The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Let’s see… what’s on my list of games I haven’t talked about.

Oh, woah, Solatorobo! The game I played out of my duty as a furry. Or something.

Solatorobo is a game that I am very glad got made and published in the US. That’s crazy! I’m so glad it happened! It’s really not the kind of game I really want to spend a long time with.

First things first: this game is adorable as fuck. The character art is awesome, and the world is weird and unique looking, even with the not-great 3D graphics of the DS. (That said, the 3D is among the best on the DS.) The little sound clips for the characters and stuff just ooze cute, and make you grin. It is just a fun world to be around, where you’ve got this mecha, but all you do is throw things, not shoot everything with guns, you know? It’s just not a sort of world you see anymore.

And that’s really the problem. This is not the kind of game you see any more. On the PS1, this game would have been a fucking revelation, beloved for years to come. But on the DS, it still has a lot of stuff from that era sticking around that it probably shouldn’t have. The game is extremely talky and hand-holdy, and while it is cute, as I said, I wouldn’t call it good. It can take you forever to do a simple side mission because Red just has to do so much talking in between fights. It also makes the plot paced very slowly.

All that hand-holding doesn’t do the game any favors because, at least as far as I’ve gotten, the combat is extremely simple. I am flat-out not good at any kind of real-time combat. I mean, I can get by, but I’m just not good. I had mastered the combat, at least as far as I’ve played, pretty well completely. It’s simple, which it has to be, since all you can really do is pick up and throw stuff. I hear late in the game stuff gets more interesting? But again, how much game with slow dialog would I have to sit through to get there? I just don’t know.

I’ve heard this described as a homage to games of that era, and if that’s what you want, this game totally does that, and does it well! I personally found that, while I wasn’t not having fun, perse, there just wasn’t enough there to keep my interest going when other shinies appeared. Poor Solatorobo! Oh well.