[Ep. 8] Go! Go! Hypergrind

Hello, Deviants everywhere!

Now, I have a request for you, pay close attention. First, I want you guys to put your fingers between your bedroom door, and its hinges. Just trust me on this; have you done it already? Good. Next, I want you to phone your friend and ask them to bring a GameCube controller with them. Don’t ask any questions, just do it.

Okay, next I want you to ask your friend to close the door as hard as they can, then press the “x” button. Did it hurt? That’s your punishment for not playing Go! Go! Hypergrind. (And in case you have… sorry.)

So, Go! Go! Hypergrind is a skating game, much in the same vein of the Tony Hawk: Pro Skater games, but it’s… slightly different.

I am fairly new to this game… soooo, I’m getting some help. My buddy, and roommate, Cody is going to help me out with this review as we cover each inch of this… actually, let’s save ratings for later. Cody, you take off explaining what’s this game about exactly?

First Impressions

Cody: Well my dear friend, and inept cartoon skater, Go!Go! Hypergrind is a game like you said somewhat resembling things like the Tony Hawk Series, however, this game takes places in the “Toon World”. You take the role of one of about 11 characters, and you venture through a few stages skating around and competing with the other characters for a role in a brand new action packed show being created by the one and only SPUMCO studios (the studio that brought the hit show “Ren & Stimpy”).

Danny: That was part of the shock of when I first learned about this game; it sounds like a game that was tailor-made for me. “SPUMCO made a game?!” I exclaimed, “yes,” replied Cody. Then I began to ponder, “what the fuck are they gonna do with a videogame?” then he replied, “well, it’s a skating game, yes. But there’s a twist; because it takes place in the toon world, there are toon physics; which means that the skaters will run into cartoon which help you get a good score in completing the stages.”

To me, that translated to: wait! You get rewarded… for fucking up?

Cody: yes, you get rewarded for fucking up... something that I know you happen to do… very … very… often. Anyway, if you manage to work your fuck-ups into a chain, your score can increase very high, very fast, especially if you link together tricks that actually make sense. Say you get yourself set on fire, you then skate over to a bomb, or some dynamite, and sequentially blow yourself to high hell for a rather large amount of points!

Danny: … if only you had the idea of how a smile was growing on my face. It felt like meeting an old friend; then I began to hear about the colorful cast. I really felt like this game would be fantastic. I think it was when Cody showed me the cast members, and how… SPUMCO-ish they were that really just me excited to play it even more. Could there be anything else the game had that would have me want to play it even more?

Cody: another character, named “Kevin”

Danny: … I beg your pardon?

Cody: you see, Kevin is pretty much the only (somewhat normal) human in the game, and SPUMCO designed him specifically to be hated by everyone. He’s the tutorial trainer, he’s the guy who explains your missions to do, he’s the guy that is on the trophy, he’s in the loading screen mini game, he’s even the beginning loading screen, and he is the most hated person ever. And quite honestly every time I see him I want to kick his big goofy teeth in…that cock sucker…you will have a bunch of fun calling him names, making fun of him, and even making him fall on his face after you unlock him. Oh, also there is the awesome amount of special moves that the characters themselves have.

Danny: Okay… that’s a relief. I was worried for a second.

Cody: Worried about what?

Danny: That Kevin would be a prevalent annoyance, but at least it’s VERY easy to make fun of him. But at least the rest of the cast is enjoyable in their own toonish ways.

Cody: Yeah, that is a fact..and I think I know your favorite character already dan!

Danny: I swear to God, if you say “Kevin”…

Cody: nope, not kevin, I think your favorite is penny

Danny: Penny? Is she a coin?

Cody: nope, she’s a cat, and she wants to star in spumco’s new show because she wants to try her hand at being an actress.

Danny: So do the other guys, what makes HER special?

Cody: Penny

Danny:…

… FUCKIN’ SOLD!

Gameplay and Controls

Cody: This game plays so smooth and amazing, the animations are funny, and they’re fluid as a flowing river. The characters have funny and clean reactions to being flattened, being burned, getting their heads sliced clean off, even getting a hole punched right through their bodies! They all have unique dialog to their reactions, and they all have unique and awesome, even funny special moves that they alone have. My personal favorite “Decker” has a special grind in which he holds the board with his teeth and grinds down a rail in what looks like a headstand. All of the character’s eyes pop out of their head as they’re about to fall from a grind or a lip trick, it’s fun to watch them all have a mini heart attack as they feel they’re about to mess up a trick.

Danny: This game has the perfect level of cartoon goofiness that makes each of the characters a joy to watch. The game is easy to pick up on, even if you’ve never played a skating video game. It’s easy to stop, turn, jump, grind, etc. But the special moves are the best to perform; as they are a combination of cool, funny, weird, or all of the above. The stages are very big and full of rails, ramps, half-pipes, and the cartoon gags are all well-spaced and arranged in such a way that it’s easy to perform chains of tricks, and keep scoring points as much as you can. This is one of the few games that I’ve played that I can safely say has no real obstacles, so if you break your chain of tricks, it feels justified when you truly screw up, by being able to save yourself just about everywhere; it’s your fault if you lose your long chain of tricks! And by “yours”… I mean “me.”

Cody: Yup, Dan as bad as you tend to be in these sort of games you picked it up really quickly and easily, even at first, you screwed up quite a bit, but it was easy enough for you to pick up and it gave you the chance to really get better and learn the characters and the controls.

Characters and Story

Danny: The story and characters are as about cartoonish as you expect it considering the company that worked on it. SPUMCO, a real-life company is holding a contest for potential actors from the Toon World to be part of the… well, Go! Go! Hypergrind, a show with the same title of the game. (Which, I WANT to see.)

Cody: If this show ever really came about, you can bet that all of Ren & Stimpy fans would love this! It’s funny, and it’s unique as all hell!

Danny: I have to say… there’s something about the characters that I found surprising. In the game itself, the characters are pure shenanigans, and that’s to be expected. But the cutscenes… they’re still the funny cartoon gang of goofballs, but there’s something about them that is more than just walking cartoon gag fodder. For example, I was not expecting for Decker’s story to be… rather deep. Which, as I said, I did not expect.

Cody: He does have a really nice story, his reasoning for trying to be the show’s star is that he wants to prove to his childhood rival his skill, and he’s also trying to become a star so he can donate his prize money to the orphanage that he, his sister, and his rival all grew up in.

Danny: But not just him. Nearly the entire cast have their own special touches that, while brief, they do feel touching, and some are rather unexpected. Examples: something that surprised me, was Piggy-Sue. For a character I don’t like, I can’t help but feel bad for her. There is something about Penny’s story that I also found kinda sad; a real struggle for fame, and this is NOT the kind of world that is forgiving for mistakes (it’s funny, but still). Even the Johnson Brothers, funny as they might be, they TOO had a very sad moment.

Cody: Piggy sue wants to show she isn’t a has-been, and the Johnson bros. are trying to find their lost brother, and their struggles are displayed through the very well done cut scenes. One thing I had forgotten to mention is the easy, and simple stat setup, there are a bunch of items, boards, and wheels that you can equip to increase your stats, and your character’s overall abilities.

Danny: Each character has their own stats, thus whichever character works best for you, go and give him a try. Although there is an upgrade system in the game that allows you to customize your character to whatever stats work out best. It’s something helpful, and hey, it reminds me of Mario Kart 7. There is one thing I don’t like about the system, but we’ll get to that later.


Miscellaneous

Danny: I have to say, one of the things that took me by surprise, is the music. I should probably expect that skating games normally have great music, but WOW! The music in this game, it’s just fantastic!

Cody: when I first played this game when I was smaller, I was blown back by the music! The opening theme itself knows it’s awesome, and the people who set up the music and stages, they didn’t try to force it down your throat to ruin it, the opening theme also happens to be the theme for the second stage, each stage has its own amazing music, and I appreciate that they didn’t make the opening theme the background sound to the first stage. It keeps you humming it long after you’ve shut off them game, it’s so upbeat and enjoyable that you feel like the characters themselves might have been making the music as well as skating along on their off time.

Danny: Speaking of which, as mentioned earlier, each character has their own special animations, which are pretty hysterical. As to be expected with SPUMCO, they do not disappoint, for any of them. Believe me, how can you NOT laugh at a toon crushed like an accordion, with axes and wrenches stuck on their body, covered in pain, and STILL being able to perform tricks that would put professional skaters to shame.

Cody: HA, let’s see Tony Hawk fly off a ramp with a hole in his body, axes in his head, lit on fire, and walk through the air!

Danny: If I were to say any three characters were my favorite from the game, they would be: Decker (obviously), Penny (because…), and, believe it or not, Mr. Smith. Despite my usual dislike for monkeys, a monkey with a deadpan personality like his, now THAT I think is truly funny.

Cody: you can’t forget his special trick where he sits there falling on his nuts for however long you can keep balance. Incidentally, I think that would be your special trick if you became a skater.

The… Negatives

Danny: Heh… speaking of ball-busting, and as much as it HURTS me to say this, the game is not perfect. Despite all the great stuff, fun, and hilarious moments, I… really expected them not to do this. First, facing off against the computer players, their difficulty CAN be adjusted, but I feel like, sometimes, their difficulty will spike in certain challenges. I don’t know if they have the unpredictable AI from Crash Bash, but it feels like, one minute, they’re easy to destroy, the next, they just hand you your ass!

Cody: that’s true but my personal bane of existence in the game is the battle challenges. I can easily create long chains of tricks for really high scores, but when I get to battle I cannot hit my opponent not even ONCE!

Danny: As I mentioned earlier, there is an upgrade system, in which you can give your board and character certain items that will help increase and improve their stats, to make them better and easier to use, and better to score points with. Normally, with games with systems like this (Mario Kart 7 like I brought up earlier), the items you unlock, they have stats that will help improve your skater’s stats in one area, but will harm them in another. They are here, but there are items with INSANE boosts of stats, that have no downside to them. I don’t know if it’s necessarily a bad thing, but getting them isn’t a challenge. Getting money is easy in the game, and although they do cost a lot, they’re NOT hard to get. I don’t know if they just help the human player’s performance, but it makes most of the unlockable gear very unnecessary.

Cody: That is very true, and once you get one of the best items, your character has the highest stats possible, thus making tricks, and toon reactions much easier to achieve and making your trick chains easier to keep.

Danny: You may say I’m nitpicking here, but this a strike, not against the game, but against SPUMCO. For a company that I’ve praised and loved so much for their creative use of animation… sadly, there’s BARELY any of it here; in the cutscenes that is. They are short and… the characters they don’t express at all, or move. Which I thought: “why?!” These cutscenes would have been GOLD if the cutscenes would move. I’m sorry SPUMCO, but you know better than this. This is not an A+, this is a D-. You ALMOST had it, man! You almost had something great!

Cody: well, on the plus side the ENTIRE game is in Cel-Shaded animation to really give it that cartoony kind of feel, I mean they are in the Toon World after all. I honestly don’t mind the cutscenes, and I can live with the stat system..but there is one thing..one MAJOR thing, that I absolutely HATE about this game…

Danny: oh? What is it?

Cody: …………Kevin………

Danny: … well… I guess there’s that.

Final Score

Danny: Now that whole “D-“ thing is obviously a joke. I really, really love this game, otherwise… I wouldn’t have made you torture yourself at the beginning of this review (Once again, apologies to those who have played the game). This is a game that has some minor flaws, but the fun more than enough makes up for it; there is so much to enjoy and love about this game that I’m honestly quite SHOCKED that this game doesn’t even have a “Cult Classic” status; I guess it reflects the nature of the GameCube, which itself is pretty underrated. If, for nothing else, I hope this review gives the attention this game deserves; of course it’s debatable which games are considered to be the best, but this is, without a doubt, one of the best and most fun video games I have ever played; just hearing about this game brings a joyous smile to my face. I feel sorry for you if this game doesn’t even make you smile once.

Danny’s Rating: 97%

Cody: I loved this game as a kid, it was one of my absolute favorites on the GameCube. I’m personally not a very big fan of skating games but this game was pulled off so beautifully and so well that I could not put down my controller after I started. The fact that this game was designed by the studio that released one of my favorite childhood tv shows was basically icing on the cake. I am disappointed that not as many people know about this wonderful gem of a game, and by this point in time it’s very hard to find a copy anywhere, but if you can actually find a copy I wholly recommend picking it up as this game can leave you in stitches for hours. The characters are well developed and the stories behind them all are fantastic, and well done. My only thing as mentioned before that I do not like, is Kevin..but that’s a nitpick, and he was pretty much made to be hated from the very start, so that won’t count towards my final score.

Cody’s Rating: 100%

Final Rating: 99%

Danny: I know what I’m gonna do! I’m gonna make fanart of this game! Then more people will know about it!

Cody:That’s a fantastic idea! Do it Dan! Just don’t go drawing penny in the nude alright?

Danny: What?! Noooo… Whatever gives you that idea?

Cody: Dan..im your roommate..i know the stuff you draw..and I know you keep it hidden away from view..i’ve seen the nudes you’ve drawn, im just waiting for penny to be added amongst the ranks.

Danny: That’s not true. For example, my next Hypergrind idea would be Penny… uh… I’ve been advised not to finish that statement.

Cody: in the nude? I knew it Dan, you can’t go five minutes without a naked cat can you? Oh well, looks like this is the end of our review, thanks for reading up everyone, and please do try to play this game at all if you possibly can.

I’ll talk to you guys later. And thanks again, , for helping me out with this review.

Go! Go! Hypergrind © ATLUS
Art ©