Fall is making its triumphant return, bringing with it rainy, cloud filled, chilly days. No more taking advantage of the nice weather by going out of the house to enjoy some outdoor activities. No more lengthy, much needed vacation time to look forward to. Summer vacation's clock has run out for both the college and K-12 kids. The veil of status quo, lifted in June, has since been replaced.

Depressing, I know - but do I have a cure for those autumn blues in the form of Square-Enix's latest DS offering, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime. Taking control of Dragon Quest's classic mascot, the blue slime, along with his trusty tank, you have to save his town from the local mob. Providing a deceptively deep single player experience along with an addictive, fast-paced multiplayer, this game will easily keep you warm and occupied through the winter.

Rocket Slime starts out simple enough - the local mob, known as the Plob for their high platypunk enrollment, has slime-napped all the residents of Slimena, leaving behind graffiti and destruction. Now it's up to one adorable blue slime to save them all - Rocket. The story is unabashedly written for a younger audience, as all of the in-game text is sugarcoated with an unrelenting amount of slime-related puns. The graphics are given the same treatment; they're bright, colorful and just about everyone has a smile on their face unless they're getting attacked. Beware if your sweet tooth has a low tolerance level!

All the action takes place on the bottom screen (with an effective map and menu combo taking up the top screen), using a top-town camera and an action-RPG gameplay system (think the NES/GBA/SNES Zeldas). You sling Rocket around like you would shoot a rubber band off your finger. When he runs into something, be it an enemy, item or slime, Rocket knocks them into the air. As the knocked object flies through the air, he can either let them fall to the ground or catch them on his back to throw around or send back to town on a cart to be saved. The game keeps track of the amount of things you send back, rewarding you when you reach certain collecting requirements.

Not unlike the first hour or so of gameplay, my above description may have killed any interest you had in the game. Don't fall for it! As hard as this game may seem to be trying to keep older gamers out, it's about to club you over the head and drag you into its cave of enjoyment with its tank battles! These battles make perfect use of both screens, as the bottom screen continues to be your action screen and the top screen now shows both tanks facing each other. With a crew of up to three other slimes, you take ammo (which is randomly chosen from a user-made thirty-item list) that falls from chutes and throw it into one of two cannons. The cannons then shoot the items across at the other tank via the top screen. Each piece of ammo deals a different amount of damage if it lands a hit. You can also shot yourself over to the enemy's tank to cause havoc inside!

One of the more endearing facets of the tank battles is the ammo and crew itself. Ammo consists of all the items you have collected previously in the action areas, which includes rocks, giant weights, rockets, ninja stars, humongous swords and chili peppers. Watching the top screen fill with ninja stars and giant swords is quite an amusing sight! As for your crew, they start out as some of the slimes you rescue, but if you send enough of one enemy class back to town then they offer their assistance. Most crewmembers have two different types of order, generally one that involves ammo loading and a special order, such as protect main slime, steal ammo or sneak into the other tank and sabotage it. Don't expect too much from your crew though, as their A.I. is pretty basic, which can lead to many boneheaded, make you scream at them moments.

The main quest takes around ten to twelve hours to finish, but add on all the side quests, optional tank battles and alchemy along with the monster, tank and item collecting, and you easily have over twenty hours of gameplay. But way after you have exhausted that, the multiplayer keeps you coming back for more. There are some mini-game, single card games you can pass onto others who don't have the game, but the meat of multiplayer comes in the form multi-card tank battles. Using your single player ammo list and crew, as well as being able to use any tank you have defeated, you can battle with up to three other friends wirelessly, split between two teams. Working out tactics with your friends, causing mischief in your opponent's tank and pulling momentum-changing moves quickly becomes a rambunctious venture that never fails to entertain. With the near unlimited level of customization that comes with each player's ammo, crew and tank selection, not to mention play tactics, it would be very hard to replicate a single battle twice.

Though the lack of any Wi-Fi options is disappointing, my only real complaint about multiplayer is that it keeps you playing after your friendly battles finish. There are always more items to find and create, new crewmembers to recruit and new tanks to unlock - and with new additions come new battle tactics and ammo lists to try it. A vicious circle this game creates.

All of this gameplay is wrapped into a wonderful, though essentially touch-screenless, presentation. The graphics, as I stated above, are bright, colorful and happy. Enemies are all based upon enemies from the Dragon Quest series, with designs taken straight from the last game for the PS2, Journey of the Cursed King. The animations are solid as well, with slimes jiggling, zombies crawling forth from the dirt and hammerhoods crying over lost hammers. Each area has its own distinctive look, as does each screen you move around. Leaves move as you walk over them and water breaks around your steps. There is never a feeling of walking through template levels - this game is not going to win any technical awards for its graphics, but the effective simplicity yet again works in Rocket Slime's favor.

The music is awesome, mixing new tracks with impressively reproduced Journey of the Cursed King tracks. The stereo capabilities of the DS are really put to the test, with each bubbly, bouncing orchestrated song, many that have the feel of war marches, flowing out loud and in charge. I love the Plob song, with its vocal samples and cool grooves. Sound effects are just as exceptional - there are great bouncing sounds for all the different things Rocket eventually runs into - including yelps from all the characters, carts clanking along tracks and slimes splashing in puddles.

As complicated as games can end up being, it's very nice to be able to pick up and play a simple, enjoyable game like Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime every now and then. It also helps when the game is deceptively simple, hiding cavern deep gameplay underneath. Rocket Slime makes all that inside time we have to look forward to as fall paves way for winter worthwhile.

P.S. A note to UK gamers: I think this would be a great time to remind everyone that DS games are region-free, meaning that waiting to see if Square-Enix will release Rocket Slime in Europe would be a severe waste of time that could be spent blasting your mates with giant spiked clubs, bear traps and meteorites!

Reviewed by Tony Peters for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).