InimitableUman
This review contains spoilers
An interesting concept with, unfortunately, a largely fumbled execution. Games made previously to this one, such as Her Story, understood that you do not want to ask players to type in full sentences to view clips in this style of game, and even though this game has some measures in place to make it so you don't need to do that as much (single words often do work, and the game provides many of the questions for you to pick from), the amount you DO still need to type full questions, especially if you want to hear everything possible, still makes the game quite tedious.
Even if the devs were thinking "Her Story can do its thing, WE actually DO want players to type in full questions"...Well, I have some bad news for you, it's just not very fun, especially with a controller.
The actors are good and the story actually comes off as very interesting for much of the game's fairly long runtime, but it seems to lead to no real resolution. So many things seem like they kind of get to a boiling point and then...almost nothing. Someone kills you too, at least in the ending I got. But who and why? I tried to help all of them. What about Dekker? Everyone seemed to think he was still alive and feeding some creature. Then you find the murderer (I guessed correctly the first time, yay!), and all that just goes away. Alderby and Jaya are the real culprits, or something, but what are they trying to do?
I wonder how the game changes depending on who the murderer is. In my game, the murderer was unwilling, was hypnotized to do it. Is the only thing that changes who was hypnotized, or does the method change too? I certainly hope so.
It's an interesting concept but I came away from it thinking that these characters' stories might be better presented as a movie or some other type of content, and I'm sorry to the devs for saying that because I'm sure that'd be just about the last thing they'd want to hear.
Even if the devs were thinking "Her Story can do its thing, WE actually DO want players to type in full questions"...Well, I have some bad news for you, it's just not very fun, especially with a controller.
The actors are good and the story actually comes off as very interesting for much of the game's fairly long runtime, but it seems to lead to no real resolution. So many things seem like they kind of get to a boiling point and then...almost nothing. Someone kills you too, at least in the ending I got. But who and why? I tried to help all of them. What about Dekker? Everyone seemed to think he was still alive and feeding some creature. Then you find the murderer (I guessed correctly the first time, yay!), and all that just goes away. Alderby and Jaya are the real culprits, or something, but what are they trying to do?
I wonder how the game changes depending on who the murderer is. In my game, the murderer was unwilling, was hypnotized to do it. Is the only thing that changes who was hypnotized, or does the method change too? I certainly hope so.
It's an interesting concept but I came away from it thinking that these characters' stories might be better presented as a movie or some other type of content, and I'm sorry to the devs for saying that because I'm sure that'd be just about the last thing they'd want to hear.
The game is starting to wear a little thin, especially with how overpowered some of the characters you get here are. But I like that the game's done a UK-flavored DLC, and I like that there's some story here, though the basics are only laid out in the description and not in the game itself.
A legit fun minigame collection with a huge amount of Nintendo Polish, that generated discussion and often derision because of its odd take on microtransactions - where everyone conveniently forgot to mention that the game A) leads you to getting the lowest price on nearly every game fairly easily provided you play the ones you buy a little before buying the next one, and B) that price is usually around $1.50, meaning the full price of the game will be, for nearly every player - and these are players who clearly like the game if they're buying everything, not people being cajoled in some way - 15 bucks.
And you're getting a fair amount of content for this. You only need to buy six minigames to complete the weird, somewhat endearing story about this complete failure of a dog/dad, and there's 3 extra minigames along with one final thingy that lets you do something else (look it up if you want to know). Each game has 25 basic challenges (5 levels each of 5 sub-games - microgames? Did Wario trademark that? Probably, knowing him - themed around the same aspect of baseball) and 25 advanced challenges. The higher levels of even the normal challenges are pretty tough, and the advanced ones are advanced as heck. If you like a hand-eye-coordination challenge but don't want to play a rhythm game, this is the game for you. If you like playing the game a lot you'll be tackling up to 450 challenges there, plus the 2 unlockable high score challenges for each game - 468, then. Worth 15 bucks in my opinion.
The game isn't perfect, I think the minigames are fun enough that the presentation surrounding them could have been more robust - even just a little 3D world to run around in like in NintendoLand - and you should get more for winning some of the tougher challenges. What you get isn't great - just 3D Dioramas, and costumes for the high score modes. But, this game is all about the love of the game of baseball, so I guess that's what the devs expect you to have when you play it. You're not doing this for dioramas or costumes for your Mii. You're doing this to hear the crack of the bat, or the...whatever the noise is when the ball lands in your glove. It's a very "NIntendo" thing, and they wanted people to know that this is what the game is about so much that they mentioned it when they first revealed it in a Nintendo Direct.
It's not gonna be for everyone. And maybe there are some poor kids out there who are somehow spending more on this game than they should be. But for what it generally is, a 15-dollar baseball-themed minigame collection, damn did I have fun. I hope we get to see Rusty and the fam again, someday, somewhere.
And you're getting a fair amount of content for this. You only need to buy six minigames to complete the weird, somewhat endearing story about this complete failure of a dog/dad, and there's 3 extra minigames along with one final thingy that lets you do something else (look it up if you want to know). Each game has 25 basic challenges (5 levels each of 5 sub-games - microgames? Did Wario trademark that? Probably, knowing him - themed around the same aspect of baseball) and 25 advanced challenges. The higher levels of even the normal challenges are pretty tough, and the advanced ones are advanced as heck. If you like a hand-eye-coordination challenge but don't want to play a rhythm game, this is the game for you. If you like playing the game a lot you'll be tackling up to 450 challenges there, plus the 2 unlockable high score challenges for each game - 468, then. Worth 15 bucks in my opinion.
The game isn't perfect, I think the minigames are fun enough that the presentation surrounding them could have been more robust - even just a little 3D world to run around in like in NintendoLand - and you should get more for winning some of the tougher challenges. What you get isn't great - just 3D Dioramas, and costumes for the high score modes. But, this game is all about the love of the game of baseball, so I guess that's what the devs expect you to have when you play it. You're not doing this for dioramas or costumes for your Mii. You're doing this to hear the crack of the bat, or the...whatever the noise is when the ball lands in your glove. It's a very "NIntendo" thing, and they wanted people to know that this is what the game is about so much that they mentioned it when they first revealed it in a Nintendo Direct.
It's not gonna be for everyone. And maybe there are some poor kids out there who are somehow spending more on this game than they should be. But for what it generally is, a 15-dollar baseball-themed minigame collection, damn did I have fun. I hope we get to see Rusty and the fam again, someday, somewhere.
2008
You get what you pay for. There are paper planes and weird spoken voice lines. I bought it on 3DS when the eshop was about to close because I like WarioWare.
1992
Very short, though it does include a New Game+ mode that's substantially harder. It's impressive how much of the DNA of the series is in this game, considering that the main thing Kirby is known for - his copy abilities - isn't in it. It's also interesting to see what they did NOT bring forward - Kirby being able to inflate himself to a massive size, and appearing to live among a whole bunch of other Kirbys - I think this is why clones of him often dance along with him when he clears levels in later games. It's such a dynamic game compared to, I imagine, many others at the time, I'm sure reviewers back then must have thought it was like playing an animated movie.
2008
And so, night falls on the illustrious Peggle Institute. When dreamtime comes, what imaginary worlds do our vaunted Peggle Masters traverse? What illusory paths do they walk? Dream together with them as you bounce your way thorough all-new levels. Use the Masters' magical abilities to bring your score ever higher. And what's this? Could a NEW prospective Peggle Master be making their pilgrimage to the Academy, under cover of night? Perhaps.
Adventure Mode Total Score: 21,536,730
Adventure Mode Total Score: 21,536,730
2007
A really good, funny, quick time that I had no idea existed. Just a joyous collaboration between two massive companies because one liked the work of the other. Aside from Bjorn's sorry state on the cover there, they don't go too far with putting the cute Peggle Masters in peril, which I appreciated.
A good game to play in one sitting. Has some annoying bits (the "simon says"-type puzzles" but it doesn't last long enough to really get that annoyed by them. The small team that made this put forward an impressive effort that's clearly inspired by one of my favorite games, The Witness. Can't say I understood the story, but there's some kind of story.
2013
One of the best first-person puzzlers in a world where inferior ones like Maquette or Superliminal (both pretty good in their own right) are more well-known just because they're more recent. Alexander Bruce needs to drop another game NOW.
2012
Underappreciated because, as is seen again and again and again in any type of media, it just wasn't what gamers wanted or expected at that time. But it's a great minigame collection with a really cool toybox sort of aesthetic and loving tributes to all of Nintendo's well-known franchises and a couple that aren't well-known. I'm really going to miss some of the cool functionality you could do with the Wii U that you can't do with the Switch.
2D Mario is just always good. I know people say the NSMB series sort of oversaturated us with it, but honestly, there were just four of them and then they completely stopped and pivoted to doing Mario Maker, there would have needed to be like 7 in that same timespan (between then and now) for these games to still be seen that way. Give them another chance if you like Mario and it's been a long time since you played.
2011
The finale of this is one of the all-time bests. This is a classic example of "sequel that's markedly different from the original but still totally works".
2011
This game is an incredible capstone for the series and was such a wild trip for me to play. I was just about to graduate high school and was not very familiar with trippy or experimental media, so it (all these games, but especially this one) hit me at just the right time. "Meta", wherever the word is used, will always be associated with this game to me.
2009
An incredible formative game for a teenage me - and no, not in that way!! It just informed the kind of half-crazy, half-serious, heart-on-its-sleeve vibe I love to see in games and media in general.
It's been really crazy to play this game in 2010 (when it came out in the US), and then over several years see it go from being a largely unknown game where the primary audience was considered to be horny guys, to a well-respected hack-and-slash with a GOTY sequel, to a SMASH BROS-worthy franchise (one of the most incredible surprises of my life - I always wanted Bayo in Smash but thought it was such an impossibility that I put Bit.Trip's CommanderVideo on the Smash poll instead of her), to now being not just all of those things, but also having Bayonetta be an icon for feminist and LGBT gamers. Things did not start out that way, let me tell you.
The plot of this game is actually good, also.
It's been really crazy to play this game in 2010 (when it came out in the US), and then over several years see it go from being a largely unknown game where the primary audience was considered to be horny guys, to a well-respected hack-and-slash with a GOTY sequel, to a SMASH BROS-worthy franchise (one of the most incredible surprises of my life - I always wanted Bayo in Smash but thought it was such an impossibility that I put Bit.Trip's CommanderVideo on the Smash poll instead of her), to now being not just all of those things, but also having Bayonetta be an icon for feminist and LGBT gamers. Things did not start out that way, let me tell you.
The plot of this game is actually good, also.
The fact that this happened is still so nuts and so cool. I really wish they'd re-release this game somehow.