Friday sessions of ours. Almost had to start digging into the bargain bins for copies of

Yu-Gi-Oh or some Inu-Yasha nonsense. But our eternal benefactress of interestingly odd

stuff, Felicity in Worcestershire, posted in yet another shipment of consolidated awesome,

allowing me to share with you Doraemon: Aruke Aruke Labyrinth! Which is kinda like a Lemmings-ish

puzzle-ish, wibbly wobbly, anime licensey, substance. Awright, it�s rather difficult

to describe, but damn if it isn�t pretty darn FUN. Watch some footage, and you�ll

get the picture. Hopefully.

This is one of those games that starts with a really nifty idea, and I kinda just want

to dig in, but let�s get some plot out of the way. Nobita and Doraemon obtained a Genie

somehow, it got mad, absconded with Shizuka, you have to rescue her, etc. ON TO THE GAMEPLAY.

In the tradition of Mario & Wario, Rocko�s Modern Life: Spunky�s Dangerous Day, and

any number of other escort-the-dumb-walker-type games, you control a cursor capable of interacting

with your dumb-walker there as well as his immediate surroundings. Each level gives you

the choice of Suneo, Nobita, or Jaiyan, each with a different movement speed. Your only

direct influence over their action is to turn �em around with the A button or speed �em

up with B... the rest of the challenge consists of manipulating the environment to get said

dumb-walker to the goalpost. Along the way, various hazards like weird zombie-looking

things and weird bug-flying-looking things lumber about, but can be summarily swatted

through use of the cursor. Unfortunately, certain enemies like these UFO-looking things

are impervious to your actions and can only be eliminated by MAGIC LIGHTNING FROM THE

HEAVENS. Oh, but watch out for the strange, completely static lightning patches, as you

can�t really do anything about those.

So it�s a little bit Lemmings, a little bit Krusty�s Fun House, a little bit cool

soundtrack and a lotta bit fun to play... if you can get comfortable with the controls.

As you have no control over the camera outside of making your dude walk to a particular place,

part of the challenge comes from being able to quickly and efficiently figure out a path,

deal with any obstacles, and make sure you maintain control... while the frustration

comes from the difficulty of doing all of this on a simple D-Pad. Fortunately, the screen�s

movement doesn�t affect the cursor�s position, so if you have to move three clicks to the

left, it�ll take three clicks despite any movement in the meanwhile. If ever there was

an application for a Game Boy Color Mouse, this would certainly be it. (Just like Lemmings

or Mario & Wario had.) Still, despite some input frustration, the game itself is easy

to pick up and very engaging, especially if you want to go the extra mile and collect

the dorayaki in each stage. Doraemon: Aruke Aruke Labyrinth shines as one of the stars

of Strange Anime License Friday, at least until I get my hands on a copy of Ranma � Ougi

Janken. SOON.