Mister Mosquito

The Good
This review will be like the game itself; short, to the point and without any extras, but hopefully somewhat enjoyable while it lasts.

The game's premise alone is what got me to buy this one in the first place. It's been out of print for quite a while now, but I happened upon a used one at the local GameStop and thought it'd be a neat game to kill some time with. I'm generally a sucker for any game that tries to go outside the "norm", so this one seemed right up my alley.

In the game you take the role of a mosquito who needs to stock up on enough blood to last him through winter (which, quite frankly, is news to me that mosquitos lived that long and hibernated). You've decided that the "lucky" family will be the Yamadas, a family of three (dad Kenichi, mom Kaneyo and daughter Rena).

Gameplay is pretty straight forward with fairly few buttons to remember, and an easy interface. I found it refreshingly simple in a time of 10+ button games where every button does something, and if you press them together they do even more. Here it was as simple as "accelerate", "break", "turn" and "suck blood".

The goal of each stage (except the last four which are slightly different) is to find the yummy spots on the family members. Much like the Solid Snake of mosquitos you then have to find the best route or action to take to get to them while avoiding attention. This was actually really fun, as sometimes you have to turn off the light to get the person to move in a certain way to expose their weak spot and more things along that line. In some stages you just simply have to lay in wait for the opportunity to arise and do a quick blitz attack.

Graphics in the game are quite ok, especially considering the fact that the game was released in 2001 in Japan. You really get the feeling that you are a tiny insect and that the smallest household items are towering over you. While the family members move a little stiffly at times, they are very detailed given the size of them. Anyone who's played Shadow of the Colossus should know that feeling.

There was enough variety in the stages to keep it interesting all the way to the end, since they all had different hazards and situations where you had to slightly change your strategy to get to the delicious Yamada blood.

The story was far from award winning material, but was simple and humorous enough to make me smile a couple of times. Really, how much of a story would you expect from a game about a mosquito sucking blood from a family anyway?

The music and sound effects and neither in the way or exceptionally good. It's there and does what it should, and that's just enough to make you not care that it's there, but also enough to give you something to listen to while playing the game.

For the person who enjoys to scour games for extras there's enough of it to keep you occupied for a little while at least. You can collect extra tanks for blood reserves which unlocks a harder difficulty, and there are little heart rings which will increase your health if you find 50 of them.

The Bad
Well... the game is short, and I mean really short. If you just simply play through the stages you'll be done with the entire game in less than two hours. I bought the game for basically nothing, but I'd feel slightly cheated if I would have bought it on the release day expecting something to hold me over for a while.

While the controls are simple enough to be enjoyable, they can sometimes be quite unruly when you need them to work the most. If you need to do a quick turn or a 180 degree turn, you usually end up going some place completely different from what you'd expect. This is because the mosquito gets a little speed boost when he turns quickly. I suppose it's there to be helpful in battle, but you just keep smashing in to things and making it all confusing.

The target system used to attach yourself to the blood sucking spots can be quite off at times as well. You get a green square which indicates where to land. When you get close enough you press the button to land and expect him to do just that. What you don't expect is that the square might be slightly out of your way, so you end up slamming against the Yamada you're about to feast on, making you have to wait for another opportunity to open again.

While you fly around the room looking for hearts and things you realise that the bonuses themselves are even tinier than you are, so finding them can be quite a hardship half the time. And not only that, but when you find them, you'll also realise that it's really hard to see how far away they are and at what altitude. You'll end up going in a circle or back and forth for quite a while before you can get some of them.

There is a stress meter to indicate how aware the family is of your presence on their bodies. This will go from green to yellow to red, and when you get to red you just better get away quickly. However, several times while I was playing I found myself at maybe yellow at the most, and then the family member does an insta-kill swat at me that there is absolutely no way I could see it coming. Game Over, start the entire stage over, lose all the stuff you collected on the stage... I don't know what possessed them to program this unless they just felt like being sadistic or trying to teach you a valuable lesson about how "Life can be taken from you at any moment. Enjoy every minute of it, because you never know when it will end."

The Bottom Line
Since I am a big fan of games that try to go outside the norm, I really can't dismiss this game entirely. It is original and has a lot of charm, so anyone out there who can find if cheap enough to live with the fact that there's less than two hours of game time (maybe four if you want to find everything as well), should really give it a try at least.

Awkward at times, repetitive some of the time, but full of charm and humor all the time. That's how I'd sum this game up.