Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure -- Drill Baby, Drill!

It's a real shame that cuteness can kill a game as far as perception is concerned. For the last decade, since the advent of the Playstation era, the cuter games have been blithely ignored as the medium began to gravitate into a more "mature" market. That's if your definition of "mature" means a game packed with blood, guts, and boobies that a bunch of people stuck in a seriously teenage boy mindset scooped up because they apparently didn't want to be misconstrued as "kiddie." It's such a frivolous mindset, yet it still prevails in spades.

One of the games that recently suffered from being ignored is Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure. Upon taking a look at the cover of the game, you can automatically make a bunch of perceptions about what its inherent content is about. And for the most part, you'd be completely correct. But whether you decide to grab it from the shelves depends on your proclivity for overbearing, saccharine cuteness. It isn't helped by the fact that it's a PSP game, either. Honestly, none of this should matter, because the underlying product is a good game, and its ostensible content should be taken as an extra. Or a sugary coating.


Gurumin is about a girl named Parin, who's been forced to live with her grandfather in Tiese Town. Her parents have been called overseas for an excavation, so our poor protagonist has to deal with living in a town where she'll be the only child around. As luck would have it, something interesting happens to Parin as she's exploring the innards of her new home; she discovers a race of monsters that only young children can see, and finds out that their village needs saving. She decides to take the task, and unearths the drill she'll need in order to fulfill her deed. Because it's not like she has anything better to do.

It's when you come into contact with the initial characters in the monster village that you know what the tone of the game will be. Here you have a young girl and boy who address you and offer their thanks in the cutest, cuddly-wuddly way possible. And what helps with that is the voice acting, which tries to hammer its proverbial nail of overbearing cuteness so much that it's absolutely painful to listen to. And though it sounds like an amateurish job -- before the time when amateurish voice acting jobs were redefined in Chaos Wars - there are actually some well-known names involved, and that makes it all the more intolerable. You've probably never heard talent like Tara Strong and Steven Jay Blum in such terrible roles.

And the villains are just as bad, if not worse. Your main villain is a bad guy is a kid who's apparently bent on destroying the race of other monsters because he's just that evil. His subordinates are either a bunch of incompetents or monsters who think they're cute and are just desperate for attention. It's like your childhood of watching bad cartoon villains in action on Saturday mornings never left!


But in games like this, the story is only there for a little extra charm, and it's the game that matters most. On that front, it delivers what it needs to. Gurumin is an interesting amalgam of the action/RPG genre, one that's enough to trigger nostalgia for the days when the genre was prevalent on consoles in the 32-bit era with games like Brave Fencer Musashi and the Mega Man Legends titles. It's also completely in 3D, which is tougher than it sounds for a portable system because of the controls.

Gurumin involves Parin traveling to various locations in order to eradicate the monsters that reside in them. To defeat these enemies and open up new sections in whatever location you're in, you'll need your drill. Later in the game, you can combine your drill with elemental attacks that you can use to do more damage than usual, in the way you expect - electricity and fire more effective on water-based enemies, etc.

The enemies and bosses start of simple enough in order to ease you into the game, but their difficulty ramps up as you go on. Their difficulty progression feels natural; it rarely feels as if the game isn't playing fair or is just out to make your life miserable. Just make sure you're using all of the techniques the drill has to offer, along with acquiring new moves from the guy who has a creepy, nigh-pedophilic crush on Parin in the village (no, seriously).


You'll also be doing your fair share of platforming in the game, and its difficulty progression is similar to the enemies. It starts of with little-to-no platforming to speak of, but as the game goes on, it gives you tougher obstacles to jump over, and then has you jumping along icy platforms. It's fortunate that falling to your doom only results in a loss of 5 HP, but it will be a problem when you start to encounter enemies that hit harder, and when healing stations become less prevalent.

If there's anything to lambaste the game for, it's the camera. This is one of the reasons why doing 3D on a portable system is a tad burdensome. Since the PSP lacks a second analog nub, camera controls are mapped to the shoulder buttons. It works for the most part, though the lack of an ability to move the camera in eight directions can be a problem in the tougher battles with enemies. This also isn't helped by the camera's tendency to focus too close on Parin while in a tight corridor, making navigation completely impossible. Sure, you can eventually move the camera into an advantageous position, but doing so requires fidgeting with it for up to half a minute; it's something you have to spend more time on than you should.

If the camera wasn't problematic enough, make sure you're aware that if you're playing outside, some of the darker locations are nearly impossible to see in daylight, and impossible if the sun is shining brightly. This problem should be alleviated with the PSP-3000, but consider this a warning for existing owners of the system. You know, the people who actually use their PSP.


The music, for the most part, is pretty good. That would be entirely a compliment if the game wasn't developed by Falcom, a company well known for pumping out some of the best soundtracks in the business. Every now and then, you'll hear a track that pops out as something special, but the music mostly consists of tunes that are just good enough to play along with. There's nothing along the line of the Ys soundtracks here. Or The Legend of Heroes ones for that matter.

Nevertheless, Gurumin comes as a breath of fresh air, in that it's a quality title available for the PSP. The fact that it's a port of a PC title is irrelevant due to the quality of the game itself. Well, along with the fact that the PC version didn't see a release outside of Asia. With PSP software selling as poorly as it is now, games like this clamor for the support of gamers desiring an enjoyable experience on the system. If you want to see more games like this, don't just download them from a torrent - instead, support the publisher and get it from the Playstation Store (especially at its current price).