2008.03.19
Hamtaro: Ham Ham Games
Game Boy Advance - USA
When I played this game when it came out I thought it was a fun game with tons of replay value. But then again when I first played this game it took me a while to get used to the controls so I didn't win the tournament the first couple times around I played it. This time I won the tournament the very first time I played it and right after your first playthrough it turns into groundhog day.
All the hamsters say the same shit everyday.
In Hamtaro games the form of currency is sunflower seeds. As for what sunflower seeds can buy you in this game...not much. The only use sunflower seeds have is to buy outfits for your hamster. As for "your hamster" well you only get to see the hamster you create when you first play the game through a player card. And what is the use of a player card? Well if you and your friends all have this game you can swap cards with each other. Oh and that's if you have that cable to link your GBA together. Though of course the majority of us don't have friends that play Hamtaro. So other than that that's the only time you see the outfits you purchase in the game. Which is quite useless.Especially since in other Hamtaro games you can buy a variety of shit with sunflower seeds.
The games are fun but what this game feels like is just a bunch of mini-games thrown together. Nothing more. So after you beat the world records and collect everything there's not much to do. Meaning this game only has at the most 2 hours of gameplay. Though that's only assuming if you manage to beat the game during the first time around. Compare this to Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue, a game that came out a year earlier in Japan. There were mini-games spread througout the whole game and they were fun. Not only that the game had a story. After you beat the main game you STILL had a lot leftover to do because there was an extra game at the end much like Lunar 2: Eternal Blue.
Hamtaro: Ham Ham Games has none of that.
However it's not a terrible game at all. At the very least, for the two hours I spent on this game I had a lot of fun with it. But I was left feeling empty inside after I beat it.