One complaint I have with the game industry is that there is too much of the same thing. With so many games packing their genres to the rim its refreshing every time a release comes along that is creative and unique. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen an awful lot so when it does these games become cult classics more than financial successes. With that in mind you have to ask yourself if you have heard about Graffiti Kingdom. Chances are that unless you are keeping your eye out for this entertaining game it may slip under your radar.

In the land of Canvas Kingdom a dark day is about to come about. The young prince named Pixel unwittingly unlocks the seal to an ancient demon and soon brings about the beginning of the end. It’s up to Pixel and his new found friend Pastel (a white box dog-type thing) to use the powers of Graffiti to stop the evil monster. Yeah, I know that it sounds cheesy but the game has a lot of personality and actually makes the story and characters entertaining.

Gameplay:

I have to admit that I’m torn with Graffiti Kingdom’s gameplay and while I feel like I’ve played this type of game a thousand times; I still find myself loving it. You see, the action here is strictly 3D platforming from years ago with your character running around the screen and punching things. In that regard there is really no variety and to make matters worse, most of the enemies are extremely easy. Sure boss characters are the difficulty exception, but this is a kid’s game after all so things never really get too tough.

To make matters worse for the gameplay, the camera is completely and totally against you at all times. I found myself constantly adjusting it every time that I moved and cursing it out with nearly every boss fight. So if the actual gameplay is uninspired and the camera is annoying as all heck, why am I recommending this game? It’s simply one of the more addicting action RPG games in a long time.

So how is a game like this addicting? On his own Pixel can’t do much to attack enemies so he has to use the Graffiti Wand to transform into a monster to get the job done. The more bad guys you defeat, the more transformation cards you collect and more options become available for you. Also as you level up you’ll gain special creative functions that you can use to create your own monsters to transform into.

The possibilities are absolutely endless as you try to recreate the monster of your dreams over and over again. You can not only adjust the look of the creature, but also the style of attacks and movements it can do. This is the single saving grace of the game and the reason that I recommend it to anyone with an active imagination. Making a paper bag that kung fu fights, a demon teddy bear that shoots fire or even faithful recreations of other game characters is a blast.

Experimenting with creation is what will take up most of your play time with Graffiti Kingdom and in order to maximize your potential you have to (unfortunately) play through the single player game. The game may be short, but with enemies that re-spawn collecting experience coins to level up with isn’t that difficult. In the end though this is basically a creative interface and 3D art program more than it is a “game”.

If by chance you happened to have played Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color this concept will not be all that foreign to you, especially since it’s done by the same development team. The whole reason to play Graffiti Kingdom isn’t to experience the single player game to beat it; it’s to experiment with the types of creatures that you can make and flex those creative muscles. If a friend of yours happens to have the game as well, the both of you can showcase your monstrosities in a battle against each other.

Graphics:

If the gameplay was the definition of simple, then graphics are borderline preschool. With a look that is borderline similar to Katamari Damacy, the world of Graffiti Kingdom is filled with Lego blocks, colorful boxes and pixilated critters that define simplistic and cute. Yes, there is no doubt about it from first glance that this is indeed about as childish as a game can look.

Everything here has a PS1 quality to the graphics and several of the environments are filled with walls of cardboard texture, which make things even blander. The enemies are creative enough although they lack any real detail to make them really stand out. The only real prize with the graphics is the ability to see your custom designed creature in motion and kicking butt.

Audio:

Going along with the style of the gameplay and graphics, the audio for Graffiti Kingdom is full of low quality filler. The game is packed to the top with growls, groans and grunts of all sound types and can get on the nerves rather quickly. There is some mediocre voice acting during cut scenes, but believe me when I tell that it’s nothing special or worth sitting through again. The music is on par with everything else here and once you hear everything put together chances are you’ll be reaching for the remote for that important mute button.

Conclusion:

So we have some poor audio, low-grade graphics and gameplay that is so simple it hurts. The camera is about as poor as it can get and it makes an easy game only semi-easy. Even with all that in mind I still have to recommend Graffiti Kingdom because of the ingenious creative control the game has. Spending oodles of time perfecting a creature and then unleashing him on the masses is entertaining, but it will only appeal to gamers that are patient and enjoy art (which is me).

I would love to see a game use this creation engine, but involve it with a more in depth game with better features. As it stands this is about as good as it gets for this theme and if you have an open mind you may find yourself addicted in no time. Recommended