Zack and Wiki are pirates, not in an “Arg, I’ll plunder your booty” sense, and not even in a Johnny Depp sense. They are more like part of a group of children playing “pirates” on their bicycles. You kind of get the feeling that the developers weren’t really sure how to capture the look and feel of a pirate game and instead built a story loosely around the “ideals” of piracy. Zack and Wiki are looking for treasure and stumble upon a golden talking skull that, by the length of his mustache, you can tell ends up being the bad guy. This skull tells them of an awesome pirate ship that they should look for and the only way to do it is to reassemble the lost parts of his skeleton, all of which are gold.
The game plays like an old school point and click adventure: think Sam and Max, Myst, or Monkey Island. You use the Wii remote to navigate your way through the levels and when Zack interacts with an object in the environment, a motion controlled event pops up and you have to complete it properly to move on. Now by that, I don’t mean a mini-game. What I mean is that certain items and or item combos give you access to different areas of the levels and to gain access you must do the motion controls to clear it.
This control scheme probably sounds goofy and even a bit gimmicky, but it actually feels good and adds a level of immersion that is not present in other point and click games.
What really stands out about the items and characters in the game is that pretty much everything you interact with can transform from an object to an animal and vice-versa. For example, anytime there is a frog in a level, using Wiki as a magical bell (buy shaking the wii remote like a bell), that frog turns into a bomb.
If you use your bell on a scorpion, it turns into a saw and so on… This is the key gameplay driver. All of the games puzzles revolve around using the characters and items in the environment to solve them. The puzzles can get pretty complex and you can really bust your brain thinking of a way to get from point A to point B.
Also since the whole premise of the game is trial and error, I found myself playing the beginnings of levels upwards of 15 to 20 times. Once you understand how to complete a level, the game becomes rather easy, but until every piece of the puzzle is in place on a level, there is always the possibility that you will need to play it another 10 times to figure it out.
Now, let’s take a moment to address the difficulty. The game is positioned like a children’s game. The colorful environments, playful characters, silly childlike animations and general juvenile presentation all would lead parents to possibly purchase the game for their children. However, the difficulty is pointed directly at players with a high level of problem solving skills. Many of the puzzles would be incredibly hard for your average American fifth grader to solve.
This may not be the case with Japanese children, but mid-way through it, Zack and Wiki seemed too Japanese to be an American children’s game. It could be a great learning tool for advanced children, but as a parent, be ready to help them though some, if not most of, the puzzles.
So, Zack and Wiki hasn’t been a huge hit and many of the above factors could have contributed to this, but if you dig puzzlers or if you want a throwback game that builds on the point and click formula, I suggest you get it. It can be purchased for about $15 bucks.
