Electroplankton (Nintendo DS) Second Opinion Review

If you flick through the Japanese manual you will see a lovely little description of each of the plankton featured in the game, but this is lost on anyone other than those fluent in the Far Eastern language, clearly. But thankfully the names of the fishy characters are all written both in kanji as well as English, so there is no real problem. Whether there is a story or anything behind the game is unknown, but nothing appears in-game, so probably not. It is simply an experimental title by Toshio Iwai that plays around with the various aspects of the DS hardware.

First point of call; after ripping open the Lik Sang box to get at Electroplankton was seeing how Nintendo had presented the game. You have a lovely shiny blue outer box, which looks bigger than it should do. But the reason soon becomes apparent, as when you open it up there is a lovely set of Plankton-blue earphones included completely free of charge! This turned out to be a very nice surprise because my last pair were beyond repair and hey, they were free! After slipping the little media diskette into the DS and switching on, there is no fancy introductory sequence unfortunately, with it just jumping straight to the front screen, which is simply pale blue water with the title. A little disappointing, but extra spit and polish is something you expect from a full-blown team, not just a one-man developer.

However, this is not to say that the in-game presentation is entirely disappointing, as it is not like that at all. You have cute little fish, each different from the other, along with some lovely water effects trickled all over the place. Every touch on the screen results in an ululation, a relaxing ripple in the water, and the clever use of flashing lights, fading colours and fast movement around the play environment gives the game a feeling of uniqueness. Sure there may not be lashings of 3D all over the place, but the simple charm of the title and its subtle beauty leave the user without any qualms over the presentation side.

The musical aspect is obviously the most important aspect of the game and on this side Electroplankton is without a doubt a firm winner. Iwai-san has crafted such an impressive audio programme for the Nintendo DS that even DJs around the world are being bowled over by the quality. From haunting piano sounds, funky beats and classic themes right through to voice recognition, the game pulls off everything it attempts with great aplomb, and you can almost image the DS having a cocky swagger, knowing full well that nothing like this has been done to this extent on other systems. And the amazing fact is, as proven by New York DJ David Hollands, that you can create amazing dance tracks with the various aspects of the game.

But how exactly do you play it? Well, all the controls come into play over the entirety of the game, however the main focus does really lie with the stylus and touch-screen functionality of the Nintendo DS. To start with you have to choose whether the sound output should be set to headphones or not in order to get the best sound quality. Then you choose between Performance or Audience modes, with the latter giving you a computer workout of each plankton, spending a short while on each one randomly, whilst letting you interact should you get bored of just watching. The former is the obvious choice, though, as you have indeed just bought the game and will want to get in on the action straight away. Here you have to choose one of the ten before cracking on with the 'choonage'. The easiest way to explain each of the sections in Electroplankton is by splitting them into their ten separate categories (with their Western names...).

Tracy

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