Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Overview

Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash is a sequel to Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol and the little robot's first sidescrolling platformer for Nintendo 3DS. It was developed in collaboration between Skip and Vanpool and released on October 8th, 2015.

Story

Chibi-Robo Zip Lash takes the tiny 4-inch tall Chibi-Robo on an adventure to save the world's natural resources from tiny aliens from space called Gyorians. With the help of his friend, Telly, he travels the world trying to stop an Gyorian menace who are stealing the world's natural resources.

Gameplay

Chibi-Robo has two main attacks. One is the Whip Lash, where he quickly swings his power cord like a whip, and the other being the signature Zip Lash skill. It allows the player to hold down the Y button to charge power for a moment in order to send Chibi-Robo's power cord flying with great speed and power. It can also bounce off of walls which allows Chibi's cord to hit multiple switches and enemies at once. It also allows Chibi-Robo to reach greater heights than before.

The game features a roulette wheel within each world that the player spins in order to see which stage one can go to next, which can lead to repeating the same stage more than once. There is a option to buy new tiles to replace some of the ones on the wheel so that the player can rig the wheel to be fully in their favor.

Each stage has a good deal of collectibles the player can go after. They include finding licensed snacks from around the world such as Mentos and Pocky, star medals and Chibi-Tots. Chibi-Tots look a good deal like Chibi-Robo but smaller. If the player hits them with their plug they will break, so to catch them they have to be tackled or chased down before picking them up in most cases. There are also medals to be earned within each level for not using any items, taking any damage, or not needing to use any checkpoints during the stage.

There is one toy NPC character who appears in each world. Each will ask Chibi-Robo for the various snacks that can be found within each world. Three snacks can be turned in at a time to each toy, requiring Chibi-Robo to exit the stage and enter the next stage the toy appears at (as it moves from stage to stage within the world) to turn in more snacks, even if Chibi has all the snacks collected for that world already. Each time a snack is given to a toy it will give a very short cut scene where the toy gives history or a description about each snack. After all snacks for that world have been turned in the toy will then give Chibi-Robo a gift box containing a costume for him to wear.

After each stage is completed within a world a new objective unlocks, being that of save the lost blue alien (Who doesn't appear to be a Evil Gyorian). Within each level (besides the vehicle and boss levels) is a little blue alien with a plug on its chest. The goal is for chip to whip the alien with his plug in order to grab it, and carry it to a specially marked area to be picked up by a rescue UFO. To do this Chibi-Robo swings the alien much like a lasso with the whip lash skill to make the alien start to sing (or yell, it's not made very clear) for the rescue ship to appear. Chibi-Robo then has to aim the aim to throw it into the ships path, where it will be beamed up to safety.

The alien will then reward Chibi-Robo with a red treasure chest. Rarely the alien will give out a gold treasure chest, that contains a new outfit for Chibi-Robo to wear. It will also reveal one digit of a 5 digit code that can be shared with other players on the Mii-verse. If players find all 5 digits on the Mii-verse (as only one digit per outfit code appears to each player) they too can get the outfit by entering the code into the Chibi-Computer inside Chibi-Robo's home base, Chibi-House.

Amiibo Usage

The Chibi-Robo amiibo has various functions within the game. It can be used to power up Chibi-Robo during a stage to have 2k battery life and a better reaching power cord as well as unlocking the a Chibi-Capsule machine within Chibi-Robo's house (Chibi House).

The Chibi-Capsule machine gives out various digital figurine collectibles that can be used to create scenes the player can take photos of and post to the Miiverse. The Chibi-Capsule machine costs coins to use, which are collected during game play.

The amiibo can be levelled up at the end of each stage using the players score as experience points. With every level the amiibo obtains the rarity of figurines that show up in the Chibi-Capsule machine goes up, and the amount of time the player can use the amiibo to invoke Super Chibi-Robo during a stage goes up.

Aside from using the Chibi-Robo amiibo to do the above up to 20 other amiibo can be scanned into the game per day to earn additional in-game coins and some select amiibo may add new figures to the Chibi-Capsule machine for unlocking.

Compatible Amiibo:

Figures to unlock Super Chibi-Robo:

• Chibi-Robo

Figures to earn in-game coins:

• Mario (any variant)
• Bowser (including Hammer Slam Bowser Skylander)
• Bowser Jr.
• Captain Falcon
• Celeste
• Charizard
• Cyrus
• Dark Pit
• Diddy Kong
• Digby
• Donkey Kong (including
• Duck Hunt
• Falco
• Fox
• Ganondorf
• Greninja
• Ike
• Inkling Boy
• Inkling Girl
• Inkling Squid
• Isabelle
• Jigglypuff
• Kicks
• K.K.
• King Dedede
• Kirby
• Link (any variant)
• Little Mac
• Luigi (any variant)
• Lottie
• Lucario
• Lucina
• Lucas
• Mabel
• Marth
• Mega Man
• Meta King
• Mewtwo
• Mii Brawler
• Mii Gunner
• Mii Swordfighter
• Mr. Game & Watch
• Ness
• Olimar
• PAC-MAN
• Palutena
• Peach (any variant)
• Pikachu
• Pit
• R.O.B
• Reese
• Resetti
• Robin
• Rosalina
• Samus (including Zero Suit Samus variant)
• Sheik
• Shulk
• Sonic
• Toad
• Tom Nook
• Villager
• Wario
• Wii Fit Trainer
• Yoshi (any variant including Yarn)
• Zelda

Reception

The game received universal hate due to its bland level design that forces to replay the same stages over and over, the very slow aiming of Chibi-Robo's charging socket when using the D-Pad, and for the annoying gameplay mechanics.