N-Philes :: REVIEW: The Munchables

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REVIEW: The Munchables

Posted July 3rd 2009 by Adam Glasgow.

Did you ever see that episode of the Powerpuff Girls where giant mutant vegetables try to take over the world, so to avoid a lifetime of leafy green servitude the people of Earth unite and eat their would-be rulers? Oh, you didn't see that one? Well The Munchables is sorta like that, only weirder. If that's even possible.

You play as a hungry floating-head creature thing (male or female, you pick! Who says girls don't play games!?) who is forced to eat his enemies to get himself (I played as the boy because I am a boy, which makes sense because girls don't play games) and his friends out of a tomfoolery-filled predicament. The more you eat, the bigger you get, which enables you to eat larger enemies and gain access to areas you weren't able to reach before. You also have an attack that breaks down big enemies into smaller ones, making bad guys that are a little too large to devour defeatable with a little work. The set up is fairly simple - make your way through each level and defeat the bosses at the end of them.

It's easy to compare Munchables to Katamari Damacy. It's a colorful, cute game with a wacky sense of humor where the goal is to grow larger through some repetitive action. It's also easy to spot the similarities with Pac-Man, seeing as that the main character of both games is not much more than a floating head that goes around eating things. Both of these comparisons are well deserved, although what this game reminded me of, more than anything, was the GameCube game Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest, a forgotten favorite of mine where you play a box shaped creature who wanders around and devours other creatures to grow in strength.

Making an aggregate of all those games seems like a sure fire plan to creating something really fun. The Munchables is fun, albeit somewhat less so than you might think. There isn't much challenge to it, which would be okay, but the gimmick of growing larger and exploring isn't nearly as satisfying as it is in Katamari Damacy, probably due to a combination of the fixed camera angle and relatively forgettable level designs.

One thing the game does have going for it is the thinly veiled poop jokes. Upon completing a level your character bends over and pushes out what looks to be those plastic capsules that cheap vending machine toys come inside of. Even worse, your mentor is covered in these anal projectiles as they fly from your rear-end. Even worse, the more he's covered, the more thrilled he seems to be. Notably less strange, probably due to the fact that it doesn't feel like a gateway into poopy sexual fetishism, are the magical orbs you recover when you beat a level. They look like, you guessed it, big steamy piles of crazy colored dookie. I can only imagine how they got away with an "E" rating.

ESRB: Your game is cute and, for the most part, pretty family appropriate. But we do have a few questions.

NAMCO BANDAI: Sure, shoot.

ESRB: Well it seems like the your character is defecating on his elder Munchable, who only seems truly satisfied when he's completely covered in your, err, bodily waste.

NAMCO BANDAI: What an imagination you have! I swear you ESRB people have some of the dirtiest minds on the planet! Those are prizes! Or something! And they come out of his invisible upside down backpack, which is why he turns around to release them. And of course that kooky old Munchable likes it, he loves prizes! He's kooky!

ESRB: Okay, well... what about those orb things that yo-

NAMCO BANDAI: Ice cream! Those are shaped like servings of delicious soft-serve ice cream! Now come on, who doesn't like ice cream?

ESRB: Well, I do like ice cream...

NAMCO BANDAI: It's settled then! The game is rated "E" for "Everyone" and we're all going out for ice cream!

*ice cream party*

That sounds about right. Anyway, the game has just over a dozen levels to work your way through, which will take you about four or five hours of easy play. Luckily there are accessories your character can collect and wear in game (just another example of why The Munchables has earned so many Katamari comparisons) and a level scoring system, both of which add some amount of replayability. It would be nice if the rewards for going back and replaying were a little more rewarding, but I think the biggest problem for me was that the game just wasn't fun enough to warrant going back to perfect levels and hunt down accessories.

So far I've been pretty so-so about the game, but it really does do some things right. The music is varied and great; each level will have you munching to a radically different tune, and after a while it'll be hard to pick just one that's a favorite. The visual style is also fantastic. It's colorful, quirky, goofy, and fun to look at. I especially love the character designs for the evil vegetable people.

Final Thoughts

The Munchables is a fun concept wrapped in a good looking, great sounding, moderately entertaining game. The $30 price point is tempting, but it would still be hard for me to recommend it as anything more than a rental, and even then only to a certain, niche crowd. You know who you are, because you're probably friends with me. As for my copy, I'll pass it on to one of my younger siblings. They'll probably get a kick out of it. I'll keep the sweet sticker it came with, though.