Doraemon 3: Nobita’s Town SOS! - All N64 Games

[Glen-i]

What is even this Boo model!?

It's proper demented! I love it!

[Cube]

Carnivalé: Cenzo’s Adventure

• JP release: N/A
• NA release: N/A
• PAL release: N/A
• Developer: Terraglyph
• Publisher: Vatical
• N64 Magazine Score: N/A

The N64 didn’t get a lot of movie tie-in games, so it’s quite bizarre that this exists. The film (which you probably haven’t heard of) was directed by Deane Taylor, the art director for A Nightmare Before Christmas. It was about a group of children that end up in a mysterious haunted fairground, and get warned by a mysterious girl (played by Helena Bonham Carter) that if they don’t leave, they’ll be trapped and stuck as children for ever.

It got a limited release in Europe where it performed poorly, and the North American release was cancelled. The film has had extremely limited video releases, and the director isn’t bothered by it being mostly erased from existence. I did manage to find an English version (with a cropped image) and watched a few snippets, the characters sounded annoying.

The film tanking was, of course, bad news for the developers of the game (who were also making a Scooby Doo game for N64), as it meant the game getting cancelled. The game focused on one of the main kids – Cenzo (voiced by Hugh Laurie in the film), who is at least more of an interesting design than the other characters. You walk around the theme park (where the tents just look randomly placed) in order to collect coins to pay for attractions, getting a few weapons, and getting access to new areas. There’s not much platforming, though, it’s just walking around.

The main bulk of the game seems to be a kart racer. The controls are floaty and imprecise, and the weapons feel ineffective. The tracks are quite long, and largely flat and boring, even the more complicated ones. They are themed around different attractions – dodgems, a boat ride, a plane ride, a haunted house, and crocodiles. While your “kart” changes based on this, they don’t feel any different.

After you’ve beaten the three CPU racers, you then take on a single boss CPU. Beat them, and you can progress through the game. The hub world area is certainly a nice idea (Diddy Kong Racing used one really nicely), but the gameplay of it is just quite boring, and the enemies are more annoying than tough. Still, a kart racer probably would have been enough for the publishers, so they were trying to do something different.

The thing that does seem to be a tad more worrying regarding the game’s development, is that this really does seem to be most of what was planned. The five in this prototype were all of the ones that were going to be in the final game, and it seems the only thing missing was one or two more simple minigames. So while a nice idea, it would still have been extremely bare-bones. This looks and plays like a very early prototype, but seems to be close to being finished.

Worst

Quote

Carnivalés rides seem to play like Mario Kart – with weapons to pick up and employ against your CPU rivals – but the correndous 90° turns on some of the tracks would make for some truly frustrating racing. Hopefull, all will be clear by next month.

N64 Magazine #48

Should it be finished?

From the sounds of it, this prototype almost is finished, even though there isn’t a lot to show for it.

[Glen-i]

14 minutes ago, Cube said:

They are themed around different attractions – dodgems, a boat ride, a plane ride, a haunted house, and crocodiles.

What horrifying fun fairs did you go to?

[Cube]

Doraemon 3: Nobita’s Town SOS!
 

• JP release: 28th July 2000
• NA release: N/A
• PAL release: N/A
• Developer: Epoch
• Publisher: Epoch
• N64 Magazine Score: 54%

 

The third of the Doraemon games on N64, this goes back to being more of a Mario style platformer, only with absolutely no platforming challenge. There are plenty of jumps to make, but not a single one that you’ll struggle with in any way, not even in the big platforming “challenges” at the end of each world. The game is more about unlocking objects and using them in certain locations.

The unlock method is rather strange, though. All of the weapons and items are already in your inventory, just covered in goop. To unlock them, you collect spray cans that respawn whenever you re-enter an area, so that part of it is extremely trivial. The problem it causes, is that there are a lot of potential items to use with no indication of where you can even use objects. There’s some vague hints in the text, but it just means that trial and error is a very time consuming option.

The game overall is just quite boring. Enemies are very easy to shoot down, and even bosses are just a case of avoiding attacks while shooting as much as possible, so the entire game is just casually walking through levels, having to use very random items in very random locations. There are also multiple villages with some nice little areas, but once again, it’s just using items in odd ways. There’s not much to this one.

Fine

Quote

Tehnically, Doraemon 3 is a pretty shameful affair. Attempts at digusising the horrendous pop-up have failed, and the textures are strikingly similar to Mario’s, only much worse. Your characters, although cute to look at, handle like wounded pigs, particularly when they get near water. Add to this a wobbly camera – a sure sign of a sloppy 3D platformer – and you get an unpleasant blend indeed.

Alan Maddrell, N64 Magazine #46

Remake or remaster?

Only in a comprehensive Doraemon game collection.

Official ways to get the game.

There’s no official way to get Doraemon 3

[Ashley]

Why the hell is Alan Maddrell injuring so many pigs?

[Dcubed]

Shame to see the straight run of surprisingly good Doreamon N64 games come to an abrupt halt.