Platform:Nintendo DS
Genre: RPG
Number of Players: 1
Publisher: The Game Factory
Release Date: May 15, 2007
Official Website
Writer: Media-Girl

Rating: 6.0
Pass

Of the two licensed games I have played recently (the other game was “Meet the Robinsons” for the DS, if you are curious) this title is the worse one…but just barely. “Code Lyoko” is based on an anime series of the same name, as is pretty easy to guess from the art style.

Overall, the game is likeable enough, as long as you don’t play for longer than a few hours and have patience. After these few hours is when the tediousness begins to set in and you realize that much like “Meet the Robinsons” for the DS, “Code Lyoko: Fall of X.A.N.A” simply repeats itself over and over. However, unlike “Meet the Robinsons”, this game has a decent storyline that does of a fair job of enticing the gamer to keep playing. The story concerns four young adults who get sucked into virtual reality and must defeat the evil force X.A.N.A. Of course, this is just a cursory summary of the plot, so as not to spoil anything. Rest assured, the plot is actually pretty good, if a tad confusing at the beginning.

[b]Graphics:[/b] 7/10
Most of the graphics are also enticing. The cute anime style may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the graphics are well done and quite detailed. If only the same level of detail had gone into the environments in the various areas. The places the characters travel through are all various shades of drab greys and browns. The real problem with the graphics, though, is that areas within one dungeon look so similar it makes orienting yourself difficult. Even I had trouble, and I am not exactly the young preteen audience this game is geared towards.

[b]Music:[/b] 4/10
The music is similarly drab and when it is noticeable, it’s noticeable because it is so screechy, hyper, and annoying.

[b]Controls:[/b] 7/10
To add to the gamer’s frustration, any artificial challenge the murky backgrounds give the dungeons is only increased by the rather uneven battle system. At least the controls to the battle system are easy, if somewhat basic; the gamer utilizes the stylus to select the enemy, presses either the A or the X button for a basic attack, and uses B to either create a shield or perform a special attack. This special attack takes extra long for the characters to pull off. The required long length of time, in turn, gives enemies more of a chance to run away from the characters.

There are a few bosses that are interesting, but for the most part, the battles are more of the same, the same, the same. Luckily, the combos that characters learn are actually cool to pull off and original.

There is a good deal of potential in the leveling up customization system of buying combos and such. Too bad all that potential gets sucked dryer than a desert by the uneven difficulty.

[b]Flow:[/b] 6/10
Enemies are either ridiculously easy (Certain combos just knock out any excitement the battles have to begin with) or very hard (the few bosses) ; there is no in between. While most enemies only require a few hits to destroy, the bosses require a huge number of attacks to kill. The game starts off very easy and then suddenly veers into challenging territory that is much higher than the beginning of the game, mostly for all the wrong reasons. That being said, I don’t have anything against a challenging game, and there are some elements of challenge to the game that are actually great. For example, the puzzles require some thought and planning and are well-designed.

In addition to the puzzles, another thing the game really does a good job of is mixing up the game-play.There is a part of the game where you have to basically race, without hitting any of the things that get in your way. Then, there is another part of the game (the part set in virtual reality) that plays out like your basic platformer. The gamer controls one character at a time and uses each characters unique abilities-Ulrich uses a sword, Yumi uses a fan, Aelitia can fly, etc. Another portion of the game is set in the so-called real world, where the character can interact with other characters and also discover new items. Lastly, before you beat each level, there is a puzzle you have to solve.

The way the different types of game-play are organized throughout “Code Lyoko” is excellent. It’s crazy how the designers of the game managed to pack in so many different experiences within one game. The use of different types of game-play is also very smart, as it means that a wider array of gamers can enjoy the game (you don’t like one type of game-play, fine, but there is bound to be one type within the game that you enjoy.) The problem is that not all the types of game-play are created equally and it is not worth playing through the bad types of game-play in order to get to the genres you find appealing. The adventure game-play is by far the weakest of the three.

The first few hours are filled with so much promise and if I had only played a few hours, I would not have hesitated to recommend the game to all age groups. As is, though, I would not recommend this game for smaller children (say below the age of eight) due to the aggravation that the unevenness of the difficulty causes. Another frustrating aspect of the game and one that the gamer can hardly believe the designers overlooked it, is the lack of ability to save anywhere. Saving anywhere is a feature found in practically every game these days and for a very good reason. When you are playing a game and suddenly need to stop due to life’s demands (much as us gamers like to kid ourselves, this happens very frequently) you need to be able to save right away. This reality is all the more true for the young audience this game is geared towards, as they often have limits on their game-play time imposed by their parents. When your mom is tapping her fingers on her arm, counting to ten for you to turn off the game before she grounds you, pleading for “just one more hour” probably isn’t the best of ideas.

Considering the game’s main audience, then, it is all the more mind-boggling as to why they did not include a save anywhere function. Instead, the gamer is stuck in a dungeon until they find a save point, trapped in a sea of bland identical environments that not only serve to make the save point take even longer to get to, they also practically make your eyes bleed. Seriously, going into the sun after this game could quite possibly blind you, as you’ll be so used to only seeing shades of gray and brown.

To make the dungeons even more difficult to traverse through, this game has one of the absolutely worst maps I have ever seen. If the sparse monotone environment doesn’t make you confused about where you need to go, the map certainly will. I cannot think of a worse map in any single game, and I have played more than my fair share of NES and SNES titles. The whole point of a map is to make getting around easier, not even more difficult, yet this map doesn’t even provide you with accurate directions. In fact, more often than not, the directions are just dead wrong. For instance, the map will tell you to go to the north, and in fact, you should be going to the east, or it will tell you to go to the east when you should be going to the north. It’s more of a mess than my friend’s college dorm.

[b]Fun Factor:[/b] 6/10
For kids, playing this game is far more of a bad experience than it is a good one. As for enjoyable, that depends on patience, bucketloads and truckloads and family-of-eight vanloads of patience. So, if there are kids out there that are very even-keeled and spend hours building intricate houses out of matchsticks, perhaps they might enjoy this game. Also those that are a bit older (12 and up) and are rabid fans of the anime will more than likely have fun with this game…at least for a little bit, before the elements of the game (besides the plot, customization options, and graphics) begin to go rapidly downhill.

Look, I am an adult and even I found myself getting a temper from playing this game, getting lost, and not being able to save. I shudder to think what a little kid, which much less patience than me would be like when they are told they have to get off the game and can’t. I can just imagine the temper tantrums now…yeesh. Parents of young children, trust me, you are far better off with any of the Mario titles rather than this game.

I don’t want to just go on and on about the game’s flaws, though, as it does have some redeeming qualities. One nice thing about the game is that the plot is understandable even for those who have not seen much (or even any) of the anime (such as myself). Truth be told, the plot is actually the best thing about “Code Lyoko” by far. It’s not epic, by any means, but it is still quite strong and well-written. There is quite the cast of characters and these characters all manage to have well-fleshed out personalities and quirks which make them interesting and their interactions entertaining.

[b]Female aspect:[/b] 9/10
The female aspect to this game is not too shabby. The two main different female characters are both portrayed in a respectful manner, not dressed in revealing clothing or featuring chests the size of gigantic mutated grapefruits.

[b]Replay Value:[/b] 3/10
On the other hand, replay value in Code Lyoko is absolutely negligible. There are no extra items, storylines, characters…actually, there are no extra anything. The game doesn’t offer so much as one reason to re-play. However, replay value is not exactly the highlight of any licensed game, nor does it need to be. The whole point of licensed games is to offer a couple days of entertainment to fans of the license. Change the words “couple days” to a “couple hours” and according to the standards of the previous statement, Code Lyoko succeeds fairly well.

However, I cannot recommend this game for buying to anyone, as it simply has too many broken or negative qualities that keep it from being as good as it could be. It’s a little bit above decent and it would have been quite the quality game if only a few bad design choices had been avoided.

As it is, though, this game is definitely worth a rental for slightly older children, at least, especially to fans of the series. Everyone else, though, there really isn’t much to see here, unless you have a love of licensed titles.