Chibi-Robo fans, for real, put $35 in your savings account and don’t take it out until this game is released. Anyone who played the original will know what to expect, and it surprisingly plays nearly the same as the GC original, yet handheld. This is one of the most impressive DS games on E3’s show floor.

The demo gives you a quick preface: your job is to beautify the park. This amounts to gardening, really, but this isn’t Harvest Moon. When you find a blue bud in the ground, you use your squirter to water it, then play music to make it grow. Growing a full plant gives you a “Flower Point" as well as some Happy Points.

Since the game is now on DS, the controls have changed. Luckily for us, the game is controlled via touch-screen and D-Pad, which works excellently. You move with the D-Pad, naturally, and hold L to sit (can slide down hills). On the touch-screen you’ll find a few icons. When you aren’t holding an item, the icon on screen is a big plug. If you tap it you’ll pick up the plug, as in the original. If you tap an item, on the left of the touch-screen, you’ll equip it. It then replaces the plug as the big icon. The squirter is controlled by touching the stopper and sliding it forward. When you equip your “boom box," you’ll have to spin a record with the stylus, (similar to Ouendan or Elite Beat). Spinning music makes the flowers in the park happy, but if you spin at inconsistent speeds, your music will sound bad and the flowers will give you less happy points. If you get enough points, (I believe over 50), the flowers will grow to full bloom, and give Chibi one flower point. The spinning dynamic was fun, and aiming with the squirter was not difficult. Of course, the animations and music were again classy and funny – Chibi fans, take heart. Camera controls were also simple and intuitive.

It is unclear whether flower points or happy points are turned into electricity in the Chibi-House, (probably both), but whichever it is, they fill a meter with juice. Your Chibi-House acts as a rechargeable energy source – you can’t just fill up anytime. You have to get flower points or happy point, turn them into electricity, and then you can recharge your own battery, at the cost of the electricity you just created. This is an interesting feature since in the original Chibi-Robo you could fill up as much as you want, despite the Sandersons constantly complaining about electricity bills. Now you have to make your own electricity, which will limit how much you can recharge.

For those of you who finished the original Chibi-Robo, you might be surprised to hear that Chibi still has his battery. Apparently this is the same Chibi from the original, since the Sandersons are again present, but no explanation for this was given, (side-story, maybe?). When you first start, Chibi has only 90 points of electricity, but as soon as you do some work and fill up your electricity meter, you can charge up to 500.

Of special note are a few of the things you can do around the park: there’s a swing that requires you to move your stylus back and forth as a swing, and when you reach maximum height you can have Chibi jump off. Distance is recorded, and if you break a record you get happy points. Also there is a trampoline that requires you to tap every time you land a jump, gaining more height. You can reach some happy points with four jumps, but if you keep your timing you can go higher and higher. I was able to jump really high, though it doesn’t do anything. All of these activities were fun to do, and touch screen control was responsive and perfect. I can’t wait to see the new abilities and interactions the developers will add.

Finally, there were some unkillable bad guys and a river you can’t cross. The game could potentially capture a Metroid: Gardening feel, with more unlockable techniques and areas to explore. There were cars passing on a nearby road that looked ominous, but hopefully you can cross the road eventually. This is one of the most exciting DS games of the show to me; the guy sitting next to me said he had been playing it for fifteen minutes, since no one was waiting in line. Chalk this one up as a must-buy when it comes out.