Ribbit King Preview

At first blush, the world of Ribbit King seems to be a little on the cute side, but looks can be a touch deceiving.

The world is in trouble of running out of power. Scooter has been called before the king, because “the planet is doomed.” The supply of Super Ribbinite has almost run out, so the only way to save the planet is to find a new supply of Super Ribbinite.

To that end, Scooter is sent out into the galaxy, with his trusty animated picnic basket by his side. For the mission, he must learn to play “Frolf” – a game similar to golf, but instead of balls, you use frogs.

Ribbit King is the work of Ban Dai, and is slated for a May release on the PlayStation2, PlayStation and GameCube platforms. This title is listed as ‘family fun’ but in actuality, this is a game that may appeal to a very young crowd. The game of ‘frolf’ is convoluted and rather childish. The animation moves from smooth three-dimensional to a look that is almost clay-mation in texture, and the dialog is childish at best.

GameZone was challenged to take on the PS2 version of the title, and picked up a little hammer, a frog launcher and headed out to the course

The game itself all centers around the game of frolf, and to that end, Scooter will have to travel through the tournament locations.

First stop is Ribbetopia, where you are given a tutorial of the game. The first thing that can be said about Frolf is that it is confusing. Unlike golf, the first one to get a ‘frog-in,’ or put their frog in the target hole is not always the winner. You can collect bonuses along the way, and there are surprise bonuses as well. So even if you put your frog in the hole first, you may not emerge as the winner. And the winner gets all the points of the loser.

Don’t worry, no actual frogs were hurt in the rounds of frolf played. You don’t actually hit them with a club. They are on a launching pad, and you strike part of the pad with a hammer, which propels the frog through the air.

The game has two modes of play – the story mode which is only for the single player, and the versus mode in which you and a friend can go head-to-head in a game of Frolf. In the story mode, when you enter the tournament, you are not playing against any computer AI competition. You are simply trying to achieve the best score you can.

The game does introduce a new character to the duo you start with, a panda named Pan-Pan.

You do have to work the control elements of the game to aim, and to its credit, this game is very colorful.

However, Ribbit King is for the very young. It is childish at best and even though the game is rather silly and slightly innovative, this is not so much about skill as it is knocking a frog all over a course to collect as many points as possible.