A rhythm game specifically for musicians who play by ear, expecting you to hear a rhythm and/or melody and immediately repeat it back

It's very clearly a Fall Guys ripoff (the menus may as well be copy/pasted) with a little more WarioWare in the games, but I had a lovely time finally using my music degree for something 🎵🎶

Got 3rd overall the first time, then 2nd five matches in a row before finally winning.

Incredibly brief, yet padded with plenty of frustration. I've been helping my kids with a handful of licensed games recently, and Bluey's debut title unfortunately has more jank than Peppa Pig, PJ Masks, and Miraculous Ladybug all put together.

From a certain point of view, I respect the inclusion of 3D platforming elements that require precise jumps (hopping from rock to rock at the creek, or jumping towards the camera on the shelves in Bluey's room), but when my 3-year-old keeps passing me the controller because the game won't allow him to progress until he presses Y in a tiny pixel-perfect location, I start to wonder how much testing went into this.

The animations, VO, and setting obviously carry the experience, underneath what was licensed lies a bland and broken platformer containing 4 levels to replay and 5 hub world areas to explore. We had a much better time hunting for collectibles in the post-game (if you can even call it that) than we did in any scripted segments, but even then, some items seem to resist your attempts to collect them if you're the tiniest bit too close or too far.

The biggest issue we had is that the camera simply does not know what to do during co-op. The issue of how to handle distance between players is not unique to Bluey: The Videogame, but it's handled exceptionally poorly. In something like Gauntlet Legends, you can all run in different directions until the camera reaches a maximum zoom-out, leaving players to determine together which direction they'll travel in. In many Lego games, the screen will dynamically split, allowing two players to travel apart, then un-split the screen when they return together. But in Bluey, the camera picks one player seemingly at random to prioritize. It's not always P1, and it's not always whoever's closest to the middle of the screen, but the chosen player is granted agency, while any remaining players get auto-returned like a drone that's lost connection to the remote control. This becomes a huge problem when any obstacle lies between the returning character and the other player, as you cannot alter your course until you're within arm's length of your teammate. It's busted!

It's also got that frustrating audio thing that licensed games always seem to do, where the volume levels are all over the place, and when multiple characters speak at the same time, there's no reduction in gain, so the volume suddenly quadruples when the family shouts "Yeah!" together. WHY IS THIS SUCH A CONSISTENT ISSUE

This is it. This is the one.

Pokemon romhacks are omnipresent. There are at least 150 on Backloggd and over 1000 on PokeHarbor. Most often, fangames attempt huge changes to their base games, sometimes creating an entirely new adventure, but the three versions of Shin Pokemon are much more restrained, focusing instead on surgical alterations to Gen I that largely maintain the original experience as opposed to supplanting it.

This has been attempted before, most notably with Pokemon Red++, but even that sought to modernize Gen I. There's obviously nothing wrong with that, but Shin Pokemon isn't interested in adding abilities, held items, or new evolutions. Rather, it's all about making the definitive Gen I experience.

The full list of changes can be found here, so I'm just going to go over the major selling points. A toggleable Hard Mode means the trainers actually make intelligent decisions now. Unless you overlevel, you can't just spam attacks and expect to win. Speaking of overlevelling, there are fantastic options that allow customization of your game, including auto-trainer level scaling, trainer team randomization (which does not affect key battles such as gym leaders), and wild encounter randomization. What's key about this is that it's not your standard randomizer, you're not going to run into a Mew on Route 2. Instead, Pokemon are swapped with a comparable counterpart with similar stats and evolution status. For example, between Pallet Town and Viridian City, the Pidgeys and Rattatas in my game were replaced with Vulpixes and Mankeys. The randomization is consistent, tied to your save file so it's not constantly shuffling. This kind of replacement creates an engaging remix of Gen I while still feeling more like an official release than a wacky hack. Now this does mean that sometimes you'll fish up a Charmander with a Super Rod, but all in all I thought it was very well-implemented.

The Select button gets a lot more to do here, showing an extra options menu (where you can turn Hard mode, better trainer AI, obedience level caps, and Nuzlocke mode on and off), swapping between a second inventory (THIS IS HUGE!!), auto-selecting HM moves, and, when combined with another button like a hotkey), using your bike or rod without requiring any menu navigation. You can also hold B to run, doubling your speed, but this also works while surfing AND while biking! This is arguably my favorite improvement, as it's become second nature to increase the speed of Pokemon games ever since the Dodrio Mode in Pokemon Stadium's Game Boy Tower. What I always disliked about that, however, was mangling the god-tier OST. With the ability to run and to bike at 2x speed, I felt no need to rush any more than that. This is the ideal speed for Gen I, they absolutely nailed it.

Moves get a little bit of a makeover here, but nothing crazy. The most critical change here is that outside of a Pokemon's 4 move slots, a fifth "Field Move" slot has been created, allowing a Pokemon to learn a single HM for overworld use only. I LOVE not having to sacrifice an attack slot for Cut, this is an incredible inclusion. Beyond that, moves in-battle are more repaired than revised. Focus Energy and Rage actually do what they're supposed to, multi-turn attacks like Wrap and Fire Spin telegraph the final turn and allow switching out in order to avoid infinite trapping, though the game also allows running from a trainer battle (counts as blacking out) if you legitimately get stuck.

There are a couple of new features added, but they're tastefully done and don't drastically affect the original experience. If you're interested, I'd highly recommend reading through the full breakdown of alterations and giving the game a shot. This is the most I've enjoyed Gen I since the Game Boy days, and it deserves all the attention and praise it can get.

In Mecarobot Golf, you play as a regular human man on a single regular golf course with regular golf mechanics and rules. The only robot element here is your opponent (singular). You play against a robot, who still uses normal golf mechanics to play normal golf.

This is incredibly bare-bones, with nothing to set it apart from other 90s golf titles. Feels like the "robot" element was a last-second cosmetic addition to try to give the game an identity, but all they did was apply it to your competitor. Tragic! A cyber-futuristic golf course would have gone a long way here. It does some decently interesting stuff with Mode-7, but the controls and UI are so stripped back that the results of your strokes feel impossible to accurately predict. Do not play.

The first Donkey Kong Country-like that I've ever played! The replication of DKC's aesthetic is beautifully done, but the David Wise-esque OST is the clear highlight. One track in particular sounds like it completes a trilogy with Stickerbush Symphony and Aquatic Ambience. I was shocked and impressed!

The gameplay is ultimately what comes last here, as the game can be finished in under 30 minutes without difficulty (which includes a preview of Super Kiwi 64 as an epilogue), and consists of levels that only go up. There was real potential for a great game here if Siactro had fully embraced the DKC format, but the vertical-only level format is ultimately a bit boring. Still, the game is only 99 cents, and absolutely worth checking out. If you find yourself wanting a little more, there are time trials for each level which are legitimately challenging. Make sure you play with the volume up nice and high!