Mythinks #6
Chibi Robo!: Plug Into Adventure! - They Don't Make 'Em Like This Anymore
It's funny how luck has it, sometimes. Sometime around the turn of the year, not really part of a resolution or anything, I decided to go out of my way to find things to enjoy about games that you wouldn't say are top of the line in any way. Mostly as a reaction to how Slay the Princess had quite an emotional effect on me, in spite of how most capital-G Gamers would write that game off just for being a visual novel. I feel like we owe it to art as much to not look at it so mathematically in that way that "objective thinking" tends to boil down to.
Despite what many a critic would tell you, being objective is very easy. You just have to state what the business is, and I feel relying so heavily on it just makes an opinion boil down to a rather reductive multiple choice question of "Is it: Bad? Mediocre? Okay? Good? Or Great?" and nuance dies in the process. And I've felt like my relationship with art has only improved in further distancing myself from that way of thinking, especially because doing so means I have to actually talk about how something makes me feel and not just consider the binary "Is it good or nah?"
This coinciding with how I have also decided to let RNG pick a random game out of my ever-growing bucket list for me, and well, it went and picked Chibi Robo for me. Something that excited me because it's a game that's both a decently known cult classic and also I knew next to nothing about it.
I have this preamble not to say that I think Chibi Robo is the best game to ever unlearn objectivity to, but it does at least feel like the mascot of the concept. It's from the 6th generation of gaming, the GameCube, PS2, and XBox era which very easily felt like the most unique time to be into mainstream gaming. You didn't really have an indie scene, at least not a widely available one, to balance out the mainstream space sticking to safe bets and easy, guaranteed successes. But at the same time, you still had these little oddball games like Katamari, Chulip, or indeed Chibi Robo lying around maybe not looking like fine cut diamonds, but cool and unique in only a way a cool rock you found lying around could look. Though I mostly only make this comparison because if you were to ask a capital-G Gamer that mostly only plays the big blockbuster games to enjoy a game like this, they'd probably have a hard time doing so.
Chibi Robo, at least mechanically, doesn't have that much going on. Though it is certainly in that camp of games that are kinda nebulous in terms of what genre you can call them, at least in the sense that Chibi Robo is a square hole, and a lot of genres fit into it, so to speak. Is Chibi Robo a Zelda adventure game for being about world traversal via item acquisition? Is it a Metroidvania in that same vein? Is it a puzzle platformer? Is it a collect-a-thon? All questions I feel like can all be answered at the same time with a "Yes".
Not that genres are the demanding force in that conversation, but they are at least good shorthand for getting into what a game is even about in the first place. Personally, I've found it a little more akin to a point-and-click adventure game, with how it often expects you to find objects of interest to bring to points of equal interest, sometimes in a way that requires a mild deciphering of the game world's logic. Never to a point where it feels outright obtuse, but it certainly raises a lot of questions that get an ah-ha moment the second you get the item that clues you in on what to do next. The cast of weird, quirky characters that you learn more about by helping them being an added bonus.
VIXI:
Though I would like to pull this out: I know a lot of people say "go into this game as blind as possible", usually for games like Void Stranger or Outer Wilds. But speaking as someone that indeed went into this with very little priming me for what to expect, I would encourage any interested to go ahead and play the game before continuing this article. This is a game that regularly blindsides you, not quite like the aforementioned games in that what you discover can just change the entire rules of said game, but still in the best ways possible. This game takes turns I never would've suspected out of a silly little game where you do house chores.
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Chibi Robo itself has humble beginnings. You play the role of Chibi Robo, a model of robotic toy, given to a girl named Jenny Sanderson for her birthday. And you get the simple robot directive of doing anything you can to make the people in the household happy, rather literally represented via Happy Points. After the intro cutscene and the establishment of premise, though, your direction is kept extremely vague. Of course, you'll get hit with little goals here and there; the main one you might notice is to reach the top of what is apparently a Chibi Robo leader board, where you're competing with the Chibi Robos of other houses for the affection of their masters. Yay, commodified love!
Other than that, it's basically up to you to find your own goals and explore the house at your own leisure, especially as more and more of it opens up. The closest thing you may find to a main quest is the tasks involving the family themselves, but there's just about always some sort of progress to be making, no matter where in the house you decide to wander around. And at risk of getting into genre politics twice in one article, I certainly miss when this kind of game was a little more common. I'm sure they still exist out there, but so many games are afraid of feeling directionless that a goal gets thrusted into the game, whether or not it suits the game in question. Even Minecraft got a final boss and ending stuck into it, in spite of Minecraft never once finding success in going into it with a specific, rigid goal in mind. And while Chibi Robo isn't as open-ended as pre-The End Minecraft, it still manages to keep a wrap on what exactly equals progress in much the same way a true sandbox game is, but still having a list of points to visit and characters to help, to a point where I feel like equating it to an interactive attraction like a children's museum exhibit feels more apt than anything.
Not to say Chibi Robo has no ways of gating progress, you only start out able to explore the living room, but you'll eventually find a way to get the dog's chew toy out of the way from the kitchen. Then in the kitchen, you'll find the cup, which will allow you to sneak past the egg soldiers, and so-on. Oh and if it wasn't obvious, yes, the other toys can talk, but go inert with the family around a la Toy Story.
But Chibi Robo is a fantastic case of mechanical depth not being the end-all-be-all of a game, because what its a lot more about is running around this open playground and finding little things to interact with. You'd be shocked at how many things are tied to a quest here or there, or even how to progress in the main storyline. The main menu has a whole "Stickers" page essentially as a checklist for which quests you've "completed", but it's not a "quest list" if that makes sense. It simply tells you which characters have their main stories concluded, but otherwise isn't really for anything.
CHIAKI:
I really appreciate that the game barely holds your hand. It'll yap tutorials at you at first, and Telly will blurb about advice for things you've probably already noticed, but puts the motivation to get things done squarely on you and your own willingness to do things. It gets by on a LITTLE direction through hints here and there but otherwise has the bare minimum in direction.
This game also has some collect-a-thon hallmarks in it, but it doesn't quite come together to form a traditional collect-a-thon. It doesn't really have a traditional "main collectible" like stars or jiggies, it simply has a lot of random crap lying around the house that has a purpose somewhere, and you gotta find it. Like we said, they're more like items in a point-and-click adventure game.
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JINX:
i think the only outright problem with doing it this way is that, aside from the costumes and tools, everything shares the same, limited inventory space. including the random trash you can pick up and throw away in a trash can. so you can go through the effort (and it can take a while) to go through the hoops of getting something only to get hit with a "you can't carry this right now" message. i don't think you'd ever be able to collect items in a precise way to ever outright softlock yourself, but it's still a little annoying.
probably would've been a bit better to either have item storage back at the chibi house, especially since you can grab an item FAR earlier than you're meant to and just end up holding onto it for half the game. keep inventory limited, because i'm sure the intention is to make it so you stay focused on the literal handful of stuff on your plate, but still. either that or have more than just the two trash cans in the entire house.
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Speaking of tools AND random crap lying around, you also get a set of "important" items, in two categories between actual tools and costumes. The tools are various household objects converted into doo-dads and cleaning supplies, like the toothbrush the Chibi Robo uses as a broom, or the spoon he uses as a shovel. A little rude, people could've been using those, Chibi!. The toothbrush is primarily used for cleaning up dirty spots on the floor, which give some chump change Happy Points, or seemingly completely random chance for a "cleaning bonus" where you get a more substantial fistful of Happy Points and "Moolah" (actually what it's called.) I only bring it up in such a matter-of-fact manner because I do think every single spot you clean has its own chance to trigger the Cleaning Bonus, since I'd not only go long stretches without ever getting a Cleaning Bonus, but also one time I got two cleaning bonuses within seconds of each other.
Some of the tools are upgrades you buy from the ingame shop, most notably the Chibi Copter, Chibi Blaster, and Chibi Radar, which all do about what you'd expect. Copter allows you to cross gaps and fall to the floor without fear of taking fall damage, and you'll need it for interesting navigational puzzles. Chibi doesn't actually have a formal "jump" button, he can simply leap onto ledges about the same height as him if you run into it for a second, but in terms of an traditional jump action, the copter is the best you got. Radar is for revealing various hidden items, and you may be wondering what the hell a low stakes "cozy game" like Chibi Robo would be doing with something called a "Blaster", huh?
So the costumes. You'll get several outfits throughout the adventure, usually handed to you by various characters. They don't have particularly practical uses, but each one does have a unique action. Usually just to see the characters react to each costume differently, which is a nice touch given this isn't actually important to anything, just there for flavor. They do have very situational use cases where they will actually further a character's plot here or there, but again, those are pretty situational.
The only ones that are useful outside of their extremely limited use cases are the pajamas and bandage costumes, where the pajamas will automatically skip to the next time of day in the day-night cycle, and the bandages will make you collapse, scaring the bajeezes out of Telly as he drags your ass back to Chibi House for free, basically as a free teleport.
Things like the frog costume, at the very least, allow you to talk to animals. In general, for some reason, not just the frogs in the game. But a funny detail is how Jenny is playing pretend throughout the game, acting like she's been transformed into a frog by a witch's curse, talking in broken english and ribbits. But if you wear the frog costume around her, she speaks more normally, which is a very cute touch.
LUNA:
Now, something that is utterly fantastic about this game ARE those little touches. I know calling a game "charming" is so overdone that it's considered a little gauche, but trust that I really mean it when these characters are oh, so charming. They'll be making up the bulk of the optional side-activities, and they have their own little ongoing stories to keep you coming back to see them every now and then to see if anything's progressed, or if anything you have now can progress it.
It's got tiny egg people soldiers with a hardass (hardboiled?) drill sergeant, this attitude causing a few of them to go AWOL and start up quests of their own. It's got a Lego-built T-Rex that's also a granny, and I really like the fact that she's a granny, plus her friend the wiggly-wacky-arm-flailing-dancing flower man. That can somehow produce seeds that make tiny kids of himself. Don't think about it too hard. The dog's favorite chewtoy has a crush on the Buzz Lightyear-esque spaceman action figure. They really carry a lot of the game's weight in just being so gosh darn adorable that I keep swinging around to check up on em.
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CELESTE:
My personal favorite is poor ol' Mort, the action figure of a horrific mummy zombie that lives under Jenny's bed. (Which I'm just now realizing might be a play on "monster under the bed.") Perhaps not the most interesting subversion to have it then turn out he is actually a shy softy that resents how unappealing he looks because it scares off the princess doll he leaves wilted flowers for, and when the two finally do meet, you gotta find a way to build up Princess Pitt's tolerance to scary things because she does want to be with Mort in spite of how much he scares her. It's just an adorably simple little story.
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It can make the game at least a little hard to recommend, because it can be very much "your mileage may vary". If you're okay with a game that's more driven by character interaction with gameplay that can very much be boiled down to doing "same old same old" after a while. And especially hard to recommend without getting in depth in a way that would just spoil literally everything I've seen. Which, this is ultimately a blog about journaling down how a game makes us feel, I would still like to leave things for the reader to find out.
What helps is how unpredictable this game can be at times. Something I'll especially get into when it comes to summarizing the final act of the main story, but even the side-quests have some weird stuff happening that require a fun amount of suspension of disbelief. Fun in that the game doesn't concern itself that much with the logistics of what's happening, so you just gotta roll with it. It's enough where I decidedly made it a point to not 100% this game on this first playthrough, so that I had more to do and find when I play this game again. Something perhaps nice to do, given there's not very many games in the Chibi Robo series compared to other Nintendo IP, and even less that play like this one does.
The main challenge of the game, of course, being managing your time, both literal time and a battery that Chibi Robo runs on, to traverse the house with. At the start of every day and night, you'll start from the Chibi House on the bottom floor living room and are expected to branch out from there. And you gotta find the time to do your little tasks within the limited time of the day. You start out with days and nights that end after real-time five minutes, but you can upgrade the clock to have it last up to 15 minutes. Except you can upgrade this so early and so cheaply, and there's little to no reason to downgrade back down, I don't really see a reason 15 minutes couldn't have just been the default.
On top of that, you have Chibi Robo's battery to contend with, and early on it will definitely be a friction point. By design, mind you, but you still have to keep a watchful little eye on it as you do your menial things. Every time you hit a milestone on the leaderboard though, you'll get your battery upgraded, going from only having 1000 energy to 5000, so it's very worth your while to do even the more choresy tasks to give you enough battery to keep up with the more intensive activities later on. The battery also doubles as your health bar, so taking things like fall damage and damage from enemies will be a drain on your battery, especially dangerous early on. Wait, enemies? I said enemies? What could Chibi Robo possibly be fighting?
That said, I do think this pairs well with how the structure of the game is constantly sending you back to start. If you're very intolerant to even the suggestion of a game wasting your time, it'll probably be a friction point, but I think it's nice for a game to not be as afraid of causing friction as modern games are. Besides, what it IS good at is making those battery upgrades matter more, since you'll have to go to pit-stop outlets a little less often each time you get a juice boost. Plus the later areas of the house are a little less convenient with the outlet placements, so you'll also just be able to go farther and climb higher.
Navigation of these big rooms is in and of itself a puzzle. You'd think you'd be able to simply ask the humans for a little boost, and sure they'll sometimes put you up on a table to make things a little more convenient, but most of the time you're on your own to notice how the little handle notches so deformed they barely function as handles anymore form a little stairway to get up onto the kitchen counter. And they still offer things like the ability to knock over an appliance's wire to make a climbing rope as a more convenient way to get onto the counter. Plus you'll also be gathering scrap metal pieces to make "Utilibots" which are even more convenient ways to get around, as they are little ladders and bridges you can move around in exchange for a lot of your battery.
Alright, that's probably enough beating around the bush. One of this game's left-field moments, one of its LESSER ones, mind you, is that fairly early on in the game, (I'd imagine prompted by buying the Chibi Blaster), you're introduced to robotic spiders called "Spydorz" that will appear occasionally to be of mild inconvenience. What the heck even are Spydoz though, and why are they robots specifically made to target Chibi Robos in particular? Why indeed. It sounds threatening given the game's initial non-violent demeanor, but the Chibi Blaster is more that enough to handle them, as you don't even need to worry about accuracy that much with the shot being fairly reliably homing. I can't say I've ever felt threatened by these things. They're important cause they drop scrap metal, which you can recycle into the aforementioned Utilibots.
Their presence is usually noted by their being oil droplets on the floor, seemingly as a deliberate lure for Chibi Robos in particular. But again, they hardly feel like a punishment. The energy management mechanic always seemed like it was one of the more daunting things to grapple with in this game, and maybe it's just because I was extra careful to always plug myself into an outlet before doing anything major, but I didn't ever run out of battery once. Well, once, but it was on purpose only because I caught a hint that you had to die at least once to complete one of the quests. A little obtuse, maybe I'm just too much of a gamer to ever lose to this game that has... well, its target audience.
But at any rate, I think this is a good enough jumping off point to get into the real narrative meat of the game. And thus is your last layer of warning before I get into real spoiler discussion. So be one last layer of warned, please.
The first impression you get from the Sanderson family is that they're your average cartoon depiction of a suburbia nuclear family. They get up to antics, the mom is a stay-at-home housewife, the dad is a deadbeat that has no job and spends the dwindling budget on toys (Chibi Robo itself included.) Plus one quirky kid and a funny-looking dog. Pretty normal so far. Pretty 2000s cartoon sitcom.
Fairly early on into your adventures through the house, you'll make your way to the basement and find the closest thing there is to a "main" goal: a discarded, much larger robo called "Giga Robo" that was evidently Citrusoft's first attempt at a robotic companion toy, but it eventually tanked in popularity thanks to its power demands, in particular chucked into the basement because it naturally caused financial strain for the freshly-married Sandersons back in the day. Yes, if you're familiar with that one "We had to sell most of Bart" meme, that was an actual plot point. Maybe not the selling most of Bart part but. Cabunga.
Either way, about midway through the game does it realbomb you out of the fictional "dysfunctional family antics" and just drop the threat of divorce out of nowhere in yet another left-field moment. Not that kids media never touches the subject of divorce, but this feels up there as one of the realest reasons for a relationship in a fictional family to be strained to that point, at least in proportion to how lighthearted the game had been up until this point. Mr. Sanderson's Drake Redcrest watching rather than finding a job, let alone helping with household maintenance is actually addressed as a problem point. Maybe not beyond the surface-level, but still. Up until this point I thought it was some good ol 2000s "overbearing wife hates her husband having child-like whimsy" thru and thru. Especially considering just before things boil over, you encounter Jenny up after dark sitting outside of her parent's bedroom listening to them argue and her mother stress over bills which. As a child that went through a messy divorce, very real. Real in a way I did not expect from friggin Chibi Robo Plug Into Adventure.
So with that lingering overhead, the game then just officially goes off the hinges. If you go to Jenny's room at night one night, you'll encounter a spooky cutscene where she's staring dazed into her little toy TV, with a cryptic symbol and ominous static playing, plus Jenny herself in a trance repeating instructions, you meaning to put two and two together that the strange symbol on the TV is the same one in the back yard. If you go to the center of said circle and activate your Chibi Radar, you will then be visited by strange Chibi Robo-esque aliens. Yes this is part of the main story and not one of the side quests.
I suppose to some extent, Chibi Robo very much wears this air of "literally anything could happen" the moment you open one of the random Chibi Doors and for no discernable reason, it takes you to a weird pocket dimension that features nothing more than your prize money and a wall of all-seeing eyes that stare at you. Though even in that context, that seems like a hell of a non-sequitur. I think point is Chibi Robo is a very strange, very niche Japanese studio-developed 6th Generation game. Anything could happen in their ilk.
Anyway yeah, they're pulling aliens into the plot. They come in peace, though they certainly will complain about how crappy Earth is (fair). They nebulously ask for their "friend", but given their Chibi Robo-esque appearance, it's pretty easy to infer that they mean Giga Robo. And equally easy to infer that they're upset that Giga Robo is in such a state of disrepair. At which point it becomes absolutely mandatory to partake in the Giga Robo restoration quest, where you gotta find and fill a battery, plus find his missing leg, PLUS input a code to actually turn the guy on. Thankfully, Telly has the sense to read the room and decide to pay for the charging of Giga Robo's battery out of their own pocket. Well, out of Chibi Robo's pocket. Cause Telly is a little sh
But, of course, you run into a conundrum. It's said that Giga Robo's leg is inside the big briefcase under the bedroom bed, but it needs a passcode to get into it. But no such passcode can be found in the house in the current day. SO anyway you go to the aliens again, and they're feeling under the weather due to Earth's crappy air quality. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to take advantage of their technology while they're powerless to stop you, right?
IONO:
And I love the way Telly just hops into this mysterious machine like a giddy kid about to go on a field trip. You go, little dude.
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This, as it turns out, is a time machine. As you do. So you go back in time to before Jenny was born, Tao was still a puppy, and Giga Robo was still up and running. You'd think you'd have the sense to avoid being seen here, but you CAN interact with Mrs. Sanderson, and she seems oddly unbothered about the extra tiny robot running around. She just kinda thinks Giga Robo had a baby. Either way, you can find the opened briefcase with the passcode in this time period, and a little schematic for a new, upgraded blaster. Somehow. Was Giga Robo also equipped with a Giga Blaster? What are the ramifications of THAT?
Anyway, you go back to your own time like nothing happened and only with a mild scolding from the aliens, and now you can go get the leg and finally get Giga Robo put back together! But then when you open the briefcase,
Th????????????
And out of nowhere, this game goes from. What level of stakes would a looming divorce be? 5, maybe? As in yeah it's pretty personally dramatic, but at least nothing life-threatening is happening. Well whatever the case, it skyrockets up to 11 as it turns out there were giant, more powerful Spydorz inside the briefcase, along with a Queen Spydor that commands them all, and they stole Giga Robo's leg on top of infesting the house and holding all its little toy inhabitants hostage.
As it turns out, the dad was the one that developed the Spydorz, but he quit the company he was working for when it turned out they had more nefarious intentions to use the Spydorz for. I don't recall it being outright stated but like. I'd have to imagine it was a competitor to Citrusoft and this is their elaborate way to wreck their competition? Or something? Whatever the case, this starts an action sequence in this game of all things, as you first distract the Spydor horde while Mr. Sanderson fetches his tools to be able to upgrade the Chibi Blaster with the schematic you got from the past to be able to combat the bigger, badder Spydorz and eventually also fight the queen in. Again, weird to say in the context of a game like this, but in a final boss fight.
The game surprisingly doesn't just simply end and credits roll with the day saved, as you still have Giga Robo to turn back on, if only you had that pass code. Well I guess also convenient that Mr. Sanderson dropped his wedding ring down the kitchen sink drain, so you go retrieve it and it turns out the date of their anniversary was engraved on it, and that's the code to turn Giga Robo back on. Though naturally this would also be your prompt to get any questing done before the credits roll. Though given your reward for this, you may as well finish the fight.
With Giga Robo revived and reunited with his alien friends, they reveal that after helping them once, they actually offered to grant him two wishes. Because they can just do that I guess. Giga Robo's first wish was apparently to give all the toys in the house life, and that's the explanation behind that. They just gave everyone souls, as you do. The cited reason they couldn't grant the second wish was because they didn't have a "shining orb" to do it with, or whatever, so they had to go back home to get another wish-granting orb, but by the time they returned, Giga Robo was shut off for good.
Ironic then, given his second wish was to make it so he didn't need to be powered ever again, he just had a permanently full battery. And they just extend this to Chibi Robo, casually. And indeed your reward for this is that you are completely free from the energy mechanic and can just freely wander the house with no consequence. Which would probably make the task of 100%ing the game easier. But it's funny they use this as a punctuation for a plot just after the news that, apparently, Chibi Robos have the exact same energy issue as Giga Robo did, but because Chibi Robo's popularity keeps exploding, it could cause an energy crisis and the "end of civilization as we know it." Though of course, this information comes for "Faux News", so who's to say. Either way, all this brings the family back together for a more upbeat, happy ending. Alls well that ends well!
I do feel like Chibi Robo is very much a one-of-a-kind game. At least it's nothing quite like anything else I've ever played in my 30+ years of obsessing over silly computer games. And that's certainly something to behold in an era where it feels like games, especially in the by-mainstream-big-house publishers space, where games are getting progressively safer and safer over time. Chibi Robo somehow pushes the envelope a lot and not that much, mechanically interesting but not that involved. Once upon a time, I heard Katamari Damacy described as a game that is slept on, in the discussion of what games prove the medium is a fantastic art form. Not because it has narrative depth or a story perfectly interwoven with mechanics, not even because it has anything particularily deep to say, but because it's unique in a way only an interactive medium like video games can be, and I'm definitely feeling a similar sentiment to Chibi Robo here.
Its appeal is the ways you can puzzle out how to progress stories, and your reward beyond a few nonsense numbers going up is just seeing these charming characters develop a little, even if they have such simple stories. I know games like these are easy bait for the "remake" or "when's a left-field sequel happening" discussion, but Chibi Robo itself almost feels perfect as its own little bubble of a stand-alone game. Not to say I won't be checking out this game's sequels one day, but y'know. I think this game stands on its own as just a pleasant single adventure.
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VIXI SCORE: 9/10
I definitely feel like had this been a childhood game, it would've been up there as a favorite, especially on the system. Not that it stops it from being special in any way, as I do feel like this game will genuinely be unforgettable.
LUNA SCORE: 10/10
Simply adorable! Can't stop thinking about this silly little game, and I'd definitely like to come back to it one day to go on a more completionist run! There's still so much to do!
JINX SCORE: 7/10
heh, not entirely my kinda bag, but I get why the others dig it so much. it's cute!
IONO SCORE: 6/10
In the same bag as Jinx. A little too boring for my tastes (I might've fallen asleep a lot whenever it was my turn to play it), but it did get a lot of laughs out of me, so I'd bump that up to positive, all things considered.
CELESTE SCORE: 9/10
Wonderful little game! I'm actually a little excited to see what its scant few sequels entail, but I'll have restraint, since gosh knows there's only so many of them. A real cute charmer, one I'll always think about every now and then.
CHIAKI SCORE: 9/10
Very pleasant, if a little unchallenging. But I do think that's a little on purpose. Surprisingly obtuse to navigate in places, but I see that as a good thing, since these days we get too many games that are afraid of friction.
OVERALL SCORE: 50/60
Coming up next on Mythinks: Oh hey, I just mentioned that series.
