One of these days I'm going to have to save all these reviews I write to an external Notepad file or something.
Title: Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime
Platform: Nintendo DS
Release Date: September 2006
Developer: Square Enix & TOSE
Genre: Action-adventure
First I want to start out by saying that this game was only released in Japan and North America, and that it's actually the 2nd of 3 in a series (Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest) - it was the only one that made it out of Japan (kinda like the Mother series, hmm...). And, in all cases, the reason why is that the series wasn't particularly well-selling.
...which is a shame, because it's really fun, and it has quite a bit of replay value, despite what its short length would suggest. It's a little hard to find though, so there's that, but it shouldn't be too expensive. And emulators exist, but that's beside the point.
In terms of plot, it is relatively simple: you play the part of a generic Slime called Rocket (silent protagonist, you can name him whatever you want) who lives in the quiet town of Boingburg. You're goofing around with your friends, when suddenly this gang called the Plob invades your hometown and kidnaps everyone who lives there - except you, who managed to evade detection. Your goal, Rocket, is to go out and rescue your friends, take down the Plob, and fight off enemies with your new secret weapon...a giant tank. The catch? The Plob ALSO has giant tanks, which you have to fight against.
Yes. You heard me.
This entire game is a bunch of Slimes manning giant tanks to go out and fight other giant tanks.
And it's extremely fun.
Let that sink in for a bit.
Gameplay is divided into 2 categories: dungeon exploration and tank battles - the time you spend will be about 50-50 in each, but weighted a bit more towards the dungeon bit. Features are unlocked for you throughout the course of the game, depending on your progress.
In overworld exploration, you control Rocket going to various dungeons to explore. Rocket controls like so:
+ d-pad: Move Rocket around (8-directional)
A while moving: Jump
Hold down A while in the air: Float. You can float for 2 seconds max at a time.
Hold down A while on the ground, immobile, and hold down the d-pad in some direction: Rocket stretches out his body in that direction. Releasing A shoots him forward that way - this is called the Elasto Blast. Holding down A for more than 2 seconds charges up the speed, power, and range of the Elasto Blast for that use.
(*If Rocket hits any object with the Elasto Blast, it will get hit and fly into the air - whether it be a chest, an item, or even an enemy. If Rocket moves below something right as it's about to hit the ground, he will pick it up. He can carry up to 3 things at once.)
B: Lightly bap the guy in front of you. I don't think I ever use this, in favor of the Elasto Blast.
B, while holding something: Throw the bottom-most item you're carrying.
R: Shift the bottom-most item you're carrying to the top of the stack. (All items shift down 1 space.)
Start: Open the Pause menu.
For most of the dungeon exploration, you will control Rocket using his Elasto Blast to knock things into the air and catch them as they fall. That's the main way he does stuff. After all, slimes have no arms. In dungeons, there are special blue chests with slime icons on them (normal treasure chests are red and look average); knocking into these with the Elasto Blast forces them open, releasing the slime inside. (Actually, you open normal chests this way too.)
In every dungeon you go to, there are dispersed railroad tracks with empty carts on them. These carts move automatically, and their contents are sent back to Boingburg. Rocket can throw anything he finds exploring on these carts - items, rescued slimes, even enemies! It is in your best interest to send back as many items and such to Boingburg as you can; the more you collect, the more things you'll get to do later. You can defeat enemies using the Elasto Blast to get them to drop coins and maybe a mystery item, but more often than not you'll want to send them back to Boingburg. Each cart can hold 4 things on it total (but there are multiple carts that come by on a regular basis), so Rocket can hop on a cart holding 3 things and the weight limit won't be exceeded. If Rocket's on a cart, and reaches the end of the railroad tracks, you can return to town if you want (with any spoils), though to unlock the next area in the game, he'll need to reach the end of that dungeon and defeat its boss. Bosses are refightable, but (with 2 exceptions) don't really give any real reward, so there's little point.
Note, Rocket does have an HP gauge, and he can get hurt, but I've never gotten a Game Over in this game, or even come close to it, so you shouldn't be too threatened.
The more slimes you send back to Boingburg, the more features of the town you'll unlock - the town is actually a smoldering wreck at first, but when you send the slimes back, they'll start rebuilding it and clearing up all of the debris. Everything is eventually unlocked in Boingburg once you send back all 100 slimes, though most of it is unlocked with the first 50. The first few slimes you rescue will offer to join your crew automatically, and a few others later will offer as well.
The more items you send back to Boingburg, the more item choices you'll have available for your tank later. At a certain point in the game, you also gain the ability to utilise alchemy, combining your weaker items into stronger ones - this is the only way to get certain ammo. Alchemy requirements can sometimes be strenuous, but at the rate at which you send things back to Boingburg, the load is mitigated somewhat. You can't carry more than 100 of any given item at a time, though with alchemy you'll probably rarely, if ever, get that high.
The more enemies you send back to Boingburg...well, after you reach a certain point in the game, you'll unlock a museum. After you send back 1 monster of a kind, it'll be walking about the village, much friendlier to you than it was in the dungeon. After you send back 30 of a kind, there will be a bronze statue of that monster in the museum; if you go there and talk to the monster, it will offer to join your crew on the tank (which I'll get to later). Rescuing 50 changes it to a silver statue, and rescuing 100 (the max number it will show) changes it to a gold statue. There's no point to that other than it looking pretty though.
All right, that basically covers the overworld exploration. Now for the stuff you can do with your tank. Before the battle, let me cover the customization.
After you unlock the Schleimann Tank (pronounced SHLY-man), there are 3 things you can do:
~Increase its max HP. The Schleimann Tank starts with 100 HP, and as you progress through the game, you can pay the tank's mechanic (a cyber slime, funnily enough) to increase its HP further - to do so requires money (obtained from treasure chests or defeating monsters) and certain other items as payment. There are a total of 20 HP upgrades you can apply to the tank; earlier upgrades usually give it 20 extra HP, while later upgrades can give as much as 50 or more. Getting all the upgrades will result in the Schleimann Tank having 1500 HP, though the last 500 HP are from post-game upgrades.
~Rearrange its ammo lineup. The Schleimann Tank can hold up to 30 pieces of ammo, which you will use in your tank fights. You can review the name, damage, and properties of the weapon here while preparing, though usually it's best to see ammo in action. The ammo you can use is based on the items you find and/or alchemise during your adventures.
~Select your crew members. Including yourself, you can have 3 other crew members with you in tank fights. Each crew member has a certain HP (not shown), behavior pattern (usually shown), and AI options (definitely shown). Most crew members have 2 options, though some only have 1 (you can change which one they follow at any given time by hitting Start to pause the fight, and selecting). You'll only start with a small handful, but other slimes and even monsters can offer to join your team later.
(You might think that the ones you get at the start of the game are weak, and get better as time goes on. While that might be the case, that isn't always true - Baron Blubba, one of the first slimes you recruit for your crew, is solidly one of the best crew members in the entire game.)
All of the above is done in the mechanic's house in Boingburg, so make sure you're well outfitted before heading out!
Now, for the tank fights. You may be pleased to know that you will always know when a tank fight is coming up, and, iirc, you don't get forced into any - there's always a Yes/No screen before it starts.
How it works is this: The two tanks will be set up opposing each other. Each has its own HP gauge, ammo, and crew, and the first person to destroy the other person's tank wins. The tank is constructed as follows:
~Everyone starts on the upper level of his/her own tank. There are 2 cannons: upper and lower. There is also 1 ammo chute here, from which ammo may emerge.
~There is also a lower level, which is larger. In the middle there is a sanctuary, where anyone who is defeated (falls to 0 HP) will respawn after a set amount of time. There are also 4 more ammo chutes here: 2 closer to the entrance, 2 further in.
~At the very core of the tank is its heart. The room to the tank's heart is locked to everyone, until that tank is reduced to 0 HP. If the heart is attacked, the tank explodes completely, and victory goes to the opposing team. (It is possible to keep fighting even when you reach 0 HP, but as soon as the heart is reached, it's game over.)
~On the lower level, facing the outside, is the entrance. The entrance is normally always closed, but will open and close automatically for its crew members or anyone on the inside. If the door is attacked enough by enemies, it will become damaged, and open and close at random (more so if the machine next to the door, controlling it, is damaged). And, if the tank reaches 0 HP, it will stay open and will not close.
~Pretty much every machine on the lower level can be attacked and damaged. I'm not sure what effect it has, but I believe it makes ammo respawn from the chutes slower. The one next to the door will make the door alternate between open and closed, though.
All right, that's the tank layout. Now for the exciting bit: the ammo.
~Ammo can be thrown into either the upper or lower cannon. There are no restrictions for what can be thrown into the cannon and when, but each piece of ammo has different effects, damage, and even movement speed (for example, iron balls move very slowly, but missiles move much quicker). There are even some esoteric ammo types with other effects, such as boomerangs, shields, and chili peppers (one of my personal favorites). Experiment for yourself!
~Ammo fired from the lower cannon travels in a straight line and will reach the enemy tank the fastest. Ammo fired from the upper cannon travels in an arc through the air, and reaches the enemy tank later. You can always see, on the upper screen, the paths of ammo flying through the air. (Your POV is always shown on the bottom screen.)
~If a piece of ammo collides with another piece, both of them fall to the ground without effect. (All used ammo eventually respawns later, so it's not like there will be shortage. What spawn from the chutes, however, is random, but priority is usually given to things used up earlier.) There are a few exceptions, such as boomerangs and shields, which can take multiple hits (it'll usually say if it can). Experiment for yourself!
~Crew members can also be fired from the cannons - either accidentally or on purpose. They will travel through the air just like any other piece of ammo, but instead of dealing damage, they will instead infiltrate the enemy tank and land on the upper level. You can cause a lot of chaos here, such as attacking your opponents, making them drop their ammo, destroying bits of their tank - or even firing them into the cannons! (However, if you just want to enter the tank, you can travel along the ground and enter through the front door, but you may have to destroy it.)
Rocket controls exactly the same way as he does in the overworld - he can carry 3 items at once, attack things with the Elasto Blast, and so on. Crew members you select act on AI - you do not control them. And, of the ones that fire from the cannons, they will usually only hold 1 piece of ammo at a time. There are only a few exceptions to this - one of them is the aforementioned Baron Blubba, who - like Rocket - can hold 3 pieces (and those that can hold more than 1 will pick up as many items as they can carry before loading them into the cannons).
Here's some of the AIs your crew members will have:
~Use the upper cannon: Grabs a piece of ammo (usually the first one it finds) and always fires it from the upper cannon.
~Use the lower cannon: Same as above, but will always fire from the lower cannon.
~Fire like crazy: Same as above, but chooses randomly which cannon to fire from each time.
~Fire self at enemy: Will jump into the cannon itself, launching itself like ammo. These guys, instead of landing in the tank upon impact, will deal damage. They can still be nocked out of the air like any other piece of ammo, but they (usually) have an ability that mitigates that somewhat.
~Infiltrate and sabotage: Will exit your tank from the ground entrance, enter the enemy tank, and start attacking anyone or anything they can find. Some of them may have an ability that lets them bypass the door.
~Target their commander: Same as above, but will focus specifically on attacking the tank's commander.
~Steal enemy ammo: Same as above, but instead of attacking, they will grab a piece of ammo (usually the first one it finds), run back to your tank, and hand it off to you.
~Keep baddies out: If an enemy is in the tank, they will go after and attack it, until it is KO'd or otherwise forced out of the tank. All crew members will do this to an extent, but those with this AI option will intentionally patrol the area.
~Guard your commander: Will stay near you (Rocket) at all times, distracting and/or guarding you from enemies.
These aren't the only ones, but these are the most common. Some crew members do their jobs better than others, so it's worth trying out different combinations to see who works. If you want a few recommendations from me, try out some of these:
Baron Blubba, Flabbot Francisco, Dancing Flame, Wyrtle, Killing Machine, and (in the postgame) Big Daddy and Mama Mia. It's very hard to go wrong with these guys.
I think that's basically it. To give this game a numerical score I'll give it an 8 out of 10. Rocket Slime is a spinoff game, true, but an incredibly fun one, and a way to just burn up some time going around exploring, collecting stuff, and - most importantly - tank fights. It's very satisfying getting chances to blow things up, and if you do ever get a chance to try this game, give it a whirl. It's not too long so if you're dissatisfied you won't have wasted much time, but if you love it as much as I do, you'll come back to it time and time again.
Happy gaming!