Let’s be clear from the start; it’s going to feel more than a little odd playing this game at first. The girls taking part in the games look questionably young at times, although the generous breasts most of them are gifted with throws it back towards legality. The cast consists of Neko, a tiny ginger waif; Toko, a chunky, top-heavy lass with white hair; Coco, a girl with well-proportioned breasts, freckles and blue hair (with temptress theme music!) and Kuma, a yellow-haired beauty with massive breasts. Your main worry when playing this with a friend will primarily be what your choice of character tells your friend about you.
The game show is hosted by a bubbly colourful presenter going by the name of Sista, and the madly colourful style pervades the entire game, along with lots of crazy dancing and singing. The games themselves are interesting variants on the button-mashing theme and the ultimate goal is to increase your viewer ratings, thus gaining sponsors and winning money. The girls spend their well-deserved money on fabulous clothes and accessories in the catalogue shop. The skimpy ones cost a lot though.
The games are fairly basic if you ever stop for a moment and think about it, but you will be too busy having fun to worry about this. However, it means when the games are described they may sound a little bland. Don’t let this fool you though. It could only improve as a party game if it were not sadly limited to two players at any one time.
Whack a Mole: Logs appear on your left or right shaped like moles. Hit the moles quickly enough to avoid running out of lives, but steer clear of the fake moles. This gets pretty frantic.
Quick Daw Pie: Wait for the signal and tap the button to lob a custard pie before your opponent gets a chance to do the same back at you. It’s solely a reaction test.
Hip Sumo Wrestling: Like much of the aforementioned game shows, you are balanced precariously on a plinth and must knock the other girl off into the water. It’s a bit like thumb war in that it’s fairly tactical, requiring the right balance between baiting and attacking. Although in this case, you use your bum to do the pushing.
Go Go Rolling: This is a great variation on the button-mashing theme – twizzle the thumb stick to wind a screw up and down. Still with us?
Rope Jumping: Just tap a button when the skipping rope gets near. The rope speed varies randomly, so it’s not like you can just gradually increase your tapping speed.
Hi! Ho! Woods Man: For the easily impressed, this will be totally awesome. Tap a button when the power bar ascends into the power zone you want, which in turn affects your axe's swing speed at a tree. The tree has a face. The higher the power, the smaller the time the bar spends in it so you risk over-shooting and dropping back down to a low power. Repeat until tree falls down. Do you go for steady medium power or risk the high powers to fell the tree quicker? Important decisions await.
Eccentric Puncher: Swirl both sticks in opposing half circles to swing your boxing gloves. This is pretty odd. If you win, press both sticks in to perform a finishing move.
Bubble Pang: Taking the spirit of the crazy game show to the max, you must spell a four-letter name/word by running through falling bubbles with letters on them. Disrupt your opponent’s ability to make their own words by popping their letters. Repeat with next word and tot up the spelt-word total to see who wins.
Once you’ve completed all the rounds, you might win a go at Lucky Cannon: Fire the loser at a board, Pilotwings style, for extra points.
The games are small in number but importantly are almost all fun enough to keep you coming back for more of the same. Most menus are dual language and the games are all visually described (including which buttons to use) before the start, so is very party-friendly. A beginner still won’t have a clue what to actually do on screen until each game starts though, but at least the buttons are sorted, leaving them free to gape in amazement at the presentation, colourful graphics and background splendour.
It is a limited game and won’t stand the test of extensive playtime, but that’s hardly the point. A button-mashing game that succeeds in being different might seem like a fantasy, but Super Galdelic Hour puts the fantasy back into button mashing, by eschewing the usual sports format and carving its own niche. Have fun.
Score: 7/10
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