Paleontology should take notes: Or I move closer to the mic to breathe [SPOILERS]
So, at some point between 11:30 p.m. last night and 1:00 a.m. this morning, I beat "Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals".
So permit me to give you a run-down of my thoughts on this game... because, like all users of the Internet, I feel some kind of civic duty to review things that you may or may not have any interest in whatsoever.
Let me first begin by quickly summarizing the world of "Spectrobes."
You're Rallen, a dude who works for the Nanairo Planetary Patrol.
You have a partner named Jeena, who is basically your voice of reason/ship repair person/techie. Also, she is your sister.
You travel around the galaxy making sure everything is well and good.
Good?
Good.
One day [in the first game], something crash lands on a planet.
You check it out. It's an old man. An old man in a capsule. A capsule with a thing that latches onto your arm. It's called a Prizmod.
Suddenly, weird tornadoes show up full of scary monsters. These are called the Krawl.
You get sucked into one of them, and magically a monster pops out of the Prizmod and kicks the one Krawl's ass.
You take the old man and his capsule and make for the ship.
Old man, who is named Aldous, tells you about the Krawl. He tells you how they destroyed his world and they're coming for yours.
You report to your commanding officer, and suddenly you're charged with stopping the Krawl.
You can't do it alone though. You need... SPECTROBES.
That's right. That thing that came out of your Prizmod... yeah, that's a Spectrobe.
How do you get Spectrobes? Simple!
Step 1: Walk about with a baby Spectrobe and use it's radar-like sense to look for buried treasure. Sometimes it's minerals, which relate to one of the 3 types of Spectrobe it could be. Corona, Aurora, or Flash... or Red, Green, and Blue for those who want to simplify things. [:/] Sometimes it's a Spectrobe... or rather, a fossilized one. Dig. It. Up.
Step 2: Take said fossil all the way back to your ship's computer that magically appeared once Aldous shows up.
Now... here's the part that makes probably the least sense of all, and will those playing the game look like mental patients.
Step 3: Based on the position of segment of a scale... breathe life into the fossil.
Yes. That's right.
Breathe life into the fossil.
Just go with me on it, okay?
Anyway, collect Spectrobes. Raise them by battling and feeding minerals. Beat final boss.
Simple formula. Right?
First... here's the trailer for the first game...
Looks cool, right? Well... yeah about that...
Here's the problem with the first game... well, here are several problems with the first game.
1. Graphically, for the DS, it's okay. Merely okay. Not bad. Not good. Okay. I don't know how to elaborate further on it... other than, it's okay.
2. In order to access your incubation chamber, where you raise/feed your non-battling Spectrobes, you have to go ALL THE WAY BACK to your ship. In some cases, it's quite a trek. Other times it's not, thanks to the use of the jet-pack. The interface for the incubation chamber itself is clunky and awkward.
3. After evolving the Child Spectrobes, you don't know how many minerals, battles, or levels you have to train them to the next evolution. It's basically a guessing game. A costly, drawn out, guessing game.
4. Upon entering a vortex, you don't know what type of Krawl you're battling. Just like the Spectrobes, the Krawl have the same properties. Vortexes are generic colors and that's a guessing game too.
5. Whether you like it or not, you're drawn into battle with your Spectrobes. Your weapons do minimal damage against the Krawl, and if you get defeated in battle your Spectrobes stop and you're done.
6. You get to choose what kind of attack your Spectrobes will do. You get to select which one you want to use with L or R, then by pressing B, X, or Y you choose what you want your Spectrobe to do. Ranging from "Defend" to "Stay", the commands are... frustrating to deal with when you're trying to keep your eye on a battle you're participating in and trying to control the other Spectrobe with. Very cumbersome and annoying. Also, you have to hold A to charge the Charge Meter to execute a higher powered attack. So... that makes combat even more fun. *angryface*
7. In order to get higher attack or defense stats, you have to excavate your Spectrobes at 100%... which can be a real challenge sometimes... and about 75% of the time, you can't get custom parts... which makes things more difficult.
With that said, I move onto "Spectrobes 2: Beyond the Portals"...
Guess what folks? All that stuff I just bitched about... GONE.
They killed it. They took it out and threw it to the dogs. It's dead.
Graphics improved.
Incubator accessible from the main menu. Also, the Menu is simplified and a lot easier to deal with, visually and functionally.
When you look at your Spectrobes in the incubator, it shows you how many minerals, battles, or levels it needs to evolve.
Vortexes are color coded so you'll know which Spectrobes to bring in to take them down.
Rallen is no longer drawn into battles, instead he battles Krawl Dust, which are smaller monsters that come from the large vortexes.
Combat is simplified IMMENSELY. Seriously. Like, whoa. Let me break it down easily on how combat now works...
1. Select Spectrobe using X button.
2. Lock onto Krawl with R, release lock with L.
3. Attack with A button until Charged Attack meter reaches enough of a level for you.
4. Hit B for a solo Spectrobe attack or Y for a team-up attack that does equal or less damage.
5. Repeat until Krawl are defeated.
That's how simple it is.
OH OH OH... one more thing.
In the first game, if your Spectrobe fell in battle, you couldn't revive it. Guess what?
FIXED! FIXED! FIXED!
That's right. By charging up the Charge Meter fully, you can actually revive a fallen Spectrobe.
The other thing that's awesome, is that HP potions don't have a set number like 250hp. No. Not at all. Instead the potions have a percentile. That's right... instead of healing 250hp, you can heal 30%, 60%, or 100% of one or all of your party's health.
Pretty sweet, eh?
Excavation, which is a huge element of the game, has improved too. New tools, new minerals, new fossils, new everything! YAY! And what's the best part of that?
Parts that enhance attack or defense stats are now found in Mystery Stones. They're rare, but very helpful. But, there's a trade-off; if you excavate your fossils at 100%, you don't need to feed the Child Spectrobes minerals in order to evolve them.
They're already fully fed and ready to go!
So onto the story.
Rallen and Jeena find themselves on routine patrol.
Aldous is on an ship in orbit working on stuff.
Suddenly, Krawl show up and attack RANDOM PLANET. Oh you thought they were defeated, right?
WRONG! And they're coming using... PORTALS! [Now you're thinking!]
Aldous is surprise attacked by a humanoid looking Krawl known as one of the High Krawl. She hurts him good, and commandeers the ship. Aldous wakes up later, attacks her and makes the ship crash.
High Krawl show up all over the place, destroying towers for some odd reason.
And you're thrown back into the fray.
Save Aldous, save the World.
Oh, and guess what? Yeah, the High Krawl have raised them some Dark Spectrobes. That's right, they're fighting fire with fire.
All that said... the game plays quite nicely. Boss battles can be kind of rough if your Spectrobes aren't the right level or have a high enough attack, but that can be fixed with a few HP or ATK seeds.
My only qualm is that the game was too short...
Sure, I spent like... 50 hours or so playing it and leveling as much as I could of the Spectrobes I had. But yeah, when it ended it left me wanting more.
Let me explain the ending here for a sec.
Rallen fights Krux [head baddie]... and by "fights" I mean "fights his Super Dark Spectrobes"... which, he does.
After doing such, he's forced to face off against Krux mano a mano.
Krux's mask is cut in half, revealing that he's half-human... half-Krawl.
LE GASP!
Krux disappears.
Planet disappears.
Credits roll.
For the first time EVER playing a game... I sat back, staring at my screen saying "Wha... buh... no... no, it's not over. Krux isn't dead! You just showed his face! It's not over!"
I have never, ever done that during a game.
Not even after beating the Elite Four in "Pokemon Diamond", did I gasp in horror at it being over.
Surely enough, credits roll.
Game cuts to Rallen back home, and you're back in control.
So... you can get more Spectrobes to complete your list.
There's your extra game-play, kids!
But wait... there's extra fun too.
See, the first game had this neat little Card Input system, it went like this:
1. Place card on touch screen.
2. Poke holes in card over touch screen.
3. Voila! Spectrobe/Mineral/Custom Part!
After a certain point in the game, you unlock the ability to use the cards you get when you buy the second game. Much later on, you unlock the ability to use cards from the FIRST game, which helps greatly to complete your Database.
Furthermore, I believe that "Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals" is the second game released to incorporate the D*Gamer function.
See... Disney... wait, let me stop there.
Yes, "Spectrobes" and "Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals" is a Disney game.
It's made by Disney Interactive... and Jupiter.
Yeah... Jupiter. The guys behind "The World Ends With You", "Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories" and the makers of the Gameboy Camera!
Yeah... *sigh*
Anyhoo, D*Gamer is new from Disney Interactive.
It allows you to create an avatar in your games, and through the use of the WiFi functions... you unlock clothes/accessories, trophies and other fun stuff.
So... it's kind of neat, I guess, in that respect.
All in all, "Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals" was a pretty good play.
Hell, it's the first game that made me want more... and that's a rare thing.
Give it a shot, it may be your cup of tea!
Edit: For more information as well as videos, visit: http://adisney.go.com/disneyinteractivestudios/spectrobes/
Also, you can find plenty of those videos and game-play videos on Youtube...
So permit me to give you a run-down of my thoughts on this game... because, like all users of the Internet, I feel some kind of civic duty to review things that you may or may not have any interest in whatsoever.
Let me first begin by quickly summarizing the world of "Spectrobes."
You're Rallen, a dude who works for the Nanairo Planetary Patrol.
You have a partner named Jeena, who is basically your voice of reason/ship repair person/techie. Also, she is your sister.
You travel around the galaxy making sure everything is well and good.
Good?
Good.
One day [in the first game], something crash lands on a planet.
You check it out. It's an old man. An old man in a capsule. A capsule with a thing that latches onto your arm. It's called a Prizmod.
Suddenly, weird tornadoes show up full of scary monsters. These are called the Krawl.
You get sucked into one of them, and magically a monster pops out of the Prizmod and kicks the one Krawl's ass.
You take the old man and his capsule and make for the ship.
Old man, who is named Aldous, tells you about the Krawl. He tells you how they destroyed his world and they're coming for yours.
You report to your commanding officer, and suddenly you're charged with stopping the Krawl.
You can't do it alone though. You need... SPECTROBES.
That's right. That thing that came out of your Prizmod... yeah, that's a Spectrobe.
How do you get Spectrobes? Simple!
Step 1: Walk about with a baby Spectrobe and use it's radar-like sense to look for buried treasure. Sometimes it's minerals, which relate to one of the 3 types of Spectrobe it could be. Corona, Aurora, or Flash... or Red, Green, and Blue for those who want to simplify things. [:/] Sometimes it's a Spectrobe... or rather, a fossilized one. Dig. It. Up.
Step 2: Take said fossil all the way back to your ship's computer that magically appeared once Aldous shows up.
Now... here's the part that makes probably the least sense of all, and will those playing the game look like mental patients.
Step 3: Based on the position of segment of a scale... breathe life into the fossil.
Yes. That's right.
Breathe life into the fossil.
Just go with me on it, okay?
Anyway, collect Spectrobes. Raise them by battling and feeding minerals. Beat final boss.
Simple formula. Right?
First... here's the trailer for the first game...
Click to viewLooks cool, right? Well... yeah about that...
Here's the problem with the first game... well, here are several problems with the first game.
1. Graphically, for the DS, it's okay. Merely okay. Not bad. Not good. Okay. I don't know how to elaborate further on it... other than, it's okay.
2. In order to access your incubation chamber, where you raise/feed your non-battling Spectrobes, you have to go ALL THE WAY BACK to your ship. In some cases, it's quite a trek. Other times it's not, thanks to the use of the jet-pack. The interface for the incubation chamber itself is clunky and awkward.
3. After evolving the Child Spectrobes, you don't know how many minerals, battles, or levels you have to train them to the next evolution. It's basically a guessing game. A costly, drawn out, guessing game.
4. Upon entering a vortex, you don't know what type of Krawl you're battling. Just like the Spectrobes, the Krawl have the same properties. Vortexes are generic colors and that's a guessing game too.
5. Whether you like it or not, you're drawn into battle with your Spectrobes. Your weapons do minimal damage against the Krawl, and if you get defeated in battle your Spectrobes stop and you're done.
6. You get to choose what kind of attack your Spectrobes will do. You get to select which one you want to use with L or R, then by pressing B, X, or Y you choose what you want your Spectrobe to do. Ranging from "Defend" to "Stay", the commands are... frustrating to deal with when you're trying to keep your eye on a battle you're participating in and trying to control the other Spectrobe with. Very cumbersome and annoying. Also, you have to hold A to charge the Charge Meter to execute a higher powered attack. So... that makes combat even more fun. *angryface*
7. In order to get higher attack or defense stats, you have to excavate your Spectrobes at 100%... which can be a real challenge sometimes... and about 75% of the time, you can't get custom parts... which makes things more difficult.
With that said, I move onto "Spectrobes 2: Beyond the Portals"...
Guess what folks? All that stuff I just bitched about... GONE.
They killed it. They took it out and threw it to the dogs. It's dead.
Graphics improved.
Incubator accessible from the main menu. Also, the Menu is simplified and a lot easier to deal with, visually and functionally.
When you look at your Spectrobes in the incubator, it shows you how many minerals, battles, or levels it needs to evolve.
Vortexes are color coded so you'll know which Spectrobes to bring in to take them down.
Rallen is no longer drawn into battles, instead he battles Krawl Dust, which are smaller monsters that come from the large vortexes.
Combat is simplified IMMENSELY. Seriously. Like, whoa. Let me break it down easily on how combat now works...
1. Select Spectrobe using X button.
2. Lock onto Krawl with R, release lock with L.
3. Attack with A button until Charged Attack meter reaches enough of a level for you.
4. Hit B for a solo Spectrobe attack or Y for a team-up attack that does equal or less damage.
5. Repeat until Krawl are defeated.
That's how simple it is.
OH OH OH... one more thing.
In the first game, if your Spectrobe fell in battle, you couldn't revive it. Guess what?
FIXED! FIXED! FIXED!
That's right. By charging up the Charge Meter fully, you can actually revive a fallen Spectrobe.
The other thing that's awesome, is that HP potions don't have a set number like 250hp. No. Not at all. Instead the potions have a percentile. That's right... instead of healing 250hp, you can heal 30%, 60%, or 100% of one or all of your party's health.
Pretty sweet, eh?
Excavation, which is a huge element of the game, has improved too. New tools, new minerals, new fossils, new everything! YAY! And what's the best part of that?
Parts that enhance attack or defense stats are now found in Mystery Stones. They're rare, but very helpful. But, there's a trade-off; if you excavate your fossils at 100%, you don't need to feed the Child Spectrobes minerals in order to evolve them.
They're already fully fed and ready to go!
So onto the story.
Rallen and Jeena find themselves on routine patrol.
Aldous is on an ship in orbit working on stuff.
Suddenly, Krawl show up and attack RANDOM PLANET. Oh you thought they were defeated, right?
WRONG! And they're coming using... PORTALS! [Now you're thinking!]
Aldous is surprise attacked by a humanoid looking Krawl known as one of the High Krawl. She hurts him good, and commandeers the ship. Aldous wakes up later, attacks her and makes the ship crash.
High Krawl show up all over the place, destroying towers for some odd reason.
And you're thrown back into the fray.
Save Aldous, save the World.
Oh, and guess what? Yeah, the High Krawl have raised them some Dark Spectrobes. That's right, they're fighting fire with fire.
All that said... the game plays quite nicely. Boss battles can be kind of rough if your Spectrobes aren't the right level or have a high enough attack, but that can be fixed with a few HP or ATK seeds.
My only qualm is that the game was too short...
Sure, I spent like... 50 hours or so playing it and leveling as much as I could of the Spectrobes I had. But yeah, when it ended it left me wanting more.
Let me explain the ending here for a sec.
Rallen fights Krux [head baddie]... and by "fights" I mean "fights his Super Dark Spectrobes"... which, he does.
After doing such, he's forced to face off against Krux mano a mano.
Krux's mask is cut in half, revealing that he's half-human... half-Krawl.
LE GASP!
Krux disappears.
Planet disappears.
Credits roll.
For the first time EVER playing a game... I sat back, staring at my screen saying "Wha... buh... no... no, it's not over. Krux isn't dead! You just showed his face! It's not over!"
I have never, ever done that during a game.
Not even after beating the Elite Four in "Pokemon Diamond", did I gasp in horror at it being over.
Surely enough, credits roll.
Game cuts to Rallen back home, and you're back in control.
So... you can get more Spectrobes to complete your list.
There's your extra game-play, kids!
But wait... there's extra fun too.
See, the first game had this neat little Card Input system, it went like this:
1. Place card on touch screen.
2. Poke holes in card over touch screen.
3. Voila! Spectrobe/Mineral/Custom Part!
After a certain point in the game, you unlock the ability to use the cards you get when you buy the second game. Much later on, you unlock the ability to use cards from the FIRST game, which helps greatly to complete your Database.
Furthermore, I believe that "Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals" is the second game released to incorporate the D*Gamer function.
See... Disney... wait, let me stop there.
Yes, "Spectrobes" and "Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals" is a Disney game.
It's made by Disney Interactive... and Jupiter.
Yeah... Jupiter. The guys behind "The World Ends With You", "Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories" and the makers of the Gameboy Camera!
Yeah... *sigh*
Anyhoo, D*Gamer is new from Disney Interactive.
It allows you to create an avatar in your games, and through the use of the WiFi functions... you unlock clothes/accessories, trophies and other fun stuff.
So... it's kind of neat, I guess, in that respect.
All in all, "Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals" was a pretty good play.
Hell, it's the first game that made me want more... and that's a rare thing.
Give it a shot, it may be your cup of tea!
Edit: For more information as well as videos, visit: http://adisney.go.com/disneyinteractivestudios/spectrobes/
Also, you can find plenty of those videos and game-play videos on Youtube...