Tweet
The "Denpa" Men belongs to that weird subset of video games that insist on getting you out of the house. Like Boktai on the GBA or Treasure Park for the Vita, Genius Sonority's cheerful, lycra-clad dungeon-crawler wants you to grab your handheld and go for a walk - down the garden path, past the shed, maybe even across town. As you move about, you'll be looking for wi-fi signals. You'll be looking for "Denpa" men. They come by wave.Denpa Men - I'm knocking this quotes stuff on the head right now - are odd little will-o'-the-wisp types. They float around in the ether wherever wireless connections are to be found, and they wear those all-in-one bodysuits that lifestyle television is currently getting quite excited about. They're part Mii, part Tingle-out-of-Zelda, and your job is to catch these tiny people whenever you encounter them, then - of course! - enlist them into your private Denpa Man army, before sending them into a series of caves, towers, forests and volcanoes to fight monsters, open treasure chests, score loot and hopefully take out the King of Evil. You're basically press-ganging elves and imps and running the world's cutest militia force. It's a troubling concept for a troubling era.
The action divides neatly into two pieces, the first being the rather gimmicky bit where you race around with your 3DS open, using its camera and fancy connectivity stuff to gather party members. Your handheld turns into a tracking device, in essence, with a radar on the bottom screen and a binoculars view on top. Denpa Men aren't particularly hard to spot, swimming about in their AR glory, but they can be tricky to catch with a quick throw of your net - and even when you've snagged a few, you'll realise that they aren't all created equal.
Read more…
More...