New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)

New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Nintendo

Anthony: There’s something to be said for sticking with a formula you have down pat. New Super Mario Bros. Wii treads virtually no new ground aside from the addition of co-op (didn’t Sonic 3 do that?) yet it hasn’t been hurting in sales or been slammed in reviews despite that. Why? Well it’s a completely solid game that doesn’t really need a new formula to make it entertaining. We have good Mario games in 3D land and in 2D land, and well, that’s just Peachy.

I won’t keep you too long here, because chances are, you’ve already decided whether you care about this game or not. And to that sense, I wouldn’t even try encourage or discourage you, because New Super Mario Bros. Wii is exactly what you’d expect... nothing less, and not much more either.

I should take a quick moment to note that from videos posted online and a particularly egregious one we found in-game, that the game does seem to have a share of potential glitches. I lambasted Scribblenauts for it and I’ll still say it here, these days should be long behind us, programmers. It’s especially surprising to have a Nintendo product with these, but I will say that most of them seem benign. Just not the one we ran into.

On the “New” realm of the game, we have the addition of new powerups, co-op play, gameplay videos, and some minor inclusions of motion control for puzzles.

The new powerups are solid... the Helicopter suit is fun and almost overpowered in being useful, the Ice Flower is a seamless inclusion that add a gameplay element in the creation of ice blocks, and the Penguin suit is just kind of like the turtle shell from New Super Mario Bros. crossed with the Ice Flower. The Mini-Mushroom from New Super Mario Bros. returns, though it’s used with surprising rarity. Although the Helicopter suit almost seems too good (we at least had to gain speed to fly with the Raccoon Leaf back in my day), my only real issue is that the Penguin suit is fairly uninspired. Giving the Penguin Suit another unique ability instead of ice balls would’ve been nice.

Co-op play is a beast all its own. The series could’ve used this for a while, and the good news is it’s well-implemented. Stages are designed wide enough to accommodate multiple players and will expand accordingly, powerups will be spit out in a group for each player, and any player can “avoid” the action by temporarily pressing A to go into an invincible bubble for passing difficult sections. The feature itself works as a double-edged sword, as partnering offers increased mobility, additional firepower, and a general safety in numbers for exploring difficult sections. However, it brings its own troubles, as coordinating jumps among other rubbery characters is difficult, trying to keep powerups properly dispersed takes some planning, and in general it just takes someone out of their usual Mario-realm of gameplay when another person can accidentally stomp you to your doom mid-jump. It’s why Penny Arcade lovingly referred to this feature as “Divorce Mode,” though I’m pleased to report that Lauren only issued me a trial separation instead.

The unlockable gameplay videos are a cool idea that I think other games should consider. Some give demos for well-hidden secrets, others show creative ways to get bundles of 1-Ups, and others just show crazy developers flying through stages with infuriating ease. Sure, it might be maddening to see someone coast through a level that gave you trouble, but it’s cool to watch and nice to put those in the game.

Inevitably, we come back to the fact that this game is pure 2-D platformer nostalgia. If you liked Super Mario 3 and Super Mario World, chances are you’ll enjoy the game. If you’ve never been a fan, you probably won’t become one here either. The formula holds up fine here, and even still has a few moments that may make you pause and say “okay, that was pretty cool.” If there’s a problem, it’s just that the game doesn’t really take any risks. Other than the co-op aspect, there are few ways in which this is a genuinely different game from the DS’ New Super Mario Bros. A few stages require you to control the movement of platforms or searchlights using the tilt of the wii remote, and it works well, but there’s nothing ground-breaking about it. Aside from a really cool fight or two, the game doesn’t really offer much in the way of surprises or innovation. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing at all, it’s just like getting a specific sandwich from a deli... when the formula is always bread meat cheese veggie bread, it can only taste so good.

So in a way, the best news I can give is just to describe the game as it is. It’s like playing a game from 2009 if 2-D platformers were still a major staple in next-gen gaming. It’s fun, it’s difficult at times, and it has tons of smile-inducing moments for the people who played these games in the 80s and can be excited by the mere inclusion of a long-forgotten enemy. I’m among that crowd, and can safely say despite offering such a straightforward product, New Super Mario Bros. Wii never failed to entertain us.

---

Lauren: Well, Nintendo has managed to successfully combine Super Mario Bros. 1, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World - all of which happen to be some of my favourite games of all time - into a colourful 2D platforming package that defines the term "competitive co-op."

Up to four people can play simultaneously, and it's up to the group to decide if they'll play nicely or not. The mechanics of the game make it possible to team up and help each other through the levels. For example, pressing the A button will put your character into a bubble that floats over the stage, making you essentially invincible to all obstacles, yet unable to interact with anything. However, the only way to escape the bubble is to have a partner hit it. This can be a very useful tool for letting one partner catch up to the other after a series of dangerous obstacles.

This flexibility, however, can also allow you to harm your teammates. You can use your friends as jumping platforms (causing them to plummet into a pit), or you can hog all the power-ups and 1-ups.

Or, of course, you can hover somewhere between the two. Anthony and I love co-op opportunities whenever we find them, so we had a ton of fun taking on the levels while helping each other in a strategic way. ...Which was usually him doing a series of daring jumps over moving platforms in lava, then me turning into a bubble and floating safely over to him.

The graphics are wonderfully colourful and well-animated. It's exactly what you'd expect of a modern 2D platformer from Nintendo. Sure, much greater graphical feats have been achieved on the other next-gen systems, but the cartoony style is fun to watch. The same goes for the music - many hints of classic Mario themes are present, as well as some catchy new tunes.

NSMBW kept us busy for many hours, with the usual 8 worlds of levels and hidden goodies. Once you find the three hidden coins in each level of each world, new levels open up in World 9. Those ones kept us busy for a while too, because most of them are pretty challenging. Still, it was a ton of fun. (The lava roller coaster immediately comes to mind.)

There were only a few points in which we got annoyed with the game. We were frustrated upon encountering a weird game-freezing glitch when we hadn't recently saved. And of course, some of the levels walk a fine line between "challenging" and "mean." Even so, the satisfaction of finally beating those levels with all three hidden coins certainly made it all worthwhile. Also, the aforementioned coins can unlock some pretty amazing and entertaining gameplay videos.

If you loved Mario as a kid, don't hesitate to play this one. I'm sure it's fun enough as a single-player game, but I'd recommend playing this one with friends, just like in the good ol' days. It's a healthy dose of nostalgia with modern improvements and a lot of fun.

Spectrobes: Origins (Wii)

Spectrobes: Origins
Disney Interactive Studios

Anthony: From time to time, the primitive meathead gamer in me longs for a good, solid hack and slash game. Sure, they’re repetitive, but there’s always something to be said for being able to hit a button over and over and it make carnage happen. In my search for the next co-op hack and slash for us to play, I came across Spectrobes: Origins, which had the added benefit of being a monster-based RPG and having drop-in/drop-out co-op gameplay. While I won’t claim for a second that this is an excellent game, I’ll absolutely say we had a lot of fun playing it.

Tearing pages straight from Saturday morning cartoons and “Japanimation”, Spectrobes: Origins follows two young space.. somethings.. who control some kind of monsters called Spectrobes to combat an evil race of some sort. What that actually means is you control a character who fights with various weapons and can issue commands to explore and fight with various diminutive and hulking monsters. The “Spectrobes” are unearthed and excavated by the player, and can be controlled either issuing commands via remote swings or a second player.

Naturally, the plot is rather groan-inducing. That’s not from a lack of presentation though... oddly enough, the voice acting is very solid. But as you might expect, characters have very typical personalities, poke at each other with very childish jokes, and the story never really goes beyond “Beat bad dude.” They give a little exposition, but it doesn’t really mean much. That said, I’ve seen reviews actually dock the game for the plot, and to that I say.. what? I seem to recall a decade of Pokemon RPGs receiving 8.5-10 scores despite never having a plot more than “win badges, but don’t let bumbling bad guys get strong pokemon!” So let’s not be inconsistent and claim that suddenly the plot should matter in scoring the game.

The gameplay is the heart of everything here, and though there are a slew of minor issues and “huh?” moments with it, overall the news is good. Although the main character starts with very generic and some borderline unusable weapons, exploration in the world reveals a host of improved weapons that have special attacks, different combinations of attacks, status effects and elemental properties. If one thing surprised me most about the game beyond the graphics, it was the wide variety of different weapons you can get throughout the game.

In single-player mode, Spectrobes are commanded by swinging the remote to either send it out to attack or call it back to retreat. Timing the attack orders with the main character’s attack can produce different attacks and combos, which is an interesting feature, while special attacks are simply triggered with B. In two-player mode, the second character controls the active Spectrobe, and the retreat/attack options are disabled. Instead, the second player freely moves and attacks using the Spectrobe’s strongest attacks, and becomes the one to initiate special attacks. The only advantage single-player mode offers is that Spectrobes will teleport to and from the enemies, making chipping at threatening bosses a potential strategy. Otherwise, having a partner makes things infinitely easier and saves your wrist a lot of swinging.

The prognosis is similar for exploration. Alone, a player has to swing the remote to send a baby spectrobe to search for shining items on the field. It’s repetitive, and a little annoying in both hearing “Go!” repeatedly and having to wait for the Spectrobe to do its thing. With a second player, a simple remote point-and-click interface immediately unearths items, and is a vastly superior system to doing it solo.

Excavating fossils to spawn new Spectrobes is a pretty robust system that can be both fun and challenging while having huge benefits. All items start as a chunk of rock, but with a combination of tools like a world-destroying laser, an X-ray beam and gentle drill, you can unearth the creatures within. Then a very simplistic music minigame awakens them for use either as an exploring baby or an evolved, battling adult. Minimal damage and time elapsed results in a better ranking and higher leveled Spectrobe.

A moment should be taken to mention the graphics. This aspect went well above and beyond my expectations. Environments look nice and fairly pretty, but especially the scenes in space and the few limited CG scenes look excellent. On top of that, the models for the Spectrobes are unique and impressive looking. Each one starts out as a tiny baby, and ends up a miniature-Godzilla when fully evolved. They look cool, and all manage to have a good amount of personality and variety to their designs. Menus are cleanly designed and smartly work with either the remote pointer or button input as you see fit. I might’ve liked the weapon-change screen to load a little faster, but that’s a minor gripe.

It’s worthy of note that despite being geared at children, the difficulty is not quite at kid-level. Although you can keep up to six, the Spectrobes can never be healed in battle unless they level up... and as the game goes on, the main character’s damage output begins to pale in comparison to a same-leveled Spectrobe. Combine those aspects with enormous bosses that typically have huge area-attacks with little room to attack and dodge safely, and you have a game that just might humble you once or twice. Even normal enemies can pose a challenge if you don’t keep healing up and aren’t switching to the right elemental properties. I’d be impressed if some kid managed to tackle the impressively challenging final boss without a ton of exp-grinding.

Thankfully, they let you retry from the beginning whenever you wipe out to a boss, and typically provide save points prior to them, so it’s not like Disney hates children per se.

But let’s not kid ourselves, there are some definite flaws to point out. While the drop-in/drop-out co-op feature is great and very helpful, it’s baffling to me why they’d make the exploration so obtuse for a single player in comparison. And in battle, despite Spectrobes typically having a few attack patterns, a second player is limited to only using the strongest (and sometimes the slowest) attack available. Why limit anything? Stranger still, the very short instruction booklet doesn’t even cover the second player’s controls, despite the box advertising the drop-in/drop-out gameplay.

Oddly enough, you’re kind of discouraged from sticking with the same Spectrobes throughout the game. Because you can take up to six with you in battle (and realistically, you want at least five.. one for each element), the main character levels up much more quickly than his/her Spectrobes. Exp-granting crystals can be unearthed all over to help augment this, but especially as levels get higher, they don’t come close to offsetting this disparity in levels. The reason this discourages loyalty is that getting an “A” rank on fossil excavation nets you a Spectrobe of your main character’s level, and there’s no stat difference between a levelled-up Spectrobe and a newly born one. As a result, every 10-20 levels, you’ll probably just want to excavate a fresh batch of your current team to keep them appropriately strong, rather than try to grind and gut it out with each of the five-six members in your current crew.

A few more oddities... Special weapons are found throughout the world that are locked behind one of five elemental barriers, and are unlocked by a child Spectrobe of the same element. However, you can only have three child Spectrobes at a time, so it means you’ll have to backtrack to a save point/the ship to switch Spectrobes if you don’t have the right element.. silly. A few bosses guard literally everything, forcing you to use only the main character with an Axe for potential damage. Guarding as the main character is a little awkward, as it requires lifting the remote/nunchuk.. something not easily done when you need to quickly defend. And while it clearly marks the fossils you obtain as “New” or the name of the Spectrobe inside, you can unearth Crystal-containing fossils that are arguably pointless for the time spent, yet always say “New” instead of just telling you it’s a crystal. Why?

But for those oddities and flaws, there are some other pleasant things to report too. The game has a nice map overlay for navigating areas and finding the zones. Save points heal and are at placed at good intervals, with it not forcing you to redo mandatory battles within the same area if you backtrack. Encounters are often voluntary in areas when you’re looking to level up or charge special attacks. Switching Spectrobes in battle is easy, with it even showing you how much of their special attacks are charged as you scroll through.

There’s a lot of variety in the Spectrobes themselves, which made trying new ones and finding ones that Lauren liked to use quite addictive. The game length is a respectable 15-30 hours, with plenty of play value if you try out different Spectrobes or do the silly post-game quest. Slamming enemies with their elemental weakness is nice and satisfying enough... But gathering up your Spectrobes’ special attacks, and unleashing all in succession and watching a Boss’ HP bar shoot down... is pretty dang cool to do.

So this isn’t a world-smashingly amazing game by any means, and having played it, I still don’t know what a Spectrobe is nor do I have any interest in more of the storyline. With that said, I only look back on the game fondly, because it was pretty dang fun piling up a team of hulking beasts and having Lauren and I smash them in sometimes quite epic fashion. I’ve played better games that aren’t as fun, and guess what matters more to me in the end? Spectrobes: Origins is great, mindless entertainment, though much moreso with a partner. Plus, you can make fun of the corny dialogue together.

---

Lauren: Every now and then, we crave a good co-op hack-and-slash game, even if it's almost completely mindless. Games like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance usually fit that bill, but surprisingly, a cutesy Disney Pokemon-esque title gave us a similar experience.

Spectrobes: Origins is mainly a monster-training RPG. I'll leave the main gameplay descriptions to Anthony, since I was just his monster co-pilot through the adventure. From the Player 2 standpoint, I can say that even the level grinding was pretty entertaining. You can swap between several different Spectrobes during battle in order to maximize elemental damage. The Spectrobes also have a special move gauge that fills up as they deal damage, which can then be unleashed with a tap of the B button and a silly Wii-mote pose. These attacks can be extremely useful on difficult bosses, since it's possible to charge up every Spectrobe's special move in advance, then unleash them all consecutively.

The graphics are very nice for a Wii title - pretty, though a little on the simple side. Environments are generally colourful with pretty details, especially the mountainous backgrounds. Each Spectrobe's appearance is impressively unique, from swordfish to cacti to a pair of dancing boots. The attacks and animations are also varied and fun to watch. The human character models are fairly simple in comparison, but it's not really a problem.

The story was the weakest point for me. It might not be fair of me to say that, since we knowingly purchased a Disney game that's geared toward kids, but it still bears mentioning. Don't expect an epic storyline - just the usual generic fluff with innocuous dialogue that tries a little too hard to be funny. Though the voice acting is generally quite good and features some very well-known actors, I found it to be a little less enjoyable because of the script.

All plot complaints aside, it was still a very fun (and even occasionally challenging) game to play. I got to explore, collect shiny things, and beat the you-know-what out of enemies with a variety of neat Spectrobes, and that kept us both entertained for many hours. I also got to feel like an anime character as I busted out various Wii-mote poses.

Punch Out!! (Wii)

Punch Out!!
Next Level Games/Nintendo

Reviewed by Anthony

This just in: Flyweight fighter inexplicably earns Heavyweight championship using only three types of punches! It’s either the worst sports league ever, or perhaps as the phrase goes, “Little Mac is back”.

Punch-Out!! is essentially a stylized remake of the old NES and Arcade classics. Next Level Games took the reins for Nintendo here, apparently earning their trust with the excellent Mario Strikers series, and managed to put out a pretty impressive and memorable package. Punch-Out!! is fun, challenging, full of life, but just might have a bit too little overall gameplay for its $50 asking price.

What’s good:
- The colorful cast of characters you’ll fight are recreated beautifully and are bursting with personality. Next Level managed to get authentic language speaking actors for the huge array of nationalities represented, even jokingly going over-the-top stereotypical for the one fighter from their home in Canada. Fighters will taunt you when you fall, get knocked out in spectacular fashion, react visually and audibly to your actions, and run a complete gamut of cocky, yet vulnerable personalities. The characters were so realistic in their absurdity that at times I felt genuinely bad for having to beat them up. I mean come on, Piston Hondo should be able to beat me up for punching him when he was respectfully bowing to me, Mr. Sandman should win by default simply because he frightens me, and Glass Joe deserves that glorious second win by now!
- Next Level was surprisingly faithful to the old games, allowing for a ton of easter eggs for folks who played the NES originals. Don Flamenco can still be caught in an endless loop of alternating punches, King Hippo will still make no attempt to get back up once knocked down, Bald Bull’s charge can still be countered by a hook in the right direction, and his second form still can’t be knocked down without a special punch. When you include those as well as the ever famous “running through New York” scene, you can tell they put a lot of care into making this version seamlessly nostalgic to the fans.
- Before taking an opponent on in arcade mode, they allow you to fight a hologram version of the fighter that fights exactly the same, but can’t injure you. This is a great feature in making the game play more smoothly, since the average player would just be restarting or losing constantly.
- After beating an opponent, you unlock three challenges unique to that fighter that will have you accomplishing various tasks during a fight. While there are a few that are a bit picky, overall it’s an often fun diversion that can be satisfying to complete, and adds significant playtime to the game.
- The ability to quickly restart fights was an important inclusion that could’ve broken the game had it not been included.
- The various fighters’ music can be really catchy. Just try not getting the Russian “bum-ba-daaa” chants of Soda Popinski’s music in your head.

What’s neutral:
- The options for remote + nunchuk control and even wii balance board functionality were a nice touch, but not practical compared to the classic sideways remote use. Especially in later stages/challenges, this is not a game where minor timing/detection errors are okay, and players will simply not get the precision you need in using those. It could be fun for mindless 2-player action though.
- I had the same minor gripe with Mario Strikers Charged - someone should tell Next Level Games that you don’t need to use the pointer for navigating every menu. There’s a d-pad/analog control for a reason.
- Translations for the characters’ numeous lines of voice work would’ve been great. Finding out that Glass Joe says “My hands hurt; the gloves are on too tight” is priceless, but without looking it up, it’s lost to 99%+ of the players.
- The 2-player option, while a nice inclusion, is more akin to that of a party game than a serious multiplayer option. Being able to be something other than Little Mac/”Giga Mac” would’ve been wondrous, but as is, it’s more like complicated Mario Party fare.
- Although it’s supposed to be a timing-based game, with the harder opponents, everything comes down to pattern recognition. Those who just jump into it wanting a ‘fair’ fight may be bummed at this aspect; the fact is, often they’ll have opponents that have split-second dodges necessary with no tells, yet simultaneously have delayed ones that will hit you if you dodge immediately, again with no tells. It’s honestly a lot more fun before their visual/audio cues start disappearing from play. It does, however, make opponents like Great Tiger more fun to fight.

What’s bad:
- The difficulty level in the game is all over the place. Naturally, the start is incredibly easy, and it ramps up a bit, finally becoming difficult in the major circuit. Then Mr. Sandman comes along and is very, very challenging. Then the “Title Defense” mode opens up and you’re fighting everything again. While many reviews give the idea that Title Defense mode means you’ll be screaming for your mother, that’s not true. Although there are some new patterns to learn and attacks to dodge, few Title Defense fights are actually harder than or even on par with how difficult Mr. Sandman was. Some come with new quirks that make them tougher, such as Bald Bull needing a star punch to knock down, Glass Joe being immune to Jabs, or Bear Hugger needing a star punch to actually stun him for attacks... but the majority simply have a few new attacks and timings. As long as you learn the patterns, even the second-to-last Title Defense opponent is a cinch. It’s strange to have a game that’ll either give you no problem or utterly destroy you back and forth.
- Although the Exhibition Challenges are a nice, challenging timesink, some can be breezed through even in later stages, while others may seem like they’re too precise to be worth the effort. A more pressing situation is that if you don’t consider doing these challenges as fun, the game’s length may be a sincere disappointment. They can easily double or triple the main game’s length, which consists of 28 fights that could all be over within 3 minutes. Of course it’s not really -that- short since it takes a lot of practice, but when you break everything down, there’s not a ton of meat to the game overall.
- The “Last Stand” mode is kind of cruel. Not being able to restart is one thing, but not even being able to see which opponent you’ll get is just mean... that means you don’t even get a chance to re-practice their timings/patterns. And considering three losses means you’re done, and I very quickly got Mr. Sandman, followed by a special character not available during the normal mode, it’s not surprising that I was beaten pretty quickly. You can cheat through it, but what’s the point?

Next Level Games did fans a service here, and brought a great old gem back to life with the kind of presentation it deserves. Essentially, you’ve got a really great arcade game here with unlimited coins to play and a couple extras too. That said, whether a really great arcade game is with your $50 is another story.

I’ll make a comparison to the other Next Level Games Wii title I paid $50 for: In Mario Strikers Charged, it also has some brutal challenges and a gradually tougher main mode that’s over in a moderate amount of time. When it’s done though, you have both competitive and cooperative modes of play, tons of different game-options to set, as well as online play. Beyond that, your opponents won’t do the same thing every time you play against them, so there’s real lasting appeal. Multiplayer mode here is kind of silly, opponents always behave in set patterns, and there are no options to be toyed with during fights.

So really, the likelihood that you’ll dust this off for any other reason than to show it off to others seems pretty low. I can’t claim to know the solution to this conundrum, so I’ll just end by saying Punch Out!! is a pretty great game that will likely end abruptly for you. But I won’t soon forget moments like Von Kaiser going berserk, yelling and hurling himself at me... so that has to stand for something.

World of Goo (WiiWare)

World of Goo

2D Boy / Nintendo WiiWare

Review by Anthony

If you were to ask me to list out the games available for WiiWare off the top of my head, I’d say World of Goo, Megaman 9, and then all the rest of the stuff. You know, games that have “Fun”, “Party”, or “Action” in their title and describe a world where you can do exciting things like use the Wii remote to make things happen on the screen. Wow! But what my flippant joke is meant to illustrate is that for me, there just has not been much out there to grab my attention. I noted a lot of praise in the press for World of Goo, checked the videos, and decided to give it a download. Very, very glad I did.

World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle game that has you manipulating cute blobs of “goo” to form structures or manipulate the environment such that you can have a certain amount collected into a suction pipe at the end of the stage. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta goo it. Haha! I know. I played the game and wrote this review only so I could make that pun. Anyway, with different types of goo appearing with obstacles and environments changing, it ends up being a pretty impressive experience.

What’s goo:

- This is one pretty game. Environments in the game look stylish and full of life. Through great use of shading and color-blending, they’ve managed to create environments that look like what would happen if you modernized the look of a cartoon. The balls of goo, despite having tons present on the stage, look adorable, and the game manages to handle the presence of huge amounts of them at a time. Very impressive.

- The sound is also surprisingly great. First, the goo balls make adorable sounds as they’re placed, dropped, or thrown around the stage. Despite being a simple feature, they’re so cute that the sounds still stuck in our heads months later. The music was a big surprise too - despite that there are not a ton of songs overall, the music is awesome. There’s a battle theme-sounding song on a few stages that’s just gorgeous.

- Gameplay is very solid, and may create a few converts to the puzzle genre. Using the Wii remote (or mouse for computer players), various types of goo can be picked up and by placing them a certain distance from a base object or other goo structures, will be fused to expand on the structure. The general idea is that to finish the level, you’ll be typically making structures out of as little goo as possible so the remaining ones can be sucked into a pipe at the end. Collect enough and you can progress the level. Several types of goo will become available throughout the game though, from ones that can be detached once connected but are flimsier, to sturdy ones that make more connections, to invulnerable ones, to ones that will burn when exposed to fire. Trying to build whatever structure necessary while keeping your structure from collapsing, or your goos from going hara-kiri on you, is both tough and satisfying.

- Level design is a major highlight. Without spoiling too much, World of Goo will take your various goo challenges through a world of different challenges indeed. While the game has plenty of life with various takes on the “build a big structure to the end”, other levels manage to mix it up by taking your goo to the sky, into the sea, into a race for their lives, and battling the elements in other ways. They were extremely creative here, and it really helped make the game special.

- They added “OCD” challenges to add a little extra depth for completionists out there. You may find that several stages have you getting more than the necessary amount of goo to complete it, but you may not realize that it’s possible to get every single goo to safety. OCD challenges will have you racing against the clock, deftly planning your moves, and meticulously watching your goo in order to complete them. These add some extra depth to the levels throughout.

What’s neutral:

- If you happen to be pretty skilled at the game and have no interest in attempting to complete the “OCD” challenges on each level, you may find the game a bit short. Those are pretty big “if”s considering that few levels are particularly short as you both figure out and execute what’s needed to complete them. However, should you be abnormally good at this or always use a guide to figure out what to do, it’s entirely possible to breeze through the game in a few sittings.

- A turn-counter could’ve been useful on stages where the OCD challenge is to complete within a certain number of turns. It’s sometimes unclear what does and what doesn’t count as a turn.
- Despite that it marks the map each time you get an OCD through the game, there’s actually no specific reward for it in the end. In fact, they just take away your ability to OCD the last level. Aw!

What’s bad:

- The “timebug” system that exists for the sake of correcting your mistakes is a bit flawed. The idea is that when you make a move you immediately regret or would like to otherwise undo, you can touch a small floating timebug to go back in time one move. This doesn’t quite work as well in practice though, as while you may have just made one move that caused your mighty structure to collapse, using that timebug may just have you immediately relive the structure’s collapse, rather than going back to before the problem happened. In execution, it sometimes takes two or even three rapid-fire uses of finite timebugs to correct an error. Further, some odd things will happen upon usage, such as goo balls being used will inexplicably plummet down, or objects can readjust themselves and send objects flying. No doubt this was a difficult system to implement, but the issues are still quite apparent and occasionally quite frustrating.

The guys at 2D Boy had a vision here, and to pull it off so beautifully and creatively is quite a boon for them. World of Goo is pretty to look at, amusing to see, cool to listen to, and impressive to play through. To be able to say all of those things about a physics-based puzzle game is quite an achievement, and for that, I appreciate what they did and eagerly await their next effort.

If it sounds like it could be your type of game, then it probably already is. Just wait until you see some of the level designs in action.

Okami (Wii)

Okami

Clover Studio/Capcom

Review by Anthony

Remember the story of the group that made that critically acclaimed game and was immediately shut down after its release? ...Aw! Poor Clover Studios. They release the critically acclaimed Viewtiful Joe, make a few sequels that aren’t as well received, then blow a bunch of people away with Okami and are subsequently broken up. Tough industry, I suppose. But postmortem, out of the ashes came the much-desired Wii version of Okami, and here we are!

The truth of the matter is Okami is a pretty dang impressive game. Many people are correct in comparing its scope to Legend of Zelda games. You travel throughout a big world, helping people through sidequests, gradually getting stronger and tackling massive bosses. Many games have that general dynamic, but it’s the style and scope of the game that makes it feel like a different breed of action/adventure games. The Wii version captures this element just fine and gives it the wii-remote treatment to moderate success.

What’s good:
- The graphics are expectedly beautiful. Scenes where nature is restored are just glorious in seeing everything bloom and sprout all over. The thick-line drawing style gives the whole thing a feel as though you’re playing a work of art, which is a fact made that much clearer when you use the “Celestial Brush” to paint effects upon the world. It looks glorious and colorful, though admittedly it does not seem to push the Wii’s hardware.
- Celestial Brush techniques are an excellent feature and really give the game a very dynamic and fleshed out experience, especially when exploring dungeons and fighting bosses. Using vines to fly through the air, using bombs to blow walls open, slowing down time to pass through traps, it’s fun, and some enemies/bosses especially do a great job of allowing you to try different techniques to beat them.
- The + button allows you to not only skip scenes, but skip even the dialog from NPCs you’ve chosen to talk to up to the end or the point where you make a decision. This was a genius inclusion that helps stave off the annoyance when someone’s about to repeat something unnecessary to you for the fifth time.
- Between the Japanese sounding music and effects, over-the-top characters, encounters with celestial deities, your tiny guide with a Napoleonic complex, rich and varied environments... pretty much everything about the game has a style all to its own. It’s memorable and you really get the rare sense in playing it that you’ve never played anything quite like it before.
- Overall, this is a game with a good length main game and tons to do for completionists. Hidden treasure lies hidden all around, hungry animals can be fed throughout the world, you can go fishing in various areas, many NPCs have special side quests or events to complete, new techniques can be purchased for use in battle, hidden brush techniques can be found, and a new game+ option rounds that out should you prefer to start again. There’s plenty to do, and much of it is fun as well.

What’s neutral:
- It’s not all good news for the new Wii controls. While the Wii remote use can be perfect for quickly doing certain brush techniques, it can be a struggle in other areas. Though they give you the Z button for painting straight lines, you’ll learn before too long that you need to start your stroke early and then hold Z, otherwise you’ll often find the line going at the complete wrong angle. No such problem existed with button controls. Further, attacking is now done by shaking the remote, and while with decent timing this isn’t too hard to overcome, one may be disappointed to find that the glaive weapons are now fairly difficult to use. You’re supposed to raise the remote up to charge a glaive attack, then swing to attack, but naturally these motions can get convoluted for the remote to sense properly, and the result often leads to messed up combos. Mirror weapons work fine mostly, but many people will end up just sticking to bead weapons so they can waggle the remote to ensure they hit a combo properly.
- They were a little too generous at times in the game. Earning “praise” to upgrade yourself throughout the game is a good example. While it was cool to see the fruits of my labors in various sidequests leading to my being stronger, I was fully upgraded before the end despite that I hadn’t come close to completing all of the happiness-related events and quests. I wouldn’t have minded being a little less than fully powered considering I hadn’t found everything. Similarly, by the end I had an absolutely huge cache of items that I never needed to use. At best, some might have been helpful for bosses, but even then I was more interested in doing the fights as they were intended than trying to make them easier with the wealth of items.
- Not a concern for most, but parents might like to know that the game, despite the innocent nature and colorful aspects about it, can actually be a bit racy/vulgar at times. Between it requiring you to sneak up on a bathing woman, talking to a gradually disrobing goddess, working with an overly busty woman whose endowment is heavily animated, helping barely-clothed dancers, and finding abilities that allow you to, uh... “excrete” upon the enemy... there’s a fair bit of surprising content here. Honestly, given the whole Japanese mythology of it, it felt rather out of place.

What’s bad:
- Not everything in the game is necessarily fun. While a boss may have been a cool fight, you may change your tune once you’re fighting the exact same boss with the exact same patterns for the third time. I know Capcom likes to do the whole “fight all the bosses again” thing in their games, but it really got to be wearisome by the end. The boss fights would’ve actually been more memorable if you only had one epic fight against them. One quest that has you doing a long race with someone is kind of a pain, unless you spend a lot of time gradually blooming a bunch of evil trees that attack only you along the way. The digging quests, while interesting and well designed, just felt more like a chore overall.

While the whole package isn’t all sakura blossoms, this remains a successful port of a very impressive game. Tons of companies have tried to make action/adventure and action/platformer games over the years, but few have ever drawn comparisons to the behemoths of the genre like Legend of Zelda. But after a long time of going between worlds, learning new tricks, seamlessly painting through enemies in your path and fighting some fairly epic boss battles, you do get the idea that the game is something rare indeed.

Ambition went a long way here, as even if the less functional aspects of the game are considered, this will surely be a memorable game for its incredible style and unique gameplay.

Phantom Brave (PS2)

Phantom Brave
Nippon Ichi Software

Anthony: Even though we beat Phantom Brave a while ago, it feels more timely than ever to have a review of it now that a Wii remake is coming out. But I’m not a collection freak, so it’s unlikely I’ll pick that up anytime soon, if ever. I’ll say straight up, we tend to love Nippon Ichi games. Sure, they take formulae, rarely deviate from them, and barely make any attempt to utilize a game’s hardware. But the fact is, they put out addictive games with storylines and characters we generally love. And with so many games these days trying to be ultra-serious and out-badassing each other, I’d much rather see a story about our feeble heroine Marona, than some dude named “Zephyr” doing cartwheels off a gravity-bike, wearing an impossible costume and using a gun-hammer-sword-grenade that can manipulate the space-time continuum. High five, Square-Enix!

And it’s just with that analogy that I wish to heap some praise on Phantom Brave. It had one of the most enjoyable storylines I’ve seen in an RPG in recent times. It was at times sad, at times frustrating, at times happy, at times funny, and really had an excellent knack for bringing the story to its conclusion. While the gameplay wasn’t much to go nuts for, the music, story, and supporting cast made it a very memorable game.

What’s good:
- Oh right, I already said the story. Well as I said, the story is a definite strong point. No, it’s not full of crazy twists, and it won’t try to blow your mind with a million different scenes of characters being stabbed by traitors... but it’s very, very charming, and has many scenes that are well ingrained in my memory for all the right reasons.
- The music by Nippon Ichi’s resident composer Tenpei Sato is fantastic. In fact, it has some of my favorite work to date. The song “Earth’s Step” that plays in some jungle-themed levels is just awesome.
- The variety of things you can do with your characters throughout the game is well appreciated. As with many NIS games, you can take the most basic, cruddy characters in the game and make world-beaters out of them, or you can use them as stepping stones to make universe-beaters if you want. From fusing abilities from random objects onto characters, or stats and abilities onto weapons, to transferring beneficial stat-raising “titles” onto anything and everything... you can really spend a lot of time making your party into exactly what you want them to be.
- I rather liked the Dungeon Monk system of creating random dungeons for you to explore, and also liked it more than say, the Item World in Disgaea or the Dark World of La Pucelle. You get to have a pretty good say over the type of world you’ll see, meaning you can make a clear distinction of whether you’re going in to collect a certain monster, level up, gather mana, or whatever your purpose. I spent a lot of time doing this and had fun in the process.

What’s neutral:
- The grid-less tactical system they put forth got them both praise and revile. The truth is somewhere between the two. On the good side, it makes perfect sense.. why would you need to restrict character movement? Using this, you can carefully line up attacks to do hit-and-runs or slam a group of enemies with a well placed attack without going an inch too far. On the other hand, they pretty much did away with the idea of ranged vs. direct combat, as mages and melee fighters alike will have to get right up in enemies’ faces to do damage early on, until they all get strong enough abilities where they don’t need to be close at all.
- The Confine system got similar reactions, and again the reality is somewhere between the two. You can definitely use strategically timed Confining to keep your long-lasting characters doing work steadily and your short-lasting characters coming in for short bursts of serious damage. But having later monsters that can have as few as two turns, and a system that can favor weaponry over character stats, while fighting enemies that never have to Confine, it can feel like somewhat of a shaft at times.
- I found it strange that characters could hold items that instantly changed their stats, yet holding an item that increases HP still meant they had to be healed that amount at the start of a battle.

What’s bad:
- I hate to put on my reviewer hat here, but the graphics are fairly meh. I don’t like criticizing this aspect since I know it’s not the real focus of the game, but the “this could almost be done on PS1” nature of the graphics is often apparent. It’s not without personality or prettiness, and I certainly don’t need pointless 60-second CG cutscenes, but it’s pretty raw even as NIS games go.
- With all the decisions related to the confine system, no movement map, character development, attacks available, etc... the game has a surprising lack of strategy for what’s described as a strategy RPG. With the lack of varied attack ranges, and with tons of abilities in the game that focus on doing damage to different ranges and areas, the idea of using defensive maneuvers or strategic character placement is nil. Characters can readily climb over whoever and attack whomever at will, so aside from some strategic throwing of objects (making a high defense enemy carry a defense-lowering item perhaps), most battles just come down to finding the shortest route to utter mayhem on the enemy. Fire Emblem, this is not.
- The game shows you an active list of turn order for the next several characters that’s very helpful. However, it’s a bit flawed; because the tossing and picking up of items can alter the Speed stat (higher speed means turns come much faster), sometimes it can give you a very incorrect reading of the turn order. Granted, I’m sure this is complex to program, but it can make an enormous difference in victory or defeat. If I’m holding a godly weapon against stronger enemies and it says I have the next turn, but then suddenly switches to an enemy... well then the enemy steals the weapon and I lose the battle. That leads to a few curse-inducing situations.

That means in the end, Phantom Brave is the kind of game I want to recommend to everyone, but know I have to caveat that. Many folks will not like this game. Graphics are very simple, the storyline is a simple story (told very well, though), and the game barely qualifies as a strategy RPG. So my best question is, have you tried other NIS games? If you like their style of innocuous, silly games with extremely open-ended gameplay, I imagine this will be right up your alley. But if you see “Strategy” all over the box and think, “Oh hey cool, I like games like Fire Emblem”... yee. Be cautious.

Otherwise, sit back, enjoy the story, enjoy the music, and enjoy making your little sprites into whatever kind of demigods you decide to focus them into.

---

Lauren: I'll keep my thoughts on this one brief, since Anthony did a great job of summing up its pros and cons already. He played it while I observed, so I'll leave the gameplay comments to him.

I really can't compliment Nippon Ichi enough for the personality they put into their games. Their RPGs have been consistently cute, hilarious, and very well localized. Phantom Brave is much more innocent in nature than the diabolical characters of Disgaea and Makai Kingdom, but it has the sort of story and dialogue that just about anyone can enjoy. It's rare that we get emotionally involved in the plot of a game, but we really were glued to the screen during some scenes, hoping that something awful wouldn't happen to our poor main character. It's a beautiful little story, and the dialogue is sure to make you chuckle, at least.

The music deserves yet another special mention. It is truly an excellent score overall. Tenpei Sato is a wonderful composer, and he gave Phantom Brave a very unique feel. The voice actors did a fantastic job as well.

Here's hoping that they do a good job with porting the game over to the Wii. It was a fun and unique RPG experience that deserves to become more well-known.

Boom Blox (Wii)

Boom Blox
Electronic Arts

Review by Anthony

Okay EA, I’m confused. Steven Spielberg is a movie director, not a game designer. You make games, not movies. Further, you’re making a puzzle game, not a game with a storyline. Does Steven Spielberg love puzzle games? It’s just such a strange thing to do, to enlist a movie director, and then paste that fact prominently all over a puzzle game. Anyway, more to the point, Boom Blox was a game I had a quick experience with. And overall, I think it was better that way.

Here’s the thing. Boom Blox is occasionally a very fun game. Boom Blox is occasionally an average game. Boom Blox is also occasionally a really dumb game. In two dedicated sittings I was able to play through (and achieve gold medals in) almost the entirety of the game. And in that time, I went through a very diverse range of emotions depending on the type of level I was playing.

What’s good:
- When the game has you strategically blowing up, dismantling, setting off chain reactions, and causing mayhem to various elaborate structures, the game is a lot of fun. From simple things like annihilating a stack of blocks to finding the right throw needed to start a big chain reaction, the game manages to be both brain tease-y and visceral at the same time. Completing puzzle games of old didn’t mean you could see a 3-D representation of blocks exploding and flying everywhere, so it’s nice to see it take an admittedly more dull genre and make it look fun too.
- There’s a good bit of variety to the types of things you’ll do in levels. Some have you just annihilating everything in sight, others have you clearing a path for a character to cross, another may have you defending an area from an onslaught of enemies, others may have you strategically picking off blocks to leave a specific structure intact... etc. etc. There are enough different things going on that you don’t have to feel like you’re doing the same thing constantly.
- All levels have a bronze/silver/gold system for the completion of different goals, though bronze is necessary to complete a level. Between that aspect, two player modes, and two single player modes with different types of challenges, technically there’s a lot to do.
- They didn’t charge $50 for it. That’s appreciated, especially when there isn’t $50 worth of gameplay to be found.

What’s neutral:
- They added a lot of unlockable blox-style characters and items throughout that you can use for level creation. Well uh... cool I guess. Except this is the majority of things unlocked, and is there really that big of a population looking to do level creation and editing?

What’s bad:
- The controls are not particularly good at all. Sure, swinging the wiimote to hurl a bowling ball seems fun at first, until you’re having to do it constantly. Trying to get that mid-power throw is also kind of a pain, especially when you need to be very careful with your tosses. Further, you hold B on the wiimote and turn the wiimote to scroll around. That’s all well and good for normal stage navigation, but when you get to a fully 3-D level where you have a limited time to fight off guys surrounding you in all directions... having to hold B, turn, then release before attacking is a very poor design.
- Remember when I said the game can have you doing things that are a lot of fun? Well, it can also have you doing things that are not fun... or are say, the opposite of fun. When the game has you using the “Grab Tool” to play overly complex and highly sensitive games of Jenga, it’s challenging, but there’s virtually no fun to be had doing that. When it has you pointing and shooting a hundred+ bad guys, it’s mildly fun. When it has you whipping your arm to throw balls at a hundred+ bad guys, it’s horrendous. I’m sure they were all having a grand time in the test room, but didn’t someone bother to mention that these levels were not entertaining?
- Very strange and/or annoying mechanics happen during gameplay that, whether intentional or not, can significantly mar the experience. In a stage where you make a path by clearing enemies for a mother gorilla to get to her kids in a time limit, she can inexplicably get stuck in the tiniest of floor indents for several seconds, ruining your time. When you build a blockade to protect a tiny kitty from monsters, she’ll sometimes spin around from her destination path to destroy the blockade you just put up for her! When gently pulling point blocks out, if positive ones fall as a result, you lose those points, yet if you just tug them gently as they’re already plummeting to the ground, you earn the points? Gah.

So I mean, the game’s got personality and it has some excellent and smart moments. I thought stages such as those that had you trying to strategically place bomb blocks to collapse structures were great, and it was pretty cool seeing things in action when they have you throw a rubber ball into a house of coin blocks to create havoc. I’m throwing things, stuff’s exploding everywhere, and hey, I’m enjoying this game.

Then I’m playing some overly simplified “defend the fort" game by whipping my arm 150 times per attempt. Next I’m monotonously trying to pull out one block after another from a big structure. Now I’m trying to save things that apparently don’t want to be saved. Then in two sit-downs, I’ve done almost everything there is to do aside from level editing and co-op. Oy. Great production values simply won’t make me overlook stupid gameplay choices.

I guess it may require ‘multiplayer mayhem’ to get the real value out of this. Otherwise it’s a decent game with some very serious concerns that I hope have been worked through for the sequel. Buuut the chances of me getting the sequel anytime soon are of course slim.

Wario Land: Shake It! (Wii)

Wario Land: Shake It!
Good Feel / Nintendo

Review by Anthony

Seriously, why is this game so rarely talked about? I suppose like any game, it might just not be someone’s cup of tea, but rarely have I been so impressed with a 2-D platformer and had such a good time playing it. Wario Land: Shake It is a great game with fun gameplay, a great sense of humor, and plenty to do if you’re willing to do some challenges and treasure hunting.

The only thing I can think is that people may have had trouble justifying a $50 purchase if they made the mistake of doing the same for GC’s fun but disturbingly short Wario World. If so, I don’t blame you. And if you have no interest in taking on stage challenges or seeking out bonus levels, then I guess I’d steer you away unless you can get it cheaper. Otherwise, I have basically nothing but good to say here.

What’s good:
- Wario. Wario himself is good. He’s an ugly antihero who amusingly gets caught up in adventures based on his greed. All of his animations and sounds in the game really add a level of charm to the whole experience. We were often amused at his small grunts while climbing ladders, or his gymnast dismount after flipping from poles, among other things.
- The gameplay in general is very solid. Wario can tackle, butt stomp, grab, throw, shake, ground pound, go dashing and sliding at top speed, and get into some motion-based vehicles for level exploration. You can be bouncing between walls collecting coins one minute, grabbing enemies and shaking them for garlic the next, then climbing into rolling buckets that tilt with the wiimote. It’s fun.
- Oddly enough, the music is fantastic. Numerous tunes are incredibly catchy and I’d be hard pressed to say if there’s a bad one in the bunch.
- Graphics too, were high quality. Wario and the enemies were animated very well, and the levels especially had lush and richly drawn backgrounds. Even though it’s 2-D, they did a great job of giving the whole environment a more lifelike feel to it.
- The puzzles and challenges in the game are very well done. Often, we might have to replay a level a couple times before we finally figured out how to get a certain treasure or complete a certain challenge... other times I’d just be staring at a seemingly inaccessible area until it finally clicked how to get there. I love games that challenge you realistically. I’d love to struggle a little in figuring out what to do, but I don’t want to jump back and forth from a FAQ to the game just to get by.
- The level design is often brilliant. You may trek through an entire level normally, then when you get to the escape portion and find out they’ve set it up so if you keep your speed boost, you can escape in 30 seconds... only then does it click in how much work they put into the level design. Sometimes the escape portion of each level almost makes it another level in itself. Seeing it all come together is, at times, glorious.

What’s neutral:
- The difficulty level and game length on its own could be seen as both low and somewhat short. However, add in the completion of challenges, treasure collection, and additional maps, and you can effectively negate each of those concerns.
- I could have maybe done with one less “Subwarine” level. I didn’t think a forced-scrolling level fit in quite as well with the game, but who knows, you may enjoy it.

What’s bad:
- The treasure amusingly flies out of treasures bags all over the screen when shaken. It’s cute and all, but it means that often to make sure you’re getting enough money for the challenges, that you’re dragging the bags to areas that will keep the money from flying out of reach or to inaccessible points. Not even that bad of an issue; it just didn’t seem like a necessary inclusion.

That’s honestly all I can think to nitpick. In fact, the game even deserves bonus mention for including a very prevalent enemy in the game that literally cannot harm you in any way. He walks around, existing only for you to pound him, throw him at objects/other enemies, or generally abuse to your liking. Now that’s just awesome.

I think it’s clear that the folks at Nintendo realized they messed up with Wario World for GC. It was fun, but it was over absurdly fast with little to do. So, they stripped back the unnecessary 3D element (leave that to Mario, he’s got that cornered), added more levels and more challenges with more Warioness all around. As a result, they made a game that’s become probably my favorite 2-D platformer since Kirby Superstar.

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon (Wii)

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon
h.a.n.d./Square-Enix

Review by Anthony

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon was a great little game. But I’ll get to that. First I want to comment on a basic absurdity of Square-Enix’s pricing... why would they do us the favor of pricing this lovely little game $10 lower than the usual new Wii game, and in doing so give me about 40 hours of good playtime... then turn around and charge $10 more for their new DS releases, which contain among them, ~15 hour mediocre RPGs and several remakes of old games? I get that Square-Enix really likes money, but why be nice here and cruel with the platform where they’re putting out the most software for right now?

Anyway, although I rented the only stateside release, Chocobo’s Dungeon 2, back in the day, I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Now having done a few dungeon crawlers and liking more of what I saw in reviews/previews of this, I decided to eventually give this a shot. I’m glad I did. This is a well made game that managed to be fun, simple to play, and have enough variety in options that it always felt intriguing.

What’s good:
- The job system works great here. From trying out the ones I liked and later giving them all a shot, I’m impressed with how well they balanced the job system. Aside from specialized and/or bonus dungeons that require specific talents, I found that you can really stick to the kind of job you enjoy and succeed in the game with good strategy. I really enjoyed running around as a Thief, but I levelled many other jobs that were equally useful and fun.
- Unlike my neutral feeling towards Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates’ overly convoluted armor/weapon forging system, Chocobo’s Dungeon gets it exactly right. It’s easy to hone weapons/armor to be stronger, fuse new weapons/armor with your old ones to “upgrade” them, and add/remove special modifiers as needed. I love the aspect in games of getting stronger armor/weapons along the way and noticing the differences, and this game captured that well and just as simply as it needed to.
- The menu and inventory system works at blazing speed, and has got to be some sort of technical achievement. I can’t remember the last game I’ve seen that has a menu to pop up instantly, and with quick shortcuts in and out of skill/item menus, you feel like you can do or see anything you need to within a second. This was very appreciated, especially when managing inventory.
- Similarly, it controls well. Using the wii-mote alone, the D-pad moves you around, 2 attacks, 1 faces the nearest enemy, A brings up the menu, and A+1/A+2 bring up items or skills. That’s basically all you need to know, and it works perfectly well.
- The music is fantastic. If you’re a Final Fantasy fan, it’s full of beautifully remixed versions of Final Fantasy music from FF1 to FF11.. and later contains a jukebox to listen to them all and find out which game each is from. If you’re not a fan, then the music is either pretty or cool depending on the scenario.
- I enjoyed the story. No seriously. It’s a given that if you’re talking dungeon crawling RPGs, you’re not doing it for the storyline. Add in that you have a small, doe-eyed yellow bird as the hero and you expect it even less. That said, I was fairly engaged in the storyline, and enjoyed it better than much of the storyline tripe offered to me in other SE RPGs I’ve played lately. It’s still silly and twists are somewhat predictable, but they at least tried, and I commend them for that.

What’s neutral:


- The hometown is nice and colorful to navigate, but an option to quickly jump between important locations would be preferred. Trekking on foot to the church to uncurse items, a shop to buy/sell items, the forge to work on your armor/weapon, the warehouse to store items, the farm to check on your flowers, then back to whatever dungeon... there was really no reason to walk around all different parts of town to do those things.
- No volume controls of SFX/Music/Voice? I thought that was pretty standard these days with console RPGs, and unfortunately leads to the next bad point:

What’s bad:
- Upon unlocking a person’s memories and while descending to new floors of dungeons, you’re treated to the characters’ internal monologues as they remember their past. Unfortunately, they do this with an absolutely shrill tone to many of their voices that’s overly loud to the rest of the music/sound effects. It was bad enough that I’d have to turn down the volume when these happened, or warn my wife that the scenes were about to come because they’d be so startlingly unpleasant.
- When I got to the final boss, I used several items to buff myself up and approach him, only to do 0 damage and for him to do a mandatory 9999 damage so I’d get back up and beat him... except of course, I lost those buffs and the items it took to do them. Really, programmers, we’re still making this annoying mistake?

In the end, I got to play a tiny, cartoonish yellow bird as he put on costumes and kicked many mythical monsters into oblivion... and I loved every minute of it. Changing jobs and finding out what worked for different situations, levelling jobs up, and figuring out strategies on some of the trickier parts... I found it all quite fun. If a turn-based dungeon crawler starring a cutesy bird doesn’t sound appealing, then by all means, avoid. Otherwise, it’s an innocuous little game that I enjoyed significantly more than I expected to.

Wii Reviews Index

Nintendo Wii Reviews

Boom Blox (A)
De Blob (A)
Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon (A)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (A & L)
Okami (A)
Punch Out!! (A)
Spectrobes: Origins (A & L)
Wario Land: Shake It! (A)
World of Goo (A)

(*An A or an L denotes a review written by Anthony or Lauren, or both, respectively.)