Cho Aniki Zero – Review – PSP

Japanese people come up with some of the strangest and funniest things in the world, from television shows to anime and of course video games. Most of these ideas stay in Japan, but occasionally an audience in North America requests a release here or a Japanese company decides to try the western market. Some of these games however should just stay in Japan. One of these strange games luckily only comes in downloadable form. The game I’m talking about is Cho Aniki Zero for the PSP.

Story: From what I understand, a leader named Balzac has died and peace has once again been brought to the galaxy. As a result of his reign, the builderplanet lost most of its protein. This brings the birth of Balzac the second. Now it’s up to two people to destroy the protein mining colony. Yeah, I’m confused. They are in short supply of protein yet they want to destroy the mining colony.

Gameplay/Presentation: Cho Aniki is a Japanese PSP port of the TurboGrafx16 title Cho Aniki. At its’ core, Cho Aniki is a horizontal side-scrolling shoot-em-up. I don’t mind this gameplay mechanic as shoot-em-ups tend to be intense shooters. The presentation however, which I will talk about later, is completely different. Before you start, you have the option of two characters to choose from – a male and female character. Being the straight guy that I am, I chose the female character. This is the only female character and only time you will see a female character in the game. The thing is that the male character is the best choice as he is much more powerful. I mean of course, he’s got a man beam. The game is played in stages and sections like an arcade game with the difficulty being the deciding factor in how many stages you play before you complete a section. So if you select easy, you will play 3 stages in space. Complete that and you will move onto a water section. Play Normal and you will have 5 stages to play before you move on. Killing an enemy and collecting little coloured men that fly out from the enemy will give you points. As well, enemies drop little protein items that will increase the power of your shots. So that’s basically it. Travel across the land to destroy the mining colony or something. When you die, you will see two body builders hugging each other and the option to mash the X button which will pump yourself with protein. This acts as a continue allowing you to start over without writing your score to the leaderboards. Completing a section will write your score to the leaderboard though.

So I don’t mind the basic gameplay mechanic, but what I do find strange though is the overall presentation in Cho Aniki. Right from the intro you know you are in for something completely different; something you’ve likely never played before. By now you’ve probably figured out that this is not a game for straight gamers; it may be for girl gamers?. There is no shortage of half naked body builders. The sexual innuendos and references to male body parts are everywhere. The name Balzac is one example but take the loading screen for instance “Oh…oh God! Here it comes…!” It’s also hard to really decide what the enemies are as they tend to either blend into the background or are some obscure object that has nothing to do with body builders. If this game had to do with lifting weights and the mashing of buttons to lift the weights or something, I could understand what’s going on, but to have a side-scrolling shoot-em-up about body builders is just crazy.

Graphics/Audio: The graphics in this game look great for the PSP. The actual art itself on the other hand, I can’t speak for as it is mostly half naked men but it definitely feels like a Japanese game. The audio and music is all Japanese as well with the intro and text options being English. With that said, the music is catchy and great for a shoot-em-up.

Overall: To say this is a bad port would be the wrong thing to say. The core gameplay mechanic of a horizontal side-scrolling shoot-em-up is fine. The graphics look great on the PSP, and the Japanese music and voice over’s are quite funny. But the overall presentation which is carried over from the original game is just not for me. I guess for those people that are into body builders, crude Japanese humour, half naked men, and sexual innuendos, this game might be for you. However, I kind of doubt it.

Pros:
-A funny Japanese game
-side-scrolling shoot-em-up
-Good graphics for PSP

Cons:
-Not for straight (male) gamers or western market
-Too much half naked men and crude Japanese humour
-Very confusing game that tries to fit into the wrong genre/market

Overall score: 2/10

A PSP download of this game was provided to the reviewer for reviewing purposes from the publisher.

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