I bought Elebits the day that it became available in stores. As some may know, this is one of the titles from E3 about which I was most excited because the early build showed a lot of promise about how the Wii remote could be used for greater interactivity. Turning on faucets, opening doors, and pulling open drawers were among the many actions possible in the demo, and despite the game’s playful nature, the general mechanic was in line with first person shooters only devoid of headshots and teabags.
Half a year later, Elebits hit the shelves and became the second Wii game I’ve purchased. Initial impressions by IGN were remarkably good, and a video that I posted earlier to WiiDS had me all but salivating to get my hands on the game. I was prepared to buy it review score unseen, which is rare. Well, how does it measure up?
I’ve heard Elebits described as Pikmin meets Katamari Damacy with the gravity gun from Half Life 2. Aside from the gravity gun part, that’s a terrible description. Though the most prevalent type of elebit — the electrical creatures that populate the gaming environments — bears a passing resemblance to a pikmin because of the stalk growing out of its head, there is no realtime strategy element here, nor are the elebits your friends or servants. And Katamari Damacy this game is not; there is no remarkable original soundtrack, wild sense of Japanese style, or memorable character roster (actually, quite the opposite for the characters given the laughable English-as-a-second-language voiceover work). However, I can’t neglect to mention that the stage setup is very similar to K.D. in that you are often forced to reach some goal by some time in an environment that necessitates exploring new areas and returning to old areas as your power increases.
The game mechanics of Elebits are simple. Using the “capture gun,” search out elebits and zap them in a variety of environments. This increases your wattage, and a typical stage requires reaching a certain wattage within a specified time limit. As your wattage increases, various electrical appliances will become usable. Switching on these appliances (usually by zapping the bright yellow power button or performing a simple action) releases a different kind of elebit that powers up the capture gun so that it can lift heavier objects. This, in turn, allows you to find more elebits by displacing objects you couldn’t move before.
Though the act of finding and capturing elebits is simple in premise, the game really shines when it comes to environment interactivity. With a little bit of controller finesse, doors and drawers can be opened. Faucets can be turned on. Toilets can be flushed. Coffee pots can be placed in the coffee maker. And just about everything can be lifted and tossed if the capture gun is powerful enough. In earlier stages, it is tempting to just start tossing objects because you can, but in later stages you are sometimes punished for this because of special requirements to break fewer than X objects, keep the noise down, or avoid summoning those dreaded black elebits that can’t be captured. The game physics are decent if on the “floaty” side, and the game can certainly have problems with slowdown if too many objects are flying. Neither of these are deal breakers, though.
Despite the minor problems in execution, Elebits has been a very enjoyable title so far. The first several levels seem like the same exercise repeated with different parameters, but the diversity really starts to kick in around the first boss fight (!) and starts to find its wings from there. Also, since every level will have you zapping elebits (which can become tiring really quickly), it is suited to short play sessions where you only have, say, thirty minutes or so to play games before doing something else. It’s nice to break up those marathon sessions of Zelda or relax after working on that pro rank in Wii Sports.
If this game sounds interesting to you, you won’t be disappointed with it. This title is a great accomplishment for a first generation game, but even outside of that context it’s a worthwhile investment.
