Pinobee: Quest of Heart
The Game Boy Advance has just about every game genre covered. You want pseudo-3D racing games? You've got 'em. How about RPG's, tactical strategy games, puzzlers, and cinematic text adventures? No problem. Where are the cutesy 2D platformers, you ask? That's a very good question. It appears that the good folks at Nintendo, in an effort to reinvent themselves, have made a conscious effort to focus on game types that have recently been under-represented on their consoles. Therefore, in the early days of the handheld, we may not see too much of the types of games that made Nintendo famous. That's all well and good, you say, but where are my damn platformers?! To which I reply, well, there's one about this bee...
Pinobee: Quest of Heart allows the player to take control of Pinobee, your friendly neighborhood robot-bee hybrid. Like many of us, Pinobee is not content with his lot in life. Foolish Pinobee. He is blessed with certain abilities that merely normal bees would, uh, sting for; yet he dreams of being normal. Sometimes being a robot and having your very own jetpack is not enough. This is where you come in.
Take control of Pinobee and help him run, jump, and fight his way to bee normalcy. Of course, since he is not a real bee, he cannot actually fly. Instead, aided by his jetpack, he uses a special double or triple jump to reach elevated platforms and certain hidden items. At the top of the third jump, his head will expand and he will float back down to the nearest surface. Pretty trippy, huh?
Attack Pinobee's enemies by using his stomp-sting maneuver. In the early builds of this game, the bad guys are sparsely distributed throughout the level. The majority of the game seems to consist of collecting items and maneuvering through the environment. Fly across the screen by way of Sonic-style hydraulic fans set up in certain levels. Avoid deadly spikes. Whether more enemies will appear in updated versions or later levels of the game remains to be seen.
Without a doubt, one of the greatest strengths of Pinobee is its graphics. Stunning hand-painted backgrounds and 3D rendered characters accompany Pinobee on his journey. It's really difficult to believe that this game is running off of a handheld. The screenshots speak for themselves.
Okay, so Pinobee sounds like a pretty cool game, right? Well, the deal just got a whole lot sweeter. This game is being developed by Artoon, a Japanese development team consisting of a couple of key Sonic Team members. Yes, that Sonic Team. It's never a good idea to make a big deal out of these defections; "key players" often turn out to be a Mr. Coffee machine and the company janitor. However, some of the Artoon developers worked as character and level designers on Sega's flagship games. Key players indeed.
Pinobee: Quest of Heart has interesting gameplay mechanics, beautiful graphics, and an impressive company pedigree. Sounds like a winner to me. Now, let's all hope that Hudson sees fit to release this potential gem in North America.