Super Small Pocket Dream Video Game Console - Rerez

Takara is a Japanese company mostly known for creating the Transformers. You know those robots in disguise? Well this company was known for making tons and tons of toys both small and large. But one of the things they did around 2006 was that they produced a video game console called the Pocket Dream Console and this thing is one of the tiniest video game systems I've ever seen.

At first glance you'd probably think this is a Game Boy Micro but it actually came out just a year afterwards. The only difference between this and the Game Boy Micro is really the fact that it doesn't take interchangeable cartridges. There's a couple of models out there of the Pocket Dream Console but the one you're looking at right now is the model that was bundled with 30 games. And these 30 games are separated into multiple categories, puzzle, action, racing, shooting and casino and table games. These are pretty basic categories but the games that are in them are pretty good. Honestly. So let's take a look at all the ones that are included. The collection of built-in games starts off with 6 puzzle games the first being a simple recreation of Puzz Loop or as it was better known Ballistic. You shoot colored balls at other balls matching up enough colors to erase them from the line. The game starts really slow and it doesn't seem to get much faster no matter how far I got. The second game is a game where you move boxes over switches. It's incredibly hard right at the start I mean really, really hard. It only gets harder for every stage you progressed to. The third game is kind of basic. All you do is match the portraits of fruits up with one another. Not really challenging at all. This next one though is pretty much a columns clone. Nothing really additional to it but the green dinosaur on the top right has a really strange facial expression that kind of creeps me out. Also when you score two lines in a single move he moons you because that's a thing he does. The fifth game is a spot the difference game. Look around for things that are different in one portrait compared to the other. This one is pretty boring. And the last game on the puzzle collection is a complex block lineup game. This one has a huge difficulty spike right at the beginning and you'll probably find a good hour or two of gameplay in this one alone.

The next category is action games. Eight entries which is the largest collection of titles in any of the genres. The first game is pretty much a Bad Dudes/Double Dragon clone. The gameplay is ultra repetitive but you have final stage bosses in multiple locations. The only problem is that the flying kick you can perform is simply overpowered and you never really can lose if you just use it all the time. The second game is a game where you're a fish eating other fish to become a bigger fish yourself so you can eat even bigger fish. It's pretty much a Feeding Frenzy clone and aside from what is apparently a drunk or dead octopus featured at the bottom of the screen the game doesn't have much else to offer. The third game is a gnome, I guess, with big ears donning a cape who spits on creatures to freeze them. It's a very simple platformer. Nothing much to write home about but it does feature knock back when you get hit which is always an unwelcome addition to any platformer game. Now next is a bowling game which isn't an action game but here it is in the wrong category. It's nothing special same gameplay as virtually every other bowling game ever made. The only original thing that this game has going for it is this character Marco here has a rose in his mouth while he's bowling. So that he can look attractive I suppose. So I guess that's something. Now game five doesn't really make any sense to me. This game features a robotic horse who eats apples. He's also a machine with no stomach, I would assume, so I guess there is some interesting plot to the events surrounding his apple eating adventure that we’re not really let in on. There are cactuses, palm trees, bird pirates and even cars. I have no idea what is going on. The game has pretty bad controls and mixed level designs. You have no real idea where it is that you're supposed to be traveling because there's no clear path and that just adds to really frustrating gameplay. But on the plus side it also features continue points so that's good. This next game is a complete recreation of Lode Runner. Nothing new here other than a penguin being the main character. The controls work really well and the scrolling of the level provides a little extra challenge due to not being able to see the whole stage at once. Though I still personally prefer something like Lode Runner on Commodore 64 or the NES to this one since they show you more of the stage. Game seven is a Bomberman clone where you’re a Bombergirl now. This game doesn't have the best of controls. Everything moves much slower than regular Bomberman but the worst thing about it is listening to the girl’s scream every time she dies and you'll be hearing that a lot. And the final game in the action category is a falling down style platformer game. Pretty simple concept but very high difficulty. I found myself constantly playing this one trying to get as far as I could. Easily one of the better games in the collection.

A cool feature this system has is that it actually has a video out which is something I think Nintendo should have utilized with the Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Micro, DS or even 3DS but these guys in 2006 already had a video out that worked really well on systems. So if you ever wanted to play one of these things on a big screen you just had to plug it up and it actually works pretty easily. But a really cool thing is that the screen that they have on here is super clear. It's incredibly sharp and really for a system that didn't cost that much I expected it to be a lot cheaper but it really doesn't feel that way. The screen on here is one of the best screens I've ever seen on a portable device of this kind and that's pretty impressive. Next we’re looking at racing games. There are four of them and I'm going to save everyone the trouble they all virtually look, sound and play the exact same way. The first game you're inside a car, the second one it's in third-person, the third game they switch out the car to look like an F1 racer and the final game is probably the best since you can punch other bikers which is fun. None of these games really do anything special. They’re kind of just clones of other games we've seen before without any interesting features. They're just throw ins at best. The shooting games section starts off with a very cartoony variation of Life Force, Gradius and R-Type. You star as a purple demon guy riding a really large floating ship while shooting at incoming enemies and little strange, phallic looking, green young things. At its hardest the difficulty in this game revolves around the size of your vehicle because it can be really hard to avoid projectiles and incoming enemies but never really becomes a big challenge. The second game is a Space Megaforce, Xevious or top-down sequences of Stringer inspired shooter. Once again though nothing really difficult. Neither of these games ever get close to the complexity of Ikaruga or modern-day bullet hell shooters. You've got an After Burner clone with a hypnotizing scrolling effect. Kind of sucks as it's incredibly difficult to avoid oncoming fire and it's almost impossible to aim. You also have a submarine style shooter where you drop bombs into the water from your battleship to destroy subs. This one provides virtually no challenge at all and the entire thing finishes off with a top-down, turn-based naval warfare game. Heavily simplified and easy to understand but provides a basic challenge for people willing to outwit the easily confused AI.

And finally the last category casino and table games. So basically you've got blackjack, roulette and slot machines. Now the first blackjack is a pretty decent representation of the classic casino game. There's a little strategy to it and it makes it fun. But the last two well I got so bored playing them. I mean it's random, there's no strategy, no real money at play, there's just no good reason to ever turn these games on. This system has a directional pad, a B and an A button, a menu button, a little volume rocker and left and right shoulder buttons. Now the left and right shoulder buttons are actually very squishy and not very fun to use but that's kind of okay because barely any of the games actually used it besides blackjack which used the right button to deal out cards. Outside of that it just really wasn't used very much. When it was used in any other game it was basically the left and right directional pad inputs were being replicated with the top shoulder buttons so you could completely avoid using them if you wanted to. The next game is neither a casino game or a table game. It’s pinball and the physics and controls are really, really bad. It's seemingly endless as well so that's not fun. Being a pretty big pinball fan myself I found this to be a really disappointing attempt at a game. Now I'm pretty sure everybody knows what our next game is. This is a memory skill game. They show you all the cards and you have to click the ones that match which I guess has some skill in memorizing where the cards are once they're shown to you just seconds before. Next is Breakout. It seems no system with built in games is ever without a Breakout clone. This one is pretty fun with some interesting power-ups. It's got a lot in common with Arkanoid. They even utilized some moving platforms later on into the game which is a pretty big bonus. And the very final game on this entire system is a single-player only version of an ancient tabletop game where you line up five shaded stones in a row. Once you've beaten the AI there's really not much more to do. It's a very simple to understand game and honestly it doesn't provide much of a challenge.

Once you've completed those 30 games that's pretty much the end of the system. You can't add any more games in and that's really all there is to say. But I don't think that's the reason why this system wasn't very popular anywhere else. See to begin with the system is really sticky and it's really, really strange. This whole blue face part here feels kind of like gelatin and after I was playing it for about an hour my hands warmed up and the gelatin started to kind of melt onto my fingers and get all over the D-pad and buttons and screen which was really, really weird. And also because this thing is so small your hands tend to kind of cramp up while you're playing it which is also not fun. But despite that well it is kind of a cool device. I wish that they made one that didn't have the sticky face because that probably would have been a lot better. The Pocket Dream Console is a very interesting rarity simply because if you wanted to get more games on this thing you couldn't. You'd have to go out and buy another Pocket Dream system that had more games bundled into it. And another thing I like about this is the whole video out option which I think Nintendo should implement with a lot more of their portable units. And the fact that they don't is kind of funny seeing as how these guys did it back in 2006. But regardless if you're interested in getting a tiny little system that will probably give you a couple hours worth of enjoyment and some very basic video games this is probably the system to own. But if you're going to get it I suggest wearing gloves. Seriously just really sticky.

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