Docomodake Boing!

By - Kai S.                                
 
  

What do you get when you combine the mascot for a Japanese mobile phone company and a platform puzzle game for the DS? The incredibly fun, and unique game by the name of Boing! Docomodake DS. The adorable little mushroom mascots take you through a quirky and fun story that will have you hooked from start to finish. Addicting gameplay, a cute story and nice visuals all come together to make one great little game.

In Boing! Docomodake you play as Papa Docomodake who is in search of his family. The annual festival is just about to start, but his family is no where to be found. Along with Papa Docomodake you must play through the game, using his unique skills and try to locate the rest of his family before the festival starts.

Each stage is sure to present a challenge for you as you face enemies and roadblocks along your way. For those looking for an extra challenge, there are coins and treasure chests hidden throughout the levels that you can collect as you play. The game is separated into 7 different areas (5 of which are present during the entire game, one which opens after you finish level 5 and one that opens after you watch the credits after level 6) and each area has 8 stages. Before starting each area, you are presented with the story of what happened to Papa Docomodake’s family member and then you set off to find them. During the first 7 stages of the area, you reach the goal at the end of the level and at the end of stage 8 Papa Docomodake is reunited with his family member, which queues the end of their story.

As you start each stage, the task seems like it will be simple. Using the in game stage viewer, you are able to look over what lies ahead. However, once you start playing the stage, you soon realize, what originally looked like a simple task, may not be so simple after all. As you move through the level, everything from spiders, birds and spikes will make your adventure a little more dangerous. To help him in the search for his family, Papa Docomodake has Minis that he brings along with him. These Minis can split off from Papa Docomodake to assist him when he hits a roadblock. The Minis can do everything from making a ladder so Papa can reach otherwise inaccessible areas, or they can fill in a gap so Papa can proceed without falling into the spikes below.

All of the levels were fun and unique. They each had new challenges to overcome and figure out. I enjoyed all the levels, but personally enjoyed area seven the most. For me, it was the most unique and creative level in the game. The levels were fun to play through because they were designed with such creativity, I found myself excited to see what the solution was going to be for each stage.

The controls in the game work quite well. Papa Docomodake is controlled using either the D-Pad or the A, B, X and Y buttons. I thought this was a great touch because the controls were setup right away for both left and right handed players. Since you can use either control method, it also allows you to switch controls if you need while playing the game. Papa Docomodake can move left or right by pressing that direction on the D-Pad, he can jump by pressing up and can dig by pressing down. The button controls are used in the same fashion, where X is jump (up), B is dig (down), etc. The stylus is used to control the Minis, using the stylus you can move them around on the screen, stack them for creating ladders, etc. The stylus is also used for other on screen controls, such as selecting items from the menu, calling the Minis back to Papa, etc. The final control you will be using in the game is the L and R buttons, these are simply to split multiple Minis from Papa Docomodake quickly when you want to access more than one at a time.

The difficulty of the game was perfect. The game starts out pretty simple and through the beginning it is teaching you how to play the game. You don’t have to go through a tutorial and you don’t have to read the instructions if you don’t want to. Each time you approach a new mechanism, the on screen question mark will begin to flash, alerting you that this is new and you can read what it is and how to use it. Most of these appear in the first few stages, but there are a few that show up later in the game. The game progresses very nicely in difficulty, slowly adding new challenges so you could ease into them. I never felt frustrated with the game, while I did have a few areas I had a bit of a hard time figuring out; it was just a matter of working with the game to figure out the solution.



Early on, the solution was pretty easy to figure out, you could see what was ahead and knew what needed to be done. However, as you progress through the game, it became more challenging and you were faced with a lot of new obstacles. Instead of being able to see what the result of each action was, a switch you activate at the beginning of the level may affect something towards the end. The stage viewer becomes a very useful tool as you get into the later areas. I found myself utilizing it all the time, especially so I knew what was ahead. More often than not, if you don’t prepare for the path ahead, you may find yourself landing on spikes, or getting attacked by a spider.

The design of the game was very cute and colorful. The story at the beginning of the area paves the way for the stages that follow and the graphics continue the theme having a storybook feel. The overall feel of the game will remind you a lot of a children’s book, but don’t let the look fool you into thinking the game is for children. The game will offer plenty of challenges to get gamers, of all ages, thinking. The graphics were cute and colorful and looked fantastic on the DS. The music within the game is cute and catchy; you may even find yourself humming the tunes after you are done playing. It is somewhat repetitive, but it goes along well with the game and adds to the overall environment and keeps you relaxed while playing. The charming feel of the game was a nice touch and went very well with the story; you couldn’t help but smile while playing this game.

What is great about Boing! Docomodake is that you are timed and graded on each stage. Once you are finished with the stage, it show you the percentage of coins and treasure chests you collected, the time spent on the level and what grade you earned based on those facts. After playing the level just once, you already know some of the tricks to getting through it faster, I found myself on almost every level wanting to go back and just try to beat my time and score because I knew it would be easy to do. I loved seeing 100% completion scores, but my average score was a C because I was taking extra time collecting everything. If you want to try and beat your own score and time or go back and collect everything in each level, you could spend a decent amount of extra time with the game.

I did have a few, minor, complaints with the game. I had two issues involving the controls. While the overall controls worked very well and I liked the fact they included controls for both left and right handed players, there was one area where they left off controls for left-handed gamers. In the stage viewer, you could move around using the D-Pad, however, you could not use the buttons to navigate. This was not a huge issue because you could use the stylus to move around as well, which prevented you from having to put the stylus down and navigate. However, the B button actually closes the stage viewer, I found myself forgetting sometimes and trying to use the buttons to move around and hitting the B button and closing the viewer. It was a minor inconvenience, especially in the later levels where you use the viewer a lot, but I thought it would have been better if they handled the controls the same as the rest of the game.



The second issue was that I could not find a comfortable position to play in. This may not be a problem for everyone, but I found I either had to hold the DS in a somewhat uncomfortable position, or my DS didn’t feel like I had a good grip on it. Since you are using the DS controls and the stylus during the entire game, both hands are being used and I thought it was just a little difficult to get comfortable. I found the best way was to put the DS on a table or something for support, it still wasn’t perfect, for me, but overall, it worked the best.

Boing! Docomodake DS is a bit on the shorter side and this was a little disappointing as well. Because the game originally retailed for $20 and can now be found for even less, you are still getting a decent amount of gameplay for your money. However, I was most disappointed because I would have liked to have more levels, the game was so enjoyable, I just didn’t want it to end. I was able to complete the game, with each level 100% complete, in 7 hours. If you aren’t concerned with collecting everything in the game, it could be finished in less time. Because you can go back and try to beat your score, there is some extra gameplay you can get out of the game, but I would have liked to see a few more areas to make the main game a little longer.

My final issue with the game was that there were no save points within the stages. Each stage is pretty short, most of them under ten minutes, but it was still a little annoying if you died or got stuck and had to start completely over. I didn’t have to start over too many times, but there were a few occasions and it would have been great if there was a save point at the middle of each stage. Because you can only die if you don’t have any more Minis attached, I didn’t die too often. However, there was several times I either missed a treasure box and/or coin, or got stuck and had to start the level over. Some of the areas can be a little tricky and it can take some time to work through them and think them over, so it could be a little annoying when you realized you had to start over again.

Overall, Boing! Docomodake DS is a fantastic game on the DS. Gamers of all ages should enjoy the story and gameplay throughout the entire game. Fun and unique puzzles that keep you thinking make it hard to put the game down. Any DS owner that enjoys puzzles and platformers will not be disappointed with this game. A few minor problems in the game don’t take away from the overall game at all. This is another great game for the DS and one that will be a nice addition to any DS owner’s library!

PROS

* Addicting gameplay
* Catchy music
* Cute and colorful graphics
* Perfect for gamers of all ages
* Easy to pick up and play

CONS

* Minor issues in controlling the stage viewer
* Somewhat uncomfortable to hold the DS while playing
* A little on the short side
* No save points within the game, dieing or getting stuck requires you to the stage over

RATING: 8/10