Game 35: Akazukin Chacha

 

Remember how I was complaining about how the format of the blog makes it hard to write enough stuff to get past the image? Remember how I own this blog, and can do whatever I like, despite acting as if this format is somehow set in stone?

Anyway, the images are centered at the top now, suck it past me.

Right, so Akazukin Chacha. What is there to say about Akazukin Chacha that hasn't already been said? Considering that I can't find any-frickin-thing about this game in English, apparently a lot.

This is the intro, and if you push any buttons, including the select button, it skips it. I had to dive into .ini files and change the configuration of the emulator so the screenshot button wasn't a button combo and instead a single unused button so it wouldn't immediately skip the intro. I DO IT FOR YOU.

Let's start with the obvious. This is a game for children based on a manga/anime for children. It's not going to be incredible. That's okay.

It's also in Japanese only, so I'm going to entirely miss the point. I think that's okay, but maybe you disagree.

But let's talk about the manga and anime first. Akazukin Chacha is a fairly typical story about a girl named Chacha who is apprenticed to the best magician in the world, but is herself a terrible magician and often makes mistakes. Also, she's little red riding hood and she's in love with a werewolf. And she sometimes turns into a magical girl. And the magician that is training her once fell out of love because his partner dyed her hair, and he couldn't look at her anymore.

Y'know. Typical.

Here he is now, being highly successful and yelling at a 5 year old

The manga first came out in '91 so, that's the era we're talking about. This game was '95, essentially at the end of the first season of the anime. Also the N64 would be coming out the next year. I just like to remind you that the Game Boy was contemporary with Super Mario 64.

Anyway, it seems cute! I like cute things. I would watch it if it wasn't literally for children, and I would get way too bored. But I'd buy a 1 inch tall vinyl figurine of the characters, maybe? They're cute!

whoops

But we're not here to talk about manga or anime, regrettably. We're here to talk about games.

The game itself is fairly inscrutable, like a lot of licensed games are, but also, and I can't emphasize this enough, I can't read any of it. 

First, you get to pick a character:

The gang's back together again...ready to stab....

And then you get randomly get assigned a...co-character? Using one of those "trace the line down and take every possible turn and that will be your result" except it doesn't show you the answers so it's impossible to know what you're getting?

Otherwise known as a "Christmas Bing bing bingo"

And then you walk around an apartment complex talking to literally everyone until one of them tells you the thing you need to know, I guess??

Look at this parade of dipshits

And finally, finally, an old lady tells you to go to a maze, at which point you go to the maze, and you're in the maze, and you walk so slowly it takes a solid 5 seconds to cross a single screen, and you cross three screens in the maze, and each time you go to a new screen an old man interrupts you in a cutscene and does...something, and then you find a treasure chest you can't open, and then you go left again at which point you are assaulted by a samurai and die???

Is this what a Samurai is??? I honestly don't know

And then you get kicked back to the apartments and, I guess, start all over again. 

I am 100% missing something important here. I'm aware of that!! But I honestly think this game, and this might be shocking, is bad. Even if you can understand Japanese.

It's so goddamn cute though!!!

No walking speed should make me feel like taking a bath in concrete, and a samurai should never assault a child. I'm here to take a stand against samurais murdering children. Brave, I know.

Pictured: a dead child and a magician who hates hair dye

But yeah, after this I quit the game. 

Remember 3 Choume no Tama - Tama and Friends - 3 Choume Obake Panic!!? Because I certainly do. And that was a game made for kids being played by an illiterate adult, and guess what? It was still fun. This is all the evidence I need that you can make good games for kids, an audience that by default can't read very well. 

So yeah, I think this game is bad. It's mysterious though! And very cute, and kinda strange. I respect it as an object. I just don't want to play it.

Much like this chest does not want to be opened

And that's that! Next up, we have a game that also has a slow walking speed, but is much more respectable.