Spore Hero

After seeing mixed reviews for this game, I didn't quite know what to expect from it but I decided to give it a try as I'm a fan of Spore. What this game reminds me of is a fusion between PokéPark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure [ポケパークWii ～ピカチュウの大冒険～] and Spore's creature phase.

Upsides:

- Since it's a Spore game, the hero can be customized. I made mine a buff butterfly-winged monster with a deep manly voice (until I had to replace the wings to increase my gliding stats...)

- The background sound effects are really nice and immersive. There are some effects on them that make it seems like they come from a dream.

- Something else that makes this game immersive is when I see an NPC shake a tree and eat a fruit or glide on the air collumns. They suddenly stop looking like NPCs.

- I fucking love the Mushroom Grove region. It feels like exploring an Infected Mushroom cover art.

- Minor detail but the user can carry multiple time the same kind of object. I enjoyed having a stock of healing fruits with me. They sure came in handy.

- Beating up creatures with my buff butterfly-winged monster with a deep manly voice was very satisfying.

- The final battle is very epic!

- All regions pretty much take as much time to complete. (Note that I did a story run and not a completionist one).

- While there aren't multiple difficulty options to chose from like in Spore, the game seems neither extremely easy nor too challenging. The player has to be moderately smart, but no need to be a genius either to complete the game. It might be very challenging to a 10 year old though.

- For people born in the late 90s to early 00s, this game can feel quite nostalgic. Sure, part of the nostalgia comes from recognising the Spore graphics, sound effects and game mechanics in my case, but even people who didn't play that game can feel nostalgic just due to the vibe of it. It screams late 2000s.


Downsides:

- The editing options for the creatures are way simpler than in Spore: the complexity bar is filled very fast and due to the limitations of the Wii compared to computers, there's one less way to rotate elements. They also can't be copy-pasted or made asymetrical.

- Battles, dances and singing quests are repetitive.

- While the game increases in difficulty as the player progresses, the most challenging part of this game is not the end of it. I found the Moonlit Cavern more difficult than the Creature Beach due to the fact that I was lost in it. Apparently, it's the case of many other players from what I've seen.

- Some creatures moving in the background lag (at least it was the case with my emulator) but the game in itself doesn't. This didn't bother me that much though. Probably because I'm used to it thanks to newer Pokémon games lol.

- Due to the fact that kicking objects to destroy them and starting a battle by kicking a creature use the same command, I occasionally accidentally started battles when what I was trying to do was destroying crystals....


Neutral stuff:

- The game is very short: I completed the story in 9 hours and a half (with an emulator I've never used and "wiimote" tilt issues, so pretend it took less than 9 hours lol). Note that I did a story run and not a completionist one. People report that a completionist run can take up to 4 more hours.

- A way one can tell this is not a very recent game is the fact that sometimes the player has a task to complete but has to guess where to go by themself (and sometimes, things are well hidden....)