Bowling for the Virtual Boy but worse.
Virtual Boy Complete - Game #10
Just like with Golf, I feel like I'm at a bit of a hard place to talk about this game because I don't have much experience with bowling - Golf made me interested in golf, it was a fun title that made me want to learn more about the sport and its game adaptations. Mario's Tennis was a boring game I felt nothing towards that luckily was based on a sport I've already enjoyed video games of. Nester's Funky Bowling, on the other hand, is in a sort of middle zone leaning a little more towards the Mario's Tennis side of things. It doesn't make me interested in bowling, but I at least felt kinda engaged? The bowling mechanics are good enough, find a spot; stop; and then roll at the right point, I couldn't see anything wrong with it, it's just kinda of a boring bowling game. The challenge mode, which I assume isn't original by any means, but is a bit more interesting, as you're given a patterns of pins and have to take it down with a single ball. It really just feels like a minigame rather than a fully fledged thing, that would be fun for 5 minutes or so, there aren't any alternate ball weights as far as I could tell, nor were there different terrain floors.
My real gripe with Nester's Funky Bowling, really, is the hook of the game: Nester himself. Nester has the bad attitude you'd expect from a kid who hangs out with a fictionalised version of a monopolistic 80s video game CEO - anything short of a strike will set him off. Two pins left? Throws a temper tantrum with a 90s CGI pre-rendered uvula shot. One pin left? Mocks you by undergoing rapid tissue necrosis. It's on-character for the comics, where Nester is a bit of a show-off and constantly having Garfield thought bubbles mocking people, basically serving as a foil that Howard accidentally upstages with his honesty, but there's only like 8 animations after a roll and 6 of them are negative, with one positive for taking down all the pins in a second roll and one positive for a strike - Nester himself doesn't even appear in the strike animation! I don't mind game characters being bad sports, in fact I prefer it if anything, but it just comes off as frustrating when absolutely NOTHING can please this lil' brat, and the things that could turn him from sore-loser to sore-winner you don't even see the reactions to.
Yet, I do think the novelty of Nester showing up in a game for once does place it a bit above Mario's Tennis, given how historically disconnected Nintendo's multimedia extensions and advertising have been from their games compared to other companies. Nester actually gets referenced a bit in US-exclusive Nintendo games, but not counting Lark (a character from Pilotwings 64 who is essentially just Nester with a different name), he's only shown up in a physical form here. I guess on a tangent unrelated to the game, the cartoon character of Howard has had a similar "felt-but-not-seen" impact to the real world Howard Lincoln on modern Nintendo, establishing the cult-of-personality that views corporate suits in the same light as fictional superheroes, and that's led to bad things, like Reggie's post-Nintendo misadventures in cryptocurrency and Twitter child harassment, so I do find there to be something a bit off about Nester through guilt-by-association - he's a fun character, but I can't say him being phased out of the Nintendo brand is too much of a shame, as funny as a Nester V-tuber hosting Nintendo Directs would be. Or maybe it's just the way his hairline is drawn, that might be what's off about Nester to me.
(I spent more time writing the tangent about parasocial relationships that has nothing to do with the game than the actual review. Virtual Boy Complete is not a serious academic review, in case you couldn't tell, it's all first impressions. Haven't done a tangent here before, and I'm not sure if any other VB games necessiate it - Waterworld maybe? But since Waterworld is last I'll probably want to prioritise summarising my feelings as a whole about the VB over Costner talk)
Just like with Golf, I feel like I'm at a bit of a hard place to talk about this game because I don't have much experience with bowling - Golf made me interested in golf, it was a fun title that made me want to learn more about the sport and its game adaptations. Mario's Tennis was a boring game I felt nothing towards that luckily was based on a sport I've already enjoyed video games of. Nester's Funky Bowling, on the other hand, is in a sort of middle zone leaning a little more towards the Mario's Tennis side of things. It doesn't make me interested in bowling, but I at least felt kinda engaged? The bowling mechanics are good enough, find a spot; stop; and then roll at the right point, I couldn't see anything wrong with it, it's just kinda of a boring bowling game. The challenge mode, which I assume isn't original by any means, but is a bit more interesting, as you're given a patterns of pins and have to take it down with a single ball. It really just feels like a minigame rather than a fully fledged thing, that would be fun for 5 minutes or so, there aren't any alternate ball weights as far as I could tell, nor were there different terrain floors.
My real gripe with Nester's Funky Bowling, really, is the hook of the game: Nester himself. Nester has the bad attitude you'd expect from a kid who hangs out with a fictionalised version of a monopolistic 80s video game CEO - anything short of a strike will set him off. Two pins left? Throws a temper tantrum with a 90s CGI pre-rendered uvula shot. One pin left? Mocks you by undergoing rapid tissue necrosis. It's on-character for the comics, where Nester is a bit of a show-off and constantly having Garfield thought bubbles mocking people, basically serving as a foil that Howard accidentally upstages with his honesty, but there's only like 8 animations after a roll and 6 of them are negative, with one positive for taking down all the pins in a second roll and one positive for a strike - Nester himself doesn't even appear in the strike animation! I don't mind game characters being bad sports, in fact I prefer it if anything, but it just comes off as frustrating when absolutely NOTHING can please this lil' brat, and the things that could turn him from sore-loser to sore-winner you don't even see the reactions to.
Yet, I do think the novelty of Nester showing up in a game for once does place it a bit above Mario's Tennis, given how historically disconnected Nintendo's multimedia extensions and advertising have been from their games compared to other companies. Nester actually gets referenced a bit in US-exclusive Nintendo games, but not counting Lark (a character from Pilotwings 64 who is essentially just Nester with a different name), he's only shown up in a physical form here. I guess on a tangent unrelated to the game, the cartoon character of Howard has had a similar "felt-but-not-seen" impact to the real world Howard Lincoln on modern Nintendo, establishing the cult-of-personality that views corporate suits in the same light as fictional superheroes, and that's led to bad things, like Reggie's post-Nintendo misadventures in cryptocurrency and Twitter child harassment, so I do find there to be something a bit off about Nester through guilt-by-association - he's a fun character, but I can't say him being phased out of the Nintendo brand is too much of a shame, as funny as a Nester V-tuber hosting Nintendo Directs would be. Or maybe it's just the way his hairline is drawn, that might be what's off about Nester to me.
(I spent more time writing the tangent about parasocial relationships that has nothing to do with the game than the actual review. Virtual Boy Complete is not a serious academic review, in case you couldn't tell, it's all first impressions. Haven't done a tangent here before, and I'm not sure if any other VB games necessiate it - Waterworld maybe? But since Waterworld is last I'll probably want to prioritise summarising my feelings as a whole about the VB over Costner talk)
Gore, vore, violence, balding, pain.
hard to play without the 3d, but its alright
The scene where nester went "it's funking time!" and funked on everyone made me shed a tear
I have not played this game yet, but I need you all to know that nester is one of few Nintendo characters to canonically have sex
The most interesting thing about this game is that it has Nester from the Nintendo Power comics (whom I have no attachment to having never read those comics so......)
It's bowling! In 3D! and there's some really wacky American style humour animations after you take a shot! Gameplay for this is incredibly simple, you move left and right to line up a shot, press A as a bar moves left and right to determine the spin of your shot and then press A on a power meter to determine the power of your shot and that's it. It's the first bowling game I've played where you can't angle your stance so it feels really basic compared to other titles I've played.
Modes are extremely limited too. You've got bowl, which is a regular 10 shots on ten pin bowling, practice, that let's you set up the pins how you want and try knocking them down, and finally challenge, which sees the pins set up in a manner where you would try and get a spare. There's also a 2 player mode where you alternate shots with another player but yeah.... this is another basic and bare bones Virtual Boy title except even the 3D effect is minimal too.
The novelty of Nester getting his own game aside, this is a pretty average bowling game that wears thin pretty quickly.
It's bowling! In 3D! and there's some really wacky American style humour animations after you take a shot! Gameplay for this is incredibly simple, you move left and right to line up a shot, press A as a bar moves left and right to determine the spin of your shot and then press A on a power meter to determine the power of your shot and that's it. It's the first bowling game I've played where you can't angle your stance so it feels really basic compared to other titles I've played.
Modes are extremely limited too. You've got bowl, which is a regular 10 shots on ten pin bowling, practice, that let's you set up the pins how you want and try knocking them down, and finally challenge, which sees the pins set up in a manner where you would try and get a spare. There's also a 2 player mode where you alternate shots with another player but yeah.... this is another basic and bare bones Virtual Boy title except even the 3D effect is minimal too.
The novelty of Nester getting his own game aside, this is a pretty average bowling game that wears thin pretty quickly.
The friction between your digital ball and its sickly alley is so alien and unnatural.
It's bowling; it would've been pretty hard to mess this up.
I didn't play it in 3D, so I feel I might've missed something, but as someone who grew up with Nintendo Power, I'm glad to finally experience this legend.
I didn't play it in 3D, so I feel I might've missed something, but as someone who grew up with Nintendo Power, I'm glad to finally experience this legend.
bad energies all around. doesnt feel good to play either and gives u no real incentive to get better at it, but thats less important than the bad energies. really bad energies (played with the sbs mode on that one retroarch core idr the name of)
I guess that's one way to spice up a generic bowling game: add a magazine mascot to it. I remember playing a whole game of this, and, much like every Virtual Boy game, my eyes will never forgive me for it.