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Doshin the Giant Preview by: Kazooie

Just recently a friend of mine was able to get an import of the GCN game "Doshin the Giant" from Japan. He was able to send me the information that you read in this preview. Enjoy!

If you're a real Nintendo fanatic, you'll probably remember this game back from its N64 days. It was originally released as a 64DD game, a little add-on to the N64, which never caught on in Japan, and was never even released over here in the US. And along with the death of the 64DD, came the death of Doshin the Giant, a game that barely anyone ever got to play.

But fortune has smiled upon us, and Doshin the Giant has been brought to the Gamecube (in Japan, at least). Doshin the Giant is basically a God-sim game, Nintendo style. You are a big yellow giant, who arrives on some island inhabited by natives and various forms of wild-life.

Throughout most of the game, you will basically be the servant of these native island dwelling people. They will tell you to give them trees, or flowers, and to raise or lower the ground, as well as move things out of their way. The villagers come in four flavors: Blue, Red, Green, and Yellow. Sure, moving the ground up and down, and moving trees around may not sound like all that rewarding of a task, but it really is. As you aid the villagers, they'll make houses, temples, and barns, have children, raise livestock such as cows, chicken, bulls, and horses, grow vegetables, and eventually, build monuments and sculptures in your honor. The villagers will even engage in activates such as gathering around in the village center square and playing musical instruments near night-fall, playing hula hoop, balancing on balls, sleeping, and taking breaks at noon. Your ultimate goal is to collect all the various monuments, which can be built. There are two different kinds of monuments, which the villagers will build: either a love monument, or a hate monument, depending on the village's feelings toward you.

Seeing as being a giant freakish yellow giant makes you inherently psychologically unstable, Doshin has a split personality: Jashin. Where-as Doshin is the ''Love Giant'', Jashin is the ''Hate Giant'', which the villagers will cower in fear of when they see. Simply hit the L trigger to transform into the evil red giant, which demon wings, allowing him to hover for a little while. Also, as Jashin you will be able to splat villagers (and watch their little bodies float off to the great Gamecube heaven in the sky), and hurl fireballs capable of leveling large mountains. Jashin is also faster than Doshin, and is generally best used for fighting natural disasters, such as fires, tornados, volcanic eruptions, storms, or giant-freakish-tree-stealing-monkey-like-monsters (every island's gotta have some of those! LOL!). Since natural disasters can basically destroy a village you've worked very hard to make.

The graphics are actually quite good, and remain at a fairly constant 60 fps. However, none of the character designs are all that complicated to begin with, and don't take all that many polygons to animate. The water effects are very nice, with very sweet real-time reflection effects. Also, take the camera under water and it ACTUALLY looks like you're under water, not like you've just gone beneath some large blue-shaded polygon (like most other games). You'll also notice that the game developers were a bit cheap when they were developing the game, and that the villagers will switch between their polygon forms and sprite forms in order to conserve processor power (which is noticeable to the trained eye, such as mine), which I suppose does keep the frame-rate up even when there is a lot of villagers on the screen at once. The structures that the villagers will build are quite impressive as well, as are the textures on the ground. Everything seems to move rather fluidly, so there are no complaints animation-wise at least.

However, Doshin the Giant's most impressive feature is real-time environment altering. I believe this is the FIRST game ever to be able to do that. Let's take another game, such as Rogue Leader for example. There's a building, which you want to blow up, you shoot it, and shoot it, but it doesn't even look harmed at all. Suddenly, it magically explodes, as if filled with dynamite (extremely unrealistic). Furthermore, there are structures, which no matter how much you shoot them, will never be destroyed. No matter how much you shoot or crash into that mountain, it'll still be there. Those are ''static'' worlds, Doshin the giant has a completely ''dynamic'' world.

There are also many other great features to this game and if I was to tell you, then Nintendo might kill me, hehe. You'll just have to wait for it to come to the U.S. Doshin the giant's name will probably change to a new title, but it unfortunately won't be over here until late fall 2002 or early 2003.And NOA has yet to confirm if they'll actually bring it over here yet. But if it does, I won't hesitate to get it!

SPECIAL CREDIT GOES TO: Jason Korman, who provided me with the info for this game.

Presentation The game may appear a little chunky or blocky, but as the saying goes, "Don't judge a book by it's cover."	7.0
Graphics The graphics actually run quite well at a steady framerate, but the characters themselves are lacking.	6.5
Gameplay The real-time environments make the game all worth its while. Even if the main character is a yellow block!	7.0
Overall The game is unsaid as to whether or not it will be coming stateside, but look for it if it does. It may be worth the rent.	7.4