Fairly unique/ahead of its time as far as game structure goes. Went in assuming it would be a spyro-esque type collectathon and instead got a list of "untitled goose game" type tasks to figure out how to do. The whole game is just The Grinch going around playing youtuber pranks (committing property crimes). More collectathon than puzzler but the varied missions kept the game interesting, which is great 'cuz even as a big collectathon fan, that side of the game is pretty dull. Imagine if the notes in Banjo-Kazooie needed to be jumped on to collect, and occasionally you have to ground pound them instead...And imagine if instead of 900 notes across 9 levels it was 3,000 across 4. Not great.

But I did like finding enough blueprints to invent stuff like high jump or the grinch copter, letting me jump to the top of people's houses so I could drop beehives into their chimneys. The blueprints being so important is both cool but also a potential pain point as you need to find all of them. Definitely a chance you'll get yourself locked out of doing anything until you find that one blueprint that eludes you.

Generally not great, and there's times where it's not suuuper clear you can interact with some things. But I don't think it overstayed its welcome. I did a 100% run and an any% run. Thought it was cool that you only have to do a certain number of the level's tasks to unlock the next area, so it's relatively open ended for how you tackle each level. The 3,000 collectibles I mentioned before are actually not required at all, they only unlock quick bonus levels/minigames. So ultimately this game leans into its strengths more than its weaknesses. It's got some pretty hot music too.

Reviewed on Dec 26, 2023


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