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Platform: Nintendo
DS Review by: Matt Gardner
It’s really about time I had the pleasure of
playing a DS game that wasn’t made unbearably annoying by heavy
reliance on the touch screen. Yeah, it’s totally
neat that I can touch the screen and stuff actually happens on the
screen! I got it! No,
really, I understand. This game actually barely
relies on the touch screen at all. The only time
you will need to poke around with your stylus is if you want to draw
pictures on the big canvas in the slime throne room.
The game does still makes use of both screens,
though. The menu, which contains the map of the
area you are in and lists the items and such you have collected, is
displayed there. You can switch at any time
between controlling the action of the game, on the bottom screen, to
navigating the menu on the top screen. Easy
stuff. During tank battles, the two tanks are
seen in their full glory on the top screen while you roam around in
them on the bottom screen.
That reminds me: There are tank battles in this
game! In addition to regular boss battles and
the normal battles of the game, in which you fight enemies by
stretching your slime across the screen and letting go to send him
blasting into your foes (done by holding down on and letting go of a
button, not stylus fondling! Wooo!), you sometimes fight enemy tanks
with your own tank. While inside the tank, you
throw all kinds of objects at your opponents, from pompoms to swords
to mirrors to empty boxes to your own crew members.
Speaking of crew members, you can get them to
help you out in your tanks. A bunch of slimes
from the town will help you, and you can also recruit all of the
normal enemies you encounter throughout the game.
Each has different abilities. Some steal
ammo from your enemy, some fire ammo, some attack your enemies or
try to sabotage the enemy tank, and some even jump in the cannons
and fire themselves at the enemy. It’s a blast!
Get it? Cause of the cannons!
They blast things out of them!
There are so many puns and references in this
game it will almost make your head explode.
Pretty much every slimes name is some kind of slimification of
another name. For example, there is a cyborg
slime named Roboglop, a ninja slime named Goosashi,
and a slime abbot named Flabbot Flancisco.
As far as references go, there is another ninja slime that
uses ninja turtle-esque catch phrases like cowabunga, and at one
point says “Heroes in a half-gel, slime power!”
There is another slime named the Crystal Chronicler, a reference to
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. Definitely
one of the best references is with the main baddie of the game, the
Plobfather Don Clawleone. Suffice it to say, if
you don’t like corny puns or references galore, you probably should
stay away from this game.
On the other hand, if you are looking a game
where mostly all that you do is bounce around as a slime, bouncing
into everything you possibly can in order to solve puzzles and
defeat bosses, you should…stay near from this game….
The game is very short, about 10-20 hours depending on the
sidequests you do, so it also would be a good choice for people who
don’t enjoy spending tons of time on portable gaming.
Definitely very easy to pick up and play whenever.
You can’t possibly get lost as to what to do, since there are
slimes all over who are more than happy to refresh your memory.
Right on the area select menu, in fact, is always someone
telling you what to do next.
In the end, though, the best part of this game is
still the fact that it doesn’t make me do ridiculous amounts of
annoying and generally non-fun things just to make use of all of the
possible aspects of the DS.
-- Matt Gardner {02-2007} Rate this article — |
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Past Reviews by Matt Gardner:
.hack//G.U. Vol. 1:
Rebirth (PS2) |
