Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime

The Dragon Quest series has been huge in Japan for 20-plus years but has never faired as well in America. The die-hard Dragon Quest gamers know that even when a game finally came out in America (previously under the Dragon Warrior name) the games were usually changed. The same style and humor in the original Japanese versions usually wound up being changed for the American audience. But thanks to the popularity of Dragon Ball Z and other anime the American market has been more welcoming to titles with the original Japanese humor intact. With the rebirth of Dragon Quest to the American market with the release of the excellent Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2 it seems the Dragon Quest brand is a hot commodity right now. Thankfully with the success of Dragon Quest 8 SquareEnix has been willing to keep the Dragon Quest brand going with Rocket Slime.

The game is an extension from the regular Dragon Quest games with the focus of this game being on the loveable slimes. Now you get the chance to play the role of a slime that has to save the kingdom of Slimenia. The evil group called the Blob has attacked the city of Boingburg and kidnapped all of its citizens. It’s up to you to fight the Blob and rescue the missing slimes from Boingburg.

The best way to describe Rocket Slime (RS) is to call it an action RPG with a small mixture of strategy elements combined with the wackiness usually found only in Japanese import games. You start off the game as a regular slime (that you get to name) who has to explore the kingdom of Slimenia searching for the other kidnapped slimes. The majority of the combat in the game is you stretching your slime to unleash an attack against the monsters in the game. You don’t have to deal with random battles or sword and shield attacks. Just stretch your slime, like a rubber band, and unleash it to attack.

After you attack, the RPG and strategy elements begin to come together. The reason being is because you need to collect almost every item you discover in the game. No one item should be overlooked since that item could be a missing piece to building a more powerful item later in the game. But since you’re slime, with no pockets or unlimited inventory system, you can’t just walk around with all of the items you find in the game. You have to send the items back to the town of Boingburg via a cart system. Each town/area you explore in the game has a series of carts that can send items back to the Boingburg. But the carts sometimes only appear in certain locations within a town which means you must carry items back to the carts. Once you found an item that you want you can carry that item (and usually up to three other items at once) by hitting the item to bounce it up in the air. You just need to catch the item on its way down in order to hold on to it. Most of the items in the game will re-spawn within a matter of seconds or minutes.

Besides the items you can also grab monsters that you attack in the game and send them back to town as well. Once you have captured a certain monster that monster type will then appear in the town of Boingburg. Besides seeing the monsters in town there are other advantages for sending the monsters back to Boingburg, but I have to remain spoiler free with this review. Since you’re collecting monsters and items in the game you could actually spend the majority of the game not even playing the main quest of the game (rescuing the kidnapped slimes). The big reason is because of the tank battles (the freaking awesome tank battles).

The tank battles, effectively, are the boss battles in the game. All the items you’ve been collecting in the game can be used as ammo for your tank. You can select which items you want to use as ammo or even let the computer load your tank for you. Once a battle begins its all action which is displayed on both screens of the DS. The top screen shows your tank and the enemy tank, the hit points of both tanks and the weapons being shot out by both tanks. The bottom screen is where you’re still in charge during the battles because you need to load ammo for your tank. That’s right, the game doesn’t just turn into a point and select strategy game instead you have to keep stocking the tank’s ammo. You stock your ammo just as you collect an item, by shooting yourself at the ammo, catching it and then throwing it into one of the tank’s cannons. This creates a great sense of tension and excitement during the battles. You can see what’s coming in from the enemy while you’re impatiently waiting for more ammo to show up so you can load your tank.

The tank battles are just the icing on top of the cake in an already impressive title. You get a great action gameplay piece, maddening item-collecting experience and an incredible strategy portion with the tank battles. The game includes a few standard clichés found in other action RPG games. For example as you progress through the game you unlock previously hidden/locked locations, items and characters. Just the typical stuff but the presentation is where RS really shines compared to other games.

The graphics, sound effects and music in the game are top notch. The majority of the graphics will remind gamers of an old school, 2D, top-down view RPG. However the game is just gushing with bright and vibrant colors. The detail of the characters (hey they are slimes) might be lacking but the background graphics look great. Excellent details are plentiful in all of the various locations and the tanks. The music is a stunning score that is composed of classic pieces from the main Dragon Quest/Warrior theme. But another reason the game just stands above the rest of the crowd is the SquareEnix connection. There are plenty of surprises from other Dragon Quest games and even other classic Square games. One of them just had me grinning since I couldn’t believe the cameo.  If you’re a hardcore Dragon Quest fan (Timmy D, I’m talking about you) then you will not be disappointed with the presentation of this game.

Remember gamers it’s all about having fun. Sometimes we tend to forget that key ingredient when it comes to gaming. We tend to focus on bit-mapping, shader models, number of characters on screen and other technical factors. Why do we forget the most important part, the fun factor? Well, I guess one solution would be so we can play games like Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime. The game is a blast to play with great graphics, excellent gameplay and a fun atmosphere that should have you smiling.  Nintendo DS owners shouldn’t pass up this great game and for Dragon Quest fans this is a must own title.

Gameplay 8.7
This is a great mixture of a solid action RPG game with a mixture of a strategy game. The tank battles are a blast to play and top off an already great action RPG game.

Graphics 8.5
This is another great looking 2D style Nintendo DS title.  The graphics are bright with vibrant colors that get the classic Dragon Quest look down with ease.

Sound 8.5
The music is composed of several orchestra-style themes that include the classic Dragon Quest theme. I was impressed to hear how great the music sounded through the DS speakers.

Difficulty Easy/Medium
I guess this could be a sore spot for the game since you will probably breeze through the game without any big problems. I wouldn’t call it a short game since you can spend so much time collecting items but the difficulty can be called easy.

Multiplayer 8.5
This game does a great job of using the local wireless gameplay feature. The game supports single card or multi-card play. The multi-card wireless play allows you and up to three other friends to compete in a tank battle. There are other mini games that you can unlock during the game that support the single-card option with up to 16 players.

Concept 8.2
The only reason this game doesn’t get a higher score in the concept section is because of the lack of unique DS features. The touch screen is only used for a few sections in the game and nothing in the game supports the microphone.

Overall 8.5
Rocket Slime is another title for the Nintendo DS that just shines on the Nintendo platform. The great gameplay, top-notch graphics (for a DS game) and impressive music makes for a great title. The easy difficulty might turn off some players but it really shouldn’t. If you can’t enjoy this game then I should question why are you even playing games? If you want to have fun with just one game for the DS right now, look no farther than Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime.