Pros: Unique premise; bizarre plot
Cons: Short; repetitive levels; pathfinding issues; some obnoxious obstacles; no auto-save
I've always had a soft spot for batshit crazy Japanese games. If I have to ask the question, "How was this brought to America?" I'm probably interested in the game. An RPG that features simulated suicide every battle mixed with a high school simulator? Sold. A game where the your father is the king of all cosmos and destroys the entire night sky in a drunken frenzy, leaving you to roll up objects on earth in to balls to become new stars? Sign me up. An action game where you need to store up enough blood to last you through the winter and, in the process, tear a family apart emotionally? I've got to have it. And that's how I ended up with Mister Mosquito, a game whose premise is completely unique but at the same time not really worthy of emulation, at least not without some major changes. I bought the game along with a couple others and as a result, it got shelved, but after reading all the mediocre reviews the excitement for playing the game evaporated. Mister Mosquito is a repetitive and frustrating third person action game that tries to slide purely on its charm but fails.
You play as Mister Mosquito, a creature who must suck blood out of a member of the Yamada family in each level in order to have enough blood to survive the winter. The levels each feature a single member of the Yamada family (with the exception of the last level) and you must suck out a certain amount of blood by flying up to them, landing on predesignated points, and rolling the left joystick. Roll the joystick too fast or too slow and you'll attract the family member's attention, which can lead to an instant death. You must approach the spot quickly or else the family member will spot you, triggering a battle sequence where you must hit certain "relax points" on the body in order to calm them down. With a few exceptions, the levels will bleed together because that's all you do. Approach the member, suck out the blood and the level's over. Sure, there are some hidden objects in each level to find, but the game never requires you to find any of them and doing so doesn't really affect the game (unless you love finding every object in every game). Granted, if you find all of the extra containers and fill them with blood, you unlock "Year Two" where the levels are slightly harder versions of the same thing, but you honestly won't care about playing them by the end of the game. The environments even often repeat themselves, as you'll play in the girl's bedroom 4 times out of twelve levels.
Additionally, there are certain obstacles in later levels that are incredibly frustating because you'll never be sure if you're going to be hit by them. The biggest offender here are the smoke coils, as you don't have a clear idea of how large of an area the smoke is occupying. After playing this, I sincerely believe smoke is the worst possible enemy imaginable in a game. You'll find yourself hitting these over and over accidentally in a certain "Japanese Room" level in addition to being hit into them by Mr. Yamada, leading to several moments where I just about turned the game off.
The controls are functional, which is actually an accomplishment in this case as you really can wander around the entire 3D level relatively intuitively. The only two places where the game could have improved are a better 180 turn mechanic (the one in the game seems sloppily executed) and a better dash system. The dash only works when a certain object of interest is targeted, but the game will lock on when there are objects in the way, leading to you dashing into random objects when you don't mean to. Additionally, the targets sometimes need to be hit from very specific angles without any real warning, leading to you wondering if you're hitting the target from the completely wrong direction or just a few degrees off.
There are cutscenes at the beginning of each level, and as the game progresses, the Yamada family become more and more frustrated with one another because no one can kill you. It's by far the best part of the game, but its cute at best and in no way a reason to play the game. Mister Mosquito's levels only last about 5 minutes each, meaning its possible to beat the entire game in a couple of hours. You won't find much of a reason to come back afterwards unless you really want to play the aforementioned Year Two, so the game's replay is pretty low overall. If Mister Mosquito interests you, you're probably better off playing Katamari Damacy, because even if the premise doesn't involve playing as a mosquito, it's just as batshit crazy and a much better game overall.
Overall Score: 5.5
Recommended Price: $1.99
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