Also Known As ダウンタウン激凸ドッジボール！
Developed by Miracle Kidz
Released for XBLIG (8/2009)
Downtown SMASH Dodgeball! (which was listed as ダウンタウン激凸ドッジボール！on all of the storefronts, making it a difficult title to search for using English characters) immediately struck me with nostalgic flashbacks of the Super Dodge Ball (known in Japan as the Kunio-kun series) games that came out on the arcade/NES way back in the late '80's. Upon further inspection it became apparent that the developer, Miracle Kidz, is composed of former Technos Japan team members, some of which were the same crew that worked on the old Kunio-kun games. While the character names have been changed, the gameplay has remained the same.
In Downtown SMASH Dodgeball you'll have four players on the court and three more on the sidelines of the opposing team. Anybody can attack with the ball using the A button while the B button passes to whichever teammate is calling for the ball. Pressing A+B results in a jump. Both offense and defense rely heavily on timing, and if you time your throw properly while dashing (or jumping out of a dash) you can unleash super moves that cause big damage. While on defense, if you press the A button right as a shot is about to hit your player you can catch the ball, avoiding any damage. You can also dodge the ball by crouching with the B button, but this risks it bouncing off-sides where the opponent can take possession. When a player loses all of their HP (seen on energy bars on the top) they float away to the heavens in angel form. Whichever team is the first to lose all four main players on the court loses the match. The game allows up to four-player local action and is an absolute blast if have some friends over to play it with.
Before a round begins, you're allowed to select from nine teams and then choose the positioning of your characters. It's always a good strategy to prioritize putting players with the highest attack on the main court. At the main menu you can select from tournament, one to one (the translation is a bit off in this game, but it has its charm and its nice they even bothered to include an English translation), options, controls and quit game. In tournament mode you'll play through eight rounds with a nice mix of different backdrops that rarely repeat themselves. There are five different difficulties to select from, and the harder difficulties will certainly provide a challenge. One to one allows you to just play a single round using the same teams as in tournament mode.
Downtown SMASH Dodgeball allows quite a bit of customization under the options menu, where you'll find of ton of settings you can mess with. You can select the language (English or Japanese), sound volume, toggle stereo sound, adjust game/ball time, shot speed, shot rule (not sure exactly what this is), setup the button layouts, adjust manual catch and a few other options I'm not certain what they do. The controls menu features three detailed pages and serves as the games instruction manual.
The gameplay is very faithful to the source material and after all these years it still feels satisfying to get a running start, launch a super shot and smash the opponent so hard they fly across the screen. The graphics are a tad more detailed but retain the same style of the classic Kunio titles and the sound effects are true to the originals. The music sounds like something you would have heard on an old CD-ROM title and fits the action quite well. While playing the game the characters will have constant banter that will be shown at the bottom of the screen, very similar to River City Ransom. It's a bit tough to read these and play at the same time, but it's a cool throwback to an old classic and surely there's some nice "Engrish" going on down there.
Downtown SMASH Dodgeball initially retailed for $10 when it first hit the indie games store, but it was eventually reduced to $5 before the storefront was wiped from the face of Xbox Live. It's a worthy successor to the Kunio dodgeball games and is a great time for players of all ages. Miracle Kidz would release a follow up for the Wii in 2011, but Downtown SMASH Dodgeball was never ported to anything else. It's a bit of a shame that this one will be for the most part lost in time, and it's yet another indie title that would have greatly benefited from online action on XBLA. I wish Miracle Kidz would have found better financial success with this title and released a River City Ransom style game, but unfortunately this would be the only release from the developers on XBLIG.
Final Verdict: Downtown SMASH Dodgeball! delivers some fun old-school arcade action on your Xbox 360 with support for up to four players locally. An often overlooked gem on XBLIG.
Related Links:
Miracle Kidz Official Site
Downtown SMASH Volleyball! - GameFAQs
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