this fixed some of the timing problems parappa had. It's still pretty finnicky, but not as frustrating on average than parappa. At first I thought this game was much worse than it is, idk if my disc is scratched or something but it had no cutscenes between each song. I was pretty disappointed because I just thought they didn't exist, but I looked it up later and realized I just missed out I guess? Or maybe they don't appear if you save between each song? idk :(
Anyways I didn't like how little you could hear the music if you were ever doing bad or awful, it really disincentivized you to actually play at that point because you couldn't even hear what you were supposed to recreate. Regardless, I was able to pass a couple songs because I did well at the end and could barely hear them when I actually played. After relistening to the songs, I only really liked the baby and idol one. maybe it's because my playthrough was messed up, but I feel like they could have done a lot more with this. I don't mean that in terms of number of songs, but I just feel like a lot more happened in parappa.

Amid Evil was my 2019 Game of the Year. When the DLC got announced, I was pumped! It released right as I was going to Japan for a while so I couldn't get to play it until now.

Amid Evil is a fantastic shooter that invites you to a banquet of aesthetic mechanics, that is to say: It is not how you kill your enemies, it is how you overkill them. This simple mechanic means that your weapons utterly decimates your enemies in different ways, and my god does it feel good. Black Labyrinth wonderfully replaces two of the original game's weapons with fists, replacing the axe, and a scythe, replacing this game's version of the BFG. Both of these weapons are awesome, and I'd actually say that I'd rather them than the axe and aeturnum.

Another aspect of Amid Evil that I loved was the overall design: Every level looks beautiful, weapons look and sound (the good kind of) crispy and gameplay is fast paced, but will let you go at your own pace if you want to walk around to check out the environments. I am pleased to share with you that The Black Labyrinth does more of that. It's not home to my most favorite levels (save for one, that made me go "oooooooh" out loud), but they're delicious nonetheless.

The final boss is a bit silly, but I dig it. Won't go further than that. Experience it for yourself.

Black Labyrinth was a long time coming. It's been stuck in my steam wishlist for a while, waiting for it to release. Thankfully, it's been worth the wait, even if it's a bit on the short side. I don't care, cause I took my time enjoying it.

So Humongous Entertainment really should have just stuck to making point and click adventure games if this is their output when trying something new.

Where do I even begin with this game. For starters, the AI is absolutely brutal for a kids game. There's only 1 enemy in the game with a recognizable movement pattern that you can memorize and figure out how to move around. All of the others just find the quickest path straight to you, even if it means camping the same spot for a long time. You only have 2 defenses for this, neither of which are guaranteed to be in any given level. There's a bubble shield that is given for a limited time and makes you invincible. When you run over an enemy, they're stunned for a short time allowing you to swim past them. There's also bubble projectiles that trap enemies in bubbles, which does basically the same thing but you have to actually fire the bubbles. This wouldn't be so bad if there weren't times the bubble just goes past an enemy. You can also use boulders to stun them, but given enemies are more often behind you instead of in front, it rarely works out. These problems can be made less annoying with some in-game cheats to give you infinite lives and infinite bubbles, but I don't think this should be relied on as a crutch to even finish the game.

Then there's the controls. You have 2 ways to control Freddi and neither of them work out well. You can use the arrow keys (no way to change it to WASD) and clicking where you want to go. Clicking doesn't really work cause Freddi's pathfinding has a very weird view of where you click if it's more than directly in front of her. There were so many deaths and game overs to me clicking right next to her to tell her to turn and she'd just turn around and ram straight into an enemy. Clicking also comes with this annoying noise with every click, so get used to hearing it. Arrow keys also barely respond from what I've tried. Oh and remember those bubbles you fire I mentioned earlier? Guess what they're mapped to? Right click so you can just use the mouse the entire game? Nope. Space bar so it's on the same level as the arrow keys? Nope. It's the enter key. This is so uncomfortable and you pretty much have to use the bubble projectiles if you don't want to pull your hair out, especially in the later levels.

Oh yeah the level design. It's fine to start out, but by the halfway point it's just enemy spamming and having to run back and forth across the entire map just to get through a couple doors. This is beyond tedious and just made me want to hurry up and finish the game.

So yeah I recommend skipping this one. I can't speak for the other Freddi Fish arcade game since I have yet to finish that one at the time of writing, but honestly just stick to the mainline adventure games.