Game:

Amazing Island (2004)

Duration: 40:31

2,733 views

29

Game starts at 3:48 / Mini-games start at 26:05

Sorry for the lack of footage folks; during an "automatic update", my graphics driver was screwed up and started making captures look awful, so we had to uninstall, reinstall, and modify various programs. So far, the only thing that works for systems is an older, more cumbersome version of our capture device (Hauppauge), so that's what we're going with.

Anyway, "Amazing Island" is an odd little mini-game collection / monster making hybrid developed in 2004 by Ancient and Hitmaker and published by Sega. The player creates an avatar (a boy or girl named Andy or Michelle by default) who are sent to a magical land (Amazing Island) through the power of their dreams and imagination to help a tribe of ancient creatures known as the Maboo to remove a possessing spirit known as the "Black Evil". Due to the Maboo's peaceful and "unimaginative" nature, they were incapable of defending themselves from the Evilings and were slowly captured and converted into minions until almost no one remained. Your job is to rescue the Maboo and gain "Vision Orbs", which drives off the Black Evil, restores portions of the Island, and earns the player new abilities and items to customize their monster allies that the player makes.

The bulk of the game takes place through monster customization and mini-games, as players can earn all sorts of parts and abilities to create bigger and better monsters. Initially, you are fairly limited and can only make a general monster through a questionnaire posed by the Maboo, but as you gain more vision orbs and parts, you can draw your own creatures, utilize new frames (different skeletons / body types), and improve the stats and outcome of your creations. Players can arrange parts in almost any fashion, creating all sorts of deformed oddballs with varying stats for speed to help win races or power to help fight enemies to elemental affinity which can help in certain mini-games like lava-spinning. The mini-games are mostly simple in theory but tricky in practice, mostly utilizing the A/B buttons, mashing and timing and range from mad dashing, fighting, volleying, shooting hoops, and more. Events have a limited number of "Chance Stars" (or "lives") and must be completed in their entirety to progress; if you fail too many mini-games and lose all your chance stars during an event, you must start the event over from the beginning.

Graphically, the game is serviceable for its intended audience and it sounds par the course (as in, nothing really stands out, but it is in no way a detriment). It is a modest but satisfying blend of "Mario Party" and "Magic Pengel", helping it stand out within the niche monster-sim genre, although it is deceptively challenging in spots and fairly short. Amazing Island has just enough meat on its bones to help it stand out as one of the more unique entries in the GameCube line-up and is worth tracking down for cheap if you're looking for lesser-known GC games. This is a video showing some of the game in action. Enjoy.