[Wii] Zack and Wiki

Sinfully cute attempt from Capcom at the point and click genre.

As I'm sure some of you already know, Zack and Wiki involves the young pirate Zack and his trusty monkey sidekick Wiki, both sharing the common goal as one can guess from the subtle title. Together, the two of you solve sets of increasingly difficult puzzles and encounter vibrant locales with their fair share of obstacles. All this in order to find the legendary Barbaros' body parts, for which he has promised you great treasure in exchange. Intent on giving you a hard time, the Rose Rock Pirates generally interfere with your exploration and hinder your adventure, but that's nothing a bit of ingenuity can't solve.

Wiki is able to transform into a bell whenever you shake the Wiimote which transforms many animals into tools and vice versa. This is key to many of the dangerous puzzles within Zack and Wiki's world. Many times, one will need to bell in and bell out in order to solve the puzzles, which quickly grow to be far from childish fare. These easily become brainbusters capable of stumping even the adults for quite a while. Item applications and the logic behind actions are rather interesting and definitely give one a sense of satisfaction after having discovered concepts. Hardcore puzzling may not come as a breeze for everyone but fortunately, one can always restart the level or continue from the last major action.


_____
Features

- 2p/3p/4p assistance! Draw in markers to help 1p spot items, scribble ideas, etc.
- Many, many collectibles for the perfectionist
- Unique range of control utilization (try sawing, or key twisting)
- Somewhat open-ended choice of progression


_____
Screens grabbed from kotaku :x


I think the other players hammered the point here right on the head.


A puzzle in the world of ice. This one is fairly easy.


One of the first tools Zack will have to use. It's also a snake!


_____
Ramblings

I like the death scenes, although this is a key love-or-hate issue of the game. If you don't mind dying once in a while in this kind of game, then you're basically set. Some will complain about how this turn each puzzle into a long string akin to "Simon", and they are correct. However, figuring that chain of events by yourself is the fun of Zack and Wiki.

Hints and partway revive points I find to be usually useless. I'll only revive if the chain of events is way too long or I'm feeling close to the solution of a puzzle already and don't want to redo all those steps. Especially holding true that it may be good to be stingy since each item goes up in price with subsequent purchases, penalizing you doubly (the other hit being the effect on your HirameQ, aka. score)

Overall though, I found this to be a really enjoyable game putting those aspects aside. It's horrendously cute, especially Wiki's shout of "ZA---KUUUUU!" (which you'll hear a lot at the restart screen), and the little voice snippets every character has ("Sea Rabbitt-zu!"). The number of ways you have to use the Wii Remote goes beyond the usual shaking too. Certain missions require a steady hand and really utilize the remote approriately in ways that are not emphasized in 95% of Wii games these days (eg. Three Colossi).

Jam it back in, in the dark.