"One of the weirdest God-sims yet, but a superb game, nonetheless"

After having a fairly weak launch (software-wise at least) for the Gamecube, Nintendo delayed and delayed all their major software, so that for the first 6 months or so of 2002, Gamecube owners will have just about nothing to look forward too (other than Resident Evil). Yes, indeed, the steady flow of games has dwindled down to a mere trickle.

However, I was fortunate enough to foresee the drought, and to get my Gamecube modified at launch, allowing me to survive the drought by playing the weird import Gamecube games Japan has to offer. One of these, is Doshin the Giant.

If you're a real Nintendo fanatic, you'll probably remember this game back from its N64 days. It was originally released as a 64DD game, a little add-on to the N64 which never caught on in Japan, and was never even released over here in the US. And along with the death of the 64DD, came the death of Doshin the Giant, a game which barely anyone ever got to play.

But fortune has smiled upon us, and Doshin the Giant has been brought to the Gamecube (in Japan, at least). Doshin the Giant is basically a God-sim game, Nintendo style. You are a big yellow giant, who arrives on some island inhabited by natives and various forms of wild-life.

Throughout most of the game, you will basically be the servant of these native island dwelling people. They will tell you to give them trees, or flowers, and to raise or lower the ground, as well as move things out of their way. The villagers come in four flavors: Blue, Red, Green, and Yellow. Sure, moving the ground up and down, and moving trees around may not sound like all that rewarding of a task, but it really is. As you aid the villagers, they'll make houses, temples, and barns, have children, raise live-stock such as cows, chicken, bulls, and horses, grow vegetables, and eventually, build monuments and sculptures in your honor. The villagers will even engage in activates such as gathering around in the village center square and playing musical instruments near night-fall, playing hula hoop, balancing on balls, sleeping, and taking breaks at noon. Your ultimate goal is to collect all the various monuments which can be built. There are two different kind of monuments which the villagers will build: either a love monument, or a hate monument, depending on the village's feelings toward you.

To get all of the monuments, you'll need to combine different races, by introducing them into new villages or by taking them off to create their own villages (yes, you can kidnap people from villages). Each day in Doshin time is about 30 minutes in real time, and at the beginning of every day, you will start out rather small. You get hearts for doing good things, and skulls for doing bad things, which will both increase your size. Ah that's right, we haven't talked about Doshin the Giant's split personalities yet, have we?

Seeing as being a giant freakish yellow giant makes you inherently psychologically unstable, Doshin has a split personality: Jashin. Where-as Doshin is the ''Love Giant'', Jashin is the ''Hate Giant'', which the villagers will cower in fear of when they see. Simply hit the L trigger to transform into the evil red giant, who demon wings, allowing him to hover for a little while. Also, as Jashin you will be able to splat villagers (and watch their little bodies float off to the great Gamecube heaven in the sky), and hurl fire-balls capable of leveling large mountains. Jashin is also faster than Doshin, and is generally best used for fighting natural disasters, such as fires, tornados, volcanic eruptions, storms, or giant-freakish-tree-stealing-monkey-like-monsters (every island's gotta have some of those! LOL!). Since natural disasters can basically destroy a village you've worked very hard to make.

The graphics are actually quite good, and remain at a fairly constant 60 fps. However, none of the character designs are all that complicated to begin with, and don't take all that many polygons to animate. The water effects are very nice, with very sweet real-time reflection effects. Also, take the camera under water and it ACTUALLY looks like you're under water, not like you've just gone beneath some large blue-shaded polygon (like most other games). You'll also notice that the game developers were a bit cheap when they were developing the game, and that the villagers will switch between their polygon forms and sprite forms in order to conserve processor power (which is noticeable to the trained eye, such as mine), which I suppose does keep the frame-rate up even when there is a lot of villagers on the screen at once. The structures that the villagers will build are quite impressive as well, as are the textures on the ground. Everything seems to move rather fluidly, so there's no complaints animation-wise at least.

Furthermore, the world you are in is pretty detailed. You'll see birds fly through the sky, and fish swim in the seas. Not only that, but the birds will flock together, and swoop down to catch a fish. You'll often see a bird flying off with a fish in its mouth. The trees are also detailed and realistic, not just some cheap sprites that you'll find in other games. There aren't any ''invisible walls'' in the game, as you'll find in many other games, however, if you go to far, you'll ''fall of the edge of the Earth'' so there are still those limitations...

However, Doshin the Giant's most impressive feature is real-time environment altering. I believe this is the FIRST game ever to be able to do that. Let's take another game, such as Rogue Leader for example. There's a building which you want to blow up, you shoot it, and shoot it, but it doesn't even look harmed at all. Suddenly, it magically explodes, as if filled with dynamite (extremely unrealistic). Furthermore, there are structures, which no matter how much you shoot them, will never be destroyed. No matter how much you shoot or crash into that mountain, it'll still be there. Those are ''static'' worlds, Doshin the giant has a completely ''dynamic'' world.

For example, you can go out into the ocean and say ''I want an island here'' and you can do your funky little robot dance to make the land raise up, and create an island there. If you want to make that island a mountain, sure thing, you just raise the land a bit more. If you want that island to become a deep hole under water, that's not a problem either, just lower the land a bit more. ANY piece of land you can see, you can modify to your liking. If you want to make some islands that spell out your name, then you can do it. Furthermore, the frame-rate doesn't drop at all, and everything remains the way you left it, not cheaply turning back to its default form whenever you turn your back.

But amidst all its greatness, Doshin the Giant does have a few flaws. Firstly, in my opinion, there isn't enough to do as Jashin (the evil giant). Sure, it's always fun to torment villagers, and burn villages to the ground, but very rarely will you ever actually have to use Jashin. Most of the time you'll just lowering or raising land as the good giant. Plus that, and the villagers can be INCREDIBLY STUPID at certain times. They'll want you to raise a piece of land, and, as soon as you do, they'll want you to lower it again, then vice versa. Some times they'll want me to lower a piece of land, which puts an already existing structure under-water, thus destroying it, and of course, they all get made AT ME. Often times they're very poor at communicating their emotions, they might TELL you to raise a piece of land, but what they REALLY want you to do is make that piece of land level with its surroundings, so you could please that person just as easily by lowering the surrounding areas. Plus, once you get large enough, the villagers will basically run in front of your feet ASKING to be squashed.

In the end, I would have asked for a bit more to do. Maybe different environments would have been nice, or maybe rival giants for your villages to compete with. Then your two different sets of villages could go to war with each other. Because after a while ''collecting monuments'' does get rather boring you know. Still, this is a very innovative, if not weird, game which Gamecube owners starved for good new software should be more than delighted to pick up. Just be ready one of the weirdest games you'll ever play...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/26/02, Updated 07/19/02