Sprung

"Because I’ll Never Be Able to Get a Real Date…"

First off, props to Ubisoft for taking a dip into the dating sim genre. A genre that does not exist outside Japan and G-Collections. As a gamer who thinks it's a crime against god that not a single Tokimeki game has been translated (No, Tokimeki Check-In! doesn't count), it was only natural that I would pick this up for my brand-new Nintendo DS after Super Mario 64 DS. And it was quite unlike anything I ever played. Not a surprise, considering the severe lack of inspiration and model games in the genre.

Sprung, released a launch title for the Nintendo DS in 2004, was developed by Guillemont and published by Ubisoft. It was met with below-average reviews by nearly every major reviewer. But frankly, I bought Sprung because I wanted to see more quirky games being brought over here. And thankfully, my purchase wasn't a total waste.

In Sprung, you play as everyday teen Brett or Becky. One season at a ski resort, you decide to make this the best damn winter of your life by hooking up! Woo!

That's the general gist of the plot. The strength of Sprung doesn't devolve from the general plot, but rather the plots that make up the bigger picture. Sprung is episodic. Brett or Becky is placed in a quirky situation and have to make certain goals. These ‘missions' range from flattering the rich kid at the lodge to get a VIP pass from seeing who can get the most phone numbers from catching a snowboard bandit. Each of these episodes are varied and packed full of style.

Which brings me to Sprung's highest pro. This game has tons of style. The dialogue is consistently fresh and hilarious. Guiding Brett in a desperate attempt to convince a old lady to give him a pair of her panties for a scavenger hunt is riotous. Insulting the rich snob with nicely-placed one-liners is side-splitting. The dialogue, which composes the meat of the game, is very well done and a welcome change from the engrish of most Japanese-translated dating sims.

Unfortunately, the dialogue loses its appeal after the second dozen times you read it. Which you will be doing. A lot. To succeed in Sprung, you need to make the right decisions. And since every episode has five choices that lead to five seperate choices, this can get annoying. Mess up one wrong choice and you need to start the mission all over again, recalling exactly what you said to get to that point. And even then, there's no assurance that you're even on the right path. On some of the later missions, you'll be replaying the same episode fifty times only to realize that you're completely on the wrong path. What's worse, there's no way to understand which path to take. It's all guess and check.

The characters are very well varied to the point where it's cheesy. However, they are drawn very well and change expression with each decision. It's animated very nicely and richly. Plus, the expressions add a ton of personality to each of the characters, as if the dialogue didn't do enough already. Music is decent, but it could have been much better.

Sprung is a quirky little game that's worth buying if you feel like something different. It could have very easily been a much better game if the game play wasn't so maddening and the story wasn't so… pubescent, I suppose. Still, props to Ubisoft for giving this type of game a chance instead of another rehash.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/06/05