Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash
|
3DS
| Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

There's nothing particularly wrong with Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash - the new platforming spin-off featuring Skip's adorable walking Roomba.

Maybe you could complain about the stodgy controls, which spoil the headline feature of the game: Chibi's grappling hook zip-lash which he uses to swing across chasms, kill enemies, solve puzzles, and draw in coins.

It's often sluggish and uncooperative. Having to move it pixel by pixel with the d-pad to line up your intended shot gets tiring, and trying to chain together moves feels needlessly cumbersome.

The whole thing lacks the finesse and fast-paced thrills of other grappling hook games like Bionic Commando and Umihara Kawase.

Lashing out

You could also moan about the rampant product placement in the game, as one of Chibi-Robo's many many collectibles in each of the game's 40-odd levels happens to be a licensed snack like Pez, Mr. Tom Bars, or Pocky.

I kind of like them. But I'm not sure I dig the drawn-out quest-line that sees you rescuing these sweets just to earn sweet-related trivia. Or the obsession with collecting crap, in a series that's always been about cleaning crap up.

You could also ding the game for its bizarre level select screen, which puts the current world's stages on a roulette and forces you to replay a stage if you get an unlucky roll. Or those hateful auto-scrolling vehicle levels.

Zip it

So okay, there's plenty wrong with the game. But for the most part it's a fine, dependable, and vaguely enjoyable platformer.

There's plenty to do in the game, and even more if you hook up the Chibi-Robo amiibo. The challenge ramps up nicely in each level, as one basic idea is twisted and turned throughout the stage. The puzzles… exist.

But the game's biggest sin is its lack of imagination. This is an achingly predictable platformer, with none of the elastic, bouncy fun of a far better 3DS platformer like Super Mario 3D Land or Shovel Knight.

Not so sweet

Chibi-Robo plods along from stage to stage, never surprising or inventing. It fails to keep you rapt and you'll find yourself crawling through each of the annoyingly lengthy levels, just waiting for it to end so you can play something else.

That hurts all the more when you remember how Chibi-Robo started: as an off-the-wall house-cleaning adventure where you clean up puppy paw prints with a toothbrush.

That Zip Lash can't match one pixel of that game's imagination is its greatest crime.

Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash

Chibi-Robo returns in his most predictable and forgettable adventure yet: a by-the-books collect-em-up romp
Score
Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer