Bumpy Trot/Bumpy Trot impressions!
Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 9:57 pm
I just picked up Bumpy Trot (Bumpy Trot to those in the know) and it's really very fun! As far as gameplay goes it can be likened to a very, very friendly Grand Theft Auto. It has that sandbox kind of gameplay reminiscent of GTA, but the overall world setting is reminiscent of an old fashioned RPG, with a little city, a port city, a big city, a lake area, a desert region, a beach region, etc, etc. It really has an atmosphere of Hayao Miyazaki throughout, with technology being really creaky and old fashioned but way cooler than whatever we've got, because it uses steam power.
The story is actually pretty fun because you've got amnesia (in a good way!) and can make it up as you go along. For instance, as the game progressed I 'figured out' that my character used to be a 'pimping, righteous fisherman's son' before the amnesia inducing accident. The story is actually pretty fun to follow, and the love interest choices are different enough to warrant a second playthrough, along with the different ways to play your character (good, bad, greedy). Additionally, the translation is really top-notch. I was surprised by how much voice was in the game's manual alone, and all of the voice actors do a decent job of portraying their respective characters. For those that care the English VA of Shinji Ikari from Evangelion plays Vanilla Bean, the protagonist, and he does a pretty damn good job of it. He's really upbeat if you play the good path, which is a nice change from masturbating to comatose girls and hating himself.
The gameplay itself is fairly normal while just walking around on foot, but when you enter your trotmobile it becomes something along the lines of Katamari Damacy meets Virtual On. It's actually pretty intuitive, and after about ten minutes I was dashing with the best of them. I might've missed it, doing a 180 always comes as a hassle when trying to track a sporadically moving enemy. A big draw of the game (for me at least) are the customization options. Legs, arms (and weapons), back attachments, main chassis, and even sunroofs are customizable, with another option for primary and secondary colors on you trot, as well as liscense plates which are more like customizable pictures for public display around the crotchital area of your mech than anything. So, yeah, if you really want to you can draw a penis there and chuckle your little head off at the anatomical correctness of it all.
Delving into career paths, you can be: a farmer, a taxi, an archaeologist (fat lootz!), and an arena battler, among others. Money can be spent on anything from food (you get hungry) to fuel (you run out) to a pretty pink dress that seemingly doesn't do a damn thing for your love life at least where I am right now anyways. Dammit.
Overall, definitely worth the forty-odd dollars I paid for it, so I thought you all ought to know. Go out and buy it!
The story is actually pretty fun because you've got amnesia (in a good way!) and can make it up as you go along. For instance, as the game progressed I 'figured out' that my character used to be a 'pimping, righteous fisherman's son' before the amnesia inducing accident. The story is actually pretty fun to follow, and the love interest choices are different enough to warrant a second playthrough, along with the different ways to play your character (good, bad, greedy). Additionally, the translation is really top-notch. I was surprised by how much voice was in the game's manual alone, and all of the voice actors do a decent job of portraying their respective characters. For those that care the English VA of Shinji Ikari from Evangelion plays Vanilla Bean, the protagonist, and he does a pretty damn good job of it. He's really upbeat if you play the good path, which is a nice change from masturbating to comatose girls and hating himself.
The gameplay itself is fairly normal while just walking around on foot, but when you enter your trotmobile it becomes something along the lines of Katamari Damacy meets Virtual On. It's actually pretty intuitive, and after about ten minutes I was dashing with the best of them. I might've missed it, doing a 180 always comes as a hassle when trying to track a sporadically moving enemy. A big draw of the game (for me at least) are the customization options. Legs, arms (and weapons), back attachments, main chassis, and even sunroofs are customizable, with another option for primary and secondary colors on you trot, as well as liscense plates which are more like customizable pictures for public display around the crotchital area of your mech than anything. So, yeah, if you really want to you can draw a penis there and chuckle your little head off at the anatomical correctness of it all.
Delving into career paths, you can be: a farmer, a taxi, an archaeologist (fat lootz!), and an arena battler, among others. Money can be spent on anything from food (you get hungry) to fuel (you run out) to a pretty pink dress that seemingly doesn't do a damn thing for your love life at least where I am right now anyways. Dammit.
Overall, definitely worth the forty-odd dollars I paid for it, so I thought you all ought to know. Go out and buy it!
