Pokehero
2021
I don't understand this game. It does everything right! Amazing graphics, fully voiced cutscenes, a great diversity in Pokemon, fan service, replayability, and so much content. And yet, it's...boring? Like it's not a bad game, but it was so difficult to play for more than an hour at a time because it felt like a slog to get through. The main criticism of the original Pokemon Snap was that it was too short (you could very easily 100% it in like 4 hours), but this is too long? I guess the original hit a sweet spot in length without sacrificing the gameplay loop, but this game is still worth playing imo. Oh yeah and the soundtrack is mid
1996
Who decided that the Moscow track should be considered an "Easy" difficulty track smh
This review contains spoilers
I gave all 3 Danganronpa games 4 stars because they all are fantastic with their own unique problems. The first game suffers from a painfully easy beginning but has maybe the single best case in the whole franchise with Mukuro Ikusaba. The second game had some answers in trials that I had absolutely no idea what was happening and has some super hatable characters, but the murder motives were incredible and Komaeda is a fantastic plot device.
This game suffers from just an excessive amount of dirty jokes and weirdly forced relationships, but the characters themselves were deeper than any game before and had the best soundtrack of the whole series AND killed off the main character which was insane. The ending kinda sucks, but not in a "it's all a dream sucks!" kinda way, but in the fact that it took so goddamn long. They definitely could have gotten to the same conclusion with an hour less of ending. However, the ending made me not want another mainline game because this felt like excellent closure with the direction the characters took to get themselves and future people out of this Hunger Games style event. Keebo and Shuichi took completely logical conclusions and were understandable in their decisions and what they actually wanted. A quick look online tells me that this ending was divisive, but if this is truly the last game, then it's a goddamn brilliant one
This game suffers from just an excessive amount of dirty jokes and weirdly forced relationships, but the characters themselves were deeper than any game before and had the best soundtrack of the whole series AND killed off the main character which was insane. The ending kinda sucks, but not in a "it's all a dream sucks!" kinda way, but in the fact that it took so goddamn long. They definitely could have gotten to the same conclusion with an hour less of ending. However, the ending made me not want another mainline game because this felt like excellent closure with the direction the characters took to get themselves and future people out of this Hunger Games style event. Keebo and Shuichi took completely logical conclusions and were understandable in their decisions and what they actually wanted. A quick look online tells me that this ending was divisive, but if this is truly the last game, then it's a goddamn brilliant one
Of all the Junior Arcade games I've played so far, this one feels the most like a game. It still struggles with some cheap level design and mechanics it just straight up doesn't explain (but I think the latter is actually mostly a good thing), but it features real gameplay to learn and exploit. In order to beat the game you MUST know how to beat the enemy AI and how to best route each level
Do yourself a favor though and play the last 5 levels with infinite lives and/or infinite bubbles though, will literally save you hours
Do yourself a favor though and play the last 5 levels with infinite lives and/or infinite bubbles though, will literally save you hours
I guess it isn't the worst thing I've played, but as all the Junior Arcade subseries games go, it's one gameplay loop for 100 levels. I will say it was more engaging and more visually appealing than Cheese Chase, whatever that's worth
2021
Decided to finally try the update after years of saying I would, and I must say it's very impressive. Whenever they originally announced this in a Pokemon Presents, I was confused as the original game already featured an adorable art style with a lot of content, but this is astonishing. There are literally thousands of new levels, hundreds of new Pokemon, new game mechanics, new costumes and upgrades, on top of all the original content still be accessible. While the gameplay is most similar to Disney's Tsum Tsum, if that's your thing there's hundreds upon hundreds of hours of content here. It's not particularly my thing, but I can still recognize a good (and free!) product when I see one. Well worth playing if you're into this type of puzzle game.
I really don't think this game is that bad. I don't even remember why I owned this, but I decided to finally try it. Over the course of about 8 hours of gameplay I successfully beat one boss. The game is supposed to be sorta like an NES Mega Man with its run-and-gun and sliding coupled with the art style, but the game is unforgivingly difficult. Not in a Kaizo way, but in a "there are no checkpoints, each level is disgustingly long, and the bosses take a year to beat". You can buy checkpoints with the in-game currency, but they're kind of expensive and the game literally calls you a cheater. It tries to be snarky, but instead is just kind of cringe. Again I really don't think it's that bad since the controls are actually pretty solid, but I just don't have the time nor willingness to grind a game I simply don't care about.
2023
A fantastic game, simply beautiful progression of the Pikmin franchise. The graphics are incredible, the Pikmin AI is much improved, the areas are varied and expansive, and 100%ing this game took me 50 hours! There are 3 relatively minor complaints that I have: long loading times, too much dialogue (especially at the beginning of the game), and the weird second-long pause when throwing Pikmin onto something when it's reached minimum carrying capacity. There are some minor things here and there that feel like they limit the skill ceiling a bit, but at least that's mostly fixed by end of the game. Nitpicking aside, this is the best game I've played this year and one of the best games on the Nintendo Switch.
Wow this was awful. A glorified Flash mini-game for 100 levels. The game has some really small nice cutscenes, but then the game reuses all of them besides the intro and outro. The game does a really bad job at differentiating what you can run through and what makes you explode forcing you to retry the level, especially the sand area. Awful experience
Playing the egg game has even less purpose than the luggage game in the airport one. Just get to level 30 and you'll have seen everything that the mini-game has to offer, otherwise the game is fine. You sure do Explore the Farm
It's edutainment, but absolutely brutal if you wanna complete everything. Seriously, don't do all 99 levels of the luggage minigame it's not worth it
2005
This game really wasn't that bad. It felt like a GBA game with some forced DS mechanics (microphone, excess of touchscreen controls) but it's not done as poorly as some other DS games pre 2008. While I would have liked to have seen zero autoscrollers and perhaps a buffer for the jump input, the real crime was forcing you to collect all the Toads (3 in each level) before you can play the final boss. The game does not tell you this ahead of time. I ultimately didn't bother with this and watched the final boss on Youtube which is less than ideal. This forced collection alone dropped the game probably a whole star, it was a fine 2D platformer otherwise
2009
A fun little game that I've only played thanks to Seckwrecks and SGDQ. Definitely a better score than deserved thanks to the community aspect around the game, especially at SGDQ 2018 and 2019, and I loved every second of it
1996
While it has certainly aged in the controls department, the level design and music are so strong. An all-time classic for sure
2021
A short yet fulfilling sequel to the original with a few new mechanics focused on movement. The horror is tuned down in this one, but still has its unnerving moments. Actually features a boss fight which is cool