Electroplankton Review

03 - Luminaria: Again, another simple but effective mini-game. You have 4 electroplanktons in the corners of the screen. Once you hit them they will start moving. There are also arrows scattered everywhere on the screen. Each arrow will produce a different sound and so will each electroplankton. They also all move at different speeds. So what you do is hit them so they start moving and then you change the direction in which the arrows are pointing so that the electroplanktons follow a different path each, creating some sort of interactive melody.

04 - Sun-Animalcule: This is the game I described earlier in my text. You place a number of electroplanktons on the screen and when they get touched by bubbles they will emit sounds. The more they get touched, the louder the noises they’ll make. You can also move them around on the screen if you’d like to create different sounds.

05 - Rec Rec: This is the one everyone has heard about. You have 4 fishes on the screen and you have to touch them and then speak into the microphone. The fish will then repeat it endlessly and so you can create loops with anything that you can think of. Make you dog bark in the microphone and it will be repeated in the DS until you decide to change it. It kind of reminded me of techno music where you have these loops that get repeated and then change at certain points in the songs, except this time around you decide when you want it to change. The sound recorded is of surprisingly good quality and I was quite impressed by it.

06 - Nanocarp: Here you have 15 electroplanktons on screen. What you have to do is touch the screen anywhere to create a sound wave that will cover a certain area of the screen. All of the electroplanktons in this area will then make a sound as soon as they are touched by the sound wave. Each of them is constantly moving and they will also make sounds on their own when they feel like it. I didn’t really like this one as I thought it was too simple and didn’t make good music in my opinion.

07 - Lumiloop: In lumiloop you have 5 electroplanktons that are in the shape of a circle and you have to rub your finger around it making circles and the faster you do it the faster the electroplanktons will turn making a really relaxing melody. This is definitely the simplest one out of the bunch and it didn’t seem to have that much replayability.

08 - Marine-Snow: In this one the electroplanktons are in the shape of snowflakes and you kind of make them dance around the screen by touching them and having them change places with other electroplanktons. They play piano notes so this is also another one of those really relaxing games.

09 - Beatnes: Here you have Mario music playing in the background and you have to hit the different shapes on the screen to create a loop, much like Rec-rec except it is done directly in the game. After a few times the loop will erase itself and you will have to restart. There are also some fun sounds from the Mario games added in the mix.

10 - Volvoice: Finally, one of my favorites, volvoice. You have 16 different shapes of balloons. Once you touch them you start recording sound using the DS’s microphone. When you are done you touch the balloon again and it will start repeating what it just heard by deforming it. Each one of the balloons will deform the sounds differently and some of them are quite funny. I had a really great time with this mini-game.

So there you have it folks! I know it doesn’t seem like that big of a game, and when you consider that you have to pay nearly 50$ for this import (though it will be coming stateside), it’s kind of expensive, especially since it’s only something that most people will play with for a few minutes and then get tired of. Even I am kind of disappointed as I think it would have been better if it had all been implemented in a real game with some goals. As it is right now it only seems like a big demo that’s fun for awhile but gets old quickly. Sure, it’s innovative and you’ll probably want to play with it from time to time, and I also have to admit that it’s quite imaginative, but I don’t think it is as impressive as Nintendo wants us to believe. It would also have been very cool if you could have saved some setups and then mix the music from different mini-games to make some big melodies. This is definitely a love it or hate it situation, and I really think that for most people, especially hardcore gamers, it won’t be enough.