Igor: The Game
released on Sep 01, 2008
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I should've known things were going to be dire when I noticed that this game has existed for 15 long glorious years without a single Youtube walkthrough or Gamefaqs guide.
In a world where most of the movie licensed tie-ins on the Nintendo DS are either really bad 2D platformers or really bad touch screen minigame collections, Igor: The Game DS dares to be different by being a really bad RPG/puzzle hybrid. And, by doing so, it made me wish that I was rapidly tapping circles on the bottom screen instead of what I was forced to do.
So after the main plot of the movie decides to just get up and leave, Igor and his ragtag bunch of witty cartoon sidekicks enter a monster tournament because that will...bring back his creation/girlfriend and stop Eddie Izzard Scientist. So you build a monster with your Starter head, body, arms, and legs and then wander around a map FF Tactics-style and find the tournament sites along the way until you get into a random encounter so that you can grind for materials and money by playing Literally Just Super Turbo Puzzle Fighter on the bottom screen as both your monster and the random woodland creature awkwardly stand there in crunchy low-poly 3D until you fill up enough energy bars for your monster to throw a punch.
Yes, the DS game based off of the 2008 film everyone just kinda forgot about is not a bad Mario clone or a bad Mario Party clone but rather a bad Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords clone of all things, with some Monster Rancher thrown in there for extra spice to make the shit sandwich more palpable.
I would give them props for not taking the safe route, but I feel like a kid playing this would've preferred if this was just a button-masher type of affair where B meant fist rather than "slowly match 30 blue blocks for fist,". I'm not going to mince words - this is one of the most boring games I have ever played in my life. The puzzle aspect of slowly exploding gems and the framerate constantly dipping just makes this entire game so slow and boring that you can feel your soul escape your body when the non-puzzle aspect - the "collect body parts to build a freak of nature to fight in tournaments" idea - actually sounds like fun.
Oh, and you can't coast through this game with the starter monster either. You see, there are six tournaments to complete before you can roll credits. You can maybe finish the first tournament with just the starter monster if you're lucky, but then the second tournament has 11 goddamn opponents, all with monsters with twice as many stats as your now-useless hunk of rotting flesh. So you HAVE to grind for better body parts by running around on the map back and forth until you have enough material to exchange for body parts that you HOPE translates to better skills that can help you win.
One body part costs 16 of a given material. Monsters only drop 4 material items. You are going to be playing a LOT of laggy Super Turbo Puzzle FIghter while listening to the same two songs as random encounters take around 10-15 minutes as you gradually whittle down HP.
Why would you make grinding essential to progress in Igor: The Game. Of all games.
Once I realized that there was a long, thankless road ahead of me, I told myself "you know, I deserve to play better games" and gave up. I was curious to see how this unrecorded game would progress before I realized that I have far better uses of my time than seeing the ending of Igor: The Game DS.
Farewell, Igor. At least your art style was kinda neat.
In a world where most of the movie licensed tie-ins on the Nintendo DS are either really bad 2D platformers or really bad touch screen minigame collections, Igor: The Game DS dares to be different by being a really bad RPG/puzzle hybrid. And, by doing so, it made me wish that I was rapidly tapping circles on the bottom screen instead of what I was forced to do.
So after the main plot of the movie decides to just get up and leave, Igor and his ragtag bunch of witty cartoon sidekicks enter a monster tournament because that will...bring back his creation/girlfriend and stop Eddie Izzard Scientist. So you build a monster with your Starter head, body, arms, and legs and then wander around a map FF Tactics-style and find the tournament sites along the way until you get into a random encounter so that you can grind for materials and money by playing Literally Just Super Turbo Puzzle Fighter on the bottom screen as both your monster and the random woodland creature awkwardly stand there in crunchy low-poly 3D until you fill up enough energy bars for your monster to throw a punch.
Yes, the DS game based off of the 2008 film everyone just kinda forgot about is not a bad Mario clone or a bad Mario Party clone but rather a bad Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords clone of all things, with some Monster Rancher thrown in there for extra spice to make the shit sandwich more palpable.
I would give them props for not taking the safe route, but I feel like a kid playing this would've preferred if this was just a button-masher type of affair where B meant fist rather than "slowly match 30 blue blocks for fist,". I'm not going to mince words - this is one of the most boring games I have ever played in my life. The puzzle aspect of slowly exploding gems and the framerate constantly dipping just makes this entire game so slow and boring that you can feel your soul escape your body when the non-puzzle aspect - the "collect body parts to build a freak of nature to fight in tournaments" idea - actually sounds like fun.
Oh, and you can't coast through this game with the starter monster either. You see, there are six tournaments to complete before you can roll credits. You can maybe finish the first tournament with just the starter monster if you're lucky, but then the second tournament has 11 goddamn opponents, all with monsters with twice as many stats as your now-useless hunk of rotting flesh. So you HAVE to grind for better body parts by running around on the map back and forth until you have enough material to exchange for body parts that you HOPE translates to better skills that can help you win.
One body part costs 16 of a given material. Monsters only drop 4 material items. You are going to be playing a LOT of laggy Super Turbo Puzzle FIghter while listening to the same two songs as random encounters take around 10-15 minutes as you gradually whittle down HP.
Why would you make grinding essential to progress in Igor: The Game. Of all games.
Once I realized that there was a long, thankless road ahead of me, I told myself "you know, I deserve to play better games" and gave up. I was curious to see how this unrecorded game would progress before I realized that I have far better uses of my time than seeing the ending of Igor: The Game DS.
Farewell, Igor. At least your art style was kinda neat.