#Okaeri! Chibi-Robo! Happy Richie Ōsōji! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

everydaydg · 5 months

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51. Welcome Home! Chibi-Robo! Happy Rich Big Sweep! (DS, 2009)

Original title: Okaeri! Chibi-Robo! Happy Richie Ōsōji!

Fan name: Chibi-Robo! Clean Sweep

Okaeri! Chibi-Robo! is an absolutely amazing sequel to the original Chibi-Robo! for GameCube

Taking elements from all previous entries to create the best game in the series yet.

Hoo boy! This game floored me, man!

I genuinely didn’t expect this to come close to the original considering it’s on the DS of all things but man I’m I glad to be proven wrong.

Ok! Let’s get straight into this I am excited to write about this.

Welcome Home! Chibi Robo!'s story takes place in Jenny Sanderson's house (from the first game!! yknow! The frog girl!), the house is in really bad condition as jenny and her family are quite poor.

In order to help with the finances and keep the house clean, the family saves up for a chibi-robo to help with those tasks.

You have your work cut out for you from here! Clean and make cash in order to make the life of the family better.

Pretty simple.

And from there... here I go rambling about the gameplay and story. OH MAN I HAVE ALOT TO SAY YOU DONT EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS GAMEAGH....

Let's start with the gameplay... holy shit it’s so good man

So. how do you go around? it is a 3D DS game after all... how do you control the game?

... with the touch screen- HEAR ME OUT IT WORKS

While not as comfy as the original, the touch screen implementation is really well done! you grow quite used to it and because of how its set up, the dpad is dedicated to camera control which works out great!

Because of how you are likely to hold the device there L button is there for some extra actions mapped to it! ... that I will get to later.

Controls are alright!

Let’s put in place some basics. Chibi-Robo runs on a small rechargeable battery. You have a timer on you at all times. every second you stay still or take a step, your battery goes down.

Everything you do uses battery which creates this fun loop of trying to look for a charger every time you are low on power.

This has been standard for every game in the series. you do well and after a while you get a battery upgrade to explore more comfortably.

Actually, this game makes the loop even faster by not making every plug a save point which was an issue with the original. In the original every time you plugged into an outlet the game would ask you if you would like to save which was... annoying past a certain bit. Here the only save point is your chibi-house which works out. I do get why the original was made like that, the Sanderson’s house is massive so being able to save anywhere helps a fair bit but the smaller design here makes it so that wouldn’t make much sense.

What about that smaller design eh? how’s the house

Jenny's house is so damm fun to explore!! despite the cutback in CPU power due to being on the DS, Okaeri! Chibi Robo! has an immense sense of scale. areas truly feel hugeeee and there is a nice use of verticality that I will also get to in a bit.

The game also looks quite good! of course... not as good as the original but for DS standards its quite nice and stylized!

Despite having less rooms than the original. I’d say it does a way better job than the original Sanderson's house in making a lot with less space.

We have a Living Room, a Kitchen, a hallway, a bathroom, rooms for Jenny and Keith (Jenny's son) and the backyard

They are all full of things to do!

Same as in the original, you can also enter a wide variety of small areas inside those rooms like the chimney, the couch, the AC (when you buy it), the water pipes, a hidden ghost casino... I won’t explain that one, under the house and so on!

There is a lot to explore which makes going around a joy!!

Chibi's arsenal is a bit different this time around. No chibi copter this time, as the need for it vanished when falling damage was removed (which is a godsend here btw), no blaster or radar, no mug or boombox from park patrol made a return but the spoon, toothbrush and the squirter (featuring its park patrol look) did make a return!

And there is the inclusion of a few vehicles you can use to speed up your travels

But the most important out of all them is... the vacuum cleaner.

This is the most important part of the gameplay loop.

The vacuum only works when plugged into a wall which creates a lot of interesting scenarios where you have to see how to get to certain places or clean certain things that are out of your reach.

you can only go as far as your cord cable extends. you can upgrade this with cash at the chibi-house but for a while you will be struggling to clean everything with how small your cord is.

anyway, by vacuuming dust and cleaning dirt. you increase a rooms Sparkle Rate, which indicates how clean a room is.

The cleaner the room, the more upgrades and furniture you can buy for them!

The more you clean the more money you earn

When you fill one dust bag... you can use it to sieve for gold and gems.

This will be your main method of making money for most of the game!

If you clean a lot, you get a lot of gold which is a significant amount of money.

and with the thrash you clean off, you can generate more power to the house... Oh yeah, the house runs off recycled waste which makes gives the player an incentive the clean!

No cleaning? No power, No Power? No Chibi Robo

So, the loop is Clean > Sieve > Buy > Repeat

While a game about cleaning may sound boring... it has one trick up its sleeve... one thing that changes this whole game to make it one of the most fun things ever... the cord throw...

When grabbing your plug over your head, you can hold L to start swinging it around, when its full charged it can be thrown a long distance (as long as your cord length is long enough) which leads some fantastic verticality not possible in the original

The original chibi robo had a problem with verticality where going up was a pain and falling down was too punishing. it was frustrating specially with the 15 minute time limit per day but okeri just... does not suffer from this one bit because you can do stupid shit like this in EVERY ROOM IN THE GAME.

... YOU SEE HOW THIS IS FUN RIGHT??

While yes you can’t do this as soon as you start, it’s still immensely rewarding getting to this point

Everything in okaeri feels like you are working towards something. You see your cord length go even farther than before, you see the house look nicer and nicer with more furniture you buy. Okaeri Chibi-Robo is an absolute joy to play because of this, your progression is displayed so clearly.

To go back to launching the plug for a second, every aspect of the house is designed with it in mind. A lot of plugs are put in a way so chibi can climb up there even with a low cord length so progression is usually not gated.

in no moment do you need to have a max length cord in the whole game so don’t worry about being short on cord.

Ok so the gameplay is great and has a great sense of progress... what about the story and characters

Starting with the toys!

Theresss a new set of toys in this game! Only one set familiar faces are here, that being of the free rangers and their underground explorations.

They are all so charming and fun! their side quests are all an absolute joy to get done!

I actually did all of them for my playthrough and was genuinely surprised when I didn’t have more of them to do. I genuinely wanted to do more of them but there wasn’t any more to do.

I loved doing Habanero's, Ketchup's and Iberico's side quests. those three were my favorites. no shade to the toucan phone tho, that was fun too.

All of them give you unique costumes with unique powers that are activated by pressing the L button! The police outfit lets you shoot with L, you can swim with the diving gear with L, you can pull out a guitar with ketchup's outfit and so on! its cool!

It does have less content than plug into adventure sadly but it is what it is, It is a DS game after all and it does enought for me to be satisfied with.

now... the story... man

SPOILERS FOR THE STORY.

Go to the next big bold text in order to continue

Okay so I set the basics down with why are you on Jenny's house... well as you continue to help you start seeing how the family has certain troubles apart from poverty...

You see her, her son Keith and the family dog, Lucky at all times but never Karl, Jenny's husband... and Keith makes mention of how he wants to see his father again after progressing the story enough.

After Keith says that, at night you can visit Jenny where she tells you the truth.

Karl, passed away in an accident before they could get married, Keith was born before they could get married.

Jenny never knew is Karl genuinely wanted to marry her or not as he often joked around the idea...

Okaeri Chibi Robo is a that deals with topics of loss in its own unique way as you help the family cope with the loss of Karl.

Jenny tries to move on, dating a guy she met at work... but Keith can’t let it go, getting mad at her mom for doing such a thing as she was devoted to his father...

After a while. you help Keith cope with all of this and you even get to talk to Karl's spirit

You realize that he did want to marry Jenny all along and you help him make the wedding Jenny never got.

The game ending with Karl and Jenny's wedding under the moonlight.

Karl's spirit passing away to the afterlife with no regrets, saying good bye to his family.

END OF SPOLERS

I could keep going but me making a summary like that is a disservice to how well done everything is.

In some ways its goofy but it’s so earnest and earned... in ways only chibi-robo can do.

The characters help the story a lot, they are all well done, you feel for Jenny's struggle as a single mom and how Keith misses his dad. You can’t help but feel sorry for them which pushes you to try to help them get out of poverty

The main cast and the side characters are all fantastic and enjoyable. They are one of the best parts of Okaeri! Chibi-Robo, managing to capture the charm of the characters found in the original game.

Okaeri Chibi-Robo is a wonderful experience that I don’t think I did justice here. it’s a game that you truly have to experience by yourself to have a good idea of how unique and fantastic it is.

Its def one of the best games I’ve played this year and I left out a lot of aspects of the game on purpose in order to entice you to find out things by yourself.

I love this game... there’s not a lot of games out there that can be goofy and as heartfelt as chibi robo...

9/10

one point taken off because... it is dragged down by being stuck on the DS, most sound effects are heavily compressed and don’t sound the best and the music isn’t that good honestly... which is a huge shame as skip is known for their oddly catching melodies in their games (Specially in Plug Into Adventure and Captain Rainbow)

My apologies if this was pretty scattershot and not great to read. Its hard to put into words how I feel about certain games that I love... and the next review wont be any easier with it being E.X. Troopers...

#Chibi Robo #game review

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