Herdy Gerdy

"Fantastic"

Background
You are Gerdy, son of a herder. Your dad has been put to sleep under a spell. You got to win the herding tournament to save your dad... and the island.
Herdy Gerdy is an action game with some strategy element. Its like Pikmin, only better, in my opinion.

Graphic
This game has nice graphic, looks like those beautiful children's books. Good amount of details. Animation is fine, I love the exaggeration.
Grade: A

Sound/music
Not much sound effects, the music is very appropriate. Voice acting is above average.
Grade: B

Control
Simple and responsive. Turn the analog stick to the left and Gerdy move to the left. You got jump button and action button. You can use items selected from your inventories, etc.
Camera is bad, but can be surprisingly good if you read the manual. Apparently it is designed to be controlled manually instead of automatic. So those who are complaining about camera getting stuck check your manual. You use the right analog to move it around. Triangle to reset it behind Gerdy. Press the right analog to change angle, press left analog to go to first person perspective. Personally I think this manual control is great, I can get great view all the time, making herding much easier.
Overall control is wonderful.
Grade: A

Gameplay
So far its simple you chase the creatures and lead them to cage. Another creatures (your enemy too, Gromps) will chase you and you have to lead them to a trap. These giants will also eat up the smaller creatures, so you are racing against them while herding them. You have to make sure that they eat as little as possible since you need certain number of creatures caged to open up your path to continue the game. You also get items along the way to help you herding. First you start really primitive, just chase them around, later you got stick and flute to attract attention. You also have boots for high jump. And there are more later. This fondly remind me of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, minus the violence of course. You also save in world map (or island map) and a quick save at a mole.
Grade: A+

Other notable feature
Loading time => This game load once every level. It takes about 10 seconds or more each. That's sound horrible but it's really not bad because you got one huge area and no loading time inside, unlike on some games where you have loading 2-3 seconds every 10 minutes because you have to change ''area'' within the level. However it take a couple of minutes to start a game. And this become annoying when you have to reload a game.
Replay value is little, unless you are planning to get all the bells and get 100% on all levels to unlock secrets, other that there is not much.
However, the levels are so good that I just want to replay to experience them again. But I know that people dont view replay value the same way as I do, so I will just leave it open.
Grade: C+

Last words
A sequel would be nice with improved loading time and more creatures to herd.

9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/08/02, Updated 03/08/02