Dr. Slump

1999 | Bandai | Playstation

Until recently I wasn’t aware that 1980’s Dr. Slump by the legendary mangaka Akira Toriyama had received any games. Let alone a game that released roughly 8 years after the end of the original manga’s run, and 5 years after the original anime. Somewhere in the back of my mind I partitioned this series to handheld LCD games, similar to Nintendo’s Game & Watch line, and other merchandising. Imagine my excitement to find out that there was an adventure game for the original Playstation and that it had a fan-translation.

Most people probably are aware of Akira Toriyama’s incredible Dragon Ball series, but aren’t too familiar with the manga that started his career as a mangaka, outside of a few cameos in said series that is. Dr. Slump is a gag manga about a genius scientist, Senbei Norimaki, that tries to make the perfect little girl robot, but builds Arale instead; a very impulsive, naïve, cheerful and incredibly strong android elementary schooler. Most of the manga revolves around short gags of a chapter or two filled to the brim with parodies and poop jokes. It’s a hilarious series that uses the manga format to elevate the jokes. With that in mind, how do we translate a format like that into a video game? Well, by making a game where you run around Penguin Village as Arale of course! Developed by Bandai with some help from Natsume and some fantastic art through Akira Toriyama’s Bird Studio, the game is brought to life with stunning visuals and a lot of spirit. The game fully commits and succeeds in bringing the colorful cast of Dr. Slump to life with gorgeous cell shading reminiscent of the aforementioned Mega Man: Legends.

Dr. Slump the video game is split into two core gameplay segments, divided over seven chapters. Most of the game has you running around town to interact with the many quirky characters of the series in an attempt to blend in with the humans. A lot of these segments are based on gags from the manga, and similarly are little self contained stories within the boundaries of the chapters. Each chapter ends with an action stage, taking the form of 3D platforming sections which challenge you on the things you have learned throughout the chapter. All of the chapters will conclude in some form of boss fight, ranging from upset dinosaur to giant robots. One of the big challenges when creating a game around an all powerful android with the capabilities to punch the earth in half (which she does…. often) is that, beyond the first five minutes, it isn’t really engaging to play as. To work around this, the way that Arale learns to do stuff is by watching and copying others. It’s something that is already incredibly in character for her, but also provides a surprisingly natural way for the mechanics to expand without feeling restrictive. At the start of the game you can only walk around a bit, but after watching Dr. Norimaki jump, Arale learns how to do that as well. This leads to some hilarious interpretations of things like being able to hover because you just heard your teacher fart, or learning a ground pound from someone falling on their ass. Or the more awkward chuckle inducing moments when you learn the punch move from a dad hitting his son over the head. The application of each move is wildly diverse outside of the action stages. One example is that you can use your sprint ability to run through a police vehicle, which is a running gag in the series. You can unlock various extra’s such as the SFX menu, a speed-o-meter, and additional outfits by getting really excited about poking poop with a stick. There are pink and gold nuggets spread throughout the game that increase Arale’s pep gauge, and when she’s poked the poop plentifully, you get a new invention from Senbei. You’ll quickly realize that poop is central and essential to the identity of Dr. Slump.

*Arale judging Senbei’s questionable inventions*

The action stages of this game are extremely hit or miss. A lot of the levels feel like additions made to the game to make it more of a video game. It does give the moves that you learn throughout the game a lot more use than extra means of traversing the village, but it’s implementation is somewhat lacking and, at times, mildly frustrating. Most of the platforming sections are built as 3D areas to explore, however a lot of the texture work gives off the illusion that the entire environment is a vertical 2D space. It doesn’t help that there are barely any shadows to give depth to the environment, nor does Arale have a shadow. This leads to incredible awkward platforming, where landing on a plateau becomes more of a guessing game than anything else. This is particularly egregious when you have to hop over a bunch of police cars as part of a story challenge. It’s not all bad though, the game is built around the idea that you’re never too far off from trying again. With unlimited continues and a slew of moves at your disposal, you always have something new to try or try again within arms reach. Unless you’re a hook that needs to be grabbed, that one was just mean. The gameplay is heavily flawed, but is ultimately rather innocent. The platforming sections serve more as a little distraction from the constant running around town and it does very much spice up an otherwise rather monotonous game. Plus we get to fart on dinosaurs and burp laser beams at giant frogs wearing crowns. At most the lack of depth and finnicky sliding will bring some momentary frustration to the table, but you’re always a click away from jumping back into the action and never too far off from where you left. Being able to revisit stages with the Time Slip (it literally slips and falls through time) device is a nice little touch and Arale using it to cheat on a school competition because she really needs to win is just perfectly on brand.

Dr. Slump presents all the elements that made the original series so incredibly funny and memorable, and clunkily presents it in the wrapper of an adventure game. The ridiculous characters, such as legally distinct Suppaman and the butt aliens, provide an excellent supporting cast and are an absolute joy to interact with. It makes the sometimes obtuse means of progression worth the effort you put into it. By having Penguin Village divided into numerous small areas, rather than one large map, allows for these areas to be filled to the brim with details. Unfortunately not all of it is as interactible as I want it to be, with locations often serving as a location for a joke to take place in, instead of being part of the village. Though, the game already presents an astonishing amount of stuff to look at for 1999, so expecting the meticulous minutea of Shenmue feels a bit unrealistic. The game manages to really bring the original material to life in a way that’s unique to the way we interact with games, all the while still remaining astonishingly faithful to the gags. Punchlines hit when they are supposed to and aren’t muddied by overreliance on gameplay to land. It’s a perfect balance of hilarity, action and jank. If you’ve never had any interactions with Dr. Slump up until this point, I recommend starting out with the manga or watch the anime, and then try out the game. You’ll end up appreciating it a lot more.

A lot of games like Dr. Slump have remained in the relative obscurity of the Japan exclusive part of the Playstation library. However, in the last few years we’ve seen a lot of fan translations help remove the language barrier and make these games accessible to a wider audience. Hilltop Works has been doing incredible work for the Dr. Slump fan translation as well as other games, like the goofy, shoulder padded Racing Lagoon and the Boku no Natsuyasumi series. It’s thanks to groups like Hilltop that we get to enjoy this incredible adaptation of one of my favorite manga in English. It makes me really happy to see the language barrier being dropped on more and more fantastic games, allowing more and more people to enjoy them!

BLAST HOVER/10