Quick review here. Frogun is a game that exists to be looked at and known about rather than played. I imagine it brings someone great pleasure to look at screenshots and videos of a game made in 2022 that resembles the PS1 games of their youth. And perhaps it's even intentional that the gameplay is incredibly shallow, trivial, and at times frustrating as many older games made for children were. But I refuse to believe that anyone could sit down with this game, play it to completion, and feel as though they were enriched by the experiences.
Playing Frogun is a chore. I struggled to get through a session that breached the 10 minute mark, as one's patience begins to wear halfway through that. If you've played one level of connect-the-dots frogunning and paint-by-number treasure collecting then I assure you you've played them all.
Special shout outs to the racing levels which seemed to be designed in a way that is intentionally at-odds with the completionist itch the collectables in the game are clearly trying to scratch.
Further shout outs to the Banjo Kazooie-esque way one's collected treasures vanish upon death, leaving the player to retread the same ground over and over or tag up on checkpoints constantly. Really fun in a game with so many omnipresent markers reminding you if you haven't 100%'d a level.
Additional shout out to the oddly large amount of scrolling text in speech bubbles in the game, especially those that occur mid-level asking the player to either stand in place reading for a minute or two, split their attention between reading and platforming, or just ignore the text entirely. Don't worry, the game also tracks whether or not you picked up these journal logs, incentivizing you to find them and clutter your screen even if you're not interested in the contents.
Circling back around Frogun looks like a PS1 game (But in higher definition, with a higher framerate, and really it doesn't resemble anything from that period save for low-poly models but that's neither here nor there) and that's good enough for some people. They can buy it, think "Wasn't the PS1 great?", never play it, and feel rather contented.
Personally I prefer games that were made to be played, with all the design decisions being made with that mission statement in mind. A wild concept, to be sure, but one I hope to see more of from this budding "video game" medium.
Playing Frogun is a chore. I struggled to get through a session that breached the 10 minute mark, as one's patience begins to wear halfway through that. If you've played one level of connect-the-dots frogunning and paint-by-number treasure collecting then I assure you you've played them all.
Special shout outs to the racing levels which seemed to be designed in a way that is intentionally at-odds with the completionist itch the collectables in the game are clearly trying to scratch.
Further shout outs to the Banjo Kazooie-esque way one's collected treasures vanish upon death, leaving the player to retread the same ground over and over or tag up on checkpoints constantly. Really fun in a game with so many omnipresent markers reminding you if you haven't 100%'d a level.
Additional shout out to the oddly large amount of scrolling text in speech bubbles in the game, especially those that occur mid-level asking the player to either stand in place reading for a minute or two, split their attention between reading and platforming, or just ignore the text entirely. Don't worry, the game also tracks whether or not you picked up these journal logs, incentivizing you to find them and clutter your screen even if you're not interested in the contents.
Circling back around Frogun looks like a PS1 game (But in higher definition, with a higher framerate, and really it doesn't resemble anything from that period save for low-poly models but that's neither here nor there) and that's good enough for some people. They can buy it, think "Wasn't the PS1 great?", never play it, and feel rather contented.
Personally I prefer games that were made to be played, with all the design decisions being made with that mission statement in mind. A wild concept, to be sure, but one I hope to see more of from this budding "video game" medium.