Spectrobes Collection

Spectrobes is one of those DS games that tried really hard to be the next big monster collecting craze back when everyone wanted a piece of that Pokémon money. Disney actually published this thing, just a brand new sci-fi universe they cooked up (at the initial release anyway and taking nearly two years for a cartoon adaptation). You play as Rallen, some "small star system" rookie space cop. Whose most noticeable feature at this point, is his middle part fringe. Accompanied by his pink-haired partner Jeena. Your job is to stop some shadowy planet eating freaks called the Krawl.  The hook is that you awaken ancient fossilized creatures called Spectrobes, to fight for you, which sounds awesome on paper and honestly... Really is in practice. 

Spectrobes Collection

Spectrobes

The coolest part by far is digging up those fossils. You run around alien planets with a cute baby Spectrobe, acting as a fossil detector. Then start a minigame where you carefully chip away at dirt through the touch screen, trying not to scratch the fossil inside, just like in Fossil Fighters. Even having to blow into the DS mic to clear dust, real high tech stuff, for its time.  Once you haul your "archeological finds" back to your ship, you wake them up by shouting into the microphone at the right pitch, tossing into an incubator and feeding minerals, until it evolves, ready for combat!  The whole cycle of digging, reviving and raising your monsters feels satisfying and really uses the DS hardware in creative ways. Some of the creature designs are cool too, like Spikanor a mace tailed powerhouse or Komainu a sassy little lion dog that just gets bigger and sassier. 

But here's where things fall apart: the combat is a mess. Battles happen in real time with you running around a tiny arena, while your two Spectrobes follow you like clumsy puppies. You press L or R to make them attack but, there's an annoying delay and your own character does pitiful damage, so you just end up circling the arena, waiting for a special meter to fill up so you can nuke everything on screen. The Krawl are often likened to amoebic-like mutants, the AI took this literally and made them have a single brain cell to match. You can cheese most fights, its actually harder to not "accidentally break" some of them, so the tension feels flat, the story however... Isn't too far behind.  It's the usual "evil aliens are invading, go collect the thing and beat their boss" the same old tale, that you've already forgotten five minutes after the credits roll. Adding to this, the menus are clunky and the game explains basically nothing about how evolutions or stats work, so you'll probably need a wiki open. It carries that nostalgic jank, that draws us back to "older games" and that casual gameplay loop that can still be fun, even with its caveats.

Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals

The first game did decent numbers for Disney's first stab at an original franchise, so of course they greenlit a sequel. Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals dropped about a year and a half later and fixes a ton of clunk from the original.  You still play as Rallen and Jeena but now the Krawl are back. Led by four super-edgy commanders, titled the High Krawl. One of them straight up kidnaps Aldous after blowing up the Ancient Starship. Still nothing groundbreaking, but the pacing's way better and those fully animated cutscenes actually give it some weight. This time, you even get to travel between different solar systems, through, well, portals, which is a neat way to justify more diverse planets (and the titlecard).  

The gameplay got a massive overhaul, thank goodness. The camera's now behind Rallen's shoulder, instead of that weird top down mess and battles are split into two phases. Outside of vortexes, you control Rallen, armed with a sword and blaster to clear out Krawl dust, which feels way more engaging. Inside the vortex, you take command of two Spectrobes, swapping between them both on the fly, all while your other monster does its own thing. They even added a charge a combo attack, where both Spectrobes fuse their powers and hit hard, its super satisfying to pull off.  Excavation also got tweaked, you still dig up fossils using the stylus but now different planets have different terrain gimmicks, like melting ice on the frozen world Hyoga or blowing sand away with the mic. And Jeena finally gets something to do besides being a sidekick, solving little puzzle totems to unlock areas and actually "help" you on your journey this time.

The raising system changed quite a bit too. Your child Spectrobes now evolve by eating a certain number of minerals and winning enough battles, no more staring incubator for hours.  There's 185 total creatures to collect, which is a huge jump from the first game's 73. You can even transfer your old ones forward, if you still have the original cart. The online features where surprisingly robust for a DS game, you can battle strangers, trade monsters over a Wi-Fi marketplace and link up with Disney's DGamer social network for achievements and avatar cosmetics. Unfortunately all that online stuff is dead now since Nintendo shut down the service.  The only remnants being local multiplayer...

Spectrobes GBA

Oh and get this, someone is making a GBA demake of the first Spectrobes using Pokémon FireRed as a base, exciting stuff.  The hack strips out a bunch of Pokémon-isms, so there's no STAB, every Spectrobe gets unique signature moves and double battles become the norm, mimicking that pair based combat from the DS games. They even ported over the original soundtrack which hits different on GBA soundfonts.  Excavation works as a field mechanic where you hunt for rare deposits with your child Spectrobes and there's this synergy system where certain monster pairs get combo bonuses in battle. It's only about 40% complete right now with a demo that goes up to the Kollin invasion but the custom sprites look gorgeous and the whole thing oozes love for this forgotten Disney franchise. If you ever wanted to play Spectrobes with turn based combat instead of that real time system, this hack's delivers it. That's the kind of passion project that makes the romhacking scene so rad. 

Ready to chart your own course through the Nanairo system?  Grab your Prizmod and choose your adventure now, the Krawl aren't gonna wait for ya. Grab your chosen game's .RAR file, crack open its sealed data then offer those files straight to the heart of your SD card. Install that raw .CIA and start your own saga of awakened Spectrobes!

 

Spectrobes GBA