Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure Review

Gurumin 3D- A Monstrous Adventure Review Screenshot 1

In a town only populated by Adults, you move in with your grandfather, the mayor of the town. You find that the town is populated by monsters, and the only one who can see them are… you! Wonderful music, a nostalgic style of voice acting and a really interesting game play style. This is a game that is very charming, and I enjoyed every minute of it. In this game, you play as a child who discovers the monsters, but these are good monsters. Even these kind and fun monsters are being terrorized by the Phantom Monsters. These are your enemies, and they have been creating Havoc in Monster Village. The game is a puzzle and action packed RPG game, which lets you adventure through dungeons, and fight your enemies while also solving puzzles.

To start off with my review, I will talk about the main game play features. There are different areas of the game, which include but are not limited to the main town, the Mining area, Monster Village, the Map section, and each individual dungeon/quest area. In the image below, you can see the Map section. In this map section, which is very much similar to a lot of other games. This game seems to take a lot of inspiration from games such as The Legend Of Zelda, with the pot breaking mechanic for money, or even maybe Super Mario Bros 3 for how the map is formatted. These are just my ideas, suggestions maybe as to where these inspirations come from. I can’t tell you specifically where these inspirations may have come from, but I can tell you these features remind me of other games, which is quite the positive, as this makes the game glow with nostalgia.

Gurumin 3D- A Monstrous Adventure Review Screenshot 2

The menu screen to start off with, is very pretty and appealing, and the music is very catchy. When you press any button as prompted, you get given “Start New Game” or “Continue”. But that’s all, the only options you get on the menu. This is a bad thing, as it feels like you have no control before you play the game. Maybe you want subtitles removed, or maybe you want to change the audio settings straight away. In a perfect world, this game would benefit from the ability to change options straight away. If you choose the “Continue” Option, you’re given 8 Saves, which is a nice feature, as you’ll be able to play multiple save modes. Maybe you have multiple people playing the console, all playing the same game at different times. This is a novelty feature though, as it’s very situational. Although that’s the case, if people felt the game was re-playable but didn’t want to remove their previous save, they would be able to just make a new one and keep the old.

With the point I made about their being no options to change, even in-game, you cannot change any options. This is very unfortunate, and limits the game. In game, the start screen gives you an Items tab and a System tab. For optimization and ease of access, these are good and easily accessible. But, there are limited options. Majority of the System options are for tutorial purposes, a save button, return to title button and an Album for what I’m guessing is something you collect for, as when you start the game, it’s empty. Nothing really happens much on the bottom screen of the 3DS, and I wished there was more there. To port a game to the 3DS, you would hope that they would make use of the extra screen, somehow.

I’d like to talk about the charming combat system now.  In Monster Village, you were introduced to a weapon that was stuck in the ground, very much Sword In The Stone inspired, and it turns out that you were able to pull it out. This is a drill, which is your main weapon in the game. With this, you have a combat system which relies on combos, charging attacks and timing. Depending on how much you charge your attack, your move and strength of the attack is increased. Charge it all the way, you dive forward in a stabbing-spinning motion. Charge it a half way and you get to do a stationary attack which lets you change the direction you’re attacking. With this, you can also just attack normally, while moving, being stationary or even jumping. There’s a nice feature which lets you flip an enemy into the air, for you to jump and attack them while being off the ground. This makes the combat a lot more fun, and you’re even able to have an extra jump, when you kill an enemy that is no longer on the ground. Alongside the combat system, something I found interesting is the additions to movement. You can actually run across walls in this game, and it’s very stylish and fun to do when traveling from point A to point B.

Gurumin 3D- A Monstrous Adventure Review Screenshot 3

I’ve seen how the game looks on PC, and I can say that they optimized the graphics well, to work on consoles such as the 3DS. This is good, because the detail hasn’t really been impacted as much as you’d expect. The style is still there, the only difference is that it’s not as high-resolution. I have no issues with the graphics at all, and the game is very attractive, with it’s cutesy art style. It seems to mix a low-ish poly art style with a cutesy chibi style to work very well.

To conclude with my review, I would like to say that the game is extremely charming and very fun. The humour in the dialogue actually surprised me, as it is very funny to play. The whole style of the game gives off this charming and interesting vibe, and I would very much recommend this to anyone who is into wacky and funny RPG games. In fact, this is a game that all ages can enjoy, due to some of the apparent adult-ish humour, and the art style for the children. (I’m talking to you, creepy NPC guy that flirts with a child)

I would give this game a solid 8/10 for the obvious effort put into the game. I can tell that the developers love to do what they do, and enjoy making games that entertain. I suggest you pick this title up, it’s a great one!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo 3DS code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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