Spectrobes

"Pokemon has an ugly cousin"

It's interesting and weird that Disney is into making games nowadays. Even though Disney characters have walked around with Square Enix's Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts, Disney's development studios had nothing to do with the series, except for the ill-received interquel, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Instead of simply banking off of their nearly endless backlog of franchises, you have to admire Disney for going out on a limb and developing an original IP, albeit one that makes a poor attempt to replicate the success that Pokemon had.

If you couldn't tell already but the tone in the previous paragraph, Spectrobes isn't a fun game. It does have its moments, but it ultimately turns into a yawn inducing bore fest that even the most hell-bent RPG gamers won't even be able to suck a little enjoyment from the title. Is this an over exaggeration? Absolutely not.

Instead of catching the creatures, called Spectrobes, like you would in the games that this game is definitely trying to rip off, you have to find their fossilized remains. You will know if there is a Spectrobe buried in the dirt because the ground will glitter like a rainbow. Move over to the area with the stylus, dig for it, and then you have the ability to breathe life into the little buggers.

You have to be at your ship in order to pull this off though. Once you return there, you can do all sorts of lame things with the items you find lying around the uninspired environments. Your goal is to drill into the fossil using one of a few drills that you have the option of choosing from. You can accidentally destroy the fossil, but if you don't, you then have to blow off the debris you've caused by blowing it away with a tool. It would have been much better if they let you blow it away with the microphone, and wouldn't that have made more sense?

Regardless, you can also throw your Spectrobes, and you'll come across many of the exact same Spectrobes throughout the entirety of your adventure, in a little chamber that helps them learn new things and evolve (go figure). To make them evolve, you have to drop them things to eat. These things boost their stats, and once their stats have been built up enough, you have yourself an evolved Spectrobe.

What are you going to do with these little guys anyway? Well, just like in Pokemon, you are going to battle with them. However, you are using them to battle an evil alien race called the Krawl that take the form of tornados that spin around aimlessly. Once you've bumped into a tornado or a tornado runs into you, you are forced into a battle.

These battles are relatively simple. The game takes you to a poorly designed battle world where all of the Krawl you have to fight and all of the Spectrobes you have at your disposable (you can have two) are visible in their true forms. You can tell your Spectrobes to attack by tapping on them with the stylus, moving close to an enemy, and pressing a button. They have to recharge their attacks, but you are also capable of taking down the Krawl with a variety of weapons you can find. While actually fighting the beasts yourself could have turned into one of Spectrobes more interesting mechanics, they ruin it as well since any time you try to take one of these guys on, chances are they are going to wipe the floor with you.

You can download some stuff using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. You can also upload your high scores to earn some extra content, and this is one of the game's best features, even if the Wi-Fi doesn't always work as well as it should. All multiplayer capabilities are restricted to multi-card play, which is a very unfortunate thing as it will definitely cripple the game's chances at providing at least a pretty good multiplayer experience without forcing people to shell out extra cash.

Spectrobes tries to have somewhat of a plot, but its plot is pretty damn weak, meaning that one of the essential components to a successful RPG is practically ignored. The game tries to be a mix of Pokemon and conventional anime set in space, but it ends up feeling rushed, generic, and just a little too goofy for my tastes.

I like the semi-3D graphics that Spectrobes tries to relay, as it is always nice to play a 3D game on the DS, even though the 2D games almost always end up being the superior titles. The character models are a little boring, but at least they're original. The Spectrobes also look pretty sweet and you'll get a warm and fuzzy feeling inside once you've obtain a really badass looking one. The DS's dual-screens are used to make the environment more expansive, and while it's nice that they at least tried, it is unfortunate that the environment on the top screen is pretty much useless all around, except sometimes it will save you from having to backtrack a little bit because you will be able to see an entrance you need to go to. Unfortunately, the battle environment seems like it was tacked on and some of the menus are ridiculously useless and confusing as a result.

Audio-wise, Spectrobes doesn't impress, but it doesn't necessarily disappoint either. The audio isn't grinding, but it isn't amazing either. You won't remember the tunes once you've shut the game off, but that's sometimes a good thing if you're remembering them for all of the wrong reasons.

Being an RPG, Spectrobes is actually pretty damn long. It's not as massive as other RPGs nowadays, but it will still give you plenty of bang for your buck, even though it's not really a fun game throughout. Honestly, I was a little addicted to this game at first, and I'm sure everyone else will as well, just because you will be interested in what Spectrobe you're going to get next. The methods in which to unlock Spectrobes are pretty neat and entertaining to do, and sometimes found myself booting up the title just to do this. There are some online options, but lack of single-card multiplayer is disappointing.

Spectrobes is definitely not a must-have title for the DS, but it also isn't a god-awful title either. It won't impress you with its graphics and it won't impress you with its audio presentation, but it will impress you in some smaller areas. Some parts of the game are admittedly pretty entertaining and the character designs are cool, but other parts of the game are horrendously repetitive and the environments are uninspired. I do have to admit I'm impressed that Disney decided to try their luck with developing an original IP, but it's unfortunate that the final product didn't turn out nearly as well as it should have.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/23/08

Game Release: Spectrobes (US, 03/06/07)