The information age has had an unfortunate effect on novelty. We are so aware of everything that's out there that we can't possibly look upon a thing without drawing comparisons to things similar to it, supposed things that are "better" than this derogative drivel. Everything is a hopelessly stupid copy of the thing before it, and therefore must be ignored. A ridiculous but unavoidable notion, and one that I can't possibly duck from. Yes, this game could be called "Pokemans in Space," but it also ends up being fairly good. All but some interface problems and a few hiccups, and we have a rival to the so-called Golden Series on our hands.
Iku ze! after the jump.
The story of Spectrobes is that in the galaxy the game is set in, these ancient creatures made of light need to be resurrected to stop the invaded Krawl, creatures of darkness, and only the hero Rallen has the voice to do it. He must raise the Spectrobes from fossils and take them into the field to fight back the Krawl. The first game set the stage, and this installment starts turning up the dial, with High Krawl, intelligent and powerful folk who want to take over the universe for all the assorted reasons.
This requires many, many steps. The Krawl congregate in vortices whenever they appear, which only your spectrobes can enter. On the way to the vortex, Rallen needs to clear out or avoid the Krawl dust, using a sword, blaster, and ground-pound fist. Once all the vortices have been cleared by having your Spectrobes defeat numerous stages of enemies, your child Spectrobe comes out and is able to scan the ground for minerals, fossils, and other goodies, which you need to dig out of the ground to acquire.
Surprisingly, the two opposing fields of gameplay work. The combat works because it's quick and in real-time, you control the Spectrobe and can maneuver and attack in the most strategic fashion, making all fights possible if you're quick enough (if not ridiculously difficult). The element-roulette makes it necessary to have a full roster of souped-up Spectrobes always on hand, but the fact that there is an alternative leveling factor in place makes this a lot easier to deal with.
The excavation part works because the things you want to dig up are all valuable and useful in the actual game, from more Spectrobes to minerals to help level up said Spectrobes to helpful devices, and the variety is just enough to make it interesting without being obnoxious. The rules work differently if you're excavating on dry land, in water, in the desert, on an ice planet, on a sludge planet, etc. While there is a minor time imposition and a stigma against damaging fossils, the excavation are quick and painless, and the drive to grab minerals can distract you quite a bit.
There are a number of little other add-ons too, but most of them feel static. There's a completely pointless minigame that involves dodging meteors while going through the portals, and your communication specialist will occasionally show up and require you to do a modified lights out puzzle, but that doesn't happen hardly enough. Another thing that feels pointless is Jallen's attacks. He doesn't participate in meaningful combat, not even boss fights, so giving him a sword and gun, something he actually used in the first game, now just feels like pointless window trimming.
Luckily, you don't have to spend any time on these features, as they are completely avoidable. You go around planet to planet sweeping up the vortices, digging up fossils, and bringing the Spectrobes to live to take on the next wave of vortices. Raising your Spectrobes is easy as pie; you put the Spectrobe fossil into your wake-up machine, "talk" to it (speak into the DS for 3 seconds), and it turns into a child. You then feed it minerals to evolve it to the adult stage. After the adult Spectrobe has reached a certain level, participated in a set number of battles, and chowed down on more minerals, and can continue to its ultimate form. Simple and elegant, and every single Spectrobe seems to be specifically designed to look awesome. No cutsy monsters here, all Spectrobes are hardlined, rough and rugged, and crank it up as high as they go. The worse example I've seen is a Spectrobe based on a monkey drum, but I'm willing to forgive it for the Ryza family alone.
Graphically, the game looks fantastic. The cutscenes look incredible by DS standards, easily trumping most on the market, and the game runs clean and fast. It skimps a bit in terms of using poorly-animated manga drawings for all talking bits, but the game still looks really good.
The game also has a lot of support outside of the main plot, with multiplayer over both wireless and Wi-Fi, as well as access to D-Gamer, the relatively new gamer network created by Disney. Combine this with the card system, which allows you to insert certain Spectrobes and materials into your game through plastic cards with holes in them, and the game becomes a bit more far-reaching. The only complaint is that multiplayer mode needs to be unlocked in the main game, a hurdle that may be necessary but feels a bit untoward.
The game further stumbles with some interface mistakes. While it seems a bit smoother than the previous game, the movement is horribly rubberbandy, where just trying to move to a specific point is an unnecessarily difficult task. Changing out your Spectrobes and equipping them with special equipment is a lot more work than it should be; one level needs you to scan three doors with three different baby Spectrobes. This involves scanning, opening the door, running back to the ship's basement, trading out the Spectrobe, running back into the temple…it's a pain, and a simpler method (maybe a larger field of Spectrobes you could field in) would have been nice.
But these inconvenient errors aside, this is probably one of the best third-party games on the DS. It's quick, fun, in-depth, unpatronizing, with a reasonable story and pool of characters, and good for intense min-maxing and monster-and-monster combat. This is a franchise with a lot of potential, that can only get better with time. So, please resist the urge to compare it to that other game. You know the one. Iku ze!
Final Score: B
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
