Game Info
Sweet Memories Blackjack
3DS Download | CIRCLE Entertainment | 1 Player | Out Now | $3.99 / £3.60
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Review
24th July 2012; By KnucklesSonic8
Attempting to incorporate a sugar and spice element, the main theme that Sweet Memories Blackjack uses to try and give the package some weight is that of friendship. A group of young Japanese women who are tied together by their love of the game want to invite you into their fold as if it were a sorority. Apparently education matters little to them, and why should it; they can get by just using your wallet. But in order to prove yourself worthy of meeting the others, you must first get acquainted with the supposed leader of the group, Kasumi. And what better place to get to know her than in her own home...while she's in her pyjamas. Without reading too much into the strange invitation, the game starts you off by first playing cards with her, then once you've managed to get a healthy supply of coins to brag about, other members of the group will want to face you in as many rounds as you desire. Those no good gold diggers! Note to self: playing Blackjack can not only help you develop enduring friendships, but also earn you some points with the ladies.
After assigning a bet in the amount of 25, 50, 100, or 300 Coins and having your two cards dealt out to you, you can select from all the typical actions you'd expect to find in a Blackjack game. You can select Hit to draw an additional card from the deck, Double Down to take a gamble and potentially double your winnings, or Stand to lock your hand and see what your opponent comes up with. Two more options are also present, with the first being the ability to surrender and avoid a bust with a bad hand while still keeping a bit of pocket change; and second is the Insurance option which becomes available for selection when your opponent's revealed card is an Ace, also allowing you to preserve a bit of your winnings in the event of a loss. All of these rules remain true whether selecting Normal Mode or Score Mode. The only difference in choosing the latter is you're aiming to reach a set total of 1,000 Coins, working with 100-Coin and occasional 300-Coin chips. That's really all there is to the gameplay, but seeing as this isn't a collection of card games, that shouldn't come as a surprise.
With the system being held on its side during play, the left screen is used to show basic images of the women you're playing against, but relatively little animation actually takes place during sessions. And the ones that do take place are anything but impressive. As an example of that, a win will be so shaming that Kasumi will -- get this -- use her blanket to cover her face. Their general physical appearances reminded me a bit of how the characters in Hotel Dusk were presented, just with colour, less emotion, and not nearly as professional-looking.
During the time you spend with them, your opponents will often chime in with really silly dialogue relating to their own moves as well as irrelevant conversation topics. No, I will not go shopping with you afterwards. That's the first thing. Second thing: sometimes you have lines of text squished together or running off the screen entirely, which doesn't set a good impression. And then there's the text itself. Instead of saying "I'm upset", for example, they'll just say "upset", as if they were challenged in expressing their feelings. Yet, words like "pitiful" are part of their vocabulary as well, so I don't know. Besides just the fact that there are poorly-constructed phrases, some of the comments are just laughable. Case in point: "This could be destiny." You mean you losing, or your entire group being a failure? And then there's the AI. Much of this depends on the person you're facing, but I mean, who chooses to stand at a sum of 12? I think I'd feel better if the girls just tossed their hair around the entire time and pretended like I wasn't even there. At least they'd have less chances of making fools of themselves that way when compared with everything else just described.
Taking a look at the Gallery option, I was stunned over the complete underestimation on the part of the development team over the kind of people who would even bother playing this game. A series of achievements are listed -- 26 in total -- with illustrations being unlocked once they've been completed, but when I saw what some of the conditions were, I thought: "Who are they kidding?" Get Blackjack two times in a row? Never get a bust in 50 straight games? Play over 3,000 games? Accumulate 100,000 Points?! Even if I did get that first one pretty quickly, it's besides the point. Never mind just the fact that many of these are so luck-based that it would be a complete fluke and not an accomplishment to make these illustrations available, if they think for a second that anyone in their right minds is going to spend what'll amount to something close to 10 hours playing this, they're out of their minds! Unreasonable achievements and questionable rewards aside, the Gallery option would be about the only thing to give this game leverage over the long-term, so with even this component being a miss, Sweet Memories Blackjack is indeed a frail experience where not even the killing of time can give it worth as something to spend money on.
Now, when I say these lousy incentives would, under normal circumstances, provide a measure of a goal-oriented focus, there's actually a system the team has put in place as their own idea of how to give Blackjack a bit more depth. They basically have you trying to use the card game as a way to get closer to Kasumi, so by playing again and again and again, she'll eventually take a liking to you. Before you start thinking that this is going to break out into a dating sim of sorts, all it is an extremely thin concept of a relationship system that doesn't even become realized until after countless attempts of subjecting yourself to boredom. In fact, after forcing myself through over 400 rounds and having overall winnings in the 10,000 range, I was no sooner to become her "friend" than I was when I started playing. Obviously they've made her hard to please in hopes that you, being the oh-so-desperate person that you are, will want to win her over, not through charm, but luck of the draw. What she could possibly admire about completely luck-based initiatives, I have no clue. Furthermore, I have no idea what CIRCLE Entertainment was thinking trying to use this as a hidden element that players would want to seek out when, in fact, they'd be lucky if anyone gives the game the time of day.
By now you must be wondering: Where exactly does the memory component come in? Well, here's the thing. Obviously the promise of developing a relationship with any of these ladies is a convoluted endeavour, not to mention it's absolute work, so when the manual says that you can unlock "special memories" of the main character, there truly isn't any meaning to it. It's not like you'll suddenly get a burst of energy after learning that and say, "I'd love to learn about this NPC's past!" I thus struggled to understand what part of this game could possibly constitute a "sweet memory". It wasn't until I fell asleep to the game that I finally comprehended what it was getting at all along. By lulling you to sleep by its hard-to-bear-another-minute-of-it gameplay, whatever daydreams you have during that brief state will ultimately be more memorable than anything to come from playing this lousy game.
I've already touched on a number of things relating to the game's presentation, but just to make a few more points clear: Sweet Memories Blackjack reeks of quick development time that led to a somewhat careless translation from Japanese to English markets. The interface isn't bad in itself, but the availability of selectable characters always fluctuates each time you play the game for no good reason. With even locked options disappearing completely from the menu as though they weren't even a part of the package, the inconsistency here doesn't make any sense at all. When you first meet Kasumi -- who, again, is lying in bed at the time -- the orientation of the imagery on the left screen isn't even set up correctly, positioned upside down in relation to how you would normally use your 3DS. Some of the other unlockable illustrations are like this as well, and it doesn't look very good. As for the music, the song heard on the Main Menu isn't bad, but the rest is junk. One track in particular skips a number of times, and the audio quality in general isn't good, even at full volume. So between all that, plus the presence of static backgrounds with no sense of atmosphere, truly nothing in this game is decorated nicely, worth looking at, or even remotely tailored in appearance.
Taking a look at the Gallery option, I was stunned over the complete underestimation on the part of the development team over the kind of people who would even bother playing this game. A series of achievements are listed -- 26 in total -- with illustrations being unlocked once they've been completed, but when I saw what some of the conditions were, I thought: "Who are they kidding?" Get Blackjack two times in a row? Never get a bust in 50 straight games? Play over 3,000 games? Accumulate 100,000 Points?! Even if I did get that first one pretty quickly, it's besides the point. Never mind just the fact that many of these are so luck-based that it would be a complete fluke and not an accomplishment to make these illustrations available, if they think for a second that anyone in their right minds is going to spend what'll amount to something close to 10 hours playing this, they're out of their minds! Unreasonable achievements and questionable rewards aside, the Gallery option would be about the only thing to give this game leverage over the long-term, so with even this component being a miss, Sweet Memories Blackjack is indeed a frail experience where not even the killing of time can give it worth as something to spend money on.
Now, when I say these lousy incentives would, under normal circumstances, provide a measure of a goal-oriented focus, there's actually a system the team has put in place as their own idea of how to give Blackjack a bit more depth. They basically have you trying to use the card game as a way to get closer to Kasumi, so by playing again and again and again, she'll eventually take a liking to you. Before you start thinking that this is going to break out into a dating sim of sorts, all it is an extremely thin concept of a relationship system that doesn't even become realized until after countless attempts of subjecting yourself to boredom. In fact, after forcing myself through over 400 rounds and having overall winnings in the 10,000 range, I was no sooner to become her "friend" than I was when I started playing. Obviously they've made her hard to please in hopes that you, being the oh-so-desperate person that you are, will want to win her over, not through charm, but luck of the draw. What she could possibly admire about completely luck-based initiatives, I have no clue. Furthermore, I have no idea what CIRCLE Entertainment was thinking trying to use this as a hidden element that players would want to seek out when, in fact, they'd be lucky if anyone gives the game the time of day.By now you must be wondering: Where exactly does the memory component come in? Well, here's the thing. Obviously the promise of developing a relationship with any of these ladies is a convoluted endeavour, not to mention it's absolute work, so when the manual says that you can unlock "special memories" of the main character, there truly isn't any meaning to it. It's not like you'll suddenly get a burst of energy after learning that and say, "I'd love to learn about this NPC's past!" I thus struggled to understand what part of this game could possibly constitute a "sweet memory". It wasn't until I fell asleep to the game that I finally comprehended what it was getting at all along. By lulling you to sleep by its hard-to-bear-another-minute-of-it gameplay, whatever daydreams you have during that brief state will ultimately be more memorable than anything to come from playing this lousy game.
Sweet Memories Blackjack is a dud. Plain and simple. And because of that truth, I now feel uncomfortable thinking about how much time I spent with a game that really deserves nothing at all. It would be sad for anyone to make the mistake of thinking they could dip their feet into something that isn't pleasing in any capacity. Whether you think there's something good to be found here with the failed relationship system they have going or you just want to play some rounds of Blackjack on the go, you'll be kicking yourself for spending money on this at all, let alone a whole $4. As far as I'm concerned, this game costs two dollars too much, and just in saying that I feel I'm being generous. This is an embarrassment that should be avoided by all.
09/30 - Very Poor
Gameplay 4/10 - Functional features, relationship system is a failure and only starts to show signs of existence after so much time has been wasted
Presentation 3/10 - Low-quality audio, simple animations and weak visuals, embarrassing text, technical issues with the menu organization, inconsistencies
Enjoyment 1/5 - Lousy in every way, boring to the point of putting you to sleep, poor attempt at player interaction, will quickly regret your purchase
Extra Content 1/5 - Two modes, Gallery Mode offers pointless unlocks, achievements set luck-based and completely unrealistic conditions, overpriced
Equivalent to a score of 30% (percentage score is approximate and based solely on the previously stated rating) - Our Rating System
