"Do you like oatmeal-flavoured juice?"

Can you say "cult-classic"? Contact, just like the Mother/Earthbound games from which it is inspired from, is a very unique kind of game. Its combination of weirdness and underlying charm lends itself to an experience which some will love, while others will love to hate. There is an in-depth RPG system somewhere amongst the whole mess of things, but I can't help but feel that while it has an interesting take on things, many gameplay elements are poorly developed leading to a game which is strangely addictive, yet incredibly annoying too.

Visuals - 7
Sound - 7
Gameplay - 6
Lasting Power - 7 (10-15 hours; depends on how much you grind)
Replay Value - 7
Difficulty - 7 (Easy if you grind and stock up on potions)

Oddity - 9
VERDICT - 6.5

A mix of old & new
There are 2 distinct visual styles displayed in Contact. The professor (your guide) and his cat/dog Mocci are shown in their ship in a pixellated 8-bit style reminiscent of many games gone by. In stark contrast, your hero and all the characters and landscapes he interacts in are presented in a dreamy, soft-tone graphical portrayal. I have no qualms about this, and if anything it makes the game look the part considering the dual of the proceedings.

Most of game is shown in the more advanced visual style, which depicts some highly artistic pre-rendered backdrops, with super-imposed "South Park"-like characters to fill up the world. It looks very nice. It is then sad to see that the character animations are too few and much too jerky. There are barely any special effects to be seen throughout the whole game.

Sounds like a mixed bag too
To match the contrasting graphics, there are also a highly variable use of music and sound effects. The 8-bit blips can be annoying, but their use is limited. On every island there is a different music track, and when I say different, I mean it that each track sounds like it belongs to entirely different games, or even genres! This mixed bag has some pretty nice tunes stashed in there, but there is a lack of cohesion. This adds to the weirdness of it all which you may like, but it seemed to me like a random assortment of knocked together pieces; good on their own, but together they just sound off.

Crass Humour
The premise right from the onset is guaranteed to leave you braindead. This game does not follow normal gaming conventions. As you make progress through this quasi-dungeon crawler, the incoherent storyline will push you to travel to different islands in search of "cells" to aid you professor friend's plight. Progression is linear, but there is some backtracking as I will discuss later.

You will meet the oddest bunch of characters yet seen in the 21st century. And the dialogue is just as strange. The going-ons make no sense, but are still funny just because of the insane amount of nonsense thrown at you. The whole idea is pretty neat and rarely has something like this been done, especially in this new day and age of "serious" games. Unfortunately despite the great ideas, the game itself degenerates the more you further its development.

There's a game in here... somewhere
Contact looks like a highly complex real-time RPG. The first 1-2 hours will have you scratching your head at the sheer amount of stats, items and abilities on offer. There is definitely a lot of customisation to be done. The way you stats increase/decrease depending on you in-game actions is novel, and being able to cook up your own health-replenishing foods is interesting. I really liked the whole "digestion" system whereby consumption of such foods fills up your gut, which requires time to empty. As such the use of health-replenishing has to be managed strategically. But with all the options available, there really isn't much use to a lot of them (eg. potions are the gold-standard health item), especially so since the game is too short to allow much use.

The battles featured here give the impression of real-time fights, but looks can be deceiving. You can move you character around, but enemies can still hit you if you try to manoeuvre or retreat. And since the battles are stat-based (attack, defense, speed etc.) all you do is simply place you boy in front of an enemy and watch the stupid-looking exchange of blows until one of them falls. There are at least 2 separate occasions where you WILL have to grind for levels in order to tackle some really cheap-damage doling beasties. Needless to say, with the lack of control you soon come to learn that battling is a pain in the butt.

There are only a few positive things I can say about the whole set-up. One is that it is nice to see weak enemies up it and run away from you; saves you being badgered by worthless foes (another Mother reference). The end-of-island bosses are quite fun to figure out and beat. These battles make good use of both the dual-screen and touch-screen capabilities of the DS, and mostly have inventive solutions.

But there too many annoyances to count. One such instance is the way you "bump" into characters. In the first half of the game when you are as weak as a mushroom, enemies can easily surround you, trap you, and destroy you with no means of escape. Another is the lacking placement of save spots (bar the final island). The worst of it, is definitely how the game kind of just leaves you in the middle of it all, without giving you any idea as to how to achieve your next goal.

This occurs twice, once in Aegis, another time on Rico Island. I won't spoil it just so that you can vent your frustrations if you choose to pick up this game and dive in without outside help. You will have to do some stupid, walk-in-the-dark backtracking and grinding. I highly recommend conferring with friends with the game, or members of online communities such as GameFAQs; hmm... perhaps this was intentionally a design aspect to encourage... contact between people? If so, kudos for making us get together to express our feelings on such a mechanic that's best left in the games of the 19th and 20th centuries for a good reason.

The weirdest thing to come out of Japan since "dual screens"
Contact has a lot of ideas, and a lot of them could work well, but they just don't. The decals and their "summon" abilities, the few oddball scenes (eg. the rescue), and the whole make-it-yourself approach to character building (eg. costumes) are excellent. I enjoyed the first half of this game (4-5 hours), but as soon as I reached Aegis, everything just broke apart. The grinding and the backtracking are faults which bothered me a lot. And the game's conclusion is relatively inconclusive.

The DS functions are put to good use, with the the whole interface pretty easy to use once you pass the seemingly overwhelming learning curve. WiFi lets you "make contact" with up to 8 others at a time (simultaneous connection required) and allows you to bring a random representation of your friend character into your game's aptly named WiFisland. However the reward is just a paltry ability/item, but you may get a laugh from some of the crazy appearances. I do wonder why they are all located in such a rundown, dark, generic looking dungeon though.

Despite the many let-downs and frustrating sections, there still is a charm which I cannot resist. Perhaps it is the oddballness of the situations, or maybe it's just the whole concept screwed up my brain's power to think logically. Who can resist oatmeal flavoured juice?!

If you want something fresh, you may be tempted to get in contact. But be warned that there are many nuisances amongst all the nonsense. If you come in expecting a decent battle system, you will be disappointed. But if you want to take a break from the bog-standard RPG genre piling upon us, this just may be your <enter favourite food>-flavoured juice.

6.5/10 - Arrghhh! No logic makes brain go bust!

Oh yeah, don't miss the typo of "Marvelous" right in the opening credits!
08/11/06

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/08/06