Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure

Genre: Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Gurumin is an Action-RPG released on PlayStation Portable in 2007, brought to PC in 2015, and ported to Nintendo 3DS in 2016. This game puts players in the role of a young girl who moves to a new town to discover it hides a secret world of friendly monsters only she can see, and who must fight to defend them from an invasion of phantoms, fighting to free her kidnapped friends using a drill weapon she uncovers.

Given the age of this game, it probably won’t come as a great surprise to learn that its presentation is somewhat dated, with 3D graphics somewhere between the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 era in terms of quality, as you might expect from a PlayStation Portable game. Simple 3D character designs, underwhelming animation, and an overall lack of detail being some of the signs of this game’s age. However, even with this low bar for expectations, you’ll still find yourself confronted by inconsistent framerates, choppy animations, and blurry textures. Even worse, the game’s voice acting and writing are cringe-inducingly bad, and its bouncy synthesized soundtrack does not fit the game well at all.

Yet despite the terrible visuals and sound, this game still manages to have an undeniable charm to it. This game feels like a time capsule of the era, capturing the same sort of childish guileless absurdity of mid-range Action-RPGs of the era – games like Brave Fencer Musashi and Threads of Fate. And while this is somewhat marred by the poor presentation, it’s hard not to find some appeal here regardless.

The action itself is much the same way – the game has a terrible camera that really hampers the action, and the choppy animation of enemies in particular can make fighting them feel especially awkward. What’s more, the linear layout of the game’s levels feels limiting. Yet despite this, there’s an undeniable appeal to this action-focused adventure.

With all Gurumin’s problems, it’s hard for me to recommend the game to most players. The terrible camera, the framerate and animation problems, and the highly linear nature of this game all really hurt the game’s enjoyability. However, those who have nostalgia for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 eras of Action-RPGs may still find this game to be charmingly retro in a way that appeals to them. If that sounds like it might describe you, you may want to give this game a try.

tl;dr – Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure is a port of a classic PlayStation Portable Action-RPG that brings with it the charm (as well as the limitations) of its era. The camera issues and extremely lacking presentation aren’t going to please many modern players, but those who are nostalgic for the era this game is from may still find it appeals to that sense of nostalgia.

Grade: C

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