What better a time than October to try out and review such a game as Octoberfest? ;) Now, while I'll admit that my "vast" knowledge of Germany really doesn't span anything outside of what I learned from Cabaret, and that I have no idea whether the mini-games in this game are anything even vaguely similar to those of real Oktoberfest, when I hear the word "Oktoberfest" it brings to mind a very vivid visual image of beer, frankfurters, yodelers, and beer wenches. Stereotypical? Yes. But, as I was about to find out, so is this game!Evidently, you start out the game as a typical German peasant (I guess?) and you have to play and win mini-games to win evolution points, leading up to the evolution into a Bavarian. What's a Bavarian? Who knows?? They never made this too clear....and I never did find out, as I ended up being a couple points short and never was able to manage to attain them. Anywho, first thing's first: anyone remember what I said about the electronic accordian in the Animaniacs game and it probably being the only game ever to use one? I take it back. This game also does. Given the subject matter of the game, it's fitting, but it's a little overwhelming in the over-immersion into German culture RIGHT off the bat. Next, you're playing in a place called the Wiesn Rally. ...I was honestly beginning to wonder if this game was even going to be in English or not. (It is, don't worry.)
Upon choosing whether to play as a blonde, buxom frauline or a short kraut with a crazy moustache and suspenders, you'll be brought to the Wiesn map. You'll find there 7 mini game and 3 food stations. On the top screen is your character, your name, your beer stein and how much you've drank (if it empties, you'll lose an evolution point!), along with your evolution points. To refill your beer stein (it empties as you play the different mini-games), you'll have to either drink some beer or eat pretzel and frankfurters. Which would be great...except that if you keep losing games without winning any in between, if you use up all of these, you're kind of screwed. (I learned this the hard way. Word to the wise.) The streets on which the festival is being held are even over the top stereotypically German: Wirtsbudenstr. and Schaustellerstr. Wow. Just wow.
You can choose to play the Bavaria quiz (good luck on that one; either you need to know this info already, or learn the answers as you get them wrong and view the right answers), Waiters (which is essentially just a German version of Root Beer Tapper), Directing (but not the directing you'd figure this to be... you're "directing" an orchestra), Finger wrestling, Ring the Bell, Schuhplattler folk dance, and Ghost Train. Not exactly all things you'd associate with Oktoberfest, ya know? Whatever. Let me go though them one for one (minus the Bavaria quiz, since I've already said about all there is to say on that).
* Waiters really is just like Root Beer Tapper...except that instead of being behind the bar, sliding the beer glasses down to your customers, you're expected to carry a bunch of beer steins all at once, weave in between VERY rude tourists who'll slam into you and make you drop glasses every chance they get, and try to serve these to your customers before they get angry and leave. Easier said than done.
* I thought I would be really good at Directing. I'm usually awesome at all the rhythm-based music games. Unfortunately, in this one, if you so much as make a tiny mistake, it can make enough difference as to whether or not you'll have enough points to pass the level. And it's not just as simple as you either hit the note or not (on top of the vagueness of what exactly you're aiming to do); if you don't get the timing 100% perfect, you'll only earn an increment of the points you would have otherwise. The only one I found beatable, for this reason, was the very first difficulty.
* Finger Wrestling: This doesn't sound like it should be THAT hard, right? Wrong. Until you catch onto what exactly you're supposed to do, you're going to waste a lot of beer. You aren't doing much of anything that directly affects the strength of your finger. You're supposed to interpret the signs written on the paper in front of you, and to quickly write the correlating number that goes with it. Unless you're fast, your opponent will get an advantage on you. Add to this that the symbols that go with each number swap around EVERY time, and pretty much you have to depend on being fast to accomplish anything here.
* Ring the Bell: Well, after I got over my initial giggling over thinking of Liza Minnelli's "Ring Them Bells" (sorry, little joke...'bout this big), I found that this game is probably THE most difficult one in the game. I had to wonder how exactly that game where you hit the target with a mallet to try and ring the bell at the top of the guage would work out the strength aspect... You can't really just slam your DS touchscreen without killing it. :p So this was curious to me. Turns out, you have to rub the strength guage back and forth fast as you can to fill it, and then just as quickly hit the target when the dot centers with the bullseye. Unfortunately, it moves all over the place very quickly, so getting it that accurate is near impossible. You're depending on luck here.
* Schuhplattler Folk Dance: Oh my. We're back at Cabaret now. (Told you my only German "knowledge" came from that movie!) At least we have something I'm vaguely familiar with now thanks to that! It's pretty much the 'slap dance' you may have heard of at some point in time. You have to memorize the patterns and get the timing right in this game. Not that hard until the final level.
* Ghost Train: Imagine, if you will, that the Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion rides at Disneyland/world spawned forth a vile bastard child of a ride. That's pretty much what this is....with no pirates. The ghosts also remind me of Boos from the Mario games (except that their 'scary' noise is just them going, quite lackadaisily, "blah."). That's what this is. You have to dodge the ghosts by swatting them away (uh....what? I thought you couldn't touch a ghost?) while catching mystery flying pretzels and chicken in the air. .....I think somebody dropped too much acid before going on the ride personally.
That about sums the game up. I have no idea how it ends since I was never able to manage to collect all the evolution points, so I don't know if there's further levels beyond these or not. Overall...well, I can't say this game was even overhyped because I saw zero advertising for it. I'd say that if you're the German equivalent of a Japanophile, go for it, you might just love it (or, you'll be offended by the stereotypicalness). Otherwise, just skip this one and save your time for something you'll enjoy more. I'm rating this a 5 out of 10 fraulines.
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