Gurumin is the story of Parin, a young girl who is sent to live with her grandfather in a backwater mining village while her archaeologist parents are away excavating some newly discovered ruins. At first it looks like it will be a boring stay for Parin as there are no other children anywhere in the village. This soon changes when Parin saves a girl from a mean dog, only to find that the girl is a monster who is invisible to adults. The monster girl takes Parin to her village and introduces her to all of her monster friends. The party soon comes to an end when evil phantoms envelop the monster world in a deep fog and kidnap all of the monsters. It’s up to Parin to put an end to the phantoms’ plans and restore the monster’s village.

Words like “monster” and “phantom” may conjure up dark and frightening images, but in the world of Gurumin everything is “cutsie”. Monsters wear big grins and may have a flower growing out of their head and the phantoms are little blue critters that could just as easily pass for a child’s stuffed toy. The sugar-sweet world of Gurumin may be a turn off to some players, but you shouldn’t pass judgement on the game on this point alone. The fact is that the game does provide for some enjoyable gameplay in which the action can be better described as a platform-RPG than an action-RPG and that owes a lot of its inspiration to the Legend of Zelda games.

Your overall goal in the game is to restore the monster’s village to the happy little community it once was. To do so you must return certain magical items (monsters seem to have a furniture fetish when it comes to selecting their magical items) back to the monsters so that their power can dissipate the dark fog which has enveloped their world. Doing so involves moving from one dungeon to the next and defeating the boss within who lies in guard of one of the monsters’ missing items. Even though you’re just a little girl you’ll be able to hold your own against the phantoms thanks to a rather unique and versatile weapon. The monsters have kindly armed you with a special drill that can be swung, thrust, and charged to fire projectiles. You can use the attack button in combination with the jump and dash controls to pull off a variety of attacks with your drill from simple thrusts to spinning helicopter strikes to chained jumping strikes that will have you soaring through the air ala Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The game’s environments are filled with breakable objects just waiting to be smashed by a girl with a drill. Most of these yield coins which can be spent back in the human town for new headgear (all of which bestows a certain benefit when worn). Sometimes you’ll come across pieces of “junk” or obtain junk by knocking a piece of armor or weapon off of a phantom. Junk can be used by the town tinker to further upgrade your items.

The wealth of attack moves, platform elements, and puzzles make for some enjoyable gameplay. While Gurumin can be a little challenging when you’re facing attack from multiple enemies, overall the game is not too difficult. If you can deal with the cute anime look of the game, you’ll probably find yourself enjoying it.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 83%. If you were to convert The Legend of Zelda into a platform game and threw in a dash of Hello Kitty cuteness, the result would look a lot like Gurumin.