//View: Dragon Quest Heroes – Rocket Slime

So, let’s paint a picture.  A cold, sterile office, too cold to open the windows but too stuffy without the windows open, a monitor with retina-scorching glare, an uncomfortable chair and /what is that/ digging into my back?

Ah, the sweet respite of lunch hour. You retire with your limp sandwiches (apparently ‘healthy option’ means ’something wet and brown’) and tuck into a quickly curdling yoghurt.  You flip open the DS and boot up Rocket Slime – anything, /anything/ for relief.

What’s this?  Fireworks? Smiling faces? COLOURS? The grey world around you fades, the yoghurt explodes with flavour on your tongue, the wet brown healthiness invigorates your very being with all the power of a nutritious atom bomb being detonated in your gullet. The world comes to life!  Praise be to the slimes!

Well okay, it’s not /quite/ that good.  But I will say this: I /adore/ this game.  I adore the characters and their bizarre quirks (delivered through brief, witty dialogue bubbles), I adore the world they inhabit and it’s punnerific place names (seriously, whoever was responsible for ‘Callmigh Bluff’, take a bow), and I adore the simplicity with which it proceeds.  It’s a proper ‘kid’s game’, friendly and welcoming, leading you by the hand without patronising, but refusing to protect you from your own mistakes.

The game proper is divided into two distinct parts.  Most of your time will be spent looking down on the world from your typical head-in-the-clouds viewpoint sliming about the place looking for your 100 lost comrades.  So far, so Zelda-lite, then. Launching your elasticated avatar into enemies sends them hurtling into the air gving you the opportunity to catch their limp forms (just to deviate briefly; while DYBS won’t generally spend alot of energy on graphics, the overall quality of the sprites in Rocket Slime deserves noting: it is outstanding.  Chunky, bright and full of character, this is really high quality work.) and send home aboard one of the many collection carts scattered all over each map. Once returned to town (‘Boingburg’ – seriously, how can anyone /not/ like this?), a monster of each type will populate this hub area – collect enough of each species and they can be employed later in the game.  It’s genuinely exciting to pop back to town and see it teeming with life and movement afer the emptiness you begin with.

Stretching and pinging your gelatinous self about the (surprsingly large) maps is good simple fun, and the lack of challenge present during this portion of the game is actually quite refreshing given the manic scrabbling that occurs later.  When the Giant Tank Battles start.  Obviously.

Having spent a good while collecting ammunition for your Cheerfully Smiling Harbinger of Death, you take on other improbably designed War Machines (including a dinosaur, a duck, and, naturally enough, an enormous carrot) through bombardement and sabotage.  The former has you flinging your hoardings at your enemy through two cannons, one pointed skyward, sending your ammo arcing high into the air, while the other fires directly at the enemy.

Experimentation with ammo types is key here, with some types benefiting from the looping flightpath offered by the top cannon, while others need to be sent directly to get the most of their speed.  You’re afforded 30 slots for different ammunition types, allowing for plenty of variation, but the more of each type you outfit to your tank, the more regularly they will appear from your ammo chutes.  The battles themselves are fast, frantic and a welcome diverion from the sedate pace of the main quest.

It’s perhaps telling that I was initially sceptical about duels, enjoying the runaround the map as much as I was, but after I got to grips with them found myself visiting the ‘Tank Masters’ skirmish house as much as possible, and While it won’t stretch your tactical acumen by any means, losing a powerful, all-too-rare piece through mid-air collision with an opponent’s weaker shot is an inevitable consequence of thoughtless reloading meaning some consideration has to be given to both type and timing of your shots – should you send a shield, which blocks all incoming attacks but is incredibly slow, meaning you are forced to delay your attacking options until at it’s at least halfway across, or go hell for leather, hoping a quick-fire bombardment will be enough to finish off your opponent as

At least your crewmates aren’t concerned with such subtleties.  Made up of your choice of rescued slimes and captured monsters, given orders (broadly, to attack, sabotage, heal or defend) they will follow them constantly until given more. While they can occasionally get themselves into trouble (my allied Angry-Cactus-Man – who comes complete with mexican accent – seemed to enjoy the sensation of flying through the air so much he missed no opportunity to stand in the path of any projectiles I was loading – ensuring he joined them in the barrell.  He spent practically the entire battle sailing through the air.), they’re never a hindrance, while many, particularly the saboteurs, are genuinely useful.

Should you fancy trying your hand at sabotage, you can either (quite brilliantly) launch yourself from your guns or scuttle over to the front gate of the enemy tank and sneak in. (hoping that any crew members assigned to sabotage duty have ruined the gate controls for you) Then the mania begins, particularly in multiplayer, with you bouncing your slime into the enemy crew to block their attempts at firing, all the while dodging an increasingly irate opponent.  Generally the battles exist as a means to freeing more of your fellow slimes – all of whom are just SUPERCHEERFULTHANKS! (one miserable bastard aside) to have been freed. DYBS hasn’t had this much fun with goo since a particularly experimental evening many moons ago.

I hope the fact that I have waffled as much as I have about Rocket Slime – this was intended to be a very brief summation of why is was great – gives you some indication of the special little place in DYBS’s otherwise cold heart it has all to itself. Despite enjoying a relatively decent marketing campaign and reviewing very well, it never really gained a following in the UK.  There’s plenty of game here, despite its relative simplicity, and the multiplayer could last forever if you have a similarly addicted friend.  Looking around the usual sites it seems to be going for around £10-15, but I’ve seen it sold for much less, around £5-6, in a few indies.  To be honest, if you see it for £20 or under it’s well worth grabbing.  You’ll adore it.  If you don’t, I’ll come after you with my giant carrot tank.