'Spectrobes' lets you hunt, gather and battle

It's easy to call "Spectrobes" Pokemon in space. But that designation doesn't really do the game justice. While they both do involve running around collecting, evolving and fighting little monsters, "Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals" shows that the new series really is its own creature.

Playing the role of Rallen, a member of the Nanairo Planetary Patrol, the game picks up shortly after the first one left off. But even if you didn't play the original, you'll get quickly caught up on the facts. Rallen's a Spectrobe master, who used his ability to awaken and raise ancient fossils to defeat an invasion of planet-devouring creatures called Krawl. Sure enough the celebrating doesn't last long before the aliens come back, hungry. The result may be one of the best excuses for why you have to start over from scratch in a sequel ever, with the Krawl swiftly destroying all the Spectrobes in storage as a pre-emptive attack. And after they've taken out your old friends, the Krawl just keep messing with you making them fairly engaging adversaries.

The more you play, the more enjoyable the game is. There's a lot of lead-up to get you familiar with the system and the world and a fair bit of monotony in early play as you fight the same bad guys over and over again with your limited pool of allies. But then things pick up fast. The animation is impressive, not just showing off the movements of more than 100 fighting versions, but with unique looks and movements for their cute child selves. It's hard not to get attached to the little guys as they excitedly hop around scouting for minerals, fossils and other goodies hidden in the ground and anyone who has owned real pets can't help but be amused at how they'll trail your stylus expectantly when you're dangling some food over them and rush to get it when its dropped.

Of course the game is about fighting with monsters, and they are all equipped with unique attacks, ranging from shooting bolts of energy to charging head-on or slapping creatures with a clubbed tail. Sadly while they all might be pretty cool, they are not all good. Some of the attacks are just too hard to execute given the flawed combat system.

Aiming is particularly hard since the screen will only show you part of the action, which is especially problematic when you've still got multiple opponents standing. You take multiple creatures into battle with you, but only one is under the player's control at a time with the game animating the other. The idea is to jump between the two, using the right tools when necessary, but the result is more often that you'll play a creature with a fighting style that's more effective and easier to manage, leaving the computer to figure out the mess of aiming properly.

Luckily you're not relegated to fighting over and over again to get your creatures to a competitive level. "Spectobes" eliminates the requirement of so many RPGs to bring a weaker character along to fight with your stars just to beef him up a little. Instead you can level up new finds out of combat by feeding them minerals you dig up through a highly detailed and mildly addictive excavation mini-game. Basically anywhere you go you'll want to look for things in the ground as that's the primary way to find new "Spectrobes" along with items to raise their stats and level them up. The way you dig varies according to terrain. In many areas you'll just drill down until you find something and then slowly chip away at the stone surrounding it, trying to avoid the glass breaking sound that means you've damaged the find. But if you're excavating in a desert you'll have to first blow away the sand, which you can do by blowing on the DS or with a special in-game tool if you're worried about getting spit on your screen. Other areas might require you to chill lava or melt ice.

Ironically the fossils can be one of the most disappointing part of digging. While minerals are always useful, and often necessary since the game requires you to level up faster than you can through plot combats alone, there's really no need for more than two fossils of the same type. But you'll find them anyway and, even though one dig won't waste more than a few seconds, the time adds up.

How "Spectrobes" will actually fare in the battle against "Pokemon" remains to be seen. But anyone who has ever felt the need to catch them all, will find something to enjoy in cruising the stars looking for new monsters to love.