Early last year my house was invaded with Krawl. No, seriously it was. Nasty creatures… sucking up the known universe and stuff. It was a good thing that my son and I had elicited the aid of Rallen, Jeena and the Spectrobes to send the beasties back where they belong! Of course, until we lost. Disney is giving us a new chance to face the foe, stand up and be mighty, and send the Krawl back to the void whence they came with the second installment in this series, Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals. Steven Dodson, Brand Manager for Spectrobes tore himself away from the battle to answer a few questions my kids and I had about what to expect in this new invasion.

GamersInfo.net: One of the more unique and fun aspects of the original game was mining for Spectrobes. Has this changed at all?

Steven Dodson: We’ve enhanced excavation by narrowing the toolset and making them more relevant. They’re now environmentally based. Fossils still come out of rock but now they also come out of other environments like water or lava. These “special” excavations use a unique tool. You would use water to remove a Spectrobe from lava. It cools down the lava, but then the lava seeps back in.

Also, after you use a tool a few times you become proficient and then will begin excavating at 100% proficiency.

GamersInfo.net: My son loves singing to awaken the fossilized Spectrobes. He knew exactly what to do to change them to the color he wanted. Is this feature still included?

Steven Dodson: Singing is now built into every awakening. We’ve now added tone as well as volume to change the color of any Spectrobe. When you awaken each Spectrobe, to obtain one of the 3 colors within its property you’ll need to alter your voice accordingly.

GamersInfo.net: You mentioned properties. The fire/ice/grass-like properties from before will be back?

Steven Dodson: Yes, the rock-paper-scissors feel of the aurora, corona and flash properties will return and will feature more prominently in this version The Krawl also have these properties. In the previous game, all vortices were purple before you entered and battled the Krawl. Now, the color of the vortex will tell you the properties of the Krawl inside, allowing you to change the Spectrobes you take in as primary. Only when you come upon a purple vortex will the property of the Krawl be unknown to you and only then could there be Krawl of two different properties.

Fighting in the vortices has also changed. In order to give Rallen a more active role in the battle, he is no longer in the vortices. He uses his weapons on the field. He defeats Kral on the field using his sword, blaster and globe. Rallen will gain experience allowing him to upgrade his items.

Once you enter the vortex, Rallen will control the Spectrobes rather then enter with them as in the previous title. He will also control one Spectrobe at a time, using more specific commands while the other attacks as necessary; you simply switch between then. Combo attacks are still possible with fantastic animations rather than cutscenes as before. However, rather than running around avoiding the Krawl, you’ll need to attack them to charge your combo meter.

Gina also becomes playable. She has special missions where she is out in the field with mini-games to unlock doors, etc. Still moves the story along – letting you know what’s happening as the story takes place shortly after the first game ended.

GamersInfo.net: Spectrobes was just as fun for the non-combat portions as it was for the combat. That is why we enjoyed the excavating so much. The lab where Spectrobes were evolved was fun but rather cumbersome. Has anything been done to simplify the process?

Steven Dodson: We’ve made it considerably easier to understand what the Spectrobes need to do to evolve – what level they need to be, what minerals they need to eat, what stats are necessary to get to the next state…

There are still “friendship” bonuses between Spectrobes that have evolved together but you will have a better understanding of what that means and it’s easier to keep them in pairs. In the first title, once you developed a good working team, there was rarely a reason to switch it out. Some of the changes we made will encourage you to build a deeper team – deeper sets of teams.

And, if you have a favorite set from the first title, all of your Spectrobes from the first game can be transferred in.

After the conference call I had to run and get my kids from school. They peppered me with more questions than I had ever considered asking! The younger wants to do all of the excavating and evolving; the older wants to “take them all out”. Me? I’m just going to enjoy the two of them playing in the other room for a few months until they defeat the Krawl, hopefully once and for all.