Spectrobes: Origins - Wii

Just about a year ago I was introduced to Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals and became addicted to the great handheld game for the Nintendo DS. The Spectrobes series revolves around Rallen, Jeena and their Spectrobe counterparts where they combined forces to battle the Krawl, a creature that is the opposite of Spectrobes.

Rallen and Jeena are members of Nanairo Planetary Patrol (NPP) and through their explorations find themselves pulled through a portal that transports them to a whole new galaxy called the Kaio System. The Krawl also threaten this system and Rallen and Jeena lend their skills to protect the habitants of the Kaio System.

Pokemon lovers will relate to this game if they haven’t played a Spectrobes game before, as a huge portion of the game is collecting Spectrobes by using excavation tools to gain fossils, that can be used to be revived into Spectrobes that be can used in battle. The excavation system for the Wii has been completely changed to take full advantage of the Wii Remote. This time around the fossil blocks are excavated in three dimensions where you can use tools like a drill, blower, laser, bombs, hammer, and scanner. Using the Wii Remote as the handle to your tool you simply point at the screen and chip, blow, smash away at the rock that has encased the fossil. Fossils are not the only items that you can excavate; there are many gemstones that can be dug up so you can use them towards the growth of your Spectrobes. The only negative input I could say about the new system is that it takes much longer to excavate the fossils than the DS titles; however it is a lot more fun and challenging.

The controls for your character and the Spectrobes involve the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk where you use the Wii Remote buttons to attack with your character, and the Spectrobe which automatically attacks its enemy, can be manipulated to do special attacks by flicking the Wii Remote forward to perform a special attack and if you combine it with an attack with your character you perform a combo attack. Overall, the controls work well and are easy to learn.

Over the past weeks I have spent hours playing this game as the storyline is quite extensive and there are plenty of areas, planets and spaces to explore. On top of that there more than 100 different Spectrobes that you can collect and if you are a gamer like myself you will want to search every nook and cranny to add these Spectrobes to your collection.

Spectrobes is definitely a game that will appeal to gamers of all ages, and definitely has appeal to fans of exploration and collecting type games. As a fan of the series I highly recommend this title and the two companion titles for the DS. Happy Hunting!