osomatsu-san matsumatsuri, i'm sorry for giving you 3 stars babygirl but you deserve it... that being said: i love this game. it's so charming, and it holds a special place in my heart alongside all the silly spin-offs that osomatsu-san specifically has had, and i'm SO glad i stumbled across it.
to begin: this game is a collection of minigames based around the shenanigans from season 1. albeit, a little loosely. these minigames are: horse racing, donjara/ponjan (based off the mahjong episode), running chibita's oden stand, whack-a-mole, fishing, sutabaa cafe, surviving a mixer, snowball fight, mr flag sync, and a space game...?
really, its quite an eclectic collection of games.
your goal is to pick one of the loser brothers and raise his popularity/likeability by winning games with him, the more games you win, the more unlockables and affection he will receive. oh, did i not mention the unlockables? we'll get to that... overall, the games are surprisingly pretty fun but the limitation of this game being pretty low budget really shines. i think they work really well, and considering this game was about 20 bucks on release? i'm satisfied with it and i can see myself coming back to this when i have just a little time to kill and want to play on my 3ds. i wanted to go in depth about each game, but there isn't a HUGE amount to say about them, so i'll just give my highlight thoughts.
- the fishing minigame is busted. it is like stupidly hard to play, and i'm not sure if it's just a flaw in me misunderstanding HOW to play it because of the translation barrier, but truthfully i don't think so. i can catch small and mid-sized fish, but the large ones are absolutely impossible. i know this game is old af, but bandai namco please tell the devs to release a patch that will nerf the large fish LMAO
- the oden stand is just a match three but the art for it is so fucking cute lmao i actually really liked this one. its just speed matching. feels great.
- horse racing is so rng, it makes me mad but its perfect for the game it is.
- i dont know who decided to make the hatabou flag minigame a rhythm game but i LOVE YOU! it is so fitting and seeing karamatsu raise his lil flags in sync with hatabou is so funny. thank u.
- the mixer one... i dont understand why they're in those costumes. what is going on over there. i know we're trying to keep the nightmare brothers away from the girls, but why tf is zombie santa ichi here. what is going ON.
- space ?
- snowball minigame is really cute and probably the most fun. just wish it was a little harder or a little faster.
so now that we've discussed THAT, it's time to get to the meat of the game: your rewards for playing. as you win and get more points and subsequently rank up towards more popularity ratings, you unlock different outfits/sprites for the brother you won with, new backgrounds, voice lines, anime cgs, and even voicelines for the brother of your choice. it's... honestly really cute. a lot of these are just ripped from other spinoffs or promo artwork, but the variety and sheer amount of artwork in here is kind of ridiculous. it's all surprisingly high quality and really fucking cute!! there are a LOT of unlockables, 48 voicelines, sprites, and backgrounds PER sextuplet, which is more than i had expected to begin with.
the artwork (and music, tbh) are really fucking good in this game. while there is some recycling from the anime, a lot of the assets are completely new, and the amount of detail they put into everything is so unbearably sweet. one of my favorite bits from the 1st season is karamatsu's ungodly glitter pants that he wears when he goes fishing with totty, and they... actually made that his default outfit when you play the fishing game with him ?! the other brothers get their default outfits, but they actually drew something new for kara cause of the episode! granted, its a whole 15 minute segment from an episode and thats what this whole game is based off of, but the fact they drew up new assets for it was surprising and very cool. its easy to have just... not done that and use a screencap instead, but they didn't and you can see where they did similar in other minigames. even the main menu is a cutely animated scene from the opening where they sit around, smiling, and idle around. there is a lot of heart in this game's entire art direction, but i shouldn't be surprised when this is something that has persisted over the years in the osomatsu dev teams.
as further proof of this, this game is... so quirky. there's a whole tab dedicated to 3 silly, non-minigame features: a clock, calculator, and alarm clock ?! both the calculator and alarm clock have 3 skins per brother, with the alarm clock/timer having a different voiceline from the brother of your choice as the sound. its so freaking cute that they did this. as far as i can tell, these are completely new lines. and the clocks have embarrassingly cringe artwork that makes me love them endlessly. have i mentioned how charming this game is????
if it wasn't clear already, i love the direction they took this game. there is so much heart in it, and i really admire that especially when this game was just a miscellaneous collection of one-off minigames meant to capitalize on the success of the first season. my biggest and only gripe, is just how little there is to do. the games are alright, and while i will probably replay this more than i'd like to admit, it's mostly from the charm of this being a series i really love and not for how fun the whack-a-mole game is (insert sarcastic cheering). the lack of games or at least game depth makes unlocking all the cute sprites and voice lines just... impossible. i dont want to set that goal for myself, because it'd be entirely unfun. i wish there was more, ultimately, and i can't suggest someone to buy this, but i am glad this was made. thank god for how wonderful all the osomatsu game devs have been and will continue to be. you can tell with each game that they love this series, and this one isn't an exception.
to begin: this game is a collection of minigames based around the shenanigans from season 1. albeit, a little loosely. these minigames are: horse racing, donjara/ponjan (based off the mahjong episode), running chibita's oden stand, whack-a-mole, fishing, sutabaa cafe, surviving a mixer, snowball fight, mr flag sync, and a space game...?
really, its quite an eclectic collection of games.
your goal is to pick one of the loser brothers and raise his popularity/likeability by winning games with him, the more games you win, the more unlockables and affection he will receive. oh, did i not mention the unlockables? we'll get to that... overall, the games are surprisingly pretty fun but the limitation of this game being pretty low budget really shines. i think they work really well, and considering this game was about 20 bucks on release? i'm satisfied with it and i can see myself coming back to this when i have just a little time to kill and want to play on my 3ds. i wanted to go in depth about each game, but there isn't a HUGE amount to say about them, so i'll just give my highlight thoughts.
- the fishing minigame is busted. it is like stupidly hard to play, and i'm not sure if it's just a flaw in me misunderstanding HOW to play it because of the translation barrier, but truthfully i don't think so. i can catch small and mid-sized fish, but the large ones are absolutely impossible. i know this game is old af, but bandai namco please tell the devs to release a patch that will nerf the large fish LMAO
- the oden stand is just a match three but the art for it is so fucking cute lmao i actually really liked this one. its just speed matching. feels great.
- horse racing is so rng, it makes me mad but its perfect for the game it is.
- i dont know who decided to make the hatabou flag minigame a rhythm game but i LOVE YOU! it is so fitting and seeing karamatsu raise his lil flags in sync with hatabou is so funny. thank u.
- the mixer one... i dont understand why they're in those costumes. what is going on over there. i know we're trying to keep the nightmare brothers away from the girls, but why tf is zombie santa ichi here. what is going ON.
- space ?
- snowball minigame is really cute and probably the most fun. just wish it was a little harder or a little faster.
so now that we've discussed THAT, it's time to get to the meat of the game: your rewards for playing. as you win and get more points and subsequently rank up towards more popularity ratings, you unlock different outfits/sprites for the brother you won with, new backgrounds, voice lines, anime cgs, and even voicelines for the brother of your choice. it's... honestly really cute. a lot of these are just ripped from other spinoffs or promo artwork, but the variety and sheer amount of artwork in here is kind of ridiculous. it's all surprisingly high quality and really fucking cute!! there are a LOT of unlockables, 48 voicelines, sprites, and backgrounds PER sextuplet, which is more than i had expected to begin with.
the artwork (and music, tbh) are really fucking good in this game. while there is some recycling from the anime, a lot of the assets are completely new, and the amount of detail they put into everything is so unbearably sweet. one of my favorite bits from the 1st season is karamatsu's ungodly glitter pants that he wears when he goes fishing with totty, and they... actually made that his default outfit when you play the fishing game with him ?! the other brothers get their default outfits, but they actually drew something new for kara cause of the episode! granted, its a whole 15 minute segment from an episode and thats what this whole game is based off of, but the fact they drew up new assets for it was surprising and very cool. its easy to have just... not done that and use a screencap instead, but they didn't and you can see where they did similar in other minigames. even the main menu is a cutely animated scene from the opening where they sit around, smiling, and idle around. there is a lot of heart in this game's entire art direction, but i shouldn't be surprised when this is something that has persisted over the years in the osomatsu dev teams.
as further proof of this, this game is... so quirky. there's a whole tab dedicated to 3 silly, non-minigame features: a clock, calculator, and alarm clock ?! both the calculator and alarm clock have 3 skins per brother, with the alarm clock/timer having a different voiceline from the brother of your choice as the sound. its so freaking cute that they did this. as far as i can tell, these are completely new lines. and the clocks have embarrassingly cringe artwork that makes me love them endlessly. have i mentioned how charming this game is????
if it wasn't clear already, i love the direction they took this game. there is so much heart in it, and i really admire that especially when this game was just a miscellaneous collection of one-off minigames meant to capitalize on the success of the first season. my biggest and only gripe, is just how little there is to do. the games are alright, and while i will probably replay this more than i'd like to admit, it's mostly from the charm of this being a series i really love and not for how fun the whack-a-mole game is (insert sarcastic cheering). the lack of games or at least game depth makes unlocking all the cute sprites and voice lines just... impossible. i dont want to set that goal for myself, because it'd be entirely unfun. i wish there was more, ultimately, and i can't suggest someone to buy this, but i am glad this was made. thank god for how wonderful all the osomatsu game devs have been and will continue to be. you can tell with each game that they love this series, and this one isn't an exception.