Gamescom: Frobisher Says! is a Little Rough

Keeping the software experience fresh, new and exciting on Vita is going to play a huge role in keeping the handheld relevant over the long term. Doing the exact opposite is going to be a detriment to Vita's success. The good news for gamers interested in Frobisher Says! is that, in premise, it's certainly in the former camp. A fast-moving minigame compilation similar in nature to a Wario Ware title, Frobisher Says! has a lot of great things going for it. But there are issues that are too obvious to overlook as we get closer and closer to its release.

Unlike most of the other Vita titles that have been revealed, we know when Frobisher Says! is coming out. The developer who showed me the game as I sampled it said that it was set to be a launch title at a PSN-level price point, though there's no word on if or when the game will make it outside of Europe. So there's time to fix some of the problems this game has, though time is of the essence compared to many of the other games from Vita's roster that we've sampled so far.

The big problem Frobisher Says! suffers from is its utter lack of coherence. The game has a quirky and humorous feel to it, and I really liked what it was trying to do. But it's still too nebulous and unforgiving, and it's bound to turn most players off almost immediately. Minigames last mere seconds, and there's little room for error. If you died in the build I was playing, you'd be kicked back to the menu, where a random sequence of minigames would begin again.

The major issue with the game isn't what it's trying to do, but rather with how it tells you what needs to be done. It's not always clear what the solution to one of these minigames is. As Frobisher Says! is a Vita game that relies entirely on the touch screens, cameras, microphone and tilt controls, it's integral that you know what to do almost immediately. But the icons don't always tell the tale properly, and it's easy to get lost. And I can imagine that this game will become incredibly frustrating if you're failing and simply don't know what you're doing wrong.

Frobisher Says! will be packed with 50 total minigames, though I was only able to sample a group of 16 of them. And the variety of the exercises is certainly one of the game's strong points. For instance, one minigame requires you to use the Vita's camera to catch a flying bird in your sights. Another has you use your fingers to cover up leaky pipes on the screen. A third game asks you to cool-off a woman by waving your Vita like a fan. Yet another game requires you to scream or whisper names into the microphone.

There's great variation here, and that's cool, but even with 50 games, repetition is going to almost immediately kick-in. The idea here seems to be creating chains, and sustaining yourself for as long as possible without failing. As long as this game can be had on the cheap, that's totally fine. But it has to be priced like a PlayStation Mini to be truly compelling. Its great graphical flair is unlikely to hide this fact.

Frobisher Says! is a brief one-off game that will probably only entertain you for a few days or a week, and that's totally fine. But the in-game instructions need to be stronger, which will allow the gamer to get into a groove and develop a cadence. Without that, this game is bound to frustrate. And I imagine Frobisher would say that that's not a good thing.

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