Two months ago, I decided to play one of those Nintendo franchises that almost nobody played; this game was a surprise to me because I found a game that makes a difference with the rest: a Videogame with environmental topics. Well, surely we don’t see this combination in these days often, or almost never. However, this game taught me that preserving the environment can be funny. This game is Chibi-Robo!: Park Patrol, for the Nintendo DS. Let’s get started!
Suddenly, many of the parks around the world started to disappear and becoming desolate, and people started to losing interest on them. Citrusoft, aware of the importance of environment, decided to create a new model of mini robot capable of return green places in their old glory. That’s the premise of the game.
The gameplay is simple, you have to make the flowers to bloom with a squirt and make them dance with music to plant more seeds and the cycle repeats. When you plant or bloom a flower, they give you Happy Points, which you can convert them in watts to charge your battery up (be careful ‘cause at the beginning you have a low battery life). After an area has enough flowers, the ground will be covered with green grass again. Not only that, but also, you can create park projects to improve the ground and personalize as much as possible you park: with games, utilities, make new roads, plant trees and bushes and even install cannons!
This is one of those games that makes you be productive to continue, and I love this kind of games! You have to defend your park also against some creatures called Smogglings, which convert regular flowers to Miasmo flowers that die at the following day. Not only you have to concentrate on planting more and more flowers, but you have to defend them as well. You can go to the street to find useful items and friends (they are toys) that will help you on your duty of revitalize the park. Each character has their own stories and personalities, which worth meet them all. In addition, they give you advice and Happy Points. Allies have their own strengths & weaknesses while doing park projects, so use them in the best way possible.
I’m amazed that this is a 2007 Nintendo DS game with 3D graphics, they look colorful and does not see bad. The developers took advantage of the touch screen in a good and innovative way, using your touch screen to use your tools.
The bad things on this game is the music and sound, sometimes it sounds pretty weird the background music and sound effects as well. Moreover, sometimes can be monotonous in mid-game.
Park Patrol was a surprise and a good experience to me. This makes me to meet more unknown Nintendo franchises and play other Chibi-Robo games too. Very recommended game.
My score: 8/10