perhaps even younger. It turns out only Parin can see her. It's revealed that the "another girl" isn't really a girl at all and is in actuality a monster from another realm. It seems only monsters can be seen by children and not adults. The monster invites Parin to her monster village. Unfortunately, the village is quickly attacked by a horde of evil monsters led by a prince. The prince has monster-napped four of the townspeople, and Parin takes it upon herself with a magical drill to save them. The game's story is told in real-time with various voiced characters giving off important dialogue. Everything else is written in text relegated to talking to lesser townspeople and shopkeepers.

Parin chats with the locals.

The flow of Gurumin is that the world is covered in an impenetrable dark mist. Only certain areas are open to explore. As Parin enters various dungeons, passes through their trials and tribulations, and uncovers a seemingly useless piece of furniture at the dungeon's end, Parin can head back to the village and return the furniture to the monsters living in the village. Each time a monster gets one of their belongings back, their happiness opens up a new section of the game map to explore, often opening up new locales and dungeons to check out. The process continues with occasional boss battles, to keep things fresh, thrown in with the fate of a kidnapped monster on the line.

The main playing time with Parin is spent in numerous dungeons each which different themes: forest, ruins, mountaintop, temple, and so forth. Each area has simple puzzles to solve from lighting all the torches in a room to pushing blocks to use as platforms to reach higher areas. Parin's drill allows her to take down enemies and bust through cracked walls accessing hidden passages. There's also plenty of treasure inside each level from health-boosting cookies to drill-powering oil. Enemies in Gurumin usually have armor on, so Parin will need to power up her drill to smack into them and strip their defense from them. As Parin gets damaged, her HP goes down and her drill becomes weaker in power. Thankfully, there's enough items to help her out on her long, arduous journey.

Explore dungeons without the
Gamespot logo blocking your path!

Each dungeon lasts around ten to fifteen minutes in length your first time through. Your scored on how fast you get through the dungeon, how many treasures you find, pots and vases you smash, and enemies you defeat, so to get a great ranking it's imperative that you thoroughly explore a given room much more the whole dungeon. These rankings give you rare medals that can be traded in for money and new costumes. Costumes aren't just for fashion in Gurumin. Each one possesses a power such as deterring elemental attacks or earning Parin more money for each enemy defeated. There's a plethora of costumes to unlock, and the better ones are hard to find, need multiple playthroughs of the game to acquire, or just take a lot of work to grab.

Parin, quit monkeyin' around!

Playing Gurumin is pretty simple with not much fuss. One button jumps, one charges and attacks with the drill, and one transports Parin close-by to another space. The shoulder buttons take care of camera control, and you can opt to use the directional pad or the analog nub for movement. Some special maneuvers require moving around the d-pad or nub, so it's easier to control the game with the nub in this regard.

Gurumin runs okay on Sony's PSP, but all isn't well. There's occasional slowdown when lots of movement and special effects are happening on screen at the same time. The voice acting is decent with familiar voices if you watch enough anime. However, the dialogue seems very forced and doesn't flow as elegantly as it could.

I think the main problem with Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure is that without the cute exterior lies an interior that's been there, done that. There's nothing extremely striking about this game other than its overly saccharine charm. The extensive dungeon exploring isn't all too captivating, and the story isn't very interesting either. All in all, however, Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure stands as an above average dungeon-crawler that is perfect for all ages (given you can stand the cute and cuddly coating painted onto the game).

[SuperPhillip Says: 7.5/10]

SuperPhillip's Favorite VGMs - Happy New Year Edition

Happy new year from the VGMs! To kick off the new year we have for you Zelda, Pokemon, Star Fox, Mario Kart, and Wario to shake the new year off right.

v461. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures - Hyrule Castle

Four Swords Adventures is one of the most overlooked Zelda titles in the franchise. I loved it because it basically combined the graphical and sound assets of Wind Waker and A Link to the Past. More so A Link to the Past than Wind Waker which was pretty much relegated to character design and explosions. This theme is of Hyrule Castle. It's pretty much the same as from A Link to the Past. It's just I wanted to talk about this game a little more.



v462. Mario Kart Wii - Coconut Mall

Mario Kart Wii was a lot of things. Fast, fun, frenetic, and frustrating. The music was a huge improvement over the DS installment, too. Coconut Mall takes place in, you guessed it, a mall with escalators, moving cars in the parking lot, and a bright, cheery disposition. A fun race for a fun game. Here's the title track.



v463. Star Fox Assault - Katina

I very much enjoyed the music from Star Fox 64. Being able to hear most of it in orchestrated form in Star Fox Assault was a pure delight. This theme is Katina. In Star Fox Assault, it's where the second mission takes place, destroying enemy generators and then the giant boss. The soundtrack is rich with bold themes and memorable tracks.



v464. Wario Land: Shake It! - Windbreak Bay

Wario Land: Shake It! is one of my favorite Wii games thus far. The game has plenty to explore, collect, and do. Windbreak Bay is one of the three underwater subwarine levels in the game. This is one of the longer tracks in the game, repeating twice in the span of seven minutes. If you have the time or money, check out Wario Land: Shake It!



v465. Pokemon - Route 1/Veridian City (SSBB Remix)

I remember going full blown into Pokemon craze. I collected the cards, I collected the toys, I drew my own comic book line, and I, of course, played the games. This twofer plays Route 1 and Veridian City rolled into one song from the original duo of Pokemon games. This comes from the exhaustive Super Smash Bros. Brawl soundtrack.



That's all for the VGMs for this week. We'll catch you later next time!

Rabbids Go Home (Wii) Review

Can you believe it's 2010? Doesn't feel like it yet, that's for sure! Regardless, it's time to bring out the first review of the new year, and it's a game that was nominated for Best New Franchise in the SPC Best of 2009 Awards. It's none other than Rabbids Go Home for the Wii. Enjoy, and happy new year once again!

Rabbids Gone Wild

Introduced as the antagonists to Rayman in the Wii launch title, Rayman Raving Rabbids, the cute, hilarious, and off-the-wall rabbids have been relegated to starring in mini-game collection after mini-game collection. Not that there's anything wrong with the genre. Regardless, many of us have wanted to see the rabbids branch out into more unfamiliar territory and into a new genre. Apparently the prayers have been answered as the rabbids are now being featured in their first and hopefully not last comedy-adventure with Rabbids Go Home, exclusively for the Wii. With its wackiness, insane cast of characters, and just the right touch of humor, Rabbids Go Home seems like a real winner.

One night the rabbids are collecting garbage in a shopping cart when they devise an excellent plan-- well, excellent for the mentally deficient rabbids! Their plot is to build a tower of junk so high that they'll be able to reach their home, the moon. Big ideals for such small creatures, wouldn't you say? Seeing that there isn't enough stuff in their junkyard to reach the moon, they cast their sights even higher at a nearby town. It is there where they will gather the necessary materials to fulfill their goal of reaching the moon and returning home. The main story really doesn't go much further than that until the end of the game, but there's various small sub-plots that occur in many of the games levels. The story will make the most hardened gamer laugh with delight as they wonder what those wacky rabbids will do next.

You'll be revisiting the junkyard plenty.

The structure of Rabbids Go Home has the rabbids entering the main hub of the game-- a series of city blocks. Here they enter special passages where they can select levels to explore. Once your garbage tower is high enough, you'll unlock a new set of levels, and the process repeats itself henceforth. There's usually four or five levels to each special passage, and of course, each set is harder than the last making for a nice ease of difficulty. All in all, the game probably takes around ten hours to complete, but there's grabbing all the unlockables and going for high scores.

The city is the hub of Rabbids Go Home.

Levels themselves have one goal in mind-- to capture the rabbid's target be it a large piece of furniture, a safe, or even a cow of all things on the rascally rabbids' conquest to return home. That's not all you should focus on in levels. There's tons of smaller goodies to grab up and place in the rabbids' shopping cart. By collecting enough garbage and pieces of junk in a level, you'll earn one of four gifts. The higher your points score, the more gifts you'll get. Just what are such gifts? More on that later.

As for playing the levels, the camera's always in a fixed position, and seldom ever causes the player problems. Early levels are pretty much devoid of hazards and enemies to tackle, but later stages are full of bottomless pits, swinging mechanisms, swaying platforms, offensive enemies such as dogs and government agents, bombs, and cacti. There's plenty of sections in levels where you won't be able to move on until all enemies are defeated or all pipes are received. The rabbids start out with three or four hits available to them before they have to restart at the beginning or a checkpoint. By collecting light bulbs, you'll refill the health of your rabbid pair. Being attacked by an enemy or running into a spiked cactus or hazardous balloon will break one of the rabbids' bulbs. You'll spend most of your retries due to bottomless pits and missed jumps. When you lose a "life", all junk collected in a given level is lost. Thankfully, you can hand your hauled garbage to a helper rabbid holding a tuba, so when you die the junk given to the tuba-playing rabbid isn't lost.

Certain paths will remain blocked
until all enemies in the area are defeated.

Certain levels have gimmicks to them. One of which has you racing a cow aboard a truck as you attempt to beat him to a set point so you can steal him. Another has you riding on the turbine of a plane and jetting through an airport gobbling up items. There's also a mission where you'll be using a bubble bed to float from one platform to another all the while the senile passenger keeps asking for his nurse. Finally, there's work zones that are timed, so they must be passed through before the gates shut close. These are just some of the zany scenarios that pop up in Rabbids Go Home.

The controls of Rabbids Go Home feel tight and responsive. There's no loose feeling that would have killed this sort of game. You hold A to accelerate, and let go to slow down. You're never going too fast that you feel that you're going out of control. Later on you learn the ability to run your shopping cart on water and boost. Boosting is done by taking a sharp enough turn so you see electric marks underneath your cart. Then, if you don't bump into anything, you can maneuver your cart on a ramp, boost, and leap over it with ease. Later levels are dedicated to this boost ability, so it's important to learn. Motion control is limited to navigating through menus, dolling up your rabbid, and various shaking mini-games included within the game. Oh, and only attacking enemies left and right and scaring clothes off the ladies!

These dogs sure pack a vicious bite.

I mentioned gifts earlier on, and these are meant to be used in the rabbids creation area of the game. You can suck up one of three rabbids "inside of your remote" and play with them. Shake the remote, and the rabbid will go flying all over the place on the TV screen. Tap buttons, and the rabbid will inquisitively stare at them with great infatuation. You can also customize your rabbid with paint, accessories, and hats. The aforementioned gifts unlock new tattoos, accessories, and hats to equip your own personal rabbid with. The customization aspects are really good, and you can create some great looking rabbids pretty easily. I, myself, made one that is a splitting image of SuperPhillip... well, if SuperPhillip had floppy ears and a crazed look on his face. Nonetheless, you can create anything from Sam Fisher to Altair from Assassin's Creed. I know this because two of these are unlockable rabbids!

That little guy sure looks familiar...

Presentation-wise Rabbids Go Home is a pleasant looker. The framerate holds true, and cut-scenes are fun to look at whether they're cartoon-stylized or pure CG. The soundtrack is a mix of licensed and original tunes from Me and Bobby McGee to Boogie Wonderland. The original tunes are frantic and brass focused. It's perfect for a game starring those lovable rabbids.

Rabbids Go Home is an endearing and hilarious game that fans of the crazy rabbid gang will enjoy tenfold. For everyone else, there's enough wacky (there's that word again) charm and carnage to make it worth a purchase. The game may be a little on the short side, but obtaining all four gifts in each level and getting high scores is always a fun pastime. For quality off-the-wall insanity to the nth degree, there's really no better game for a Wii owner than Rabbids Go Home.

[SuperPhillip Says: 8.0/10]

Review Round-Up - December

Kneel before the game of the month,
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

The game releases slowed down, but SPC kept on running at full capacity! This month featured some excellent titles with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks leading the charge with a 9.5. Runners-up this month include Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, and Goldeneye 007 all receiving a 9.25. Both Call of Duty games for PS3, 360, PC, and Wii were reviewed and both were given an 8.5 (though by different reviewers) which was the same score given to the charming A Boy and His Blob. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 got its own installment on the SPC Quickies, and the rotten egg of the month goes to the slightly average Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg.

All scores are out of 10.
5 = Average

A Boy and His Blob (Wii) - 8.5
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3) - 9.25
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (GCN) - 9.25
SPC Quickies Volume Five - Xbox 360 Blockbuster
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition (Wii) - 8.5
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3, 360, PC) - 8.5
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (GCN) - 5.75
Goldeneye 007 (N64) - 9.25
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS) - 9.5

Ratchet was as poised as ever in December!

Central City Census - January

Happy new year, one and all! 2009 was a fun year, but let's kick it to the wayside and enjoy 2010 to the fullest. But first, let's check out December 2009's census.


The majority of voters said that they weren't planning on getting a new system for the holidays, but you probably didn't need me to tell you that. Out of the platforms that did get some votes, the PlayStation 3 is the highest. No wonder it was the system of the year for 2009 on SuperPhillip Central, the new slim, the relaunch, and a wide catalog of great games. Meanwhile, five percent said they were getting more than one. Lucky devils. Rounding out the voting was the DS with 4 votes, and the Wii, 360, and PSP with 2 votes apiece.

On SuperPhillip Central it was revealed that the PlayStation 3 was the gaming system of the year with its relaunch and catalog of hot exclusive titles. The first census of 2010 asks, what was your system of 2009?