Every once in a while, you come across a game where you think the idea is just too out there for an American audience, those kind of games where you wish you knew Japanese so you could play it. Well, lucky for us, Square Enix decided to take a chance and translate Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime to English. But can a game starring a blue slime still hold in America?
Story:
The game starts off with Rocket (your character) and his fellow slime friends hanging out in the palace gardens in a town called Boingburg. Your friend decides to “borrow” a flute from the castle which you end up playing a little something on. As soon as you play the flute though, your father who is a knight at the castle comes running out looking for the stolen flute. To hide the flute, your friend so kindly shoves it inside you turning you into this bizarre shaped oval. When questioned about the odd shaped blue oval, your friends inform your father that it’s just a baseball bat.
Then the town comes under attack by the Plob, strange creatures that resemble platypuses, which attack from a giant platypus shaped tank. They were in the neighborhood searching for the flute and heard it and just couldn’t resist stopping by to steal it. They slimenap all 100 citizens of your town and lock each one inside of a chest. They ignore you because of your odd shape (you still have the flute in you) thinking you’re not a slime. With your town destroyed and everyone locked up, it’s up to you to save your fellow slime and defeat the Plob.
Presentation:
The first thing I noticed is the complete lack of any touch screen support besides clicking buttons on menus. This doesn’t seem to be a draw back though because it controls just fine with the directional pad and buttons. The dual screens are put to good use though as the environment is on the bottom screen and a map is on the top screen. The map at default shows a silhouette of the surrounding areas until you enter that area which it then fills it with a highly detailed map. You can also zoom out to see the whole map and see which direction you want to head. When it comes time for a tank battle, the action takes place once again on the bottom screen and the top screen displays both tanks and what is being fired at each other as well as where everyone is.
Graphics:
For being a year old game, the graphics are still great looking today. The animation is great and the environments are unique and very colorful. With 100 different citizens, about 20 different enemies, and tons of different items, there was a lot of time spent with the graphics. As with most 2D games though, there seems to be a problem with walking area when it comes to trees and such. In real life, you could walk directly behind a tree trunk but in this game, you have to go up and around the visual area of the top of the tree.
Sound:
At first the sound is great, but then you realize it starts to get repetitive. It’s not the worst music in the world, but it’s not the best either. It’s in the solid middle area. The little voice effects they created for the Plob though are great. I never got tired of hearing one of the Plob scream their funny little voices after being blown out of an enemy robot.
Gameplay:
The gameplay is super simple. Let me tell you how to play the game…push the A button. This in no way hinders the gameplay though. Pushing the A button makes you jump, pushing it again while in the air makes you balloon up and hover for a bit, and holding down A and releasing makes you do a body slam attack. You basically want to mow down the enemies with your body slam attack and then send them back to town on a platform.
The game also features a sort of puzzle element. There are times where you come across a statue and you have to duplicate what it’s carrying and stand on the button next to it to proceed. There are other times when you come across one way waterways and you need to push a cannon through a maze like area to be able to get back.
My biggest and really only gripe about the game though is that the tank battles become extremely tiresome by the end of the game. The enemies fire so much that you can’t seem to be able to land a hit on them so I always have to get into their tank and beat the crap out of the enemy for 15 minutes so my fellow crewmates can slowly chip away at his health until the tank’s HP reaches zero and then I have to break my way to the heart of the ship (literally a metal heart) and body slam it to finish him off. The first few tank battles are easy but then their HP rises each time (as can yours if you choose to buy the upgrades) so it just keeps taking longer and longer to win.
Lasting Appeal:
The main game can be rather short if you choose to just do the bare bones of the game to finish it, but the collectables are numerous! First off there are the 100 citizens to collect which consist of the majority of the game. Then when you collect 30 of each enemy, a gold statue is built in the museum and that enemy will join your available tank crew. Speaking of the tank, you can raise its HP a ton by purchasing upgrades. There are numerous recipes for new items to collect that you can use alchemy to create from other items. There are some mini games you can play for fun, and a tournament of tank battles to play. Last but not least, each area in the game has so many different items and monsters in them and it shows you before you start the level how many different things you’re missing from that area. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the multiplayer mode. Nothing beats beating the crap out of a friend by bombarding his tank with giant golden arrows and giant rockets!
Presentation: 9
Graphics: 8
Sound: 7
Gameplay: 9
Lasting Appeal: 9
Overall (not an average): 9/10
