Contact

"Great ideas in a very disappointing game."

Every so often something completely new and different comes along. Some new game comes and changes your perception of what a particular genre should be. It takes every cliche there is and turns them all upside down. Contact is one of those games. It's a new kind of RPG, but it's not for everyone. Sometimes these new games catch on with gamers as a whole. Some end up confined to a cult following because of poor exposure or gamers' unwillingness to try something new. Many end up being just bad because they have great ideas but poor execution. Which one is Contact?

Contact starts off simply enough. The Professor loses the cells he needs to power his ship. It's up to you to find them. Yes, you - the person holding the DS. You obviously won't directly be doing the searching, but you'll be controlling a boy named Terry whom the Professor recruits to do all his dirty work. In fact, the game opens with the Professor stating he was able to make contact with you through a device known as a Nintendo DS. Actually, he's always wanted one, and asks if you wouldn't mind buying one for him. You, being cheap and frugal, tell him no. He quickly gets over it and explains to you that he needs these cells for his ship. About now he “recruits” Terry to take over, but little known to Terry, you're actually forcing him to do all of these actions. The Professor lets you in on this little secret but says not to tell Terry. In any other world, this would probably constitute kidnapping, but Terry is about as intelligent as a rock. He has a personality akin to a rock as well and never sees any kind of character development at all, so the story takes a knock for that one. In fact, the Professor's character never progresses much either, leaving your main characters pretty lacking. So, you're traveling from place to place recovering these cells for the Professor from a group trying to take over the world. That's about as in-depth as the story goes. This makes it very difficult to get into Contact as the game wears on.

The graphics create an interesting contrast. The Professor's world, inside of his spaceship, remains on the top screen, and it's entirely 8-bit and very reminiscent of Earthbound for the SNES. Really, the Professor looks like an 8-bit Dr. Andonuts, but I digress. Terry's world on the bottom screen is very detailed and what you would expect a DS game to look like. It's not perfect, as there is simplicity and graininess throughout, but it gets the point across. The quality of the graphics takes a backseat though to the stark contrast that occurs when either Terry or the Professor (or Mochi) crosses over into the other world. Terry looks very out-of-place in the 8-bit spaceship, and likewise for the others.

There are several very good musical scores for some of the areas, but for the most part, Contact's sound is pretty bland. There are few sound effects, and the ones that are there leave much to be desired. The sound of an enemy catching sight of you is pretty annoying, actually. The battle music doesn't change either, and although that's pretty standard fare for an RPG, it's just… awful. There are a few good tracks as stated, but nothing really jumps out at you. There's nothing terribly offensive either outside of what was already mentioned.

You can move around with either the stylus or the D-pad. The stylus seems to be a bit awkward as compared to other games that utilize that feature so most players will likely find themselves using the D-pad. The worst part of the game, both in control and gameplay, is battling, and that's not good because you'll be doing a lot of it. When you encounter an enemy, press B to get into the battle stance and… wait. Yep, just sit there. Terry will eventually do his thing, but you cannot make him directly attack. You can control where he moves and whether he's in battle mode or not, but when he's in battle mode he will attack on his own. This gets pretty frustrating. I understand the concept but when you're sitting around for several minutes waiting for an enemy to die it gets old. The positive thing is that you can move away from an enemy to avoid their attack while in battle mode and Terry will keep his timing and attack as appropriate. The bad thing is that Terry is slow as molasses while in battle mode so this is pretty much useless unless you position yourself around a corner, and even then his range is limited. There are a few other options while in battle mode though – you can make Terry cast spells. The problem here is timing. Sometimes Terry will cast the spell instantly, other times it will take a couple of seconds. This wouldn't be so bad except that if he gets hit, he'll never cast the spell but still lose the points needed to cast.

Otherwise, you'll be traveling from island to island in a very old looking galleon. You have to go to bed while traveling in order to reach your destination. This wouldn't be so bad, because you save in this manner as well, except that it's a very slow process. While sleeing, you can play with the Professor's space-dog-that-wants-to-be-a-space-cat Mochi. Mochi will actually aid you in battle, so playing with it makes it happier and thus makes its attacks more powerful. Mochi's aid comes after using a decal. There are several others, including one that turns all on-screen enemies into bunnies. These decals are one-time use only but will be refilled the next time you visit the Professor. A specific decal is also how you recover the cells that the Professor needs for his ship. There are other decals too that you could find in treasure chests or that certain enemies may drop that raise your stats. You can equip up to four of these at once, but if you want to remove one and put a new one on, the old one is gone forever. The decals are basically stickers, so once you pull them off they lose their stickiness, you see.

Many of the areas you traverse are pretty frustrating. Many of them are not straightforward and don't offer any real hints about how you have to progress. Saving and healing points are placed extremely sparingly as well, meaning you could be going through a dungeon for quite a while before you're able to save.

Terry can also gain eight different costumes. These costumes will raise certain stats and give him certain abilities. For example, the Thief costume allows Terry to pick locks. However, there are certain locks that are harder to pick than others, so to be able to do those you have to pick a lot of easier locks and practice your Steal technique against enemies to improve your skill as a Thief. The same goes for the Cooking costume – when you first get it, you're able to make only simple recipes (found throughout the game), but the more you cook, the higher your skill, and the more complicated meals you can make. Certain costumes give you access to new weapons as well. You will gain various knives and frying pans on your adventure, but you can only use these while wearing the Cooking costume. The downside is that these are likely weaker than the weapon you were using previously. The upside is that when you use them in battle, Terry's cooking stats increase. The same goes for the Thief knives.

As far as the RPGing aspect, you'll notice on the status screen that Terry has a ton of different stats. There are three different types of weapons – slashing (swords, knives, etc.), pounding (frying pans, cleavers, hammers, etc.) and punching (brass knuckles, etc.). Each has its own benefits. In order to increase the overall strength of one category, you use the weapon that corresponds with it. The other two categories gain nothing though, meaning you'll probably find yourself switching between weapons and grinding to keep them even. The sad thing is that you'll get a weapon later in the game, and you never really need to switch to anything else, making this aspect somewhat useless. There are a ton of other stats as well, from offense and defense to speed of walking that can all be leveled up. You will find that you have to stop and grind every once in a while, which is unfortunate because of the poor battling system.

There are a ton of things for you to collect and you have virtually unlimited storage space to do so. There are many different types of weapons and foods to stock in your inventory and cook with. The bad thing is that once you get the recipe for the Potion and the aforementioned weapon, you'll find that you really don't need anything else.

Unless you're a completionist that has to collect every item and maximize every stat, there's little reason to play through Contact again. It's fairly easy to run through the dungeons and grab almost everything and little backtracking is required. Since much of the game feels like a chore, you'll be hard pressed to want to play again.

Contact offers little balance as well – most of the game is very easy with a few frustrating moments in dungeons while trying to figure out where to go next. Most enemies are very easy as well. The only challenges you'll encounter there are the grinding you have to do when you get to a new island because of the stronger enemies and a few hard bosses. Really though, the final boss is fairly easy, leaving you scratching your head and saying “That's it?”

For all its faults though, Contact is fairly addictive while you play, if for no other reason than to see what quirkiness lies ahead. Chances are though that you won't find yourself playing to see what happens next, and that's not entirely a good thing. There are however jabs and such all over the place. What you encounter is an RPG with elements nothing like you've seen before. Just reading the back of the box tells you what you will and won't find in Contact. You won't find main characters with amnesia or spiky-haired sword-wielders. You will find happiness and a deeper meaning to life (your mileage may vary). Contact keeps this same lightheartedness throughout the entire game, borrowing heavily from other similar games like Earthbound. Contact also breaks down that famous fourth wall from the very start of the game and keeps it down for the duration.

Contact likely won't find widespread appeal. Fans of niche RPGs will be attracted because of the overall quirkiness, but they may also find themselves disappointed because it fails to deliver on so many levels.

The Scores:
Story: 4/10
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 4/10
Control and Gameplay: 6/10
Replayability: 3/10
Balance: 5/10
Addictiveness: 6/10
Appeal: 4/10
Miscellaneous: 9/10
Total Score: 49/90 ~ 5.5
FINAL SCORE: 6/10 (Slightly Above Average)

For all its faults, Contact is an incredibly original take on RPGs. The lighthearted approach will keep you at least mildly amused for most of the game, but you'll find that it's lacking in the most important part – gameplay. Contact offers some wildly inventive ideas that are implemented very poorly. This is a game where the final score isn indicative of things other than a fun game, so please read the whole review instead of seeing "above average" and taking it for that. Unless you're a huge fan of niche RPGs, stay away, or try before you buy.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/15/08

Game Release: Contact (US, 10/19/06)