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Games and Sports

How About A Real Puffy AmiYumi Game?

I’ve been reading Chris Kohler’s excellent book, Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life and I’ve almost finished Chapter 9 which covers game music and music games. Music in games has always been a big deal for me and back in the day I even ripped songs from some of my Saturn game CDs to play in the car (the Virtual Cop, Wipeout, and Nights music are my favs). One of my favorite music games was the PS1 game Parappa the Rapper. Anyway, what does this have to do with Puffy AmiYumi?

Well, I was watching last night’s show whose first episode featured Yumi singing opera (I really liked the mouth animations in this one which added to the hilarity of the episode, good show!), followed by an episode in which they literally save a farm by playing a concert. This got me to thinking that Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi would be perfect for a console game in the style of Parappa the Rapper and its sequel (there was a Parappa 2 eventually but this came out firs) Um Jammer Lammy! The stories they’ve done so far would lend themselves to a music game of this sort quite well I think. The minigames on the Cartoon Network site are okay, but this show deserves a real game. Parappa the Rapper was a big success in Japan and a little less so in the U.S. while Um Jammer Lammy did not fair so well. Both of these titles got pretty good reviews, so maybe all they really lacked for U.S. success was a really good hook. Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi has been a pretty big hit for Cartoon Network, so maybe Puffy AmiYumi is the hook that a Parappa/Lammy style game would need in this market. I hope they’ll give it a shot!

I’ve been reading Chris Kohler’s excellent book, Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life and I’ve almost finished Chapter 9 which covers game music and music games. Music in games has always been a big deal for me and back in the day I even ripped songs from some of my Saturn game CDs to play in the car (the Virtual Cop, Wipeout, and Nights music are my favs). One of my favorite music games was the PS1 game Parappa the Rapper. Anyway, what does this have to do with Puffy AmiYumi?

Well, I was watching last night’s show whose first episode featured Yumi singing opera (I really liked the mouth animations in this one which added to the hilarity of the episode, good show!), followed by an episode in which they literally save a farm by playing a concert. This got me to thinking that Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi would be perfect for a console game in the style of Parappa the Rapper and its sequel (there was a Parappa 2 eventually but this came out firs) Um Jammer Lammy! The stories they’ve done so far would lend themselves to a music game of this sort quite well I think. The minigames on the Cartoon Network site are okay, but this show deserves a real game. Parappa the Rapper was a big success in Japan and a little less so in the U.S. while Um Jammer Lammy did not fair so well. Both of these titles got pretty good reviews, so maybe all they really lacked for U.S. success was a really good hook. Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi has been a pretty big hit for Cartoon Network, so maybe Puffy AmiYumi is the hook that a Parappa/Lammy style game would need in this market. I hope they’ll give it a shot!

2 replies on “How About A Real Puffy AmiYumi Game?”

A Puffy AmiYumi video game would indeed rule for those of us who love them. I had my pa buy me Parappa back in its heyday and I enjoyed it so much. The cool thing is that the guy who did the art on Parappa (Rodney Alan Greenblat) also did the illustrations for Puffy’s singles and albums. PUFFY had a PS game in Japan called "P.S. I Love You" (can they pay anymore of an homage to the Beatles???). I forgot what kind of game it was… But a Puffy game a la Parappa is sweet in idea. I just hope they don’t bomb it like the Spice Girls video game. (Not that I played it or even considered. A magazine told me so!!)

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