[Playing…] Motteke Oh! Dorobou

Exploring the Japanese catalog of Super Nintendo (or Super Famicom) I have found many gems of very popular genres at that time (such as fighting, platforms, beat'em up or puzzle games) and at the same time I have been able to explore other genres that were not popular in the West but were in Japan, such as horse racing, casino and betting games or board games.

The saga is usually considered Mario Party as a promoter of this type of games in the West and it is undeniable that this is the case (few games of this style have had so many editions and with such striking characters).

However, in the Super Famicom catalog I have seen so many board games with such different themes, that the Mario Party They lose charm when compared. I have seen games where we control ships and have to buy and export certain objects while avoiding gun battles with the other players and the ghost ship on duty, another where we control attractive girls (drawn by U-Jin, a hentai and erotic manga artist) who have to face monsters using rock-paper-scissors, others where we control some gamblers who alternate the board with gambling and casino games, others starring famous fighters of the Japanese wrestling and even some that are board games based on other types of games (such as the UNO card game).

To date, the game that has surprised me the most of all of them is Motteke Oh! Dorobou, a board game focused on cops and robbers.

When you start the game and after choosing the number of players, we will meet the protagonists: the thieves. There are 6 different ones, all of them quite stereotyped and exaggerated and funny (all passed through the filter “kawaii” so common in Japanese products). The thieves are: a bald man dressed in a coat (the typical mad scientist), a guy with a turban who juggles with bombs (erm… a terrorist?), another who is a middle-aged man with a beret and jacket, (the typical thief or pickpocket), a guy dressed in lilac with a scarf that covers his head, who inevitably reminds us of the ninja Ebisumaru from Ganbare Goemon and represents the “classic” Japanese thief. We also have a red-haired girl, who likes to lie around in a bikini and whose “sack to steal” is a stuffed bunny (the femme fatale of the game) and finally a boy dressed as a chicken who is simply funny.

In each scenario there are small houses and important buildings (museums, banks, ships with treasures) that are our main objective. If our “heroes” enter a house, a simple minigame will appear where they can obtain some valuable object, but if they enter an important building we will appear inside it and We will be able to move freely, stealing everything we can before time runs out.. The more treasures we have, the better, but keep in mind that there is a limit of objects to carry, so sometimes it is better to manage well and fill the bag with treasures, but keep some valuable objects that will help us survive on the board.

Objects are also a fundamental part of the game since they give us very useful and varied advantages. For example, there is an item that allows us to move twice as much, another that allows us to choose how much to move (and thus land on the square we want), another that places a trap in the square (and whoever enters it will end their movement there), others that allow us to annoy the other characters (making them lose a turn) and there is even one that allows us to put on a mask (nose and mustache) so that the police do not recognize us.

Because yes, our mischievous protagonists will not be alone on the board, the police will walk around it and try to catch up with them and take them to prison. So not only do we have to try to steal everything we can, but we also have to avoid the police officers, who also represent stereotypes, such as the policeman (boy and girl) and the ruthless inspector in the trench coat and hat. Sometimes we will see a little old man walking around the map, who turns out to be a plainclothes agent, since he can become the inspector or a superhero!

If the police catch a thief, they will take him to jail and he will have two ways to get out of there: Trying to escape (overcoming a minigame) or paying the agents to release him on the next turn.

We already have thieves and police. What is missing? Well, “suppliers” for our thieves or, in other words, gangsters who appear from time to time to do business with us. These gentlemen usually dress in black and wear sunglasses, with the odd detail related to the map where we play.

The existence of the police might make one think that thieves help each other, but the truth is that this is not the case. Every time two thieves land on the same square, the last one to arrive can decide whether or not they want a minigame against the other. The thief who loses the minigame will also lose an object, which can leave you in a bad situation if that area of ​​the map is surrounded by police (imagine that they take away the object that allows you to move to other parts of the map or the mask to go incognito...).

What rounds out the gaming experience are the random events that happen every time a character lands on a square, and that can change the game significantly based on the good or bad luck we have had. Our character may get lucky and win money or the possibility of moving again, it may happen that the police fall asleep watching television, that a lot of people drag us to the starting block, that it starts to snow and our character becomes dazed, that a black cat crosses our path (which I don't know what it does, but it's certainly not a good thing), etc. These events are the spice of the game, although they can be a bit unfair (There will always be the question of whether they are completely random or if the console cheats and annoys us when we are better playing).

Depending on the length of the game that we have chosen at the beginning, we will see more and fewer scenarios, which significantly extend the life of the game since they are of different sizes (they vary in complexity, number of teleportation sewers, number of houses and special areas) and also provide some visual variety, by changing the general theme.

This game is very fun (and up to 4 players can participate using a multitap) but also requires some patience, especially in relation to objects. Let me explain, although the menu that appears each turn has drawings and is very simple (move, look at objects, look at current classification and look at the map), once we go into the inventory of objects we see that they do not have drawings, only text (in Japanese). In the end you get used to knowing which is which, but in the first games it can be something that takes away from the game's charm. Something similar happens with events, but because they happen randomly and have an immediate effect and are accompanied by drawings, they are much more understandable without knowing Japanese. As far as I know, there is no translation of this game and because it is not from any famous saga and from a genre like the board game, I find it difficult for one to appear in the short term, but in any case I highly recommend playing it.

Motteke Oh! Dorobou It's a little-known game, but it's worth checking out. It's fun (the more players the better), its theme is original and is used as a pretext for us to experience tense situations (when we go in to rob important buildings and fall into a security trap while we're running out of time to escape), its events can turn the tables and the mini-games are simple, but fun. Also, it's not every day we get to play the bad guy in a game of this style.