Hammerin' Hero for PSP Reviews by Gamers

I'm not sure why the stars have aligned to allow the PSP, a system many are (rightly) claiming is now dead, to have two awesome, retro-styled 2D games in a few months. Just in time for those that hopped on the super-difficult Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? bandwagon comes a perfect niche follow-up in the form of the action-heavy Hammerin' Hero -- a throwback to the old 8-bit Hammerin' Harry games.



This time around, multi-job slugger Gen dons multiple hats (literally) in an effort to push back an invading conglomerate trying to undermine the bucolic way of life in a small Japanese town. Doing so means fighting them on multiple fronts; as a baseball player, a deep sea diver, a ghost hunter, a... um, sushi chef, a... DJ -- yes, it's all insane, and that's a huge part of the charm. The bulk of it, however, comes from just how incredibly old-school it all is, right down to a difficulty that's certainly high, but never unfairly so. It's a distinction that few games these days actually understand and instead of piling on enemies that attack you from off screen or hit you when you're down, every single death in Hammerin' Hero comes from you screwing up.



Most of the time that just means not hitting something before it hits you. Gen's attacks are intrinsically suited to reflecting back all manner of projectiles and even in the game's boss fights, chances are you'll end up dying because you were too greedy about sneaking in hits between moments of dodging the enemy's attacks. The addition of job classes to the old-school gameplay is a welcome one; each job has its own special attack (usually some kind of area effect, though there are projectile-based ones too) and by munching on a bento lunch provided by Gen's could-be girlfriend Kanna, you can change classes once per level. Kanna can actually screw up while making lunch, too, which can result in random benefits to the sushi.



Though the game is a little on the shorter side, there's quite a bit packed into each of the few minute-long levels. Some levels sport multiple pathways (depending on when you finish off a mini-boss fight, for instance) and the different difficulty levels will actually change enemy placement and numbers, which encourages multiple playthroughs. Even the way you hit enemies or foreground objects (with a Triangle-based home run swing rather than a normal overhead swipe) can send them flying into the background to unlock more items used in making lunches. The most complex rewards, however, come from solving some of the job-specific requests in a level.



Every stage is punctuated by people suffering from some kind of emotional problem and you solve them like any manly man: by bashing the crap out of 'em. What's cool, though, is that smacking a cloud of depression off a normal city dweller can sometimes transfer that emotion onto an enemy, causing them to run away, get pissed off, and so on. These emotions can even be chained into eventually becoming a positive for people later in a level. The restaurant district, for instance, has you pounding an emotion through a level, taking it through the kitchen to get fired up and eventually on to a waiter who is so overwhelmed by elation that he rises through the ceiling on a beam of light, eventually culminating in a shared love with a girl on the roof.



It's this kind of fun little distraction that flips what could have been a detriment (see: the shortness of the levels, especially including the load times -- which are better than the Japanese version of the game but still a little lengthy) and turns them into repeat foundries for added content. In fact, Atlus lumped in a ton of extra English voice work (but still offers the option to pick the Japanese voices if that's your bag), and sped up Gen's movements to make the game a little less frustrating.



Most of the game's rewards are in the form of collectibles. There's a trophy case for 'em all and they range from souvenir mallets for defeating a certain number of enemies to keepsakes related to jobs you've unlocked. You'll also find text wrap-ups of the people's problems you solved (sometimes related to your job class) and even dossiers on the employees of the mega-corporation you're up against. None of these require perusal, but they show the lengths Atlus went just to make the game more enjoyable. It worked.



Easily the biggest source of the game's charm beyond the character files, however, is in the visuals. Though all the characters are painted with heavy black lines (or red to indicate that, yes, they're dangerous), the backgrounds are rife with color. Because everything is presented from a 2D perspective, it allows for plenty of slick bits of parallax scrolling and adds depth to the levels even if you'll never actually get to see those places. Smaller touches like the job-specific idle animations (Gen is constantly making sushi and adjusting his headband when he's a chef) just add that much more charm.



Unfortunately, it can come at the expense of some serious slowdown -- especially if you play the game's multiplayer races, which dole out points for being ahead of the other guy or beating bosses. The slowdown is so significant that it's pretty much unplayable -- a shame because the concept of racing another person through levels you've already finished using job classes you've unlocked could have been a source of yet more depth. Instead, you might crack a smile at being able to mess with them during special meeting points in a level, but that's about it. The slowdown is far less prominent in the single-player sections, but it's definitely noticeable.



So too are the game's voices, for good or ill. The typically anime-flavored lines fit with the game just fine (and purists, again, can flick over to the original voices if it bothers 'em), but aside from the dialogue, you'll hear some plucky background tunes, smacking sound effects and grunts from Gen, but that's about it. I'm by no means knocking the audio, but it's not the kind of stuff that you'll absolutely have to throw on headphones for.

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