MMT, doujin game review

MMT or the oddly translated full name (deep breath) incredibly bad relationship where there once upon a time Thanks for coming for the princess and the twin tail. Which as you can guess I wont be saying again, is a cutesy platformer that uses the pick up and throw mechanic of Doki doki panic or Super Mario Bros 2 in the west. But where as before we had a fat plumer and his crew or a family of turbin wearers in MMT, doujin been doujin, you will control a cute girl who fights lots of other cute girls by pulling even more cute girls out of the ground and like in Doki Doki Mario throw said cute girl and enemy cute girl. As I said this is doujin and males in these games are an endangered species.

 Since the game has a intro and generic before boss battle cut scenes there must also be a story and a plot but since its all in Japanese I cant read squat. From what I can gather you are a princess or witch that lives in a land where people have planted themselves into the ground (weird I know), and you’re fighting against your twin sister and later on another magical girl. As to why your fighting your guess is as good as mine. Luckly for us the story is unimportant and you not knowing how to read kanji has no bearing on you playing the game as normal.

Gameplay

 Gameplay is quite simple you walk from left to right jumping on to differing platforms or using a second button to pick up plant people or enemies and lob them at other enemies. If you hold down the pick up/ throw button you can throw a charged shot which depending on what you’re throwing will make various attacks. The different types of girls you can pull out of the ground all have special charge attacks: Green girls are normal striaght shots, red girls will propel you forwards destroying most things you attack with that single hit, blue girls will make a simlar attack but propel you upwards. There are more plant girls but they’re pritty rare until the later stages so you will mostly be using those 3 basic charged attacks. The later 2 been great for getting to platforms you otherwise could’nt reach.

 The game has 5 long stages that are ok to play though but for me the best parts of MMT are the end of stage boss battles. The bosses on your 1st attempt are quite hard to beat, I found I had to continue the game once or twice to get past them, with the last boss by far the hardest nut to crack imo.

 Another good aspect of MMT is there are lots of secrets to find, with many hearts and lives hidden behind false walls or seemingly out of reach platforms. MMT does have a lot of replay value if you’re into finding secrets. The best items to find are keys. Each stage has a key that is hidden, if you manage to find one the game will always remember how many you’ve collected in total, plus will show you in the main menu. I havn’t collected every key but I’m guessing that if you collect all of them, the hidden option in the main menu will be unlocked. What that option does is a mistery, although I’ve seen a video called Neo MMT, a demo that is in hard mode. Since there is no option available to change difficulty then the hidden option may have something to do with it.

Negative Aspects

 Playing on Win XP with the Japanese Language Pack installed I came across only 1 bug, that is when you’re fighting the bosses and you keep on dieing, for some strange reason the timer isn’t reset. So that for every 3 or 4 lives lost fighting a boss you’ll lose a life to time out. After which you will restart with a imo lowly 150 seconds. Its not a too big a pain in the arse though since you can amass lots of lives and you do get unlimted continues aswell.

 Compared to other platformers the game is a little too simple especially playing the earlly stages. Things definatly pick up half way through the game when you reach the castle, stage 1 on the other hand is very boreing and you’ll find yourself racing to get to the end of level boss and the fun. Although ive seen many worse examples then this, a major design flaw many bedroom game makers do is to have the stage 1 gameplay way to simple and boring and expect the player to be still playing the game when the good parts starts. This might have been ok 10 years ago but todays gamers including me are less willing to put up with shit game design.

 As I said the stages do pick up when you reach the castle but this is mostly to do with the host of stronger enemies that you face and generally not because the platforming aspects of the game are done better. Infact if you were expecting jumping / platforming to be on par with Doki Doki Mario you will be disapointed. MMT more of a beat em up with some platforming added on. Treating the game as such makes for a much more enjoyable game.

Score

 For what it is, MMT isn't a bad game just not a great game either. Many people will only complete it once (or possibly give up at the last boss) and never pick it up again. Still if you want to try to collect all the hidden keys and unlock that option, then MMT looks a much better prospect. The game was released by the doujin circle Daisessen at C72. If you look around you might be able to grab hold of a copy. 3.1 out of 5