What I've played from this developer; Shin'en, has always left me a bit unsatisfied.
They're clearly extremely talented at coding with what they can pull of on basic hardware, creating pseudo-3D games and impressive 3D rendered environments with convincing visual depth and you can always count on an incredible soundtrack to go with it, with uncompressed sound that rivals the best the Game Boy Advance can handle, they have a lot of potential as a developer.
But every game I'd played from them pre-2015 was underdeveloped or unpolished. Terrible hit detection, bad visibility, and repetitive games that wear out their welcome quickly. Something like Iridion II comes very close to being a solid game (and I would still recommend trying it), but difficulty balancing, useless weapons, mindless boss fights that go on for too long, and basic enemy patterns hold it back from being great, there's elements of the dreaded "euro shootemup" design in many of their games.
I've always liked games they made in spite of all of that, because the aesthetics and sound were that amazing.
Something like Maya the Bee: Sweet Gold (and Great Adventure) is unassuming, considering it's a licensed game I had even less faith in it, I thought, surely this is a terrible low effort shovelware game.
No, it's actually the opposite, I was very pleasantly surprised once I started playing this, as it turns out this is probably their best game (that I've played so far).
It's the last Gameboy Advance game developed by this team and it looks and plays like it. From the very first level in the game the player is presented with very clean visuals, fluid animation, and a surprising amount of background layers with visual depth, while this really catchy theme is playing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS8y1OUT9H0
Out of the 6 world themes none had underwhelming music, and every level has some kind of nice visual effect. Whether it's ridiculous parallax
https://youtu.be/eAKN2UzwnT4
Transparent background layers https://youtu.be/uq0wGG-iVy0
weather effects https://youtu.be/ctNlewHfYho
lighting effects, or just a nice looking background, the game is consistently appealing visually.
The game plays like a late-era Snes game, movement is smooth and responsive, and there's a small hover move that can be done after jumping making hitting enemies and landing on small platforms more manageable.
One neat and unique mechanic is that the hover move is limited, and has to be recharged with an item throughout each level, there ends up being some light strategy and puzzle solving with conserving it and making it last for when it's needed to clear a wide gap or get some extra height.
The gameplay consists of jumping on enemies, collecting many items scattered throughout the levels to earn extra lives, and a goal somewhere at the end of the level, it's pretty standard.
What makes this fun to play despite the simple and familiar gameplay is the level design and theming, every level has many secret areas to find and they're often intuitive or just hidden well enough to be a challenge to find but not to the point of frustration.
The camera seemed like it was going to be a significant issue more-so with the small screen size advance games have, but thankfully there's a look up/down function mapped to L and R, and the camera doesn't move around too much or too little to be annoying.
Besides that there's a some variety introduced with level specific gimmicks, push-able objects that are part of small puzzles, round objects that roll down hills and can be used to avoid spikes, moving platforms, or objects that need to be stomped from above to be broken that block paths.
Again it's all standard but well implemented, in fact all of these things are near identical to the game Yoshi's Island, even the visual effects that were used, it never reaches that level of ingenuity or brilliance but it's competent at least and keeps the game from getting too repetitive.
So the game isn't very original, players won't find anything groundbreaking or unique here, but it's well designed enough within more open larger levels to stand out and be enjoyable to play in it's own way.
Repetition almost sets in before the environment changes or a different mechanic is introduced, there's also some completely vertical levels which is not something often seen in 2D platformers and works really well with the mechanics the game uses.
It's also a pretty easy game, I only played on the hard mode, which just removes checkpoints and health refills and I still barely had any struggles getting through this game.
It's very laid-back, I would describe this as a comfy game. the clean colorful visuals, nice weather effects, and charming music all make this a very easygoing cozy game, overall it's just pleasant to play.
After beating the game there's an "arcade" mode where all the collectibles are tracked, and getting all of them is acknowledged by the game.
I had more fun playing this way with a real goal in mind, and it means completely exploring every level.
So it's a solid game, but there are some issues. Collecting everything and beating the game unlocks a sound test and image gallery, but that's it, beating the game on hard doesn't seem to do anything either, it takes awhile to fully complete arcade mode, it would have been great to unlock some kind of extra content within the main game, but there isn't much of a reward at all, it's kind of a letdown.
Hit detection is pretty good overall, but a few enemies have unpredictable movement or are harder to jump on than they should be so there were a few deaths that were unfair, some obstacles like falling icicles blend in with the background or fall from off-screen and I got hit by them constantly, the ice levels were dreadful to play because of that, falling obstacles are hard to react to.
Worst of all there are no boss fights, considering how platformer bosses usually end up it's not much of a loss, but some kind of added challenge, especially at the very end would have made more of an impact, otherwise it feels like the game ends suddenly with no real conflict. Instead of boss fights the game has these odd flying stages, they're all the same besides the background changing for each world, it's just avoiding enemies for a few minutes as the level scrolls by until it ends, there's no combat and they're also very easy.
It's definitely not a perfect game, the highs aren't nearly as great as the best you'd find in something like Mario, Yoshi, or DKC, it's derivative and doesn't take as much risks as it could and isn't quite as ambitious or creative as the best of the genre, but there aren't really any low points and for a licensed Gameboy Advance platformer it's much better than it needed to be.
This doesn't set the standard for licensed child-friendly platformers, but it comes awfully close. An overall pleasant experience with great graphics and some nice music.
It's a shame copies of this are so hard to find and that the game only released in PAL regions, anyone looking for a decent GBA 2D platformer that isn't a Mario port or licensed shovelware should find a way to play this.
They're clearly extremely talented at coding with what they can pull of on basic hardware, creating pseudo-3D games and impressive 3D rendered environments with convincing visual depth and you can always count on an incredible soundtrack to go with it, with uncompressed sound that rivals the best the Game Boy Advance can handle, they have a lot of potential as a developer.
But every game I'd played from them pre-2015 was underdeveloped or unpolished. Terrible hit detection, bad visibility, and repetitive games that wear out their welcome quickly. Something like Iridion II comes very close to being a solid game (and I would still recommend trying it), but difficulty balancing, useless weapons, mindless boss fights that go on for too long, and basic enemy patterns hold it back from being great, there's elements of the dreaded "euro shootemup" design in many of their games.
I've always liked games they made in spite of all of that, because the aesthetics and sound were that amazing.
Something like Maya the Bee: Sweet Gold (and Great Adventure) is unassuming, considering it's a licensed game I had even less faith in it, I thought, surely this is a terrible low effort shovelware game.
No, it's actually the opposite, I was very pleasantly surprised once I started playing this, as it turns out this is probably their best game (that I've played so far).
It's the last Gameboy Advance game developed by this team and it looks and plays like it. From the very first level in the game the player is presented with very clean visuals, fluid animation, and a surprising amount of background layers with visual depth, while this really catchy theme is playing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS8y1OUT9H0
Out of the 6 world themes none had underwhelming music, and every level has some kind of nice visual effect. Whether it's ridiculous parallax
https://youtu.be/eAKN2UzwnT4
Transparent background layers https://youtu.be/uq0wGG-iVy0
weather effects https://youtu.be/ctNlewHfYho
lighting effects, or just a nice looking background, the game is consistently appealing visually.
The game plays like a late-era Snes game, movement is smooth and responsive, and there's a small hover move that can be done after jumping making hitting enemies and landing on small platforms more manageable.
One neat and unique mechanic is that the hover move is limited, and has to be recharged with an item throughout each level, there ends up being some light strategy and puzzle solving with conserving it and making it last for when it's needed to clear a wide gap or get some extra height.
The gameplay consists of jumping on enemies, collecting many items scattered throughout the levels to earn extra lives, and a goal somewhere at the end of the level, it's pretty standard.
What makes this fun to play despite the simple and familiar gameplay is the level design and theming, every level has many secret areas to find and they're often intuitive or just hidden well enough to be a challenge to find but not to the point of frustration.
The camera seemed like it was going to be a significant issue more-so with the small screen size advance games have, but thankfully there's a look up/down function mapped to L and R, and the camera doesn't move around too much or too little to be annoying.
Besides that there's a some variety introduced with level specific gimmicks, push-able objects that are part of small puzzles, round objects that roll down hills and can be used to avoid spikes, moving platforms, or objects that need to be stomped from above to be broken that block paths.
Again it's all standard but well implemented, in fact all of these things are near identical to the game Yoshi's Island, even the visual effects that were used, it never reaches that level of ingenuity or brilliance but it's competent at least and keeps the game from getting too repetitive.
So the game isn't very original, players won't find anything groundbreaking or unique here, but it's well designed enough within more open larger levels to stand out and be enjoyable to play in it's own way.
Repetition almost sets in before the environment changes or a different mechanic is introduced, there's also some completely vertical levels which is not something often seen in 2D platformers and works really well with the mechanics the game uses.
It's also a pretty easy game, I only played on the hard mode, which just removes checkpoints and health refills and I still barely had any struggles getting through this game.
It's very laid-back, I would describe this as a comfy game. the clean colorful visuals, nice weather effects, and charming music all make this a very easygoing cozy game, overall it's just pleasant to play.
After beating the game there's an "arcade" mode where all the collectibles are tracked, and getting all of them is acknowledged by the game.
I had more fun playing this way with a real goal in mind, and it means completely exploring every level.
So it's a solid game, but there are some issues. Collecting everything and beating the game unlocks a sound test and image gallery, but that's it, beating the game on hard doesn't seem to do anything either, it takes awhile to fully complete arcade mode, it would have been great to unlock some kind of extra content within the main game, but there isn't much of a reward at all, it's kind of a letdown.
Hit detection is pretty good overall, but a few enemies have unpredictable movement or are harder to jump on than they should be so there were a few deaths that were unfair, some obstacles like falling icicles blend in with the background or fall from off-screen and I got hit by them constantly, the ice levels were dreadful to play because of that, falling obstacles are hard to react to.
Worst of all there are no boss fights, considering how platformer bosses usually end up it's not much of a loss, but some kind of added challenge, especially at the very end would have made more of an impact, otherwise it feels like the game ends suddenly with no real conflict. Instead of boss fights the game has these odd flying stages, they're all the same besides the background changing for each world, it's just avoiding enemies for a few minutes as the level scrolls by until it ends, there's no combat and they're also very easy.
It's definitely not a perfect game, the highs aren't nearly as great as the best you'd find in something like Mario, Yoshi, or DKC, it's derivative and doesn't take as much risks as it could and isn't quite as ambitious or creative as the best of the genre, but there aren't really any low points and for a licensed Gameboy Advance platformer it's much better than it needed to be.
This doesn't set the standard for licensed child-friendly platformers, but it comes awfully close. An overall pleasant experience with great graphics and some nice music.
It's a shame copies of this are so hard to find and that the game only released in PAL regions, anyone looking for a decent GBA 2D platformer that isn't a Mario port or licensed shovelware should find a way to play this.