Spectrobes - Disney's Pokémon

Beyond the Portals: A Retrospective on Disney’s Old Pokémon Rival.

Pokémon was lightning in a bottle. Nowadays, it's the highest-grossing media franchise in the world, surpassing even Mickey Mouse and Star Wars. But when it launched in 1996, expectations were low. Game Freak, then a small inexperienced team, worked 6 years on Red & Green. The games were littered with bugs, and the Game Boy was already over seven years old—nearly ten by the time Red & Blue hit the West. It had all the makings of a 'dead on arrival' title, but against those odds, it became a massive hit.

Kids all over the world fell in love with Pikachu and the gang. Pokémania swept the world—twice—and the series’ prominence and legacy were secured. Such success naturally invited imitation, as others tried their hand at creating kid-oriented monster-catching games. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Digimon is the most well-known example, though it's more of a coincidence than an imitation—and not the one I want to write about.

No, as you’ve already read, I’m going to talk about Disney’s swing at the concept: the late 2000s series, Spectrobes. Back in the day, I was gifted an R4 card. Spectrobes was one of the games downloaded onto the card. While it was visually rough, I played my way through it. I wanted to know what all the other boys on the playground were talking about!

I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t until its sequel that I understood what the hype was all about. I must have played that game at least six or seven times to completion back in the day. I liked it that much. I can also vividly remember a classmate teaching a group of us how to fold paper to create our own Prizmods, and we ran around with those silly things on our arms all summer. Ah, the memories...

Anyhow, this earned the series a place in my heart— a place big enough to actually buy myself copies of these games and that writing about it was one of the first ideas I had when I started this blog 4 years ago. But as you can see, that didn’t happen. Why? I couldn’t decide what to write. Should I do another "Rise and Fall" post like I did with Yo-Kai Watch? Or should I review a game first to set the stage? Perhaps a marathon in the style of SomecallmeJohnny? Okay, I still want to do the latter, but that’ll take a while. These are RPGs, after all.

So, I kept pushing it forward. Until now. What changed? Well, I started a post that featured Spectrobes. The intent was for it to be an article that scratched the surface of half a dozen Pokémon-like games, but I hit writer’s block, not before writing quite finishing the Spectrobes section though. Now that I have something written down, I might as well go all the way.

Enough introducing. Let’s talk about Spectrobes, Disney’s cool and fun Pokémon competitor from years gone by.

The original pitch

Way back in the early 2000s, Disney wanted to invest more in the booming video game market (history truly does repeat itself). They aimed to go from a licensor to a publisher and developer. They wanted their own hit IP, and the head honchos at Disney decided they wanted not only their own Pokémon-like gaming series, but a true "Pokémon-killer". Pretty sure money was involved in that decision.

Regardless, creative duo Fil Barlow and Helen Maier were brought in to come up with the concept of the game. What they pitched was vastly different from what we ended up getting. It was already called Spectrobes with Rallen and Jeena as your main characters flying around the galaxy with these magnificent creatures but that’s where the similarities end.

In that pitch, Rallen worked as a courier who delivered artificial lifeforms—Spectrobes—from planet to planet. The idea was that if people colonized a world, they could order a shipment of Spectrobes seeds to populate the planet with. The nefarious Kroll would attack Rallen’s ship, forcing him to crash land on Jeena’s homeworld and scattering the seeds across the planet. The game was about the two collecting all the Spectrobes seeds before the Kroll could, as they intended to mutate the peaceful creatures into aggressive and dangerous tools of war.

Concept art of the original pitch. Looking a lot more Saturday mornign cartoon like, no?

Speaking of this mutation mechanic, the Kroll wouldn’t have been the only ones to influence the Spectrobes. It was something of a core mechanic, in fact. Rallen would focus more on action and getting stronger, while Jeena would spend more time on exploration and item gathering. Based on which tamer they had, and thus what activities they partook in, the Spectrobes would look and act differently.

Also interesting to mention is that the name 'Spectrobes' has its origins in this pitch. Originally, the Spetrobes (seeds) would be made by splitting white light into a spectrum of seven coloured species. Each coloured species was genetically programmed to adapt to different environments. Jungles, tundras etc.  The term 'Spectrobes' is a combination of "spectrum" and "microbe", an indication of their synthetic nature and this original awakening process. 

This original pitch sounds interesting, but I can’t say I’m unhappy Disney went in a different direction. I like that direction, faults and all, and  I must say this original pitch gives me Spore vibes—which isn’t a good thing. Jeena as just a side character is a loss though. Disney undoubtedly made the decision because the game was for boys, but it’s a dumb exclusion when you consider that Pokémon had already let you choose between a male and female protagonist for years.

Speaking of these changes, they weren’t Barlow and Maier’s choice. After giving their pitch, Disney effectively strong-armed them off the project. In an interview on the fan-run Spectrobes Discord, from which I got a lot of the above, Barlow mentioned that many changes Disney ended up making were to make it more like Pokémon.

Remember this. It’ll become important later. 

The original game; a rough start

After ousting the original creators, Disney put the Japanese studio Jupiter to work. In 2007, the results of their efforts were released into the world—Spectrobes for the Nintendo DS family of systems.

The plot of the final product is that an evil, alien race—the Krawl—destroys every galaxy they come across. When a survivor of such an attack, Aldous, crash lands in the Nanairo System, he is found by Rallen and Jeena, Junior Officers of the Nanairo Planetary Patrol. He teaches the two about the Spectrobes, a prehistoric race of creatures that only Rallen can awaken from their fossil forms and control to defeat the Krawl.

The three jump from planet to planet, finding and reviving more Spectrobes to battle the Krawl with while uncovering an ancient secret buried in the Nanairo System that could either be our heroes’ salvation or their doom.

The game was not turn-based. Instead, Rallen and two Spectrobes would run around in an arena, capable of attacking the Krawl when you’re close enough to them. An element not present in the pitch but which became a large part of the game is excavating. Spectrobes come from fossils now, not seeds. Digging up these fossils and other resources such as minerals was surprisingly fun and deep, arguably more enjoyable than the combat itself.

That’s not just because of how strong the digging mechanics are. It’s also a testament to the failures of the repetitive battle system. To be blunt—and while I admit it’s been years since I played this game to completion—I don’t think this first game is all that good.

What I remember most about it is how rough it is. The graphics were, honestly, outright ugly. They’re so jagged, and it’s hard to make things out And that battle system? It just didn’t work. Rallen commands the Spectrobes and fights alongside them—a neat concept on paper, but in practice, it amounts to nothing more than doing your best to slide close to the Krawl in a very slippery arena and try to hit them. All the while, you’re praying the Krawl don’t hit you, or that you’re not left with only Rallen who can barely do any damage.

I also vividly remember some very steep difficulty spikes, which are not helped by the fact that battles are better avoided because of the problems mentioned above. On the plus side, the story is pretty cool for what it is—the atmosphere and world design do some heavy lifting there—and young me liked the title enough to see it through to the credits.

As you can read, Disney kept the core ideas and characters but went in a very different direction with them. Exploration was still here and even elaborated somewhat by the archaeology and fossil aspects, but there’s no denying that Spectrobes was a lot more of a 'cool' action game with its aggressive design, atmosphere and that marketing campaign that all screamed, "Look, aren’t we cool?"

I can remember that marketing well. Ads in every commercial break on every kids-focused channel. Posters on billboards and bus stops. Lots of coverage in boy-oriented magazines, complete with articles, previews, and reviews of the game. The latter would even include paper-printed versions of the input cards as a way of cross-promotion. 

You couldn’t get around Spectrobes, and that marketing blitz worked, especially here in Europe. And especially here in the Netherlands. I was both surprised and not surprised when I read that the Netherlands was singled out in a sales report by GameIndustry.biz as a place where the game sold particularly well. 

Beyond the Portals; an improved experience

While Spectrobes did not sell as well as Pokémon Diamond & Pearl—about a million copies compared to the combined 18 million sales of Diamond and Pearl—hitting that million mark with your first outing is not a bad result and enough for Disney to greenlight a sequel. This game, Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals, came out only a year after the original in 2008.

Development on this title went much smoother than the first. There were more people working on the game, and the teamwork between the American and Japanese offices improved after learning from the challenges of such cooperation. During this time, emphasis was placed on appealing to the Japanese market. Spectrobes underperformed there so the plan was to relaunch the series in the Land of the Rising Sun.

I find it ironic that Disney really wanted to make this series appear Japanese to make it more similar to Pokémon and repeat that success, the reason they chose Jupiter as the developer, only for it to not perform well in that market. There’s a lesson in there.

Jupiter was able to incorporate both internal and external feedback to improve this 2nd game, and it shows. In my opinion, Beyond the Portals is what the original should've been. The visuals were cleaned up, the battles were reworked so that you now directly control the Spectrobes with Rallen only fighting the small fry in the overworld. The level of exploration was expanded with more hidden areas and stuff to find and there was more content such as customization options and a spaceship minigame.

It's, as I already said in the opening, the game that made me fall in love with the series. Beyond the Portals is the game that made me understand why all the boys on the playground were talking about it. I (used to) know this game like the back of my hand, for all the reasons I mentioned above, plus the better story and my interest in the idea of all the portals and all the different star systems you travel to. I even designed my own star system back in the day, though these drawings have sadly been lost to the dust of time.

Last but not least, Beyond the Portals has introduced my favourite Spectrobe family. The moment I set foot on Nessa, I always spent as long as I needed to excavate the fossil of a Ryza. This blue, fox-like creature with a razor-sharp mohawk that evolves into a six-legged, winged beast of legends is just one big chef's kiss. I'm glad the developers decided to keep Ryza around in Spectrobes: Origins.

While Beyond the Portals is the better game, receiving better reviews, it didn't sell as well as the original—about half a million copies total. That’s very disappointing to me, as it’s my favourite game in the series. From what I’ve played, Beyond the Portals is the Spectrobes game I recommend you hunt down for your DS/3DS if you want to get into the series.

Origins; a new platform

And that brings us to the final game in the series - 2009's Spectrobes: Origins, which stands out compared to its predecessors in a variety of ways. The biggest difference, the one responsible for all the other changes like a series of dominoes, is that this game is not a Nintendo DS title. This one is for the Wii.

This change came about during the development of Beyond the Portals when series producer Kentaro Hisai saw the potential in the Wii’s motion controls and stopped by Genki's head offices to discuss this idea. Yes, Genki and not Jupiter. Jupiter was still knee-deep into the development of Beyond the Portals and didn’t have the time or resources to also start working on a Wii game. So, after a crash course on the series, Jupiter handed over the keys to the kingdom to Genki.

With the extra power and the motion controls the Wii offered, and with a different studio at the helm, many changes followed suit. The focus shifted from an RPG to anaction-adventure title with RPG elements. Players control Rallen or Jeena (finally) directly with one Spectrobe at his side. Rallen/Jeena is mapped to the Nunchuck, while the Spectrobe is assigned to the Wii remote itself.

This control scheme reminds me very much of how Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon lets you control Cereza and Cheshire simultaneously with each of them mapped to a different joy-con. Going to be interesting to experience that one once I get to Origins.

What I find most interesting about the changes made here aren’t all the stuff you'd expect with the switch from a handheld to the Wii, like better graphics and presentation, but the changes made to the type system or "properties" of each Spectrobe.

In the DS games, there were three properties: Flash, Corona, and Aurora. Those names mean very little to a kid, but they are colour-coded and arranged in a rock-paper-scissors type of deal. Once you realize that, it’s not difficult to understand and utilize.

Origins replace this with a five-properties system comprising Fire, Water, Earth, Plant, and Sky, with one property being advantageous over another in a wheel-like manner. Yes, it’s easier to understand and latch onto, but I’ll be honest: the original had a lot more personality. There are also some weird decisions here, like making the Earth property super effective against the Sky one. Somebody, please explain to me how that's supposed to work.

With me falling in love with the series with game 2, you might be surprised to learn that I’ve never played Origins. I do own the game nowadays but never played it more than the first 10-15 minutes to test if my spiffy new Wii to HDMI adapter worked a few days ago (time of writing).

Why, you ask? Well, the answer is simple: I never saw any promotion for this game. I can’t remember any trailer playing on TV or seeing any magazine talk about it. I never saw it on store shelves or heard anyone talk about it. As far as I knew back in the day, Spectrobeswas a two-game affair. I only learned of Origins in 2012/2013 when I was already in high school, thanks to the internet.

Even if I had known about the game in 2009, I wouldn’t have been able to play it anyway I only got a Wii in 2016 I think it was. That’s when I bought the game. My first trip to a 2ndhand game store and boom! There it was.

I wasn’t the only Spectrobesfan who didn’t buy Origins. It had terrible sales numbers. It’s currently listed on VGC charts as having sold 190.000 copies in total. That’s a very poor performance for the third game in a series that made a big jump to a more powerful console—one that was released when the console in question was at its peak.

Why did it fail?

All of this brings me to the key question. Or the ham question, as the saying goes in the Netherlands. The post-mortem of this retrospective: why did it fail exactly? Man, that’s a loaded question, but I think that a lot of the things that held this series back are due to how Disney handled Spectrobes. I think they were so focused on creating their own Pokémon that they made this disingenuous half-clone that didn’t offer enough for it to really stand out.

Take the switch from PS3 to DS, for example. It was doubtlessly done because the DS had the higher install base with lots of kids attracted by Pokémon and whatnot, but it also meant that they were fishing in the exact same pond as Pokémon. It was a one-on-one battle between the two for kids' time and money in a David vs. Goliath scenario. A battle Spectrobes lost.

The first game sold well, but I think that’s more a testament to all the money Disney threw at that marketing campaign, not because of the quality of the game, which, again, was rough, or the staying power of the IP. I can’t help but think that if the series had been released on, say, the PSP, it would’ve stood a better chance.

Yes, you’d have the smaller install base, but instead of going after the exact same audience as Pokémon, I think they should’ve gone after a slightly different one. Spectrobes is "cool," right? With its space setting, sharper and more monstrous creature designs, and more mature story. Why not lean into this and market the games to a slightly older audience? The ones that have grown out of Pokémon because it’s "for little babies" and those who can’t play Pokémon but want to because they don’t have a DS?

Behold: the Ryza evolutionary line of Spectrobes. A lot more 'mature' in design philosophy than your standard Pokémon design if you ask me. More appealing to pre-teens who have just discoverd 'edgy' stuff. 

Yes, you’d have a smaller install base, but I feel that they would’ve had a higher chance of finding an audience. To build up better foundations, so to speak.

The game department wasn’t the only area in which Spectrobes mimicked Pokémon and failed. Just like Pokémon, it had animated episodes. A series of 4-5 minute episodes that were released exclusively online (view them here) and did little to expand upon the series. It also had cards like the Pokémon TCG, only it wasn’t like that at all. These were the plastic "input cards" I’ve mentioned once before. Lay them over the DS’s touchscreen and press the holes in the correct order, and you’d unlock a new Spectrobe, a mineral, etc.

Very neat functionality, but you couldn’t get them anywhere. They were packaged with the games and bundled with certain promotional material but you couldn’t outright buy them in stores. You can imagine how this approach seriously hindered their availability. They also had no use outside of the game—no TCG or anything like that. They were plastic toys for the game and not much else, all of which greatly limited their appeal and, in turn, the appeal and visibility of the franchise they were made to promote.

All of this just confirms the image in my head that Disney tried to make Spectrobes as similar to Pokémon as as they could, hoping its success would translate over to their series. They copied many elements of Pokémon without understanding what makes that franchise work. No wonder those decisions didn’t pan out.

Final thoughts

Yeah, looking back at the life and times of Spectrobes, while I still have fond memories of it and want to play these games again soon, I can't say I'm surprised the series never really went anywhere. These days, it’s more of a fun bit of trivia that you can tell at parties: "Did you know Disney tried to make its own Pokémon competitor?" and not much else.

That Spectrobes petered out doesn’t mean it’s not fondly remembered by a few. While working on this article, I came across a small but passionate community of Spectrobes fans that keeps the series alive all these years later.

They’re the owners of that Discord I mentioned where I found those interviews, and there’s even a GBA-style fangame that was released last year. If you’re interested or an old fan of Spectrobes, I recommend checking that stuff out. They’re cool, and the effort put into it is admirable.

All in all, Spectrobes was fun while it lasted, but you just can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice regardless of how hard you try or how much money you throw at it.