Nicktoons: Battle For Volcano Island
| Developer: THQ | Publisher: THQ |
| Release Date: October 24, 2006 | Also On: None |
Last year THQ released Nicktoons Unite, a game which combined the main characters from four of the most-watched shows on Nickelodeon. Considering the “star power” of the people in that game, it is hardly surprising that it sold well enough to warrant a sequel, and thus, they decided to release Battle for Volcano Island. Although a few characters have been added to the equation, is this game one that is worthy of the Nickelodeon fan’s attention? Read on to find out.
Graphically, Battle for Volcano Island is pretty good. The environments look appropriate for what they are supposed to represent, and they are reasonably detailed even if they aren’t among the best graphics to be found on the system. The characters are easily discernible and they all look like they should look given the shows from which they were drawn. Overall, there is no aspect of the graphics about which I can legitimately complain too much.
In terms of sound, the music in this game is done very well. It is all memorable if not necessarily addicting, and it matches the environments and the feel of the game with its upbeatness. In addition to that, the music changes often enough that it never gets old. The sound effects are typical platformer fare, and they get the job done quite well. There is no voice acting in this game, but there are few third party games on the GBA that do contain much voice acting. Overall, the sound is done fairly well also.
Battle for Volcano Island, like its predecessor from last year, is a platformer. Unlike last year’s game though, Jimmy Neutron is no longer playable and has been replaced with Patrick Star from SpongeBob SquarePants in this version, thus leaving a cast containing four characters. Each of the characters has his own abilities, and thus you will have to change characters a lot. None of them ever feel like they were tacked on as an afterthought, as the balance between how much you use each character is maintained quite well.
So far as the difficulty is concerned, this game is about right. It isn’t so easy as to be a walk in the park for the more experienced gamer, nor is it so hard that the young Nickelodeon fan will find it prohibitively so. It does have its difficult moments, but they are few and far between. The levels are varied, and new abilities, through the finding of new characters and finding character upgrades, are found often enough that no concept is allowed to get repetitive to the point of boredom. And luckily, you’ll never have to quickly switch characters in the air.
My only complaint would be the relative lack of a battle engine, with Spongebob’s ability to blow bubbles at some hanging goop being the closest you’ll come to battle for the majority of the game. Luckily, there aren’t that many enemies in this game, with most of it being based on puzzles based either on single abilities or combinations of them. One would think that, between four characters, at least one of them would have an ability that would facilitate battle with enemies, but the game is fun enough without such a function, so I can’t complain too much.
In terms of length, there are plenty of levels to be played in this game. The plot revolves around finding a piece of something Jimmy needs to build in each level, but eventually you’ll be returning to previously beaten levels in an effort to collect yellow hearts strewn throughout them in order to unlock new areas. This necessity greatly increases the length of the game. However, with no minigames to speak of, there will likely be no reason to play the game again after beating it unless you want to try to collect all of the yellow hearts.
In conclusion, if you are a fan of the Nicktoons or of good platformers, you should consider trying this game. It doesn’t have multiplayer capability like the DS or the console versions, but, compared to the DS version, the lack of multiplayer is its only significant disadvantage.
| Graphics: | 7 |
| Sound: | 7 |
| Gameplay: | 8 |
| Creativity: | 7 |
| Replay Value/Game Length: | 8 |
| Final: | 7.5 |
| Written by Martin | Review Guide |
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