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| WANT TO PLAY A MEAN TRICK ON YOUR KIDS? BUY THEM THIS GAME! |
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 imagine that a lot of young gamers out there have to do chores like picking up garbage and cleaning floors before they can play any games. How many of those kids are going to rush through those chores to excitedly fire up a game about picking up garbage and washing floors? Make no mistake, that is exactly what Chibi-Robo is: a game about cleaning up after a family of lazy, messy people. Get ready for a career in the service industry, kids!
Sure, the Chibi-Robo character is cute and the premise is quirky, but being cute and quirky isn’t the same as being fun, and let’s be absolutely clear about one thing: this game is not a damn bit of fun. It becomes mildly bearable later in the game, when the focus shifts slightly from cleaning to helping Chibi’s family, the Sandersons, with their problems, but you have to suffer through many hours of tedious busywork to get to that point. The fact that you’re constantly recharging Chibi and returning to his “Chibi-House” every five minutes doesn’t help anything either. Travelling across the Sanderson household eats up half your day, leaving you mere minutes to explore the further-out reaches of the house.
You can find some items that extend the length of the day, but the longer I spent in the Sanderson house, the less appealing I found it. Despite its look, Chibi-Robo is not a platformer, but more of a 3D adventure game comprised entirely of fetch-quests and repetitive menial labor. Navigating stacks of books to retrieve Frog Rings for an emotionally-stunted eight-year old (with stops to pick up candy wrappers) may sound like fun to some people, but certainly not to me.
I’m fully aware that my thoughts on this game are going to earn me a ton of angry hate mail from people who claim that I just don’t get this title’s true appeal. Well, I have a message for them: Look beyond the “cute and quirky” facade of this game to see it for what it truly is – a dreary, joyless piece of junk that shamelessly tries to get kids to believe that cleaning is fun.
-JEREMY ZOSS
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There’s a charm in Chibi-Robo’s repetition and a distinct feeling of usefulness as you guide the wee robot around the floor, picking up trash. Then again, its self-destructive camera and monotonous gameplay flatten brain activity like a swift blow to the head. That’s not even bringing up the disturbing family dynamic of mute child, critical mother, and irresponsible father. While the gameplay is for young ‘uns, the characters are begging for an after school special. The game does have whimsy in a firm chokehold, but it does not have quality in a similar grip, so don’t mistake quirky for fun. |
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5 |
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| CONCEPT: |
| Pick up lazy people’s crap and scrub stains in the carpet! It’s like Cinderella the game, except nothing good ever happens |
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| GRAPHICS: |
| Some might call them “cute” and “funny.” I call them “ugly” and “dated” |
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| SOUND: |
| Garbled mumbling passes as speech, and the music is barely noticeable |
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| PLAYABILITY: |
| Can you press the big green button? You’re covered |
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| ENTERTAINMENT: |
| Things that aren’t fun in real life aren’t fun in games either, no matter how “unique” it is |
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