Review
Spectrobes (DSN)
Seventy-nine pages. The instruction booklet for Spectrobes is seventy-nine pages long. That, combined with the Precautions booklet, Wi-Fi guide, and collectable cards cause the game's box to swell. It was bulging when I got it, held together by a sticker on the case's edge. Right off the bat, I knew that Spectrobes should be something special.
I brushed that seventy-nine-page booklet aside and jumped right into the game. I figured that the online miniseries had taught me the story, and anything else I need would be introduced as needed. Big mistake. When you get into it, Spectrobes feels like a complicated game -- and no, I don't mean that in a good way.
Spectrobes are monsters that you awaken from fossils and grow until they're battle-ready. They're also the only means to defeat the Krawl, creatures from another region of space bent on invading your planetary system. With the assistance of Aldous, a traveller and Spectrobes expert from another star system, and the Spectrobes themselves, the young Rallen and his assistant Jeena must do what they can to prevent this catastrophe.
Rallen and his two primary battle Spectrobes take on the Krawl by entering their black vortexes that swirl around the main map. Once inside, a real-time battle takes place where one Spectrobe is controlled by the L-button, the other with R, and Rallen with the face buttons. A Spectrobe will basically attack a Krawl if it's within striking distance when the shoulder button is pressed. While Rallen's usefulness in a fight is more or less on par with Gilligan's, the Spectrobes can be really effective, depending on their type. All Spectrobes and Krawl fall into the categories of Corona, Aurora, or Flash types that share a one-upping relationship akin to rock-paper-scissors. It's unusual at first, but it should be familiar for RPG veterans, and newcomers should quickly learn the nuances to this particular set-up. Spectrobes' premise is a simple one: build a team, defeat the Krawl, and save the universe.
But who would have thought that this otherwise simple task would prove daunting thanks to an overly-complicated, hard-to-navigate menu system?
So much of the early exploration of the Spectrobes experience takes place in menus nested in other menus nested themselves in even more menus. The touch screen is supposed to make menu navigation a synch, but Disney and developer Jupiter went in the opposite direction. The menus, which basically control everything in the game except for battling, excavation, and movement, are horrendous. They're slow to navigate, cluttered, confusing, and all their functions are segregated; it's hard to get a sense of what everything is supposed to do.
Take, for example, the Lab System. From this terminal on your spaceship, you can access a rotating menu system where you can line-up your team, awaken fossils, feed and evolve Spectrobes, and access a library of data. If you awaken a Spectrobe, it moves into the system's server, which can only be accessed through the library's sub-menu. But once in the server, you can't just send your new monster to the incubator, customize it, or add it to your team. In fact, the server's only function is to list which monsters you have available. Similarly, the Custom Parts Server, also hidden within the library sub-menu, doesn't allow you to equip parts that alter a Spectrobe's appearance and attributes -- it only lists the parts you have available.
Once you start into the adventure, you're given two adult-level monsters with which to battle. A third child-level Spectrobe is used to detect items in the ground that can be excavated like fossils and minerals, items that are used to level up a Spectrobe through incubation. Excavation, battling, and collecting altogether present Spectrobes' greatest assets. Battling offers a more aggressive style of play, excavation presents a more adventurous and passive style of play, and for the completists out there, Spectrobes has decent number of monsters to find and collect. Some of those monsters can only be obtained through Wi-Fi events.
The game's story and how it plays out is another plus. While a bit more linear than a lot of similar RPGs, the Spectrobes universe is an imaginative one, pulled together by various planets and characters. Each planet is very distinct from the others in terms of appearance, music, and what's found on the surface. The areas are vast exploration grounds, all pushed in decent 3D across both screens. Unfortunately, the battle scenes are a visual weakness from the rest of the game. It's too bad the rich detail given to the Spectrobes and the Krawl is lost in the actual gameplay.
Unlike the vast majority of full-fledged adventure games, where Spectrobes is at its most ambitious is in the attempt to take advantage of every DS feature. The touch screen is used extensively; there's trading card interaction; the playing field spans both screens; the microphone is used to awaken Spectrobe fossils; the game can handle 16-player local wireless battle tournaments; you can download extras via Wi-Fi, as well as keep track of your stats through Spectrobes.com... there's a lot there. One of the game's biggest weaknesses, and what was a let down for me, was that these elements didn't retain their freshness for very long. The idea of excavating your own fossils is an interesting one, but the repetitiveness and the time consuming nature of stopping Rallen, scanning, and digging up fossils really slowed down the game's pace and excitement. Similarly, yelling, "Wake up Spectrooooooobe!" in the (menu-ridden) awakening system was only interesting the first time.
After a short while, I stopped collecting Spectrobe fossils altogether, though I might have continued had I felt a stronger connection to the ancient monsters. For some reason, possibly because there are only three types, I felt no need to find better or unique creatures beyond the two with which I started. As much as I've avoided the P-word until now, Pokémon succeeded by striking an amazing balance between battle types, aesthetic charm, move sets, and rare creatures. It had me seeking out an electric monster stronger than Pikachu, levelling up and feeding performance enhancers to my defensively weak Dugtrio because I really liked it, and seeking out traders because I wanted Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Flareon. I actually wanted to "catch 'em all." Sadly, Disney never created that kind of magic with the Spectrobes.
I brushed that seventy-nine-page booklet aside and jumped right into the game. I figured that the online miniseries had taught me the story, and anything else I need would be introduced as needed. Big mistake. When you get into it, Spectrobes feels like a complicated game -- and no, I don't mean that in a good way.
Spectrobes are monsters that you awaken from fossils and grow until they're battle-ready. They're also the only means to defeat the Krawl, creatures from another region of space bent on invading your planetary system. With the assistance of Aldous, a traveller and Spectrobes expert from another star system, and the Spectrobes themselves, the young Rallen and his assistant Jeena must do what they can to prevent this catastrophe.
Rallen and his two primary battle Spectrobes take on the Krawl by entering their black vortexes that swirl around the main map. Once inside, a real-time battle takes place where one Spectrobe is controlled by the L-button, the other with R, and Rallen with the face buttons. A Spectrobe will basically attack a Krawl if it's within striking distance when the shoulder button is pressed. While Rallen's usefulness in a fight is more or less on par with Gilligan's, the Spectrobes can be really effective, depending on their type. All Spectrobes and Krawl fall into the categories of Corona, Aurora, or Flash types that share a one-upping relationship akin to rock-paper-scissors. It's unusual at first, but it should be familiar for RPG veterans, and newcomers should quickly learn the nuances to this particular set-up. Spectrobes' premise is a simple one: build a team, defeat the Krawl, and save the universe.
But who would have thought that this otherwise simple task would prove daunting thanks to an overly-complicated, hard-to-navigate menu system?
So much of the early exploration of the Spectrobes experience takes place in menus nested in other menus nested themselves in even more menus. The touch screen is supposed to make menu navigation a synch, but Disney and developer Jupiter went in the opposite direction. The menus, which basically control everything in the game except for battling, excavation, and movement, are horrendous. They're slow to navigate, cluttered, confusing, and all their functions are segregated; it's hard to get a sense of what everything is supposed to do.
Take, for example, the Lab System. From this terminal on your spaceship, you can access a rotating menu system where you can line-up your team, awaken fossils, feed and evolve Spectrobes, and access a library of data. If you awaken a Spectrobe, it moves into the system's server, which can only be accessed through the library's sub-menu. But once in the server, you can't just send your new monster to the incubator, customize it, or add it to your team. In fact, the server's only function is to list which monsters you have available. Similarly, the Custom Parts Server, also hidden within the library sub-menu, doesn't allow you to equip parts that alter a Spectrobe's appearance and attributes -- it only lists the parts you have available.
Once you start into the adventure, you're given two adult-level monsters with which to battle. A third child-level Spectrobe is used to detect items in the ground that can be excavated like fossils and minerals, items that are used to level up a Spectrobe through incubation. Excavation, battling, and collecting altogether present Spectrobes' greatest assets. Battling offers a more aggressive style of play, excavation presents a more adventurous and passive style of play, and for the completists out there, Spectrobes has decent number of monsters to find and collect. Some of those monsters can only be obtained through Wi-Fi events.
The game's story and how it plays out is another plus. While a bit more linear than a lot of similar RPGs, the Spectrobes universe is an imaginative one, pulled together by various planets and characters. Each planet is very distinct from the others in terms of appearance, music, and what's found on the surface. The areas are vast exploration grounds, all pushed in decent 3D across both screens. Unfortunately, the battle scenes are a visual weakness from the rest of the game. It's too bad the rich detail given to the Spectrobes and the Krawl is lost in the actual gameplay.
Unlike the vast majority of full-fledged adventure games, where Spectrobes is at its most ambitious is in the attempt to take advantage of every DS feature. The touch screen is used extensively; there's trading card interaction; the playing field spans both screens; the microphone is used to awaken Spectrobe fossils; the game can handle 16-player local wireless battle tournaments; you can download extras via Wi-Fi, as well as keep track of your stats through Spectrobes.com... there's a lot there. One of the game's biggest weaknesses, and what was a let down for me, was that these elements didn't retain their freshness for very long. The idea of excavating your own fossils is an interesting one, but the repetitiveness and the time consuming nature of stopping Rallen, scanning, and digging up fossils really slowed down the game's pace and excitement. Similarly, yelling, "Wake up Spectrooooooobe!" in the (menu-ridden) awakening system was only interesting the first time.
After a short while, I stopped collecting Spectrobe fossils altogether, though I might have continued had I felt a stronger connection to the ancient monsters. For some reason, possibly because there are only three types, I felt no need to find better or unique creatures beyond the two with which I started. As much as I've avoided the P-word until now, Pokémon succeeded by striking an amazing balance between battle types, aesthetic charm, move sets, and rare creatures. It had me seeking out an electric monster stronger than Pikachu, levelling up and feeding performance enhancers to my defensively weak Dugtrio because I really liked it, and seeking out traders because I wanted Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Flareon. I actually wanted to "catch 'em all." Sadly, Disney never created that kind of magic with the Spectrobes.
Closing Comments
Freshman mistakes mark the title's
otherwise promising ideas.
Spectrobes is a very hit-and-miss experience. The story, setting, art direction, and both human and Krawl characters are top notch, and its innovative ideas try to use the DS' capabilities to their fullest potential. At the same time, the extensive menu system is a navigational disaster, the Spectrobes, while detailed and unique, aren't particularly interesting, and the game's innovations aren't fresh beyond their introduction. You know there's a problem somewhere when in this day and age, every detail about how a game works has to be packed into the instruction booklet. The Spectrobes universe could successfully be fleshed out in other media and make for a great sequel if everything were tightened up, but this first trip through space just falls too short for comfort in the execution department.
