Flipper Critters is a video game that had a lot going against it. The title was developed by little-known Zen Studios, based out in Eastern Europe, and published here in North America by Ignition Entertainment. The game's premise involves cute, cuddly animals trying to be heroes, and then mixes in off-the-wall pinball gameplay. So, having almost no hype, hard-to-market gameplay and coming from a relatively unknown developer, not many expected much out of this title.
With what the development team had, whatever it was, they deliver a relatively unique title that has some flaws, but it is still an pretty decent "average" title for the Nintendo DS. The game puts players in the roll of characters literally named after animals such as Monkey (who is a Monkey), Tiger (who is a Tiger), and others relatively unoriginal titles. Zen Studios may have been able to pull off some form of parody or pastiche with this naming convention, but sadly it amounts to little more than bland personalities.
Couple this flaw with dialogue that reads like a pre-school children's book, and you have a story and character concept that is mostly forgetful, but the presentation and visuals save some face. The art direction matches this atmopshere by creating a world that looks like it was ripped out of one of those children's storybooks, and many of the levels, some strictly vertical oriented, while others are more of a circular nature (with four sets of flippers for each segment of this type of table), do come with a rich personality. So while the characters and story are relatively flawed, the levels deliver a charm that balances the experience out.
The gameplay revolves around taking your two heroes, Monkey and Tiger, and navigating them through various lands that are really big pinball tables. All of these come divided into typically three or four segments. The vertial stages come in threes, with players trying to accomplish objectives in each area. Sometimes this revolves around reaching a character at the top of the stage, or retrieving items in the middle of the stage, or some other adventure oriented task. Players progress by breaking barriers or triggering some environmental change that (like flipping a leaf or breaking down a gate).
Most of the mechanics revolve around using the buttons on the left and right side of the Nintendo DS as your two flipper controls, but there are also on-screen elements that can be controlled via the stylus. Now, while this sounds unique and great, in practice it is very frustrating and one of the worst ideas ever. Players need to track their pinball and have command of two buttons spaced out so that only Andre the Giant could use one hand to control them (meaning everyone else needs two free hands), and then need a magical "third hand" to tap stuff on-screen. We found that holding the pinball in a neutral position with the flipper by catching it would allow us to free up the other hand to tap objects on screen.
Perhaps this is how the creators intended players to utilize this mechanic, but nowhere is it suggested or explained, and that is another big flaw - most of the time you are left to figure out things on your own, and despite the pretty 3D visuals, some things are not very clear with the small screen and the camera angle, and so many will become so frustrated that they'll give up on this title without giving it much of a chance. Those who preserve long enough will find the game is surprisingly deep, with travel between areas either done via a cutscene, or one of many interactive segments such as having to drive over platforms and gaps while avoiding obstacles or a classic 2D arcade space shooter inspired sequence.
As players reach new areas, they become unlocked in the freeplay mode. The game also tracks players' scores, though there is no multiplayer mode or a WiFi mode to compare scores. In fact, the game is relatively short, with only a handful of areas and most of the replay will come from trying to obtain higher scores. The difficulty lies in trying to navigate the levels which, sadly, are very cluttered and aren't very self-explanitory, and thus much of the length of the title also comes from trying to spend maybe hours figuring out what to do.
The title would be excellent if the touch-screen mechanics were ditched, more developed story and characters were put forth to enhance the adventure mode elements, and a bit more structured objectives and in-game assitance were provided. Still, the title is original and is worth trying out at least once. The only other knock against the title is the audio, which is repetitive, very unoriginal, and loops way too much with pieces little more than short segments.
