Mention the words tokusatsu and henshin, and immediately the Power Rangers and Kamen Rider come into mind. According to Wikipedia, henshin is the Japanese word for transformation; and it’s usually used when a character transforms into a superhero; complete with outlandish costumes and sometimes vehicles.
On the other hand, the word tokusatsu means “special effects”, and is used to describe live-action Japanese film and television dramas that make use of special effects (Wikipedia). As you can already guess, it is not uncommon to find henshin superheroes in tokusatsu shows (e.g. Power Rangers, Kamen Rider).
One tokusatsu show that I’ve never heard off until I reviewed a game earlier this evening is Tomica Hero Rescue Squad. Basically, the heroes use Super Tools and Super Vehicles (based on Tomica’s toy line-up) to rescue people from extreme disasters. If I may add..they kinda look like the Master Chief…anyways..
Now, you can do that too (rescue people as part of the Tomica Hero Rescue Squad) with Tomika Hero: Rescue Force for the Nintendo DS. A purely touch-screen driven game, Rescue Force will have you controlling Rescue Squad’s various vehicles in a plethora of mini games, with each level ending with a Final Rescue scenario.
The mini games range from guiding a police car through traffic to overtake a criminal, put out fires with the water cannon from the fire truck, drilling through obstacles, plugging potholes with a heavy duty shovel…etc, the list goes on.
The game is pretty easy to play as there’s a bit of a slide show tutorial going on before you head off to a rescue. The only thing is that everything is in Japanese, so there’s abit of a trial and error going on. Do note that aside from the CGI pre-renders used in the intro of each level, the bulk of the game is in 2D.
Screenshots:
FILESONIC Link:
