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Spectrobes Review
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Genre: Action RPG |
Developer:
Jupiter Corp |
Publisher: Disney
Interactive Studios |
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Platform: Nintendo DS |
Players: 1-6 |
Release:
March 13, 2007 |
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Visuals:
6/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Control: 5/10
Sound: 7/10
Replay Value: 5/10
Impact Rating: 6/10
Overall Rating: 57%
In the DS handheld
market, the landscape is full of competitors
that have challenged but failed to topple
the vastly successful Pokemon series. Enter
developer Jupiter Corp with Spectrobes, the
handheld title on DS, published by Disney
Interactive Studios, that fights to share
the limelight against the Pokemon giant in
the market.
Spectrobes begins with
Rallen and Jeena, two Planetary Patrol
officers sent on a mission to identify clues
surrounding reports of large wreckage on a
distant planet. During their mission, they
discover a lone survivor in a damaged space
pod near a gigantic crevice on the planetary
surface. As the events unfold, the elderly
survivor, Aldous, explains to the young
officers that his planet was ravaged by the
Krawl, a relentless and cruel species.
Narrowly escaping with his life, Aldous
states that an invasion by Krawl on other
planets are inevitable and as fate has
dictated, only Rallen and the Spectrobes can
stop them. The Spectrobes are all buried
deep within the soil grounds of neighboring
planets and must be excavated to awaken them
from their comatose state.
The gameplay can be
summarized with one word: excavation. You
begin with Rallen, who is accompanied by a
baby spectrobe in your Patrol Cruiser. As
you freely roam the grounds surrounding the
ship, you are searching to discover and
excavate spectrobes in the vicinity. By
tapping the baby spectrobe with the stylus,
a circular perimeter is formed around Rallen
that scans the area for shiny buried
objects. The real excavation starts when
players are switched to excavation mode
after an artifact is located. Players are
equipped with 3 types of drills: Drill L,
Drill M and Drill S. Each of these drills
varies functionally as Drill L is used for
excavating around an object whereas Drill M
is used to remove dirt on top of buried
artifact. To excavate an object, you rub
the screen with your stylus to clear the
soil surrounding your artifact. A special
meter indicates precisely how much of the
artifact is uncovered. Essentially, a
damage meter reflects the condition of the
object to be excavated. Drill too hard and
you risk damaging the artifact so severely
that it cannot be recovered. On the other
hand, drill too conservatively and you will
not be able to retrieve the buried artifact
at all.
Battles are initiated
when Rallen encounters a swirling, purple
vortex on the open field when searching for
buried items. You will be able to control
Rallen and two spectrobes that stand beside
him respectively. Rallen is very weak and
the damage he inflicts is rather minimal
forcing you to rely on the spectrobes to
take down your enemies. Launching an attack
on enemies is executed by pressing the L and
R shoulder buttons for each of the
spectrobes on the field. When dodging the
enemies’ attacks, you can build up energy
with the A button for Rallen and launch
special charge attacks when the CH meter is
full by the entire team. Battles feel dull
and uninspired as Rallen and the spectrobes
all move together in a linear fashion and
have no intuition of their own to attack the
enemy, even when they stand face to face
against the Krawl monsters. Much time is
spent keeping Rallen out of harm’s way while
the spectrobes engage the enemy. The fight
is over when all enemies are defeated with
the spoils being distributed amongst the
team evenly.
A unique feature of the
game is the card input system. This system
is unlocked by excavating special Upsilon
Cubes from the planetary grounds. Once the
card input system is initiated, new
spectrobes, minerals and custom parts are
unlocked by using real cards packaged with
the purchase of your game. Each of these
cards is punctured with holes in a numerical
pattern. Once aligned with the lower DS
screen, the stylus is used to touch the
holes of the card in an ascending order.
Consequently, this makes it nigh impossible
for players to obtain new spectrobes without
these cards by randomly guessing such
patterns. These cards can be used and
traded with other users to maximize the
spectrobes available at your disposal.
Extra creatures and parts can be downloaded
with the Nintendo WFC service once the Tau
cube is retrieved from excavation to obtain
additional content.
The lab systems are
extensively used in this game to
micro-manage your excavated spectrobes and
to nurture their growth. Spectrobes do not
awaken on their own as they require your
assistance; namely, your voice. That’s
right. They only wake up when you speak
directly to them via the DS microphone at a
certain volume for a short period of time.
Mere whispers or outright shouting do
nothing for them for those prone to using
either extremes. After assigning your baby
spectrobe a name, they are fed and carefully
watched inside the designed Incubator. By
nurturing your baby spectrobes and lavishing
attention on them, such as petting them,
they evolve at a much faster rate. For the
studious players, information is readily
available in the library for all the
identified spectrobes, both young and
old.
Visually, the game is
average. They aren’t bad by any means but
there isn’t anything remarkable about them.
The environments, on the other hand, leave
much to be desired as the planetary grounds
outside the Patrol Cruiser are bland and
rather lifeless. As for the sound, there is
nothing worth mentioning. The localization
for the English voices is typically standard
with the background music fitting
appropriately into the “common but nothing
special” category.
Overall, Spectrobes is
a game that falls considerably short of the
mark. The bland environments, dull combat
and complex menus are the biggest flaws
surrounding this game. Despite the
excavation mode, most players will quickly
lose interest after the first few hours of
gameplay. In the end, Spectrobes is a game
full of ideas but one that ultimately fails
due to its dreadful design and execution.
BEST
FEATURE = Excavation Mode
WORST
FEATURE = Dull Combat
Solomon Lee, Gaming-Media Staff
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