Sony’s PSP was one of the few times (other than the Neo Geo Pocket Color), that I was lured away from Nintendo’s handheld juggernaut for a bit.  The PSP had a lot of great games, and my top five include Loco Roco 1 & 2, Mega Man Powered Up, Half-Minute Hero, Ys Seven, and Gurumin.  Fortunately, that last game on my list is now available as a downloadable title for the Nintendo 3DS.  Best of all, even ten years later the game is just as enjoyable as I remember it being.

In the game you play as Parin, a young girl whose parents are excavators and are often away on trips.  So she goes to live with her grandfather in a mining town.  Unfortunately, there are no other kids in this town for her to play with, but shortly after arriving she discovers a hole in the wall that leads to another dimension full of friendly monsters.  Soon after making friends with the monsters, phantoms destroy the village and kidnap the residents.  Parin finds a legendary drill that can defeat the phantoms, so she goes off on a quest to save her new friends and rebuild their village.  The game is a colorful 3-D action adventure platformer that is like a cross between Mario 64 and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.

In the game you select stages from an overworld map.  You’ll tromp through forests, ruins, caves, and mountains.  The stages are fairly linear, but are full of baddies to fight and puzzles to solve.  At the end of each stage is a piece of furniture stolen from the monsters by the phantoms.  Return it to its rightful owner in town to open up more stages to play.  After beating a few areas, you’ll rescue another monster as well.

Parin can jump, dash, and use her drill.  You can swing the drill around to attack, or hold down the button to charge it up.  When you get go, you can make the drill spin.   Not only can the drill defeat enemies, it can also break through rocks, cracked walls, and other structures when you do this.  Beating enemies and breaking pots will earn you coins, which you can spend back at the shops in the mining town.  The game saves how many pots and enemies you’ve destroyed in each area, so you can go back to play them to improve your ranking.

The dimensional portal is always open, so you can go back and visit the mining town after beating stages.  Here you can use your coins to buy healing items, outfits that have special effects when you wear them, and drill parts.  Some drill parts give you special moves, while others you can equip for elemental attacks.  There are tons of other secrets hidden in this game, too, but I won’t spoil them for you here.  You’ll just have to play the game to discover them!  The 3DS version of this game adds a few extra tweaks from the original PSP version.  There is a more comprehensive tutorial system, 3D graphics of course, easy access to menus on the bottom screen, and if you have a New Nintendo 3DS, you can adjust the camera with the right analog nub.

Gurumin 3D has a few problems, most of which are carried over from the original game.  If you don’t have a New Nintendo 3DS, the camera angles can sometimes be problematic.  When you beat the boss of each area, you can play a few extra stages, but they’re just mirrored versions of previous levels, which I always thought was kind of cheap.  And I wish this game came in a physical cartridge form, too, like it did on the PSP.  You’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming into the digital age I guess.  But other than that, this is still a fantastic game and I highly recommend it.  One cool thing is that this game was made by Nihon Falcom.  I’m a big fan of their other games, like the Ys series.

Kid Factor:

Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Mild Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Tobacco Reference.  You only hit cartoony enemies with a drill, and they just disappear when defeated.  The other descriptors just come from conversations with one of the miners about smoking and asking your character out on a date, and that’s it.  Reading skill is needed for some of the text.  Multiple difficulty levels mean that players of all skills can enjoy this game, but younger players may need help with some of the tougher end areas.  But I think most kids will enjoy the colorful and cheerful adventure anyway.

Tags: Game Reviews