HotShots Party

HotShots Party, known in Japan as Drillimation Fever (ドリメーションフィーバー), is a series of party games developed by Seymour Games and published by Drillimation Studios. The series spans seven installments with an eighth game currently in development.

Gameplay
The main goal of HotShots Party is the player must knock out the other players by beating them at score-based minigames, the gameplay is somewhat similar to Mario Party. Players start with three "Lucky Stars", acting as lives, and the coins acting as health. Lucky Stars are lost when a player's coin count reaches zero, and players are out after losing all their Lucky Stars. Players can get more coins and Lucky Stars by landing on certain spaces on adventure boards. The number of coins lost from losing a minigame starts at five and increases by another five every five turns.

In HotShots Party 3, the main mechanic was dropped and a new system was created. The main objective for that was to gather the most coins and Lucky Stars within three rounds, all of which last five turns.

Reception
HotShots Party has generally been critically acclaimed by critics, with many players finding it enjoyable and replayable.

Criticism
HotShots Party has faced criticism over some features when new installments came out, and the series was heavily attacked by critics over some of the sound effects. The game's developer, Seymour Games, made heavy use of Hanna-Barbera's older sound effects from their productions, usually for a retro feel. El TV Kadsre Magazine stated, "many of them are fun at first and take you back to some of Hanna-Barbera's older cartoons, but get really annoying very very fast." Several fanmade mods have been created with the sole purpose of removing them from the game. Since the Driller Engine Ultimate 2 Era, Seymour stopped using them, as it continued to draw criticism from fans.

The series' gameplay features had been known to break couples' relationships, leading to divorces and break-ups. El Kadsre Daily Inquirer even ranked the series as number 1 for the top ten games known to break couples' relationships, journalists said this about the series:


 * Designed to mock board games and Latikuu's board game of the same name, this long-running series by Bandai Namco Entertainment, Drillimation Studios, and Seymour Games has captured the same rage felt by many Monopoly players. Many of our friends here obviously told us how many turns they spent trying to capture the Lucky Star, only to have somebody else get it using Yukari Yakumo's parasol, or having to pay Susumu "Driller" Takajima 50 coins to steal it out from us. Or even worse, having all of our coins taken away by Fred Fuchs. Don't even get us started on those heck-forged minigames. This not only allows people to screw over their dates, it promotes and facilitates it. This is the absolutely perfect game to play at gatherings, if you or your kids don't want to see their guests ever again.