Wow, what a fun little game! It's a silky smooth, easy on the eyes, Doom-inspired FPS that is unfortunately only two levels! I really loved the simplicity of this one and I wish there was more. The ending says there should be more "in the coming weeks" but that never happened. Seems like the developer might have just moved on to other things, including a Mario FPS which I'll definitely be checking out.

DOPEFISH LIVES

Edit: When I tried playing the Super 1-1 Challenge, it had a light yellow filter over everything so I couldn't see :( guess I'm not playing it

Unsure about the mixed response to this one, it's just Picross with a cute coat of paint on it! It's pretty standard, although with a very slight RPG element to it. Enemies charge up attacks that you can stop by completing a line on the puzzle, and you can also switch targets as you'll end up having to balance up to three enemies. I never got close to dying, but I can see newer Picross players struggling, but maybe this would push them to figure puzzles out faster. There's also optional puzzles where you'll redo already-completed puzzles but you need to do it without making a mistake, or in a time limit, or some other challenge.

It's not the most amazing spin on Picross, but I welcome it as a long-time fan. The boss music really reminded me of old flash games for some reason?

Preview image for this game is the wrong Batman game lol

Great music, fun gameplay kinda unnecessary space shooter levels. This is fairly comparable to Mega Man. Ya jump, ya shoot, and ya get powerups (albeit in a Contra kind of way, not Mega Man. You don't kill Joker and get a Joker power). The tiny Batman sprite is hilarious to me, especially because every enemy is twice your size, if not more. I assume this was done for balancing, it'd be a really hard game if you were Batman sized.

Giving him a gun is kind of weird, but I don't exactly go to a Game Boy Batman game to have the most true-to-form Batman adaptation.

spinning bat symbol jumpscare

JOKER, THE EVIL LEADER, IS DEFEATED

Maybe I'm just relieved to have a better game after the disappointment of Sonic 2 Game Gear, but I liked this game decently enough.

This is one of the most shallow Sonic games out there, honestly, there's not much to set it apart from the rest. Letting you choose between Sonic and Tails is neat, as Tails has the ability to fly, but I think only Sonic can get the Chaos Emeralds (and thus the true ending), and Tails doesn't get the rocket shoes (which is pretty much the only other defining thing about this game, and even then I think they come back in Triple Trouble?).

They must have heard the decries of Sonic 2 Game Gear's difficulty, because while that game was way more difficult than it had any right to be, this one is perhaps the easiest Sonic game ever? The only difficulty here is, if you want the Emeralds, collecting 100 rings in a level as it can't be done in every level, and the last two bosses can be tough if you don't grab any rings; they actually give rings for the bosses this time, but only in one item box and you gotta find it first, and it can be a little difficult to regrab the ring if you get hit.

Anyway, I wouldn't really say this is the most worth it game to play, but you're also not wasting much time if you do. If you don't care about the true ending, you can beat each level in less than a minute fairly easily. You could already have been through half the game if you didn't read this review, what are you doing?

sonic 1 game gear remains on top

Edit: I just read the description of this game that's on this page and omg... I know a lot of games would have the story tucked away in the manual back in the day, but geez. You're in an alternate universe? South Island is sinking? You glean none of that from the game itself lol.

Always thought I would like this game more than most people, but I guess I ended up liking it less than most. Perhaps if you play it repeatedly it's better, but in this one playthough... oof. The bosses for this game are notorious for not giving you any rings, and the very first one just absolutely sucks right off the bat. Weirdly, the first boss is perhaps the hardest of the game. I had a lot of blunders on the other ones, but I think I was just too in my head, they're really rather easy for the most part. But yeah, the bosses are mainly what hold this game back for me, or at least the level leading up to them, because this has the Sonic 1 Genesis approach of having a level before the boss. It's not bad for most of them, but holy hell the Green Hills Zone act 3 level is ass.

The regular levels are also a mixed bag. I rather liked Green Hills and Aqua Lake Zone, but Gimmick Mt. and Scrambled Egg Zone were kinda bad (Scrambled Egg especially is doo doo). The other levels are negligible. Kudos for trying different themes than the typical ones, and placing the Green Hill clone in the middle of the game.

I'd personally just rather play Sonic 1 on Game Gear, though, I don't see this as an improvement at all, but rather frustrating most of the time.

So, having put more time into this game, I think I'm ready to give it an actual review. Although I'm only technically a third of the way done with it.

This is a mobile game put on the 3DS, which means it's one of those where you play a little, then are forced to wait for a certain amount of time to pass, rinse and repeat. At first, this was fine. A 30 minute wait and then an hour wait, and then a two hour wait... yeah, I don't like the waiting, but it's not too bad. But the farther you play, the longer the wait times are and there is no way around it with the eShop down. As of writing this, I was put on a 96 hour wait, and I imagine it'll only continue. It's just ridiculous, I've never seen a mobile game force you to wait so long for things (I don't really play mobile games, though) and I wouldn't really wanna pay to get past it, either. Cause even if I could, I'd just have another ten puzzles and then an even longer wait time.

And it's such a shame, too, because this could have been one of the best Picross games. I like having a mix of 10x10, 15x15, and 20x15 puzzles, plus this introduces a new kind of puzzle where you solve four 10x10s to reveal one large image. On top of all of that, there are three Micross boards (or "mosaic" if you've played other nonogram games) and I've always loved those.

What really sets this game apart from other Picross games is it being Final Fantasy. I don't just mean the puzzles and aesthetics are FF themed, but there's a whole new game mode here that more or less turns puzzles into a turn-based RPG. Loosely, at least. It seems like there's some strategy employed in this mode, and it might be up some peoples' alleys, but I couldn't really get too into it. Mostly because it's just doing a bunch of 5x5 puzzles with the stylus until you defeat the enemies. It seems kind of like a predecessor to Picross X, which is another game I haven't had much interest in because it's also entirely 5x5 puzzles. Seriously, this would be so much more fun to do with 10x10s.

So, I might come off as a hypocrite with all of this because I cite Pokémon Picross as my favorite Picross game, and that one also has typical mobile game trappings. Buuut I think that game has a lot of fun gimmicks, worthwhile challenges, I'm much more interested in Pokémon, and I shilled out the $25 for unlimited playtime way before the eShop shut down. I don't know if this is actually the case or not, but I also expect the times you're forced to wait aren't as bad, either. Even if they are, there's reason to play already-beaten puzzles there iirc.

I'm still gonna chip away at this game as I remember to, but I can't really recommend it even to Picross veterans unless they mod in unlimited play at some point. At least there's an English patch, not that it's super necessary for this game.

I'm also going to refrain from rating this game. I can't in good conscience give it the 5 stars I give Picross games in general, but I also don't really know what else to give it.

oh and they make you do mega picross which is cringe

It's kind of interesting to see and play old fangames from over ten years ago that clearly were just a glimpse of something greater, but also kind of sad. This game in particular is only "chapter one" of what I'm sure was intended to be a multi-chapter series. Never seemed to make it past this first one, though, which is a shame, because there's promise here. As you can tell from the cover art, it's heavily inspired by Super Paper Mario, and it uses the design of that game, though it's also much more of a straight platformer, with... I guess puzzle elements? Not even exactly puzzles, but leading to what would probably have been puzzles in later entries.

I really liked the idea of using different hammers as different items for separate purposes, and I also liked the idea of badges from the first two Paper Mario games being used in the context of a standard Mario platformer (makes me wish Super Paper Mario had them), and sort of a precursor to what Mario Wonder would eventually get.

Maybe that's giving this too much credit, especially since the only badge (afaik) is just to allow you to jump on spiked enemies. Would have been interesting to see how it might evolve, and also to see if they carried over between chapters somehow.

Anyway, it's nothing too special, but could have been cool to see more.




by the way, the story here is that an evil toad lights toad's house on fire, steals his wife, and toad's son dies in the fire. this dude's gonna become the punisher