Amazing Island

"Can I Get Through This Tagline Without Using The Word "Amazing?" I guess not."

It started out as a dog. Then I added some grotesque-looking fangs. A football helmet and a shark fin later, I was ready to rumble.

No, I'm not on any rare and unusual kind of drug (STRAIGHT EDGE MEANS I'M BETTER THAN YOU!!!). This is just one of the sick and demented creations that Amazing Island has allowed me to come up with. I thought I was in heaven when I played Magic Pengel last year, but even though that game is still great (And beats it storyline wise, in my opinion), Amazing Island absolutely trumps it in the creation department. But enough with the introduction. Let's get on to the meaty, chewy part of the review: the section by section analysis. YAY, SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS!.

STORY:
Basically, the game takes place on Amazing Island (OMG SHOCKER!!), where the island's residents, the Maboo, lived in peace and created monsters. However, the island was attacked by the dark magician "Black Evil," who, using the negative power of the human world, took over the island. Lagu, one of the few Maboo who hadn't been corrupted by Black Evil, called to the human world for help. Only one with a pure heart could hear his cry...and that's where you come in. You arrive on Amazing Island and you're informed that to combat the Black Evil, you need to create your own monsters and challenge a bunch of obstacle courses to defeat Black Evil and his Evilings.

GRAPHICS:
From the cover of the game, you'd expect everything to be cutesy. For the most part, the graphics are pretty cutesy, though that doesn't detract from the good looks of the game. The characters are cartoony and colorful, and the environment is lush and green. The monsters come out looking absolutely awesome. The drawings flesh out in such a way that makes it look great. The monster creating can also be where the cutesy graphics end. Unlike in Magic Pengel, where pretty much everything you made turned out looking silly and colorful. In Amazing Island, your artwork isn't immediately subjected to a life of being pointed at by girls and called things like "adorable." If you want your monster to be a bloodthirsty beast, you can make it look like a bloodthirsty beast. The little touches are also great: the way the shining eyes glow, the way the metallic body patterns mirror the environment around the monster, and things like this make the game even more beautiful and enjoyable.

SOUND:
It's alright, I guess. The music's not particularly memorable, but the monster voices are pretty cool. Nothing of particular mention here though.

CONTROL:
The control's pretty solid. It's easy to navigate around the overworld, and the camera isn't much to worry about, since you can control that with the C stick. The action sequences are controlled pretty well too, which is good, since with a lot of the games, you have to be really precise with your button presses and control stick flicks. Speaking of the action sequences, you won't need to usae much else other than the control stick and the A button, occasionally using the B button as well. You may need to apologize to your Gamecube controller after a session of playing, though, because you're gonna be abusing that A button an awful lot in some of the minigames.

GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay is really a mixed bag here. Even though you can outfit your monster with numerous weapons, the monsters never fight each other. Rather, they're only used to play minigames, in the vein of Mario Party. The minigames are fun, although they repeat sometimes. This may not be enough for some people, who want to actually have the monsters fight. Truth be told, I'd love to be able to have my monsters fight each other, but I'm pretty happy with the minigames. Also of note is the Game Boy Advance monster card game. Basically, you can transfer up to three saved monsters in card form to your Game Boy and play a fun little card game with them. This is used as another way to get parts for your monster, which brings me onto the biggest aspect of the game: The monster creation. And wow, what a good job Sega did with this. For starters, you don't draw your monster totally freeform. Instead, you choose a frame (skeleton) and draw around the different body parts. This may sound a little restrictive, but there are many different kinds of frames, and you can use them to create pretty much anything your heart desires. After drawing up your monster's body, you go on to accessorize it. You apply a pattern to the body (Later on, you can also get a paint tool which lets you paint on the body as well), then place eyes, choose a voice, and add accessories such as claws, wings, fins, etc. There are tons and tons of options for each one of these sections, and you literally can create almost anything using these options. Of course, if you don't feel particularly creative at some point, you can also opt to answer a few questions, at which point the game will create you a monster (which you can edit to your liking) based on your answers. It really took me by surprise at how many options there were, and how in-depth the monster creation was. I thought Magic Pengel's options were outstanding, and they were pretty good, but compared to Amazing Island, Pengel's creation is pretty simplistic.

OVERALL:
If you're a fan of customization, and you're just dying to spawn whatever weird little monsters your twisted imagination comes up with, then this is the game for you. Although the minigames and lack of battle mode may be seen as a downside to some players, the monster creation makes up for it in spades.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the game. Four armed metallic beasts don't make themselves, you know.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/28/04