April 10th, 2007 | Feature
The Game Center CX Episode Guide
The front-to-back tribute to the Japanese TV show that flies in the face of Nintendo's epilepsy warnings.

 

Game Center CX Season 11 – Back to Contents
#84

"Super Gussun Oyoyo" Ay Yai Yai

Chousen

After Arino tried it a little while ago in the first Virutal Console challenge, Super Gussun Oyoyo is now the focus of a proper episode. This action puzzle game has you moving and placing blocks in order to guide Gussun, the AI-controlled blob of cuteness, to the exit door. With tons of stages to get through, Arino may have his work cut out for him. Gussun is easily spooked by blocks falling too close to him, and otherwise can’t be pushed off an edge from too high.

Arino gets through the first stage in seconds, but the second stage features a large gap for Gussun to get across. The little guy almost walks right down into the water below, but Arino cleverly drops a block near him to get Gussun to run back up the steps. Some time later, Gussun makes it to the other side and rescues two Little Gussuns, but he’s just below the exit door and can’t reach it, then starts going back the other way. Instead of a block, a bomb appears next, and Arino panics a little, dropping it right in front of Gussun, causing him to lose the little ones.

Arino uses the next block to push Gussun back to safety. Unfortunately, the back is impeded by one too many blocks, and Gussun can’t climb over them. And now the water’s up to a dangerous level. Needless to say, Gussun falls in, and drowns a few seconds later. D’oh! On the next try, Arino accidentally crushes Gussun with a block, but on the third try, he finally nails it.

Stage 3 is almost nothing but blocks, so Arino just has to use bombs to get Gussun through — no prob. Stage 4 is another big hassle, though, as Arino keeps finding ways to drown or crush Gussun — having to make a vertical path to the door doesn’t help.

This is essentially how it continues. Gussun can be a pain in the butt if he’s not going where he should be, and the pre-determined types of blocks that drop in make it hard to form steps and paths exactly how you want. By stage 6, more than one exit door starts appearing, so at least Arino has some kind of choice. But by stage 8, after one too many losses (did I mention you can also lose by stacking a block on top of another at the top of the screen?), Arino finally gets a Game Over. The game saves his progress, so he considers starting from the last stage, but the staff groans in disapproval.

Fast forward past stage 8 and onto stage 9. A new wrinkle in the tapestry: spikes! Now Arino has to build over the spikes while also making sure Gussun gets up to the exit. Unfortunately, he accidentally blocks the exit, and Gussun drowns again. Another Game Over after spending his continues.

Just then, AD Emoto steps in. The good news is that he’ll let Arino continue from stage 9 now. The better news: Arino can play with infinite continues just by setting the game as such as in the option screen. Maybe now the challenge won’t be quite so rough.

Back to stage 9, where Arino is still having trouble at first, but he luckily manages to get up to the door. On stage 10, the exit is underwater, but the water is slowly lowering. To keep Gussun out of trouble, Arino smartly uses an L-block to temporarily trap the little guy while the water lowers and a path is built. A couple of minutes later and Gussun is able to fall right down to the exit.

Stage 11 isn’t much better: the exit is blocked from three sides, so Arino has to build a path that snakes around. Once again, he keeps Gussun pinned while he does the work. On the first try, he has too many blocks to work with and fills up the screen; then he just starts crushing Gussun more often. But even when he gets the path down, Gussun ends up dead by enemies.

It takes 22 tries on this stage before Arino finally lucks out. He gets the path cleared and ready for Gussun — but wait! The water’s almost up to the exit! Gussun needs to make it there first, and Arino’s still missing one more block! Amazingly, he gets exactly the one he needs, and Gussun makes it.

Arino has less of a stressful time on the next several stages, so we jump ahead sto stage 19. The backdrop has moved to a desert-like world with blocks of sand. On stage 19, Arino has to work in reverse again, blasting away blocks instead of just placing them. He tries his best to use bombs to clear away blocks, but Gussun usually ends up drowning from the rising water.

This is turning into another long ordeal, but it’s only on the next try when Arino finally gets Gussun to the exit. After moving on and clearing stage 21, Gussun moves to the next world.

Things get hard again on stage 25: another long gap to get across before the water rises. It’s here that Arino discovers that Gussun can "ride" on a block before Arino places it, so he uses that to his advantage, and shuttles Gussun right over to the exit. Very nice.

Once again we jump forward, this time to stage 33. It’s another mostly wide-open area with the exit at the top of the room. Arino works hard to get a bloc path over there, but a slime enemy pops up in front of Gussun. Arino squashes it with a block, but then that blocks Gussun, who turns around and walks right into another slime. A few more accidental spooks mean more failures. By now, it’s taken over 50 attempts. It’s not until the 55th try that Arino finally gets Gussun (and the blocks, and the enemies) to go where he wants.

Stage 34 is no reprieve. The design features a giant "X" shape in the middle, and Arino once again has to make Gussun snake under and back up to the exit. For some reason, Arino stacks blocks to the top far too often, making him lose without even trying, but finally, after several tries, he gets Gussun under and up without incident.

Now for stage 35, and it’s a doozy: Arino has to get Gussun up a narrow shaft, but there’s no bottom, so he basically has to use the blocks to cart Gussun back and forth so he climbs up the shaft, and if Gussun turns around and goes the other way, Arino’s screwed, as he has to immediately drop the block and be careful the next one doesn’t crush Gussun. When Gussun gets within a few steps of the exit, Arino immediately pauses and thins about it. Some careful block placements later, and bam, he makes it.

On stage 36, the exit is hidden, but it only takes two tries before Arino finds it and gets Gussun there. But Arino gets closer to stage 40, which he assumes is the final one. It’s a tough one, too, with enemies dropping in randomly, but when Arino finds a hidden exit right before dying, he nails it on the next try.

So is stage 40 the end? Hardly. Instead of a credits screen, it’s stage 41! AD Emoto comes in to break the news that if Arino had taken the first exit, he would have gotten the regular ending — in a way, it’s good he took the secret exit, because now he can go for the "true" ending! Well, it doesn’t cheer up the kacho one bit, because now there are ten more stages to get through.

Stage 41 is mostly empty, but Arino still has to work fast to beat the rising water. He gets through after only a couple of tries, though, and blazes through to 46 — guess it’s not so bad after all. Stage 46 has another hidden exit, which happened to be right under Gussun’s feet.

Stage 47 is kind of a pain (more surprising enemies trip up Arino a few times), and 48 is a harder version of the "narrow shaft" stage from earlier. But he still makes it to stage 49 realitively smoothly.

49 is an extra large pain, though, because of thenumber of bomb enemies that drop in and either kill Gussun or disrupt Arino’s block-laying progress. He even cuts a cold compress pad in half and puts them on his temples for added comfort.

Stage 50 is the final challenge, and looks like one: a room mostly filled with blocks, and peppered with spikes, too. Arino has to blow them up in exactly the right way so Gussun can stay safe. After losing once, he pauses the game, and ADs Emoto and Ito reproduce the stage on the whiteboard.

Arino sketches out a planned path, but Emoto suggests another way: getting Gussun to hop on a bomb, then moving it all the way down to the exit. Bold, but apparently valid. Arino tries it out, but the first time, the bomb scares Gussun, and he runs to his own death. Another failure occus due to badly timing where the bomb lies. Emoto comes back and points out a secret exit closer than the "real" one.

Arino goes for it, dropping the bombs right where Emoto pointed, and yep, there’s the exit. Now the climbing and dodging isn’t half as hard, and Gussun makes it to the end! And this time, it is the end. Arino earns the true ending and finally beats the game.

But then producer Kan gets on the mic and tells Arino there’s a set of Extra Stages that lead to the "true true ending," but rather than set it aside for another day, Arino just has the ADs beat it and show us the ending.

TamaGe

Nerima-ku is the stage for this TamaGe adventure, as Arino visits a game center called Miracle In. There’s nothing too special about it from the outside, but hey, it’s an arcade, and Arino’s here to play.

He starts with a mechanical game called Magne Crane. It’s sort of the love child of a crane game and pachinko: A large magnet picks up ball bearings from a pile below, and whatever makes it to the tray is added to your score. Arino does well, but not enough to earn a prize.

Next up is a video game: The one and only Crazy Taxi. Arino says it’s a nostalgic sight, but he’s a little rusty, and runs out of time just as he’s about to drop off a passenger. But then, he notices a cheat code posted up above the screen. It describes how to play as the secret bicycle rickshaw, but he can’t get it to work.

Arino calls over to the manager, asking who wrote the tip. The manager’s wife speaks up and admits to writing it, but she never actually tried it out. The husband offers to open up the cabinet and look at the operation manual to see if the trick is in there. It’s Arino’s first time seeing an arcade game manual, but the technical info inside is just for owners, not players.

He tries the trick again, but still no go. Arino moves on to check out the rest of the games, and sits down in front of Quiz Tonosama no Yabou 2. He knows the series well, of course, but this time he gets AD Emoto to sit down and play with him. Unfortunately, neither of them do well, and lose their first game.

Arino stands up afterward, and then one of the staff calls for him from a distance: The secret of the bicycle taxi has been cracked! AP Nakayama joins Arino back at the Crazy Taxi machine, and the young man shows Arino that the shifter has to be in Neutral before doing the trick — seems the grammar in the cheat sheet was a little misleading.

This time, Arino gets the bicycle easily, thanks Nakayama, and then has a go around the ingame city with his funky new car.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Strategy Guides

How can staying brave when facing lava blasts in Starship Hector help you in life? It just can, OK?

Page Nav: « Previous Next »

Crunk Games – The Game Center CX Episode Guide

Crunk Games is a game site about nothing. Read more anyway »

Feed

RSS Feed

Editorial

Review
Preview
Profile
Feature
Other
E3
Podcasts

Game Index
(Alpha by title)

Dreamcast
Game Boy
GameCube
GB Advance
Master System
NES
Nintendo DS
PlayStation
PlayStation 2
PlayStation 3
PSP
Sega CD
Sega Saturn
Xbox

Archives

2011
2010
2009
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003

5 Random Links

Banff Centre
GHM
Chronicle of TV Games
Howard & Nester
198X

© 2003-2011 Crunk Games. All rights reserved. To Top | Home