Spectrobes marks a first in Disney history: a video game based not on an existing Disney property, but built from the ground up as an all-new effort. As a move to stay relevant in a perpetually-changing media landscape, it seems, at first blush, a good one—but is the result actually worth playing?
Spectrobes evokes Nintendo's killer Pokémon franchise on the surface; players fight their battles primarily through creatures they command, collecting and training those creatures as they progress through the game. Spectrobes' hook is that the fighting creatures in question are actually extinct; the player must excavate their fossils from the ground and awaken them back into fighting machines.
The excavation is actually a pretty neat process, though first you must contend with a little problem: finding out where to dig. You take a juvenile Spectrobe with you (who tags along in the most adorable way) and either touch him with the stylus or hold the R button to make him scan for things to be excavated. The immediate problem here is that there's really no indication where, in the middling-to-large landscapes, you should scan (aside from a tiny number of NPC hints). There is also no way to tell your little guy to continually scan as you walk, alerting you to the presence of interesting things buried underground. You must walk, stop, scan, walk, stop, scan... ad nauseam. Thankfully, it eventually becomes clear that the level designers liked to put the buried treasures in corners or near rocks, so I was able to spare myself at least some of this particular tedium.
The excavation process is pretty neat and is probably the highlight of the entire game. After tapping the screen to break through layers of rock, you'll find part of what you're excavating exposed. Holding down L at this point will activate your scanner, showing you the shadow of the object you'll be pulling up, and you can use your assortment of drills and tools (several of which you'll have to buy later in the game) to extract the item (trying not to damage it beyond repair in the process). It's a game of precision and it's a good, solid challenge.
But as with any enjoyable activity, too much of a good thing ends up being a bad thing. Rather than confine the excavation to fossilry, you also have to excavate a lot of minerals to feed your young Spectrobes, as well as these bizarre little cubes that you need to unlock game features. Compounded by the fact that you must find the items to excavate before you can even begin the extraction process, the tedium ramps up at an astonishing speed. A small bone is thrown later on in the game in the form of a laser tool that can extract any familiar mineral with a minimum of fuss, but you still must find the minerals and you still must activate the laser.
Thankfully the game doesn't subject you to random battles in the process. Fights are initiated by running into little purple tornadoes zipping about on the landscape, and you can simply walk around them if you're not in the mood to battle. There's a problem with this anyway though: if you're walking downward, you'll probably run headlong into one anyway, since you can't actually see more than the scale equivalent of five feet in front of your face unless you hold the walk button.
This view problem extends into the battles, where you and your chosen fighting Spectrobes are confined to the inside of the little purple tornado with your enemy. Provided you're at the south end of the battle arena, you can do a pretty decent job of dodging attacks. Should you have to run around behind your enemy, though, be prepared to fight blind. Combined with the generally laggy feel of the battles, I usually found it best to just run around the outside of the arena in circles charging the special combo attack which universally does a set amount of damage every time it's used, rather than futz about with trying to take my enemies head-on.
I hinted earlier that you need lots of minerals and this is absolutely true. You can't get many young Spectrobes up to fighting strength without leveling them up a certain amount, something that's done by tossing them a bunch of unearthed minerals. Once they've grown, you can continue to level them by feeding them more or taking them out and fighting with them—"training"—an activity the game opts to slam home with a needlessly steep difficulty curve. Unless you are a dedicated grinder trainer, you'll get your posterior handed to you rather quickly.
Interestingly, beyond the initial appeal of the excavation, there was in fact one other thing that interested me about this game: its story and art—the property itself. Sure, it's not going to win any Academy Awards for dramatic storytelling, but it's got a decidedly comfortable Saturday-morning feel to it, all the way down to the main character's catchphrase. It's delightfully cheesy and cartoony, and made me smile despite the game's shortcomings.
It makes me wonder if maybe this new property would have been best launched, instead of as a game, as an entry in Disney's stable of kids' TV programs? For as uninteresting as the game itself turned out to be, a cartoon introduction to Spectrobes would have probably been much more original than the game is in the end.
Spectrobes evokes Nintendo's killer Pokémon franchise on the surface; players fight their battles primarily through creatures they command, collecting and training those creatures as they progress through the game. Spectrobes' hook is that the fighting creatures in question are actually extinct; the player must excavate their fossils from the ground and awaken them back into fighting machines.
The excavation is actually a pretty neat process, though first you must contend with a little problem: finding out where to dig. You take a juvenile Spectrobe with you (who tags along in the most adorable way) and either touch him with the stylus or hold the R button to make him scan for things to be excavated. The immediate problem here is that there's really no indication where, in the middling-to-large landscapes, you should scan (aside from a tiny number of NPC hints). There is also no way to tell your little guy to continually scan as you walk, alerting you to the presence of interesting things buried underground. You must walk, stop, scan, walk, stop, scan... ad nauseam. Thankfully, it eventually becomes clear that the level designers liked to put the buried treasures in corners or near rocks, so I was able to spare myself at least some of this particular tedium.
Hey Mom, look what I found! Can I keep him?
The excavation process is pretty neat and is probably the highlight of the entire game. After tapping the screen to break through layers of rock, you'll find part of what you're excavating exposed. Holding down L at this point will activate your scanner, showing you the shadow of the object you'll be pulling up, and you can use your assortment of drills and tools (several of which you'll have to buy later in the game) to extract the item (trying not to damage it beyond repair in the process). It's a game of precision and it's a good, solid challenge.
But as with any enjoyable activity, too much of a good thing ends up being a bad thing. Rather than confine the excavation to fossilry, you also have to excavate a lot of minerals to feed your young Spectrobes, as well as these bizarre little cubes that you need to unlock game features. Compounded by the fact that you must find the items to excavate before you can even begin the extraction process, the tedium ramps up at an astonishing speed. A small bone is thrown later on in the game in the form of a laser tool that can extract any familiar mineral with a minimum of fuss, but you still must find the minerals and you still must activate the laser.
Thankfully the game doesn't subject you to random battles in the process. Fights are initiated by running into little purple tornadoes zipping about on the landscape, and you can simply walk around them if you're not in the mood to battle. There's a problem with this anyway though: if you're walking downward, you'll probably run headlong into one anyway, since you can't actually see more than the scale equivalent of five feet in front of your face unless you hold the walk button.
This view problem extends into the battles, where you and your chosen fighting Spectrobes are confined to the inside of the little purple tornado with your enemy. Provided you're at the south end of the battle arena, you can do a pretty decent job of dodging attacks. Should you have to run around behind your enemy, though, be prepared to fight blind. Combined with the generally laggy feel of the battles, I usually found it best to just run around the outside of the arena in circles charging the special combo attack which universally does a set amount of damage every time it's used, rather than futz about with trying to take my enemies head-on.
With your powers combined, I am... pretty tired of this, actually.
I hinted earlier that you need lots of minerals and this is absolutely true. You can't get many young Spectrobes up to fighting strength without leveling them up a certain amount, something that's done by tossing them a bunch of unearthed minerals. Once they've grown, you can continue to level them by feeding them more or taking them out and fighting with them—"training"—an activity the game opts to slam home with a needlessly steep difficulty curve. Unless you are a dedicated grinder trainer, you'll get your posterior handed to you rather quickly.
Interestingly, beyond the initial appeal of the excavation, there was in fact one other thing that interested me about this game: its story and art—the property itself. Sure, it's not going to win any Academy Awards for dramatic storytelling, but it's got a decidedly comfortable Saturday-morning feel to it, all the way down to the main character's catchphrase. It's delightfully cheesy and cartoony, and made me smile despite the game's shortcomings.
It makes me wonder if maybe this new property would have been best launched, instead of as a game, as an entry in Disney's stable of kids' TV programs? For as uninteresting as the game itself turned out to be, a cartoon introduction to Spectrobes would have probably been much more original than the game is in the end.