Cratermaze/Doraemon: Meikyū Daisakuusen

Cratermaze/Doraemon: Meikyū Daisakuusen
Protagonist(s): Doraemon/Opi Genre(s): Action-Maze Release Date: JP: October 30, 1989 NA: 1990 Developer(s): Hudson Soft Publisher(s): Hudson Soft (JP) NEC (NA) Country: Japan Series: Doraemon

Cratermaze, known in Japan as Doraemon: Meikyū Daisakusen (ドラえもん 迷宮大作戦), is a video game released in 1989 for the TurboGrafx-16 video game console. The game was re-released by Hudson Soft for the Virtual Console on August 13, 2007 in North America, and on August 17, 2007 in Europe and Australia.

Synopsis

In the game, the hero Opi (Doraemon in the Japanese version) is traveling through time with four of his friends when they are captured by the villain Zenzombie.

Good Qualities

1. The gameplay is interesting and really fun, as the maze game, you must collect all treasures or dorayaki for each of the area. After you're collect them all, you must find the key to open the door to complete the level. it's also a pretty nice alternative of Pac-Man since the gameplay is similar to that game.
   • At first, the game will be easy for first half of the game. after that, the game can be quite challenging for the later levels.
2. The game is long for a Pac-Man clone, taking over 2 hours to complete.
3. There are over 60 area/level, each area has different eras: samurai, WW2, present, caveman, future.
4. The weapon and abilities are amazing and also varied:
   • Yoyo can defeat the enemies for instant.
   • Freeze gun that can be freezing the enemies.
   • Mole Gloves can you trapping the enemies.
   • Timer can freezing your time, but you also freezing the enemies, also you can move safely without touching it.
   • Invisibility Cape is really invisible and you can walk through the enemies safely with no problem.
   • Slow mo potion, where the enemies are really slow down.
5. The graphics is good for 1989 standards, as they are really detailled and colorful, the sprite work is also really great, especially in the Japanese version.
6. The soundtrack in the Japanese version is really good and faithful to the original Doraemon anime with some differences, there's also many catchy songs that are so good that you might want to listen to the soundtrack for so long, unfortunately the soundtrack in the American version is generic and bland (See BQ#5).
7. The ending is very decent.
8. Nice commercial, especially the Japanese version.

Bad Qualities

1. The story is very generic and uninteresting; ZenZombie kidnap all friends and Doraemon/Opi must find them all. That's it!
2. Despite the game is long and has so many level, it can be repetitive, you do the same objective for this area over and over with different layout maps.
3. The game can be quite hard, since both Doraemon and Opi has a one-hit kill, although when you got a lot of power ups the game become quite easy, until you die and lose them all.
4. The bosses is very uninteresting and not challenging; you just collect all treasures/dorayaki and boss die.
   • Not only that, but the bosses are only 2 bosses.
   • Not to mention, the enemies are uninteresting and out of the place for Doraemon standards.
5. The soundtrack in the American version is very generic.

Reception

The game received mixed reviews by critics, but praise by the gamers and Doraemon fans alike.

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