(Played the XBLA version via Rare Replay)
Eeeehhhhh I didn't like this one very much. Music's catchy, it looks nice, I love the characters and humor, and I find Grunty's Lair a great hub world, but it feels like the game peaks in Spiral Mountain, Mumbo's Mountain and Treasure Trove Cove, and then just drops further and further as it goes on, the exception being Mad Monster Mansion, which I thought was pretty fun (if a bit annoying from the gravestones and dying, more on that later).
Alongside that, collecting can be really annoying at points, the swimming and flying controls aren't very good (even with the sharp turn), the mapping of Wonderwing (at least on XBLA) is a bit dumb, some enemies requiring Wonderwing to be killed is dumb, having to go from the entrance back to wherever world you were at/going to when you reload a save gets annoying when you start getting to the later levels, the spamming of the hole enemies (especially on small platforms, usually leading you to falling off if they hit you) is annoying, the lives system is very dumb (though tbf, lives systems in collectathons in general is very dumb and shouldn't be a thing and (in the XBLA version) the only way to circumvent it disables saving, dying is a pain in the ass because it resets almost everything in the level, the lack of a reticle makes egg shooting and the beak bomb annoying to work with, and the fixed camera angles can obscure important things or screw you over.

(despite all the negative things I said) I don't think it's at all a bad game, but I don't think it's great either, and it's one I don't think I'm gonna want to come back to anytime soon.

Oh yeah also the last two phases of the final boss are horseshit.

Reviewed on Mar 08, 2024


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