Chibi-Robo! Plug Into Adventure – Review

Who likes to do housekeeping activities such as vacuum cleaning, washing dishes, brushing mud off the floor, etc? It’s not my cup of tea, I’d much rather play videogames, write reviews, and hang around with family or friends. But those daily chores have to be done. Living in a garbage dump is unacceptable, therefore, like it or not, the housework has to be done by you, your partner, a hired housekeeper—or what about a little robot? That last option sounds appealing. In the virtual world Nintendo introduces a little housekeeping wonder called Chibi Robo, which is cute and effective; but don’t cheer too early as you’re going to have to control that little metallic wonder.

Meet the Sandersons, a family that are celebrating their daughter’s birthday, and this year daddy had bought a special present—a four-inch tall robot. Dad probably bought it because he personally liked the Chibi Robo and its technical skills without actually taking notice as to whether it would be a suitable gift for his young daughter. Nevertheless, their new little robot friend is functionally programmed and is determined to perform a variety of tasks to make all of the Sandersons happy. Luckily Chibi has the help of a manager, Telly Vision, who’s another robot that looks a lot like a floating television. Telly explains the basics of the game and talks on behalf of the Chibi to other characters such as the toys—which come alive during the night. The Sanderson family is made up of Dad Sanderson, an unemployed, lazy man who loves to crash on the couch, and the only thing he can think of are toys. Mum Sanderson likes to have a clean house and takes responsibility of the family’s bad financial situation. Their only child, Jenny, is a little girl who thinks she’s a frog and constantly says “ribbit”. To top it off she always wears a frog hat. The Sandersons also have a dog running around and messing up the floor with his dirty paws. Chibi Robo…welcome to the family.

The main goal in Chibi Robo is to make everyone happy, but just like in real life, that can often be a difficult task. However, there are several ways to accomplish this goal. At the beginning of the game you’ll perform simple household jobs like cleaning dirty spots on the floor with a toothbrush or picking up garbage. Everyone loves to live in a clean house, right? Another way to make the family happy is to complete specific favors for individual family members. For example, at the dawning of the game, Chibi is going to make Jenny happy by getting her a present. He checks the room and searches for items and eventually he finds a red rose on the table. It’s an excellent present, which makes Jenny happy for sure. Another example is to fetch a sugar cube for Mrs. Sanderson’s tea, then a spoon to stir the tea with, and finally a cookie to go along with it. For each accomplishment players are rewarded with happy points and Moolah. Moolah is the game’s currency and you can buy spare batteries, flower seeds, and Chibi-gear (useful equipment to help with the daily tasks such as a little helicopter-head attachment and an arm-assembled blaster cannon). Happy points represent how well you’re doing with the in-game tasks while also improving player rankings among other Chibi Robots in the world. While moving up in ranks, you can also earn bonus batteries.

While playing Chibi Robo you’ll notice that controlling the little robot is simple and easy to learn. From the outset, Telly Vision explains how to operate and to improve your skills in a later stage. The explanations are visualized on screen and can be read at any speed. Later on in the game, when you unlock new features or buy Chibi-gear, Telly Vision will become your teacher again. If you forget how to perform certain actions, you can always check and read the Chibi Robo instruction manual, which is lying on the ground besides the couch because Mr. Sanderson dropped it while falling asleep. One of the important factors in controlling is to watch over Chibi Robo’s battery life. He requires electricity to keep on performing his tasks otherwise he will become drained and it will cost Moolah to get him back on his ‘feet’. Every few minutes you need to charge up his battery or install a bonus battery or a battery upgrade which lasts longer.

Recharging is unavoidable and can be disturbing while you’re concentrating on other cleaning activities or trying to achieve a difficult goal. It’s almost as though you’re in the midst of playing this great game and suddenly your mother demands for you to come down from your room for dinner. It’s sort of an unpleasant interruption. Another interruption is the time cycle. Depending on which timer you purchased, the day or night cycle lasts five, ten, or fifteen minutes. Each time it switches from day to night, or vice versa, you’ll be drawn back to a Chibi-house where the happy points will be counted, your rank displayed, and a purchase can take place. The bad thing is that you’ll start from the house over and over again. It’s repetitive and consumes precious time while trying to reach certain places to achieve previous planned activities.

The graphics in Chibo Robo seem a little dated, but due to the uniquely styled characters and cartoon art presentation it’s still a pleasurable game to play—and also watch. And there’s always something new to experience, someplace new to discover, new characters to meet, new quest-assisting objects to find, etc. This is especially true of the toys that come alive during the night, which are unique and kind of crazy in their design. With fresh Chibi-gear, new places can be discovered and reached, which is one of the game’s driving factors and helps to keep you playing and scanning for new activities and quests to make the Sandersons happy—and who doesn’t want to see happy faces?

But what are they babbling? It’s impossible to understand even a word of what they’re saying, but thankfully all the garbled dialogue has been translated into English text and is visualised on screen. Even Jenny’s frog impersonation (“ribbit”) is displayed. It seems that an awful lot of Nintendo games use a nondescript nonsense language, but let’s state that it still fits the game perfectly. The background music is well chosen and exists as good music to accompany the game’s cleaning-up activities, thanks to its upbeat and varied delivery from differing styles like Jazz to Rock. The sound effects are even better when compared to the background music. Any action performed by Chibi creates a sound that produces a musical tone instead of the sound you would expect. While brushing some mud spots off the floor, you won’t hear necessarily hear the scrubbing sounds but rather musical notes. A little Mozart at work; the composition between the sound effects and background music is perfect and cheerful.

Regarding the game’s female point of view, Jenny and her mum are the main female characters besides some female-acting toys. There is a sort of crazy doll that keeps on writing in her dairy to describe her feelings for Drake Redcrest, a space ranger with an excellent and impressive pose—anyone would fall for his pose and even Chibi duly tries to copy it. The game itself is suitable for anyone, whether male or female. If you like typically Nintendo, crazy and original styled-games, you should certainly give Chibi Robo a try

Chibi Robo is a wonderful game, but admittedly it can become repetitive after playing it for an hour or so. In the beginning you’re cleaning garbage and brushing the carpet over and over again just to collect as many points as necessary to upgrade Chibi Robo. Once upgraded, Chibi doesn’t have to run to the plug socket every five minutes and you can concentrate on the game’s more fun elements, like the conversations with the family and toys, and the different kind of goals that are achievable. The costume party section is particularly enjoyable; especially those parts when Chibi dresses up like Jenny ‘the frog’, Drake Redcrest, or even as the family dog. More and more fun becomes available while exploring new rooms without time pressure. Although you could keep cleaning up for days and nights, the full game can be finished within 14 to 18 hours. If you’re looking for quite a unique gaming experience with lots of humor, you should definitely give Chibi Robo a chance.

Review by Wencke
Thumb Bandits European Correspondent & manager of GGU.

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