  After playing Chibi-Robo, I have a newfound respect for robots and hard-boiled eggs. |
Chibi-Robo, the latest offering from Nintendo, developed by Skip Ltd., is one of those games that is easy enough to describe, but very difficult to really get a grasp on unless you actually grab a controller and play it with your own two hands.
The best way to describe it is a mish-mash of several games and television shows, from Katamari Damacy and Pikmin to Inspector Gadget and The Young and the Restless.
Confused? Bewildered? Try playing it!
In the game, you star as Chibi-Robo, a tiny little robot that is bought by a certain Mr. Sanderson for his daughter Jenny on her birthday. Really, though, Mr. Sanderson wants the cute little guy for himself and uses his daughter's birthday as an excuse to buy Chibi-Robo. This brings the wrath of Mrs. Sanderson, who can't believe her husband would buy such an extravagant gift despite the fact he's out of a job and their bills are piling up.
As you can see, the Sanderson's are a fully-dysfunctional family, and as you progress through the game, you see things falling apart first-hand. It's up to you to basically traverse the house and make the family and every character you meet - as your sidekick Telly Vision loves to put it - happy, happy, happy! There is always something to do in the game, whether it's simply cleaning dogprints off the floor with your trusty toothbrush to finding ways to get to the top floor of the house - something not easy to do when you're a robot that only stands a few inches tall.
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Herein lies the glaring problem with an otherwise engaging game. Almost the entire game is played from a third-person perspective and though you can use the C-stick to move the camera 360 degrees, you'll find that sometimes when you're right beside a wall, ready to make a treacherous jump, the camera will go crazy and zoom in on the wall or on the back of Chibi's head, and there's no way to adjust it. The saving grace is the ability to jump into a first-person camera mode by hitting the Y-button. It's limited since you can't actually move Chibi when in this mode, but at least it allows you to better take in your surroundings, and an added zoom function lets you search for things that may be actually more difficult to find from close-up.
It makes sense to use a third-person perspective since it really gives you a chance to get a feel for the world from Chibi's point of view. Even though you spend the majority of the game inside the Sanderson's three storey house, there's a lot to do and as you gain items and powers, you'll find new hideouts and little nooks and crannys to get to places you couldn't before.
The controls are another cause for concern. For instance, most actions can be initiated using the A-button. Get close to something important, and a "!" icon will pop up and you hit A to climb, open, push, etc. But you also have a plug running directly from Chibi's back that you need to pick up and plug into a wall socket when he's running out of power. To pick up the plug, you also have to hit A. I found that a lot of the time, I would want to initiate an action, but instead would constantly be picking up my plug, or vice versa.
The other big problem with the game is how text-heavy it is. Not only is there a lot of text from the nearly neverending stream of (very interesting!) characters, but there's no way to skip through it or fast-forward past it. You'll be doing a lot of battery recharging, especially earlier on when you only have a small battery pack, and you'll have to put up with the same speech from your friend Telly every single time you power up. It gets quite annoying after you've been seeing it for 10+ hours.
Now, despite all these negatives, there really is still a lot to like about Chibi-Robo. It's a very open-ended game, though at first it doesn't seem like it. As you progress deeper into the game, you won't be running around finishing a single objective, then another, then another. There is a constant stream of new objectives you'll find, several times almost by accident. It's up to you to choose which one you want to get through and when.
As mentioned earlier, you'll earn several powerups and helpful gadgets throughout the course of the game to help you get to different sections of the house - everything from a Chibi-Copter to help you make safe landings from high sections to a Chibi-Radar, which helps you find hidden items and areas. In addition, it seems that you meet a new character almost every day, and each one of these characters needs Chibi's help to make them happy, happy, happy!
These characters are for the most part absolutely hilarious. You'll meet everything from a squad of hard-boiled army eggs, to a funk-lovin' purple potted plant, to a laugh-out-loud-inducing hero called Space Hunter Drake Redcrest, who enforces justice everywhere he goes and who catches the eye of almost every female in the house. They all help carry the story along superbly and are one of the main reasons to continue playing the game.
Another reason you'll find yourself wanting to progress through the game is simply to find out what happens next. As day turns to night (it works on the same kind of day-night cycle as the Pikmin games do for the GameCube), all the toys in the house come alive and you'll find something you have to accomplish during the day. Then, during the day you'll find something that tells you to go to, for instance, the living room when everyone is asleep. Many times I'd find myself just about ready to pack things in, only to say 'okay, just one more day, then I'll save and end.' It may be frustrating to have the seconds of the day or night click down just as you're about to accomplish something big, but damned if it doesn't get you playing over and over again.
Bottom line here: had the developers spent a little more time fixing the control and camera issues and making it in general more user-friendly, Chibi-Robo would go from being above-average to being great. As it is, it's still an original, fairly addictive title that has enough going for it to leave gamers satisfied.
And if Chibi-Robo doesn't do the trick for you, trying cleaning your entire home with a toothbrush. That would definitely make me happy, happy, happy.
WHAM! Rating: |
7.6 out of 10 |
ESRB Rating: |
E 10+ (Everyone 10+) |
Official Web Site: |
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