Collection essentials #450: ChuChu Rocket! (DC)

Here’s a quirky title from Sega. At first glance it may not seem like a very impressive title for their new powerful Dreamcast, as the graphics seem like nothing to write home about. But, actually, it does show up the console’s capabilities in a couple of ways. One is that the game sometimes has dozens of creatures on the screen at once without compromise, which may not sound like much nowadays but back then wasn’t so easy. The other is that it was the first Dreamcast game to have online multiplayer.

The premise of the game is pretty simple, and makes sense with the game’s title. The game takes on a single-screen grid made up of a series of squares. On this grid somewhere will be at least one rocket. There will be mice running around in the level, and your goal is to get them into the rocket. In Japanese, “chu” is their interpretation of a mouse’s squeak, hence the game’s title. Players in this game control a cursor which can move freely around the screen. By pressing one of the four face buttons on the controller, the player can place an arrow tile on the square that the cursor is currently touching. The direction of the arrow title depends on which face-button was pressed, and mice that touch that tile will change course and move in that direction. There are, of course, hazards that threaten the mice, such as cats and bottomless pits.

The game has a “puzzle mode” where a player must figure out how to save all the mice in each stage with a limited number of arrows, which must be set before the mice start moving. Players can create their own custom puzzles, too. Challenge mode requires the player to place arrows and direct the mice as they’re moving, and they must rescue a group of mice within a short time limit. In real-time gameplay, arrow tiles placed are temporary.

But the bread and butter of this game is...MULTIPLAYER! This is the perfect game to throw on when you’re hanging with three friends. Multiplayer games involve players trying to funnel mice into the rockets of their color, while keeping the cats away and making sure the other players get them! It’s all in real-time, so things get real hectic and chaotic real quick. Some mice in multiplayer will have a “?” symbol over their head, and when such a mouse reaches a rocket, some random effect will occur. Some examples of effects include “Mouse Mania” which floods the board with a ton of mice, “Everybody Move” which swaps around the players’ rockets, and “Place Arrow Again” which erases all existing arrows on the board. It’s a pretty easy game to pick up and play, and is sure to delight anyone who loves chaotic fun.

ChuChu Rocket received a port on a portable system, which was my first exposure to it. I didn’t find it terribly impressive, which is no surprise since the controller layout was worse and it’s a lot more impractical to set up multiplayer on handheld systems. But when I eventually tried the original Dreamcast version a long time later, I realized immediately I had been missing out on its multiplayer bliss for way too long. For some reason the game has not been properly ported to a more modern system! So here’s one example of a game that gives you a strong reason to break out the old Dreamcast consoles. I love me a great “couch multiplayer” game, so this is an easy pick as a Dreamcast essential.