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Message: [QUOTE="Aziamuth, post: 205397, member: 16"] [ATTACH type="full" size="1280x720"]69800[/ATTACH] Often it happens that you have “that” game from your childhood that you remember fondly as the best thing ever. You’re an adult now, and your tastes and mentality are different. Nonetheless, you cling to the idea that “that” game from your childhood is still good and that you’re not being trolled by memory. You download an emulator and a ROM, because technology is faulty and deteriorates over time. Also, you happen to have lost your cartridge, or CD, or DVD, whatever. Classic. You boot up the game. You bask in the nostalgia. You immerse yourself in that music that you remember so much, that sometimes pops into your mind and makes you happy for a few minutes. You play for 10 minutes. All is good. You play for 1 hour. You get bored. Turns out, the game was mid as hell. Even worse, it was bad, really bad. You delete the ROM and move on with your life. You tell your wife that memory is a fickle thing and that things were better before. You get sad, because you no longer experience childlike wonder. Tomorrow is a new day, and you have to get ready to work. Unless you’re a NEET. Well, too bad, because that doesn’t apply to Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak! It kicked ass back then and it still kicks ass now. Join me on this journey and discover the purity and charm of this group of rodents. [HEADING=1]FIRST OF ALL, WHAT IS HAMTARO?[/HEADING] [ATTACH type="full" size="1600x1200"]69801[/ATTACH] [CENTER][I]No two hamsters are alike, both in personality and design.[/I][/CENTER] Hamtaro is a manga series by Ritsuko Kawai which didn’t have a long run. According to Wikipedia, there are three different manga. I didn’t read them so I couldn’t tell you if they are related or not. What’s important is the anime adaptation, which had a bigger run with several seasons and even came out of Japan. Hamtaro stars the eponymous Hamtaro. He is a hamster, and a cute one! And he has cute hamster friends! All of the hamsters in Hamtaro are normal hamsters: they have owners, don’t speak, run on wheels, eat seeds and sleep. However, things change when their owners aren’t present, as they all gather together in the Ham-Ham Club (led by the hamster Boss) and go on adventures to save the hamster day. And, let me tell you, these hamsters can communicate and use tools, just like humans! But only when said humans aren’t present. For the most part, the episodes involve a problem that Hamtaro and the gang have to solve. The stakes are usually very low, because the series are targeted for children, although sometimes there’s the danger of a looming cat. There are tons of hamsters, but the most important ones are the following: [LIST] [*]Hamtaro, the protagonist. He is brave, kind and caring. [*]Bijou, the love interest of Hamtaro. In Spain we call her Lacitos (Little Ribbons). Her most noticeable trait is that she is extremely cute, even by hamster standards, and sports two little, blue ribbons on her head. [*]Boss, a rugged hamster who acts as the leader of the Ham-Ham Club. He is tough and brave and has a one-sided crush on Bijou. He is also one of the few hamsters without an owner. [/LIST] Although not as important, some other hamsters from the Club are Penelope, a very small hamster who’s always covered by a yellow cloak; Pashmina, who's always seen with a scarf; Cappy, who always wears a green cap and Oxnard, a somewhat cowardly and clumsy hamster who is Hamtaro’s best friend. All in all, Hamtaro (the series) is all about the cute and the cozy. Which, guess what, also applies to the games. [HEADING=1]BREAKING HEARTS LEFT AND RIGHT[/HEADING] [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" width="1000px" size="240x160"]69803[/ATTACH] [I]Whenever two hamsters who love each other are fighting, what do we do? That's right, we intervene without their consent![/I] [/CENTER] Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak begins with a cutscene. A hamster dressed as a devil starts breaking hearts and making couples unhappy. Hamtaro is there watching all of this unfold, immobile. Suddenly, the devil hamster notices Hamtaro and strikes him. Watch out, he’s coming! Aaaaaaaaaaaah! And then Hamtaro wakes up, drenched in cold sweat. Boss is there and reassures him that it was only a nightmare and that it’s all fine. After composing himself, Hamtaro heads downstairs and Boss tells him to go find Bijou, who is missing in Sunny Peak. Before going, though, Hamtaro messes up by accidentally dropping water in the Official Ham-Ham Dictionary, which holds all of the important hamster words. Only the most basic ones are saved, somehow. No matter, though, since Boss immediately teaches Hamtaro four basic words which will be vital in this adventure: Hamha, to greet other hamsters, Hif-hif, to smell stuff, Dig-dig, to dig holes and Tack-Q, to tackle stuff. With these four important words, Hamtaro is ready to look for Bijou. Upon reaching the Sunny Peak, all is chaos: couples are arguing, Bijou is trapped between rocks and… wait, is that the devil hamster for the dream? Is he real?! [HEADING=1]A POCKET ADVENTURE FOR EVERYONE OF ALL AGES[/HEADING] [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" width="1000px"]69810[/ATTACH] [I]Learning words is paramount for progress, although not all words are used for the puzzles.[/I] [/CENTER] Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak is a weird game to categorize. I guess you could say it’s an… action puzzle adventure? There’s no other game like Ham-Ham Heartbreak, and that’s great. The main gameplay involves going to places and solving problems, just like in the anime. There are several scenarios, and each one has hamsters. Some are just there, chilling, while others are couples who fight over various reasons. These are the focus of our attention, as it’s because of Spat (the devil hamster) that these couples are fighting. To solve the problems of the couples, Hamtaro has to use words of the Ham-Chat. As you remember, most of the words were lost in an accident, so to uncover them, Hamtaro has to interact in unique ways with different items and hamsters. The puzzle lies in discovering how to learn a word and when to use it, which I find extremely fun. Some problems can’t be solved right away, so it’s important to remember where the problems are, for later. For example, in the beach stage there’s a hamster who has a crush on another hamster, so you have to deliver a letter to said hamster. The problem is that said hamster is with two others, and they are identical! You only clue is that the correct hamster has a blue tail. But here lies another problem: the hamsters are always facing forward, so you have to find a way to make them turn. One thing I really enjoy about this game is how it tackles difficulty. The game is very much designed for kids, so there’s no health bar and, therefore, you can’t really lose. You can get stuck, which will happen because of the puzzly nature of the game. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to find out how to proceed, because of two factors: [LIST] [*]A hamster named Snoozer, who is always at the Ham-Ham Club, will give you very easy to understand clues about what you should do at each stage. [*]Each stage is usually small and doesn’t have many things to interact with, so you can brute force your way out of every problem. [/LIST] Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak makes for a very cozy and chill experience because of all of this, so it’s a great game for when you feel stressed or anxious. And if the gameplay doesn’t do it for you, I’m sure the visuals and music will. [HEADING=1]CUTE, CUTE, CUTE![/HEADING] [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" width="1000px" size="240x160"]69813[/ATTACH] [I]YOUR HONOR, NOTHING MORE TO SAY.[/I] [/CENTER] Cute is the name of the game with Hamtaro, and that applies to this game as well. For a GBA game, it’s absolutely gorgeous, with an art style that looks like it was painted with crayons by a kid. To complement this, the sprite work is just as beautiful, if not more: extremely expressive and filled with detail. The highlights are the animations of the words: exaggerated, cartoony, cute and charming, which are sure to get a laugh out of you at least once. Each animation is distinct and memorable, so you immediately associate each word with an animation (not that it’s necessary). One thing I find very impressive is the cut scenes. There aren’t many, and they are absolutely not necessary. And yet, they are there! And they cute AND look good, with the crayon art style! It’s a treat for your eyes, I just love how this game looks and it’s a shame how Rainbow Rescue, which was released later, doesn’t look as good (well, it’s not that that game looks bad or anything). The music is on the same boat: every song is cute, catchy and fits the theme of the stage. The happy-go-lucky tune of Sunny Peaks, the coolness of Sandy Bay, the wild, mysterious beats of the Wild Woods and the evil but not-so-evil theme of Spat, the main antagonist. All songs are memorable and very well composed, sounding extremely well in spite of the sound chip of the GBA. [HEADING=1]AN IDEAL WORLD[/HEADING] [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" width="1000px" size="240x160"]69816[/ATTACH] [I]The sprite work is beautiful, but not as beautiful as the girl reading this.[/I] [/CENTER] There is a total of 6 stages (technically 5, since in the last one you complete a puzzle and deal with Spat), each one of them with a specific theme. Sunny Peaks is a cozy, relaxing mountain full of nature. Sandy Bay is a cool beach with hamsters sunbathing and having fun. Fun Land is a theme park with some rides. Boo Manor is a haunted mansion with real ghosts. Wild Woods is a mysterious jungle with animals and fruit. And last, and most certainly least, Spat Tower is Spat’s castle. Not only are they beautiful to look at (and as I said before, they have good soundtracks), but they are also beautiful. However, what I’m most impressed with is the fact that they are fun to explore. All of the stages are very compact, but there’s always something of relevance in each screen, whether it’s an item to interact with or a hamster to talk to. I think my favorite is Fun Land because of the rides (you can actually ride on them and, while it doesn’t give you anything, they still bothered doing cutscenes for them), while my least favorite is probably Wild Woods because it’s the most “convoluted” (or at least as convoluted as Ham-Ham Heartbreak can get). The best part is that since they are very compact, it’s not hard to find out what’s the next thing you have to do. Sometimes, however, you’ll have to backtrack to some of these stages, and I don’t mean “come back much later when you have the proper word”. Rather, sometimes you’ll have to trigger certain flags to progress in a stage, and usually those flags are in other places (mostly related to fixing a couple’s problems). This is probably the only thing I really don’t like about this game. Notwithstanding, this is something minor in comparison to everything the game does right. [HEADING=1]FINAL SQUEAKS[/HEADING] [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" width="1000px" size="240x160"]69818[/ATTACH] [I]This is how they learn to swim, I think.[/I][/CENTER] Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak is pure joy and happiness, no matter if you’re a whimsy child or a grumpy adult. The cozy and cute adventures of the rodents are genetically engineered to make you have a good time, whether it’s just for a few minutes or from start to finish. In comparison to its predecessor, Ham-Hams Unite!, Heartbreak is much more polished and barely has any flaws, and the few that it has are a bunch of nothing that don’t matter in the end. [/QUOTE]

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