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Electroplankton Review
Written by Chris Buffa on Monday, January 9, 2006
Untraditional gameplay that challenges you to create your own musical path.
There's no way to permanently save recordings, more instruments would have been nice.
Back when I was a little kid grownups used to think I was retarded because I'd just sit on a couch and make strange noises. Flash forward to 2005, and at 27 grownups still think I'm retarded because I'm a really big kid sitting on a couch making strange noises, but that's just a part of who I am. I love creating sound effects, theme songs for my cats, and performing horrible impersonations. In fact, when I was barely a teenager I wrote my own lyrics to Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby and titled the song, Rice, Rice Baby (because I friggin love rice).
So now that you have officially lost all respect for me I can get into why I'm quite fond of Nintendo and artist Toshio Iwai's wonderful DS title, Electroplankton. The game stars musical fish, but it goes far beyond being some touch screen tech demo. Rather, it taps into my brain and brings out my very best. In short, it allows me to be myself.
Similar to other Nintendo DS titles, Electroplankton begs to be poked, prodded, and whispered to, but unlike most games, the reward for spending time with it is beyond justified. It's a music game, yet it far transcends what I've been used to. Most rhythm games force me to abide by their own rules and to groove to the music that's been programmed into their digital innards, but Toshio Iwai's game reverses the paradigm.
Contained inside of the DS are a series of eleven smiling fish, and when interacted with they produce distinct melodies. All of them vary and some are certainly more enjoyable to play with than others, though it's more a matter of personal taste. But each one is more than capable of grabbing your attention, whether it's Luminaria, the sun shaped plankton that creates music when unleashed down a customizable path, or my own personal favorite, Rec-Rec, which allows me to make a series of recordings and adjust the beat and speed of the song, which more often than not really pisses off the elderly.
The primary reason why I love this title is because it champions self expression through a number of different and exciting ways. The plankton Beatnes lets me remix four classic NES tracks, Marine-Snow encourages me to create a piano solo, and Volvoice, which allows me to record my voice and continuously change the pitch, is just amusing to mess around with. Actually, the entire game is just flush with music, so much so that experimentation is required to uncover all of its intricacies.
The game doesn't rest only on its audio; it's also an attractive looking game. The colors of some of the fish, notably the luminescent Luminaria and the obedient Tracy, really help wow all of your senses. While the bottom screen is where the action takes place, you can zoom in on all the beauties with the top screen. The variety of the graphics are well suited for the different sounds you can make with them, making for a solid all-around package.
Unfortunately, Electroplankton is held back from perfection by two glaring omissions, the first having to do with its brain. The game suffers from short term memory Ten Second Tom style, so when the power goes out, all recordings are lost. I naturally have the option to bring in a third party recording device, but it all just seems so unnecessary.
Lastly, while the concept is certainly quite innovative and Iwai has done a magnificent job implementing his ideas, I can't help but feel there's lots of potential being dumped back into the ocean, because as cool as it is to experiment with these plankton, you can only play with each one individually, a shame since I've come up with exciting ways to mix the different melodies but refuse to buy another copy, or in some cases several copies of the game. I'm also a little bummed that some key instruments are missing. Where are the guitar and the drums? Why can't the plankton be synthesized? I don't mean to downplay this first effort, but I also have a bad feeling that you and I will never get a sequel, which just makes the game seem even more limited.
And despite Iwai's brilliance, I do become bored with this game after a few minutes of play. There's just not enough to keep me coming back for extended periods, especially since it's not particularly easy to create music. Because none of the actual notes are labeled and memorization is a necessity for success, I'm often frustrated and unwilling to press onward.
Like all videogames, Electroplankton isn't for everyone. Rather, it's for the person who thinks Robin Williams is a genius, was fascinated by the sound effects dude in the Police Academy movies, delights in composing music, and who also thought, during the first five minutes of watching the show Full House, that Dave Coulier was cool. This is a game that's been created for the weirdos of the world and I happily invite you to cherish and embrace it.
Just be sure to look for it in all of the right places, because for some bizarre reason you can't find it in most stores. Oh, and for all of you who imported the Japanese version, you're not going to find any bonus species here, and it doesn't come in that spiffy packaging with those blue headphones. However, EBGames and the Nintendo World Store in NYC will carry it when it's released on January 9.
