So, Japan has a reputation for putting out weird games at times.  And I’m very guilty of pointing at something like Umamusume and saying “look, Japan so wacky!”.

But, really, that’s just girls who are idol singers and also horses.  It’s (cute thing + cute thing + someone’s fetish) and that’s not weird so much as it’s just cashing in on the weak-minded who will trade money for horsegirl .pngs.

Gunma’s Ambition: You and Me are Gunma, now this is a weird game.  It’s the sort of thing that we got on phones back before every game became a f2p micro transaction nightmare, and it fits perfectly with the general vibe of the Switch.

I know nothing about Gunma prefecture.  I’ve only ever heard of it because J-list makes their headquarters there, and also it shows up in an episode of Rail Wars! which is a fine anime about trains and you probably should just leave that statement right there and not google image search it.

Now that I’ve played this game, I went over to Wikipedia to see if it could tell me more, and apparently it’s one of Japan’s few land-locked prefectures and is historically associated with horse (actual horses, not girls who are horses) culture in Japan and there’s not really much more to it.  But someone obviously really likes it, because this game is all about Gunma.  Specifically, you are converting every other prefecture in Japan into Gunma and maybe even picking up some geography and local knowledge along the way.

This probably takes some explanation.

The main playfield of Gunma’s Ambition is on the left side of the screen, where an endless stream of local food and cultural objects falls from the sky.  Any you catch give you points, but you still get a few pity points for ones you miss.  There’s a multiplier zone in the middle and things you catch there are worth more.

On the right, you choose a prefecture to convert into Gunma.  You should probably start with the smaller ones and then work up from there.

After you’ve chosen a prefecture, you can spend points to draw cards from a Daruma.  Each card will either have a city or a prefecture on it, and the population of the place shown on the card will be applied to the prefecture you are converting.  Once you have converted every person in the prefecture to Gunma, it turns blue and you can move on to the next set of victims.

Initially, the stuff you’re trying to catch gives only a few points, and buying cards is pretty cheap as well.  Costs ramp up pretty steadily, though, so you periodically need to spend points in a few …skills?  I don’t know if I’d call them skills.  Stuff that makes the bar fuller faster, because this is a game all about filling bars.

Here I have a 36x multiplier on points, have made the bonus area larger and more valuable, and have increased the size of the little bouncing Gunma that I use to pick up items.

Should I mention that every single time you pick up an item it plays a sound bite of the word “Gunma”?  Gunmagunmagunmagunma, all set to cheery music.  I think this game may be violating some human rights regulations.

By the time you are working to convert Tokyo to Gunma, you have some truly big numbers going on.  While the early game is characterized by needing to be economical and strategic in your choices, this late game is just trying to spend points faster than you can make them and generally failing because your income is bonkers by this point.

Finally, once you convert all of Japan to Gunma, there is a bonus stage which I will not spoil because I wasn’t expecting it and it put the biggest grin on my face.

While you’re gathering food and collecting cards, you fill out a dictionary with little information about towns, prefectures, and cultural specialties of the various regions of Japan.  If you ever wanted to know the official flower, tree, and bird for any given Japanese prefecture, this is your reference guide:

The best thing about Gunma’s Ambition, apart from the way you fill bars and spend points to fill bars better and then fill bigger bars, is that the game is always in motion.  Even while navigating game menus, stuff is still falling and you can use the L and R buttons to move Gunma back and forth to catch it – or just let it fall and you’ll get some points anyway.  Need to take a bathroom break?  When you come back there will be more points to spend.  It’s a very fun energy, and while I still have no idea WHY Gunma, I at least know WHAT Gunma and WHO Gunma.