"Interesting concepts, but it could have been better."

I originally purchased Contact because I had heard it was like Earthbound. Let me tell you this right now, this game is not Earthbound. It does not play like Earthbound, it does not have a story like Earthbound, and it does not look like Earthbound. If you want Earthbound I can only suggest importing Mother 3. That being said it does have a quirkiness that at time reminds you of Earthbound. You're probably sick of my mentioning Earthbound at this point so I'll try to refrain from doing so.

Story: 5/10
In Contact you make contact (hence the name I assume) with a professor and his space dog that wishes he were a space cat, Mochi, through the use of your DS. After a sequence of events the professor lands on a planet where he picks up Terry, the game's main character, and eventually crash lands on yet another planet. At this point it is up to Terry to collect the power cells that fuel the professor's ship. It is your job to control Terry, who is unaware that you exist. The story seems like it would be good, but that little summary I just wrote is pretty much the entire thing. For the majority of the game there's really no story. On a similar note, I thought the ending was horrible. I won't give anything away but I was disappointed. As another aside, there was one scene involving Mochi that I thought was hysterical, this section gets another point just because of that.

Graphics: 7/10
There are two sets of graphics so to speak. That is, the top screen has one art style, and the bottom has another. The top screen contains the professor and Mochi, and has cute pixelized graphics that resemble Earthbound (sorry to mention it again but that's the only thing I can compare it to). The bottom screen has a more serious feel to it and has pretty environments, but in the end is nothing special.

Sound: 8/10
The music was pretty good. For the most part it was enjoyable but it wasn't spectacular. Not much to say about this.

Gameplay: 7/10
Now this is interesting, although not entirely unheard of. By either advancing in the game or doing “sidequests”, and I use the term loosely, you unlock different costumes that Terry can wear. These costumes can either allow you to use different skills, like picking locks or fishing, or change your stats, making you either a fighter or a magic user. The cooking outfit is probably the most important one you get, with this you can cook items that will restore health or raise stats, but cooking is boring, you just touch the ingredients you want and viola, you're cooking. The more you use the abilities of a costume the more you level up the costume. In the end this whole system is fairly useless. By the end of the game I had really only used one outfit and even that wasn't even halfway leveled.

Another aspect of the game is the decal system. As you advance in the game you get decals that you apply via the touch screen that do different things. One even summons Mochi to attack for you, which is pretty funny. The power of this depends on how much you play with him when Terry is asleep (a.k.a. when you're saving). Monsters will also periodically drop different kinds of decals, which you can use to boost some of your stats.

This brings me to the different stats you have. The game is almost like an Elder Scrolls game, where the stats advance as you use them. This would be interesting if it weren't for the fact that most of them are useless, for example I never had any need to level my defense against magic at all. Plus, the actual fighting gets real old, real quick. To fight you walk up to an enemy and tap on them for Terry to attack. That's about it. You can tell Terry when to use magic, which you regain by killing enemies, but other than that you watch him fight. This is fun at first, but by the end of the game I was sick of it, and believe me it can be frustrating. You'll go mad watching Terry stand there while an enemy beats him up.

Replay/Extras: 4/10
There are a few things you can do once you're finished like collecting everything or even getting a girlfriend but to be honest, by the time I was finished I was glad to be done with the game. The game itself is pretty short, but as I say I was glad it ended. I don't think I could have lasted much longer. There also an online mode but I'm not set up to use it so I can't really comment on it either way. I will say that I can't imagine it being anything spectacular.

Closing
The game was a lot of fun at first, and if I reviewed it when I first started I would have given this game a higher score but by the end I was sick of it and just wanted to finish it. That being said, it wasn't completely bad. It was fun for a little while and has its charms. If you're looking for a game for the DS you could probably give this a try.

Overall: 7/10, “Not Bad”

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/06