CHEESE!: “Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots” For Nintendo DS
Developer: Natsume Co., Ltd.
Publisher: THQ Inc.
Genre: Beat ‘Em Up
Release Date: Late 2007
My reign of terror through the handheld Nicktoons Unite games continues with the next installment, “Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots”. I have played a smidgeon of the console game, but I only had it temporarily (because of renting it) and this has been ages ago, so I remember very little of it.
With this installment, we see the introduction of Tak from Tak and the Power of Juju, which started as a video game series, received a TV show adaptation and then died. For whatever reason, Nickelodeon really tried to push Tak around this time, so he makes an appearance in this game even though it doesn’t make much sense. He will also appear in the next installment as well.
Story
SpongeBob and Patrick decide to go inside the strange new toy factory that has recently popped up in Bikini Bottom. To their shock, the toys are evil and kidnap Patrick. As SpongeBob attempts to find Patrick, he stumbles upon Jimmy Neutron, Danny Phantom, Timmy Turner and Tak, who explain that people everywhere have been getting kidnapped. The heroes then set off to investigate all these strange toy factories and rescue all the kidnapped people.
Eventually, it is revealed that Professor Calamitous is behind the kidnappings, whose goal was to be granted the title of the Biggest Genius from a weekly TV show called “The Biggest Genius”. Of course, his failure on live television thanks to being beaten by the heroes loses him the title, and Jimmy is instead granted it.
Gameplay
Instead of a platformer, we have ourselves a mixed-dimensional beat ‘em up, surprisingly. There are five levels, with each level split up into three different areas: an Action Area, a Ride Area and a Boss Area.
The Action Area is the beat ‘em up section, where you choose two characters to take in and go through multiple rooms of enemy waves. You also have the occasional light puzzle that requires the touch screen. Toward the end of the stage, you find a mech and can ride in it, able to deal out a lot more damage in a wider range. The area ends with a midboss fight against a machine that keeps sending out enemy toys and shooting a laser in an attempt to keep you away. Throughout this level, enemies will drop nuts and bolts, which serve as the health of your mech and become more relevant in the subsequent areas.
In the Ride Area, you control your mech left and right down a track as you continuously go forward. Throughout the track, there are nuts and bolts to collect, which add on to your pre-existing total that you got in the Action Area. These nuts and bolts serve as your fuel for the mech, and continue to decrease as you go through the track, so you want to pick up more as you go along. There are boxes spread throughout the level that you either must avoid or use a temporary power to bust through them. There are also gallery pictures to collect in this section, which depict many different Nickelodeon characters.
After the Ride Area is the Boss Area, where you face off against a mech that resembles one of the main five heroes. Your nuts and bolts now serve as your mech’s health. You have a fast light attack and a slow heavy attack that you must use to whittle down the opposing mech’s health while dealing with the stage’s unique obstacles (such as boxes that intercept your shots or hammers which try to hit you). This area has you in first-person mode, and you go left and right in order to avoid attacks.
While the Ride and Boss Areas were good for the most part, the Action Area could be dull and tedious at times because of the amount of spongy enemies that you have to face and how same-y the combat felt. In addition to the machine midbosses at the end of the Action Area, there are also these toy midbosses which were also annoying to deal with, because it felt like they all had attacks which were incredibly difficult to dodge, with some feeling impossible to dodge.
Otherwise, it was the same thing again and again, but the Ride and Boss Areas did help break up the monotony. I am also just not the biggest fan of beat ‘em ups to begin with.
Characters
In addition to the five main characters, you have a surprisingly large roster of characters to choose from. You can play as Patrick, Jenny Wakeman, El Tigre, Zim and even Mr. Blik! A playable character from “Catscratch” definitely wasn’t expected, so it was a pleasant surprise. They even have these characters chime in with their own dialogue from time to time (with some acting as if they have met before even though it’s odd, such as Mr. Blik and Timmy). Hell, Mr. Blik and Zim have an argument right before a boss fight.
You also have an unlockable character in the form of GIR, who you unlock by collecting all those gallery pictures in the Ride Areas that I mentioned. (Thankfully, you can choose to play just a specific area of a level, so I just replayed the Ride Areas that I needed to in order to get all the pictures.) Using cheat codes, you can also unlock Danny Phantom2 and SpongeBob2, who appear to be just alternate costumes (they might be stronger, but I didn’t extensively use them).
Each character plays relatively the same in the beat ‘em up section (and identically when in the mech). You have a standard attack that can combo if you continue to use it; a midair attack; a charge attack; and a team attack (which is basically a screen nuke). Some characters use melee attacks (such as Danny and Jenny) while others use ranged attacks (such as Jimmy and Zim). Basically, there are small differences here and there between the characters that don’t matter much in a casual setting but would probably make a difference in a speedrunning setting; for instance, Zim’s ranged attack seems to have the longest range, so you can use him to take out enemy spawners without activating them by stepping too close.
The gallery pictures also make references to other Nickelodeon shows, such as Trudy X from “The X’s”, that, again, were a pleasant surprise to see.
Conclusion
While the gameplay itself is fine/whatever, I feel that the strongest factor of this game is the characters that it includes. Where else am I going to be able to have Mr. Blik charge up an attack where he just throws “CHEESE!”, you know? It gives the game some added charm.