The first thing that I'm going to tell you about this game is that it has a nice 2D animated intro before the title screen, as well as nice 2D animated intros for each character in story mode. So I'm slightly biased towards it, as like all good-hearted people, I really like it when 32-bit era games have 2D animated videos in them.Anyway. The game's about one-on-one tank battles, in small brightly coloured cartoony tanks. All the tanks are different, both in looks and in weaponry. But you should be aware that the tank with a cake for a turret is the best one, since its special weapon sends out some flying exploding giant bananas that are really hard to avoid and do tons of damage.
There's two main modes to play in: Tank World and Story Mode. Tank world is the more in-depth of the two modes; you pick a tank, choose a name for yourself and the tank you chose, then try to fight
your way up the rankings. When you win a fight, you go up in the rankings and also gain a tank part. The main problem with this mode is that you don't get to choose your opponents, just the stage on which you fight them. And the fact that I'm so rubbish I can never get more than one or two ranks places above the bottom rank. Waah.Story mode is basically what would be called "Arcade Mode" in any other fighting game. You pick a character (these characters don't appear in the Tank World mode, and the tanks they have are all the default tanks you can choose from in that mode) and figght the other characters, and the characters will have a conversation before each fight. I don't know what the plot's about because it's all in Japanese. But like i've probably said a million times before, if the plot's so important that your inability to understand it will keep you from playing a game, you're a massive idiot.
As for how the game actually plays, it's mostly pretty good! The tanks are really fun
to drive around, to the point where I wish there were some kind of Choro Q-esque adventure mode so I could drive them round without being shot at. The battles are nice and fast-paced, too, and although I'm terrible at the game and almost constantly lose, it rarely feels unfair. Tying in with the animated cutscenes, the battles do a good job of looking like what battle scenes from a late-90s Japanese cartoon about brightly coloured tanks would look like, were such a show to exist (and if it does exist and I just don't know about it, please inform me!).Pop'n Tanks, then. It's alright. Plus, I'm tagging it as a fighting game, and you can't stop me!
oh, hey. i saw the screenshots of this in your axe post and was wondering what it was.
ReplyDeletethis looks delightful and choro q was the first thing i thought of reading how it plays - specifically the choro q with tanks, though that was kind of a stupid game and this seems like it might be more fun to play. is it just my imagination, or does it have that mega man legends style low poly models with nice cartoony texture work?
anyway thanks for the post, i keep thinking that i've finally learned about every noteworthy japanese ps1 title and it always turns out there's more things like this out there.
there is actually a choro q game with tanks on ps2! it was released in the west as "seek and destroy", and it can be found online really cheap now (like most ps2 games these days, i guess). plus, there's another combat-themed choro q game that i've been meaning to review for ages but never got round to. it'll get done some day...
ReplyDeletei definitely think there's a visual resemblence to megaman legends!
the ps1 in japan seems to have a similar situation to the famicom, in that there were just tons and tons of games released by companies of every size, i'm sure there's still a lot of gems to be discovered for it!
oh durr, i didn't rad your post right, obviously, you've played seek and destroy
ReplyDeletei did! i even wrote a thing, would you believe.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/583311-seek-and-destroy/reviews
are you talking about combat choro q? i'm kind of interested in that one myself but will probably never bother since, like seek and destroy, it's one of barnhouse effect's choro q games. so i don't expect it to be much different. :\ there is only room in my heart for the endearingly ridiculous titles made by e-game.
why is this information in my brain
i think i need to sit down for a while
no, it's not combat choro q. i don't want to say what game it is because i do plan on eventually posting a review of it, and i don't want spoilers!
ReplyDeleteenough said, then! looking forward to it.
ReplyDeleteExcuse me, Do you have game Pop'n Tanks?(somebody) I could you link, please. Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteHi. I know this is an old post but it popped (n tanked) up lol when I was looking to see if pop n tanks was an anime ( unfortunately not ). Love this game ever since I got it for my psx. Not I have it on emulator and it's still fun to play. Love the intro and if you don't press start your treated to a 2 minute cutsceen with a boy and his dad building a tank. Then building one for what I'm going to assume is his sister
ReplyDelete