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Have you ever watched an anime and said to yourself, “Hey, why did ‘generically clueless, indecisive, but somehow adored by all the girls’ anime guy hook up with ‘polar opposite, aggressive, but really sweet at heart’ anime girl at the end? I think he should have got together with ‘cute childhood sweetheart who’s afraid to confess her feelings’ anime girl instead.”
Unable to control their favorite anime characters’ destinies, this is where most people turn to fanfic Web sites. But what if you were given an anime where you control the characters’ decisions? Do you fight valiantly in battle, or do you die a quick death? Do you accept the rival girl’s advances, or do you keep your pants on instead? Do you save the world from the alien menace and finally confess to your love, or does your own power cause you to blow up the entire planet, leaving you to float in the vacuum of space? Such are the choices you’ll face in the Korean-made “Interactive Animation” game Muta Juice.
The story of Muta Juice begins as a UFO crashes in a Korean forest, and a small alien emerges from the ship with a bottle strapped to its back. On the verge of dying, the alien says its final words to the young boy who witnessed the crash, and the bottle containing the Muta Juice comes into the boy’s possession. Many decades later, that boy would become the founder of the Office of Planetary Security (OOPS), where the main character, K, works as an inept robot pilot. Also working for OOPS is Miro, the niece of the department head of the organization and childhood love of K, who had saved her from a group of bullies when they were younger. After he saved Miro and sustained a beating, K was taken to OOPS headquarters where Miro offered him the Muta Juice to cure his wounds. Unaware of its power or origin, K drank from the bottle and suffered amnesia, forgetting the entire incident.
Now, 10 years later, a group of humanoid aliens intend to recover the Muta Juice. Puuchu and her talking cat, Alphonse, are the first sent to Earth to find it. They track the Muta Juice to K, and Puuchu joins OOPS while hiding her true identity and intentions. During the course of the story, K will discover the true power of the Muta Juice, face an alien invasion led by a panty-sniffing pervert intent on freezing the Earth, turn into a giant robot, deal with multiple girls vying for his affection and will ultimately make a choice on which girl he will fall in love with. In other words, it’s filled with your standard anime clichés. Giant sweat beads, over exaggerated emotions and reactions, camera angles with gratuitous panty and breast shots, full rear nudity, and an indecisive male protagonist who could go either way on his decision on which girl he loves. As long as you haven’t been completely worn out on these type of antics you’ll have a fun, but familiar time experiencing the story of Muta Juice.
Many gaming Web sites and online retailers have erroneously described the game as an “Interactive Animation” with gameplay in the vein of Dragon’s Lair. In reality, the game is more like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. After watching a chapter, some several minutes long, the game will come to a complete stop and the user can select from several different choices on what to do next. Depending on your selection, the story will either continue on the “standard” path with varying reactions between the characters, skip several chapters to a point later in the story, skew to a different path altogether, or the game will come to an abrupt (but usually funny) end. However, if you go down a story path that you don’t like, or you would like to see what animation the other choice would have triggered, you can simply hit left on the directional pad and the game will “rewind” to the previous chapter selection. All the chapter screens are numbered so you can see what chapter you currently are on and see how many chapters you skipped based on your choice. Also, if you reached one of the 18 possible endings and you wanted to pick up the game right before you made that choice, you can load your previous save made at that chapter and choose the other selection. While this makes it easier to experience all the possible animations and endings without having to start the game over from scratch, it makes this already short game even shorter, since there’s only about 120 minutes of animation total in the game, meaning you’ll experience most of what this game has to offer in about three to four hours.
This leads to some of the problems with the game. Because there is so little interaction in this “Interactive Animation,” it means you’ll watch several minutes of animation, stop, choose a selection, watch some more animation and so on until you reach an ending. Even towards the later chapters in the game when K turns into a giant robot, you still don’t have any control over his actions. He’s either going to defeat the giant enemy robot, or he’s not going to defeat the giant enemy robot. No dodging attacks or choosing to punch or kick. You simply watch the fight until its eventual outcome. At this point in the game, maybe a control setup like Dragon’s Lair would have been welcomed, although it would have changed the feel of the game and what the creators had intended it to be.
The other issue with the game is that it’s presented entirely in Korean, from the voice acting to the selections you have to choose from. If you understand Korean, then this is a non-issue. If you don’t understand Korean, then Muta Juice becomes less of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” game and more of a “lets push this button and see if anything funny happens” game. If you’re someone who has played Switch (Panic! in the West) on the Sega CD or PlayStation 2, then this feeling of random choices and wacky humor may feel familiar to you, and it’s something that will either appeal to you or bore you to death. At the very least, even without Korean comprehension you can still discern the general plot of the game and laugh at the various antics, and you’ll still be able to make it to the end of the game with some trial and error.
Muta Juice was developed by Cinepix, creators of the CGI animated series Cubix. If you’re familiar with that show, then Muta Juice has a very similar look to it, with very plastic-y looking models and a more wide-eyed anime look applied to most of the characters. The animation is very stiff and choppy, with characters only moving when they need to and a frame rate of about 15 frames per second. Anyone looking for impressive use of CGI will be disappointed, but the game does capture the feel of what an anime would look like if it were done with CGI models instead of hand drawn cels, limited animation and all.
If there is one aspect of the game where Muta Juice excels, it’s the audio. The voice actors all do a very good job, with the voices matching the personality of the characters perfectly and without any annoying or ear-grating voices to be heard. The sound effects are serviceable, but the real star of the audio is the soundtrack. Supplied by Korean indie rock band Sugar Donuts, their music kicks in right when the game needs it. Whether your kicking some alien robot butt or falling in love with the girl, the background music matches the mood of the game effortlessly and really adds impact of the story. Similar to how Japanese rock group The pillows’ music contributed greatly to the presentation and feel of the anime FLCL, Sugar Donut’s music does the same for Muta Juice.
Import Friendly? Literacy Level: 3
Being able to “play” Muta Juice without Korean comprehension is entirely possible, but being able to fully understand the story and make decisions without guessing randomly is not possible without understanding Korean, and that’s really where most of the enjoyment of the game comes from.
US Bound?
As much as people lament over the flood of console ports and the lack of original games available for the PSP, it’s hard to imagine that any US publisher would take a chance on bringing this game over to the US, especially since it’s not really much of a “game.”
+ Pros: It’s an original, entertaining animation that can only be experienced on the PSP, with great music and plenty of fan service.
- Cons: May be too full of anime clichés for some people, there really isn’t a “game” to be found here, and Korean comprehension is really needed to get the most out of the story.
Overall: Anyone expecting the anime equivalent of Dragon’s Lair will be sorely disappointed, but if you accept Muta Juice for what it is, it’s a fun little story of a boy who drinks an alien liquid, turns into a giant robot, takes on an alien force and gets to choose which girl he falls in love with at the end. The animation is limited, but clean and attractive, and the music is great overall. Even if you don’t understand Korean, you’ll still get a laugh out of some of the situations in the game. It’s basically an anime you control, which is pretty cool when you think about it. Do you choose your childhood love, or do you choose the attractive alien? Or do you choose both? Or does a violent chemical reaction caused by being hugged too aggressively cause you to explode and turn the other girl into bloody chunks? It’s your decision.
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