Amazing Island

"Yah, sure. The game SAYS your imagination is the limit, but it's actually your memory card."

Hoorah. This is my very first video game review ever. I thought Amazing Island would be the best game to review first. I only got Amazing Island a few days ago, but I've beaten it and gotten as much out of it as I need to to write a review on it. Playing this game was like a dream come true for me since for the first time in my life, I could bring my drawings to life and play them through a video game. At first I thought my imagination was the limit in this game, but then I figured out my memory card was. After getting one of those bigger memory cards that holds 1016 blocks, I was able to experience the freedom I'm supposed to feel in this game.

Gameplay: 8/10
This game was extremely easy for me. I had a little trouble at a few parts like the second minigame course and the final boss, but it doesn't take very long to beat. It's very, very short. The box mentions that this is like a mix between Pokemon and Mario Party and I perfectly agree with it. (even though I'm not a big fan of Pokemon) The Mario Party of Amazing Island is the minigames. There's a wide variety of minigames in Amazing Island, thus satisfying anyone's taste. Anybody would like at least one of the minigames whether they like racing games, fighting games, shooting games, sports games, etc... The Pokemon of Amazing Island is your collection of monsters which you can deposit and withdraw. The monster you have with you will follow you. (ala Pokemon Yellow Version) What makes this better than Pokemon is that you get to create your own monsters instead of "capturing" them and that you get to choose the monsters' voice instead of having to suffer from your monster's entire language consisting only of its name. You're definitely going to hate the characters' speed. If you play the Sonic the Hedgehog series, you will hate the characters' speed even more. People with crutches move faster. (no offense to people with crutches) Luckily, there's not much in the game that you'd need to be in a hurry to get to.

Story: 7/10
After understanding this game's storyline, the first thing that came to mind was the Sega Saturn game, NiGHTS into Dreams. Amazing Island and NiGHTS into Dreams have practically the same storyline: Some evil dude has taken over another world and two kids have been chosen to defeat the evil dude before he completely destroys that said another world and the human world too. The evil dude from Amazing Island is called the Black Evil, one of a race of weird creatures called the Evilings and the "another world" from Amazing Island is called...Amazing Island. Amazing Island is a land that was thought to be only a fairy tale, but is actually the home to a tribe called the Maboo who have been abandoned and forgotten by the humans. The storyline is kind of interesting, but some of it is really cheesy. For example, "In order for you to create your partner, Folu, Chinto, and me all have to be here! If even one of us were missing, then we wouldn't be able to do it. Thanks to your saving Chinto, now we can do this!"..."By saving me, you've saved us all!" This game doesn't make a very good first impression with a line like that at the beginning of the game.

Graphics: 8/10
The graphics are good. The graphics aren't crazy good, like "Oh man, that looks almost real!" graphics. Just "Yup, that's definitely a Gamecube game." graphics. Sometimes monsters don't come out like you hoped they would, but you can't blame the graphics; blame your drawing skills. I tried to make a monster that looked like Sonic and it turned out awful. I tried to make a monster that looked like Amitie from Puyo Pop Fever and it was REALLY screwed up. (Amitie is a 2-D character though) Sometimes monsters come out really bad (ex. Sonic and Amitie) and sometimes they're as accurate as they're expected to be. One minor flaw is that if you're drawing a monster and it shows you the model preview, the color of the preview blends in a little with the color of the background so you have to look kind of hard to see exactly how the monster will turn out.

Sound: 8/10
The music is average, but some songs are pretty catchy. There aren't many songs I can point out that are "bad" and most of the voices you can choose for the monsters sound really cool. The title screen theme is relaxing and one of the only songs in the game that I whistle along to (which I often tend to do) and a couple of the minigame themes are good too. None of the characters voices can be heard except your own monsters'. Except your monsters don't really "say" anything. They just roar or something like that. The rest of the conversations are displayed in word bubbles.

Replayablilty:9/10
Yah, sure. The game is short, simple, and straight-forward; and odds are you could beat in less than a week, but the pleasure comes from not trying to beat it, but drawing your own monsters. Whether it be something you made up or someone you've seen in a cartoon or video game, and seeing it in action by competing it in the minigames. Amazing Island, therefore will last as long as your imagination and memory card will.

Recommendation:
I'd recommend this game to anybody with a wild imagination, great drawing skills, and a lot of space on your memory card. (or all of the above) Chances are you're going to really like this game if you like wacky cartoony games. As you can probably tell by looking at screenshots, this isn't a very serious game. If you only like serious games like Halo and Metroid Prime, (no offense to Halo and Metroid Prime: both really awesome games) you probably wouldn't enjoy this game. This all rounds up to an even 8. Hoorah. If you are planning on getting this game and are running out of memory, you'll never get the complete joy out of this game unless you either make room or get another memory card.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/05