So I won a weird, old Japanese game from Raptr!

Typically I’m the one who finds out about some contest or freebie long after the offer has lapsed. I blurt out my favorite movie quote on twitter or post a comment about how I’d love to win an Avocado Slamwich from Subway and THEN realize, oh, it’s over. But yesterday I managed to hop on a Raptr Reward in time to redeem the code (nevermind that image).

The free mystery PSone download codes were fronted by MonkeyPaw Games who most recently brought one of my favorites back to life on PSN: Tomba!. I was hoping my code would reveal a free copy of Tomba! but instead I got Kyuiin… oh. Of all the games that the codes could potentially have been for I got the one game I had never, ever heard of.

A side-scrolling shooter starring kids who are sucked into a fantasy book to save a fairy land from a bad dream, the pair ride the skies on the backs of vacuum cleaners. I think the vacuums may be sentient as well, I dunno, it’s all in Japanese! The game itself is kinda neat, encouraging you to stop firing so much, get in close and let your dancing vacuum hose suck up enemies. This refills a super shot meter which handily manages the enemies and bullets on screen but gets you no points for whatever it kills. It’s a surprisingly well designed system that I wasn’t expecting from what looked like ‘My First Shooter’.

Maybe I’ll post more about it at some point but redeeming the code and firing up the PS3 reminded me that this is the week for free episodes of The Walking Dead for PS+ members so I jumped over to that after a few rounds with Kyuiin. Tomba! or Yakiniku Bugyou or even Chou Aniki would’ve been great but I’m really happy to have won something peculiar and Japanese from MonkeyPaw and Raptr, thanks guys!