Guest blog by @YvoCaro, find more of my gaming ramblings on www.ladiesgamers.com
By now a lot more people will have heard of one of the lesser known Nintendo characters then way back, when I met Chibi Robo. At the beginning of 2014 he had his own eShop exclusive game, Chibi Robo Photo Finder. I was glad to see that he finally got some attention here in the West, though the game doesn’t do justice to the great gameplay that a Chibi game can provide. Up till then we only had two games released here. A GameCube game, simply called Chibi Robo!, and a game that was available in the US, Chibi Robo Park Patrol. My first Chibi game was Park Patrol, a game that had landed in the discount bins at the WalMart in 2009. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but for the low pricing I was willing to give it a try. And I’m so glad I did! I was so taken with the little metallic hero that I even tried my first ever game in Japanese, simply because it was not going to be released here.
Okaeri! Chibi Robo! Happy Richie Ōsōji! Is literally translated as “Welcome home Little Robo! Happy, Rich Big sweep!” The game was a big hit in Japan, it received a rating of 34 out of 40 from the weekly Famitsu magazine, and it was the fifth best-selling game during the week of its release.
So let me try to describe what you can expect in a fully fledged Chibi game. Okaeri! Chibi Robo has similar gameplay to the GameCube game. You take control of this 10 centimeter tall robot whose job it is to clean the inside of the house of Jenny, her son Keith and dog Lucky. Chibi lives in a little round box, and is helped along with tips and advice by Telly. He has to do exactly what I don’t like in real life: cleaning. Rub spots out of the carpet and counter tops using a toothbrush, using a vacuum cleaner to clear way all the mess Keith makes, wipe away all the muddy paw prints that Lucky makes and throw all the rubbish he finds in the bin. All the while you will have to keep an eye on his power levels, as his batteries have to be charged from time to time. Chibi-Robo also has a little sifter which can separate dirt from precious gems. These are traded inside Chibi-Robo’s little home for money, which he uses to purchase furniture for the house from the home shopping network. He is so small that he has to dance on the telephone buttons to dial the number, how cute is that?
One of your goals is to clean everything to perfection, and to do that you have to make your way to every nook and cranny. Some brain power has to be used about how to reach all the faraway places, on have enough energy left to do you job. The other goal is to make everyone in the house happy. And “everyone” means more then just the family that I mentioned. During the course of the story Chibi meets all kinds of toys, each with their own life stories. There’s the toy shark, the pig-cop and the wrestler. When Chibi helps them, he gets rewards like a new outfit, or a vehicle or some obstacle is removed so Chibi can reach a new area.
The game is cheerful, lovable and though it might seem simple at the beginning, it can be quite challenging when you progress in the story. Cleaning gets to be quite a satisfactory chore ( who could have thought?), and you always want to take one more stain away or get that little bit of dust in your vacuum cleaner. You even get to fight, using your gun, or twirling your power cord to vanquish ghosts, blast away spiders or shoo a mouse from the house. I know this game will not appeal to everyone, but if you want to play something different I can recommend this DS game. And if you want to try playing a Japanese game, this is the one to start with. It’s region free, so no Japanese DS is needed. I’d give this game a 9 out of 10!
9/10
For more information on Okaeri! Chibi Robo! Happy Richie Ōsōji please go to http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/b62j/ and many thanks to Yvocaro for the review. Check out one of my favourite blogs http://www.ladiesgamers.com for plenty more 3DS (and iOS!) goodness!
