Freakyforms (eShop)

Games built around user creation have proven to be rather touch-and-go.

The issue is that if you're not a particularly creative person - like myself, for example - then having to constantly make things can become a little irritating.

Of course, the flipside is that those people with a whole body's worth of creative bones will spend hours putting together the greatest works of art that they can, and enjoy every moment of it.

Freakyforms: Your Creations, Alive! does a great job of satisfying both ends of the spectrum, with tools that are simple enough that you can slap a few parts down and get on with the game, or spend a little more time honing your creatures to your precise specifications.

It does, however, become a little repetitive after a short while, whether you're an artisté or not.

Freaky 3deaky

You begin by building your first 'Formee', a creature that can walk around the world of Freakyforms collecting items and solving quests.

The creation tools are very simple to use - you just tap on the touchscreen to drag body parts together and give them all different shades of colour.

The overall design of your creature doesn't affect how it plays at all, so you don't need to worry about making something perfect - if you choose to, you can simply grab a body, stick some legs on it, and you're away.

Later on, special parts such as wings and wheels are added to spice it all up a bit. It's really well-presented and rather funny, with silly dialogue and noises.

If you've played Noby Noby Boy on PlayStation 3, you'll definitely appreciate the graphical style, especially with the stereoscopic 3D effects. It's a charm overload.

Freak like me

Once you've made your beautiful being (or hideous creature), it's thrown out into the big wide 2D side-scrolling world to seek its fortune.

With time on the clock, you use the touchscreen to walk and bounce around, leaping from platforms and eating fruit from trees.

There are eggs to find that hold gold inside, special items that can add scenery to your world, and other creatures that dispense simple fetch quests.

It's a charming experience, and as you create more and more creatures your world will grow vibrant and fill up with life, entirely modelled around your decisions.

There's an absolute ton of content to unlock, and it'll take you tens of hours to find everything, from new body parts to new creature types to new scenery additions. A wealth of creative content is at your disposal, and it will continually pour in throughout play.

Put it down

Unfortunately, Freakyforms's strength also manages to be its weakness.

The simplicity of it all is great for engaging a wide range of players, but it also means that it soon proves to be a rather simple and repetitive experience.

Once you've created your fifth or sixth creature and trawled around the world, it becomes apparent that you aren't going to be doing much more than simple fetch quests. When all the charm wears off, there isn't much more to keep you going.

Again, it really depends on how creative you are. Those looking for more of a game than a creature-creation tool will find themselves getting bored rather quickly.

However, with the ability to swap creatures with other players via StreetPass, it's still worth visiting Freakyforms every now and again just to see what you've picked up.

As a starting point, Freakyforms is a great addition to the eShop. Hopefully we'll see a more meaty sequel in the future.

Freakyforms (eShop)

Creative souls will have a blast with Freakyforms's tools, while those looking for a game may find it a bit too simplistic and repetitive
Score
Mike Rose
Mike Rose
An expert in the indie games scene, Mike comes to Pocket Gamer as our handheld gaming correspondent. He is the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.