An interesting tale involving cubes, mating, and evolution.

User Rating: 8 | Doubutsu Banchou GC
This is quite the interesting little game here. When I first saw this I just had to have it. Just from looking at the cover, I needed to play this game at least once and it actually turned out to be pretty cool.

You start the game off as just a cube, but in time you will evolve from killing and eating other cubes "raw meat." Eventually, if you play your cards right, you'll become the ultimate mate and be able to defeat the killer cubivore. This means your at the top of the food chain; the king the jungle....or "cubicle" in this case.

You start off the game as a cube, literally. You are supposedly a "pig." You are now going to have to evolve yourself by defeating animals and eating their meat to grow limbs. Throughout the course of the game you'll evolve into creatures that have up to 6 limbs throughout the course of being a pig, bear, then chicken.

You also get to mate at the beginning of each "level." Depending on how sweet you are you'll attract more females; the amount of how many get pregnant and give birth is also dependent on how sweet you are. However, no matter how many children you produce, you can only keep one of them. The one that you choose to keep will then become part of your available forms. You can switch between forms on the go and they each have their advantages so you'll want to choose wisely which child you keep.

Throughout the course of the game you will also be able to grow fangs, horns and a manly scar. These help you out with the tasks you have to complete. Fangs help you tear off meat easier for example. It's all part of your evolution.

Graphically, everything in the game is a cube. Even the sun and the moon. It's a pretty cool idea if you ask me. The graphics aren't outstandingly gorgeous or anything, but I think they fit very well with the whole concept of the game.

There is quite the variety of enemies in this game. There are 150 different mutation forms you can gain throughout the course of the game. To get them you must eat certain colors of certain forms in order then you will mutate into new forms. Once you've mutated into a form once it will become part of your selection and you can mutate back into it on the fly. It's quite a task to collect all 150 forms.

The game provides quite a bit of play time although it doesn't move very quickly. To get all the way to being the ultimate mate your actually going to have to go through the game twice. When you start over the second time you'll get to use all your stats from the first one and continue to progress. Although you do start back as a single cube pig and go through the same levels again. Then at the end you can fight the killer cubivore and his followers.

I really enjoyed playing through the game, however, after one trip through I needed a break. It's been quite some time since then and I'm yet to get back and gain my status of ultimate mate, but I still plan on doing it someday when I'm not quite so busy with other things. I'd say this game is definitly worth checking out. If anything it can be a good silly break from more serious gaming.