I am writing this review with the help of my son. He is 10 and a big fan of anime. Zatch Bell is one of the many anime shows that he enjoys watching. My son tells me the show is about a boy, Kiyo, who has been given a "brother" by his father, Zatch Bell. His father thinks this will help his son develop maturity and responsibility. Zatch himself is a boy / mannequin / doll in my view. He has that look about him like a Japanese ventriloquist dummy. Well, my son has explained to me that Zatch Bell is actually a Mamodo, and he is here on earth for the one hundred year war for King of whereever the heck it is that the Mamodo's live. To do this, he must defeat the other 99 Mamodos. He has physical fighting skills and his human friend can help him to cast magic with a mysterious Mamodo book.

So what is there to the game? Its a simple fighter game like Dead or Alive, but not as sophisticated. For starters, there is a Story Mode, in which you can play through the game yourself, and there is two player battle, in which the players can play with stock characters, or characters unlocked and developed in Story Mode.

Story Mode

You can pick a "Momodo" and his or her counterpart to start your game. The initial characters with the Momodo listed first and the human second:

Zatch Bell, the star of the show, a small blonde doll like creature and his partner Kiyo, a 14 year old Japanese schoolboy.

Brago, a bizarre dark haired momodo with a fur cape that makes him look like an oversized bird, and his human companion Sherry, a blonde Japanese school girl.

Kanchome, a duck like creature and his partner, Folgore a brash egotistical teenager.

Tia, is on of Zatch's friend a small redheaded momodo and her trainer a pop singer Megumi.

Later in the game, if you defeat story mode with any of the Momodos, you can unlock Zofis a dolllike creature that looks like Princess Amadala and her human partner Koko, a villianess.

Basically, you go to location to location, selected from a menu as areas open up to do battle with another momodo. Yup, story mode is mostly fights with other momodos.

Controls The controls for the game are very simple, X for physical attack 0 for defensive spell or guard, [] for spell and L1 for Ultimate Spell (when your magic bar is full). You can use the D pad or the left analog stick to move your character around. Combo attacks are limited to two buttons, usually a direction and X,0 or triangle and there's only a few per character. The game is whats commonly referred to as a "button masher". Oh, you can't jump.

When you are not mashing buttons you can develop your momodo by going into the development menu. Points you have earned in story mode may be spent upgrading your damage, health and spell power. You can also purchase cards in the card shop which is essential to unlocking hidden characters for two player mode. Aside from the collectibles, they have no function in the game.

Two Player Mode Yup, you get to test your button mashing abilities with one of your friends. You can choose any of the unlocked Momodos to do battle with. There is also a handicap system so one of you could be weaker or stronger. I faced my son in quite a few Momodo battles. Basically it's hit hit hit, block, block magic hit hit hit. You can build up your magic bar and unleash a special ultimate magic attack when the bar is full by hitting L1. The ultimate attacks ranged from cool, like a giant tiger or a giant dragon, strange, like a big flying heart or boring like a big black energy ball or a hot magma energy ball. The ultimate magic attack will either K.O. your opponent or leave him or her with just a speck of health. Up to 15 Momodos can be unlocked to play in two player mode.

Animation The game uses cell shaded animation that makes it look a lot like the cartoon show. The backgrounds are richly animated and whimsical. They don't really play a part in the story though, they are just backgrounds. (unlike Mortal Combat-Shaolin Monks in which my son has demonstrated to me just how much the backgrounds play a part as my character burned up in a lava pit). Backgrounds include a schoolyard, the southpole, a Chinese temple, a playground etc. One example of the whimsicalness of the design is that of London. In one 360 sweep we see the theater district, the giant Ferris wheel (the London Eye)Big Ben and the Parliment Building, and double decker red buses.

Sound The music, sound effects and characters statements are boring and repititious. Given the rest of the game, this somehow did not surprise me.

Play Through My son went through the entire game with one Momodo in less than 2 hours. You can then, as a reward for this, play through the game with another character. What new things do you get to do with another character. My son said uh you face exactly the same characters again. The two player has some replayability, becuase its fun to play with friends, but going through story mode doing the same thing over and over gets pretty repititious and boring.

Summary Myself, I would give the game 2 stars, I found it to be boring and repititious. My son, who enjoys the game Zatch Bell felt that it was average and did enjoy playing it. I would note that my son said that Shaolin Monks was better, a LOT better. If you are looking for a fighting game, there are a lot better to be found. If you are a die hard anime fan of the show, I guess you may enjoy playing the characters you see on the show. All things combined, the game was about 2 and a half stars, but because we can't give half stars, this game gets rounded down to two stars.

Recommended: No