Bandai was – and still is – an opportunistic game-maker, always looking out for entertainment franchises with significant popularity but have yet to shell out video game licenses. The Crayon Shin-chan franchise was one such opportunity that Bandai had taken, and still holds with the grip of an exclusive license-holder.
While Crayon Shin-chan probably did not have much success beyond the Oriental region of Asia, it was still popular enough for Bandai to crank out one Crayon Shin-chan game after another, with no less than four titles for the original GameBoy. The first couple of them had very simple gameplay and poor renditions of the characters in the series, but Bandai had learned from its mistakes, and its experience and knowledge of the GameBoy series culminated in the fourth game, arguably the best in the series.
Typically, 8-bit video games have little to offer on the title screen beyond the wording of the title and some simple instructions (namely "Push Start"), but in this game's case, the player is treated to a surprisingly well-animated – and ludicrous – dance by the rascally main protagonist, Shinnosuke, though his dog Shiro has only a couple of comparatively disappointing frames. This dance is accompanied by a rather catchy title song, so a player may find himself/herself watching the title screen for longer than he/she would expect.
Anyway, starting the game proper, a veteran of the series would not be surprised that the gameplay is still pretty much the same; the player takes control of Shin-chan, and has to guide him from point A to point B of every level. There is a premise of some kind for every level, but this is not really important; the most that it would contribute to the level is to set up its themes and some of the enemy types.
Much like so many other Japanese-developed platforming games of its time, Crayon Shin-chan 4 has the player jumping over obstacles, landing on enemies' heads to take them out of action and skipping from floating platform to floating platform, among other things. There are collectibles throughout a level that can be retrieved to contribute towards counters that veterans of this game genre would recognize almost immediately, such as one for trinkets that would grant one extra life for each 100 units obtained. (In Crayon Shin-chan 4's case, these are the sweet canned drinks that he likes so much.)
However, a discerning player may have the impression that the game is perhaps following the conventions of the platforming genre too much at the cost of its thematic qualities. The source material, even the more outrageous and out-of-this-world scenarios, would rarely have Shin-chan navigating across yawning chasms, dropping bridges and jumping across ledges floating in mid-air. Of course, the developers took the liberty of giving him powers akin to Mario's, e.g. being able to fall from great heights without injuring himself and jumping around repeatedly without tiring himself out to help the boy cope with these hazards, but all these convenient designs would not help in making the game seem any more different from other platformers, gameplay-wise. This can be disappointing to those who had been wishing that Bandai would make better use of the source material in the platforming gameplay.
Included in the game as floating power-ups are animal suits that Shin-chan can change into (though the process is obscured by what appears to be clouds). Not unlike certain games in the Mario franchise, these suits grant Shin-chan outrageous powers (though considering the themes of the Crayon Shin-chan franchise, this would not be inappropriate; Shin-chan has no qualms about getting in such suits, as do some other characters).
For example, the chicken suit doesn't appear to give Shin-chan much of a physical boost, but he gets to throw an egg that can slide (not roll, due to limited animation frames) for a long distance and strike any enemy in the way. Then, there is the costume of Action Mask (Shin-chan's apparent favourite fictional character), which fulfills the "super power-up" archetype that renders the protagonist invulnerable while giving him an attack that enemies cannot resist in any way, at least temporarily.
However, there appears to be design issues with some of the suits, with unsatisfactory consequences. The cricket suit grants Shin-chan increased jumping power, but this is almost always unnecessary due to the designs of levels in this game that usually allow the player to go about an obstacle in a few other ways if he/she can't have Shin-chan jumping over it. Its offensive ability – an extension of some proboscis – is rather weak compared to those offered by the rest. Perhaps the only reason the player would want to collect this power-up is that it lowers the profile of the player character, allowing him to move through tight tunnels that appear to have been made just for the suit.
The flying fox suit, not unlike the tanuki suit from certain Mario games, allows Shin-chan to float through the air. However, likely due to limitations with the GameBoy's SDK, Shin-chan can perform hang-time indefinitely, and without losing any altitude. Considering that the goal of the game is to ultimately get Shin-chan from point A to point B of a level without getting him in harm's way, a player who realizes the imbalance of this suit can abuse it to bypass a lot of the hazards in the levels, and probably will not be making much use of its offensive ability except in boss fights.
Speaking of boss fights, a lot of the bosses in the game are push-overs. Most of them do not have much in the way of direction to their movements: they tend to bounce around, and if they aren't bouncing around, they pace about from one side of the screen to the other, or mill about, changing directions randomly. Also, all of them appear to go down with just three hits, making either the chicken or flying fox suit a lot better than the other suits at defeating them, and certainly much, much more effectively at doing so than jumping on their heads.
On the other hand, for first-time players (or for players who cannot get enough of the franchise's brand of humor), defeating them leads to an amusing cut-scene of Shin-chan embarrassing them through various means.
After a stage, the player also gets to spend tokens (represented as coins with smiling faces) that have been collected in the stage on mini-games (represented on-screen as an arcade that Shin-chan visits). These mini-games include one that requires Shin-chan (that is, the player) to imitate what Shiro does, such as sliding down a particularly large slide and jumping at the right moment (with a button press, of course) to make a perfect landing (or at least one that Shiro considers perfect).
Succeeding in these mini-games rewards the player with varying quantities of the other collectibles, such as extra lives for the Shiro-imitating mini-game. However, the game is somewhat easy enough to get by without having to resort to collecting as many lives as possible.
A player that is familiar with the source material will notice that most of the regular enemies in the game are actually copies of Shin-chans's enemies in the Futaba kindergarten (namely characters that have been introduced as bullies in the source material). They typically have the gameplay designs of the usual kinds of enemies found in platforming games, such as patrolling drones that mill about heedlessly or sentries that stop awhile to do an attack animation when the protagonist is nearby. Most don't even have the necessary scripting to be able to actively chase Shin-chan around.
Yet, the themes of the source material would make these usual enemy design tropes somewhat acceptable, as Shin-chan's acquaintances tend to have attention spans that are just as short as his own and have antics that are just as bizarre, if not adorable. Taking them out also happens to cause them to get into amusing tantrums as they fall off the screen.
While the actual gameplay, level designs and level geometries are little different from the usual found in so many other platformers, Bandai has made pretty good use of the Crayon Shin-Chan franchise's themes to give the levels and occupants their aesthetics. Fans of the franchise would be able to recognize many characters, objects and locales from the franchise, such as Shiro who acts as a checkpoint in levels and the Futaba Kindergarten (though it has been redesigned so much in order to suit the platforming gameplay that a fan would only recognize it from looking at the background).
More importantly, those who have followed this GameBoy series will notice that the sprites look sharper and better animated than ever. Of particular noteworthy mention is Shin-chan himself, who looks a lot better than the beady-eyed, doll-like creature that the previous games represented him with.
Unfortunately, fans would be quite disappointed to know that the game is rather short; there are only several levels to be gone through. However, these levels are rather large, and have many hidden nooks and crannies with a lot of collectibles (though not juicier rewards like Easter eggs).
Like the art designs, the game's audio designs also benefited from their association with the franchise. Although the sound effects are typically not any more different from those heard in other 8-bit platformers, e.g. beeps, bloops and blarps for characters getting bopped upside the head and power-ups getting retrieved, etc., the soundtracks are 8-bit derivations of the ones heard in the anime, or are new compositions that are thematically-compatible. Like the one heard in the title screen, they would be plenty entertaining to those who like cheery tunes.
In conclusion, Crayon Shin-Chan 4 may not do much of anything that is different from other platformers and even have balance issues due to design oversights, but it makes very good use of its source material for its presentation, which would be a treat to fans of the franchise.