Changoo 4 - Crayon Shin Chan is a fun, fast and funny game - although, if you are not Korean, you've probably never heard of this little gem. Don't let that discourage you though - especially if you are a fan of comedy anime, and arcade-like 2D scrolling games.
The game is based on a manga of the same name, and details the adventures of a very mischievous, Bart-Simpson like five years old who lives with a rather wacky family. Despite his tender age, Shin-Chan seems to be allowed to have regular strolls around his neighborhood block (I wasn't too sure about that either - I'm sure there are laws against that kind of thing).
Using a smooth 2D scrolling platform, the little ankle-biter has to run, dodge and attack the denizens of his hometown, avoid traps, nasty animals, and generally has a good time running about and causing havoc. If this sounds a little standard so far, rest assured - it gets weirder and weirder - Shin-Chan picks up a brightly colored spacecraft and is soon zooming about taking on his enemies. Even better 2D platform frequently gives way to some seriously good and very addictive mini games. One nice feature is as soon as you unlock a mini game, you can play it again from the main menu. As I'm far more of a mini game fan, I thought this was a really good feature, and there's
a surprising amount of effort that has been put into making the mini games re-playable.
Be warned though - the version I played was in Korean, without an English language option. However, the storyline seems bizarre enough anyway, and although you may miss out the exact semantic meanings of Shin-Chan's insults and battle-cries, you're certain to get the gist of it and so on. Also, the controls are what you would expect for a mainly 2D game, and fairly easy to get the hang of, despite the language barrier. The emphasis seems to be on having a fun, lightweight, pretty game, not on complicated combo moves or puzzle decoding.
For a freeware product, the graphics are pretty good, having a nice, bouncy, manga style, and very well animated. The music and sound is suitably chirpy. All in all, I'm quite encouraged to go and see if I can find some dubbed Shin-Chan anime adventures - he certainly gets up to a lot of strange and amusing things. A great game overall - definitely recommended.
