If you were to take the same general concept of Katamari Damacy, but apply it to the gameplay of eating and getting larger because of all that snacking, you'd have a pretty good idea as to what The Munchables is all about. It's a simple game that's not very difficult at all, but what it lacks in challenge it makes up for in charm. I guess I have a soft spot for any game that lets me poop jewels on a talking onion.

In The Munchables you play as one of the titular race of characters: Chomper (an orange Pac-Man looking ball) or Munchy (a round pink dog-like creature). Life isn't that bad for The Munchables, as they walk around the bright world of Star Ving, eating a plentiful supply of food supplied by the Legendary Orbs. One day, however, aliens arrive to invade your little planet, hijacking the Legendary Orbs to power them, making them into a variety of vegetable looking aliens. With the help of the Great Elder, you'll go on your quest to retrieve the magical orbs, and you'll need to eat every alien in your path; it's therefore lucky for you that you have an insatiable appetite.

Chomper

The Munchables won't win any rewards for its miniscule plot, but the charm of the whole narrative helps it overcome its shortcomings. It's especially hard to not get a little smile out of the puns such as The Munchables called Chomper and Munchy, who live on a planet called Star Ving (starving – see…pun). The story is presented through mostly in-game text between your character and the Great Elder before going into a level, plus there is a bit throughout (not much) and some after too. It's not the best, but there are some funny moments, such as The Munchables constantly trying to eat the Great Elder.

The game uses the Wii remote and nunchuk combination, but that doesn't mean the controls are complex at all. You'll use the nunchuk's control stick to bounce your Munchable around the levels, use the A-button to eat, the B-button to do a dash attack, Z-button to lock-on, and you'll flick the remote up to make your character jump. Controls – the end.

Each level is composed of a series of sub-stages and finally capped off by a boss battle. The goal of each stage differs from one to the next, as you might have to destroy all the UFOs one time, get large enough to eat a certain mini-boss enemy, get to the bottom of an ocean, or get to the center of a stage. The basic premise is the same for each though: hop around, eat, and don't get killed.

Gameplay is very simple and not taxing in the slightest. You bounce around and constantly eat to grow larger. As you eat your character grows in levels, which dictate the strongest enemy you can eat. If you're a level 20, for instance, anything at that level or below you can press the A-button to eat and that's that. You'll constantly find enemies at a higher level than you, however, and these can't be devoured as easily. When an enemy appears at a higher level than you, you'll have to use your B-button dash to smack into them, causing them to break-up into smaller versions of the original enemy, though at a reduced level. If you fail to eat all the miniature enemies that appear from the attack, they have the ability to merge back together and form the tough enemy again. Scattered throughout the game are also several powerups, which will help you eat quicker, such as becoming a giant vacuum or a weight to cause enemies to lose their footing when you pound the ground.

The boss enemies are much larger than your regular run-of-the-mill stage enemies, but the idea behind them is generally the same. An early giant stalk of broccoli has a weak spot on its back, so you'll have to roll around to it, smack it, and keep doing that until it's small enough to eat. Another boss is a giant pile of grapes, which will throw himself at you; reflect a few grapes back, eat him when he's broken-up, and there you go. The bosses aren't really difficult once you know what to do, but most fights take a few minutes to understand before they're easily destroyed.

Get That Boss

My biggest complaint about the game is that it's not difficult or even somewhat challenging. The only way you can die in the game is to fall off the stage or either be hit by an enemy, which causes you to temporarily shrink in size, and then manage to be hit again while in that state; shaking the remote helps you grow larger quicker. The challenge only comes if you're one of those people who like to complete something at 100%. Each stage in the game will reward you a grade based on how much you ate in the game, which typically means needing to look the whole stage over and eating everything there is; good for you if you like doing this, but it does get boring just eating for the sake of eating. To further challenge yourself, you can find all the hidden acorns in a level to unlock an accessory for your Munchable to wear, such as a mohawk, funny glasses, an Indian headdress, and more.

One of the things the game does really well is convey the idea that as you eat you do indeed get larger and enemies who were once a threat are now nothing more than ants scurrying from your massive appetite. Besides enemies appearing smaller as you grow larger, environmental elements are affected too, as fences that once impeded your progress are now easily walked over, and the world suddenly seems a bit smaller. I also really enjoyed the charm and whimsy of the game such as some of the clever puns used for names and the way each level ends with your character's score being represented by a number of orbs that your Munchable poops out onto the Great Elder; plus, the Legendary Orbs look like brightly colored piles of dog poop.

The game is rather simple when it comes to the game's graphics, as there isn't really anything that stood out as a moment that made me "ooh" or "ahh" at what was on the screen. It's a decent enough looking game, but it lacks that wow factor all the best games have. The sound, meanwhile, is equally okay, as there's not much outside the constant eating and combat sounds or the background music playing.

The Munchables would be a good game for younger gamers out there, as it's cute and easy to play. For the older gamers out there, however, the game leaves much to be desired, and won't be much more than a potential renter for them at best.

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