I’m on a mission to try out lots of first/third person shooters on the DS and 3DS. It’s quite an underappreciated genre on these systems, even though the DS has quite a rich selection. They can be quite fun and some can be finished in an evening.

This time they just happen to be mech/robot themed.

First batch of reviews: 3DS community - Patient gamers

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Chibi Robo Park Patrol (DS)

This isn’t a shooter per se, but you do control a humanoid character in 3rd person, and you get to fight enemies with a squirt gun, so it still kinda counts. And I played through it, so at least if I write about it, it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

So the story is, you’re a pocket robot whose job is to battle pollution by renovating a park, which you do by planting flowers, watering them, and… Help them grow by dancing for them. Yes, it’s a Japanese game, just roll with it.

You also get to manage and build structures and features of your park, employ and meet a bunch of colourful characters, and battle against a personified pollution. I found this game on a list of open world games for the DS, which I guess is technically true, if you count a few buildings, one road and an alley as open world.

It’s pretty charming if repetitive and not very rich experience, especially at first before you get to unlock minigames and figure out other stuff to do. There are even a few vehicles, sadly with silly touch controls.

There’s an elephant in the room however. Never have I played a game that wastes my time this much. With every new day you start (which is about 10 minutes), you need to sit through close to two minutes of the same fucking monologue, every time. Worse, you need to confim Every. Fucking. Sentence to continue. And of course the text rolls out one letter at a time, because again, it’s a Japanese game. Someone explain why is this a thing?

It still gets worse. Need to recharge - which you need several times a day at first - same monologue. Found a cartridge with new features? More yapping and tapping. Talking to someone? Blah blah blah tap tap tap. Building new stuff for the park? Unskippable animations, and more monologues to tap through, one sentence at a time, rolling out one letter at a time. The day is done? Animation… Yea there are 3 kinds of animations you can skip, and dozens which you can’t.

Seriously, screw this. The game itself is pretty addictive and catchy, if you fancy this quirky park management thing, but half the playtime is spent just watching the same stuff over and over and over and oooooveeeeeerrrrrr. It’s ridiculous.

Definitely skip this if you value your time at least a little bit.

Rating: 2/10

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MechAssault: Phantom War (DS)

So this is a proper Microsoft MechWarriors game on a DS. How is it that the DS has so much cool stuff?

What can I say about this? You have a mech and you battle other mechs, in valleys of various planets rendered in this 3D engine like every other mech game. There’s a future war of some sort like in every mech game, you do war stuff and mech stuff and sometimes you leave the mech to do a bullshit hacking minigame, because this is also a DS game and those are mandated by law. You have different mechs and tanks that do different things and different weapons and armor and jump jets and grappling hooks and stuff. You know, it’s a mech game.

I quit at the typical bullshit mission of protecting a base made of wet tissue paper against neverending waves of mechs. Fuck the person who came up with these damn missions with a sharp peppermint stick. They will never, ever be not annoying. Also, I wish that the mech would sound like a giant mechanical beast rummaging through the world, and not like walking in wet flip-flops. Why can’t things in games sound loud and boomy anymore?

Either way, it’s a completely standard little 3rd person mech game that’s fun for a while, and then you get bored, or you die and the checkpoints are sparse, so you go play something else, and then someday open it again to blow up some mechs. Nothing has changed much since the inception of the genre. It’s a mech game for the DS. Nothing else to it.

Rating: Mech/10

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Bionicle Heroes (DS)

Now back to a regular first person shooter. Time to destroy some LEGO creatures.

First impression: well what do you know, sensitivity of touch aiming can be increased beyond the “old man in a wheelchair” speed some other games max out at? Who knew!

In fact, this one has surprisingly fast, responsive and natural feeling controls. Even double-tap jumping feels just about right. Unfortunately the precision isn’t at the same level, especially on high sensitivity setting, but the controls are made for pace.

The speed is pretty important here, because this is a proper retro arena shooter - I get reminded of Rise of the Triads or Painkiller. It doesn’t even bother with a story - at any time you can select out of 6 worlds (ice, volcano, castle…) and in you go.

Just go in, and kill everything by circle-strafing Quake-style. Every world also has a new weapon to collect in the first level, and upgraded versions in later ones. The combat feels punchy, especially with the upgraded weapons. I mean, we know there’s something oddly satisfying in talking apart LEGO, especially if it’s done violently.

The levels aren’t any slouches either: there are secrets, jump pads, environmental hazards, bridges to rebuild. As you power up, new and more powerful foes show up. It never gets too challenging though, to be honest.

At first I wished there were more enemy types in different environments, but over time there are about 10 distinct types in about 40 variants, so still more than other games offer. Bosses also give you powerups to replay older levels and find more secrets, plus challenges and cheats to unlock, so there’s a decent engame too.

It also looks and sounds fine - the rather simple style allows for better resolution I guess - and always rocking some catchy electronic music.

What starts as just a cool and stylish game to quickly blow off some steam, turns into a really good FPS by all accounts. At first I launched it just to check it out, and then realised I’ve been playing for 4 hours.

I do wish the controls were as precise as they are fast, but considering the nature of combat, it’s not a huge deal. This is how you do a retro shooter.

Rating: 8.5/10, if you are okay with just some old school arena shooting