I never ’got’ Shenmue. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a masterpiece and all, but if you're like me then your love affair with the Dreamcast was all about big whiz-bang games like Space Channel 5 and Jet Set Radio. If you're like me then you spent a day playing the game, thought "Wow, how incredible that people are finally making games the way they should be made," and then went off to handgun-only-finish Resident Evil 2 for the fourteenth time. If you're like me then you still wake up in the night thinking about your only-partially-consensual molestation in secondary school by a younger boy named Truro.

If you're like me, then maybe you need a bit of Ally of Justice in your life.

In Ally of Justice you play the director of a tokusatsu TV show. Tokusatsu actually means special effects but as things have progressed to stop motion and CGI, the term has become synonymous with Japanese live action shows where men wear rubber suits and spandex. This year is the thirtieth anniversary of Power Rangers-style bobbins, so now seems like a good time to start covering games like this. I digress, however. The instruction booklet that comes with the game takes the form of a memo and dossier from your superiors, and goes a lil' sumpin' like this...

Your show will be airing at seven every week, for half an hour. All the groundwork has already been covered for you. The hero, the "Master" character and the chirpy, oblivious little sister type are done. The set for the tea house where you all hang out has been built. The location shots are paid for. The love interest and villain developments have been planned out. All that's left is for you to design the transformation and the title of the show, and it's henshin-a-gogo, baby.

The first task is to create the show's superhero image. There are eight archetype costumes (ranger, robot, birdman, muscleman etc) and you can mix and match the head, body, arms, legs and colours of them to create your main man. You then have to pick a subtitle for the show, which takes the form of two generic kanji compounds taken from a list of conspicuously heroic phrases. Messing around can get you titles such as Electric Attacker, Invincible Ninja, Justice Warrior, whatever takes your fancy. Finally you name your hero and (ergo) your show.

I could write a lot more here but describing the warm, Saturday morning feeling you get the first time you see the show's title graphic tailored to your character's name is something difficult to put into words. Long story short, ’Masked Superman Blackstar Zeon’ was ready to go.

The game kicks off with the show's intro sequence, customised to your character design. Anyone who's ever seen Japanese television in its original form will be delighted by the sheer attention to detail. The crappy sound quality, the PEEEEEP which sounds at the start of TV shows to let people know when to press record on the video, the credits for the opening theme song, everything is just perfect.

Naturally this all comes before the game has even started. Ally of Justice takes place around a number of locations in the fictional Tadano City. Encounters take place mostly in realtime and the game's score is a running total of your audience rating, meaning that in effect you have to ad-lib your show the best you can. Pack it with dialogue by talking to NPCs, and your rating goes up. Play sub games and say the right things to people, and your audience will build affinity with the hero. Behave in a boring fashion, it goes down. It's fairly self-explanatory stuff.

The actual meat of the game is problematic. Like Shenmue (and indeed most Japanese dating games and adventures) there is a healthy element of trial and error which involves figuring out where and when you're meant to be to catch the audience-grabbing events. To some this might seem relatively light when each game section is only 30 minutes long, but to others it will prove the kiss of death to the gameplay. This is further worsened by the fact that the plot scenes are unskippable and the game is just so much damn fun to dick around with. During my season debut the audience figures gradually trickled as I plotted half the episode to be about standing outside the TV store watching the big tellies, after which they plummeted a whole ten per cent when the bank was robbed by Dark Lady and Big Bang Money while Blackstar Zeon was hiding in the frozen food section of the local supermarket.

Assuming you actually do end up at the bank exactly when the dogtoffee hits the fan, however, your final task falls to you – choreograph the fight sequences. This is partly a music game-style button mash and partly a task of judgement. Fighting beautifully and stylishly will pull in the audience members. However, what will REALLY pull in the viewers is applying wrestling-style mentality and allowing your hit points to drop to a low level and then winning the fight with a devastating special attack.

What you get is a deliciously retarded version of Shenmue which is easily playable in small chunks, coupled with the design and audience appreciation elements of Fire Pro Wrestling. Let's be straight here, Ally of Justice is never going to set your pants on fire. If you appreciate the often-comedic majesty of Japanese live action shows , however, then it's a cheap and enjoyable novelty piece that well deserves a place on your shelf.