No one puts Zubo in the corner! What I mean by that exactly is that there is no genre that can describe what Zubo is. Part rhythm game, part RPG, part something something. It’s a unique mess that some kids will like and others may put down after awhile. EA is hoping of course for the former.
To begin you start off in the world of Zubalon where you become warped into the world of Zumbos and evil Zombos. You get to explore 10 worlds of Zubalon – some of the lands consist of the Wild West and Pop and Horror. There is a lot of very wordy dialogue that guides you through the game, however no direction on advancing to any mission or objective is given.
As you make your way through the world of Zubalon you meet different Zumbos, they are friends and guide you to new and different areas of your map. You can make friends with over 50 characters. And as you explore new areas you run into Zombos, these are the enemy of Zumbos, we assume this because they seem to bully the Zumbos. As you make friends you can create a team to help battle the evil Zombos. So as you come across these Zombos you have to battle them. Fighting is done through music, much like a rhythm game – you must hit the beats of the music correctly in order to move battles forward. So a stylus tapping technique is key.
The long played out fight sequences make the game incredibly slow paced. Like most Nintendo DS games, ZUBO as well has mini-games to occupy your time like blowing away cobwebs, Whack-a Zombie, or Pop Balloons. So like I said, it’s a dash of everything but the kitchen sink.
Making the character design something kids might not appeal too, may have hurt what could have been a cute and (besides lack of much marketing) interesting game. For $19.99 its not that much of investment that will probably last a for a week’s worth of gameplay.
Conclusion:
The Good: Rhythm feature is a nice touch.
The Bad: Adding in the other genres makes the game have no direction or point. Characters are not that kid friendly looking.
