An okay effort
Don’t let the easy first few stages fool you. This is another surprisingly difficult WiiWare title that requires tons of patience to get through. Niki - Rock ‘n’ Ball is Bplus’s second attempt at a WiiWare title, and although their effort here doesn’t fall totally flat, there are some shortcomings.
The title of Niki - Rock ‘n’ Ball says it all, you play the role of a ball rolling around as you rock the Wii remote back and forth. To defeat an enemy, one simply has to roll Niki over them. Some enemies have spikes protecting their body, so Niki turns into a rock ball with the push of a button, enabling him to defeat those enemies with special protection. Along the way, six pearls have to be collected in each stage, even if all the enemies are defeated, in order to move to the next level. Niki can also jump and bounce off walls.
The motion controls take some getting used to. One has to hold the Wii remote upright, with the sensor pointing towards the sky. From there, the Wii remote has to be tilted left and right, resembling the motion of windshield wipers. This was the first control option I played with, and although it was difficult and I didn’t get very far, I didn’t necessarily think this was a bad control scheme. It had a learning curve for sure and it makes every stage twice as hard, but I still honestly had fun with this control scheme. The retro “NES” style controls made the game much easier. That’s not to say it was too easy, as the later levels become difficult no matter what control scheme you’re using, but I definitely got much farther. Jumping off the walls to get to a certain point can be tricky, and the timing gets easier with a d-pad.
The game has a lot of rich, vibrant colors. The background can get kind of repetitive to look at, since it stays the same for each stage, and there are ten stages in a world. But the backgrounds that are there look good as well as Niki himself and his enemies. While playing, a closer view of Niki and his enemies can be seen by pressing the up button on the d-pad, and little details from Niki’s face can be seen, such as his eyelashes. The music suffers from the same problems as it could have used more variety. It stays the same throughout the stage, which means you need to go through ten different stages before getting to hear something different. But the little music that’s there, is admittedly good.
One thing that frustrated me about Niki - Rock ‘n’ Ball, is the fact that I have to start over from stage 1-1 if I don’t make it to stage 2-1. There are a certain amount of lives you have, and if you’re on stage 2-9 and die with your last life, prepare to throw the Wii Remote at your TV screen. I would have had more motivation if the game could just save my progress at the specific point I am at, but the save function does not work that way.
In addition, the physics of jumping off walls can be tricky, sometimes to the point where the game seems unfair. Sometimes you are going to have to use the retro style controls, because all your concentration and timing will be needed to get to a specific platform, and it can become quite complicated worrying about motion controls and figuring out how to bounce to a certain point at the same time. But again, that’s not to say I did not enjoy the motion controls in this game, but more than likely you will need to switch to retro controls at certain jumps.
There is two player co-op multiplayer, which is a nice touch. No online features exist though, which is disappointing. The game records the amount of time it takes to complete a certain stage, so online leaderboards featuring the shortest times would have gone a long way towards replay value. The later levels can get kind of repetitive, even with the added difficulty. There doesn’t seem to be any rewards for going on, other than the fact the game saves your point at every ten levels. Niki does the exact same thing in every stage, with very little variation.
This is the type of game that starts off good, but doesn’t have the structure to keep it fun for a long period of time. Niki - Rock ‘n’ ball is worth a try at 500 points, especially if you have someone to play with. If it were any more than 500 points, it wouldn’t be worth it. But overall, this title is an okay effort from Bplus.