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October 10th, 2007 by JSnake
Collecting Happy Points
Coincidentally, that brings us to our next topic. Every time Chibi wants to recharge, he must pay up a number of watts. Watts are also used to buy new items from Chibi's computer and a form of payment for the services of your other toy friends. However, in order to amass these watts, he must first collect happy points. He can then convert these happy points into watts. Fortunately, collecting happy points is incredibly easy. Each time Chibi grows a flower, or produces buds with his radio, he gains a surprisingly large amount of happy points. As I said before, players can also sell flowers for a huge amount of happy points (we're talking about 500 in one go-around), but they must be careful for while they will gain more happy points, their number of flowers will go down which subtracts from their progress to the most beautiful park in the world. The system works quite well, and it even offers a few chances for some strategical thinking.
Enemies
Also, remember those Smogglings I mentioned? They play a role in the gameplay, too. While Chibi-Robo DS is really much more relaxed than your average video game, there are still enemies to get rid off. Although the Smogglings don't pose much of a threat to Chibi himself, they are a large problem for the park. They will run around and do their evil dances which turn some of your flowers into black flowers. You see, black flowers whither at night, and you can probably guess that doesn't bode well for your park. Thankfully, the black flowers are not 'contagious' and will not 'infect' other flowers. The Smogglings are also pretty simple to take care of since all you must do is spray them with your squirt gun and--POOF, they're gone. There are however, a few different breeds of Smogglings but they are all, disappointingly, taken care of in the exact same manner.
and Friends
Fortunately for Chibi, the whole world is not against him. On his quest, he will befriend several toys who will help him maintain the park. They can turn sand into soil, fix broken structures, construct tiled roads, and do a bevy of other useful things. They all differ, too. Some toys get a job done faster, but also run out of juice faster (after which, they must be recharged). Others are the opposite in that they're slow workers, but are very reliable. An annoying game design choice is that every time a toy runs out of juice, Chibi must travel a relatively long distance in order to charge them up... Only to have them break down again after two or three jobs. I suppose this is why the developers allowed you to have three toys at a time under your command, but it's still annoying having to keep searching for the toys and charging them up.
Game controls
On another subject, a few of the control choices get some getting used to. See, players move Chibi around with the D-Pad, but perform all his actions with the stylus. From plugging him in, to dancing with his radio, it all requires the stylus. Where this gets annoying though is constantly switching between stylus control and D-Pad control. It also cramps your hand after a while.
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Graphics
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9 |
How hooked?
8
(not an average)
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Sound
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9 |
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Interface
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8 |
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Replay
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7 |
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Gameplay
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8 |
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Stability
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9 |
Total votes: 8 - give us yours!
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Developer:
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Skip Ltd. |
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Publisher:
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Nintendo |
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Release:
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October 2nd, 2007 |
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Genre:
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Action Adventure |
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Chibi-Robo DS is not going to appeal to everyone, but if you're looking for a cute game that's incredibly relaxing and addictive, Chibi-Robo DS is a must-have. |
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