Nintendo gets culture in the DS' microscopic RPG Kurikin Nano Island Story

Where do you start with a game that sees you battling petri dishes of bacteria? Like a mad professor, your only recourse is hybridisation – and sure enough Kurikin Nano Island Story mixes the memes of Spore with the creature collection of Pokemon in the art style of Electroplankton.

Will the game play like any of them? We doubt it, but it's nothing if not intriguing. In fact, it's so bonkers, we're not convinced it will ever be released in Europe. That could be a shame since the basics seems quite translatable to Western tastes.

Starting out on Nano Island, it's your job to go around collecting the various tiny species that inhabit it. There are 100 in total and you have to organise and command your troops – they're the good bacteria, we're assuming – with your stylus on the DS touchscreen.

For example, you can direct their movements by drawing circles where you want them to go, or even blowing into the microphone to scatter enemy formations.

The overall battle positions are shown on the touchscreen, while you can get a more detailed view on the species involved by moving around the mini-map with your stylus.

Making things a bit harder, each battle – which may involve several types of bacteria – will take place within a fixed time period. You'll have to wipe out the opposition as well as capturing some examples for experimentation, in order to progress. We're also assuming there will be some tactical considerations in terms of which species fight best against each other. (When it comes to Staphylococcus, our money will be on Penicillin.)

Click 'Track It!' to follow progress in the field.