"Who would have thought a Jello jiggler would have made for a charismatic hero?"

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (DQH) is a very unique and addictive game, developed by a relatively unknown company (at least in the United States) called TOSE, whose first major foray into the U.S. market was Super Princess Peach. Of course, the Dragon Quest series is very well-known and popular, dating back to the NES as Dragon Warrior, and more recently on the PS2 with Dragon Quest 8: Journey of the Cursed King. Other incarnations include the Dragon Warrior Monsters games, which fuse Dragon Warrior with Pokemon. DQH is a completely new creation, combining an adventure scheme similar to Zelda with an innovative tank battle system. It makes for a charming and addictive experience that leaves you wanting more.

The Good:
+ The mix of adventuring and tank battles
+ Creative tank designs
+ Good sense of humor

The Bad:
— Too easy
— It feels like it needed just a few more features, items, enemies

The Adorable:
:) Even the villains look child-friendly and cute

Story – 8/10

The dialogue is cute and clever throughout, though sometimes so cute it makes you cringe. The set-up is classic, using the usual formula of bad guys destroy a village and take everyone prisoner but the hero is spared and goes on a quest to rescue everyone. Developer TOSE writes the scenes as though they know the formulaic story is merely an excuse to play the game, so they make the story as fun as possible instead of laughable or painful to watch melodrama.

In the peaceful town of Boingburg (it's always a peaceful town), the hero of the game, Rocket, and his friends have “borrowed” the Warrior's Flute from the King's palace with the intent of having a little bit of fun. It's forbidden for them to use the Warrior's Flute, but it's also integral to the rest of the game. Without it, Boingburg would have no hope of rescue. When Rocket blows on the flute and accidentally calls attention to a guard, the only place to hide it is inside of him, which stretches his body into a stick, or what the guard thinks is a worm. Of course, this occurs at just the moment the evil Platypunks decide to attack Boingburg, stealing all one hundred inhabitants and leaving Rocket behind. This sets Rocket on his mission of rescuing the inhabitants of the town by defeating the rather incompetent Platypunks.

There's plenty of silly wordplay that will make you laugh or make you groan. It's usually a blast to watch the cutscenes, and when you enter a tank battle, it's always fun to read the names of enemy tanks and their descriptions. Everything feels so refreshingly light-hearted.

Gameplay – 8/10

As refreshing and addictive as everything is, I want to begin with the bad. The game is so easy that it is kind of boring. That's the problem when games don't provide a decent challenge. The adventuring sections provide no challenge at all; there's no real danger of Rocket losing all of his health, even during the boss fights, unless you just sit there and do nothing. Tank battles are much the same. At first, some of them are challenging because it is just Rocket doing everything in the tank on his own. But even then, the challenge is lessened because it isn't enough to take down a tank's health to destroy it, but the enemy must enter your tank and destroy the engine to defeat the tank, and it's easier to defend from enemies than the tank from projectiles. Your defeat is almost impossible if you are even a slightly skilled gamer.

That's not to say the game isn't fun. There's plenty to do, challenging or not, that will keep you playing for hours on end. While there's a very limited amount of levels, about seven, they're large and provide plenty to do and collect. Collecting is the name of the game in the adventuring sections. Rocket performs an elasto-blast to attack enemies and items and send them up into the air. He can catch them on his back and hold up to three enemies/items/slimes. Littered about each level are carts that travel back to town. Throw the enemies/items/slimes on these carts and they go back to town under your possession. Each of these collectibles serves its own purpose.

When you collect thirty enemies of one type, they can join your crew on the tank a little later in the game. The museum holds statues of enemies when you've collected a certain number of them. Thirty enemies earns you a bronze statue of that enemy, fifty earns you a silver statue, and one hundred earns you a gold statue. Completion aficionados rejoice! Or you can just defeat enemies instead of taking them to town. They drop money and sometimes grab bags with random items, some of them very good items you can only receive as prizes from tank battles or from the grab bags.

Items serve as ammunition for your tank. Say you have ten bullets. You can put up to ten bullets on your ammo deck, which can hold up to thirty bits of ammo. But when you fire the ammo during a tank battle, it doesn't use the ammo up. The ammo recycles through your tank system. Having ten bullets on your ammo deck one out of every three pieces of ammo that drops through the ammo chute is a bullet. Also, items are used for alchemy. Some slimes give you recipes when you rescue them, and other recipes are found in Boingburg after you unlock more things. When you have a recipe you can mix two recipe items to get a third, more powerful item. You receive some items only through alchemy and are helpful during tank battles.

Tank battling is the other key component to the gameplay. This is where the second screen truly comes in handy. The bottom screen shows Rocket and allows you to control him, either collecting ammo from around the ship to throw into any of the two cannons or hopping into the cannon yourself to sabotage the enemy tank. Enemies do the same to you, of course. The top screen shows a side view of the two tanks duking it out. You can see the enemies or allies walking along the path between the two tanks and the fired ammunition flying through the air. It's useful to see what's coming at you because you can load the appropriate cannon and prevent damage to your tank by making two pieces of ammo collide. Some pieces of ammo are more difficult to destroy than others, and some are there for the sole purpose of defense. There are some light strategic elements, but basically the most powerful stuff will serve you best.

Before you have a tank crew, you have to scurry around and do everything yourself: collect the ammo, load the cannons, and enter the enemy tank to destroy its engine. When you have a crew, up to three people, they help you with various tasks. Some will collect ammo and load the tank, some will collect ammo to give to you, some will use themselves as ammunition, and some will enter the enemy tank to sabotage it. The game goes on autopilot when you get your crew because, with some of the tasks taken care of for you, there's more time for you to focus on defense, offense, or sabotage, and not all three at once. But the help also makes the game a little more enjoyable, giving you the chance to take things easy instead of stress out because the enemies are firing way more ammunition than you can defend against.

All in all, it's an enjoyable experience. There's something addictive about collecting items and enemies for the use of you tank battles.

Longevity – 8/10

If you do the side quests and try to collect everything, then the game will last you anywhere from twenty to thirty hours. Even when you beat the game there are several things to do, such as the tank battle tournament, which you can't finish unless you defeat the final boss. The final battle of the tournament is the toughest, most entertaining battle of the game, so the tourney is worth playing through. If you're sick of super easy games, though, you might not bother doing the side quest stuff and just quickly finish the main game. Developer TOSE could make a great sequel by ramping up the difficulty (though not too high) and adding a few extra features.

Score – 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/29/08

Game Release: Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (US, 09/19/06)