Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash
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 Scott's right. IT BLOWS.
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"Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash is not a good game. It's a painfully generic 2D platformer, it spits in the face of what the original Chibi-Robo represented, and showcases my problems with some modern Nintendo games. It felt like it was talking down to the consumers. "Oh, people don't like this, but they'll like this: a boring, annoying 2D platformer with terrible art design and no idea what it wants to be." The levels are designed alright, the game functions, but is that really enough to call a game OK? No! There's no reason to play this game, and it annoys me that they held the series hostage over this thing's success. [...] Comparing these three games is tough, but I easily dislike Zip Lash the most. They're all terrible, but amiibo Festival has some dumb sarcastic fun to be had in it, and Ultra Smash, at its core, is a fine base for a Mario Tennis game. Zip Lash? Every element of it, I have problems with. And as I progressed through the game, it just irritated me more and more. It was painful to play through, this game slogs on and on. It's not fun. Every aspect of the gameplay they added an annoying element for seemingly no reason other than to just... BE. ANNOYING. I have no idea why they did any of this, considering they wanted Chibi-Robo to be a success. "Throw in a Destination Wheel! Chibi-Robo's future is on the line." It's been 5 years since I bought this. And even though I'm 97% finished, I'm done. And I think I've played enough to consider this my least favorite game of ALL TIME. IT. BLOWS."
— Scott The Woz
Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash is a platform game co-developed by Skip Ltd. and Vanpool and published by Nintendo. It was released in Japan and North America in October 2015, and in Europe and Australia in November 2015. It is the fifth game in the Chibi-Robo! series and the second Chibi-Robo! game on the 3DS after Chibi-Robo! Photo Finder as well as the final Chibi-Robo! game in general.
Blown Qualities
- The game has almost nothing to do with Chibi-Robo! series; it's a very generic platform game with "Chibi-Robo!" slapped into it.
- The gameplay is a poor version of Mega Man.
- Instead of being in a house, it takes place in many locations around the world, which doesn't fit in the series.
- One of the most criticized and annoying things in the game is the roulette wheel. For example, when you complete a level, you spin a "Destination Wheel", a roulette wheel that can make you either go to the next stage or skip a maximum of 2 stages depending on where you land. Basically, you choose stages as if you're moving on a board game. If you get a stage you have already completed, you have to complete the same stage again before spinning for another stage.
- Since all stages are required to beat the game, the wheel mechanic is a constant annoyance.
- On top of that, you can actually buy wedges for the spinner to guarantee you spin to the next level, which makes the whole thing pointless.
- The boss wheel is no better, as every single space is the same, and you can pay for a chance to make the boss weaker (or guaranteed if you buy all the weak boss wedges).
- The levels are very slow. In fact, they're as slow as Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal.
- Collectibles are almost useless and are only added to add replay ability and failed to do so. Same goes for beating entire stages without taking damage and using spare batteries.
- Lots of product placement for snacks in the game.
- Instead of being a small robot doing house works, you're basically trying to stop aliens from taking over the world, which is generic and doesn't fit in the series at all.
- The art style is inconsistent as it emphasizes that you're going around the world in real countries, but the environments you play in are very cartoony.
- Most of the bosses are boring, and not challenging.
- Once you finish the game, you have to fight a final boss to see the true ending. However, you need to use in game coins to get certain gadgets to battle said boss, forcing you to grind once you're done with every other part of the game.
- Two of the levels are set in the South Pole but has a lava-themed stage in it that looks absolutely nothing like any of Antarctica's volcanoes.
- Nintendo tried guilting the fans into buying the game to save the series (which of course, failed).
- The 7th world (Asia) is locked behind a Chibi-Robo amiibo. Unless you have it, and/or the Amiibo NFC Reader in the case of the former Nintendo 3DS/2DS models, you cannot play them at all.
- Overall, this game was so bad that it killed the Chibi-Robo series as a whole.
Good Qualities
- The final boss is decent.
- There's an amiibo for it that unlocks some decent goodies such as Super Chibi-Robo, for example, you can have more energy which gives you 2500 energy and more speed.
- Also, you can also scan other Amiibos like Mario and others, it gives you 50 coins.
- Fantastic soundtrack.
- The controls are fluid and responsive.
- As mentioned before in Blown Quality #7, despite having many products in the game, it’s a bit interesting and surreal.
- The graphics are charming and colorful, especially by Nintendo 3DS standards, the level designs in general look great, the food product designs are surprisingly good and detailed and lastly the enemy designs are actually cute. Same mention goes to the Chibi-Tots as well.
Reception
The game received mixed reviews and sold so poorly that several retailers still have leftover copies of this game in new condition even to this very day. The game has a 59/100 critic score on Metacritic. It used to have a 6.6 user score on said website but after Scott The Woz's review, the game now has a 5.2 user score. Many criticized the game for having very little to nothing to do with Chibi-Robo! series, for being unoriginal, boring, repetitive, and very forgettable. Many have criticized Nintendo for guilting gamers into buying the game. In recent years, it became synonymous with Scott The Woz, who disliked the game so much that he called it his least favorite over the aspects he critizied and only finished it at 97% complete.