Innovation is not a very common thing to find in video games these days. Publishers are seemingly all about making money and are often timid about trying something new and unproven when they can just put out a similar product to everyone else and watch it fly off the shelves. However, every now and then a unique game, good or bad, can manage to slip through the cracks and make its way to the public. Graffiti Kingdom is one of those games.
What makes Graffiti Kingdom a unique game is that the main character, Pixel, can transform into different creatures. While this aspect isn’t necessarily unique, the fact that you’re able to create your own creatures to transform into by drawing is definitely something that differentiates itself from the rest of the crowd. Now, Graffiti Kingdom isn’t completely unique since it’s the sequel to a game called Magic Pengel that has the same concept...However, their creature creation was somewhat limited and Graffiti Kingdom makes giant strides in the creation process. In Graffiti Kingdom, pretty much anything that you can imagine, you can draw and create with a little time and effort. That basically means that you can transform and play as basically anything that you want as you play. This aspect is so deep and engaging that it almost makes up for all of Graffiti Kingdom’s shortcomings...Which, unfortunately, there are quite a few of.
The story in Graffiti Kingdom is nothing special...A devil has been locked away for a while and now he’s been set free and you’re trying to stop him before everything becomes all devil-fied. Aside from the lack of real creativity in the story, it’s also a very short game. The combat is another problem as it’s very simplistic and gets boring pretty fast. The poor camera also sometimes gets in your way, so you may be fighting and suddenly the camera will move and you’ll have a tree in your way. You’ll be trying to reposition the camera a lot manually...But in certain areas, a movement in the wrong direction will send the camera back to the place you had just moved it from. It can get to be rather annoying.
Graphically, the game isn’t that bad. It’s got its own sort of style that isn’t jaw-dropping by any means, but it fits the characters and the world that the game is set in. The world is very colorful and just about every character is interesting to look at...Even the bland Spongys in the beginning of the game. I think that the game is purposely made to be a bit on the basic-side graphically in order for your character creations to look natural in the game world...And it works very well. If you create a character good enough, most folks won’t be able to tell whether or not you’re using a default creature within the game.
As far as audio goes, Graffiti Kingdom’s music has a certain child-like charm to it. It definitely fits the environments that you wander through. A few of the audio tracks leave much to be desired, but for the most part, the music here fits and helps add to the experience as you play. One very annoying audio aspect, however, is the noises the creatures make as you fight. Several of them grunt or make some sort of noise when they attack, so expect to hear the exact same sound repeatedly thoughout the game. It’s not something that’ll make you want to stop playing, but it’ll likely get on your nerves all the same. But overall, the sound is pretty nice in this game.
Graffiti Kingdom is a very unique RPG with several big drawbacks. It does a half-hearted job of giving the player a story and entertaining battle system (the two major elements of a great RPG) but almost makes up for it with a very, very deep creature creation. This game almost feels like a 3D modeling program with a few extra features thrown in for entertainment. Anyone who likes the ability to create stuff within their games will likely enjoy their time with Graffiti Kingdom...However, if Taito had spent as much time and effort in the rest of the game as they did with the creature creation aspect, I can’t help but think that just about everyone else would enjoy the game, too. - Ape
July 28, 2005
September 22, 2004
June 30, 2005
