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60 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
SPORE CRAWLS ONTO NINTENDO'S HANDHELD, September 9, 2008
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Spore Creatures DS is an offshoot of the massively popular Spore for the PC.
While it may not have the vast amount of editing options found it its PC counterpart, as a stand-alone game Spore for the ds contains a surprising amount of depth and enjoyment.
The story starts out with you, a little creature called "Oogie" who barely managed to escape with his friend "Little Oogie" from the terrifying prospect of being beamed aboard an alien spaceship. The characters in the game act like paper doll cutouts. Remember in Paper Mario when Mario would turn around, it was like a piece of paper being flipped over? That's the effect being used here.
Controls are very tight; you can use the stylus or d-pad to move around, and you use the stylus to interact with the environment.
First you need to explore your surrounding area, to try to figure out where to go. Often the way is blocked by a cave, which may be unlocked by solving some story portion, or a body of water(in which case you'll need special legs to get through without dying) or even a boiling hot desert or bubbling lava and you have to find a way to safely get around or go through the hazards to the next area.
Yes, the game can get a bit repetitious -finding a part to get to the next area- and in that respect, it can also be quite linear. However, I had so much fun finding new creatures to befriend to fill up my "Sporopedia", leveling up so I could use more body parts at once, and trying to find out the fate of Little Oogie. The developers did a great job of shaking things up a bit so the game play isn't too tedious and repetitious.
Sometimes you'll have to race a character before he'll give up the leg part you'll need. Other times, it's as simple as saving a creature from a nest of nasties. If you clear the nest, either by befriending it or fighting all the nasties you gain a new nest which is often closer then the one you usually go to to evolve.
The creature editor is surprisingly robust. At any time, you can head back to your nest and change shape. Add more eyes to see hidden objects, attach special "water-walking" legs so you won't drown in deep water, or stick on limbs that allow you to heal during battle. Early on in the game you will have the ability to burrow back to your nest, which makes it easier if you need to evolve to become stronger to fight a certain enemy.
You spend your time making new friends, either by "cuddling them" which consists of petting with the stylus or via a rhythm mini game similar to a very basic Elite Beat Agents whereas you tap notes as they hit the center of flower "rings" to a beat. Or attacking other creatures that try to harm you, which you do by dodging around and slashing via the touch screen, and trying to find more and more body parts to use to "evolve" into a better, stronger creature.
The game is also very aurally pleasing. It's got mild, soothing melodies that quite honestly I hardly even notice and each area has its own tune.
One niggling concern: The camera can sometimes be a problem, constantly rotating around especially when you are trying to befriend or fight creatures. The camera tends to swing all the way around, so you are viewing from the other side, which can be off-putting. However, I never had much of a problem with it, as you can reset the camera using either of the L or R shoulder buttons.
Replay value is incredible. You get achievement "badges" for defeating or befriending creatures, for discovering new places, for destroying or befriending all species of one creature, for finding parts, even little things like running though bushes or how much you feed your friends or evolve. These can then be spent to buy unlockable in-game cheats like invisibility or new, special body parts.
You can can link up via local wireless and also exchange friend codes so you can trade your creatures with a friend. The idea behind this is that your friend's creatures can inhabit the game world as NPCs and vice-versa.
To those on the fence about the game: You can download a demo of the game on the Nintendo Channel if you have a Wii and a ds. You can play around with the creature editor and walk him around a tiny island. On the Official Spore.com website they have a flash game where you can play with the editor.
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50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loved it!, September 8, 2008
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
I bought Spore Creatures the day it came out and ended up playing until 11 pm at night, when my partner reminded me I had to work the next day. Yes, I'm an adult. I enjoyed Zelda and the Phantom Hourglass, but found it annoying to keep on returning to the same main dungeon. I enjoyed Brain Age, but my mind often isn't sharp enough to be doing tests. I finished Professor Layton and found the puzzles great but the townspeople a bit boring. I enjoyed Nintendogs, but it was a bit limited in gameplay. I absolutely love Spore Creatures. I get to go to different islands and explore, completely design my own creatures - body, eyes, legs, fins, arms, tails - colour, size, angle, texture - with different strengths for each kind of part - whenever I want to at certain parts on the islands. I get to meet new weird-looking species and decide whether to eat them or befriend them. I get to be a carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore depending on which mouth I have at the time. There are 3 profiles. You can save creatures and exchange them through the zoo. I really, really, enjoyed this game. I haven't found it boring yet, but then again, I can play for hours at a time. It is similar to the "creature" phase of the computer Spore game. (From what I've read, the computer Spore game is not as enjoyable, and I'm not sure if that's because there are more adult games available for computer PC, compared to DS games). Anyway, compared to other DS games, this is the best one yet. Off to happily eat a sporeling now!
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34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Spore + Boring = Sporing, September 10, 2008
Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars
Spore Creatures is a sub-par game, with an awesome creation mode. The game itself is extremely repetitive and derivative in almost every way. This game is like when a popular movie comes out and they have a trashy tie-in game. This is the first time I have seen a trashy tie-in game for another game.
As the name implies, this game is focused on an extremely limited version of Spore's creature phase. The difference here is that they took this limited creature phase and turned it into something like a RPG-platformer. Unfortunately by making it this type of game it kind of ruins the creation mode. For example you need to use special kinds of legs to get past obstacles. There are swimming legs and legs that let you walk on spikes. In these cases you are forced to switch out the legs you want for the ones to get past an area. It is a minor point but it undermines the 'make a creature the way you want' concept.
To progress you must do missions for the various creatures. As you do missions you get body parts and levels to be able to put more/better parts on your creature. The repetitive missions are befriend/kill all of one type of creature, dig somewhere, or break stuff. That is really just about all you do.
Befriending creatures is super, super lame. You can feed them, but most of the time you will do a call and then either rub the creature like in Endless Ocean: Dive, Discover, Dream or play a wannabe Elite Beat Agents type game. By itself it doesn't sound so bad, but think of it like this - for every creature you want to befriend you will rub it down at least 5-6 time and probably also do the rhythm game twice. EVERY TIME. And that is just one creature in one of six worlds that has dozens each.
Fighting is not better. Certain body parts give you super moves, but essentially you will be slashing at them like Link's sword in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Fighting is easy and if you are reluctant, there is essentially no negative to dying. You just get re-spawned at your nest with nearly full health.
The creation mode is easily the best part of the game. In fact you will probably spend more time playing around with what you can make, than actually playing the game itself. Unlike the 3D PC Spore creation mode, you get a 2D, almost Super Paper Mario or South Park like cardboard graphics. You can change the color, size and placement of every body part. Also you can apply 18 pre-made color schemes with spots, stripes, or whatever.
Ultimately the problems with this game are very similar to the problems with the PC Spore. The creation mode overpowers everything. The benefit of the PC game is that it is five different games plus the creation mode. This one RPG-esque game is really nothing special. The creation mode is fantastic, but the "game" within is lame.
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