A Dream Game Cast Upon the G.B.A.
Written: Jan 10 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fantastic gameplay; four-player mode is especially fun.
Cons: Long learning curve; might not appeal to some people.
The Bottom Line: Once you become accustomed to the quirky gameplay mechanics, Chu Chu Rocket! becomes a fantastic game that is unequaled on the Game Boy Advance.
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| arada392's Full Review: Chu Chu Rocket for Game Boy Advance |
I am addicted to Chu Chu Rocket!
There is no other way to explain why the game captures my attention in such a dominating fashion at the expense of my other Game Boy Advance games. Although I am aware of this condition, I am helpless when I am under the game’s spell: I plan on playing for just fifteen minutes and end up lost in the game’s world for hours at a time. When I am not playing the game, I think about playing it; I try to decipher answers to puzzles; I think about new stages to design and new characters to draw. The game has infiltrated my reality in such a way that I even dream about playing the game.
The reason I believe Chu Chu Rocket! is so addictive is that it is a masterpiece of game design; like Tetris, the game is also the possessor of an imaginative idea and exquisite mechanics. The aim of the game, like all great puzzle games, is simple: direct the eponymous mice –the Chu Chus– to the goal, a rocket hatch. In this respect, you might think the game is very similar to an earlier puzzle game, D.M.A.’s Lemmings, but to take this view would be a bit too superficial. Yuji Naka and his group of designers at Sonic Team (the developers of this game and an internal team of Sega) have made a structure for the game that is highly imaginative, simple to grasp yet difficult to master, and –most important of all– fun. It certainly proves more so than D.M.A.’s game.
While Lemmings employed a scrolling side-on view to direct the proceedings, in Chu Chu Rocket! you guide your mice from an overhead perspective in a fixed, although unbounded, screen. Chu Chus only advance in one direction and the only way to direct them to the rocket hatch is to place "Arrow Panels" on the floor for them to step on to change the direction the mice take. The elements in the game stay simple throughout: the only other obstacles in the game’s universe that you will have to deal with are walls, pits, and, somewhat predictably, the mice’s nemeses: cats, called Kapu Kapus.
The simplicity of Chu Chu Rocket!’s design allows for a great flexibility in play modes, all of which center on the game’s main design tenets. The archetypal game mode, Puzzle mode, seems, at least in theory, a simple affair: your goal is to clear a certain puzzle stage by directing mice to their rocket hatch using a limited number of arrow panels. In execution, however, many stages prove very difficult, and, in the hands of devilish puzzle makers, a few others are almost impossible to solve. Impressively, Sonic Team not only included their own one-hundred developed puzzles in the game, but also two thousand five hundred other stages created by Chu Chu Rocket! players from around the world. (It should be pointed out, however, that there are various puzzles that, disappointingly, are not very tightly developed as Sonic Team’s; thankfully, though, this is offset by the many other puzzles that will make you rack your brain for hours at a time.).
A slightly more obscure mode is Stage Challenge. The goal in this mode is the same as in Puzzle mode, except for the fact that here there is complete freedom on the number of panels you can place and a strict time limit to reach the goal. The main appeal of Stage Challenge is not just completing each of the stages, but trying to reach the goal in the fastest time possible. (The game not only saves your times for each stage, but also the combined time of all the original stages.) The appeal is augmented by the greater variety of goals in this mode; not only do you have to just direct your mice to their rocket hatch, in other stages you are asked to collect one hundred mice, play "Cat Soccer," (directing Kapu Kapus to your rival’s rocket hatches) and, comically, (and rather perversely) feed the Kapu Kapus with mice. In all of its facets, Stage Challenge mode is like the Time Trial mode in a driving game: incredibly addictive, causing you to repeat stages repeatedly to try to shave precious seconds off your times.
However, the highlight of the game –and what has made Chu Chu Rocket! so popular to Dreamcast owners– is the Multiplayer Battle mode. The crucial difference in this mode is that you are competing against three other players, (computer-controlled or human, via the handy single-cartridge link-up) either singly or in teams, to accumulate as many Chu Chus into your rocket hatch as you can in the assigned time limit. (This mode is highly customizable.) This is multiplayer gaming at its best: fast, frenzied, intense, and at times completely unpredictable until the very last second, Chu Chu Rocket! offers an experience precious few other games can. The key to the brilliance of the multiplayer mode relies on the extra random elements that appear during play, in the form of mice with question marks over their heads. They trigger what the game calls a "Game Event" –a certain temporal occurrence that changes play in one form or another. For example, "Mouse Mania" (or "Chu Chu Fever" in its original Japanese) generates a large multitude of mice to appear in the arena; "Everybody Move" changes the location of each player’s rocket hatch. To succeed, you must be able to react swiftly and efficiently and use the situation to your advantage. The combination of the game’s elements (mice, walls, pits, and cats), the "Game Events," and the furious pace of the game creates a superb complexity to the gameplay, forcing you to form strategies at every second.
Judging from game sales, though, it is unfortunate to learn that many videogame players have not been influenced in the same way as I have, or –even worse– are not even aware of the brilliance that Chu Chu Rocket! has to offer, preferring instead the likes of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 or –depressingly– Namco Museum. Perhaps this is because the game has always been straddled with Sega milestones –the first console Internet game; the first game from Sega s a third party– that are emphasized instead of the magical gameplay. Or perhaps it is due to the fact that gamers will not purchase a game that is available for half the price on the Dreamcast, oblivious to the fact that the portable Chu Chu Rocket! boasts many improvements over the original console version.
There are subtle changes, like four added Game Events to the multiplayer mode that improve the mode tremendously and speed changes to the main game; and then there are other features that have been distinctly enhanced, as is the case with the Puzzle and the "creative" modes of the game. While the Dreamcast version allowed you to create your own puzzle stages, the G.B.A. version goes one step further: it lets you create new Stage Challenge, Multiplayer, and Team Multiplayer arenas. Another creative mode allows you to create new characters to replace the mice and cats using rudimentary painting and animation tools. Although it takes a while to produce results on par with Sonic Team’s characters and stages, the time spent in these modes can be quite enjoyable. As if this were not enough, Sonic Team has even installed an option to trade your creative masterpieces –both levels and characters– with other Chu Chu Rocket! owners.
An even more probably explanation of the game’s relative unpopularity, though, is that Chu Chu Rocket! does not feature exceptional graphics and sound. Staying true to its puzzle roots, the game provides very simple graphics with only a few background palette changes and special effects seen throughout the whole game. However, the austere visuals are important to the game’s design, because they help to keep the action in the game clear –an essential aspect for moments when there are hundreds of mice on screen running around hurriedly in different directions. The sound, by Masaru Setsumaru, Hideki Abe, and Tomoya Ohtani, is as accomplished as the visuals –that is to say, not exceptional in any way– but the catchy tunes make a great accompaniment to the game, and the sound effects, including voice samples spoken both in English and Japanese, are well done. However, superficial gamers accustomed to Castlevania: Circle of the Moon’s aural accomplishments or Rayman’s fabulous visuals will probably not have looked twice at Sonic Team’s puzzle game.
But perhaps the most probable reason that Chu Chu Rocket! was overlooked is its steep learning curve, and most gamers that would have looked beyond its rudimentary aesthetics would probably have turned away because of it. Even on its default setting, it takes a while to accustom yourself to the game’s frenzied tempo, and the various mechanics involving the gameplay elements can be rather unforgiving. Despite a convenient Help menu that the game encourages you to visit often and three logical control methods, you might feel lost while playing at first and failing quite often.
However, any gamer that persists through these minor impediments will find an inspired, superb, and incredibly entertaining puzzle game that caters for every need. Toshihiro Nagoshi, head of Sega’s AM2 division, writes in Edge magazine that, in the making of a Sega launch game for Nintendo’s GameCube, Super Monkey Ball, "… we knew we had to deliver a title that would deliver a lot of fun, regardless of whether or not it proved a smash hit. We would prefer to produce a title we can be proud of that offers users a prolonged experience that is fun to play at home." Ironically, these were ominous words for Chu Chu Rocket! as, sadly, the game did not prove to be a smash hit. On the other hand, Nagoshi’s words are also true of the quality of the game: in standard Sega fashion, Sonic Team has developed a game that accomplishes all that it aimed for –and more. Chu Chu Rocket! is not only one of the best games for the G.B.A. but also one of the best games of 2001.
Now, if you will excuse me, I’m off to play for just a few more minutes.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
arada392
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Member: David Teixeira
Location: Dunedin, Otago
Reviews written: 32
Trusted by: 24 members
About Me:
What do you think of me, that I am a chiaus?
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