Yuji Naka wants to play Catch with Your Wii… *sorry*

Let’s Tap — from Sonic co-creator and Prope founder Yuji Naka — has been pretty well documented by this point. The game looks like a spiritual sibling to Rhythm Tengoku only in Let’s Tap you lay the Wii Remote down and tap on the surface around it, putting years of table tapping frustration to use. The idea is so simple and the presentation so clever that Let’s Tap really sounds like geniusness. In comparison, Prope’s second offering, the WiiWare download Let’s Catch, looks much less inspired.

Taking the time honored father/son game of bonding into the digital age sounds like a heartwarming idea, but even as a cheap download how long can it possibly last? The game has been out for a couple weeks on the Japanese Wii but we’re just now getting our first look at it via the official game site. It’s visually pleasing with lots of youthful characters and endearingly oversized ball-catchin’ hands but even the promo video lost my attention after a minute.

There is more to it than throwing a ball back and forth with your father’s Mii, but it barely seems any more entertaining. There’s a mode where you (and up to three players) try to knock out a grid of numbered panels, there’s hot potato played with sticks of dynamite, and there’s also a mode where you play catch… on the moon… with aliens. And from what I can tell that’s about it.

But maybe I’m being too harsh. The characters and visuals are awfully appealing and maybe the motion controls just feel right and it’s a joy to simply play with. Unfortunately, we may never know as there’s currently no plan to bring Let’s Catch outside of Japan and even if it does show up some day there still won’t be a demo to confirm my hopeful suspicions. For now we’ll just have to settle with the vaguely interactive web demo.