Sumoman

Review

Sumo wrestling is quite amazing to watch; two large men facing each other within a small circle with the goal of pushing the opponent outside his boundaries. Well, after an exciting but rather tough tournament our favourite Sumo wrestler is returning home to his Island. His uncle is steering the Sampan (small wooden Japanese boat) but unexpectedly falls into a deep sleep, along with all inhabitants of the archipelago. There’s no time for his daily Chankonabe (Sumo diet) - our Sumo hero has to find out who has enchanted his community.

Sumoman is a Platformer / Puzzle game where you take control of a young Sumo wrestler whose quest is to save the inhabitants of his native Island from this eternal slumber.

After reaching the Island, your young Sumo will learn how to execute a few moves: pulling crates, running, charging on obstacles and using the super jump (as I call it) to shake the Earth! You would be quite surprised how fit a Sumo can be - it is just astonishing! 

As your hero progresses through the fourteen levels, he will have to figure out puzzles, avoid obstacles and eat as many rolls as possible within the levels. You might find that some of them can be extremely difficult to reach but don’t forget that your athletic Sumo can shake the earth and everything around him. Each level will have several gongs and each time he reaches one, the game will save automatically.  In the event that your Sumo misses something, he can restart from the previous gong. At the end of each level, and depending on how many sushi rolls your sumo has eaten, he will rise in rank and receive a colourful new Mawashi to wear.

There’s plenty of humour in this game and I had some serious laughing sessions when my Sumo fell flat on his nose, back, and even managed to do several 360 flips. On top of that you can rewind the action. Yes, this option is here to help you go back to a certain point in the past so you do not make the same mistake but it is just hilarious to go backward and forward and see him fall on his noggin! He also has some difficulty keeping his equilibrium - it just very funny.

I was expecting an Asian type of music but instead my Sumo was stuck in the 1920’s jazz-style era of music which to be honest is very cool, and funny too!

Graphically the game looks great and runs perfectly.  I tried to play the Sumoman with the keyboard/mouse combination but I would recommend playing with a gamepad; its better in my opinion. There is another mode you can play on the split screen called the King of the Hill mode, where you play against a friend and you have to race as fast as possible to be the one who reaches the end of the level first to win the game.