51. WTF: Work Time Fun || PlayStation Portable || 12.31.21
Beginning my WTF: Work Time Fun playthrough with the expectations of gameplay similar to WarioWario titles, I was sorely mistaken. While comprising of dozens of bite-size minigames, WTF brings an all new meaning to its title while challenging the definition of "game."
With WTF's Japanese title Baito Hell 2000 being a play on the Japanese loan word "arubaito" meaning part-time job, the original title certainly translates the game's true intentions well. Without much narrative, the player finds themselves in hell where they must take on various part-time jobs. In a sense, the main menu hub serves as a sort of job center, with demons at center-screen who seem to run the operation while making snide comments. By far and large, these jobs are menial in nature while some paying pennies upon success. Of the title's 40 jobs, some of the most boring and repetitive tasks are ones such as separating newborn chicks by sex, picking up golf balls, counting pedestrian traffic, and perhaps WTF's most infamous job that requires the player to place pen caps correctly on pens as they're being processed along a factory line. Of the 40 jobs, some are quickly understood to not be worth investing time in playing to accrue money. At the same time, it became obvious that the game's most boring jobs were the ones that paid the most. Funny how that works out, right? In regards to the pen-capping game, the counter at bottom-screen can count up to 10^36 total pens, which is mind-numbing, although it humorously shows how endless the player-character's eternity in hell is to be.
At the game's onset, only four jobs are available as a means to earn income. However, what exactly is money spent toward? Well, numerous gachapon machines with varying pricing are able to be used which mostly unlock collectable trinkets. While these trinkets serve no purpose, they do provide some incentive to keep playing, with around 500 to collect in total. On occasion, unlockable tools and jobs may also be dispensed. So, in order to have an array of jobs to cycle through to earn money and to avoid complete monotony, the player must begrudgingly work through some of the most awful ones early on. With that said, I am not suggesting that all jobs to be unlocked are great, because that is almost objectively not true. Of the 40 jobs, only a fraction are decent with only a handful providing a somewhat worthwhile experience with only one, in my opinion, being fun. The job I'm referring to is one titled Buddha's Quest, which really is a sort of minigame unlike many others. In brief, it is akin to early first-person dungeon crawlers although it only focuses on the battle aspect and no exploration.
As I mentioned before, other items rewards such as tools may be collected from gachapon machines. I never actually took the time to try them out, but they largely serve one purpose and are practical in nature. Two in particular stand out to me in being funny, which are the ramen timer and restaurant bill splitter. I can only imagine someone in 2006 while out dining pulling out their PSP so they can evenly split their bill. Aside from the unlockables, there are other aspects to WTF accessible through network settings (I think) that I unfortunately did not invest time into setting up as I've had the game running throughout my entire playthrough. Nevertheless, these aspects are a sort of achievement system in addition to in an-game email network. Looking back, both of these features probably would have added some additional depth and the feeling of being rewarded to some degree, so I do feel a little disappointed about it.
Needless to say, WTF is not something I can seriously suggest people trying. When I understood what the game's true intentions were, I already felt obligated to keep on playing as I wanted to see just how much of it I could endure. And, with that said, I am still going to be playing the game off-and-on as I have been over these last few months. Despite WTF perhaps being the best candidate for what an anti-game could be in every sense of its identity, I still oddly had an interesting time playing. However, I am still surprised that WTF released outside of Japan and was even a first-party developed and published title.
