End of an era - this is the last Warp game for the 3DO. And it's just a little 'un. Yep - Short Warp. Geddit? Short Warp - Little 'un? Nudge - nudge. I'm wasted - I really am.
My disc is number 3,571 of 10,000. Coincidently as my blog clicks over the 100,000th unique visitor. Which is sort of cool for a niche, geeky, pointless blog like this.
So - aside from some minimalist box art - what else do you get for 2,800 Japanese yen (about £14.00 or $28.00 U.S.)
You get nine Warp mini games - Some new - Some not so new.
The first one is Signal Flag University. Oh yes. From the Warp animated gang, this game focuses on the one that looks like a little orange cat. The cat gets shouted instructions and then you via the Dpad, are expected to respond with the correct flag. Unable, as I am, to speak Japanese. This game was not much fun for me. Although it looks cute.
The second game is Dance Heaven. Not really a game to be honest. Basically every button on the 3DO joypad is mapped to a percussion instrument. You hit a button, it makes a sound, the screen changes. I have no musical talent. None. I was kicked out of Recorder lessons when I was five years old for being tone-deaf. Having heard this - so was Warp.
The third game. Oyaji Hunter. Not to be confused with Oyaji Hunter Mahjong. Oyaji means 'old man', and this mini-game is based on the same game engine as Wake up Nobunaga, or Oversleep Nobunaga. You, as Oyaji Hunter beat up a dirty old man who has been caught looking down some young girls top. You whack away at the 'A' button and it counts up from 1. You then whack the 'A' button again and you are rewarded with a multiplyer. The total is subtracted from Oyajis' grand total. Once it reaches zero your treated to a view down a young womans top. "Arigato Oyaji hunter" - she cries - I bet.
Forth is Rush 'n' Fire Megadas. I've played once, twice, thrice and never liked it. Large ring robotic sumo, with guns. No, sorry, not for me.
Next up is one of the better games. Animalis. We've seen it before on 'Flopon World' but it's still pretty fun. You flip the squares to reveal an animals face. Match the faces and the squares vanish and the remaining squares slide down to form patterns. Put three in a line and your little friend on the right hand side of the screen, being lowered by a rope into a hungry crocodile is hoisted back up a bit. The game is time limited but quite fun. Easily one of the better games on the disc.
At number 6 is more Nobunaga bashing as Lets wake up Nobunaga or Oversleep Nobunaga is once again included. Very similar to Oyaji Hunter except the numbers are Japanese based rather than European in Oyaji hunter.
Then it's Mahjurith. Tetris meets Mahjong. Warp seem just a teeny bit obsessed with the idea of combining game genres. This sort of works - although because the Mahjong characters are very stylised Japanese/Chinese the game isn't friendly to those of us that don't read Japanese/Chinese character sets.
Next the one we've been waiting for Flopon the Space Mutant 2. Same old Trip D just with much fancier graphics. The usual crowd of Warp mutants descend from the top the screen, in much the same manner as in Tetris. Your job is rotate and position them in groups of four so they either disappear or morph into a Trip D character. If that happens the next time you morph a character you do damage to you opponents stack of blocks. It's a lot of fun and the best game on the disc.
The final one is plain old fashioned weird. It is called Hyper Comanchic and it's basically 'Simon Says'. The game tells you to press a sequence of keys and you, within a time limit, must press the correct sequence of keys. It starts off easy and gets gradually harder. Every time you win a little Action Man like character does a dance. Again - I don't get it either. It's weirdly addictive and a version of it did appear in the Arcade in Shenmue. Although I'm not suggesting a link.
And that's it.
Having played D back in the day, and more recently the entire Warp 3DO catelogue, I've been trying to figure out Warp and its merry little band of wacky developers, artists and musicians were upto in the early 1990s. Most of it doesn't make sense. Not until this disc arrived. Now, I think, although no promises, I get it. Warp that is.
Why are some of the games ambitious but flawed? Why are most of the games basic PD games? Why the double meanings behind Oyaji Hunter? Why the experimentation? Why do you get the feeling sometimes Warp were taking the p**s?
The Short Warp disc comes with an insert and manual. The manual contains pictures of the Warp team. Simply put, the answer to the Warp riddle? They were young.
Is Short Warp rare? 1 in 10,000 rarer now!
3DO Kid.
Wait wait wait. So in "Oyaji Hunter," the goal is to beat the piss out of a dirty old man for looking down a young girl's top. And after having successfully accomplished this, you are then rewarded with...a view down a young girl's top? Oh well, I'm sure it made perfect sense to Warp!