Data World Ultra

Data World Ultra is a video game by Underground PWN Mafia on the Snowtendo DS, released in 2009.

The storyline focuses on a human brought to Antarctica on Club Penguin Island by Billybob to save the island. Penguins and other creatures have been losing their memories and becoming feral and the city has fallen into disarray. The goal of the player, who is represented by a young boy whose name is given as "Hero" (this is a common naming convention for RPG protagonists), is to save the island by helping creatures recover their memory and return to the city.

The gameplay revolves around raising a Blue baby or a Pink baby (Blue for male creatures, pink for female) evolving into a stronger creature. A creature partner will die with age, and return to an egg eventually, so the player has to raise it again.

To raise a creature partner, the player must train it, feed it, let it rest and take it to a bathroom. A pink baby or blue baby will take 5 days of care before it evolves.

The other main part of gameplay is battle. The player's partner creature fight the creatures that have become aggressive due to a crisis on Club Penguin Island. Partner creatures begin the game with a few basic skills, but acquire more as they progress in levels through the game.

Plot
The game revolves around a young human, the protagonist, who is drawn into the USA through a portal. Billybob greets and asks him a few questions, the answers to which determine whether he begins with an Pink Baby or a Blue Baby. His goal is to travel around Club Penguin Island, locating all of the resident creatures of Club Penguin City who have turned feral and bring them back, raising creature partners in the process. He must eventually confront the antagonist, Sanity Penguin, a hacker whom has built a gigantic robotic dog (as seen in the box art) and save the USA from destruction.

Featured Creatures
Obtainable creatures can evolve to better and stronger creatures depending on certain conditions. A wild creature from each species can be recruited to Club Penguin City, excluding all baby creatures (already present).

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Techniques
Techniques can be learned from either battling enemies, or training in the gym. Gym training has a very rare chance of learning a technique, whilst battling greatly improves the chances. Wild creatures that are fought must use the technique in battle, and the creature partner must be able to learn it. Each technique used uses a certain amout of Magic Points, and the best techniques are from the Mech category.

Gameplay
The gameplay requires the player to tend to the needs of their creature, such as feeding them, taking them to the toilet, curing their sickness, and putting them to bed, whilst training him or her to become stronger. The whole concept of the game is about evolution, and depending on the weight, care mistakes, training stats, happiness and discipline, and other assorted requirement, the creature a blue baby or pink baby will evolve to will vary.

When a creature has reached a certain age, it will die, but return as a baby. The player may choose which baby it wants to take care of, and the baby it chooses remembers all of its techniques.

However, if in the circumstances that a creature dies due to sickness, or it loses all its life, the next baby will forget some techniques its predecessor learnt, and the decision whether the next creature will be a pink baby or blue baby is at random.

Another core function of the game is battling wild creatures found in the forest and other assorted places. Depending on the amount of battles and win % gained, it also affects evolution. Some wild creatures fought in a battle will make the player's creature learn a technique once defeated. Techniques also affect evolution, and depending on how many techniques a creature has learnt, evolution will vary.

Evolution can also be forced on a creature with special items, such as the Insect Pincer, which when given to a Pink or Blue Baby, it will instantly evolve to Bugzy.

The use of the Snowtendo DS's touch-screen capabilities with the game held the player's items that he/she collected during their adventure. When a player uses the stylus on items, a menu pops up with the commands "Use", "Move", and "Drop" selecting one of the options in the menu will either give the item to the player's creature, move the item to a different spot, or drop the item, destroying it in the process.

Another core component of Data World Ultra is training a player's creature in the gym. A player can train their creature in the fields of;


 * Hit Points (HP): Increases the health meter of the creature.
 * Magic Points (MP): Increases the magic meter of the creature.
 * Offense: Increases the damage dealt by the creature.
 * Defense: Increases chance to block attacks.
 * Speed: Increases reaction time of creature, allowing it to attack faster.
 * Brains: Increases chance to learn technique when fighting wild creatures, and small chance to learn technique while training in the Brains field.

Depending on the parameters in training, evolution will also vary.

Data World Ultra also possesses online Wi-Fi capabilities, allowing users to save their creature, and battle against an online opponent with it. Tournaments across the USA are held once every month, and the winner takes home a lifetime supply of Judgies.

Reception

 * Snowtendo's Game Magazine rated the game a 9.0, praising Data World Ultra for the originality, excessive use of the touch screen, and longevity, but criticised the glitches in the game, such as the Jukebox in Billybob's igloo when a player recruited Eve Lendfell, it crashed the game.
 * Metacritic rated the game a 92% out of 100%, praising Data World Ultra for its difficulty, fun factor, and graphics, but criticised that the game used unnecessary use of the touch screen.

Trivia

 * Like the UPM's ealier game Villain To Hero, Bugzy intended to publish it for UPM members only, but liked the idea of gaining more money.