 Review By: Andrew Joy |
Developer: | Capcom |
| Publisher: | Capcom | |
| Genre: | Adventure | |
| ESRB: | Everyone | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | N/A | |
| Buy Now: |   |
Once you’ve figured out how to solve a puzzle, you often have to actually pantomime the action for each step using the Wii Remote, which can involve anything from spinning the controller to turn a crank to tipping it on its side to pour something. For some of the more simple actions, like the ones I’ve just mentioned, things go okay, but because the Wii Remote – despite being leagues above some other motion-sensing controllers – has its limitations, things can get a bit spotty, especially when trying to pull off actions that read some sort of spatial depth between the controller and your TV (that is to say, some sort of back and forth movement, such as sawing). In most cases, you can get around it by falling back on the old standby and merely flailing around your arms like a mental patient trying to scare off clouds like so many raccoons on a porch, but it does take something away from the game. Also, as a final note on that particular portion, I and (I think I can safely say) everyone else who has actually played through Zack & Wiki have a message for the person who created the anchor-spinning motion - what is quite possibly the worst Wii Remote movement conceived by man - near the end of the game: sleep with one eye open.
Beyond the occasionally wonky motion controls and an accidental misstep or two, the rest of Zack & Wiki is, again, pretty straightforward and works without fail thanks to that. One of the most widespread uses of motion control in this game is simply shaking the Wii Remote to shake your magical bell, which can transform things and collect treasure. By pressing and holding the B trigger, you can get a slightly pulled-out camera that you can adjust a bit by moving the cursor towards the edges of the screen. If you get into trouble, pressing 1 will call up the Oracle so you can get a hint – which, I suppose, is something you should know, even if you don’t heed my warning. 2 is used solely to answer the phone, which also happens to be on the same level that actually makes some separate use of the speaker, playing sounds that you have to match. The Minus button isn’t really used for anything apart from skipping the cut-scenes, and Plus, as you’d expect, acts as the Start button, not only pausing the game, but bringing up a menu that allows you to restart the level (which is great if you’ve made a mistake that you know is going to kill you later on) or just head back to base.
There’s been a lot of talk about how much this game resembles The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. In truth, it doesn’t. Oh sure, the two games both forgo the typical push for realism and instead used cel-shading to create highly-stylized and oh-so-beautiful worlds, but with Zack & Wiki, Capcom takes it well beyond anything Nintendo ever achieved in that game. Put simply, when you were playing Wind Waker, you knew you were playing a game. When you are playing Zack & Wiki, you could very well mistake it for cartoon, with the anime influence clear in the facial expressions and comical deaths. If there is but one caveat to this, it would be that the levels sometimes lack depth, as you are often working in an almost side-scroller-like fashion, the framerate can drop when there is a lot of onscreen action and the look of the game as a whole will unfortunately turn some off. There’s also something to be said for a few of the decisions Capcom made in the audio department. The game doesn’t have any voice acting, relying instead on text-based, but still wonderful, cutscenes, and what sound effects you do have can often be annoying (Wiki, in particular, has an annoying voice to rival even Pikachu from the Pokémon anime). But, like the graphics, this too has a proviso: The music in this game is amazing! Just trust me on that one.
By the time I had completed the main game in Zack & Wiki, I came in almost exactly on Capcom’s previous estimates of fifteen hours or so of gameplay (though I know a large part of the excess was in finishing the last level, which suddenly and unfortunately devolved into a sort of speed challenge...which I hate). Now, whether you think that is a decent length for a game or not, know this: I’ve only scratched the surface of this title. In fact, just reaching the treasure chests at the end of each level didn’t give me 100% completion; at the end of most worlds – of which there are only a handful, but most containing several puzzles – I had only achieved 70%. The reason for this is that hidden treasures are scattered within each level. Some you get just by shaking your bell, but others have you completing a hidden music mini-game, shaking the Wii Remote in time with onscreen cues. Personally, I hated these portions and never got the hang of them, but mastering them will net you treasure maps that you can bring back to a member on your crew. You can also play through the levels not only to search for treasures and improve your score, but also to find the multiple solutions that most puzzles have (as you probably aren’t supposed to hack the glacier open with a batbrella in Icicle of Prosperity, but I did), adding not only to the playtime but, I’m sure, your cunning.
As you may recall, I mentioned earlier that some people might have trouble advancing through the game alone. While Zack & Wiki doesn’t have a proper multiplayer aspect, what it does have plays exactly to the need above. By turning on their controllers, up to three other people can point to and select (by pressing A) on screen items that they think the player should check out, and they can even draw on the screen for a short time (by holding B and moving the cursor), much like you see on sports and weather shows. While it isn’t a lot, it can be dreadfully helpful, especially since someone just saying, “check there” isn’t always clear with so many things going on all at once, and every little bit of help can be the difference between success and failure in here. Now, to those of you bemoaning the fact that the game doesn’t feature a true multiplayer mode, even when it has “two characters right in the title” (you know who you are), it is a senseless statement – you couldn’t play as Ezlo in Minish Cap, and he and Wiki are along the same lines. But what really makes the whole argument a moot point is that, even as a single player game, Zack and Wiki still represents a whole new level of quality on the Nintendo Wii.
Bottom Line:
While it’s true, the graphics in Zack & Wiki can be simpler than most games, the controls still have a few kinks to work out and the logic of this fantasy world can trip you up at times, it isn’t enough to tarnish what the game does right. The cartoon-like look allows for a lot more unique detail and effects with very little slowdown, the pick-up and play controls broaden the appeal of the game and fit in perfectly with the expanded audience, and the level design is nothing short of genius. In the end, the package comes together in such a way to make this title easily one of the top third-party games available for the Wii, and, if you ask me, one that even bests some of Nintendo’s own efforts for their unique home console. Looking around, I see a lot of sites telling people not to be fooled by the game’s name and appearance and to pick up it up, but I won’t do that. No, for as much as I’d like to see this game get a sequel (for either the Wii or DS), I feel that if you’re stupid enough to be put off of a game simply because of that, you deserve to miss out on the absolutely excellent experience that is Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure!
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 9.0 |
Posted: 2007-11-12 20:08:54 PST