Chibi Robo? More like Feeble Robo!

[lobotomy42]

Actually, no, this game is amazing! I picked it up today almost on a whim, and tried it out for a few hours...

Only to discover that it is awesome! I am totally loving it so far, though I've only played a few hours in. It's sort of like Zelda, if instead of Link fighting Ganon in Hyrule, you're a little robot cleaning up people's messes in a small dysfunctional household. And the toys come to life at night and talk to you. And there's a girl who thinks she's a frog. And some talking egg-army people. And....it's just great.

Japanese games are so great!

[miffy495]

Man, I had a solid 3 month addiction to this game when it came out. Hour a day sort of thing. Between that and Guitar Hero, I was set from February through May. Good times. I may need to bust it out again just to see how things are going in the Sanderson house.

[Aussie Ben]

Secret hilarity:

I finally got Jenny to take off her frog hat. She asked me "Do you think I look better without my hat?" I was playing in front of friends, and someone shouted out "CHOOSE NO!", so I did. She gave the SADDEST FACE EVER, and then put her frog hat back on. We all laughed, and I secretly felt terribly guilty.

Yes Chibi-Robo is awesome. I can't wait for the DS version! You make killer robots dance! I love to make things dance. The last time I did that was in Ape Escape 3. Good times.

[sobersiddhi]

I'm several (in-game) days into this and while I'm still not entirely sold on it, after reading these comments I think I'll have to go put another how or so into it.

What I really want is a sequel to Space Station Silicon Valley. That game was so incredibly awesome.

[Tanukitsune]

Yeah, I loved this Chibi-Robo, but this trend to have the thread title say the opposite of what you mean is beginning to irk me...

"Pyschonauts? More like Suckynuts", "Cave Story? More like Lame Boring":shifty:

I think I managed to unlock nearly everything in the game and had a blast playing it!

[ysbreker]

this trend to have the thread title say the opposite of what you mean is beginning to irk me...

Blame toblix.

this game is for the gamecube, right? If so I might just pick it up when I get my wii.

[miffy495]

Yes, yes it is. Plus, there's a tiny wooden pirate in the basement! Love that guy.

[woxel1]

What a great game! There are some seriously catchy tunes in it too, and the best cast of characters since Wind Waker

Secret Eggplant Man FTW!

[Sno]

I did a search for Chibi-Robo and came up with this thread from six years ago.

So i am performing thread-necromancy on it to talk about starting a new playthrough of Chibi Robo, i hope i am not yelled at for this action.

When i loaded up my original save, it became clear that i had just bolted through the main story, so i'm thinking about trying to do a more completist playthrough.

I don't recall though, was there anything in the way of missables? Given that it's structured recognizably like other Nintendo games, i'm guessing there probably isn't.

[syntheticgerbil]

Awww, our old thread titles!

[MrHoatzin]

Wow, has Lobotomy42 actually had that avatar for six whole years?

[Orv]

Wow, has Lobotomy42 actually had that avatar for six whole years?

Could be, but keep in mind these forums update all your old posts with your new avatar.

[Sno]

Dialogue in this game scrolls soooooo slooooooooowly... and everything is said in the most verbose manner possible.

I love these characters though, Telly is awesome, and it's a good well-written localization. (I've been noticing that there's some points where the yes/no prompts correlate to the questions asked in a really confusing and unclear way.)

Anyways, i got up to the part where you discover giga-robo in the basement, and went a little bit past that.

It was something that i remembered being further into the game than it apparently actually is, since it only took a few hours to get in that far. I wasn't even rushing to get there, i kind of vaguely remembered the progression of events, and was going out of my way to explore all the corners available to me. The game is more open-ended than i remember, i was surprised that i was able to get outside so early on. Also, playing around a bit with save reloads showed that there are tons of optional or alternative events sprinkled around that pop up to point you back in the right directions, it really feels like a lot of thought and work must have gone into everything.

Holy crap, and i forgot that the game has aliens and even goes into why all the toys are alive, that story goes to some weird places.

It's also clicked with me that the whole costumes thing is very similar to how Zelda games have used masks as a way to let Link talk about different topics with NPC's. I mean, and pushing up against ledges to jump, or getting the expanded item description the first time you pick an item up regardless of how small or important it is, or the bigger things like the ways in which it handles progress gating and its day/night cycle. A lot of small touches common to most Nintendo games, a recognizable house style, but in my estimation, particularly common to Zelda games.

I also still really like the whole economy of movement thing. There's always a bit of a push and pull between that and the day/night cycle, trying to figure out how quickly you can move without making costly navigational errors, it feels a lot like Pikmin in this way. (Though it helps to buy the 15 minute timer early in the game and take your time with things, and it especially pays to do so when climbing around in areas with precarious footing. You can also always go back to the shorter cycles if you want, since there are points with NPC routines that play out over multiple days.)

I had also forgotten that it takes an annoying long time before you can get up high enough to use the waste basket. My head is too full of junk! Telly keeps leaving spent party poppers all over the place, and i can't pick up any more of them! Cleanliness! Cleanliness! Argh!

[lobotomy42]

Wow, has Lobotomy42 actually had that avatar for six whole years?

I may not have actually made the avatar until 2007 or so? I'm not sure. But I definitely haven't changed it in a long while.

[Sno]

So, was this game always progressive scan, or is that some backwards compatibility sorcery happening because of the Wii? The case doesn't list it as being a progressive scan game. Either way, it looks nice. You know, and the game was definitely not lauded for its visuals when it came out, but i think the simple art style is kind of elegant and has aged better than a lot of other Gamecube games.

Really stellar sound too, i think. The musical notes that accompany all of Chibi's actions,

, and even the jibberish out of the NPC's that manages to convey a ton of personality for each character.

The camera is terrible, it's just bad. It's a bad camera. It would be a really big problem if the game wasn't generally so leisurely about its difficulty and pace.

I had also forgotten that it takes an annoying long time before you can get up high enough to use the waste basket. My head is too full of junk! Telly keeps leaving spent party poppers all over the place, and i can't pick up any more of them! Cleanliness! Cleanliness! Argh!

I'm really dumb, because all i was doing wrong was standing in the wrong spot and getting a "you can't throw in trash from here" prompt, and i think i made this same dumb mistake the first time i played the game.

Anyways, I'm at a point in this game where it's just opened up wide, and i had forgotten how the game was like this, you just get to a point where if you're not entirely sure what to do to progress a certain quest line, it doesn't matter, because there's probably seven other things going at the same time. The game is really good about having all these concurrent events play off of eachother and feel organic without anything forestalling your ability to progress through something else or outright cancelling a quest path. (As far as i am aware, there are no missables.)

It really kind of does feel like a living household full of crazy people, with so many things constantly things going on. However, in this context it really bothers me when i notice things like the TV's not being plugged into outlets, or this home not having a bathroom. I am unreasonably troubled by the lapses of verisimilitude in this comic book household.

Generally where i am at though, Jenny has been sitting outside of her parents' bedroom at nights, using a teddy bear to speak her mind while making a heart-breakingly sad face. A lot of things are in progress, but nothing is concluded. Found a tiny flying pirate ship, charged up giga-robo's battery part of the way, found a senile lego dinosaur, tiny spider robots are invading, etc, etc. I've got access to the full house now, but am still in the process of building tiny ladders and bridges everywhere so that i can reach the most out of the way locations. It also occurs to me that the cup is completely useless, i have used it exactly once and it was for a scripted scenario.

I've also spent a few minutes messing around in Park Patrol, the second game. I don't think i ever finished that game, and it looks like i still had things in progress on my save file, but i must have been pretty far into it because i had a pretty fully developed park and what looks like all of the items and upgrades unlocked.

That is a really pretty cool little game, but it has a very different emphasis, there's no vertical exploration of space, it doesn't really take advantage of the scale like the first game did. It also has a much, much smaller emphasis on questing and NPC interactions. You're managing a park, building up a park, trying to fill it with flowers and interesting terrain, and that's about it. I mean, you're mostly just trying to keep flowers from dying, as i remember it. (While ripping around in awesome little RC cars.)

I also did a bit of reading on the third game, the one we didn't get, and i was kind of bummed out. It looks

, DS ugliness aside. It also features Jenny all grown up!... living in poverty as a single mother...

[lobotomy42]

I believe that all Nintendo-published games on the GameCube were progressive scan. Certainly Chibi Robo! was.

[lobotomy42]

I never played the DS game because everyone said it was awful. Were they wrong? Should I try to track down a copy? That second never-translated Chibi Robo sure looks great...

[syntheticgerbil]

You might as well, sometimes handheld counterparts of console games can be very surprising. I've found a lot of reviewers tend to just dock the game for not being what it's big brother is and reiterating it a bunch in their review.

[Sno]

Park Patrol is definitely worth playing, i think. It's a very different game, but it's certainly not a bad game.

[HPopper]

I picked up this game about a year ago and completionist-ed it. I remember it being a mix of utterly joyful creativity and irritating progression of certain things based around triggering scripted events in arbitrary ways.

It's like,

Q: "How do I get item X?"

A: "Go into the kitchen at nighttime while it's raining after you collect the red hat. A guy will show up and give it to you."

I hate that stuff in video games.

[Sno]

I've started getting stickers for completing some of the quest lines, so i'm probably closing in on the end game, but there are a looot of stickers to collect.