This review was originally published on the Console Purist Facebook group on February 16th, 2019. It has been edited slightly for formatting, and a slight bit of information has been added.
“So where is the ‘truck’?” you may find yourself asking. I mean looking at the screenshots and reading the rest of the review, I’m sure you have noticed mines and mine carts. The game’s title, written in Romaji as Love Love Truck, is not actually referring to the English meaning of a truck but a mine cart. So there is no truck.
Once you reach the end of the track, you are graded by the percentage of fruits collected, which sandwiches were made, if you collected a present or diamond, and the number of hearts at the end. There is then a short cutscene between the two characters, presenting how much in love that they are. This is carried out over a short few levels, and then the game ends. It is a short game, maybe an hour from start to finish with replayability in terms of getting a better score. I only finished Love Love Truck once, but I get the sense that the ending depends on how the couple's adventurous love went through the course of the journey.
Happy Valentine’s Day, Console Purists! It’s back to PlayStation
Basement with LOVE. Every Saturday, PlayStation Basement brings YOU reviews of
odd and obscure PS1 games. My reviews try to de-emphasize the standard point
system you see in a lot of video game reviews, so I use a nine-point scale
where 9-7 is Good, 6-4 is Neutral, and 3-1 is Bad.
For the loveliest lovers, I present to you the Japan-only, Love
Love Truck. This game was developed by Scitron & Art and published by TYO.
Both of these companies only worked in the Japanese market, neither surviving
beyond 1999 when this game was published. Neither seemed to have worked on any especially prominent titles,
either between the horror adventure of Night Head: the Labyrinth, the goofy
racing of Street Scooters, the cute puzzler called Sanrio Carnival, and the
educational museum of LifeScape: Seimei 40 Okunen na Tabi. Love Love Truck itself is an odd mashup of comedic, action sort-of-racer and romantic,
dating-sim. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
The cover art to Love Love Truck is one of the most amazing
things that I have ever seen. It shows two real people, cartoonified to comedic
proportions, in a mine cart that is swerving to avoid an elephant crossing a
street. The man in the cart looks like he is about to cry, while the woman
looks on in a combination of joy and amazement (she also may be a bit
embarrassed). The game’s logo is written using an exponent and also in a
cartoony style. It’s a very cute cover that leaves the viewer wondering as to
the contents of this game.
Graphically, Love Love Truck is much less impressive than the
weird mashup of cartoon realism seen on the cover. The game uses a very
polygonal style to render the silly characters. This works okay, but they have
a lot of awkwardly rendered joints (elbows, knees, etc.) and clunky animations.
The backgrounds of the stages look okay, but you’re going to be seeing a lot of
the same desert canyons and Wild West towns throughout much of the game. There
are a few exceptions, though. I also like the little 2D portraits, the little
representation of the characters displayed in the bottom left, and the foods
you collect on your riding adventure. I think this game would have done a bit
better if it had gone all in with the 2D graphics.
Something that was done a bit better in Love Love Truck is the
sound design. The music goes for a driving rock and blues sound, which works
well with the game’s settings. The game has some decent sound effects, going
for more cartoony springs and twinkles. There is also a lot of spoken dialogue
in the game that sounds pretty good. Unfortunately for me, it’s all in
Japanese. Another unfortunate thing, in my opinion, is how many of the
voice-overs seem to go for a sexy feel. It just feels like… perverted, I guess.
I don’t really want to hear weird sex moans and stuff amidst unrelated action.
Some of the dialogue probably focuses on innuendos too, but I do not know
enough Japanese to say.
“So where is the ‘truck’?” you may find yourself asking. I mean looking at the screenshots and reading the rest of the review, I’m sure you have noticed mines and mine carts. The game’s title, written in Romaji as Love Love Truck, is not actually referring to the English meaning of a truck but a mine cart. So there is no truck.
Love Love Truck is about choosing two characters who will have
a strange relationship looking for treasure in a mine while the player presses
the ‘O’ button over and over to pump the handcar. You can also press ‘X’ to
brake if you want to avoid hazards. This isn’t a particularly exciting game
mechanic, and you might want to get a turbo controller to lessen the burden on
your hand.
It’s not all pumping and braking, thankfully. Players will also
need to have their character reach up to grab fruit, bells, and pieces of sandwiches
that pass by. These serve mostly to increase the love between the characters,
with each female character having a favorite fruit that one should probably
collect. I am not totally sure what the bells do, but I think the sandwiches
function similarly to the fruit. Sandwiches are constructed by grabbing passing
pieces: cheese, lettuce, egg, bacon, chicken, and beef. There’s also mustard
that must always be avoided for some reason, it seems. The different foods
combine to make basically a burger or breakfast sandwich, seemingly with
different results based on what was included. The results may depend on the
male character selected. Again, my lack of real understanding of Japanese and
the lack of a comprehensive guide make this confusing.
In addition to food, one can also collect a present or a key.
The key allows you to open a chest containing a diamond if you head the right
way on the track. At various times, the track will split, creating the need to
guide the cart either left or right. You don’t want to tip it too much, though,
but you also must tip the cart enough to actually move in that direction.
Annoyingly, some of these navigations can lead to a pit, causing the characters
to fall and lose hearts. This feels cheap, as there does not always seem to be
an indication of it. I did notice that sometimes the girl would tell the boy to
steer a certain way and that some directions had a sign with some kind of
negative symbol. I may have missed some of these warnings, though I do not
think that I did. There are some other obstacles too, like wild beasts and
boulders to outrun, bombs to avoid grabbing, fallen trees and bridges to duck
under, and even some enemies that will attack. It’s interesting, but I don’t
know that it is enough to satisfy all of the pumping.
Once you reach the end of the track, you are graded by the percentage of fruits collected, which sandwiches were made, if you collected a present or diamond, and the number of hearts at the end. There is then a short cutscene between the two characters, presenting how much in love that they are. This is carried out over a short few levels, and then the game ends. It is a short game, maybe an hour from start to finish with replayability in terms of getting a better score. I only finished Love Love Truck once, but I get the sense that the ending depends on how the couple's adventurous love went through the course of the journey.
In addition to the single-player mode, you can also play the
game with another player, one as the girl and one as the boy, or even each
create a character and do the same. Creating characters involves answering
questions and picking birthdate and blood type. I guess this is a funny sort of
matchmaking mode; I find it a little endearing actually. It’s still mostly a
lot of pumping, this time just coordinated between two people.
Overall, Love Love Truck does some interesting stuff, but a
game about mostly mashing buttons is never going to be that awesome in my
opinion. There are some nice camera angles, spoiled a bit by the mediocre
graphics. The levels look similar, the animations are clunky, and the game is a
little over-sexed. Still, the odd dating sim elements are cute, the music
is lively and not your standard video game fare, and the game is fun, even with
the somewhat delayed and stilted controls. I don’t personally love this
love-based game, but it was certainly something unique and suited for the
PlayStation Basement.
Love Love Truck receives a Neutral (6).
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