It doesn't matter whether you've seen the Japanese reality show on which Game Center CX: Arino's Challenge is based. This new Nintendo DS game will deliver a dose of humorous and all-too-true retro game nostalgia to anyone who remembers the 80's.
Hey, remember the 80's? Remember poring over game magazines for cheat codes to help you get past the impossible sections of the short, difficult NES games of the era?
Remember sitting around with your friends on lazy summer days trying to be the first one to get past that tricky part? So do the people who designed Game Center CX, an homage to 1985's game culture.
The premise is simple: Arino, the comedian who stars in the popular TV show, gets fed up with his constant diet of retro games and turns into an evil wizard, who curses you to go back in time and live as a child of the 80's again -- unless you complete his challenges on a series of retro games that look and feel like, but are not, the real thing.
The game opens up with you and your pal in the family room (your pal is the child-version of Arino, who can't believe that he grows up to be an evil old man), with little to entertain you but a Famicom and a copy of Cosmic Gate, a Galaga-inspired shooter. If you want, you can pop the game in the system and just start playing, but Arino starts assigning you challenge after challenge. Clear Stage 5. Use the "warp gates" twice. Blow up a giant asteroid. Get 200,000 points.
Cosmic Gate itself is quite fun, a nifty little throwback shooter with surprisingly intense action. You'll hear Arino's gasps and interjections as you play ("Look, a 1up!" "Oh no!" Etc.), but for the most part it's a straightforward retro-styled game.
Eventually, you realize that you're not quite sure how to pull off some of these objectives. For example, to make a Warp Gate appear, you have to make sure that the flashing enemy in a certain wave is the first one you kill. This information is in the game's instruction booklet, which you can flip through by pausing the game and going back to the main menu on the lower screen.
And each game, of course, has secrets. You can enter in secret codes for powerups, or find Super Warp Gates on certain levels. To find these, you'll have to flip through back issues of Game Fan Magazine (no, not that Game Fan), which also contain previews of upcoming games, fictional Top Ten lists, and editorials from the fictional staff.
Once you get through four Cosmic Gate challenges, you'll move onto the next game: Karakuri Ninja Huggleman, which looks and plays a little like Ninja Jajamaru-kun, only not terrible.
I find this all quite clever. I didn't know from the TGS demo that there'd be all this paging through old magazines to find hidden tips, and I think it's a very interesting idea that amps up the gameplay value while making the nostalgic premise of the game work all the better.
Of course, with this comes a caveat: the language barrier is pretty steep. In fact, if you can't read what's going on, you likely won't be able to pass the second challenge without a ridiculous amount of trial, error, and frustration.
That said, I see absolutely no reason why this shouldn't be brought to the US. As I said before, you need not be at all familiar with the source material to understand the premise: we all grew up with games like this, and from what I've seen thus far the gameplay would work well no matter what the country.
