Meet Dikidik, Bifurenis, and Throbicok!
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/28766
Ever since I was a young Pokemon trainer, I imagined an evolutionary line of pocket monsters that resembled an engorged phallus. The first one is Dikidik, a worm-like critter with one eye. At level 18, he evolves into Bifurenis, a double-headed beast with thick, hairy legs. Finally, at level 36, you get Throbicock, a big, three-headed, winged monster with two flagellum-like tails. Needless to say, none of the Pokemon games have given me these bizarre, perhaps demented creatures. Freakyforms, however, Nintendo’s recent downloadable 3DS game, actually gives me the opportunity to create these monsters myself. Once done, these Poke-perversions can run around a fairly large platforming world, eating fruit and laying eggs or, as the situation dictates, taking sizable purple dumps. I love this game.
There’s nothing quite like it. You start out by making your own “Formee,” which is a bit like the Spore Creature Creator in that you take a bunch of shapes and stack them together to form a body, a head, and appendages. At first, you’ll be pretty limited in terms of options, but the more you play, the more pieces you unlock (or buy), and after a few hours, you too can be making Lovecraftian nightmares or erect male members. The choice is yours! Once you’ve given your Formee a form, it’s time to name your creature (it’s easy to get by the “inappropriate” filter with some creativity) and give it a catchphrase. The catchphrase will be attached to your Formee’s speech bubbles during the game itself. Finally, you choose a voice, which is a bit like the mindless babbling from Banjo-Kazooie or maybe the SNES Star Fox mixed with hyperactive Japanese voice actors. You can even change the pitch. It’s pretty incredible, and there are a ton of combinations. The only downside? No double-headed monsters (you only get one mouth per Formee), so I had to slightly modify Bifurenis.
Once you’re done, it’s time to explore! You get an open platforming playground to move through. Controls are done entirely with the touch screen. You hold the stylus on the screen to move left or right, and flick a circle in the middle to jump. Eventually, you’ll also be swimming and flying. You can break blocks above or below you by flicking in that direction—it feels a bit like you’re slingshotting your Formee around the environment, but it’s hilarious because the creature wiggles and jiggles whenever it leaps or lands. You can find coins, eat fruit, lay eggs (which you should collect), modify environmental objects, and find keys to open treasure chests. After you’ve created a stable of Formees, they’ll start appearing in the level and giving you quests: break a certain number of blocks, eat so many pieces of fruit, collect gems, or my personal favorite, “make trash.” The only downside to the controls is that it can be really hard to get out of the water and back onto land.
Once the level timer runs out, you get to break all the eggs you’ve collected. Tap the egg to break it (hit the exact center first for a big bonus) and coins fly out. You can eventually use these coins to buy new parts for Formee creation. The more Formees you create, the bigger your planet gets, and the bigger your planet gets, the more environments there are to explore, the more quests there are to complete, and the more silly parts there are to find.
The more you make and do, the more options become available: new body pieces, new accessories, the ability to edit your Formee, interesting construction challenges, and the ability to trade Formees with people via StreetPass and QR Code. People who StreetPass with me are going to get a sauropod dinosaur (benign), Ninja Turtle (cowabunga), and rock-hard yogurt-canon monster (so awesome). There’s so much to do in this game, but it’s all very well contained and doled out slowly. You’ll eventually be making creatures with wings, legs, arms, wheels, and baseball caps, and sharing them with your friends and enemies. The graphics have a paper doll look about them, like old South Park episodes. It’s charming, especially when you combine that with the bizarre babble voices. I can’t get enough of this game, and I doubt you’ll be able to either. It’s definitely worth the trip to the eShop.
Topic: Freakyforms: Your Creations, Alive! Review (Read 2241 times)
