Tropix (DS) Review
Posted by Shylo Elliott on 12.24.2008
"11 games in one!" -- but is it a good deal?
Title: Tropix
Publisher: RealNetworks, Inc.
Developer: Engine Software
Genre: Minigame Collection
Players: 1-2
Rating: Everyone 10+ (Comic Mischief, Simulated Gambling, Use of Alcohol)
The game says on the box "11 games in 1!" Unfortunately, gamers tend to be wary of games that have to claim how many games they contain to show what a great value they are. Ask anyone who knows about Action 52, for example. Anyway, let's cut to the chase!
Graphics
The game has a tropical motif, with lots of palm trees and sand. The graphics are sharp and colorful, although not groundbreaking. The monkey, crab, bananas, enemies, and shop items are well-detailed and easy to make out. There's no trouble following the action on the screen, although there's little action to be had.
The backgrounds in games like Cascade, Water Worlds, and Solitaire look great. The main problem I have with the graphics is only found in one game: Parasail. Some of the background and foreground objects are ugly and overly pixelated: splotchy islands and hills, water with rough edges, etc.
The games involving the monkey in action are animated well, as is the main screen with the monkey and the crab, although you won't be paying attention to it too much because you might actually want to play the game instead of staring at wildlife.
I encountered one graphical glitch while playing the game; a couple of menu buttons were stubborn and remained on the screen without any text, but it cleared up on its own soon enough. Still, it's an error.
Sound
The music is harmless. It's good, but easy to tune out while concentrating on the game. Like the graphics, it's tropically-themed. They're calm and relaxing, so it's a good way to relax if you're tense, I suppose, unfortunately the game and price tag attached to the music isn't worth it.
There are a few sound effects, and they are done well, but you'll get tired of the monkey yelping the hundredth time you die on Jungle Jump.
Gameplay
In Tropix, you start off with a monkey and a crab on a small island. They'll move around and interact with other objects, but the main draw is the minigames. You use the stylus almost exclusively to play them, and there's only one exception that I've encountered. Here's a description and review of each one:
Solitaire – It's ordinary Klondike Solitaire. Almost every PC that has ever been built has it, and it's more convenient to play it on a bigger monitor in a comfortable chair than a tiny screen. Why should you pay money to play a pared-down version? Tropix doesn't even give you the common courtesy of an undo button!
Water Words – On the screen is a pile of bubbles with letters on them. You use the stylus to draw a line between letters to make words. When you make a five-letter word or better, you get a swap (maximum of three). You can use a swap to exchange any two letters on the screen, regardless of distance apart. It's fun for a few minutes, but gets old quick, which is the story of most of the minigames in this collection. After that the only fun to be had is seeing if the game accepts vulgar words (some are, some aren't). Also, the dictionary in the game is arbitrary. It allows "diggers" but not "squirter." On the bright side, it's one of the easiest games to build up sand dollars in. They're used to buy islands and furnishings for said islands, which I'll explain in detail later.
Jungle Jump – In this game, you play as a monkey. You use the stylus to jump from vine to vine. You get a bonus by collecting bananas, and you lose points by touching spiders. This is one of the hardest minigames in the collection, and not very fun when you keep missing jumps. This game features one of the few times when a non-stylus input is valid; there are some vines where you use the stylus to climb, you can use the A button to jump off any vine, but it's most useful on these vines, as on the swinging vines you don't get much air by using the A button.
Coco Bowl – One of the more fun minigames, it'll be the one you'll play the most, most likely. You flick the stylus up to roll the ball down a pier, hoping to knock down the glass bottles used as pins. While the ball is rolling, you can flick the stylus left or right to spin the ball. This works, although it's subtle. There's a basic lane that's most similar to regular bowling. There are other lanes that feature challenging differences such as funky pin formations, crabs that will reject your ball, wind, and a lane that sways back and forth, making shots difficult. It's hard to get a good score but satisfying when you do.
Cascade – This is a puzzle game where you use the stylus to exchange two fruits to make three fruits in a row to eliminate them. This game is tedious and quickly becomes boring. You line up fruits until the bar on the top screen fills up, then you advance to the next level. Ice is the main obstacle here, freezing up tiles and making them unusable until you line up fruits touching the ice to break it. Why is there ice on a tropical island anyway?
Puffer Popper – You've probably played a Flash game similar to this one before. You use the stylus to aim your cannon and release it to fire colored balls at puffers leading a parade of colored balls. Match up three or more balls of the same color in a row to remove them from play. There are also powerups to help you eliminate a bunch of single balls in a row. There are boss levels where you get cocobombs by finishing off puffers, then using them to attack a bigger puffer.
Shell Game – Bet sand dollars, a ball is placed under one of three shells, they're moved around for a bit, you guess which one the ball is under. Not very fun and quite ho-hum.
Parasail – You control a monkey parasailing on a leaf. You use the stylus to move up and down. The goal, like in Jungle Jump, is to collect bananas while avoiding barrels and puffers. The main difference is that you can get coconuts to break open barrels and kill puffers. In later levels there are gusts of wind that send you up to allow you to collect even more bananas.
Sandoku – It's just Sudoku. You can find a puzzle in your local newspaper. You can probably find some puzzles to print off online. You can find it anywhere! This is not worth paying for!
Trijong – Mahjongg with triangle pieces instead of rectangular pieces. Big whoop. Pass on this as well, unless you're an insatiable mahjongg fanatic.
The game you get when you unlock the last island is called Beach Bash, and it better be a doozy, because it costs 100,000 to unlock the last island plus you have to pay for enough furnishings to fill the three bars.
You use sand dollars to buy furnishings for your island. There's a food, comfort, and fun bar, and you have to fill them up on each island to unlock a new minigame. You don't have to upkeep them, just fill up the bar, so it's not like a Tamagotchi, but it's not very fun. The islands scale up in price quickly:
You only get about 1000-2000 for completing each level in a game that is generous in giving out sand dollars (the most I've gotten in one round is 4000 in Water Words, which still isn't plentiful in relation to the cost of the last island), so you'll likely run out of patience long before completing each island. You can take some solace in the fact that the game allows you to sell bought items on previous islands. To the game's credit, each island has different items, but it's mostly cosmetic changes. Treat this as a collection of minigames as opposed to an actual game with minigames. Too bad the minigames aren't anything that can't be found on any Flash game site or PC, and there are only eleven of them.
The controls in the games are good; you feel like you have control in each game, except maybe Jungle Jump. The gameplay just isn't exciting or gripping enough, however.
One last gripe: It's a bit hard to use the stylus to push the arrow button to display more items.
Lasting Appeal
This game has little lasting appeal. After you unlock the last island and minigame, which will take a long time because the minigames get old quick, you'll only play again if you're really bored. This game is easily overshadowed by other games in your collection, and you'll want to play those instead.
Fun Factor
The games aren't that fun to begin with, and what little fun factor they have will dry up quickly. It seems ideal for a long road trip or somewhere where you have a limited time to play your game, but if you have a DS, then you should have other games in your collection that are much more exciting to play.
The 411
Tropix is the worst kind of bad game. It's not overtly bad, and it's not horrible or hideous, but it's a bad game because there's no value. It's just a collection of Flash games with a DS sheen. There's nothing exclusive to this game; you can find a bowling game, a colored ball shooting game, a line up three objects game, or a word game on any old Flash game site. There isn't much of a main game, either. Save your money and go to a site like Tiger Flash Games or Kongregate.
Graphics
7.0
Most of the graphics are good, if not breathtaking, although a graphical glitch and some ugliness in Parasailing knocks the score down.
Gameplay
5.0
The controls are okay, but the gameplay is tedious.
Sound
7.0
The music is soothing and unoffending, but won't get stuck in your head. The sound effects are done well.
Lasting Appeal
2.0
This game will get mired on your shelf very quickly.
Fun Factor
3.0
It's not very fun scraping up 100,000 sand dollars to buy the last island, or even getting 65,000 for the one before it.
Sound
