Mr. Mosquito

Byline: Finally, a game where it pays to suck. Publisher: Eidos Developer: Fresh Games The Bottom Line: Originally released in Japan under the name Ka, Mr. Mosquito is such a different game from the normal fare that it’s surprising it was localized for the North American market. Even more surprising was who brought it to these shores - none other than Eidos, a company not particularly well known for giving offbeat Japanese titles a chance in other markets. Mr. Mosquito is a really fun game with great music, solid graphics, and a good degree of difficulty, but its very basic gameplay and lack of options doesn’t give it a whole lot of staying power. Add to that the fact that there’s very little in the way of secret stuff to unlock and you’ve got a game that would be a fantastic rental and good discount purchase, but perhaps not worth full price A Closer Look: Most people have had the experience of being inside their house or apartment doing something when, unexpectedly, they discover a pesky, loud insect of some sort flying around. They reach for a rolled up magazine or newspaper, or perhaps even a fly swatter, and spend a good five minutes or more trying to nail the sucker so they can go back to doing what they were doing undisturbed. This real life experience is essentially the basis for the situations found in Mr. Mosquito. Though there are some elements in the game that have little similarity to anything in real life, said elements are necessary in order for the game to work as well as it does (such as Zelda-esque Heart Containers, Heart Rings, and EX Tanks). The game takes place inside the home of the Yamada family over the course of a typical summer. The Yamada family is a three-member household consisting of the father, Mr. Kenichi Yamada, the mother, Mrs. Kaneyo Yamada, and their daughter, Rena Yamada. The various stages consist of encounters with different family members in different rooms of the Yamada home. Before entering a room you’re treated to a humorous cut scene of the Yamada family discussing the typical things a family might discuss. For example, in one cut scene Kaneyo calls to Rena to let her know that it’s time to take a bath. Rena responds by telling her mother that she’s watching a really interesting TV show and will be there in a minute. Kaneyo then asks Rena if she would prefer her father to go take a bath first, and the next thing that’s heard are Rena’s rapid footsteps as she bolts for the bathroom. The stages start out fairly simply with you having to suck blood from legs and feet, but in later stages the locations that you have to extract blood from are significantly more challenging - such as lips, necks, and upper chest. The locations that you can suck blood from are shown as red dots. By aligning the on-screen cursor with those red dots you can lock on and then zoom in and start sucking away. You’ll also find the same red dots on different items found within each room like TV remotes, Stereos, and Light Switches. By turning something off or on you can distract your potential victim and make it easier to get their blood. Also, each of the Yamada family members within each stage has movement patterns that you have to recognize and anticipate. They’ll keep repeating their movement routine, so discovering the best position to be in and the best time to attack is critical, especially in the later stages (of which there are twelve). The control is fairly similar to flight games like Ace Combat and Star Fox, so flying around in tight spaces - which you need to do a lot of - can be somewhat arduous. You, as Mr. Mosquito, start out with three Heart Containers that serve as your life bar. By gathering Heart Rings that are hidden in inconspicuous places throughout each stage you can earn new Heart Containers (50 Heart Rings gets you one Heart Container). Also, there are usually one or more EX Tanks (Extra Tanks) that you can collect within each stage that allow you to suck additional blood from your sanguine-rich victims. The number of EX Tanks that you’ve gotten and filled is shown at the main menu. Lastly, you can unlock new colors for Mr. Mosquito by fighting and beating set battle times for each family member in each particular stage. Graphically, everything is quite adequate, but largely unspectacular. The various environments, which consists of the different rooms in the Yamada home, look fairly accurate insofar as what one might expect the inside of a typical Japanese family’s home to look like. Unfortunately, when you get up close to things like posters and TV screens the detail is pretty low. Also, the movement of the human characters seems a little on the wooden side, but considering the how humongous they are in relation to Mr. Mosquito it’s somewhat understandable. As far as music goes, this is one of the game’s real strong points. There are different tunes depending on different situations, such as frenetic in-battle music and more relaxed sucking-blood-while-not-being-detected music. Most of the tracks are of the fairly mainstream rock variety, but they suit the gameplay well and aren’t at all bad or bothersome. The sound effects are adequate, but again aren’t really noteworthy, though the annoying speech from the Yamada’s gets bothersome in a hurry. They’ll continually repeat the same one or two phrases over and over again, and considering that some stages take upwards of twenty minutes to complete, hearing one or two phrases around fifty times in that span of time is extremely grating. Other than that there aren’t really any aural deficiencies to speak of. Though it does lack the gameplay depth that any game needs to in order to have high replay value, Mr. Mosquito is strangely addictive. While it lasts you’ll probably be playing it constantly. Finding all of the heart rings and EX tanks in each stage and trying to beat each battle time benchmark in order to get the extra colors is actually quite enjoyable. There’s definitely room for improvement though. Given a little more time, effort, and forethought, Mr. Mosquito could’ve been a really long lasting game with a lot of gameplay variety. As it stands it’s definitely innovative, challenging, and fun, but it’s not something you’ll be playing for months or even weeks. Hopefully Fresh Games will make a sequel that is everything the first game should’ve been and it won’t just see the light of day in Japan (another Tobal/Tobal 2 scenario would be unfortunate). If you’re looking for something new and interesting that plays well, sounds good, and doesn’t simply scream rehash then, by all means, you should definitely rent Mr. Mosquito at the very least. However, those who prefer to stick to more conventional, mainstream games will likely find Mr. Mosquito to be a little too different for their liking. Pros/Cons: Graphics: B +/- Nice looking environments, but lacking in extensive detail + Character models look quite good - Movement among the human characters is fairly wooden Sound: A- +Very nice mix of different types of music +Good sound effects -Listening to each Yamada say the same thing repeatedly in each stage gets old fast Gameplay: B+ +Interaction with objects in the environment and subsequent incorporation into the gameplay system is well executed +A good mix of fast-paced and precision-oriented objectives -No autoload or autosave features -No options menu to speak of -It would’ve been nice to be able to venture out into a Shenmue-esque city area and suck blood from other people, explore other buildings, and breed -The difficulty jumps dramatically after the fourth stage rather than building slowly and steadily Replay Value: B- +New colors for Mr. Mosquito can be unlocked by beating the set battle clear time +Finding every EX Tank and Heart Ring will require playing some stages more than once -After unlocking new colors for Mr. Mosquito, finding and filling all the EX Tanks, and getting all the Heart Rings, you probably won’t come back to the game very often Overall: B+ Disclosure: XenGamers purchased this title for review directly from retail. -Ian Johnston

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Copyright © 2002 Ian Johnston