Chibi-Robo!

Chibi-Robo is one of those very difficult games to describe. One of the PR folks who handed it to me said, "It's very Japanese." That might give you an inkling of the kind of cutesy surrealness you can expect. I was going to describe it as "Pikmin meets Toy Story meets the old movie *batteries not included" myself. It's weird, and oddly compelling too.

You are the title character, a tiny little robot (just a few inches tall) in the employment of the Sanderson family. They're not a happy bunch. Mrs. Sanderson is fed up with the unemployed Mr. Sanderson, who would rather buy toys than find work. Little Jenny only ribbits like a frog when she speaks. Also, the toys and plants of the household are alive, coming to life at night with their own little dramas.

Told you it was odd. In fact, the plot is so insane it's endearing. There are characters like a teapot mystic/con artist, an army of eggs, and the plant world equivalent of Disco Stu. The story also takes some completely bizarre twists that you can't help but laugh at. There's a lot of imagination at work here; most of it deranged.

Your role in the Sanderson home is to make this weird lot happy, by finding the things they lose, solving their problems, and cleaning up after them. If you see stains on the floor, you can grab a discarded toothbrush and scrub them off. Did somebody leave behind an empty pop can? Pick it up and toss it into the nearest trashcan. Is Mrs. Sanderson looking for proof that her husband is wasting money again? Locate a hidden toy receipt and bring it to her. And so on.

If the gameplay sounds like it consists of chores, well, it does, kinda. Anybody you're living with (parent, spouse, roommate) in the real world will probably wonder why you find scrubbing a virtual kitchen fun, but not a real one. Well, maybe if you earned Moolah and Happy Points when you picked up real trash...

In Chibi-Robo!, Moolah and Happy Points can be used to purchase or earn more gadgets, including ones that will assist in exploration, like ladders, bridges, and a greater power capacity for Chibi. This will motivate you to clean up most of the messes you see. There are more action-oriented activities too. Occasionally you will encounter mechanical "Spydorz" that will require shooting with your handy blaster.

Backing up a moment, that's right, Chibi's power supply is limited. It gets used up faster if you're using special gadgets. If you run out while on the job, you'll keel over. Fortunately it only results in a small fine, and you can recharge and save at any power outlet. A power cord dangles from Chibi's body and follows him everywhere, which bring us to one of the game's aggravations. Chibi must pick up the plug in order to move quickly, but he drops it every time he does virtually anything else (climb, use an item, pick up something, etc). All I can say is that you get used to it.

Like Pikmin, the days and nights are timed, so you might spend a day trying to figure out how to get up that bookcase in a particular room to get to an item you've got your eye on. You have all sorts of gadgets at your disposal for exploration too, such as the Chibi-copter, which allows you to glide short distances, a radar that will help you pinpoint hidden things, and a spoon for digging. You can even find costumes that will grant you special abilities.

Most of your days and nights will be spent exploring the house and its rooms, finding ways to climb the massive furniture, solving puzzles, and hunting for treasure. Since Chibi is only a few inches tall, he can get into almost anything if you can figure out how. You can pull open drawers to use as steps, climb a tree in the backyard, or brave a trip into the house's drains.

The game really rewards exploration, too. If you spend a lot of time trying to get somewhere, there's almost always a prize waiting for when you finally get there. There are all sorts of hidden treasures and toys to play with. Example: Chibi Doors contain nice big coins for building up your account. You might find teddy bear stickers that cover secret passages and shortcuts.

The Sanderson house is a series of puzzles, and happily, not a linear one. The game is pretty open ended, and there are always at least three or four things to do. Some of them are sidequests too, so they aren't mandatory to complete the game. If you're stuck on one puzzle, you can focus on something else for a while. While you're puttering around trying one thing, you may get an idea (or even the means) for accomplishing another task, or you might find something else to distract you. Sometimes I had so many things on the go that I was wishing for a RPG-style quest log to keep track of them. It's a minor annoyance that the game doesn't have one.

A more pressing negative for me: Chibi-Robo! does something that a lot of Japanese games do, and it's always annoyed me. During dialogue, they...

...slowly scroll text...
...line by line...
...and you have to keep...
...pressing a button after every line...

Chibi-Robo! has the annoying habit of doing this to the extreme. When a character is scared or upset, it tends to sloooow the text down to emphasize what they say. This gets really aggravating.

Back to the happiness: the graphics are pretty sharp. The game renders some very large and pretty detailed rooms, but the frame rate doesn't fall behind. The load times are nice and short too. Chibi-Robo! has some great audio, too. As Chibi walks and works, different musical notes play with every step. This might sound annoying, but actually the effect is like you're watching an old Warner Brothers cartoon. You know how they would play different music with Bugs Bunny's every step, whether he was running from Yosemite Sam or sneaking by Elmer Fudd? It's a lot like that.

Chibi-Robo! is a real hybrid of genres, from action to adventure and even a hint of RPG. I also suspect that it's the kind of game a review can't truly do justice. It sounds totally weird on paper, but as soon as I tried it, I found it grew on me really quickly. Give it a try, and see if it charms your frog costume off too.

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