Official Website

Platform: PSP

Genre: Action RPG

Number of Players: 1

If there’s one thing that I’ve wanted to see more of on the PSP, it’s role playing games. I’m not talking about taking a title from years back and adding a few things into it just to “pretty it up.” Yes, Valkyrie Profile; I didn’t like it the first time around, and I didn’t like it when it was re-released. It’s certainly that there aren’t role-playing games on the PSP, but I feel just not enough. The market is saturated with puzzle game after puzzle game, and though they are enjoyable, I often feel the need to save the world, any world, instead of getting thrust into a techno induced trance for hours on end.

Well, it looks like it’s finally time for me to save the world, and it’s about time.

Gurumin is an action RPG from the developers at Nihon Falcom. Okay, you may not know that name like you might Square-Enix, but this is the same company behind one of the more popular RPG franchise that only recently made a comeback; the Y’s series. They’ve also been the ones that brought you the Legend of the Heroes games on the PSP, but Gurumin, which has become something of a rare commodity these days, isn’t like either of these titles. 

In a rare turn of events you will be playing a girl, and not counting offshoots titles like Final Fantasy X-2, the last female lead I recall playing was in Final Fantasy VI. Poor Parin has come to live with her rather forgetful (and probably senile) grandfather while her parents are off on another adventure. Her temporary living arrangement doesn’t seem to be going too smoothly as the mining town has a lack of children. That’s what she though anyway until she met Pino.

But, Pino isn’t like other children, in fact, she’s actually a monster that human adults can’t see. Pino convinces her brother Puku into letting Parin visit their village and a friendship behind human and monster beings to blossom. However, one day Puku is kidnapped by monsters known as Phantoms, and though Parin manages to rescue him, it comes at a high price. The Phantoms have destroyed Monster Village and now many friends are missing. It’s up to Parin not only to find them and help rebuild the village, but stop the Phantom’s led by the Prince before things can get any worse.

Gurumin is an action RPG, similar in its styling to others in the genre such as the Dark Cloud games and of course, Nintendo’s venerable (and still popular) Zelda series. However, despite any of the other games on the market that you could compare Gurumin to, it’s very much its own entity. This will be a solo adventure, so no reliance on your friends. Everything lies in your hands and Parin’s “weapon of choice” is a drill, something very appropriate now that she lives in a mining community. She also will find and purchase various types of headgear, all of which can be upgraded, but a bit more on that later in the review.

The game consists of two different views. You have your overworld where you can move from location to location, no random encounters luckily, but all of the areas won’t be opened at once. You’ll have to visit the current locations on the map and complete them. This means freeing captives from the Monster Village or locating valuable items, or even boss battles. Completing these will reward you based on how you’ve done with medals ranging from bronze to gold. These can be traded with your grandfather for gold or items. As you find your friends and parts of their home, bits of the overworld map will become accessible for you to continue your quest.

Most of the enemies you meet will be lower level, but there are phantoms which are quite powerful and actually become quite important to defeat. They will drop bits of junk that you can collect, something that doesn’t sound important, but back in your hometown, you can use these to upgrade your equipment and increase the stats attributed to it. Some stages may even yield attachments for your drill that will give it some much improved fighting capability. The drill has four power levels in all, but as you start to take damage, your drill will lose its power. Luckily each stage has areas where you can dig in the dirt to help bring it back to its appropriate level of power.

The fighting is actually quite easy. While you can do repeated tapping, you can also charge up your attack. This will do added damage on enemies but it’s also useful for breaking walls in some areas. Parin will also begin to learn special moves that will greatly aid her in defeating the Phantoms, but even with some flashy attacks, it’s always good to have a supply of cookies and chocolate to heal yourself should a heal point be unavailable. There are some minor puzzle solving skills required as well, but there isn’t anything that will stress your mind too much and even riddles that you must solve in some areas to progress. Hey, no one said that fighting Phantoms was going to be easy. And, just for a little more fun, Gurumin also has some special costumes. Some of these you will earn for beating the game on different skill settings but others are specific to days, though sadly nothing to celebrate Halloween.

If you still want a bit more with the game though, you also can destroy a fair amount of items. This isn’t just limited to the jars found in the stages, and these are important to help you gain a master level. Trees, rocks, pillars and even boxes can be broken apart to reveal something that is of the utmost importance; money. You don’t get much of an allowance so gaining some extra spending money is going to help you buy necessary protective gear, curatives, or even the proper materials to keep your drill in perfect working order.

There are some things about the gameplay that I really like. Saving anywhere is at the top of the list. There’s nothing worse that being in the middle of a long trek through a dungeon and having to turn the game off (or losing battery power.) Also, should you be in the middle of a dungeon and need to leave for any reason, you can do so simply by choosing to go back to the overworld map.

If Gurumin is anything, it’s cute, plain and simple. The game starts out as cute with a very nice anime inspired look to it, though in this case it goes a bit more for the “chibi” look. If that doesn’t capture your attention though, the games opening theme song is sure to do the trick. Oh, and pay a visit to the official website and you can even download it for your listening enjoyment as well as many other tracks from the game. While I was fairly captivated at the start, hearing the opening track during the credits combined with some good animations was just the thing to suck me into the world. There are some very good effects as well as you unleash the power of your drills and some fairly decent environmental effects on top of that, but Gurumin really is more about great game play with graphics that aren’t too overly complicated, and this definitely works in its favor.

The PSP honestly has had something of a shortage of RPG’s since it’s been released, and though they definitely have come out, there hasn’t been much that’s groundbreaking. However, Gurumin is exactly what the system needed to break away from puzzle games and is the frontrunner of the 2007 PSP RPG siege that is about to follow. You can’t escape the fun factor, you can’t possibly look away from the cute factor, and to say that this is indeed a “monstrous adventure” is an understatement. The elusive PSP title is one that is at the top of every gamers must have list and if you can find it, grab it; you’ll find out exactly what it’s getting top honors across the board.

-mike-