''Ribbit King'' is a 2003

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed by Infinity and Jamsworks and published by

Bandai is a Japanese multinational toy manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Taitō, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Toys & Collectables America and Bandai UK, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California and Richmond ...

for the Nintendo GameCube and

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

. The game is based on the fictional sport of Frolf (ケロフ), which is a

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

-like game that is played with

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

s. The frogs sit on catapults, which the player whacks with a hammer to send the frog flying into the air. It is the successor to ''Kero Kero King'', released only in Japan in 2000 for the

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Gameplay

The objective is to earn the most points possible by landing the frog in the course's hole in the quickest time possible. Players can also earn points by sending their frogs through various spheres scattered through the level. In addition, they can score points by having their frogs eaten by giant snakes, by having their frogs swim, or by any number of other things. North American versions of ''Ribbit King'' come packaged with a bonus disc called ''Ribbit King Plus!'', which is an assortment of 28 short CGI films about Scooter and his friends. These films are unlocked during the main game. The main character of ''Ribbit King'' is a young carpenter named Scooter. Scooter is trying to become the Frolf Champion—or the namesake 'Ribbit King'—and in doing so win the 'Super Ribbinite', a fuel source his planet needs in order to survive. The game also includes such characters as a pile of rocks, a gumball machine, and a kung fu panda named Pan-Pan.

Characters

* * * * * * *, and * * and * * * *

''Ribbit King Plus!''

''Ribbit King Plus!'' is the bonus disc included with North American versions of the game, featuring unlockable short animations and requiring saved data on the memory card to be able to view the shorts. It was initially transmitted in Japan as a 30-episode series of shorts on the

TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certified b ...

weekday morning children's show '' Oha Suta'' from 16 June to 25 July 2003 to promote the game, under the title , before being released on a separate DVD at around the same time as the Japanese PlayStation 2 version of the game; however, three of the shorts were dropped from the North American version for unknown reasons. Exclusive to the disc is a two-minute video titled "Special", a montage of the various cutscenes from the story mode set to the main title theme of the game.

Episodes

''Kero Kero King''

is the predecessor to ''Ribbit King'', developed by Amedio and published by Media Factory. It was released exclusively in Japan on December 10th 2000 for the

. All of the unique art in the game and in the many FMVs featured inside the game are done by Japanese illustrator Yosuke Kihara. The gameplay follows a very similar formula as its sequel Ribbit King as it is a golf based game but uses a frog instead of the ball, allowing you to tweak the direction and height of the frog while also collection points throughout the courses. The frog is also able to jump off spider webs and jump to flies adding variance to the gameplay especially in versus mode. The are a total of 10 courses in the game with each game taking 10 rounds to complete and the person with the highest score wins. The story of Kero Kero King is summarized on its front cover as follows: ""Kerof" is the brand new exciting sports in the galaxy. The champion of the kerof is called "kerokeroking". But Nosukin, a little boy, is about to challenge him!!" The story also has Nosukin meeting many unique characters in games of kerof which you can unlock and use in versus mode.

Reception

The game received mixed reviews upon release. Aggregating review websites

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and

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gave the GameCube version 63.07% and 60/100 and the PlayStation 2 version 63.64% and 58/100. Former

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

journalist

Ryan Davis Ryan Davis may refer to: *Ryan Davis (defensive end) (born 1989), American football defensive end *Ryan Davis (wide receiver) (born 1997), gridiron football wide receiver *Ryan Davis (Australian footballer) (born 1989), Australian rules footballer ...

gave the PlayStation 2 version 5.9 out of 10, saying that it focused more on the bizarre storyline than the gameplay, while Mary Jane Irwin of

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

gave the GameCube and the PlayStation 2 versions a score of five out of ten. In Japan, ''

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

'' gave ''Kero Kero King'' a score of 30 out of 40.

References

External links

Ribbit King Official Website
*{{moby game, id=/ribbit-king 2000 video games 2003 video games Bandai games Golf video games Multiplayer and single-player video games GameCube games PlayStation (console) games PlayStation 2 games Video games about amphibians Video games developed in Japan