(Static hissing) Nori!

"It all started when we first said, 'Let’s play this shitty game.'
We played a game that’s so lame and bad that soon we went insane.
An awful beat-em up (sonna koto nai!)
with no hit de-tect-ion. (ano ogiri!)
And diff-i-cul-ty far bey-ond the de-mo-graph-ic’s skill! (Eins zwei drei!)
THE D-S PUFFY AMIYUMI GAME!
D-S PUFFY AMIYUMI GAME!
D-S PUFFY AMIYUMI GAME!
Anything is possible..."

Evidently anything is possible if you can take a beat-em-up and screw it up this bad. Okay, so I might be exaggerating a little... but not much. Let's delve into the catastrophe that is, "Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: The Genie and the Amp."

When you think about the Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi show, what's the first thing that comes to mind? If it isn't suicide, you probably think of the poor animation, bad jokes, and un-hilarious antics of the dynamic duo. Let's divert our attention away from the show, however, and towards the viewer demographic. I would think that most of us think of the demographic as being children, predominantly girls. Having said that, most of us would assume that a video game based on a cartoon would be targeted towards fans of the cartoon. I highly doubt that any kid would have the patience to beat this garbage.

Let me take a moment to explain. To be fair, the game starts off with allowing you to choose between one of two difficulties: "Hard rock" or "Easy listening." Being 19 and 21 respectively, my friend and I decided to go with the harder difficulty. We screwed up, and we screwed up bad.

As soon as the game started up, we thought we knew what to expect. Run, beat up a few enemies, get to the boss and beat him up. What we hadn't planned on, however, was getting our asses kicked. Now, each level does have a checkpoint in it. However, in the first level of the game, it took my friend and I somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes to reach the checkpoint. Granted, there wasn't a lot of level after that, but it's still unreasonable. I think it goes without saying, but just in case it doesn't, if you die before reaching that checkpoint, you're going to be starting the entire level over. What a pain in the ass.

Eventually, after many vulgarities, we found ourselves at the second level. Though more of the same crap, it was much easier. Maybe we were just getting more situated (a scary thought). Nothing could prepare us for the amount of bullshit we would be confronted with in the next level.

Without going into detail, we found ourselves at the boss of this level pretty quickly. "Thank God," we thought, "Maybe the game's not going to take so long after all." Oh how were we wrong. Oh shit how we were wrong. The boss of this level is actually a group of three enemies. Well, as though being raped from 3 sides isn't bad enough, there's a catch, and it's a HUGE catch. Before any damage can be inflicted on these three enemies, you first have to hit Kaz, who is running around like his ass is on fire. It's at this point where the game really turns to complete garbage. The hit detection on Kaz is atrocious. In fact, I'm not even sure if "atrocious" is enough to describe just how bad the hit detection is here. I have done running attacks (cartwheels) into him and just sort of rolled in place. I'll try and kick him in his face and he'll walk past me leaving me standing in place kicking around like I've got some serious muscle spasms. This, of course, leaves me completely open to take hits from the enemies which quickly leads to my demise.

Eventually, we were able to finish this level, but what the hell is wrong here? Two males, 19 and 21, who are relatively skilled in the ways of video games are standing up, cheering, and fist-pumping at the end of a level of a Hi Hi Puffy Amiyumi DS game. Something is seriously wrong with this situation. Tragically, this isn't even the worst part... We're not even half-way through the game yet. Ugh... look for Part 2 later on where I conclude my thoughts on this game.