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3DS

Japan

Darumeshi Sports-ten

by Danny Bivens - August 13, 2013, 10:13 pm EDT
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Nintendo has their own take on free-to-play, this time with coupons.

Darumeshi Sports-ten (shop) came out of nowhere after the Nintendo Direct on August 7 in Japan. This Nintendo developed game is a collection of simple baseball related mini-games that players can purchase inside the application. Mini-games range from simple things like pressing the A button to hit baseballs being lobbed at you to whittling a new baseball bat. It’s weird, funny, and full of the Japanese wackiness that I have come to love so much.

After selecting the Mii that you want to use, the game starts out by introducing you to Inuji, an owner of a small baseball shop near your house. After introducing himself and what his shop is all about, Inuji goes on to talk about how there are many young people out there that want to grow up to be professional baseball players. Many of them run into some problems when trying to do this in the sense that practicing isn’t always ideal. For example, you can lose a ball through your neighbor’s window and get yelled at. Inuji tells you about this video game system called a “4DS” and some special baseball software that was developed for it. Using this “Hontendo” developed gaming machine, gamers are transported into their televisions and don’t have to worry about the same problems you would in the real world.

Your Mii ends up taking the 4DS back to his house, which looks mysteriously like an extremely large, yellow and blue 3DS. After getting home, you are able to play a game that you borrow from Inuji; you literally step into the bottom screen of it and are plunged into the television. The games themselves resemble old Famicom cartridges, but they plug into the top of the 4DS. It’s funny, semi-nostalgic, and cute.

I haven’t had a chance to try out all of the mini-games that are available, but I did get to try out the completely free demo of the mini game (which I later purchased) titled Utsu Kaikan, or literally, “Pleasure Hit.” The game has the player’s Mii in a batting position hitting baseballs. Before the game actually started, the pitching machine sprouted out of the ground to reveal that it was actually a person with a pitching machine for a head. After getting over the shock of seeing this creepy fellow, I went on to play the actual mini-game. It’s super simple, only requiring players to hit the A button when the ball is close enough to be hit. You receive points based on when you hit the ball. For example, if you hit the ball a little bit late, you only receive one point. If you hit the ball with the barrel of the bat directly, you’ll score three points and send the ball flying. Anywhere in between that, lands you two points.

The game has a total of 50 stages that range from things like having the anthropomorphic pitching machine toss baseballs to you lightly, to him throwing them behind his back and between his legs at you. There is even a mode where you try to knock UFOs out of the sky based on the timing of your hits. The game is basically divided into two sections; one features all of the things I mentioned above and the other is the same, just incrementally harder. For example, having the ball partially disappear while it’s thrown at you. It’s challenging and a lot of fun.

As I mentioned above, the mini-games are available for purchase. They are priced at 400 yen each (about $4 USD), but there is a really strange, but great inclusion here. While I was playing Utsu Kaikan (the mini-game I mentioned above), I was introduced to an in-game system that revolved around collecting stamps from making progress in my game. After you get enough stamps, you can receive special items, like boiled eggs, or even coupons that you give you real world price cuts on the mini-games. After playing for a few hours, I’ve already went through two stamp cards and received multiple discount coupons, including two that provide me half off of a game. Even before I got to that point, I had received 100 yen ($1) off of Utsu Kaikan for just simply giving Inuji some boiled eggs. It really makes the thought of purchasing all ten of these games more manageable than forking over 4,000 yen ($40) for a mini-game collection!

Darumeshi Sports-ten is a quirky, fun mini-game portal that has quite a bit to offer. Not only do you have the ability to play ten different mini-games, you can even further the story between your Mii and Inuji, which may have something to do with helping out his love life. What makes this even more interesting is the fact that the prices on these mini-games aren’t set in stone. There aren’t a lot of free-to-play games out there that do this. It’s definitely a Nintendo way of taking on the concept. 

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Genre Sports
Developer Nintendo

Worldwide Releases

na: Rusty's Real Deal Baseball
Release Apr 03, 2014
PublisherNintendo
RatingEveryone
jpn: Darumeshi Sports-ten
Release Aug 08, 2013
PublisherNintendo
RatingAll Ages
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