The Denpa Men: They Came By Wave

Overview

Created and published by Genius Sonority, (folks that had a hand in Pokemon Colosseum, as well as some Ogre Battles and Final Fantasy titles) The Denpa Men: They Came By Wave is a dungeon crawler exclusively for the 3DS eShop.

The King of Evil has stolen... er a special someone. To retrieve her, we need the Denpa Men! Denpa Men are strange little creatures that float near radio waves. Players must use the 3DS cameras while connected to a Wi-Fi network to see and "capture" randomly-generated Teletubby-looking creatures that float through the air. Once a Denpa Man has been captured, they will be added to the Denpa House and then can be used in the player's party as they explore a variety of dungeons. No two Denpa Men are alike: some have antennae (which usually give them a special ability of some description) and all come in a variety of colors that correspond to certain resistances and weaknesses (not unlike Pokemon types.)

Gameplay

Once the player has captured enough Denpa Men (Four to start, with the party size expanding to up to 8), they then enter a variety of dungeons in search of loot, with an inevitable goal of leveling up their Denpa Men so they can defeat The King of Evil. Exploring the dungeons plays a lot like the Dragon Quest series, with turn-based combat and random encounters. Players have the option of mashing auto-attack and letting the AI handle everything (which typically results in the party bum-rushing the monsters in question and headbutting them all at once, with a few that have Antenna Powers sometimes casting offensive or healing spells as needed.) Or they can take a more measured approach and assign each party member a specific task. At the end of each dungeon is a boss monster that must be defeated to retrieve their "seal" or proof that they have been defeated.

Capturing Denpa Men

Players must be connected to a Wi-Fi network before they can access the Antenna and find Denpa Men to add to their Denpa House. Each Wi-Fi network has a set number of Denpa Men, so it's advisable to try connecting to other networks. (Although each network has a totally workable number of Denpa Men if the player doesn't want to, they will just have to make do with one or two multi-colored Men.

Denpa Man Colours

Black: No advantage or disadvantage

White: Resistant to darkness

Orange: Resistant to earth but weak against wind

Green: Resistant to wind but weak against ice

Red: Resistant to fire but weak against water

Light Blue: Resistant to ice but weak against fire

Dark Blue: Resistant to water but weak against earth

In addition to solid-colored Denpa Men, there are rare "multi-colored" varieties that will have extra abilities or be stronger than more common varieties.