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The Lowdown
Pros: Creative and charming Chibi Robo easily wins people over.
Cons: After the story is over many people won't stick around to hunt for
collectables.
 Purchase at Play-Asia
 Purchase
at Lik-Sang
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Life as a half a foot tall robot is hard work as game studio Skip shows
with its latest title Chibi Robo. Like Giftpia before it, Chibi Robo
focuses on a unique style of gameplay being helpful. The silver star of
the game is given as a gift for a little girl’s birthday. You start the
game out popping out of the unwrapped present. The little guy begins to
walk around the table when he sees a flower to interact with (signified
by the microphone-like symbol). Pressing “A” picks up the flower, which
you can hand to Jenny who will be delighted with her new toy.
After the brief intro to the Sanderson family you’re free to explore the
house. Seeing the entire house from the robot’s perspective is one of
the coolest parts of the game. A tiny room looks like an endless walk.
Want to get on top of that table? You can’t simply climb up. You need to
make use of strategically placed staircases of books and other junk.
Another option is that you can climb on a dangling shoelace to reach
higher ground. There are some jumping elements, but you don’t actually
press a button do a controlled jump. Just tilt the control stick towards
the direction and you will automatically jump towards higher ground.
Chibi Robo is really designed with exploration in mind. You’re not given
specific goals and there are no levels. The game lets gamers move at
their own pace.
Within the time span of a day there is a lot you could be doing. Early
on you’ll have limited tools, just yourself and your trusty propeller to
lighten large drops. You can start by picking up trash scattered around
the house. The Sandersons leave everything from crumpled pieces of paper
to bottles right on the floor for you to grab. Picking up garbage
increases the happiness that you bring (indicated by the heart meter on
the left hand side of the screen). Early on you’ll find a brush to scrub
dirty footprints left by the family’s pet and to wipe up water spills.
Like picking up trash, scrubbing the floors also gets you happiness
points. As you delve further in the game you’ll get a larger range of
tools allowing you to garden, water plants and even shoot nanobugs
infesting the house. The more you explore the more tools you find and
the more helpful the little guy will become.
What really limits how much you can do is your battery. The number in
the right hand corner diminishes with every action, even standing still
will drain the battery slowly. Players will have to recharge by plugging
themselves into a wall outlet. Some actions like walking take only a
little bit of your battery, while vigorous scrubbing of the patio floor
is going to drain it faster. There is a bright side to doing random
chores because higher happiness yields a longer battery life, allowing
players to explore further without having to worry about recharging.
Doing chores is surprisingly fun, but there is more to the game than
that. Chibi Robo has a charming set of characters that will play with
you and sometimes request your help. We’ve already mentioned the family
that has a Mama, Papa, dog and the daughter Jenny who thinks she’s a
frog. During the day you can converse with the mother and listen to her
tales or give Jenny frog rings that are scattered around the house to
make them happy. At night the world takes a different approach,
inanimate toys become alive when the family is sleeping. The dog’s chew
toy is found writing in her journal and the robotic detective Giccoman
is walking around in search of clues. By talking to these characters and
bringing them items you can progress the game’s story. For instance the
stuffed animal chew toy idolizes the detective who won’t give her the
time of day. You can bring some happiness to her by transforming into
the robotic hero with a Giccoman costume. Doing this moves her out of
the way and the little robot can explore a new area.
Costumes are another aspect of gameplay. Early on you’ll get the
Giccoman costume, that changes the robot from a tin can look into the
famous robot. Later on you’ll find a frog costume that puts the robot
into a green frog’s outfit. When you’re inside each of these costumes
the family and all of the other characters will talk to you differently.
This leads to event triggering and possible happiness points. Costumes
also come with special abilities, that you can do by pressing the Z
button. Giccoman’s costume allows the silver dude to do a power rangers
inspired victory pose. The frog costume lets the robot perform a rain
dance if he’s around other frogs. These special skills donned by each
costume have their place in helping the little guy open up more areas.
Chibi Robo’s greatest presentation achievement is the style of the
game. Generally cute and charming Chibi Robo appeals to almost anyone
right away. The cast of characters including Jenny, a wooden pirate and
an older non functioning helper robot are awesome. The graphics in the
game aren’t technically phenomenal. While the environments are wide and
contain lots of things to play with it doesn’t have the same polish as
other Gamecube titles. On the other hand the sense of scale is superb,
which really places players into the shoes of a tiny robot. The game is
sparse on music and sound. Characters don’t talk, instead they make
gibberish sounds like in the Sims or Animal Crossing. There is some
background music, which is gentle and almost unnoticeable. The main
sounds you’ll be paying attention to are the ones made by you when you
perform chores. Each step the robot makes also produces a sound that
goes up or down in scale depending on the surface. Picking up trash
yields a little chime and scrubbing the floor plays a melody. When heard
all together the robot makes a micro symphony everywhere he goes.
Out of the large category of Gamecube titles Chibi Robo stands out as
one of the most original. From concept to gameplay there is nothing else
like Chibi Robo out there. Even though with so much thought put into the
game, it only lasts for ten or so hours if you’re playing through the
story. Beyond that there’s always trash to pick up, but who wants to do
that forever? Chibi Robo is something that gamers should really pick up
and try out. It will hook most gamers with a few minutes of play, making
it universally enjoyable.
The gameplay itself is easy enough to understand. However, when
you're going item hunting you will need to understand some Japanese to
figure out what items to give to what character. Why did the game get a
five then? Well if you have Freeloader the game won't display any text
at all. Instead you'll have a bunch of random symbols floating around,
which makes the game really difficult to play through.
US Bound?
Nintendo of America says they're going to publish this game in the
US later this year.
Overall
Chibi Robo is one of the most unique titles out there. Overall
entertaining with a cute story even though it's a short run through.
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