Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure (Nintendo 3DS) Review

Gurumin 3D starts off with a great first impression thanks to its bright and cartoony world, with a lot of quality English audio. The voice acting is surprisingly strong here, with a few exceptions here and there - mostly the lead actress who voices Purin tends to deliver a few lines flatly with a hint of confusion. Anyone who is familiar with the Mega Man Legends games can know what to expect with Gurumin 3D's healthy Saturday morning anime vibe. While the characters may not be as expressive as they could be, they get job done.

Fortunately, the art direction carries this game strongly and has held up really well for a game from over 10 years old. Purin, for some reason, is the best animated character in the game, and moves the most fluidly. It is not clear why, but all other characters have much choppier animation than the main playable hero. Perhaps it was a means to make the game less taxing on the 3DS hardware, but it does slightly distract to anyone with the trained eye. Other areas where corners were cut is the level design, since every dungeon feels like it was cobbled together from an algorithm that generated them randomly... but they weren't. The level design is just plain bland. It becomes very apparent later on where the game makes some areas just mirrored versions of older areas.

The core game of Gurumin 3D is very basic and revolves around going to dungeons on a map, hacking enemies with a drill, collecting the end level plot-coupon and then returning to town. Not terribly exciting, but suitable for children since it is a basic framework for hacking and slashing. The combat for this kind of game is serviceable, but it is also very bare bones with some room skill. Don't expect any dodge cancelling or complex juggling here, since this is aimed for kids who just want to button mash.

The 3DS controls Gurumin 3D decently enough, but some actions can be difficult to pull off, such as pushing or pulling blocks, which ends up feeling like pulling teeth. Expect to make Purin do certain attacks by accident, since some of her moves involve inputs like a fighting game, where the analogue stick is swooped like a Hadoken movement, and since there is no dodge cancel, expect Purin to get caught in attack animations. The drill itself turns out to be a fairly unique weapon with some quirks that make it interesting, especially the homing attack, which can be used to chain across vast gaps in the levels to reach hidden treasure.

Anyone with a New 3DS will be disappointed that the second analogue stick is just an alternative for the shoulder button camera controls. There is no way to aim the camera up or down, which can become infuriating when trying to figure out some environmental puzzles, or to track enemies that are below Purin. The 3DS' second screen is utilised in the most spartan way possible, which is just a quick menu. The opportunity to clear up the HUD was missed here, and no inclusion of a map is felt strongly, since the areas all look very samey.

Gurumin 3D is a very straightforward port, with no extra flair or utilisation of the 3DS' better features, or even to make the game better. Even the 3D effect is fairly lazily implemented and doesn't really make the visuals pop out, but instead feels like a window. It does, however, prove to have a large amount of post-game content, such as various difficulty modes, bonus costumes and an extra playable character. It won't take long to beat, though, since it can be finished in about 15-20 hours and is not really challenging.

Gurumin 3D has the distinction of being Falcom's first game on the 3DS, which is kind of disappointing because as far as Falcom games go, this is not one of their best. That is not to say Gurumin 3D is a poor game - far from it - but it is a simple game aimed for children, and lacks some of the grander ambitions of the other titles in the developer's portfolio. Anybody who knows about the developer would be perplexed by the choice of Gurumin, of all things, to be ported to the 3DS, since it is such an obscure and kind of forgotten game that the West only knows from the PSP. In a world with no Mega Man Legends 3, Gurumin 3D is possibly the closest the 3DS will ever have to fill that void for a 3D action-adventure RPG with bright cel-shaded graphics, and given the developer's pedigree, the 3DS couldn't do better.