Relationships, pfpth! Who needs 'em? - Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak

Okay, tyrants! You've made the hivemind's desire clear...


Our leading Ham-Hams are going to be called Squall and Rinoa for this LP. I trust you can all live with that?

Taking the comments made so far on board, I've chosen to make a compromise: the big, interesting cutscenes get transcribed while I just provide the gist of any boring dialogue. Anyway, we have their names now... Why don't we get this show on the road?

Click for video!
As soon as we confirm our choice, the game presents us with this... A heart being menaced by a pitchfork?

Whoever's holding the pitchfork pulls back for a moment, and with one solid jab...


...breaks that heart clean in two! But what does it mean? What symbolism does this have?


...Oh, it appears to be exactly what it looks like. The two broken-hearted hamsters turn away from one another in a huff and storm off, much to the third's amusement. Here's your 'abomination', Jimcloud.


This devilish ham-ham catches sight of two more couples, and breaks them up with just a few quick pokes at the hearts floating above them, followed by some diabolic laughter.

...Yep, we're dealing with a Saturday-morning cartoon villain here.


Hmm? They've spotted something off-screen...


...which turns out to be our hero, looking somewhat on the clueless side.


Squall gets singled out by this ham-ham in a devilish get-up, and panics when they start to rush him! Ok, just calm down, pull out your gunblade and...


...darn. Squall is sent tumbling down into the void, making Exdeath look like an ineffectual chump in comparison to our evil-doer.


...Or perhaps not. False alarm, folks! (Looking back, the fuzzy border probably should have been a big hint about the whole dream thing.)


No sooner than Squall wakes from his nightmare, another ham-ham wants us to do something for them. *sigh* Such is the life of a protagonist.

The ham-ham who wants a word comes upstairs, and promptly tells us that we look terrible. ...Squall just woke up from a nightmare, what do you expect?

Anyway, this other hamster plays an important enough part in the show for me to provide another brief bio for you all.


Name: Boss
Self-appointed leader of the Ham-Ham main cast, he's a courageous field hamster with a bit of a temper... and a fairly big crush on Rinoa, though she doesn't feel the same way about him. He often pretends to know more than he does, and is reportedly prone to sea-sickness. All in all, he won't be of too much use to us.

Following his careless remark, Boss has a brief discussion about Squall's dream, wondering if it might be a vision of the future. Of course, he just laughs it off afterwards.


Careful to make sure that we don't forget about the favour he needs from us, he wanders off and leaves us to our own devices. Naturally, downstairs is the only way to go, and it throws us straight into another cutscene when we head that way.


...Smooooth. Also note Boss' reaction to this stylish stunt.


Righting himself and shaking off the bucket, Squall looks less than pleased with his surprise bath. Not to mention that he dropped something...


Our scruffy-looking leader is less than pleased with this development, the book pretty thoroughly soaked from the looks of things. Squall doesn't seem to care now that he's dried off a bit, currently busy staring at the fourth wall.


A look inside reveals that the water has somehow replaced words and definitions with a whole lot of question marks... Don't ask me how that works, unless it's a magical dictionary.


Boss, master of sympathy, basically tells us that this is our problem for making 'mistakes'. He then expects us to go find the other leading character, and subjects us to a tutorial. (Oh, joy.) Meanwhile, Squall continues to stare into space.

I'll spare you all the unavoidable 'training', and just say that it consisted of going into a side room and:


being taught how to say hello...

how to roll into things...


...and how ham-hams apparently have to sniff things before picking them up, unless they were buried underground.


The important part of all this is that our digging spot had some strange item inside it, which Boss doesn't seem to recognise.


Squall follows the other ham-ham's lead back into the previous room after the tutorial's over, essentially being told that those four words are going to be our basic commands. (More on that later, along with the doo-dad we uncovered.)


Boss makes excuses about why he can't be the one out searching for Rinoa, and our valiant hero wanders out onto the world map, only to find that there's only one place he can go besides the Clubhouse. (You can tell by the existence of only two sunflower icons for right now, each of which mark a destination.) Guess that makes our search easier...

Next time: We start out on our search for Rinoa, as well as briefly covering some game mechanics. Bet you can't wait!

Bonus video: The beginner's Ham-Chats and their animations.

We've found our Seifer!

This could have made Final Fantasy VIII so much easier. Not to mention it would explain why Squall sends Rinoa off to be frozen in space or something cuz she's a sorceress and then decides to save her in the space of about 30 seconds, his love meter filled up!

Yep, these names are already proving well chosen.

Dear god, that's adorable.

Here's Squalltaro and his trusty Seedblade, complete with sunflower lion keychain:


What's Ham-Ham for "whatever", I wonder?

That's more appropriate than you night think, but you would only realise why if you watched the untranslated movies. (Or if I bring it up later.)

Indeed! I'm looking forward to seeing how it works later on...

Haha, that's so awesome! Sadly I don't know a Ham-Chat for 'Whatever'... I've got a few others that might work though.

To clarify: is this on GBC or GBA? Some sprites make me think one way, some the other.

Though simple, the graphics are too good to be a GBC game.

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Wow, this game is cute as hell. And that update was the perfect length! And we got some fanart already! This is off to a good start.

I have no words that can appropriately describe the awesomeness of what you have created here. This is so great. I was wondering if you were going to color his top fur there black to fit with his hair color, but he doesn't look bad rockin' the orange, either!

I forgot about Boss. Guess we should have named Hamtaro "Percy". Though I don't know what femham would be named to match.

Tomato, duh.

Sorry, Boss, I dropped your dictionary!
Somebody please make a Hamtaro-Percy.

...

.....

Tyrants, why did you bring that awful thing in here?

Heh, so glad you approve... I'm feeling fairly psyched because of the fanart, so I'll see what I can do about getting another out today.

We didn't bring Him in. The horror known as "Percy" has existed since time immemorial. This forum merely provides a conduit for Him to manifest Himself, so that we may know His will.
His will is for us to drop things.

...Riiiight.
Yes, I have read that LP. *shudder*

Okay, this one's going to be a bit longer than the first, since there's a bunch of stuff I can talk about now we actually have control.


I could start off by going back to the Clubhouse for a bit, but most of it is going to be closed off until we bring Rinoa back. So in that case, let's move forward instead!


Ah, Sunny Peak... Nice music, cheery atmosphere and full of interesting little things for Squall to uncover. It's also a fairly big area compared to most of the others we'll visit, though we won't see most of it on this initial outing.


Before we wander off though, let's have a quick run-down on controls. The B button makes Hamtaro get down on all fours and run, for what seems like more than double walking speed. Start lets us look at the Ham-Ham Dictionary, either in order of collection (newest first) or alphabetical.

The A button is most important, bringing up a list of our four basic commands. As for using any others, let's head north one screen so I can show it off.


Going north places us at a river, where the camera immediately wanders off so we can get a shot of Rinoa walking off-screen from the other bank. Guess this whole searching business isn't going to be too hard after all!

Suddenly, the screen rumbles...


...Or perhaps not. Squall seems worried, so let's hurry over to check on her!


Right after I grab these sunflower seeds, of course. (The other ten are from the tutorial.) If you're wondering what they're for, just think of them as our money for the game.


Walking the same way that Rinoa went reveals that the rumbling was caused by a landslide, which has managed to block us from getting to her for now. Grabbing another five seeds, we head back a screen.


Standing near a shaking bush in the back (You'll have to take my word for it) reveals how we use our other Ham-Chats... They only appear on the A menu when we might need them, which I suppose means it's 'context-sensitive' (and that most puzzles are easy, since we don't have to try all 80+ Ham-Chats on them).


In this instance, using Stickie on the bush makes another Ham-Ham leap out in shock, apparently embarrassed about this in some way... But it does something more important than that, which the observant among you may be able to guess.

Red text means that what's being said is another Ham-Chat, and we get to add it to our collection! This is how we'll learn most of them; doing something to provoke ham-hams into using each one, then scribbling them down for ourselves.


The blushing ham runs away after we're through with our Link-style pose, and another quick Stickie in the bushes shows us why... Lovely.


Squall quickly grabs the sunflower seeds on this screen again, showing off the fact that while they respawn, the amount decreases each time until you turn the power off and on again.


After that, we head north to find a couple of frustrated ham-hams. They're busy thinking of a way to get the seeds from the sunflower just visible in the top-right, without having to Tack-Q them out one-by-one. (Why don't they just grab some off the ground?)

At any rate, we lack the Ham-Chat we need to help them out, so it's northward once more!


Here we find three things of interest: a stump, another shaking bush and this rather plump hamster, who appears to be bawling his eyes out. (Note the half-heart floating above him.)


Name: Oxnard
Squall's best friend in the TV show, this ham-ham is a bit on the clumsy and cowardly side, though the latter has shown signs of improvement over time. He has quite a large appetite, and is almost always seen with a sunflower seed in his paws. He's also one of the few 'official' pairings from the show, eventually even getting married. We'll meet his lady friend soon enough.


Oxnard says that he's crying because a ham-ham called Pepper is angry with him, and he doesn't know why. We also manage to get another Ham-Chat for listening to his troubles.


We can also Tack-Q our buddy, if you feel like being a jerk.


Next up on our list of interesting stuff here is the stump, which prompts a far-off ham-ham to yell at us until we notice them. (It takes three tries before Squall gets the idea.) Also, Ham-Chat get!

A quick pleasantry or two puts a smile on Squall's face, then we're done with the stump for now.


Sadly, interesting thing #3 only reveals a frog. Given that Squall is less than 7cm tall, it's a very tiny frog at that.


Heading east brings us to a new screen full of things to gawk at. There's another frog in the bushes, as well as:


A hole that leads down to this shop, which I'll provide more info on when we can actually do something with it. Here's the music for now.


Up above again, using Tack-Q on the tree lets us pick up an acorn it drops. We can trade these for sunflower seeds later, and each one's worth 20.


The last thing here is the handkerchief, which gets us chewed out by the owner if we walk on it. It's worth another Ham-Chat, and Squall just stares blankly at the other ham-ham through most of their ranting.


Leaving the screen and coming back again, we repeat a similar skit with their newspaper...


...and then a strap, which sends Squall spinning like a top until he eventually collapses.


Our feet must have been really dirty this time though, because the other ham-ham says they don't want their strap any more, and passes it to us. We won't use this for a long time.


After being a jerk three times the handkerchief comes back, so Squall heads east again. There's another frog hiding here, plus the ham-ham standing in the bushes. He just tells us to get lost for now. (The covered hole gives more sunflower seeds.)


East once more, and we find a ham-ham sitting in front of a door... Except he doesn't want to talk either, because he's waiting for his brother Artie.

We can do something here though, by using Hamha when standing on this feather. A bird flies over and drops this music note for us, which gives us something to dance to when more of the Clubhouse opens up.


Travelling down the vine at the bottom of that screen, we find another ham-ham sitting up on a sunflower leaf, way too high for us to reach. Squall can't even talk to her while she's up there. Also featured is this signpost-and-hole combo, which lets us exit the area with Digdig.


Down another screen is this cool little boat, but we can't do anything with it just yet.


To finish off our exploration for the time being, we head west to find another blockade made by the landslide, with Rinoa presumably trapped between the two. This hamster here is Arnie, busy looking for a 'duck-shaped thing'. If we tell him that we're searching for our friend with Lookie, he says that he can hear a girl on the other side of this landslide, and that we shouldn't try biting our way through it. ...You know, as if he thought we were going to.

Arnie's stupidity aside, I believe that this is a good place to leave things off for today. Next time: Aside from rescuing Rinoa, we're also going to try and help Arnie out, along with the pair trying to gather sunflower seeds.

Bonus video: Five new Ham-Chats!

No, it's cool. We can fix this.


Hamha, boss.

...There are no words.

Except maybe 'kill it with fire'.

Good update. I could think of at least two Squall jokes to make, but I think I'm going to let them go, since if I make Squall jokes at every available opportunity, it's going to get old long before this LP is over.

EDIT:
I did not notice this until just now, but EEEEEE HIS NOSE IS STICKING OUT OF THAT HOLE AND IT'S SO CUTE!!! I don't know why it's cute exactly, it just is.

Thank you. :3 And bad jokes from the audience is a key part of a good LP thread, I think. So don't feel afraid to throw a few out there when you want to, Squall-related or otherwise!

Heh, I know... I think it's the goofy grin that does it.

Actually, this LP is just awesome since I can girl out on the obscenely cute graphics without having to deal with the (likely) sub-par mechanics of the game. My apologies if I am pegging the game incorrectly, but I have suffered time and again on terrible platforming adaptations of TV shows/movies, and it sort of colors my judgment here.

I can certainly admit that many, many tie-in games are horrendous. But this one's nowhere near that level of awfulness, aside from one or two instances of backtracking... Even then those trips tend to be fairly short, simply because the areas themselves aren't very big.

...The worst thing I could say about this game is that there's one track that's sorta dull and repetitive, but it's for the area we spend the least time in.

I forgot how cute those damned hamsters are.

This game is too cute! It's kind of making me want to watch the show again. Oh, and thanks for including videos and links to the music in the game.

It's my pleasure, really... Since I've chosen a relatively simple game to start off with, I don't have to spend quite the time it takes to create a grand Bungle-tome of an update. Each of these two took around four hours each, including all the recording and taking screenshots.

Besides, it simply wouldn't be the same without the cute animations.

In other news, I'm going to try and put out updates both today and tomorrow, so we can be done with the 'intro' to the game. Also, meeting the best character.

Edit: Okay, got the screenshots and videos I need. I'll start getting everything together while the video uploads... In the meantime, could someone help me out with a new page?

Edit 2: Oh, hey... I'll get a new page with the next post anyway. Nevermind. ^^