Chibi-Robo (GameCube) Review

 Chibi-Robo!: Plug Into Adventure! (Gamecube) 4.5/10

Hello everyone. Today I’ll be reviewing Chibi-Robo. Chibi-Robo was released on June 23, 2005 for the Gamecube exclusively. So a little backstory about myself. I’ve had this copy of the game since I was a little kid (seeing it now as a collector’s item feels great). I LOVED this game to death. Unique concept, interesting gameplay, and the main story hit me like a truck that I was not expecting and because of these reasons is the reason why I considered this to be one of my favorite games of all time. Revisiting the game now, I realized that I was blinded by my love for the game to see its major flaws. Let’s begin.

Our story follows the Sanderson family: Mom, Dad, Jenny, and their dog Tao. It’s Jenny’s birthday and Dad has bought you as a birthday present. You are Chibi-Robo, a 4 inch tall cleaning robot that’s accompanied by your manager Telly Vision. After the party (tutorial level), the game starts off with you only being able to explore the living room. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock the rest of the house. As you continue to explore the house, you’ll encounter walking and talking toys and it’s your job to get to know them. The main plot is about saving the family from an impending divorce, fending off a robot-spider invasion, and reviving an old friend.

Okay so the plot for the game isn’t bad at all, but it could be so much better. I think because I’m older that this game doesn’t hit me as hard as it used to and because I’ve seen this whole divorce plot line done before and better. It still shocks me that a game like this even went into the concepts of divorce, death, gambling (Great Peekoe), and child psychology (Jenny). Now despite the game tackling topics such as these, the narrative feels fairly shallow. Maybe because I’m much older and I’m revisiting a childhood favorite, I’m finally seeing the game’s true colors.

So how are the actual plot points of the game? Let’s see. First there’s Mom and Dad getting into a fight, Dad is currently unemployed but is wasting money on useless shit, he’s being a lazy bum while she does all of the house work, discovers another toy receipt, threatens divorce, shit hits the fan. Damn…. This is almost exactly like my childhood except there’s no tiny robot cleaning everything. There’s a couple of details that bother me. The main thing that comes to my head is that after you fight the Queen Spydor, you see a news broadcast about “Chibi-Robos are going to lead to the decline of civilization” and whatnot. Like what the fuck does this have to do with anything? Are they trying to make a connection to the Giga-Robo crisis? Like the game talks about this like twice and then never brings it up again. Also why was the Dad wasting money on dumb shit? He’s a former robotist. He should be smart enough to not waste money on toys, but I guess even the smartest people aren’t that bright. Another thing: The Giga Charger. To charge up Giga-Robo’s battery, you need his charger. Captain Plankbeard says “Don’t plug it into the wall. You’ll skyrocket the Sanderson’s electric bill.” Okay that’s understandable. What does Chibi-Robo do? He plugs it into the wall outlet that’s inside his house which is plugged into the wall. He indirectly plugged it into the wall. Why the fuck am I charging it with my own money when it’s already plugged into the wall? Makes no fucking sense.

What about the side quests? Well there’s plenty of them to go around. Each side quest revolves around one of the toys. My personal favorites are the Free Rangers, Mort & the Princess, and Jenny’s Frog Rings. The Free Rangers are a group of military soldiers but they’re eggs. With eggs come egg puns and it’s hilarious. Their whole thing is trying to exact revenge against Tao who “killed” one of their men. Mort & the Princess is this huge side quest involving a princess that lost her shoe, a teddy bear that needs his honey fix, and a depressed mummy. The final one is the Frog Rings. It’s not necessarily a story driven plot like all of the others. With this one, you have to find 10 Frog Rings hidden all throughout the house and give them to Jenny. When she gets all 10 of them, she will take off her frog hat and say “The curse has been lifted!” Typical child imagination. I love it. I do have an issue with the side quests. So let’s take Dinah’s side quest, which is to collect all of the lego blocks. By the end of my game, I was missing two of these: the blue and the orange. The blue one was being used as a chew toy by Tao. In order to get the block, you need to give him a bone. Problem is, the bone won’t spawn. Because it won’t spawn, I can’t get the bone which means I can’t get the orange block which means I can’t complete Dinah’s quest which is tied to Funky Phil’s. Bullshit like this happens a lot in the game. Take Mort & The Princess side quest too. To finish the quest, you’ll need Sunshine to go on a rampage. This will only trigger if you walk into Jenny’s Room during the day. I’ve done this plenty of times and it never triggered because the game hates me. How do you expect me to finish the side quests if you won’t trigger them?

How are the characters? They’re okay. Honestly I’d have to say my favorite characters are Jenny, Captain Plankbeard, and Sarge. Jenny trying to understand a divorce kinda reminded me of Inside Out (I know there’s no divorce in the movie, but a child trying to understand an adult situation is still there). Captain Plankbeard trying to bring back his ship crew and his undying loyalty to Giga-Robo was great to see. Sarge and his shitty egg puns (“You are a hard-boiled soldier” and shit like that) was so corny that you can’t help but laugh at it. There’s also the Super Sentai character Drake Redcrest but he’s just annoying. There’s several others, but I’ll leave it at this.

One thing I love about this game is that even though it came out over 15 years ago, it still looks great. Yeah sure it’s not as detailed as modern Nintendo games, but it has a very unique charm to it. Hell, I got Katamari vibes from the game (graphics, tiny person perspective, and even the art style). The visuals for the game is easily one of the game’s strong points and the art style helps sell this. Everything looks cutesy and cartoony, but not off putting.

Sound design is a mixed bag for me. First thing you’ll notice is that everyone talks like they’re in Banjo Kazooie. There’s no voiced lines. Instead everyone talks in sound effects. Nothing wrong with this as it adds to the game’s charm. Second thing is that with every footstep, a piano key will play. Depending on what you’re walking on, the tune will go up or down. This can get annoying very fast. Another thing is that sometimes background music will play. Other times, it's just dead silent. Dead silence with random piano keys going off is annoying. Actually decent background music playing while random piano keys is annoying. Why did they think this was okay? The music for the game is actually well designed. It’s no Mario or Sonic level of good, but it’s suitable for the game.

Now for the gameplay. This is a 3D platformer with no jump button. You read that right. There is no jump button in this GameCube 3D platformer. Instead, you have to walk into ledges until a little meter fills up then you will hop on top. This is a horrible design option as sometimes you’ll walk into a little box and then you’ll jump on it when you didn’t mean to and other scenarios like this. Also this game is not made for tight, precise movement yet there are certain sections that do this (such as jungle training and waterfall training). Another thing with the game is that you’ll be picking up your plug a lot. You’ll do this to run faster or to recharge yourself. Other times, you don’t mean to when you want to pick up trash or climb up a cord. There seems to be a lot of tedious, little things that will bug the shit out of you.

To progress through the game, you’ll need tools and upgrades for Chibi-Robo. You’ll have a maximum of 7 tools to help you. You also get 7 costumes that’ll help you on your journey. Your first tool is the toothbrush, which you’ll use to scrub stains and spills with. You’ll also get a spoon as a shovel, a medical squirter, your trusty Chibi Copter, Chibi Blaster, Chibi Radar, and a mug (that you’ll use twice for the entire game). Honestly the only costumes that you’ll need are the frog suit, Tao costume, and the Drake Redcrest costume. All the other ones are one-off gags that will hardly see any use.

So your main goal is to be the number 1 ranked Chibi-Robo among all of the other Chibi-Robos out there. To do this, you’ll need to gain Happy Points. Happy Points (HP) can be gained by cleaning up the house and doing deeds for characters. After every milestone on your way to number 1, you’ll gain a bonus battery. You see, you are on a constant time limit. 2 time limits actually (I’ll get to the second one in a bit). Chibi-Robo only has a set amount of time before he needs to recharge again. At the start, you only have 60 battery. Once you reach below 30, the game will tell you to go recharge before you fall. So at the start of the game, you’ll be constantly watching your battery power making sure you don’t overwork yourself. Near the end of the game, you’ll  have 400+ battery, so you won’t need to worry too much.

Alongside HP, you’ll need Moolah. Moolah is your currency in the game. You can find Moolah all throughout the house (either just lying around or in Chibi-Doors) and you’ll get Moolah Bonuses for cleaning up enough stains. You can use Moolah to purchase your upgrades and unlock other things such as a hot rod, space scrambler, and flower seeds. You’ll also need Moolah to recharge Giga-Robo’s battery.

Okay so the second time limit has got to be one of the worst game mechanics I have ever seen. So outside of constantly watching over your battery, you have a time limit for every half day. At the start of the game, you only have 5 minutes to do as much as you can before Telly forces you to come back to the Chibi-House. You can purchase larger timers, but the largest one is 15 minutes. This is not enough time to do as much as you can as certain events only pop up during day and night. So you’ll constantly be rushing around trying to get shit done and then you’ll hear the five second warning going off. Another issue I have with this is that if you are outside of a cutscene but doing something story related, the timer will still be counting down. Such as I’m about to fight the Queen Spydor and then Telly tells you to come back to the house. Like dude, the entire family is dangling from the ceiling and is in mortal danger and you want me to go back to the house to chill out? Fuck you Telly. This would’ve happened too if I was in the middle of the boss fight. And as I’m doing the boss fight, I’m over here kicking ass and Telly is just floating around constantly repeating on how to beat this thing. Like I’m almost done beating it and Telly is telling me how to shoot off its armor. Annoying little shit. God I fucking hate Telly after that whole display.

God the more I think on the game, the worst it gets, which is a fucking shame for me because a part of me still loves the game to death. The story is shallow, but entertaining; gameplay is way too restricted, sound design is hit and miss, and there are some very questionable design choices. Despite these issues, the game still has a lot of charm to it that I love. This is me being biased, but even with all of these problems, I still think that this game is somewhat decent. I’m definitely not ranking it as high as I used to, but it does still deserve some love. Ultimately, Chibi-Robo suffers from tedium. At first glance, there is nothing wrong here, but as more minor issues arise, you’ll realize that the game is slowly killing you with a thousand paper cuts. Honestly, because this game is considered a collector’s item, it is not worth the high price. Now if Nintendo were to revive this franchise and fix up these issues, then I’ll be all over it. Until then, I’ll be waiting.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.