Japanese Wii Games offer gamers not only more choice in the amount of software available in the United States, but also a closer look at the weird, wacky, and extremely fun games released only in Japan. I say weird and crazy, and Japanese games are often weird or crazy, but more importantly, they’re also a lot of fun to play, often very unique, and offer players a bigger cross section of games than just the games of Run-of-the-mill first-person shooters.
In this 12-part series, I’ll be covering some of the most unique and bizarre Japanese games now hitting the Japanese market. I will also be covering 3-4 games that will be released soon as they have all the details online. The difference is that with these preliminary articles, I won’t be able to go into too much detail when it comes to gameplay.
For American and Canadian readers, and also for European and British readers. I feel it is very important to point out that in order to play these games, you will need to install a Nintendo Wii Mod Chip in your Wii console. Once installed, you’ll be able to play all the latest Japanese games (and European gamers can play the latest US releases as well). There are several options for Nintendo Wii Mod chips, and while I won’t make any recommendations, I will tell you that the one installed in my Nintendo Wii is the WiiKey chip. It has never failed and works with all Japanese and European games on the market to date, and of course allows me to play my US released games just like I did before.
In the first game of my Japanese game review series. It’s a dog’s life on Dog Island. This cute and wacky game immediately made me think of Nintendo’s NintendoDogs series for the Nintendo DS. However, the fact that these titles share the theme of dogs is the only thing similar in the two games. It’s also important to note that NintendoDogs was exclusively for the Nintendo DS handheld, while Yuke’s The Dog Island is available for the Nintendo Wii (perhaps with an NDS version to follow).
Now, instead of just raising and taking care of your dogs on Dog Island, as you would have done with NintendoDogs, there are many more things to consider and do. The story begins in a small town somewhere, we don’t know where this small town is, but we know it’s a small town nonetheless. And as usual in small towns, it’s the day of the big party and you’ve won the party’s official scavenger hunt. Being the kindhearted child that you are, you decide to give your prize to your little brother, who coincidentally ran away from home against your mother’s wishes and instructions. The problems start when your brother collapses. It turns out that he has a disease and the ONLY way you can cure him is to take him to a place called Dog Island and get some medicine. Of course, this involves a journey across dangerous seas on a pirate ship, but he decides to take up the challenge.
The problem does not start OR end here. There are many enemies standing in your way as you explore the world of Dog Island. If you even get close to snakes, boars or gorillas and they growl at you (or in the case of the snake, hiss) and give you menacing looks, your life meter will deplete. They don’t actually attack you in any way, but it seems that just looking at you in a threatening manner is enough to end your life.
You don’t actually have any attack options per se. And the enemies you walk through may be asleep, in which case they can’t damage your life level. They may also be awake, aware that you are there, but at peace going about your business as usual. You actually have a mode of, well, kind of attack. You can sneak up on your enemies and bark at them. Depending on the strength of your bark, you can put an enemy into something of a daze.
While this might seem a bit silly, did I mention that it was a weird and crazy game, all the enemies and life meters aren’t really the main focus of this game. Your dog’s main role in Dog Island is to collect things. Actually, instead of saying that the goal of this game is to collect things, it would be more accurate to say that the goal is to collect smells, new smells.
All in all, it’s a very different game to the Nintendo DS game of a similar theme, where you just feed and care for the dogs, rather than control one of the 48 available pets. While all of this seems silly and not very appealing as far as video games go. Dog Island kept me playing for an hour and a half in one sitting. Most likely, he would have played longer, but he had to move on to the next game. If you are interested in this type of Japanese game, I highly recommend it.
