HotShots Party 3

HotShots Party 3, known in Japan as Drillimation Fever 3 (ドリメーションフィーバー３), is a 2001 party-adventure video game developed by Seymour Games with a joint venture between Drillimation Studios and published by Namco for home computers and consoles. It is the fourth game in the HotShots Party series (despite HotShots Party 2000 being a direct spin-off of the second game) and the first game in the series to use Driller Engine 4 as its primary engine. It is also the first HotShots Party game to be released on an Xbox console and the last for Dreamcast.

Unlike the previous three games, the elimination gameplay is eliminated and the main goal is to collect the most Lucky Stars within three rounds (the number can be lowered to two or raised to ten). It is also the first HotShots game to allow players to team up and play together. HotShots Party 3 was the best-selling game in the series with a total of 9 million copies sold worldwide and received generally favorable reviews from critics.

Blurb
"HotShots Party is back with alpha-omega fun and new mind-blasting mini-games!"

- Official attention grabber

Seymour Games and Drillimation Studios invite you to the Team Driller Tournament in the biggest mini-game collection ever! Akira Kogami and Minoru Shiraishi, as well as several Seymour arcade assistants, are here to host this massive event, but only one can win. Courage to win the grand prize will take a mini-game or two. What are you waiting for? A massive adventure awaits you when you turn your machine on.
 * Sixty new mini-games will take your concentration and skill to the next level.
 * Next-generation graphics will blow your mind to pieces.

Plot
The game opens with Susumu and Wataru outside Ryou Gakuen High School in a discussion. Suddenly, out of the blue, a cloud appears and forms two letters which fall into both Susumu's and Wataru's hands. Upon opening the letters, they receive a notice that Lucky Channel has selected them to compete in a HotShots Party tournament. Konata Izumi and Miyuki Takara receive the letters too, with Konata escaping from her home leaving Soujirou in anger. The Hiiragi twins and gangsters Leopold Slikk and Jake Randolf also receive letters as well, and they gather at Lucky Channel headquarters.

At Lucky Channel headquarters, Akira Kogami randomly selects four of the ten who gathered to compete, and the competitors must play each secondary host's board and their minigame to win the prize. Upon collecting all the prizes, Fred Fuchs shows up and threatens to capture every prize the player has won, unless they choose to go to his board and win. Upon winning, Fuchs manages to troll the champion he captured all their prizes, and they must fight a final battle to win them back. Upon defeating Fuchs, he leaves behind the champion a Nendoroid figure of the champion that Hearthcliffe modeled a "few hours ago".

Lord Soujirou and Queen Kanata then appear, telling the champion that Akira forgot to bring the player another prize. A spotlight then cues on the champion, with Lord Soujirou showing a photograph of one of the champion's greatest moments (they are all screenshots from their respective anime). The epilogue shows Queen Kanata transfiguring back into a pacteria and bidding farewell to the champion.

References to other games

 * Driller Engine Grand Prix series: The minigame Mr. Driller's Speedwagons has Driller Engine Grand Prix-styled gameplay, with the exception of item boxes but the countdown is nearly the same.