Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals (DS) Review
Posted by Jordan Williams on 10.28.2008
Could Pokemon finally have a worthy contender by way of Disney?
Nowadays when someone thinks of a sequel, they think of a game that just expands on what the original game did with some minor changes to the overall feel and some extra stuff added in to make the game feel new. It's becoming a bit of a rarity to find a game that manages to change its entire outlook in the span of one sequel. While Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals may not be a blockbuster game by any means, it's one of those games that is at least moving in the right direction as far as terms of game progression go.
The story picks up directly from the previous games, where Rallen and Jenna are still members of the Nanairo Planetary Control and are faced with a whole new threat from the evil Krawl. You control Rallen throughout the adventure to stop the Krawl from destroying the universe...among other things.
The game is yet another attempt to make some of the wonderful bank Nintendo has been piling up with the Pokemon franchise, but this one goes in a slightly different direction in the sense that there's actually meat to it outside of the battles, sadly some of the bad ends up overshadowing some pretty vast improvements.
Graphics
The graphics in Beyond the Portals are very solid. The game is presented in full 3D outside of the Excavation Mini-games and the dialogue which is most of the time presented in sprite form/comic book style. Everything animates very smoothly especially the battles which sometimes get pretty frantic. Without a doubt the game is one of the better looking ones on the DS, but there seems to be a bit of a problem in some areas.
During the game you travel to completely new planets and space stations and while they all have their own obvious gimmicks and ecosystems; they never seem to really feel alive. Outside of a few sections that are inhabited by human life (some of which have no animation at ALL) everything else seems like a barren wasteland. When you get the obvious "destroy all of these monsters" areas it doesn’t look any better. Monsters that Rallen can destroy on foot are represented by little floating orbs that usually change to fit the feel of the area they are in (spiky and frozen for cold, fiery for fire, etc) and the monsters the Spectrobes have to go toe-to-toe with are represented by large swirling cyclones called vortexes. Overall it takes what looked like a pretty impressive graphics engine into a pretty bland looking landscape.
And then there's the other mode you'll see allot which consists of the actual Spectrobes. The Spectrobes themselves are highly detailed, even when they have hideous colors (more on that later) and animated smoothly. The enemies they FACE however are most of the time lifeless blobs that look like walking colored polygons rather than something you should be afraid of. The battlefield you fight on isn't that much better. The entire time it consists of nothing but a dark swirling vortex with no floor. I know it was meant to represent the inside of the vortex, but it just seemed lazy to have these monsters seemingly just floating around in space where there could've been so much more for them to do.
The graphics as a whole are pretty good, little faults like this keep them from being downright outstanding but they don't turn anyone away from the game.
Gameplay
Spectrobes: BTP has a lot going for it in terms of gameplay. The game controls in three different modes, two of them in which you'll be spending a lot of your time in. In the main over world of the game you control Rallen as you explore planets and exterminate crawl. Rallen fights a little bit like Link from the Zelda games. He has a sword, a glove that he can use to stun characters, and a blaster to shoot them for far away. You control Rallen for a large section of the game but sadly it seems like his action is some of the more boring parts. Up until about halfway into the game Rallen's portions are just downright mind numbing. Rallen gains levels depending on how much of the 'Krawl Dust' he kills, but these things just aimlessly float around with the intent of bumping into you...and that's it. They barely cause any damage and once you reach the second planet it's literally like shooting fish in a barrel to get Rallen extremely overpowered.
Now for the entertaining section of the gameplay is where the actual Spectrobes come into play. When you enter a Vortex, you are thrust into a battle between your two chosen Spectrobes and the enemy monsters. You are given full control of the Spectrobes as they beat the living tar out of their opponents. A good thing is that no two spectrobes are alike; you might have some that do one really wide angled hit with their tail while others might hang in the background and fire off projectiles. A lot of the Spectrobe types are recycled, but they have enough differences to keep them from being boring.
A slight downside of the Spectrobe Battle is that there is little to no strategy involved outside of the same principle that goes into almost every RPG; Grass > Water > Fire. After you take a second to think about what type of Spectrobe to need to deal with the monsters, the only choice you really need to do is choose if you want to equip the Spectrobes with special items to enhance stats or just leave them alone. The actual battle plays out in real time and all of the action is controlled on the D-pad and the buttons. It's pretty simple; you have an attack button, a lock on button, and a two special move buttons. One special move is unique to a character while the other special move is something that both spectrobes will team up to use in a screen clearing blast. The battles would normally be over quick if it wasn't for the downright clunky camera and lock-on system. The lock-on is a good idea gone horribly wrong in the sense that it rarely ever works and only exists to constantly tease you, but even then there's no reason why any of these battles should take more than a minute to deal with.
A third and final point of the gameplay is a creative use of excavation. Spectrobes are all made from fossils which of course are found in the ground. A mini-game to dig said fossils up surrounds them and its quite fun to play. You control the stylus and your job is to dig out the fossil (or anything else buried) without damaging it too much. At first it seems very easy but the game throws curveballs at you to keep it interesting. On some levels you will constantly have to blow into the mica in order to keep a sandstorm from obscuring your view, sometimes you might have to melt ice away or even clear up cloudy water. After awhile the whole task begins to feel like a chore but right at that point the game gives you a special tool that makes up for the boredom of digging up the same old things over and over again.
Another small mini game to mention is actually raising and caring for your Spectrobes. The game has an Incubator system that works a bit like the Pokemon daycare but a bit more hands on. Also when you are actually awakening the fossils you have to speak to them through the DS microphone to make them alive again. This is a bit glitchy because the tone and pitch of your voice dictate what color the resulting Spectrobe will be...and frankly none of the colors are all that appealing. What's even worse is that some players (myself included) no matter how hard they try will never get a different color do the same always picking up the bass in the voice. The only time I managed to get a different color and tone is when I substituted my voice for my little sisters or some music.
A few missteps keep Spectrobes from excelling in everything, but it's a VAST improvement over its previous efforts and with a little bit of polish it could go on to do great things.
Sound
Disney is usually known to have great music when it comes to...well...anything. Sadly it doesn’t seem to be the case here. It just might be my ears playing tricks on me but it sounds like Spectrobes only have about 6 tracks of music in the entire game, and most of them are fairly boring.
There's no voice acting to speak of at all, and the sound effects are often drowned out by the bad music or just sound like jumbled messes. It's best to just go ahead and turn the speakers down; you won't be missing much anyway.
Lasting Appeal
While Spectrobes does boast a vast amount of Spectrobes to catch, raise, and train. In regards to the story there's not much in the ways of lasting appeal. There are a few booster packs which allow you to unlock special items and Spectrobes in game (via a very clever password system) and the game does offer some Wi-Fi with the Xbox Live-esque DGamer service, but sadly I was never able to find anyone online to actually test any of these features out. I will say that a service like DGamer is exactly what something like the DS needs. Spectrobes also has a built-in Achievement system for those completionists out there.
Fun Factor
This game is fun for awhile, but gotta catch 'em all games only can go for so long until they get a bit boring. If you're a fan of the genre this will be a wonderful pit stop for you, but if you aren't into this type of game to begin with then you might be better off elsewhere. As for the core gameplay I actually found myself having a little bit more fun during the excavation games rather than the full game itself. Rallen's over world sections are dreadfully boring and the Spectrobe battles are rarely challenging enough to warrant a second try unless you ignored the simple "Fire beats Wood" strategy as pointed out earlier.
The 411
This game is sort of in the middle of the road for me. If you happened to play and like the first Spectrobes, you'll fall in love with this one. If you're completely new to the Spectrobes series (like I was) this will be a good game to start on as I wholeheartedly recommend just skipping the first game completely. As far as the Pokemon Crown, it's not in danger from Spectrobes YET. But if they can fix the problems in this version for the possible (and probable) threequel, we might have a serious contender on our hands.
Graphics
8.0
If it wasn't for the bland landscapes, they would be perfect
Gameplay
8.0
Rallen's section of the game is a bore, but the Spectrobes and Excavation save it
Sound
6.0
It's like Megaman music...but bad.
Lasting Appeal
7.5
If you manage to find someone online, you could have some long lasting fun with this. DGamer is a wonderful addition
Fun Factor
7.5
The game is a very fun and new take on a dominated genre, with a bit of polish it could mean trouble for Pokemon
