DREAMMIX TV WORLD FIGHTERS
Original Release: Hudson, 2003, Gamecube/PS2
Jumping in on the popularity of Super Smash Bros Melee, DreamMix is a somewhat similar experience with a strange collection of fighters
DreamMix TV World Fighters (Gamecube, Hudson, 2003)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
Over a decade before fans were clamoring for SOLID SNAKKU IN SMASH, there was a mascot fighter that included him as a playable character along with Simon Belmont, Bomberman, vintage 80s Transformers, and an assortment of other Hudson, Konami and Takara characters. How did this not become a hit? Why have you never heard of it (probably)? Why did it end up relegated to a single release stuck in Japan forever?
Well, for starters ... it's kinda clunky. It isn't nearly as smooth or sophisticated as even the first two Smashes (the ones available at the time of release). It adopts an odd style with very limited movesets for characters, seemingly for the tradeoff of being able to carry and throw them at opportune times (strategic here as it plays more like Smash's Coin Mode than stock Smash). Some of the character models also look like they're straight out of the PlayStation 1, and single player was seemingly an afterthought with few options and a braindead AI that presents no challenge at all.
We'll get into each of these items in a bit more detail, but first an overview of the Smash differences and similarities. It very obviously apes the theme and visual style, with multi-level arenas that have sporadic background interference (like jets strafing in the Big Shell level). But there's no "smashing" off the screen for victory here, I guess that would have been one toke over the line for legal purposes. Instead, you beat the hearts out of opponents until they run out, and then a choice blow literally separates their soul from their body. You must grab it for the victory, which is usually trivial because they shrink to Halloween Snickers size and are stunned for a bit allowing you to grab it immediately ... but if you don't snap it up right away it starts wildly careening around the screen and the mini foe can potentially recover it to get back in the game.
The big selling point is the off-the-wall character lineup. Hudson does the design and publishing here and reaches into the depths of their archives for some deep cuts: Master Higgins, Momotaro, the werewolf from Bloody Roar ... honestly the only one most people might even recognize is Bomberman. Konami joins the fray by allowing Solid Snake, Simon Belmont, a generic Power Pro baseball player, and somehow Twinbee and the Gradius Moai to be licensed. And then there's toy giant Takara, who provide vintage Optimus Prime and Megatron as well as Japanese Barbie clone Licca-chan and some guy from Beyblade among others.
So this promises some fun just off the sheer zaniness of the matchups, but it struggles to deliver with overly simplistic gameplay and matches that seem like they're over way too fast. Characters just have one attack string, one grab (which you use to carry and chuck foes rather than for slams) and usually just one special move (assigned to its own button). Not only that, on default settings it really takes very little swanging around of the basic attack to beat the soul out of a foe.
Part of this may be the emphasis being almost entirely on multiplayer, which I didn't try out (emulation + no friends). The lone single player mode puts you in six extremely easy matches. The only other thing to do with the game is a "Caravan" mode that has gimmicky goals like hit a certain amount of balloons with a thrown ball within a time limit. You could very well exhaust the single player possibilities in just one day. A few characters need to be unlocked, but it doesn't have anything like the extensive trophy unlocking and tons of modes of a Smash Melee.
Unless you're a huge fan of one or more of the characters included (who do get four different designs each) or really want to track down every possible mascot fighter, this is easily one to skip.
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