Nippon Marathon Review: I Survived a Japanese Game Show

When people think of Japan, it’s usually overrun by kaiju, businessmen, and women dressed up in clothing from Shinjuku. There’s a lot more to Japan than those things, but Nippon Marathon likes to capitalize on the zaniness of Japanese game shows and brings a distinct anime flavor. It is a reminder that video games don’t need to be so serious all the time and is full of gags. What’s perhaps the most amusing tidbit is the fact that this game doesn’t even come from the motherland. But one gag that doesn’t always land is the gameplay itself.

A quick glance at Nippon Marathon and I had some strange attraction to it. It reminded me of Incredible Crisis and had a Katamari vibe to it. I’ve loved Japanese culture in most of its forms for the better part of my life, falling in love with Totoro back in 1992. So perhaps it was an obvious draw for me seeing the overt silliness being portrayed in the screenshots. A bipedal dog, a man dressed as a lobster, and a narwhal outfitted girl? Sign me up.

This game has it all – ridiculously bad animations with anime portraits that barely resemble the character models and writing that will make you wonder if this was written in English, translated into Japanese via Google Translate, and then back into English. There are plenty of tropes to be found from your favorite anime series, and so many loading screens you’d think you were playing on the PS1. But outside of this charm that many may find annoying, there’s a game to be played. You’ll run across the various courses and pick up items that you can either use to hinder your opponents or eat to boost your speed. Any sort of trip up and you’ll be on the ground for a bit thanks to an overactive ragdoll system that doesn’t allow for much in terms of mistakes.

The story mode is what I spent the majority of my time playing, although I believe the main reason to own this is the multiplayer modes with friends. The way the game plays out is you run through a single course that’s broken into multiple pieces, and depending on where you place at the end of each section, you may lose or gain stars. The person with the most stars is favored to win, but there is an overall scorecard that takes in a few factors, similar to Mario Party. You’ll be ranked on popularity for things like answers given during interviews, as well as things done within the race itself.

Outside of the story and multiplayer mode that utilizes the race, there are a couple other party modes which amount to bowling and Horse. If you’re unfamiliar with the latter, the idea is that you perform an action (I usually played it with a basketball and hoop) and then mimic it. So if I made a basket behind my back, the rest of the players would have to do the same or they’d accrue a letter. The person that spells out the word horse loses, and that’s been implemented here, but it’s a matter of making it the furthest in a randomized level. The first person sets the goal length, the second person must exceed it, and it goes back and forth until someone fails to do so, accruing a letter until lobster is spelled out. They’re fun additions assuming you enjoy the base gameplay mechanics.

It doesn’t take long for the game’s levels to become frustrating, honestly. There are times when it’s obvious where you need to be going, and there are others where I completely went off stage thinking I was going the correct way. In many cases, not following the computer will lead to you failing the different sections your first time through. Each leg of the race has a certain length, but if everyone fails prior to it, the last person standing wins. During the second marathon there’s a part where you jump out of a building, and I played through that at least four times within a minute because everyone kept failing somehow. I was maybe three in-game feet behind the computer and lost, so the game’s own rules don’t even necessarily apply all the time. This is probably the most frustrating part when playing – you learn how you’re supposed to play, but then all of that is thrown out the window. I understand that this is supposed to be inane, but at a certain point the charm becomes a fault.

Quite honestly, when looking at this from an objectively technical perspective, Nippon Marathon is not a good game. So much of it is substandard, but that is what the developer is going for, and it works, assuming you let it. This is far from perfect, and chances are you won’t even find yourself playing it too long with your friends, but if you’re looking for something off the wall (think Sega when they were crazy) and are tired of the same old games, you could do worse.

6 out of 10

Pros

  • Totally Irreverent
  • Multiplayer Modes

Cons

  • Rules Don’t Apply
  • Frustrating Level Design

Nippon Marathon was developed by Onion Soup Interactive and published by PQube. It is available on NS, PC, PS4, and X1. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. If you’d like to see more of Nippon Marathon, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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