Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals (DS) Review
I’ve grown up with Disney and almost every Disney film I’ve watched, I’ve enjoyed. That being said, I can’t really think of a decent Disney game that I’ve played that ever stood out (Besides, of course, Capcom’s Aladdin on the SNES). However, when Spectrobes arrived on my doorstep, I was intrigued, because it is apparently Disney’s first ever franchise that is not based on any previous cartoons. So we have a completely original Disney created franchise that’s exclusive to the videogaming format – what is it like? Well, it’s much better than I thought.
Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals is the second game in the Spectrobes series from Disney and follows on from the original game. After the recent defence of the “Nanairo” system from the hideous Krawl swarm, players assume the role of Rallen. Rallen is a young but very strong-willed officer, while his sidekick Jeena is a much more grounded and technologically advanced acquaintance. Together, they must rescue Aldous, a man from a distant galaxy (think Star Wars >_>) from Maja, a much higher ranked Krawl. To make matters worse, several mysterious portals (hence the title of the game) have popped up that allow Rallen and Jeena to access different galaxies, but also allows the Krawl to access their own Nanairo system. Naturally it’s up to Jeen and Rallen to stop this from happening with the use of their new spectrobes, defeat the four “High Krawl” and their leader, Krux as well as bring back Aldous before things go awry. The plot is somewhat decent, but many people will feel that it is phoned in at an early stage. Still, it’s pretty good for the target audience and more than enough when you consider that.
The presentation of Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals is top notch. Fully animated cutscenes are colourful, bustling with life and bring a lot to the narrative, with the quality rivalling even that of Square Enix’s efforts on the DS. Disney has put a lot of effort in maintaining the art style from the previous game and it makes everything look almost perfect and nothing seems out of place. The in-game graphics are also nice too, with some nice sprites being used during the dialogue and three-dimensional models being utilised during gameplay itself. Sometimes these models can look a little, well, less than desirable, and it really makes me wonder why they didn’t choose to use sprites for in-game models, but all in all they are quite nice.
The environments in the game are also quite well designed from an aesthetic point of view, but sometimes your characters feels way too small for the environment they are in and it makes you think the sense of scale is REALLY lost. Gameplay in Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals is pretty simple, but is still pretty well thought out. You control either Rallen or Jeena, depending on which task is to be done. Rallen is naturally good at combat and exploring, while Jeena is used whenever a puzzle is close by (naturally, one has to wonder why men NEVER have the wits to solve puzzles in video games, but oh well). Spectrobes 2 offers you two kinds of battle: Field Battles and Encounter Battles. Field Battles are where the player uses the face buttons on the DS to battle enemies with Rallen himself, while Encounter Battles take place on a completely different playing field. During Encounter Battles, players can utilise their Spectrobes in battle and use their abilities either individually or in tandem to deal extra damage. It’s a very nicely put together system and the controls are, for the most part, intuitive enough to make the game quite enjoyable (and even makes grinding enjoyable *gasp*), but there is never too much of a need for grinding anyway. In addition, players can also excavate fossils and items, similar to the previous game, in order to yield more Spectrobes. A nice change to, oh let’s say, red and white coloured balls. All in all, the battle system and exploration mechanics of Spectrobes 2 are great and really suit the game and its audience very well, with all the different genres merging together to make a really enjoyable experience.
With a grand total of Spectrobes being now 185, a huge improvement from the 73 original Spectrobes, Spectrobes: Beyond The Portal has a lot of content that players will have a good time sinking their teeth into. Completionists will find even more mileage in the game, as collecting every Spectrobe will definitely take some time for those interested. The main campaign has some good length to it too, taking roughly 20-40 hours to fully complete. Spectrobes’ lowest point is quite possibly the audio offerings, which are pretty mediocre. All conversations are text based within the game, and the same music pieces loop over and over again to create a pretty repetitive and mind draining experience.
It’s also peculiar to see some pretty intense stuff happening in the cutscenes themselves (the previously mentioned FMV ones) but no voice acting at all implemented into them, making some of them feel REALLY dead. The best way to describe it is as a combination of Kingdom Hearts and Pokemon, but with only upbeat music taking the stage, it feels really out of place at some points where an evil character is delivering a monologue. It’s just a REALLY weird design choice.
Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals is a very decent action RPG that is designed for younger children but is playable at all ages. It’s a very enjoyable, colourful and family friendly game that all RPG gamers should look at trying at least once, and doesn’t alienate the audience who hasn’t played the original Spectrobes game. Definitely worth a look for younger children, with a recommendation of trialling before purchasing for the older audiences.
