There's a first time for everything -- even for major companies like Disney Interactive Studios. Next month, it launches Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals, the second game in the publisher's monster-collecting RPG series -- its first franchise not based on any existing Disney works.
The Spectrobes IP was created explicitly for the international video game market as a collaboration between Disney's American and Japanese offices. Development has been handled by independent Japanese studio Jupiter (The World Ends With You).
Though the first game sold over a million units -- an uncommon feat for a third-party Nintendo DS title -- it underperformed on its home turf of Japan, as quality assurance lead Tim FitzRandolph told Gamasutra in a recent interview, and the franchise is being essentially "relaunched" in Japan with the followup.
YLG:
"What's good about Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals as a game is that it offers hours of challenge for young gamers. What's good about it as a sequel is it represents a big step forward from the first game. If the progress continues, Spectrobes will establish itself as one of the leading game series for children on the DS."
GamesWeasel writes: "Unfortunately, combat's not great. Fighting as Rallen you can use melee attacks or your gun, but locking onto enemies is tricky when the camera's not centred on them. Fighting with your Spectrobes is really boring. By walking into a Vortex, you set your tag team into motion, but combat is no more than walking up to an enemy and pressing A, then pressing B or Y when you're charged up a super move. It's clunky, unresponsive and dull.
Exploration isn't great either. Although they've improved the camera angle to make it less claustrophobic, there's still a lot of back-tracking to do, and if you die, you start back at your ship and have to wander through the barren lands once again".
PALGN writes: "For those that played and enjoyed the first Spectrobes title, you'd be pleased to note that it is a better title than its older sibling, marginally better. For the rest of us, you'll be hard pressed to find much value in Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals, unless you are a complete addict for monster-collecting games - or under the age of ten.
Beyond the Portals sees the return of Rallen, the Nanario Planetary Patrol officer who curtailed an alien invasion at the end of the first Spectrobes tiltle. Obviously, the invading Krawl had other ideas, forcing Rallen and friends to stop the evil alien race all over again."
I'm glad Disney is making their own games now besides letting crap developers make bad Disney games