Guild 01 contains four different games from four different Japanese developers. In my last set of impressions for Guild 01, I touched on Yoot Saito’s Aeroporter and Yasumi Matsuno’s Crimson Shroud. This time, I’m focusing on the entries from Yoshiyuki Hirai, (Rental Bukiya de Omasse) and Suda 51(Kaihō Shōjo).

Kaihō Shōjo (Suda 51)

Kaihō Shōjo has the craziness you might expect from Japanese anime, with an ever-bigger dose of madness thanks to the creative mind of Suda 51. The game puts you in control of a high school girl named Shoko who takes over as Prime Minster of Japan after the assassination of her father, the previous Prime Minister. I honestly don’t know too much about the way Japanese government works, but something tells me the Prime Minister’s daughter wouldn’t be second in the line of succession. Regardless of any potential erroneous intricacies of Japanese government presented in the game, Suda 51 keeps piling on the craziness. As the new Prime Minster, it is your duty to prevent an invading country from swooping in and stealing Japan’s energy. You become the entire defense force of Japan via a mech called Kaihoki that Shoko pilots to bring the evildoers to justice.

Shoko's ready to kick some tail

The controls in Kaihō Shōjo take a little bit of getting used to. Players control Shoko with the Circle Pad in a 3D environment. Using the touch screen, you control where Shoko shoots. The controls almost work like those of a first-person shooter for the DS, except Kaihō Shōjo is a third-person shooter. Holding the stylus on the screen and bringing the cursor over enemies locks onto targets, while pulling off the touch screen releases your shot. While it is possible to tap the touch screen madly to defeat enemies, the lock-on feature works on multiple targets and is very useful. You can also hold L and move the Circle Pad to strafe around enemies.

Piloting Kaihoki

The game takes place in different locations throughout Japan, starting you off in Tokyo, and taking you to Osaka, Hokkaido, and even to Mt. Fuji when it’s all said and done. Each stage has three different wedge-like objects Shoko has to destroy. Once those are destroyed, you move on to a larger wedge that is more or less the boss of the stage. These segments are similar to the aforementioned smaller wedges, except much larger and with multiple cores to destroy. Once you destroy one, your mission is complete. There aren’t many enemy types in the game, but between ships and a variety of turrets, there are plenty to keep you busy.

Taking out one of the big wedges

Like most of Suda 51’s games, Kaihō Shōjo has quite a bit of visual flair. The game’s anime aesthetic permeates not only the narrative, but also the art direction. The graphics and frame rate are silky smooth, and the music is diverse, cutting quickly between instruments like piano and electric guitar. Suda 51’s entry is easily one of the most accessible and interesting additions to the Guild 01 package. You don’t have to know a lot of Japanese to play, and it’s not difficult to grasp the control scheme.

Rental Bukiya de Omasse (Yoshiyuki Hirai)

Half of the Japanese comedy troupe American Zarigani, Yoshiyuki Hirai is the man behind Rental Bukiya de Omasse. The game introduces you to a father and son who are the shopkeepers at a weapon shop in an RPG. Needy adventurers come in asking you to craft them a weapon they can use on their quest. This unique idea almost plays out like a sitcom, as you are introduced to the different characters coming into the shop. When customers come in they are greeted by applause and cheering from an unseen crowd, which is strange and hilarious at the same time. Rental Bukiya de Omasse is a text-heavy game, full of all kinds of quirky dialog that will be lost on the player if they are not proficient in Japanese.

"You are awesome! Give me more stuff!"

While much of the content in Rental Bukiya involves reading dialog or menus, there is a segment in the game where you get to craft the weapons customers request. You do so by going through a rhythm-based mini-game in which you mimic predetermined taps on the touch screen. The weapon you are crafting appears on the touch screen, so you can see your progress and know when you are near completion. The statistics of the weapon totally depend on your performance. If you do a great job, the weapon will help out the customer in his quest. If you do an awful job, he might not fare so well in his adventure. Although I haven’t gotten far in the game, I had the chance to perform a few of these segments. The sections I played through weren’t too challenging, but they were enjoyable and left me wanting more.

The yellow is the active note, the green is the player and the blue is the dad.

After crafting the weapon, there is a Twitter-like feed in the game that shows how the customer is doing along his quest. I didn’t make too many mistakes crafting the weapons for my customers, so they always succeeded in their quest. The warriors would eventually come back to the weapon shop and praise me for my work, complete with funny dialog and the studio crowd’s cheers. Rental Bukiya de Omasse is pretty fun, but you better brush up on your Japanese if you want to enjoy it completely.