Hamtaro is a cute hamster with lots of hamster friends. Originally a Japanese children’s book, Hamtaro was introduced to movies and television around the world, and, of course, made into video games and toys. We never watched Hamtaro much (due to my being too cheap to pay for a cable lineup featuring the Cartoon Network), but we enjoyed the GBA games, especially Ham-Ham Heartbreak.

Unlike previous Hamtaro games on handheld systems, Hi! Hamtaro Ham-Ham Challenge is designed primarily for very young players. It is essentially a collection of light “edutainment” games, which focus on critical thinking skills, creativity, recall and counting. There are 12 activities in all.

The best activities in this collection are Out of Sight Hide and Seek, a fun hiding game where several Ham-Hams hide behind things and only show bits of themselves; Mixed Juice Stand, a critical thinking menu ordering activity; and Time to Shine Fashion Designer, a match the colors coloring activity. The other activities aren’t quite as fun or well-designed. These include Jump Rope Time, a simple jump-rope game where the Ham-Hams have to jump a certain number of times with a jump-rope; Nap Time, a match the shape activity; and The Secret Shortcut, a recall activity where players have to remember the directions traveled by a Ham-Ham.

Two of the games are either too easy or too difficult for the age range. A game that is too difficult is Exact Change Only, which has children adding coins to make the exact change required for the game. This is an out-of-reach activity for most children in the kindergarten range. One activity that is too easy, even on the hardest level, is Play School, a counting activity. Here, children have to draw the correct number to match the number of items on the screen. This number is always a single-digit number. The only challenging thing here is to draw the number, not what the number is. It would have been better to have players click on the correct number. The counting itself isn’t very difficult, even when items are slightly similar.

It seems odd to have a game that requires children to know double-digit numbers and to be able to add them together in one activity, and in another activity, to seemingly (while we didn’t see any high numbers, it is possible they could be lurking further down the gameplay road) only have them count up to 10. I played this activity several times and even on the hardest level, didn’t see a number above 10.
Besides the games, players can collect seeds and buy things with them in a store. These “presents” can only be given away to other Ham-Hams, though, and are not used by Hamtaro. And, the Ham-Hams that get the presents don’t display them by wearing or using them. Instead, they will give Hamtaro a picture to put in a notebook. Players will also gain pictures by playing the games.

There is a simple playhouse area that acts as a gateway to the activities. Here, Hamtaro eat, drink, and play a bit. And lastly, there is a Parents’ area where parents can change the game’s difficulty level, check game progress and leave presents for the players.

Hi! Hamtaro Ham-Ham Challenge is an average collection of children’s mini-games on a handheld. Some of the games are good, but most are run-of-the-mill fare in the world of edutainment. The basic premise behind many of these games is fine, but not enough development went into the design to make them outstanding. And, not having the Ham-Hams wear or otherwise display the items given to them takes away from the rewarding aspect of earning these items.

Gameplay: 6.0
The gameplay is fun enough for the first few times around, but after that, things get boring. There are a lot of games available, but most of them aren’t that interesting.

Graphics: 7.5
The game is cute and who can resist the Ham-Hams?

Sound: 7.0
The music is average, but not annoying.

Difficulty: Medium
The overall level of difficulty is on a medium level. There are three levels to choose.

Concept: 6.0
There is nothing new here from other edutainment mini-game collections.

Overall: 6.0
This game is an average collection of children’s mini-games. There are a few good critical thinking games, and a few fun creative ones, but the rest are mediocre. There are better edutainment games out there to get instead.