Nov 142016
I’ve had Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure for a while (and even gave away a copy during my Tales of Zestiria Let’s Play), and now I’ve finally played it.
I played the Steam version, but it’s also available for the PSP and most recently the 3DS.
Gurumin is described as an action RPG, which I don’t understand. Action, yes. It’s an action-adventure game similar to The Legend of Zelda, if Zelda included a good dose of 3D platforming.
Regardless of what genre it is, Gurumin is fun. It stars a young girl named Parin, who befriends a group of benevolent monsters. When their village is attacked by the Phantoms, Parin takes up the legendary drill used to defeat an ancient enemy and sets out to fight the Phantom and help her friends.
Yes, a drill. She doesn’t have a sword or any traditional weapon. She fights with a drill.
In addition to your basic drill attack, you also can use charged attacks and a variety of special attacks you unlock during the game. You can also equip your drill with elemental effects. As you fight, you’ll build your drill’s power gauge, which determines its strength and certain moves you can use.
Your equipment is also important (and this may be what makes people think of it as an RPG), as you find a variety of headgear to boost your stats. You only can wear one at a time, and you may need to change equipment on the fly based on new situations. These pieces of equipment can be upgraded by spending junk you collect from armored Phantoms.
Phantoms are adorable. Sure, they’re the bad guys, but they’re as cute as the friendly monsters. Even the random enemies you fight in dungeons are cute, with little emoticon speech bubbles when they talk to each other, and the main cast of baddies is impossible to hate.
Not that these are particularly deep characters, mind you, just likable. The same goes for the friendly monsters, who all have their own traits, but most of whom only have minor roles in the story.
The power of friendship fuels this story and it’s all pretty lighthearted, although as you fight your way through Phantoms to help the monsters, there are a couple of twists along the way. It was an enjoyable story with a satisfactory conclusion, although I wish they’d clarified one point.
If they’re holding this in reserve for a sequel, that’s fine with me. Now I just hope they make a sequel. I wouldn’t say no to more Gurumin!
Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure is a fun action-adventure game that gives you a number of dungeons to fight through, with a ranking system that encourages you to replay dungeons to fight every monster and smash every jar, and entertains you with a cute story about a girl and her monster friends. It may not be quite an RPG, but it’s definitely a fun, charming game.
Buy Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure from Steam
Buy Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure (PSP) from Amazon
Buy Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure from the Nintendo eShop
[…] we’ll get an Ys announcement, too, or a game in one of Falcom’s other series. A Gurumin sequel, anyone? […]