Zatch Bell! Mamodo Fury

It's almost like clockwork. You can set your watch to it, the release of a fighting game based on an animated action cartoon on the "Cartoon Network." At last count, I personally own several titles from the "Naruto" franchise, a "One Piece" title, a "Totally Spies" game, countless "Dragon Ball Z" games, a "Justice League" title, a couple "Yu-Gi-Oh" games a "Xiaolin Showdown" game and who knows how many "Pokemon" games. Every one of these shows, is or has been featured on Cartoon Network's "Toonami" wrap around show. They all feature plenty of action, colorful characters and maybe just a little adult humor thrown in for good measure. Problem is, just because it's a hit on TV, doesn't guarantee the same success when licensed onto a video game. Case in point, today's review of Zatch Bell!

Zatch Bell! revolves around what should be a pretty decent video-game plot. Every thousand years, the Mamodos are unleashed on Earth and must battle one another for reasons unknown (the game doesn't really give a good idea). These Mamodo are essentially demons, but unlike westerner's thoughts of what a demon is, the demons from Japan appear to suffer from the same frailties as humans, there are good demons and bad. These Mamodos only have a certain amount of chutzpah in them, and for that reason they must find humans to bond with. Doing so, a spell book is then placed into the human's hands (I don't know how they originally got there and the game doesn't either) and the human can unleash powerful spells to come out of the Mamodo while in battle. In the TV show, the emphasis is on how these two characters interact with one another and help each other through life's lessons, you know, meeting girls, dealing with homework, trying to avoid being killed by psychopaths, typical teen stuff.

"He's a wide eyed six-year-old demon boy wearing a dress, fear him."

OK, so let's start off with the good, the game features a whole heck of a lot of characters, 20 or so. I have only seen the show a few times and recognized some of the secondary characters, but I am taking for granted that all that are featured in the game were at some point, in the TV show. Regardless, there is a whole heck of a lot of selection here. Each character (team really, since it's a Mamodo and it's human spell reader) has it's unique look and alignment (good or evil) plus there's that whole attacks and spells thing as well. The next positive is the game's voicework, it does fall in line with how the character's talk and appears to feature the same voices from the show.

Now that those items have been said, let's talk about the negatives, in which there are plenty. The game's fighting engine is very confusing and poorly implemented. The game is not a 2D fighter like I felt it should have been. Instead, the game takes place in the various places around town that a Mamodo may run into another, like a school yard. From there the battle is visualized in 3D, with you looking down on your character from a 3rd person perspective. Now here is where things get sticky, for one, you must control the camera view with the thumbstick, and keep your opponent in front of you. When you do that the repeated pushing of the same button allows you to fire off spells of differing power. If you tap and hold for a short amount of time the spell will fire fast, but be weak, if you hold it for longer, then the power of the spell will increase, but you in turn increase your chances of getting hit yourself. Did I mention you only have a couple of different regular attack, one "big" attack and a defense spell? Well for a fighting game, that isn't an awful lot of attacks. Plus, the whole combat engine is so, unrealized. Pressing and releasing quickly is a strategy that you can use throughout the game to pick off your opponent is so blasé that you almost think it's a lapse in the programming. And in order to stretch these battles out a bit, there is a power gauge that has depletes as you use your attacks, when it is gone, you must avoid further attack by hiding behind objects and running around until the meter fills up again. If you cause enough damage your super attack becomes available and through a series of random button pushing, your enemy will more then likely be decimated by it's monstrous attack.

 
"Yes, being run over by a car is one of the attacks this character has."

Now there is another kind of thought put into the battle, and that is to attack the spell caster and knock his book from his hand. Now I mention this little factoid, but understand that the game must not really want you to do this because it is darn near impossible. The game suffers from some really poor collision detection and in order to actually strike the book in an opponent's hand requires a level of concentration only found by those who study the mating patterns of the common earthworm. No, I am not kidding, this is a feat that in countless tries was achieved only once and then the ensuing result was the opposing spellcaster ran over and picked the book up, causing his Mamodo to be rendered helpless for approximately three seconds, or exactly not enough time to find the said, Mamodo and fire off a shot.

Now there are some oddly placed mini games that are meant to elicit some off the cuff fun for you and anyone else who wants to do a little multiplayer action. The games aren't what you would expect from a fighting title. Instead you are treated to a rousing game of "collect the fish" or "kick the book into the fire". Any sort of battling is limited to one-on-one, and therefore the very deceptive "up to four players" icon on the back of the game is only directed towards the mini-games. Another disappointment.

Now as we enter into our third month of Next-Gen consoles, it is quite clear that I am becoming spoiled, as the visuals in Zatch are weak at best. The framerate is all right and I can't really complain about the slowdown, but I also can't commend the developers for the looks either. Arenas are lacking in originality, and I would have preferred more objects to hide behind and use. The in-game cell shading tries to keep up with the cartoon yet fails to do so. Character's look almost pasty and lacking in detail. Sure the big colorful explosions jump off the screen, but it's a one-trick pony that dries up really fast.

"Rival spellcasters duke it out."

The game's sound effects were disturbingly poor, battle cries are played almost to a loop as often as you rattle off attacks and the bone-busting cracks of a powerful attack being slammed into a opponent were so under scored that I almost tested my surround sound system. It wasn't until I popped it into the GameCube system on another TV (I was playing it on my Wii) that I realized the sound effects were just plain, off kilter. They made no sense, and in some cases seemed to be improperly dubbed to the actual hit.

Finally, the game makes no sense from a storyline/plot perspective. Now I know that the show is pretty far out there in terms of the whole concept and some of the crazy things that happen to the characters but there is no real cognitive flow to the game. It expects that you must have watched the show and can piece together the very fractured and unresolved storylines that the various characters have. Comments make no sense and the whole idea behind the game is never fleshed out to a cohesive point.

Gameplay: 5.0
Very badly designed fighting system, the game has no imagination as to differing attacks. Actually connecting with an attack can be difficult. Don't even start on having the spellcasters attack one another with melee strikes.

Graphics: 4.7
The only eye-catching graphics are the initial flashy attacks the characters use, then they become really repetitive. The character sprites are missing some of the flash that is required of an action anime and the level design was too drab.

Sound: 5.5
The use of the voice actors from the show buoyed this score above a five, otherwise the flat sounding sound effects and poorly matched sounds cause the game to suffer even further.

Difficulty: Medium
The game suffers from challenges that shouldn't be there. Collision detection, the power meter that depletes after a few shots, it's an exercise in real futility.

Multiplayer: 3.8
The really ridiculous four player mini-games are horrible. The split screen VS ability is not any better. The multiplayer portion of the game is not good at all.

Concept: 4.0
It's a poor use of license from a truly original and innovative cartoon. I requested this title because of all the recent fighting games that are based on a cartoon, I felt this one had real potential.

Overall: 4.3
Zatch Bell! ends up being a mish mash of unrealized ideas and poor gameplay