Rocket Slime

[Dracos]

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime

   Sequel to the amazing Slime Mori Mori, Rocket Slime is the first game in the Dragon Quest series by Square Enix to hit stateside.  Staring the cute blue slime Rocket, it chronicles his adventures against the villainous forces of the Plob mafia saving his kingdom and making the land safe for slimes everywhere.  But what IS Rocket Slime, in a game sense?  Well, it's really two games, both that are quite awesome but as a whole a sort of disappointing successor to Slime Mori Mori.  Those who've listened to me assail them with "PLAY THIS" comments are likely confused by me saying it's a disappointing successor, but I'll explain this shortly.

   Slime Mori Mori was a Zelda style game following the adventures of a blue slime whose city was destroyed and all slimes within was kidnapped but him, resulting in him bouncing his way through enemy lines to rescue them all.  The gameplay was phenomenonally elegant with a few choice tidbits from other genres, such as a bit of town building and pokemon monster collection, to really flavor it.  Rocket Slime starts of in this same mode.  It appears to be the primary form of gameplay as Rocket bounces off to rescue slimes in the first level after a very similar where the mafia blow up the entire town.  By stretching Rocket out, he can rocket in to enemies and damage them and knock them in the air.  He could catch them, up to three at a time, and toss them onto carts or at other enemies and things.  He could also float around.  With these simple fashions he was well prepared to deal with the hordes of enemies and bosses he would face.  Well, he would, if it was the actual primary form of gameplay.  Really, the player probably only spends about 40 percent in this mode and only gets five bosses to really go to town on.  The level design for this segment, being built to facilitate the real primary game mode, is often uninspired.  There are some really good parts, but they don't shine quite as well as when the game's primary purpose was bouncing through the levels.  Things that are cool would often be used only once or twice and not really interwoven with others as more focus on this mode would've brought.  The townbuilding element was far weaker in this iteration as well, leaving you with much less feeling of ownership as the slimes kind of rebuild the town exactly how it was rather than based on your enhancements.  I'm being pretty negative on what is a pretty fun experience when its there, it just feels stuck into an entirely separate game.

   That other game is the big spectacle of Rocket Slime: Tank Battles.  Early on, you get a giant tank in classic sentai hero fashion, summoned by flute.  This tank gets a lot of use, as most of your enemies seem to have giant tanks of their own which each have a slime to save by beating them.  If this isn't enough, you can repeat any of the battles by returning to where you first fought and there's even a Tank Masters mini-game run by a slime version of Morrie.  If it isn't quite clear, you'll be spending the lion's share of your game inside tanks.  Luckily, tank combat is reasonably fun.  You get a crew of up to three other characters to help you out, chosen from a small army that you can build up by sidequests and capturing lots of monsters.  These crew members all have their own AI and can receive one of two orders on how to proceed, assuming you're not an ass and fire them right out the cannons as ammo.  These orders are specific to each crew member and each crew member has their own special abilities to help you out, including such things as healing the tank, creating a super blast, or stealing from the enemy.  Both yours and the enemy tanks can be sabotaged, slowing down ammo flow and breaking the door opener so it's easy to get into their tank and take their stuff.  This basically rewards sneaking in and causing havoc on the enemy tank, so there's genuine incentive both to shoot and to attack personally that helps keep the tank battles active and interesting.

   Overall, Rocket Slime is a good and fun game, worth a person's time, particularly if the person is a Dragon Quest fan.  What Rocket Slime is not is a top of genre type experience with smooth and non-abrupt blending of different game concepts.  It's a cute Zelda-type game with lots of tank combat with plenty of polish to keep the experience enjoyable throughout.