Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!

Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!
Touch! Catch! Witch?
Developer(s)	SNK Playmore
Publisher(s)	SNK Playmore
Platform(s)	Nintendo DS
Release date(s)	JP July 5, 2007
Genre(s)	Adventure, fighting
Mode(s)	Single Player
Rating(s)	CERO: C
Media/distribution	Nintendo DS Game Card

Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! (どきどき魔女神判!^?, lit. "Thump-Thump Witch Judgement", or more accurately translated as "Heart-Pounding Magical Investigation") ^[1] is a game developed by SNK Playmore for Nintendo DS.

A game journalist from the gaming blog Kotaku asked an SNK spokesperson if this game would be released in the US, and the response was "...this title is only for Japanese market. We do not have any plan for localize to the other versions.",^[2] despite the game originally having official sites in English, Chinese, and Korean. These were taken offline when the Japanese language site was rewritten to focus on the upcoming sequel game.

The player assumes the role of a junior high school student who is asked by an angel to locate a witch that has sneaked into his school. In order to find the witch, he must search the suspects' bodies for a "witch mark." The preferred method is by using touch (using the stylus to guide his hands).

A sequel titled Doki Doki Majo Shinpan 2 Duo was released 31 July 2008, and a third game titled Doki Majo Plus was released on July 30, 2009.

Main characters

Akuji Nishimura (Voiced by: Miku Ozaki)

He is a junior high student hard at work on finding witches.

He is proud to be a bad boy and forced to cooperate by the threat of being changed into a good boy.

Angel LuLu (Voiced by: Hiroko Sonoda)

Apprentice angel. She follows by the arch-angel's instruction about Akuji, and helps with the witch search.

Suspects

Maho Akai

14 years old. She has long sugar-pink pigtails and very big breasts. She is in the cheerleading club. Ability: Energy balls

Maria Abe

14 years old. She is a meganekko. The crystal-ball fortune-telling is her unique skill. Ability: Potions and barriers.

Renge Oda

13 years old. She likes retro video games. Her most prized possession is 'Athena' on the Nintendo Entertainment System (with cassette tape), which is a clear reference to SNK. Ability: Teleportation and 'power sneeze'

Yuuma Mochizuki

13 years old. He takes everything too serious and gets injured all the time. Ability : Wolf transformation

Ayame Midoh

15 years old. She is the only daughter of a Shinto shrine priest and also its maiden priestess. Ability: Summoning familiar and talisman

Merry Watabiki

12 years old. She is always wearing a rabbit costume. Ability: Meteors and explosive replicas

Eve Seiya

23 years old. The school nurse. Ability: Energy balls

Noel Seiya

The archangel. Sister of Eve Seiya. Ability: Energy balls, summoning holy slugs and holy sword.

Other characters

Cawasen Chiyo

She is on the cheerleading club. She has light blue hair made up of 2 small pigtails.

Reverse-Panda

The color of this type of panda is quite opposite to a usual panda. It hides itself in 100 places throughout the game. The number obtained at the end of the game reveals more episodes in the "Extra Episodes" mode.

Related Products

Manga

• The Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! Manga will be included in Akita Shoten's "Champion Red". It has been scheduled for September 2007. The illustrator is Yagami Ken (八神健).

Book

• The Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! Fanbook by Soft Bank Creative is scheduled for sale on July 5, 2007 (ISBN 9784797343472).
• Doki Doki Majo Shinpan Complete best by MediaWorks is scheduled for sale on August 10, 2007 (ISBN 9784840240345).

Soundtrack

• The Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! Soundtrack by Sten Och Flod is scheduled for sale on July 25, 2007.

Reception

According to online retailer Amazon.com, the game is the best selling pre-order game in Japan, and is more popular than The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.^[3] However the actual numbers show that the game met with minimal sales and as of 2009 has only sold 50,000 units.^{[citation needed]} Although the game has not been confirmed for a North American release, it has been the subject of a number of webcomics. These include:

• A Penny Arcade comic in April 2007.[1]
• Two Dueling Analogs comics, one in March 2008 [2] and another in December 2008 [3].
• Used often as an example of bad gaming on the popular videogame review Zero Punctuation

The import review of the game in the UK publication NGamer (like its predecessor NGC Magazine, famous for comical reviews of particularly bad games), felt so disturbed by the game that it abandoned its normal percentage scoring system and awarded it a 'score' of simply "NO" in every category. In a later issue (18) it "awarded" it "The Superman 64 (a reference to what the magazine considered for years as the worst game ever made) Award For Worst Game (of 2007)", remarking "There are bad games - technically flawed and conceptually lazy - and then there are bad games. Evil bad. Doki Doki a.k.a The Meh Witch Touching Project, is one such title."^{[citation needed]}. The sequel, however, received 40%, an actual score.

References

1. ^ "Heart-Pounding Magical Investigation 2 Display Cleaner". Hobby Search. 2008-08. https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10073795. Retrieved 2009-03-17. 
2. ^ Ashcraft, Brian (2007-07-19). "No Plans to Localize Doki Doki Majo Shinpan". Kotaku. http://kotaku.com/gaming/ds-lite/no-plans-to-localize-doki-doki-majo-shinpan-280089.php. Retrieved 2007-11-17. 
3. ^ Ashcraft, Brian (2007-05-04). "SNK's Witch Game More Popular Than Phantom Hourglass". Kotaku. http://kotaku.com/gaming/king-of-touchers/snks-witch-game-more-popular-than-phantom-hourglass-257674.php. Retrieved 2007-11-17. 

External links

• Official site (Japanese)
• IGN page
• GameSpot page
• Famitsu article (Japanese)
• Dengeki Online Article (Japanese)
• Promotional Goods (Japanese)
• SNK on Witching Touching Game at Kotaku
• Various extracted graphics at The Spriters Resource