Suprisingly more fun than I expected it to be. A great game for the creative, and for monster leveler addicts.
The game delivers both, and quite better than I expected too.
Creature creation is simple to do; just drag-and-drop various limbs, eyes, faces, bits and bobs (which each have different attributes to offer, like higher defense and attack or an ability) onto your selected main body and the pieces mould into place, then you get to go about selecting your beast's colour scheme and away you go. Everything you make will be cute. Even if you were trying to make it ugly.
If I didn't know Maxis created the game, I would think it came from Japan.
Maybe it's just my anime-infected brain causing me to think that anything cuter than Ryuk from Death Note is sweet like fairyfloss, but it seems like you could stick eyes on a creature's rear and have arms sticking out of its eye sockets and it will still chatter and blink sweetly like some genetic experiment at the Sanrio factory gone wrong.
I like cute though... so don't mind me. =^_^=
Moving on...
Moving your creature about the world is easy, just drag your stylus in the direction you want to go. The camera leaves more to be desired though... generally it works well, but it often tends to swerve this way and that as you walk about (leading me to walk my creature on something that killed him more than once) and often gets snagged on trees and other terrain and objects.
You objective in the game is to travel across numerous worlds in search of a spaceship that captured your creature's friend, and in the process talking to and befriending other native creatures by dancing with them (in a rhythm-based little minigame that seems to get repetitive quickly) or granting favours to them... which could be anything from killing another creature for land to feeding them. In return, they will give you parts to build your creature (which will help you progress in the game too) and point you in the direction on the spaceship you're chasing.
Battles with other creatures begin when you tap on another creature and choose to attack them, or they just attack you. A ring will emerge from the ground to block you in, and will not end until you kill the opposing creature or run away.
Attacking in a battle is a simple matter of slashing your stylus across your enemy, and sometimes tapping a button to use a special ability (if you have one). I didn't have too much trouble attacking, but sometimes it feels like I could cut a hole in my DS screen with the stylus and still not actually cause any damage to the enemy...
Overall, Spore Creatures has its flaws, but it's still a fun and quite addictive game for all ages to play.
Now I just want to play the true Spore, for the PC.