Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Chibi Robo - The Diary
Nick and I have been waiting for this day for quite some time. For those who are unaware, today marks the release of the first game in the Gamecube's fabled Final Three. It's an odd trifecta featuring a house cleaning adventure game, a pinball strategy title and the latest Zelda. How did it turn out? I tried my best to rip off Bill Simmons by keeping a running diary of the event, but two things held me back: first of all, Nick doesn't have a wireless keyboard so it was difficult to both watch the game being played and type at the same time. Also Nick wasn't into the idea at all, so it was up to me. Finally the game is kind of boring so I only kept a diary for the first 20 minutes. At least I didn't ruin all the secrets for those who still want to play it, right? Anyway, on to my thoughts as they popped into my head.
Nick and I are trying an experiment where we have a running diary while we play out a new game. So, you get to live the experience of Chibi Robo with us!
Ok, so the game starts out with a horrible cut scene. I thought at first they were speaking Japanese and it just wasn't translated, but I think this is just gibberish. The dog just barked and made a sound like "Hamuru!" That just isn't right. Oh and there's some sort of frog hat on this little girl. I think the Japanese hate us. Nick thinks the language is not as enjoyable as Animalese (that Charlie Brown's parents crap in Animal Crossing), I think it's only slightly better than testicle surgery.
Apparently "Shink" means "RoooBoooo" This could be a long day.
Finally, Chibi is on screen. Nick "Great introduction." I'm not nearly as excited. He emerges from this crock pot thing like an alien. I mean, it could be kind of cool... but I would have rather watched a female robot give birth to it.
Apparently you drag a little cord behind you at all times. Kind of cute actually. He can pick it up over his head too for God knows what reason. It's like picking up our foot or something. I've never been a big fan of watching things carry their own body parts. Disturbing.
Nick just zoomed in on the wife's rectangular boobies. Where's Team Ninja when you need them?
You know, I wish we had a Chibi Robo. Couldn't the developers have spent their time making a real tiny robot for me, to clean up my mess, instead of making an average game on a dying system? Would anyone have been against this?
Your first task as robo slave is to give a flower to the slow child with a frog hat. I don't think real slavery was quite so cute. I wonder if he gets lynched if he brings the wrong flower.
Sure sign this is a Nintendo game: We just got 20 Happy Points.
The game looks so entertaining, Nick and I have started to debate if the flower delivery counts as a real turn or not. I lost so I'm still writing this god forsaken diary.
(I took quite a shift here, didn't I? I don't really remember being particularly entertained at any point. I think this was my desperate plea to stop writing this diary before I made another slave joke.)
With those Happy Points our ranking of all the Chibi Robos has gone from 1 million to 775,727. What did the robots we passed do wrong? We passed 224,263 robots by delivering a flower? Man, we have some incompetent competition.
"He had a little too much fun at the party, I think he passed out from excitement." Nintendo doesn't want their gamers to know about sex or alcohol apparently. There's a terrifying dog/worm on screen. That's right, we don't know if it's a dog or a worm. I can't wait for next gen to finally arrive.
Ugh... who would have thought a robot cleaning sim would have so much story? I just want to start cleaning damnit!
If you're wondering how slow this game starts, Nick just picked up some garbage and exclaimed "Ooo! Waste paper!"
We just picked up a toothbrush. Now we can clean more stains! I can't believe we're playing this. Can't we just clean Katamari style?
First I mistook Chibi's house for a crock pot and now I thought it was the garbage. Robots may not actually be alive, but Chibi definitely has a sad life.
"I should have married you instead of that slob" The wife, in a moment of weakness, confides to Chibi. I don't want to say this blocky chested woman is easy, but all Chibi did was throw an old cookie into the fish tank.
And that's it for the diary.
After that less than glowing take the game went seriously downhill. The "joy" we found in collecting pieces of trash in the beginning soon vanished as we realized just how boring it truly was. And the story! What I wouldn't give for a story-less version of this game. The cut scenes are static and long. Text flows slowly across the screen - sometimes funny but normally anything but - while the piercing cry of the creature burns nearby ear drums. Just a horrible experience all around. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to force dialogs only to have the experience punish the player for having their hearing firmly intact.
While Nick and I only played about three hours I can say with all certainty that this is a bust. Not a horrible game, but certainly not one worth playing. For comparison, the main adventure mode of Graffiti Kingdom was infinitely better than this. I put in more than 20 hours simply collecting all the animals and playing around with my hand drawn picture. Chibi offers worse gameplay and nothing that really separates it from the pack. Yes, the setting is different than anything else out there, but the gameplay is stale and tired.
To top it off, just when we were wrapping up the game for the night, Nick spent all our hard earned cash on a car. We figured we would, you know, actually be able to drive it around. Maybe you can later in the game, but we weren't able to at that point. A disappointing way to end an underachieving experience.
I still want Chibi to appear in Smash Bros. Revolution, if only to finally kick his ass.
One more thing before I let you go - the game starts out with a five minute time limit. This is a horrible idea. Just when you figure out where to go next the time of day shifts (between day and night) and you're forced back to your Chibi home. Eventually I figured out you can purchase more time that bumps a session up to 15 minutes. Still annoying but not quite as much. It was like playing the original Pikmin again, minus the fun.
You know, after reading through this diary again, I actually like it. If people like it I may give it a shot again.
Nick and I are trying an experiment where we have a running diary while we play out a new game. So, you get to live the experience of Chibi Robo with us!
Ok, so the game starts out with a horrible cut scene. I thought at first they were speaking Japanese and it just wasn't translated, but I think this is just gibberish. The dog just barked and made a sound like "Hamuru!" That just isn't right. Oh and there's some sort of frog hat on this little girl. I think the Japanese hate us. Nick thinks the language is not as enjoyable as Animalese (that Charlie Brown's parents crap in Animal Crossing), I think it's only slightly better than testicle surgery.
Apparently "Shink" means "RoooBoooo" This could be a long day.
Finally, Chibi is on screen. Nick "Great introduction." I'm not nearly as excited. He emerges from this crock pot thing like an alien. I mean, it could be kind of cool... but I would have rather watched a female robot give birth to it.
Apparently you drag a little cord behind you at all times. Kind of cute actually. He can pick it up over his head too for God knows what reason. It's like picking up our foot or something. I've never been a big fan of watching things carry their own body parts. Disturbing.
Nick just zoomed in on the wife's rectangular boobies. Where's Team Ninja when you need them?
You know, I wish we had a Chibi Robo. Couldn't the developers have spent their time making a real tiny robot for me, to clean up my mess, instead of making an average game on a dying system? Would anyone have been against this?
Your first task as robo slave is to give a flower to the slow child with a frog hat. I don't think real slavery was quite so cute. I wonder if he gets lynched if he brings the wrong flower.
Sure sign this is a Nintendo game: We just got 20 Happy Points.
The game looks so entertaining, Nick and I have started to debate if the flower delivery counts as a real turn or not. I lost so I'm still writing this god forsaken diary.
(I took quite a shift here, didn't I? I don't really remember being particularly entertained at any point. I think this was my desperate plea to stop writing this diary before I made another slave joke.)
With those Happy Points our ranking of all the Chibi Robos has gone from 1 million to 775,727. What did the robots we passed do wrong? We passed 224,263 robots by delivering a flower? Man, we have some incompetent competition.
"He had a little too much fun at the party, I think he passed out from excitement." Nintendo doesn't want their gamers to know about sex or alcohol apparently. There's a terrifying dog/worm on screen. That's right, we don't know if it's a dog or a worm. I can't wait for next gen to finally arrive.
Ugh... who would have thought a robot cleaning sim would have so much story? I just want to start cleaning damnit!
If you're wondering how slow this game starts, Nick just picked up some garbage and exclaimed "Ooo! Waste paper!"
We just picked up a toothbrush. Now we can clean more stains! I can't believe we're playing this. Can't we just clean Katamari style?
First I mistook Chibi's house for a crock pot and now I thought it was the garbage. Robots may not actually be alive, but Chibi definitely has a sad life.
"I should have married you instead of that slob" The wife, in a moment of weakness, confides to Chibi. I don't want to say this blocky chested woman is easy, but all Chibi did was throw an old cookie into the fish tank.
And that's it for the diary.
After that less than glowing take the game went seriously downhill. The "joy" we found in collecting pieces of trash in the beginning soon vanished as we realized just how boring it truly was. And the story! What I wouldn't give for a story-less version of this game. The cut scenes are static and long. Text flows slowly across the screen - sometimes funny but normally anything but - while the piercing cry of the creature burns nearby ear drums. Just a horrible experience all around. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to force dialogs only to have the experience punish the player for having their hearing firmly intact.
While Nick and I only played about three hours I can say with all certainty that this is a bust. Not a horrible game, but certainly not one worth playing. For comparison, the main adventure mode of Graffiti Kingdom was infinitely better than this. I put in more than 20 hours simply collecting all the animals and playing around with my hand drawn picture. Chibi offers worse gameplay and nothing that really separates it from the pack. Yes, the setting is different than anything else out there, but the gameplay is stale and tired.
To top it off, just when we were wrapping up the game for the night, Nick spent all our hard earned cash on a car. We figured we would, you know, actually be able to drive it around. Maybe you can later in the game, but we weren't able to at that point. A disappointing way to end an underachieving experience.
I still want Chibi to appear in Smash Bros. Revolution, if only to finally kick his ass.
One more thing before I let you go - the game starts out with a five minute time limit. This is a horrible idea. Just when you figure out where to go next the time of day shifts (between day and night) and you're forced back to your Chibi home. Eventually I figured out you can purchase more time that bumps a session up to 15 minutes. Still annoying but not quite as much. It was like playing the original Pikmin again, minus the fun.
You know, after reading through this diary again, I actually like it. If people like it I may give it a shot again.
// posted by Tom @ 7:18 PM 
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