In Ulala's shadow, Cool Cool Toon withered

When you think of music games on the Dreamcast, Dance Dance Revolution 2 and Space Channel 5 must immediately come to mind. They were graphically fresh and had killer music -- both groovy guilty pleasures enjoyed by males everywhere in the privacy of their own homes, to girlfriend's delight. While the beat genre fans were anticipating the Parappa sequel (which ultimately sucked and killed it for everybody).... this weird mute Japanese rabbit sent a postcard from overseas. We forgot to write back until right now. The year was 2000, a time that SNK struggled to reinvent themselves to recover from the dying arcade market. They milked that fighter genre to the brim and had no real backup plan. For some reason, they decided to into the music category, and it was a disaster. And shortly thereafter, the old king of fighters pulled out of the business. The remains of that wreckege was a hyperweird dance import called Cool Cool Toon. Admittedly, the game is probably way too weird and Japanese - apparently even for even Japanese people. You play a little kid who has a pet bunny / dance instructor Yusa whom in the spirit of existing joystick games, wants you to copy his grooves. Using your analog joystick, you position an onscreen cursor where the notes are gliding and click the button when they touch the perimeter, marking the beat on the circular stage with the corresponding button. If you passed the stage, you took your kudos points (called J-Get!) to the mall and bought very strange high-fashion clothing, which was the high point of constant amusement. You could also hook up the game to your Neo Geo Pocket for 200% completion. The game looks like a proper cartoon, using cell-shaded technology like Jet Set (not Grind, Set dammit!) Radio with it's own amazing style. They also used motion capture hardware to give the animation this amazing, natural presentation. My favorite level stars a huge breakdancing yellow warewolf and these two gangsta-looking owls in hoodies who act as backup dancers - set to the backdrop of something right out of Anime-Roger Rabbit nonetheless. The buildings even come to life and rock out, it's a pretty well orchestrated music video montage. Just watch the videos. Unfortunately music isn't exceptional J-pop. It's good enough though - has the right amount of occassional yelling - making it catchy while it's playing but totally forgettable when you unplug. No "kick punch it's all in the mind" to take away from it. So weirdness aside, know what element made this game intolerable? IT'S THE HARDEST FUCKING MUSIC GAME EVER MADE. They'd machine gun the notes at you at seizure-enducing rates. It's like the game was supposed to be like 15 levels long, but they couldn't afford it and chopped it down to 6 without adjusting difficulty in the gaps between them. One stage may be playable, then the following one you'll last 10 seconds. Thus, the game is criminally short and gets old fast. If you wanted to get this game today, your best bet is Ebay or an overseas import specialist. I only recommend it for the hardcore music genre gamer looking for something totally (derivately) different than what's on the shelf at your local gameshop.