First of all, there are some 60-70 minute gameplays of this game on Youtube. Those skip the grinding sections, so the game is waaaaaay longer than 1 hour. Second of all I will leave some lil tips for the game on the last paragraph. And third of all there is a translation available, and a Gamefaqs walkthrough.

I did enjoy it quite a bit, to summarize the gameplay there are two main parts of this fishing rpg game: fishing and RPG (woah!!). No complaints on the fishing side, it's required to get money so you can use it to upgrade some stuff like your fish bin or your rod; the minigame itself is simple, straight-forward and enjoyable. However the RPG fights are as grindy as anyone would expect from a NES (Famicom since this is JP only) game, and even though the battle system seems nice and refreshing at the beginning, requiring the player to select the weak point of the enemy with a crosshair that moves at random; it is not that nice after the plethora of combats that are needed to level up (you aren't even guaranteed to have a proper chance to hit the weak point on every single attack, making this even worse). Fighting is needed to level up, which increases your HP and combat prowess and lessens the chances of being mauled by a Raccoon.

Now for the tips (avoid this if you are nuts and you want to go 100% blind): levels 3/4/5 have fishable creatures (StrLzrd, Turtle and Snake) that won't be sold for any money but those will give a good amount of XP, so IMO this is a better and safer way to level up. I'd even advise to skip Map 2 asap and go to Map 3 to level up. Guide and walkthroughs end up reaching max lvl, while I do think that's fucking insane and overkill. I finished the game with level 24, I was completely unable to win a fight but considering that you get no penalties at all for dying you'll just need a bit of luck to move through maps (and some extra food to reach the final fish).

this may be trying to be a walking sim about nature, but even for its procedurally generated islands everything seems so notably artificial and lackluster of any kind of enthropy that it just ends up becoming an uninteresting experience without any surprises, kind of like how a basement dweller would picture the outside world. the only purpose of this game seems to be just bedazzle the player, but on the process it reduces its landscapes to pure eyecandy and its animals to boinging pixels that fart "ding dong ding" noises at you when you get closer, without any connection between the elements of its ecosystem.

i remember this game from being one of the launch titles available for gba, but after some googling it seems that they only released it on jp and eu wile skipping na, which is sad and may explain why it isnt that well known. anyway i bought rayman advance instead of kuru kuru kururin when i was a child so who cares.

the gameplay is simple, move the rotating stick across the map without hitting walls or obstacles while moving through narrow pathways to end up reaching the goal. pressing a/b speeds up the stick and pressing both at the same time speeds it up even more...and that's everything.

but oh boy this game doesn't stop delivering, as simple as it sounds it starts becoming more challenging and it makes you wonder things about how should you play: am i properly positioned to reach the other side? should i lose precision to gain speed or should i do a pixel perfect movement? is it worth it to get hit by a wall and get a 3 seconds penalty to rush the stage rather than do it correctly? should i risk it? if hare's records are so good then why isn't he the one getting my family together? all this choices can be taken in less than a second or you could take forever to plan your movements...while those 6 numbers on the left side of the screen are taunting you since you know, you could be doing it way faster and better! what will you choose? think faster or go suck it, you are third on the records!

howlongtobeat states that the avg time for completion is around 4-6 hours, and i think that beating machine land 3 took me around 2 hours because i suck, so i think i needed way more time for it. speedrunners can beat this in 15 minutes and man, now i regret getting rayman advance instead of kuru kuru kururin because i could have gotten better too at this and brag about it because this game is truly fun and challenging. on the other hand, rayman advance was just enough to mention it here and that's it. i do care now.

sad to see taikos debut on xbox/pc being something like this, just a halfassed release (to meet gamepass criteria??) that its still broken on pc and only had 2 new songs added into the series; feels unfair to draw comparisons between the last releases of the franchise and all the flavor, thematic investment and uniqueness with hit-n-miss new game modes that most ds/psp/wii games had added onto them.

...and yet this entry has the sole potential of making taiko even larger just because it has modding potential. we'll see how it ends up.

Props to Bandai for finally releasing a Tamagotchi that doesn't run on batteries! This might be the best improvement that has been added in this edition. Too bad the charging port is still micro-USB and not USB-C.

The Tamagotchi Smart is pretty nice. The basic 3-button design has been changed for just one button and a touchscreen, divided into four sections where you can either press or slide to interact with the Tamagotchi and its menus. It took me a little while to get used to the sliding action since its use can feel unresponsive at the beginning.

I never owned a smartwatch, so I can't make a proper comparison with one. The Tamagotchi Smart only gives you the current time a minuscule step counter in some of the wallpapers, with no biometric sensors to measure how fast are you able to fart or stuff like that. The extra monitoring options could have been pretty interesting, and having your monitored status be paired with your Tamagotchi's current status would have been even better. A little vibration option to tell you that the Tamagotchi is dying while you are at work could also have been good. The Tamagotchi Smart also has a microphone...but it lacks a voice recognition system, so your Tamagotchi will be happy even though you call them names (don't do that!!!). The watch itself is comfortable to wear on the wrist since it doesn't weigh too much, but the wristband is prone to suffer damage and it gets dirty pretty fast (how the hell do you clean it? please lmk). Luckily, Bandai has released replacements in other colors for users who are willing to pay.

As I said before, this might be my first smartwatch, but I own other Tamagotchis. And compared with previous devices such as the Tamagotchi Meets or even the Tamagotchi P's (released in 2012!), the Tamagotchi Smart lacks many cool options that were available before. The basic functionalities are still there, your Tamagotchi still eats and plays and gets dirty and poops, and you can still connect your Tamagotchi Smart to other devices. The requirements needed to have your Tamagotchi alive feel laxer in this version, since it is easier to get money and the daycare is free. You have fewer places that are available to visit, with fewer NPCs to meet. The buyable stuff (food, toys, accessories, and room decoration) is less interesting since the toys won't help you find the perfect couple anymore like in Tamagotchi Meets, so it's limited to getting merely cosmetic improvements. You can choose between four available minigames to earn money, but I only played the ice cream one (you choose images to match the order given by a customer in an ice cream shop). For the other games, after the long-ass loading screens, some of them would require you to jerk your wrist non-stop, or deal with precise actions performed on this non-perfect touchscreen. But for me, the biggest drawback that the Tamagotchi Smart has is the lack of generation mixing, I do miss trying to get the ugliest possible Tamagotchi hybrids or sharing my Tamagotchi on a website as you could do in Tamagotchi Meets. Sadly I haven't tried the TamaSma Cards (aka DLC) yet, but I will try to get the Sanrio ones someday.

Even if this review might seem a little negative, I'm still happy with my Tamagotchi Smart. This review might seem like a long list of complaints (and that's why I'm not working as a salesman for Bandai), but it is a pretty good entry-level device for Tamagotchi since it requires little to no attention needed to keep your Tamagotchi alive, and being able to carry the Tamagotchi in your wrist is way more comfortable than having it inside your pockets. I like mine a lot, but I can't really tell you to spend around $70 for it unless you want a Tamagotchi for your wrist since there are cheaper Tamagotchi options (but with even less features). Still, I don't regret spending mine since Milktchi and Poptchi are just too cute...

a bunch of additional maps (in fact its not even that hard to figure out who made each map after some exploration) complementary to the original doom, bundled together with a price tag, being the most prevalent trend of their design "more enemies OR bigger map = better"...so in lots of them you end up being in a big square fighting a bigger horde of enemies coming at you. hey at least you have the super shotgun to do so...but is it worth it to disregard any interesting progression just to face more enemies?

well yes it was 1994 and people just wanted to kill more demons and the super shotgun is nuts so who am i to judge?

deliveries and story are ok but damn i loved building roads, that was my jam. taking resources from every possible prepper, looting the shared lockers and downing every mule outpost to take their ceramics and metals only to bring them to the nearest autopaver then bam a road pops up and you are saving time for every upcoming delivery. this game loves to pull out the "You bring people together, you're their bridge to the future" shit everytime for narrative just to confuse the player, the main focus in here is not building bridges but getting them highways rolling. in fact, could you even imagine current america without roads, only filled with bridges? i sure as hell could not because i have never been in america.

screw walking around tons of rocky pathways or getting your truck stuck, commit to the tar gods and build roads. oh and ziplines are also cool because apparently roads cannot be built on snowy mountains.