Ganbare Daiku no Gensan
It's hammer timeGenre: action - hack n slash
Publisher: Irem
Year: 1993
System: SFC
Gameplay Score: 3
Gameplay Notes:
Your one and only attack is to swing your oversized hammer. Your swing has a nice, big arch to it, but enemies move very fast, so the best strategy is to simply inch toward the right while mashing A. It's rather boring, to be honest. You can attack upward by holding up, or pound the ground holding down. You've got a tall, floaty jump, but because of enemy patterns and your enormous hitbox, it's best to jump only when necessary, and only after you've cleared the room of enemies. This makes the platforming an afterthought, reducing the game's appeal even further. The only interesting aspect of the gameplay is the ability to collect powerups. There are a couple of different jackets you can grab, although I couldn't figure out what, if anything, they do. The hammer upgrades are more straight forward - collecting these give you a consumable screen-clearing attack, and when you have 3 or more collected your ground pound sends a projectile along the ground in both directions.
Level Design Score: 4
Level Design Notes:
Platforming is mostly awkward and thankfully the game doesn't feature a lot of it. That said, there are multiple layers of platforms which you can both jump up and drop down through. Nice. Each level introduces a few new mechanics, like climbing poles and then fences, Super Mario World style. The break up the monotony anyway. However, combat is the main element of this game so it's all about moving slowly to take out the fast enemies one by one.
Theme Score: 3
Theme Notes:
The setting is a a generic city and forest scape. You could swap out your character for Garfield and it wouldn't make a difference. Instead, you're a big, SD samurai with an oversized hammer who's killing construction workers, cats, onery grandmas, transhcan monsters, and those hard hat guys from Mega Man. It's weird, especailly given how normal the level biomes are.
Art Style Score: 4
Art Style Notes:
Wonderfully drawn artwork in botht he sprites and the backgrounds. Some of Irem's best stuff on the SNES. Then again, the character models themselves are kind of dull.
Audio Score: 1
Audio Notes:
Oy vey. This is some seriously awful music. The first level's track is a bad modern take on traditional Japanese music, but the second level sounds like a second grader attacking a recorder. Truly awful. The sound effects might be even worse. Every attack elicits an ear-piercing yipe from either you or your unlucky foe. Other events trigger similarly terrible voiced sound effects. Steer clear.
Overall Score: 63
Review ID: 1644
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