Electroplankton Review

Electroplankton is the kind of game that rarely sees the light of day, since it is targeted only at a really small audience. In fact, one would wonder why any publisher would agree to pick up this game since it is nearly assured to fail no matter what. That’s why we have to thank Nintendo for releasing this game as it is, since it’s not the kind of software you would see big names like Electronic Arts or Ubisoft publish.

The game received quite a bit of advertising in Japan but it didn’t sell very well. It isn’t really a game anyway, more of a musical experience than anything else. You have 10 different mini-games in which you have to do different things with the electroplanktons to make them react and create sounds. These sounds will then become music, and what’s most surprising is that it can be really good even tough you wouldn’t expect that much out of the DS.

There isn’t any story to the game or any goal for that matter. The game starts directly at the title screen where you have 2 options. One of them is the audience mode where the game plays random music for you in one of the 10 modes of play. So instead of bringing your MP3 player with you can just bring your DS and a copy of Electroplankton and it’ll play endlessly until your battery runs out or until you’re tired of it.

The other mode is performance mode. In this one you will be interacting with the Electroplanktons and making music. The music you create is interactive in that it constantly changes no matter whether you are making changes or not. In one of the scenarios, for example, you have to place electroplanktons on the screen and there are bubbles that scroll from the bottom to the top of the screen and as they touch the electroplanktons those will emit sounds. The more bubbles that touch them, the bigger they will become and make different sounds.

All of the mini-games have something like that which makes the gameplay nearly limitless since the music you create will never be the same and I think this is what makes this game so incredible and so charming. No matter who plays, whether that person is good at games or not doesn’t matter, as everyone will be able to create something that sounds good and you’ll want to come back and play the game more and more. You can pick it up anytime and play with it, even if it’s only for 5 minutes. This game was definitely designed to be played on a handheld as it’s a pick up and play experience that could only be done on a handheld console.

For those of you who are interested in knowing exactly what this game offers, here’s a list of all 10 mini-games and how each one works.

01 - Tracy: In this one you control 6 electroplanktons. What you do is trace lines on the screen which will then become paths for your electroplanktons to follow. Those lines are made of arrows and each one of those arrows is meant to be a sound that the electroplanktons will produce. The faster you make the lines the bigger the arrows will be and the less sounds your electroplanktons will produce. On the opposite side, if you trace your line slowly, the arrows will be really small and close to one another and it will produce a lot more sounds. Also to note is that each electroplankton makes different noises. So you just make drawings on the screen and that will create music!

02 - Hanenbow: This one is really simple. You have a leaf on the screen from where electroplanktons are shot. On the other side you have a tree branch with 6 leaves. What you have to do is change the angle of the leaves so that the electroplanktons will bounce off the leaves differently each time and make noises. The more they hit the leaves the more it will become red and change the sounds it makes.