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Doshin the Giant

by Bakudan Yoshinoya - February 16, 2002, 11:34 am EST

Bakudan spent a day with Doshin at Shibuya. How was it? Find out in these detailed impressions!

At the Shibuya event, I got the opportunity to play Doshin for a good 30 minutes. To sum it up, this game is akin to a cross between Pikmin, SimCity, and village levels in Actraiser I.

Basically you start out as Doshin the yellow giant in a world made up of islands. The basic short-term objective of the game is to aid inhabitants on the islands in building their villages. Some of the things you can do to help them include hauling them trees so that they have wood to make constructions with, raising or lowering the ground level, and bringing them animals such as cows and horses. Similar to Pikmin, at the end of each day (around 30 minutes), you are shown statistics and what you accomplished that day. However, you have no limit on how many days you play.

By completing philanthropic tasks for village people, you gain hearts, which increase Doshin’s size when you obtain a sufficient amount of them. In addition, if people think you are doing a good job, they will build monuments in your image. According to the developers, there are 16 kinds of monuments in this game. Thus, you could probably say that having the village people erect monuments is the long-term goal of this game. Once a certain number of monuments are built, you clear the map, and unlock a new map. When asked how many maps are there, the rep replied vaguely, “You can expect quite a lot of maps in the game.”

As you becoming bigger and bigger, your size becomes a burden as you wreck villages and its surroundings. For example, when you are big, it’s easier for you to knock down trees, and step on villagers. When you walk, the ground also sinks because of your heavy weight. In order to shrink Doshin’s size, you have to transform to the evil giant, Jyashin. As Jyashin, you have to cause wreckage to earn skeleton heads, which serves as counter-hearts. The skeleton heads you earn will shrink the giant’s size.

The control of the game is solid – Nintendo quality. As the Doshin, you can lower and raise the level of the ground with a cool raving action by pressing the X and Y button. Raising and lowering ground level at will is rather fun. You really have to try it to experience playing God. Imagine being able to mold play-dough without actually molding it. You can create rivers by lowering the level of the ground, or make mountains by raising the ground. The A button is your action button and allows you to lift stuff or grab the earth and pull the ground level up. B button allows Doshin to jump, which is primarily used to sink the ground level in a small and narrow area. When I started the game, I was a bit frustrated because Doshin moves rather slowly and stubbornly. After a few minutes, I got used to it since the slowness reflects the giant size of Doshin. The L trigger button transforms Doshin to evil version, and controls change slightly. If you hold down the B button when jumping, you can fly around in the air. You are also able to throw electric / fire balls with the action buttons.

The R trigger button allows you to take photos and store them in a photo album. The rep said that they are very interested in following the footsteps of Pokemon Snap by allowing people to print out the photos they took in the game at stores. However, they have not decided whether this will happen or not.

For more information on the controls, check out the translated game instructions, which will be posted soon on PGC.

I was really surprised and pleased with the camera. The C stick allows you to rotate your camera view around 360 degrees, up and down - anyway you like it. It really adds to the fluidity and helps establish an open and free atmosphere. Remember using C buttons to change the view in Mario 64? Imagine that instead of the C buttons, you have the C stick, and your perspective rotates smoothly without the camera's view getting stuck when it hits wall.

Graphics are decent and a bit polygonal. When compared with Pikmin, it may even seem a little pale. Like Pikmin, the game environment changes as the days go by. The water effects are decent but, once again, not up to the level of Pikmin or Wave Race. There are also some pop-ups in the game, but the rep assured me that they are working very hard to get rid of them by launch. In addition, the water effects and artificial intelligence of village people will be tweaked.

Billy asked me earlier about impressions on the music. And for some reason I just cannot recall it. After going back to the floor, I realized there is no game music. Once you start, there is only silence, and you hear bird calls, ocean waves, and animal voices (or the swooshing sound of devastating fireballs…). It creates a rather relaxing and peaceful atmosphere and really immersed me in the game. On a side note, this game has a really cool intro theme song.

I had a lot of fun for 30 minutes with Doshin. However, I was initially doubtful whether the fun would last when played for hours and hours. The rep said that they developed the game with an Animal Forest attitude. They wanted to create a game that players would come back to, explore bit by bit, maybe take some pictures of, while being relaxed and having fun. The rep also mentioned that the different monuments and maps should increase the replay value for players. I thought about it for a second. I have played SimCity for countless hours. And I always wished the village level in Actraiser I would last longer. I don’t see why Doshin would not keep me interested for 10 or more hours as well.

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Doshin the Giant Box Art

Genre Simulation
Developer Param
Players1

Worldwide Releases

na: Doshin the Giant
Release TBA
PublisherNintendo
jpn: Kyojin no Doshin
Release Mar 14, 2002
PublisherNintendo
eu: Doshin the Giant
Release Sep 20, 2002
PublisherNintendo
Rating3+

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