Nintendo DS Review: Treasure World

Remember the glory days of 90s RPG gaming? You spent hours upon hours aimlessly dungeon crawling in search of one thing – loot. Loot came in all shapes and sizes, from your health restoring Monomates to your fire resistant enchanted medallion to Materia granting you the power of gods. Before you knew it, your game clock reported that you had lost four hours on the couch and accomplished nothing in regards to your actual quest. And, you were in total unabashed bliss.

There’s something about searching for treasure and collecting items that is unexplainably entertaining. Top it off with the rant factor of showing rare items off to friends and you’ve got yourself one fun and interactive gaming experience. Maybe, that’s why people become archaeologists: to discover rare loot and then brag about it.

Treasure World from Aspyr has found away to capitalize on a person’s innate thirst to discover new and rare items and then share those discoveries with the world. This game is about one thing, and one thing only – loot. Treasure World strips away the fetch quests and story arcs you’d find in an RPG. What is left is a game that seems superficial at first, but will eventually result in several hours of glorious loot hording bliss.

The game features Star Sweep, an old man who is accompanied by the Wish Finder and tasked with cleaning the cosmos in search of treasure. When Star Sweep runs out of fuel, you must help him to refuel his ship with Stardust. Gamers find Stardust by searching out WiFi signals in the real world. Once you turn on your star scope, you can begin your hunt for WiFi signals. The Nintendo DS will pick up anything from WiFi signals from WiFi hotspots to cell phones to computer signals. Plus, your DS doesn’t even have to be open to collect WiFi signals. So, you can walk around like James Bond, secretly sniffing out wireless signals and no one will ever have a clue. As you amass new WiFi signals, you will be able to trade your currency in for treasures from Star Sweep’s personal collection. Trade in 2000 in star currency to Star Sweep and you’ll be able to send him blasting back off into the cosmos. I walked around New York for a day and was quickly able to send Star Sweep’s rocket off with no problem.

Each new WiFi signal can also potentially be a new treasure item that’s not in Star Sweeps collection. So, as you uncover new signals you’ll also find items that your friends won’t have. With over 2,500 items to discover in the game, the possibilities are endless. Even after you’ve helped refuel Star Sweep’s ship, you’ll quickly realize you’ve only barely tapped the full range of treasures available in the game.

Treasure comes in all shapes and sizes. You can discover new outfits to customize the Wish Finder with, including an alien head with matching wardrobe, a Roman Gladiator outfit, and a Ninja costume. It’s all great fun. The best wardrobe changes are the character heads. Some of the outfits, like the pants, tend to look alike. Gamers can also discover anything from new landscapes to outfit their environments with, as well as the ever-popular Anubis Statue. It would have been nice Aspyr had included vehicles too. If this is a game about customization and treasure hunting, why not go all the way?

The visuals are filled with vibrant colors that will are eye catching and attractive. However, with all the treasure and Songscapes planted on the screen, you will notice that the HUD can get cluttered. I found myself repeatedly running into difficulties trying to get back to Star Sweep, because of all the menus I had to navigate through with the stylus.

The coolest part about Treasure World is the integrated use of the Club Treasure World Website. Each DS and game combination has a unique identifier so that hunters can upload their treasure profile to the Club’s website. From there you can show off your items as well as trade inventory with other online hunters.

Each item you uncover has its own unique instrument sound. So, while your outfitting the world or your Wish Finder you can also create your own unique Songscape or play a pre-existing song. This is probably the most non-loot-hording action you will find in Treasure World.

Although hunting is a great experience in and of itself, I only wish the game actually had more game to it. As you uncover more and more treasures, you will unlock different constellations or galaxies, all earning you a new treasure item. But, outside of customizing your world and creating Songscapes, Treasure World has no further depth. You will invariably want to perform some tangible activity in Treasure World, and find that there is nothing to do. I only wish the DS had two DS game slots so that I could hunt for treasure, while playing another game and then switching back to Treasure World to see what I found.

Treasure World is the most passive, yet engrossingly fun game I’ve played on the DS in a long time. Each day I woke up wanting to go outside in search of new WiFi spots and more treasure. Aspyr realizes one thing, gamers like unlockables. It’s instant gratification. This is also one of the reasons why people like gaming on the Xbox 360 over the PS3 – gamer scores and bragging rights. If Aspyr decides to make a sequel to this Treasure World, it would nice if they packed in a little more adventure into this title, something that would give gamers actual playing time. Regardless, loot hording is still fun and engrossing. Treasure World will be an instant joy for children everywhere.