Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash Reviews
Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash is a drastic departure from immersive 3D exploration, but still offers a respectable and fun 2D platforming experience that shines with all the Chibi charm and cuteness fans know and adore.
With everything taken into account, Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash is a well-put together title. The pros outweigh the cons by leagues and it has fun packed into all the right places.
Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash takes Nintendo's adorable mini helper robot and throws him into a mediocre side-scrolling platformer that's too easy, too frustrating, and too below the standards of either its hero or its publisher. There's some good here, but it's not enough to raise this one above being an average experience.
Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash is one of those rare examples where the previous games were more interesting in concept. There's possibly something there for someone younger to sink their teeth into and it is adorable throughout, but this is a standard platformer with a great deal of padding and not all that much innovation. Overall, a competent platformer that plays it safe, but one that is also painfully drawn out.
Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash is varied enough to keep every skill-level of player engaged throughout its 30+ worlds but isn't as polished as one would hope. There's a quirkiness here that's come to be expected of the series – of the more "off-beat" Nintendo efforts, this is the closest thing to a Mario game that exists in the same space as, say, Tomodachi Life — but the oddities feel incongruous with the game at large, as if the previous game's environmental and "do-good" themes were just pasted on instead of weaved meaningfully into the experience. That said, it's still a slightly above-average platformer that'll eat up time for on-the-go gamers looking to satiate their appetite.
Nintendo's latest Chibi-Robo adventure transforms our tiny, sweet robot house cleaner into a long-leaping, whip-slinging mechanical alien fighter
Chibi-Robo Zip Lash has charming moments, but it's a mostly-bland adventure defined by disappointing design choices.
Despite some cute details and a good idea here and there, Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash is inconsistent at best and often just boring. Most levels are a little too slow, and a 10-or-so-hour game felt far longer — in a bad way. I liked seeing Chibi-Robo's adorable little victory dances and finding hidden collectibles, but even its best moments were few and far between. It was just enough to pass some time.
Chibi-Robo: Zip-Lash is a fun game. It's got some frustrating moments (stage select, vehicles) but the highs outweigh the lows, and I like the Amiibo functionality. Give it a shot, kids.
Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash is a solid little platformer that entertains despite faltering at times. It's cute, it's charming, and it offers some nice little twists on the 2D action/grappling formula that make it stand out. Be warned, however, that you will likely come out of the experience with a serious sugar craving. (I want to try some of the tasty-looking German candy I collected, but I don't know anywhere around here that would carry it. Argh!)
Ten years on, even with the aesthetically wonderful amiibo that can be purchased with this game, it's hard to see how the titular Chibi is suddenly going to become a wildly popular player in the Nintendo universe based upon his exploits here.
The amiibo coming with the game is definitely a perk because it's friggin' adorable. The game is only an average experience. It has plenty of levels but many are the same kind of grind. Half of the non-platforming stages are fun, and the other are torturously placid. Environments do change from world to world, but the challenges are almost identical. It's not bad, but it's not great either. Could've used more "zip," I think.
Chibi-Robo makes the leap to 2.5D with gameplay mechanics that are very well implemented, but baffling decisions like the Destination Wheel and repetitive level design take away from what could have certainly been a better game in Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash.
If you're a die-hard Chibi-Robo! fan, or if the possibility of having to replay the same levels over and over again doesn't bother you too much, then Zip Lash might be for you. Unfortunately, it's tough for me to give this game a good recommendation after the frustrating time I had with it. I still love you, Chibi-Robo, but this was not your best effort!
There's talk that Zip Lash could be the final Chibi-Robo game, and that's a shame. I'd prefer to see him go out with a bit more style than Zip Lash offers. The irony of this game focused around acquisition and collecting is that it's not really worth acquiring for your collection. Even if that Amiibo is awfully adorable.
This is a breezy, simple platformer with a fun gimmick and a few weird design choices. How long you stick with it depends on your tolerance for repetition
Overall, Chibi-Robo Zip Lash is a very fun platformer that feels very Metroid in how it handles exploring worlds.While the difficulty can be lacking at certain points, once you master all of Chibi-Robo's moves you begin to really enjoy and appreciate the puzzle aspect of each level.
Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash is a fun but ultimately unexciting title, which makes it occupy a weird space in our minds. The whole package is undoubtedly polished and pleasing, and if you're looking for a solid platformer that zigs where a Mario may zag then this is a safe bet for an enjoyable time. But for all the charm and smooth polish, there's little texture here to make the game stand out from others in this genre. Over time, we suspect we won't remember a lot of the finer details — the amiibo for sure, and maybe a stage or two here, but on the whole will struggle to pin down a reason to revisit.So what's the point of Zip Lash, then? Is it to simply experiment with gameplay concepts? There aren't any radical new ideas at play, and it seems odd for this to be a grand experiment — Bionic Commando explored similar concepts back in the NES days. Is it to test whether Chibi-Robo can find success in a new genre? Perhaps — he's been in a few quirky games already, and maybe some think it's time for him to take a swing at the big time. Whatever the problem that Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash is trying to solve, we hope Nintendo can find the answer it seeks. We'll be over here, scratching our heads about it.
It's a testament to its stage design, though, that I came away feeling utterly satisfied despite the game so constantly getting in its own way. Chibi-Robo may not be destined for Nintendo stardom, but Zip Lash shows how the tiny robot still has plenty of room to grow, experiment, and find what works for him.
It's a minor part of the game—Chibi-Robo will find snacks during his clean-up duties, and can give them to his hungry plane friend for a useful return—but it's so weird to see real products in a game like this that it stands out more prominently than it should. Here's a fictional game world, devoid of all people and recognizable buildings, filled with stuff you'd buy at Wawa during a road trip. Actually, that might make it the most ingenious thing about Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash: it's not just trying to sell you something, it's trying to sell you something you'd buy to kill time in the back of a car, just like the game itself.