“In addition to spreading happiness and cheer throughout the land, it turns out pint-sized robots make good environmentalists. Right before the GameCube was replaced by the Wii, the first Chibi-Robo game came out, offering one last great hurrah in the form of a quirky and funny sleeper hit starring a tiny robot with a penchant for doing household chores. Far from feeling like actual work, conducting Chibi-Robo’s delightful adventure and engaging in a broad range of scrubbing, cleaning, and other virtual forms of menial labor offered a tremendously compelling distraction from doing those very same activities in the real world. Though it’s scaled slightly back for the DS, Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol is easily just as charming and absorbing as its bigger sibling.”

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