This review contains spoilers
Gotta hand it to Good-Feel. Their art and music are best in class. Yoshi’s Crafted World and this game, yessh! Not sure I could name 10 prettier 3D platformers than either of them.
Mameda no Bakeru in particular, the animations and levels are artistically rich with cute detail, and everything has punch rivaling New Donk City and the best stuff in 3D World.
Oh yeah, and making a platformer where each level is based on a real life place in Japan? Brilliant idea, and I love the mix of real world and cartoon design. Hot spring level! Pool level! Katamari-esque Escape from the City level! Mameda no Bakeru has 5-star ideas, and every so often it actually manages to execute on those ideas. The “run really fast through a level like you’re in a racing game” level here, for example, WIPES THE FLOOR with the Mario Kart levels in newer Mario 3D platformers. At moments, MnB approaches brilliance.
But there’s just a little too much holding it back, something I feel is common in Good-Feel games. MnB is a Kirby/3D Land-style collectathon platformer with light beat em up elements where you play as a Tanuki boy who attacks via taiko drumsticks. Sick, right? It is!
But as GF games tend to be, there are a lot of levels (which is good) and they can go really long. In addition, the combat is a little too brainless at times and not balanced particularly well around the (fun) power ups you unlock through initial boss fights. As in, the big fists you get can 1-2 shot most giant enemies in the game. The level design is good, great at times even (think 3D World/Forgotten Land/Sackboy PS5 but the levels are way wider and chiller, almost like Astro Bot but even more so) but the difficulty doesn’t escalate much and everything just drags a bit under the slow pace. Doesn’t help that MnB gets super framey in TV mode.
But I still love a lot about it. There are tons of new level concepts and ideas introduced constantly, bosses are fun, it’s cute, and despite a lack of difficulty escalation I had a lot of fun. I would just recommend blasting/rushing through once the game starts to drag (if you’re not a completionist).
First import game I beat!
Mameda no Bakeru in particular, the animations and levels are artistically rich with cute detail, and everything has punch rivaling New Donk City and the best stuff in 3D World.
Oh yeah, and making a platformer where each level is based on a real life place in Japan? Brilliant idea, and I love the mix of real world and cartoon design. Hot spring level! Pool level! Katamari-esque Escape from the City level! Mameda no Bakeru has 5-star ideas, and every so often it actually manages to execute on those ideas. The “run really fast through a level like you’re in a racing game” level here, for example, WIPES THE FLOOR with the Mario Kart levels in newer Mario 3D platformers. At moments, MnB approaches brilliance.
But there’s just a little too much holding it back, something I feel is common in Good-Feel games. MnB is a Kirby/3D Land-style collectathon platformer with light beat em up elements where you play as a Tanuki boy who attacks via taiko drumsticks. Sick, right? It is!
But as GF games tend to be, there are a lot of levels (which is good) and they can go really long. In addition, the combat is a little too brainless at times and not balanced particularly well around the (fun) power ups you unlock through initial boss fights. As in, the big fists you get can 1-2 shot most giant enemies in the game. The level design is good, great at times even (think 3D World/Forgotten Land/Sackboy PS5 but the levels are way wider and chiller, almost like Astro Bot but even more so) but the difficulty doesn’t escalate much and everything just drags a bit under the slow pace. Doesn’t help that MnB gets super framey in TV mode.
But I still love a lot about it. There are tons of new level concepts and ideas introduced constantly, bosses are fun, it’s cute, and despite a lack of difficulty escalation I had a lot of fun. I would just recommend blasting/rushing through once the game starts to drag (if you’re not a completionist).
First import game I beat!