Throughout the Dragon Quest series, the little blue slime has always been the biggest weakling of them all, the one single character you can easily beat up over and over to garner some much needed experience points to help you level up. So if the blue slime is nothing more than a total pushover, how come he ended up starring in a very entertaining action RPG?

THE STORY SO FAR
On the island country of Slimenia, in the little town of Boingburg, lives Rocket (you, the main character of the story, though you can change his name if you want). One day, out of nowhere, came the nefarious Plob, an organization of monsters (led by platypus looking creatures) who destroyed Boingburg and took off with all of the slimes, leaving poor Rocket alone. Determined to rescue his fellow slimes and return the town to its once wonderful luster, Rocket sets out to take out the Plob and rescue his fellow slimes.

There isn't much to Rocket Slime beyond that initial setup, as there are no real twists or turns throughout the game, but rather that one steady constant – go through the levels and find the slimes. You'll run across a few story points like that of Slival, a dark knight slime who works for the Plob, but the "Why?" is never answered and by the end there is no final resolve. The game also features one of the worst villains in recent history, because beyond reading the manual, you won't have a clue who or what the main villain is until the last hour or two of the game.

I know, "Why play a RPG if it doesn't have a good story?" Well, I wondered that too at the beginning, trying to figure out if this was all it had to offer, but as I played and played, the gameplay won me over, as well as the humor. I've played funnier games, but I have to admit I laughed out loud a few times during gameplay, if only for the slapstick nature of a few characters, and the neat little references to other past Square Enix games. For example, one of the tanks you fight looks like a tree, and is named Chrono Twigger after the popular SNES game Chrono Trigger (the tree even features the same font style as that of the original game). Another tank that had me laughing included a subtitle referencing that this tank was a "revolution" and ended with "Weee!" – if you have been following Nintendo, you'd laugh at that too.

So no, the game doesn't feature an amazing story, but as a more kid friendly game (though not necessarily made for the kids) the story suffices, but as for why you'll keep playing, it all comes down to gameplay.

SINGLE PLAYER: GAMEPLAY
The A-button – the most magical of all buttons. If I were asked to sum up the gameplay of Rocket Slime in one word, it would be A-button. When it comes to control in Rocket Slime, no button is used more than the A-button, as it both allows you to jump, hover, and perform your elasto blast; you'll use a few other buttons like the D-pad to control your character, the B-button to throw items, and the Y-button to occasionally use a slime knight, but beyond that nothing else is really used at all. It is a bit sad that there is no stylus control for those who like it, but alas the simple controls still work remarkably well.

Every level is setup the same from beginning to end: solve fairly easy puzzles, do combat in a top down SNES Zelda-esque world, save slimes, collect things and ship them off, do a few tank battles, and then beat a boss. The top down perspective is actually the least appealing part of the entire package, only because there aren't an abundance of cleverly crafted creatures, and the game simply isn't hard; I never died once. Given that, it can sometimes be a "bit" hard to figure out a few of the puzzles or what you need to do, but as a RPG the game doesn't succeed so well. As you go about looking for your fellow slimes, you'll do combat with enemies and also see objects you can collect, which you can then carry on your back three at a time and dump off on the various carts you find scattered throughout the environment, which will ship anything you toss back to town. The creatures you throw on go to providing a copy of it in town, as well as an eventual tank partner if you collect enough. As for the junk you collect, you use that as ammo for your tank, so this plays a more important aspect than you would think.

When you aren't partaking in the action RPG portion of the game, the real fun comes from the tank battles, which are these frantic battles of pure joy. As you advance through the game, you'll eventually get your tank, which allows you to go one on one with other enemy tanks. When the tank portion starts out, you'll find yourself in the belly of your beast, with the ammo you've selected coming out of shoots. It is your job to bounce around inside your tank, collecting ammo, and throwing it into either the upper cannon or lower cannon. While you are loading ammo into your cannons, so is the enemy as well. If two pieces of ammo hit in flight, they cancel each other out, but some can go over other ammo, some stop ammo, some pass through ammo, and some reflect ammo. As you advance, you'll also be allowed three teammates to help, and they can do things like load cannons for you, bring you ammo, infiltrate the enemy tank, etc. After you take the enemy's tank HP to zero, you must then leave your tank, make your way into the enemy's tank, and then go and hit its engine to win the battle. The most challenging parts of the game are the tank battles (especially when they have way better ammo than you and more HP) though like I said, never died, so it still isn't too hard though there were some close calls.

MULTIPLAYER: GAMEPLAY
Available as multi-card play and single-card download and play, if you find yourself enjoying the tank battles you'll equally like it (if not more so) going against friends in this addictive little mode. The only drawback to the multiplayer – no Wi-Fi play.

GRAPHICS
You would've thought I'd just walked past a whimpering puppy in a pet store, looking at me with those big old eyes, cause when you play Rocket Slime, all you want to do is go "Awwww!" Rocket Slime has some of the brightest, most cheerful graphics I've ever seen in a game; heck, even the bad guys are so gosh darn lovable. The game fails to push the DS to its limits, looking like nothing more than a really good SNES game, but who cares, that isn't what this game strives to be. Cute, bright, and fun – Rocket Slime and its graphics in a nutshell.

SOUND
Screaming Plob, bouncing slimes, and upbeat little ditties are all par for the course, though some of the beats and effects are overused, but overall not a bad package.

IN CONCLUSION
It's important to remember what Rocket Slime is when considering how to judge it. It’s an action RPG, but not one that is challenging for anyone in the slightest unless you're of the younger generation (though not too young). The game does feature, however, an enjoyable lite puzzle romp featuring a cute world you just want to get immersed in. I was pretty disappointed at first when I had my pre-determined opinions on what the game "should" be, but after I started playing the game for what it "is" I couldn't quit playing some ten hours later, about how long the game will take to beat (though it would take longer to fully "complete" the game).

Rating:
Our Scoring System