Have you ever wanted a butler but thought, “they just aren't... japanese enough.”
If so, have I got the game for you.
This, is Chibi-Robo.
Chibi-Robo is a game about a robot butler, with the twist being that he's only about
six inches tall.
You'll spend your time cleaning up the household of the Sandersons.
There's Mr. Sanderson, an unemployed man who's buys so many toys that it's plunging his familt
into bankruptcy.
There's Jenny, the little girl who thinks she's a frog and speaks in ribbits.
Toa, the dog who is constantly tracking mud through the house.
And then, there's poor Mrs. Sanderson.
She is the only one in the house who does anything.
She cooks, cleans, and spends nearly all day balancing the families' limited budget while
here husband spends all day watching cartoons.
Good luck, honey.
The relationship between the family members is strained.
Mr. S's unemployement is making things really hard for the family.
It's bad.
Bad enough, that at one point, Mrs. Locks herself in her room and threatens to divorce
her husband!
It's mostly used as a gag and a way to force the family to try and win her back, but it's
taken too lightly.
Like, divorce is pretty serious, especially with a child involved.
It's not just like, “ Ha ha ha!
Divorce!
So funny!”
But, what's your role in this?
Well, you are butler, so you clean!
Which, is actually a lot more fun than you think.
Being so small presents challenges that make the normal tedium of cleaning rather unique.
Trash on a table?
Your gonna have to climb some furniture to get to it.
You're not just cleaning the Sandersons' house, you're exploring it!
There also some small touches I really appreciate that give the game some life.
Like, when using the toothbrush, you hear gentle guitar strumming as you use it.
Or, when climbing wires, you hear a little tune that rises in pitch as you go up.
These things add some charm that I appreciate.
To spice up your custodial adventures, are talking toys!
The toys in the house are alive, and have their own personalities and problems.
Two notable exapmles are Sophie, the dog toy whose in love with Space Hunter Drake Redcreast,
but she's too shy to ever tell him.
Then, there's Sunshine the bear who has a very serious addiction to flower nectar.
Like, drug dependence bad.
He goes into fits of rage, depression and mania when he's in withdrawal.
Hell, I remember at one point actually giving him some nectar and he gets so excited he
he pisses himself.
Like, Jesus!
Dude needs help!
Cleaning and toys aside, the best part of this game is exploring the house.
Exploring a home may seem boring, but from the perspective of Chibi Robo it's actually
really interesting.
The daughters doll castle is an actual castle to Chibi Robo.
The decorative water fountain is a ruined waterfall temple.
The house's wall moldings are like mountains.
And, speaking of the house, I think part of the reason the Sandersons are broke is because
they live in a fuckin' fun house.
Like, the kitchen has it's own skylight so there can be a tiny flower garden in the house.
The daughters room is pink from roof to floor and has castle that's bigger than she is.
There a miniature waterfall upstairs.
Then there's these four shelves that have a lever attached to them, so you can rotate
them to reveal four more secret shelves, which are empty by the way.
Did Willy Wonka design your house?
How much did this place cost?!
One thing I'd also like to mention, are chibi Doors.
They are just spread around the house and are never explained.
They are kinda cute though.
Considering everything else about this game I'm actually pretty curious to see what cute
and charming thing is insi- uhhhhhhhhh.
I don't like this.
I-it's just a dimension of eyeballs.
What the fuck is this!?
Get out!
Anyway, as you're exploring the house, you end up finding a giant, or relatively giant,
robot in the basement.
Turns out this was another robot the sandersons' owned, but had to deactivate due to him using
too much power.
Chibi Robo then takes it on himself to reactivate him by making enough money to charge his battery.
And how much does it cost to charge that battery?
Fuckin' ten thousand dollars!
My god, no wonder they turned him off.
Not only that, he's missing a leg.
After charging up Giga Robo's battery, I go off to find his missing leg.
It's in a breifcase with some other scrap meta- oh my robot spiders!
The fuck!?
Yeah these things end up taking over the house, and forcing the family to barricade in the
living room.
Turns out that Mr Sanderson is actually an engineer, and he made these things for his
former employer.
He wanted them to be friends to Chibi Robo's, but as Chibi Robo was from a competing company,
they instead programmed them to hunt down Chibi Robo's.
Mr Sandeson then quit, which is why he is unemployed.
Then the spiders take he family hostage, forcing you to fight the mother of them all, which
is strong enough to support a fucking refrigerator, and oh yeah, turn the wold upside down!
Good luck Chibi Robo!
You do actually beat this thing, saving the Sanderson's and allowing you to activate Giga
Robo.
Once you do, he slowly and deliberately walks outside to meet up aliens.
Turns out Giga Robo came into contact with aliens!
He saved their ship from crash landing, so they promised him two wishes.
GR first wish was to bring the toys in the house to life, for some reason.
Then aliens then had to return home because they didn't have enough power for his second
wish.
Now that he's active again, he can get his second wish, which is infinite battery power.
Which the aliens grant like it's no big deal, just poof and you have an infinite battery.
GR then shares this with CR.
You also find that Mr Sanderson is getting a new job with Cirtusoft, the company that
makes CR's.
This plus the fact that they have a old family member back means that the Sanderson's are
on there way back to stability, with a new family member to boot.
The end.
So, that's chibi robo.
I did actually glance over a lot about this game.
All of the toys and family members have more personality and archs that I didn't mention.
There's way more to exploring the house that I ignored.
This game is genuinely fun.
It's and interesting and very whimsical look at an average families home that I feel most
people can appreciate.
This game was was ignored by way too many people and should be much more popular than
it is.
So, that's that.
Thanks for watching!