Conspiracy Entertainment’s spree of localization of the Choro-Q series is bizarre. Choro-Q is a brand of toy car. In North America, they were sold as Penny Racers, but I honestly don’t remember ever seeing them in my childhood. However, I guess they have some manner of ubiquity in Japan, since there was a series of games based on them until at least 2008. 

And I can’t say it was a particularly good series, but it is a unique series, which counts for a lot. They started off as kind of clunky racing games, and then started to mutate as they progressed. Conspiracy Entertainment grabbed hold in the early-aughts, and brought some of them to North America. Over here, however, there’s no real brand recognition, so they couldn’t just call them Choro-Q Goes to Summer Camp or whatever. So, we got Road Trip, which is strangely awesome. And then here we have Seek and Destroy. Also, there are others.

You probably wouldn’t guess that Seek and Destroy is the sort of game it is by looking at the box art. It depicts a tank erupting through a hole in the background that burns in its wake. War is waged in smaller depictions in the margins. An American flag peeks through on one side. Weirdly, it’s the American flag that’s the most misleading part.

TREAD TRIP

Do you remember my review of Road Trip? It was a while back. It’s a game about talking cars living in a society. Seek and Destroy is a lot like that, but instead of racing, it’s World War 2.

In Japan, it goes by the name Shin Combat Choro-Q, which just means “New Combat Choro-Q.” It’s about a society of living tanks and other vehicles of war. The narrative involves an evil empire, Q-Stein, gradually taking over the world. The only nation left standing is The Proton Kingdom, and the story picks up with you helping defend the last remaining town.

I don’t know what you were doing before the events of the game, because you’re clearly the only competent tank in Proton’s army. Also amusing is that it’s suggested that Q-Stein has been overwhelming all the world’s nations, but aside from Proton and Q-Stein, there’s only one other sovereign country. So, that’s optimism.

Q-Stein is clearly modelled after the Nazis, while The Proton Kingdom is more ambiguous. You can select tanks from any nation spanning from WWII to present-day, and that includes German tanks. I think Proton is largely based on England, but it could just be the Allies in their entirety.

In any case; talking tanks. That’s what’s important here.

WE MUST FIGHT THEM AGGRESSIVELY

Unlike Road Trip, however, the tanks don’t have much personality. I think that may come down to translation, because it seems to be quite literal with no attempt to dress things up for the English language. Not that I remember Road Trip having the best translation, but it’s pretty bad here. It can even get confusing.

There’s a world map that you enter into whenever you leave a battlefield or town, and that lets you drive from mission to mission. When you liberate a town, you can then re-enter the now liberated town to do some shopping or talk to the populace. Not that they have much to say. The towns also have arenas where you can do short challenges to unlock new tanks.

Missions are varied. Sometimes, it’s an all out battle on open plains. Other instances have you taking out specific targets in a city. There are a few boss battles. Stealth and escort missions are attempted (poorly). That sort of thing.

I don’t really know what else to say about the missions. They’re very basic. The tanks control okay. You can turn your turret (camera style B in the options makes it so you’re always looking where your cannon is pointing, rather than the body), which allows you to circle-strafe enemies. You can buy an upgrade that lets you lock onto targets, which can be useful. Movement can be a little awkward, but it feels okay. It’s just not particularly deep.

THE SAME WAY THAT BRICKS DON’T

Like Road Trip, the meat of the game is actually just upgrading your tank. You can unlock a lot of bodies. The back of the box says Seek and Destroy features 15 tanks, but I’m not sure what they’re basing that number off of. There are dozens to unlock. Maybe even north of 100. These range from minor updated designs to one-off oddities. Everything from the Chi-Ha to the Leopard. Each one has a different weight capacity and armour… thickness?

From there, you can trade out engines, turret gear, weapon, sub-weapon, sub-sub-weapon, radar, targeting computer, and so on. Each town’s store carries different parts, so it’s important to visit them all so you can find the parts worth dropping cash on.

Strangely, Seek and Destroy is absolutely shit when it comes to difficulty curve. Instead of saving the best tanks until the final missions of the game, I unlocked one of the best, the Challenger, in one of the early towns and never had to trade it out. I got the best Engine pretty early on, as well, and the primary weapon that I stuck with, I bought in the first town. Sub-weapon, as well.

And then it was a cakewalk. I mentioned in my Road Trip review that the racing part of the game, the part that you’d expect the most focus to be placed, is actually the worst part. That’s sort of true when it comes to Seek and Destroy. It just feels arbitrary. It’s not completely without merit, but when beating the end boss feels like going through the motions, something went wrong.

ANTI-TANK

At the very least, Seek and Destroy is unique. I kind of wish that another developer would take the formula and make something with a little more depth and focus. There’s a lot of potential that just isn’t met here. We don’t have enough light-hearted games starring vehicles of war.

However, I’d struggle to tell you of another game where, after securing a continent from the enemy, you’re then told “strap on a propeller, we’re hitting the high seas.” Then, there’s, like, one naval mission where you’re just a tank puttering around the water, throwing down with battleships.

After that, they strap wings to your tank, and you fly off in pursuit of a bomber. It’s ridiculous, but it does this with a consistent feeling of whimsy. At the very least, if some effort had been put into the translation, it would be a riot.

It just doesn’t amount to a whole lot. It’s something that’s worth seeing, but afterwards, you might be left feeling unsatisfied and hollow. I’m certainly feeling hollow. But I can’t hate Seek and Destroy. I’m not sure how anyone could hate a game about talking tanks learning to fly. I just wish it was a game about talking tanks learning to fly that also had some depth to it.

5/10

This review was conducted on a PS2 Slim using a disc copy of the game. It was paid for by the author.