Afil games publishes no-frills puzzle games, like Sokobalien. Honeyland is no exception. In this ,your goal is to get your bear to its Honey. You do this by playing cards with direction arrow and a number. The bear moves in the direction of the arrow, relative to how it is facing. The number corresponds to the number of spaces the bear moves. The goal is to play the cards in the right order to get the honey, and that is it. Later on, special cards, like jumps, are introduced, biut the idea is th
Afil games publishes no-frills puzzle games, like Sokobalien. Honeyland is no exception. In this ,your goal is to get your bear to its Honey. You do this by playing cards with direction arrow and a number. The bear moves in the direction of the arrow, relative to how it is facing. The number corresponds to the number of spaces the bear moves. The goal is to play the cards in the right order to get the honey, and that is it. Later on, special cards, like jumps, are introduced, biut the idea is the same. Play the right cards in the right order to get the honey.
There are thirty increasingly tough levels, and nothing else. Still, Honeyland is not a bad game. It is only five dollars, after all. You could much worse for the money. I give this a Recommended with a seven back end score. I could continue and ramble on to meet word count, but after a recent disaster of a review, I’m going to play its safe for awhile.
Overall: Honeyland is a no-frills puzzler that delivers a decent puzzle game, and nothing else.
The Japanese indie developer SAT-BOX is getting lazy in my opinion. I have given them two must plays in the past, one for Extreme Bike X and one for Sushi Shot. However, they increased their pace to two games a month. As a result, their usual decent quality is slipping drastically. How do I know? Enter Sushi Drop, which uses all of the same assets as Sushi Shot, including music, sushi and UI. This is on top of the fact the game is a mediocre stacking game, where you drop sushi into order to bui
The Japanese indie developer SAT-BOX is getting lazy in my opinion. I have given them two must plays in the past, one for Extreme Bike X and one for Sushi Shot. However, they increased their pace to two games a month. As a result, their usual decent quality is slipping drastically. How do I know? Enter Sushi Drop, which uses all of the same assets as Sushi Shot, including music, sushi and UI. This is on top of the fact the game is a mediocre stacking game, where you drop sushi into order to build a high tower of sushi.
There are two main modes in Sushi Drop, Score attack, where you just build as high a tower as you can, and Battle, where you take turns dropping sushi until one of you drops a sushi off the board. The problem here is the physics, it sucks and makes no sense. Why does some sushi stick in place and other pieces do not? Don’t know. See the yellow egg sushi about the salmon piece in the pic above? Normally, it should slide off, but it does not. Therefore, The physics inconsistency sinks the game instantly. This is regardless of how good the rest of it, and the rest of it is honestly alright.
SAT-BOX needs to slow it down and take their time. Sushi Drop is mediocre at best, and I know they can do better, they have done better. This gets a Not Recommended with a five back-end score. If they patched the physics to make things consistent, I’d probably give Sushi Drop a much better verdict and score, but as it is, it gets what it gets.
Overall: Sushi Drop could have been a lot better, and should be a lot better. But terrible physics sinks it. SAT-BOX, do better!
The most read review on my site, by a thousand views, is the abysmal Hentai Golf, quite possibly the worst golf game ever created. So in comes Easy Come Easy Golf, which is absolutely delightful, but flew completely under the radar. I had never heard of this 2022 title until I randomly found some guy on X who talked about completing it recently. At his word and recommendation, I bought it, and after putting several hours into it, it is completely worth the money. Its not like a PGA tour game, it
The most read review on my site, by a thousand views, is the abysmal Hentai Golf, quite possibly the worst golf game ever created. So in comes Easy Come Easy Golf, which is absolutely delightful, but flew completely under the radar. I had never heard of this 2022 title until I randomly found some guy on X who talked about completing it recently. At his word and recommendation, I bought it, and after putting several hours into it, it is completely worth the money. Its not like a PGA tour game, its more like Hot Shots Golf, which is made by the same developer of that series, Clap Hanz. .
The catch to Easy Come Easy Golf is that each hole requires a different character. You start off with 4, the rest filled with a generic “mini-golfer” and over the course of the long campaign, you will unlock thirty in total. Each character has their own strengths and get more powerful by leveling them up via play. You unlock new characters by winning regular tournaments, which spawn matches against characters. Win those, and characters get unlocked. In additions to tournaments and match play there are distance challenges that unlocks character colors and outfits(which raise character level. New courses are unlocked with tour rank, which is raised once you win enough tournaments, which spawn the boss battles, and you win.
The golf itself is great, not surprising given the pedigree of Easy Come Easy Golf. Its easy to pick up, hard to master. You get a choice of two shot types, either flicking the right stick, or the the three tap system. I used the stick system, but either work. The game is gentle early on, but packs a punch later once you level your team and learn the mechanics.
The meat of Easy Come Easy Golf is the single player campaign. However, there are numerous online modes where you take your leveled team online and face others. But I have to wonder how easy it is to find others, given the game’s age and low visibility. My only other complaint is that the loading takes a long time, longer than it should anyway.
Easy Come Easy Golf gets a must Play with a nine back-end score. It is truly is a delightful golf game and should be as popular as Hentai Golf sadly seems to be. There is a serious golf game here that fans of Hot Shots Golf, or golf in general, will love.
Overall: Easy Come Easy Golf is a Hot Shots Golf spinoff by the same developer. Given that pedigree, its not surprising it is great!
Landnama bills itself as a “non-violent, roguelite survival base builder.” In this, you play various Viking clans settling Iceland in expeditions. To win an expedition, you must successfully colonize six areas. In each colony, you start off with a central hub, that needs to get upgraded 4 times to win. It get upgraded each time you reach a level of heart production, five, fifteen, twenty-five and thirty. To produce hearts, you explore the area, unveiling tiles and building various buildings tha
Landnama bills itself as a “non-violent, roguelite survival base builder.” In this, you play various Viking clans settling Iceland in expeditions. To win an expedition, you must successfully colonize six areas. In each colony, you start off with a central hub, that needs to get upgraded 4 times to win. It get upgraded each time you reach a level of heart production, five, fifteen, twenty-five and thirty. To produce hearts, you explore the area, unveiling tiles and building various buildings that either produce hearts or modify those that do. You also need to build houses, which raise the total amount of hearts you can store. The survival aspect comes in the winter toll, which will take away a random amount of hearts. Lose all your hearts, you have one do over. Fail again, colony over. Fail colonizing three times and the expedition ends.
The trick in Landnama is to balance exploration and building with heart generation, so that you always have enough hearts to survive the winter. You also need to build strategically, as certain buildings can only be placed next to other building or certain tile types. In addition, there is a reputation system. Every successful colony gets you reputation, which can be used to unlock new clans, and bonuses. The harder the difficulty of expedition, and of the colonizing itself, the more reputation you will earn. And you’ll need a lot of it since everything is pretty pricey. But it does force you to get good real fast.
About 3 seconds away from winning ^-^
I liked Landnama, enough to hand it a Must Play with a nine back-end score. It’s a simple game at its heart, and each game takes only a few minutes. However, it is a game that I found engaging and you’ll want to play again. I’ve reviewed a whole lot of crap lately, and the eShop is flooded with it. It is nice to stumble upon a well-made game like Landnama and I whole-heartily recommend it for those look for a good time-waster. This is not a grand-strategy game, but it stands on its own well enough to be worth it.
Overall: Landnama is a simple but engaging strategy game of Vikings colonizing Iceland that is worth a play to anyone looking a great time-waster.
In 444 Switch reviews over the last 2 years, I have never cursed once. That will end with number 445(this one). WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! Basketball Anime Girls is so bad, It would get #1 on my upcoming Year 2 Best/Worst list, if it weren’t for The Love not working, so this game will get #2. There are no redeeming qualities, and I wasn’t laughing, so it’s not getting a Hilariously Awful verdict either. I guess the best way to explain this piece of shit is to post this minute long video, which also
In 444 Switch reviews over the last 2 years, I have never cursed once. That will end with number 445(this one). WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! Basketball Anime Girls is so bad, It would get #1 on my upcoming Year 2 Best/Worst list, if it weren’t for The Love not working, so this game will get #2. There are no redeeming qualities, and I wasn’t laughing, so it’s not getting a Hilariously Awful verdict either. I guess the best way to explain this piece of shit is to post this minute long video, which also debuts a logo video made by the very talented Laura Stevia(which was for a Patreon that never materialized).
So, Basketball Anime Girls is a basketball game where you run around with the ball trying to get near the basket and dunk(but somehow miss the net). The opponent is trying to do the same. The only problem is the AI is garbage. The opposing girls run straight at you, but once they get the ball by touching you, they either run for their basket, or run around at random. The girls on your side will do the same, either run around at random or straight for the basket, its a coin toss which one they’ll do. Each basket you score is one point. Each one the opponent does subtracts one. You need five points to win.
It entices you with AI-Generated Basketball Anime Girls!
Basketball Anime Girls does have unlockable girls, balls, and courts. But why suffer through it? This game is shit, pure unadulterated shit. Even the marketing blurb is shit:
Step into the world of “Basketball Anime Girls” a captivating 3D basketball simulator that combines the excitement of real-life basketball with the vibrant charm of anime style. Choose your favorite anime girl skin and hit the courts for an immersive and thrilling experience.
Its all lies, all of it. It is not captivating, thrilling, charming or exciting. It is Garbage and will get a one back-end score. Heck it’d give it a 0.5 if I could. Do not buy this game. Do not go near Basketball Anime Girls. Let me suffer so you don’t have to!
Overall: Basketball Anime Girls is an awful, awful game that is neither fun nor charming. Stay far away!
NeoSprint is a top down racer for Switch, Steam and other platforms. I reviewed the Steam version for this review. I found it fun, thought rough around the edges, too easy spin out and lose the race. But lets back up. There’s single player and multiplayer. In multiplayer you have a campaign mode, a gran-prix mode, free-race and obstacle races. The campaign is the meat of single player. There are three campaigns, made up of sixteen tracks divided into 4 sets. In each set you have three regular ra
NeoSprint is a top down racer for Switch, Steam and other platforms. I reviewed the Steam version for this review. I found it fun, thought rough around the edges, too easy spin out and lose the race. But lets back up. There’s single player and multiplayer. In multiplayer you have a campaign mode, a gran-prix mode, free-race and obstacle races. The campaign is the meat of single player. There are three campaigns, made up of sixteen tracks divided into 4 sets. In each set you have three regular races, and then a must-win duel with the area’s champion. The gran-prix is just four race sets of any tracks you like. Obstacle races are time trails, except there are obstacles you must avoid, hit them and lose seconds.
Game play on steam is with the keyboard. WASD or arrow keys plus right shift for hand-brake/drift. However you can change them if you like. Driving is easy, hard to master. My problem is that is too easy lose a race with one mistake. In the campaign, there are only three retries available in each set. Good luck! Still I had fun with NeoSprint in the time I played. Its not too taxing and you’ll want to play more.
Finally, you can build your own tracks in NeoSprint. however, I found the editor nearly unusable. There’s no mouse support, so placing tracks is with WASD keys, and precision placement is night impossible. But if you want to try your luck, I’m sure you can create masterpieces. Overall, I give Neo Sprint a Recommended Verdict with a seven-back end score.
Overall: NeoSprint is a fun-little racer that is rough at times, but overall I found it fun! I gave it a Recommended verdict.
Rogue-like is a genre comprised of games characterized with randomized levels, and permadeath. But how many people have played Rogue itself, the game that spawned an entire genre? I’d wager not that many in recent times. So along comes Epyx Rogue, a version of the original game, well the graphical version by Epyx anyway(the original was ASCII graphics). In it, you play a rogue who travels through the Dungeons of Doom looking for an amulet. There are two modes, a standard which allows saving, and
Rogue-like is a genre comprised of games characterized with randomized levels, and permadeath. But how many people have played Rogue itself, the game that spawned an entire genre? I’d wager not that many in recent times. So along comes Epyx Rogue, a version of the original game, well the graphical version by Epyx anyway(the original was ASCII graphics). In it, you play a rogue who travels through the Dungeons of Doom looking for an amulet. There are two modes, a standard which allows saving, and Iron Rogue mode that doesn’t. Either way, the game is merciless, and obtuse, it is an eighties game after all. Still, I prefer Iron Rogue as that’s really how the game is meant to be played.
Not ,much to look at, but neither was the original.
Most of what you’ll be doing in Epyx Rogue is walking around levels, picking up items, and fighting monsters by walking into them. The rest of actions are all listed on the screen, or via the action wheel. Still, things can get overly complicated. Take drinking a potion. Press R, Press Y, then press A on the potion screen. Then when it asks you to selection a potion, you use the letter wheel to select the appropriate letter corresponding to an item. If you’re lucky, it’ll be a good effect. If not, you’ll die. Everything is done manually, including equipping weapons and armor. Like I said, Epyx Rogue is an eighties DOS game transplanted to modern controllers. Fortunately, there is an extensive instruction manual in-game to help you understand things.
You’ll be seeing this a lot.
New to Epyx Rogue is one of three soundtracks: Dungeon Ambience, Dark Music and Epic Music. I choose the ambience, but any of three are fine(or none). There is also a few visual options(like CRT or Soft). As for longevity, Epyx Rogue is Rogue, you’ll be at this for awhile, especially when you die on Iron Rogue mode. Now the score: Epyx Rogue gets a Must Play verdict with a nine back-end score. Why? It’s Rogue, its a classic that spawned a genre. Yes, its extremely difficult, unfair even at times, but that’s kind of the point. You play this because you are glutton for punishment and will continually come back asking for more. And if you’re a fan of rogue-likes and don’t like Rogue, are you really a fan?
Overall: Epyx Rogue is a faithful translation of the classic eighties DOS game that spawned an entire genre, warts and all. A must for Rogue-like fans.
Rainbow Ascend is like Onlyup!, a game where you… go up, except it is somehow even worse. I don’t know how the developers did it, but they created pure unadulterated Garbage. You’d be excused for not thinking its crap by the story artwork, or stationary screenshots. But it is when you start playing that you realize how horrible the game is. Rainbow Ascend starts off with pretty artwork and forgettable story line about a sick grandmother and a map. It pretends to be deep, it really is not.
Non
Rainbow Ascend is like Onlyup!, a game where you… go up, except it is somehow even worse. I don’t know how the developers did it, but they created pure unadulterated Garbage. You’d be excused for not thinking its crap by the story artwork, or stationary screenshots. But it is when you start playing that you realize how horrible the game is. Rainbow Ascend starts off with pretty artwork and forgettable story line about a sick grandmother and a map. It pretends to be deep, it really is not.
None of this drivel will matter!
You then start off running and jumping up a path made up of a variety of objects floating in the air. It is here where Rainbow Ascend comes crashing down. You see, the controls are awful. You’ll plunge to your demise easily because you stepped in the wrong spot, and have to start again from the checkpoint. Then you’ll try, try again, and eventually give up as I did. Remember the ascent to the Wind Temple in Tears of the Kingdom, and how awesome that was? This is the exact opposite of that section. No fun, all frustration.
At least there are panty shots… I guess.
Rainbow Ascend: Anime Girls Go Up will get a Garbage Verdict with a three back end score. At least the game is functional, barely. But the lure of anime panties does not mean one should purchase this game. Just the opposite. Run from this game. You’ll fall to your death so many times because of how bad the controls are, you’ll throw the Switch in frustration. It just ain’t worth it.
Overall: Rainbow Ascend: Anime Girls Go Up has panty shots, and that’s all the game has going for it. Go play something else instead.
To understand Toilet Hero, one must understand Skibidi Toilet, which involves disembodied heads coming out of toilets and talking. But I’m not a pre-teen so… I don’t get it. Toilet Hero is meant to capitalize on Skibidi Toilet’s popularity, without mentioning the name exactly. This is because there is a very similar Skibidi Toilet Game on the PC. I have played that game and this. This seems to be a downgraded port of that game, though the exact pedigree is strange on this. Either way, this is ga
To understand Toilet Hero, one must understand Skibidi Toilet, which involves disembodied heads coming out of toilets and talking. But I’m not a pre-teen so… I don’t get it. Toilet Hero is meant to capitalize on Skibidi Toilet’s popularity, without mentioning the name exactly. This is because there is a very similar Skibidi Toilet Game on the PC. I have played that game and this. This seems to be a downgraded port of that game, though the exact pedigree is strange on this. Either way, this is garbage. about on par with Midnight Work’s titles. This is published by 17studio, made by Ultra Action Shooter Games, which doesn’t even have a cool looking logo. Just the name in white text on a black screen. The game is just as bad.
You start out, walk forward, get a gun, and then fight toilets. And this is where the problem is. The toilets just come straight at you and drain your health, and you’ll die quickly. Fortunately, killing a toilet will get a bit of health back. Then you continue on in these ugly, badly put together levels full of amateur texture work, fighting more toilets. The levels look like they were put together by Skidibi Toilet’s target audience, 10-year-olds. Just look at this, it’s absolutely ugly as sin:
Toilet Hero is not fun. It is not exciting. It is 100% pure garbage, really the worst of the worst. Whoever made this should be ashamed of themselves. This is a complete ripoff in either version, which ropes in clueless kids and serves them crap. I’m not a fan of Skidibi Toilet, but fans deserve better than this, which is downright malicious. Toilet Hero gets a Garbage verdict with a one back-end score.
Overall: Toilet Hero is a port of the Skidibi Toilet FPS game on steam, and is meant to entrap children and serve them garbage.
I wanted to like Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic. A story-based pinball game sounds kind of cool. The issue is, other, better, Pinball games exist; Pinball FX3 and Zaccaria Pinball, to be exact. The tables you have to play on are simple and not very interesting, and I played on more than one. They lack the bell and whistles of those other tables, and lack complexity. Let me show you:
This is just plain old boring!
This table is what you see is what you get. The table is spartan and fairly str
I wanted to like Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic. A story-based pinball game sounds kind of cool. The issue is, other, better, Pinball games exist; Pinball FX3 and Zaccaria Pinball, to be exact. The tables you have to play on are simple and not very interesting, and I played on more than one. They lack the bell and whistles of those other tables, and lack complexity. Let me show you:
This is just plain old boring!
This table is what you see is what you get. The table is spartan and fairly straightforward. Granted, it bares a resemblance to the older Zaccaria tables, but that’s the point, the genre has moved on, Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic has not. Sure there’s a story about a witch trying to destroy the world and the raccoon standing up to her, but its just window dressing for severe boredom. To be fair, there are a lot of tables and modes, including a side mode with special tables like skeeball or “Pinchinko”, but its simply not enough to hold my attention.
The “arcade” tables are the highlight.
But what really sinks Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic is the slightly delay in pressing the flipper buttons and the flipper flipping. I lost a lot of balls because the flipper didn’t flip fast enough. But even without it, the tables aren’t interesting and the whole thing lacks a coat of polish that is necessary in today’s ePinball. I just can’t recommend this. It was a valiant effort, but required a few more months in the oven. Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic gets a Not Recommended verdict with a four back-end score.
Overall: Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic is an ambitious story-based pinball game, except the pinball is stuck in the past and the whole thing lacks polish.
Gran Turismo is an immortal series car racing games on the Sony Playstation series of consoles. I’ve only played the PSP version of it, but it was very good! Gran Carismo is attempting to fool people with a similar name(Like the horrible Call of Honor), but fails miserably. This is because it is trash. The graphics are trash. The sound is trash. The game play is trash. It all starts with the help menu:
This is engrish, written by people for English is not their first language. All that bo
Gran Turismo is an immortal series car racing games on the Sony Playstation series of consoles. I’ve only played the PSP version of it, but it was very good! Gran Carismo is attempting to fool people with a similar name(Like the horrible Call of Honor), but fails miserably. This is because it is trash. The graphics are trash. The sound is trash. The game play is trash. It all starts with the help menu:
This is engrish, written by people for English is not their first language. All that boils down to, win the races in Gran Carismo to win money to buy cars and tracks. But there is a little problem, winning a race is extremely hard. Winning is extremely hard not because the game is so good and requires great driving. It is because the AI is shit. On my first race, cars crashed and I crashed into crash.
One race I was in first place,and a car came the opposite direction and slammed into me. I’m sort of joking, the second place just ran into me. Gran Carismo is that bad. It is entirely devoid of worth and reason to play. I could go on into great detail about how bad it is, but I just don’t feel like it. But please trust me when I say there are no redeeming qualities. If you want a good racing sim on the switch, this is not one of them. Try Grid Autosport instead. That is a very, very good auto simulation, everything Gran Carismo is not.
Overall: Gran Carismo is not Gran Turismo, missing absolutely everything that made that series great! Avoid at all costs.
Dungeon Arsenal is a roguelike card game. You pick a character and climb a tower of five sections made up of 10 floors each. Each section contains a treasure room with contains items, relics and gold. The treasure room is almost always directly followed by a shop, which sells weaponry, health restoration, and a relic(more on those later). Floor 10 is always boss room. The rest of the floors contains an assortment of cards. There are weapons cards, items cards, stairs up, and gold(for the shop).
Dungeon Arsenal is a roguelike card game. You pick a character and climb a tower of five sections made up of 10 floors each. Each section contains a treasure room with contains items, relics and gold. The treasure room is almost always directly followed by a shop, which sells weaponry, health restoration, and a relic(more on those later). Floor 10 is always boss room. The rest of the floors contains an assortment of cards. There are weapons cards, items cards, stairs up, and gold(for the shop). Also contained are enemy cards. They will attack your hero for a defined amount shown on the card. You attack them with weapons for a defined amount, that last also for a defined amount. If your hero runs out of HP, its game over. And back to the start you go for another run.
After each boss in dungeon Arsenal, you get a choice of a relic, which has a defined effect(like pointing out an enemy card), a permanent health increase, or gold. I find that the permanent health increase is the most beneficial to get. Aside from relics, you can unlock more characters, card backing(which have effects) and special weaponry. There are also four different difficulty levels.
My only complain about Dungeon Arsenal, which keeps it from a Must Play, is that it really was not optimized for the Switch. As you can see, there’s a cursor, and the layout looks like its for a PC(steam version is here). The nice thing is though, there is a touch controls, which help immensely Other than that, this is a fine roguelike card-based dungeon crawler that I found enjoyable. This gets a Recommended with an eight back-end score.
Overall: Dungeon Arsenal is a rougelike card based dungeon crawler that I found enjoyable. Is more at home on the PC though.
Playing Puzzle World Neko Girls gives me new appreciation for Neko Secret Room and Neko Secret Homecoming, as bad those games were, and they were both awful, at least the anime cat girls were nude. No such luck here, with the game being rated E. You just get cutesy, fully clothed (though busty) anime cat girls. Its certainly creepy to an extent, but not as much as say, Princess Maker was. As for the game play, the market blurb describes the game as:
Try yourself in Puzzle World – a unique pu
Playing Puzzle World Neko Girls gives me new appreciation for Neko Secret Room and Neko Secret Homecoming, as bad those games were, and they were both awful, at least the anime cat girls were nude. No such luck here, with the game being rated E. You just get cutesy, fully clothed (though busty) anime cat girls. Its certainly creepy to an extent, but not as much as say, Princess Maker was. As for the game play, the market blurb describes the game as:
Try yourself in Puzzle World – a unique puzzle game that stands out from ordinary puzzles with its unconventional mechanics.
Puzzle World Neko Girls is different from similar games in that you simply rotate the pieces, and later on, mirror them. The game is harder than its siblings. It will even provide hints after solving a percentage of the puzzle(three in total). You might even need the hints if you get stuck, However, the difficulty doesn’t make it a good game. Just a little bit more tolerable, even though the art is AI generated like its siblings.
In the end, what is there more to say about Puzzle World Neko Girls? I guess, I wonder who this is for? It is not necessarily for horny thirteen year old boys, they’ll got for the harder games(like Neko Secret Homecoming), or go look at Hentai. Still, you could look at this as “baby’s first lewd game, getting you hooked to level up to the Hentai titles. In the end, begin slightly more tolerable isn’t a reason to get this. Pass on this anyway.
Puzzle World Neko Girls gets a Garbage verdict with a three back-end score. Note that threes usually get Not Recommended verdicts, but going forward, I will decouple the verdict and scores as need be.
Overall: Puzzle World Neko Girls is more tolerable than other games of this type, that does not mean you should plop down your money!
Awesome Pea 3 is a platformer like Saomi, N++ and Celeste. You run and jump through challenging stages to reach the end. Awesome Pea 3 looks and sounds great. It also plays great… except for one fatal flaw, no tutorial or explanation for anything. I couldn’t get past level 2. Now before you claim I’m Dean Taskahasi playing Cuphead, let me explain why using the level itself.
The level in question.
Ok, so in Awesome Pea 3 level 2, you start on the platform to the far left. Simple jump to wh
Awesome Pea 3 is a platformer like Saomi, N++ and Celeste. You run and jump through challenging stages to reach the end. Awesome Pea 3 looks and sounds great. It also plays great… except for one fatal flaw, no tutorial or explanation for anything. I couldn’t get past level 2. Now before you claim I’m Dean Taskahasi playing Cuphead, let me explain why using the level itself.
The level in question.
Ok, so in Awesome Pea 3 level 2, you start on the platform to the far left. Simple jump to where I am in the image. Now, to get to the next platform, you must air dash. Does the game tell you how to air dash? No. It’s the Y button, but I had figured it out by button mashing. The I’m on the far right platform. I assume you have to wall jump to get the key, except how do that is not explained, and nothing I did seemed to get me high enough to get me the key. So I gave up after half-an-hour and went and wrote this review. And no, the answer wasn’t hidden in the settings menu. Bad game developers, bad, bad.
I would’ve loved to have gotten to this level.
Awesome Pea 3 should be awesome, but its missing documentation on how to play or even a simple controls screen. I don’t care that this is the third game in the series, absolutely no excuse for base-level things. Even some of the worst games I’ve played told you the controls. I shouldn’t be stuck on level 2 because the developers forgot to tell you how things worked. Maybe you can past level 2 and enjoy the game more than I did. I’m moving on. This game gets a YMMV with a six back-end score.
Overall: Awesome Pea 3 would have been awesome if the developers didn’t forget to tell you how anything worked.
This is not my usual review. I don’t review fifty-dollar Nintendo published titles. I bought this for myself to play for fun. But with Endless Ocean Luminous getting a 63% percent on Metacritic, with IGN giving it a 4/10, I felt it is worth putting my two cents in. Will this get read? Probably not, but at least I can put this into the ether and see what happens. So anyways, Luminous is the third entry in the Endless Ocean franchise, after the first and Endless Ocean: Blue World. You are a diver
This is not my usual review. I don’t review fifty-dollar Nintendo published titles. I bought this for myself to play for fun. But with Endless Ocean Luminous getting a 63% percent on Metacritic, with IGN giving it a 4/10, I felt it is worth putting my two cents in. Will this get read? Probably not, but at least I can put this into the ether and see what happens. So anyways, Luminous is the third entry in the Endless Ocean franchise, after the first and Endless Ocean: Blue World. You are a diver in the mysterious veiled sea, and your job is to save the “world coral” by scanning tons and tons of fish, to get light that transfers to the coral. The game is divided into three parts: Story, Solo Dives and Shared Dives.
Endless Ocean Luminous’ story is really not important beyond giving you a point for being there. After chapter one, each section is locked and is unlocked by having a set number of scanned fish in solo or shared dives. Each story section is short and really not that interesting. I see as more of glorified tutorial(at least chapter 1 is). The meat of the game is in solo and shared dives. You swim around scan fish and pick up the occasional salvage. The maps are procedurally generated, and many reviews knock that. I don’t have a problem with it as the maps for the first two games weren’t exact that interesting either. Besides, the maps here are huge and filled with tons of fish from around the world, current and extinct, and even made up.
Endless Ocean Luminous’ Heart
The point of the game is to explore a map, scan fish and pick up salvage… and that’s it. There is nothing else. No dolphin companions, no above ground, no island hubs and no upgrades(all from Blue World). Endless Ocean Luminous is solely focused on scanning fish and picking up salvage. You can dive deep and never run out of air. The money you get is solely used on cosmetics. Many of the user reviews on Metacritic absolutely slammed this as a “soulless husk,” and yeah, it could be seen that way, especially when a Japanese Crab and an American Lobster are sitting next to each other on a rock(the fish are randomly scattered each map).
But I think people forget the first game was pretty shallow and boring itself, only a little more than scanning fish to fill a book. Blue World was great, and the slim-down from it is disappointing, but I don’t think it kills Endless Ocean: Luminous. That just makes this a very specific title for a very specific kind of person, and that’s fine. For example, on Twitter yesterday, I saw this:
Lemme tell you, yesterday, when going to Gamestop. I saw a father and his young daughter looking around. They later came up to the register as I was chatting to my friends and were asking about the new Endless Ocean game. She got sooooo excited and started talking about all sort…
— Rad Dad Redemption (@Rad_Dad_Redempt) May 3, 2024
Basically the girl was excited about the fish she was going to see in Endless Ocean Luminous, and so the game is made for people like her. As for me, this game is a perfect game to play while listening to a podcast, something the requires less focus and the sound can be more or less turned off. Its a vibe. I will give Endless Ocean Luminous a YMMV with a seven out of ten. Its good, but not great. And Your Mileage Will Vary. I can’t say if you’ll like it or hate Luminous, that’s solely depends on if this game is what you’re looking for. It is for me, but may not be for you.
Overall: Endless Ocean Luminous is all about swimming around and scanning fish, and nothing else. Whether or not you will like this is solely up to you.
Jigsaw Puzzle Fever makes Jigsaw Ice Princess look like a masterpiece, and that game sucked. I’m not kidding, this is atrocious. I failed the first puzzle, twice, because you can’t put the puzzle pieces back. You see on the bottom of the screen is a line of pieces, you pick up a piece and put it on the board, but it snaps into place. If it is correct, it shines few a second and becomes unmovable. IF its wrong, it just sits there, but you can’t move pieces off the board, nor can you switch them
Jigsaw Puzzle Fever makes Jigsaw Ice Princess look like a masterpiece, and that game sucked. I’m not kidding, this is atrocious. I failed the first puzzle, twice, because you can’t put the puzzle pieces back. You see on the bottom of the screen is a line of pieces, you pick up a piece and put it on the board, but it snaps into place. If it is correct, it shines few a second and becomes unmovable. IF its wrong, it just sits there, but you can’t move pieces off the board, nor can you switch them by dropping another piece on them. So towards completion, if the pieces are in the wrong place and there’s no place to move, game over and start again. Awful design choice!
Bad Game!
It is especially disappointing because Jigsaw Puzzle Fever has some good ideas, like some difficulties have you rotate the pieces into the correct orientation. However, that just gives you more opportunities to fail miserably here. Unless there’s a time limit, you should not be able to fail in jigsaw puzzle game. It defeats the purpose of being a jigsaw puzzle game, relaxing. There’s a decent amount of puzzles, but its so badly designed you’re not going to want to play it. No wonder the publisher gave out the keys freely on Keymailer, it is the only way people would touch it. Jigsaw Puzzle Fever gets a Not Recommended with a 3 back-end score. It only avoided the Garbage verdict because of the rotation feature.
Overall: JIgsaw Puzzle Fever is the worst designed jigsaw puzzle game I’ve ever played. You can fail the puzzles because the pieces are in the wrong place!
This Mojito the Cat is technically for the Steam version, which released this month(April 16th to be specific), but released on Switch too back in 2022 and published by Red.Deer Games. I picked that up on sale and got farther than I did on the Steam version, for a reason I shall explain. Anyways, you are a cubed cat and you roll around a stage to pick a fish bone and yarn balls in a minimum number of moves. At the end of each stage, you get golden blocks. Just getting the fish bone, equals one
This Mojito the Cat is technically for the Steam version, which released this month(April 16th to be specific), but released on Switch too back in 2022 and published by Red.Deer Games. I picked that up on sale and got farther than I did on the Steam version, for a reason I shall explain. Anyways, you are a cubed cat and you roll around a stage to pick a fish bone and yarn balls in a minimum number of moves. At the end of each stage, you get golden blocks. Just getting the fish bone, equals one block. Getting the bone and all the yarn is two blocks. Getting the bone and the yarn in a minimum number of moves equals three blocks, The game is divided into worlds of 10 stages each. In each world, get twenty blocks, and you can unlock the next world.
Switch Version
The main trick to Mojito the Cat are those arrow blocks, which literally the playing field. Early on, you’ll just flipping 180, aka upside down. Later, you may be flipping 90 or 180 in increasingly maze-like levels. There are also switches and breakable blocks to roll over as well. If you look in the screen shot above, you’ll see blocks that move once you roll over them. As I said, things start easy, but the levels get a lot longer and harder, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Steam Version
The reason I got farther in the Switch Mojito the Cat was because I had to use the keyboard on the PC, and honestly, wasn’t nearly as intuitive as the switch D pad. Also the camera was far easier to control. Either way though, Mojito the Cat is a good game and it will get a Recommended and an eight back-end score. If I had to pick, I’d say Switch(any one of the several versions that exist), but either version is really is fine. Finally, there are also downloadable skins for both. All are free on the Switch while some are 99 cents on the Steam page. Not necessary all around, but nice nevertheless.
Overall: Mojito the Cat is a fine puzzle game where you roll a cat cube around. Recommended.
To understand my review of stitch. you must understand Piczle Lines 2, which I argued 3 days after my review was written that it should be game of the year. It ended up not being anywhere on the list but still was amazing nevertheless. Anyways, in PL2, you draw colored lines to make pictures based on the colored number. If there’s a 10, the line is 10 spaces. The trick is fitting all the lines in, which can get really tricky, and really, really time consuming in larger puzzles. We’re talking a g
To understand my review of stitch. you must understand Piczle Lines 2, which I argued 3 days after my review was written that it should be game of the year. It ended up not being anywhere on the list but still was amazing nevertheless. Anyways, in PL2, you draw colored lines to make pictures based on the colored number. If there’s a 10, the line is 10 spaces. The trick is fitting all the lines in, which can get really tricky, and really, really time consuming in larger puzzles. We’re talking a game with hundreds of hours of content. It was jaw dropping how big the game was. Stitch. is like a slightly easier, guided PL2. Instead of throwing you into the fire with the entire image at once, you are guided from area to area, to fill in the colored lines.
Also differentiating stitch. is that the lines don’t bend. They are all either straight, or quadrilaterals(when you have even numbers only). This is not to say things don’t get tricky at times, oh they do. For example, The number can also be anywhere on the line, so if its a three space line, the number can be in the center with one space on either side. But having a confined space and predictable lines helps. You also have unlimited hints, but you get a higher score if you don’t use any. Still, there is a rhythm to the game all you its own. You get into a mode and just go. I’ll provide a video to demonstrate:
Stitch. comes with 107 puzzles of various sizes, with DLC puzzles to download later on. There are also special weekly puzzles, and daily hard puzzles. Now the verdict: Piczle Lines 2 got a Must Play and a ten back-end score due to its jaw-dropping amount of content. Stitch. will get a Must Play with a nine back-end score. It really it is delightful to play and the rhythm is addicting. There sadly isn’t 100+ hours of content here, but the daily and weekly puzzles add legs. Therefore, I fully recommend this to those who wants a game like PL2, but was intimidated by the sheer size and scale of the larger puzzles. I also recommend stitch. anyway, because it has a spin all its own.
Overall: Stitch. is a kinder, gentler Piczle Lines 2. It’s still great with its own unique identity!
I have encountered the Sokoban puzzle plenty of times before, like Cubicban or Super Glow Puzzle. For those who aren’t aware, Sokoban puzzles are those block pushing puzzles you’ve seen around. Sokobalien is a farm animal pushing puzzle. You are big-headed alien and have to push cows and other farms animals like pigs and chickens into a ufo’s tractor beam. It’s pretty standard stuff you’ve seen a thousand times before, until you get to level 16, and they introduce disappearing floors controlled
I have encountered the Sokoban puzzle plenty of times before, like Cubicban or Super Glow Puzzle. For those who aren’t aware, Sokoban puzzles are those block pushing puzzles you’ve seen around. Sokobalien is a farm animal pushing puzzle. You are big-headed alien and have to push cows and other farms animals like pigs and chickens into a ufo’s tractor beam. It’s pretty standard stuff you’ve seen a thousand times before, until you get to level 16, and they introduce disappearing floors controlled by buttons you have to leave cows on to materialize. Then the game becomes a lot harder and vastly more interesting. I could only get to level 22 before I was stumped, and the guide was completely wrong it is directions so i got stuck. I was disappointed really.
Level 22
In the end, I just scratched the surface of Sokobalien though, there are 100 puzzles in total and lots I did not experience, but for what I did experience, this is one of the better Sokoban puzzle experiences I’ve found on the eShop. The reason being, they attempted to move the genre forward a little with the floors mechanic. In addition to the puzzles, there are different hats you can buy with the coins you get winning levels. You can change the background at will to one of five different color schemes. Pointless, but it is nice that it was added. Sokobalien will get a Recommended with an eight back-end score. Must Play? Not really, these games rarely are due to their ubiquity, but if you want a Sokoban puzzle game with a twist, check this out anyway.
Overall: Sokobalien is a Sokoban/block pushing puzzle game that dares move things forward, nice!
A long time ago, a game called Triple Town came out. You built a town by matching pieces, going from bushes to trees to houses, or bears to graves to churches. Village Match is a triple town-like game where you place pieces on an island to form towns. Match 3 huts to form bigger huts. Match churches to make cathedrals. Fields to make windmills, which then get surrounded by fields. It was apparently made by one guy on his computer and it shows. Its not bad game, I kind of like it. Except there’s
A long time ago, a game called Triple Town came out. You built a town by matching pieces, going from bushes to trees to houses, or bears to graves to churches. Village Match is a triple town-like game where you place pieces on an island to form towns. Match 3 huts to form bigger huts. Match churches to make cathedrals. Fields to make windmills, which then get surrounded by fields. It was apparently made by one guy on his computer and it shows. Its not bad game, I kind of like it. Except there’s no tutorials or anything. Just start an island and get going. It would have been nice if they you told you 3 big fields can only make a mill once, and once that’s made, you can only surround it with the same big fields. There’s also a limited number of tiles to place, but I’m not sure what exactly gives you more tiles.
Match Village has the basics down, but simply lacks some serious polish that something like Triple Town had. I mean one man teams have created glory with stuff like Balatro. This seems like a game Jam entry that was picked and put out for a few dollars. It seems to be a thing(like Shivering Stone as well). This would have been better with more polish and documentation. On Keymailer’s website it even says:
Hey, before you buy, know that this is an indie game, developed by a guy in his room. Don’t expect a AAA experience with hours of content in this game, ok?
That’s really not excuse for this lack of polish with Match Village. Calling it minimalist and simplistic doesn’t necessary help. Take Oxytone, which got a Must Play. Minimalist, and simplistic, but it had polish. Here, the game feels rough and needed a few more minutes in the oven. Besides, Triple Town was free, Match Village is not. This gets a YMMV with a seven back-end score. It only gets a seven because there is a game here that is complete and playable. It is everything else that is lacking.
Overall: Match Village is a fine one man game, but lacks polish so its rough around the edges.
Enter the crypt and defeat as many monsters as you can before they overwhelm you!
Cryptrio is a retro-inspired Tetris-like game. You have several oddly shaped monster pieces that you cannot rotate dropping from the top. You must match three of them to make them disappear. Every three a levels a boss will drop the will require several adjacent matches to make it disappear. There is one mode, and the goal is a high score. If anything the game is too retro, there is no “next piece view,” which
Enter the crypt and defeat as many monsters as you can before they overwhelm you!
Cryptrio is a retro-inspired Tetris-like game. You have several oddly shaped monster pieces that you cannot rotate dropping from the top. You must match three of them to make them disappear. Every three a levels a boss will drop the will require several adjacent matches to make it disappear. There is one mode, and the goal is a high score. If anything the game is too retro, there is no “next piece view,” which makes it difficult to plan a strategy. As it is, the piece dropping might as well be completely random. Cryptrio is therefore ok, but I wouldn’t call it good or great for that one reason. The lack of rotation, however, does not hurt the game, because otherwise, it would make things way too easy.
The graphics are retro with a limited palette but it fits the tone. The music tracks are well done chip-tunes. Other than that, there’s not really much to say about Cryptrio because there is not much to this game. It is five dollars and has less modes than something like Sushi Shot, a comparable game via price and scope. So I’ll give this a Your Mileage May Vary verdict with a six back-end score. I guess I just wanted more than what is here. Plus the critical lack of a “next piece” view hurts this as well. I’m going to just end the review here and not pad it out because I can’t think of anything else to say or rant about.
Overall: Cryptrio is a competent retro-puzzler. I wish just wish there was more here and a “next piece” view.
Mimi the Cat: Mimi’s Scratcher is a puzzle game where you guide Mimi to her scratching post, usually floating the air and requiring a box or two to get there. There are jumps, specials boxes and box stacking(by pushing one into the other). The issue with the game is it was designed by amateurs. The Puzzles simply are not that difficult, and at points in the thirty puzzles, actually get easier not harder. Let me explain:
In the above puzzle in Mimi the Cat, I’m pushing the box down a narro
Mimi the Cat: Mimi’s Scratcher is a puzzle game where you guide Mimi to her scratching post, usually floating the air and requiring a box or two to get there. There are jumps, specials boxes and box stacking(by pushing one into the other). The issue with the game is it was designed by amateurs. The Puzzles simply are not that difficult, and at points in the thirty puzzles, actually get easier not harder. Let me explain:
In the above puzzle in Mimi the Cat, I’m pushing the box down a narrow hallway. How will I push the box to the right at the end? Via the space at the left end. Mimi can only jump on the box when it cannot be pushed. So push it to the end, jump on, jump to the left space. Then I push the box to the right end and jump on to the end of the level.
Then there are the jumping puzzles in Mimi the Cat, like the above, where you don’t even have to push boxes around in most of them. In that one, just walk and jump. With these puzzles, they had an idea, but couldn’t follow through with them and then discard the idea completely. The puzzles overall do get trickier, yes, but nothing you can’t work out with your eyes. And if you do make a mistake, press the B button to reset.
Work this out with you eyes, you can do it!
Mimi the Cat is a disappointing game, much like Afil’s other recent game, Storyblocks: The King though for entirely different reasons. In that game, they didn’t modify the controls for the Switch. Here the controls are fine, just the game was “Baby’s first puzzler,” something like I’d create if I had to create a puzzle game. It reminds me of Shivering Stone, which was made in RPGMaker. If you want an easy puzzle game for a few minutes of fun, get this. Otherwise, there are far better puzzle games on the Switch. This will get a Your Mileage May Vary verdict with a six back-end score.
Overall: Mimi the Cat: Mimi’s Scratcher is a puzzle game made by amateurs. The puzzles just aren’t well thought out.
Oxytone invites you to explore the depths of your mind while offering a tranquil escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life for those seeking relaxation.
Oxytone certainly is relaxing, if you want it to be. Or it can be a serious strategic hardcore puzzle game. The choice is yours. To better explain the game, let me show you a screenshot:
In Oxytone, you are the little beam of light off the side(not in the center). Your goal is to places the lined hexagons to form a path(in
Oxytone invites you to explore the depths of your mind while offering a tranquil escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life for those seeking relaxation.
Oxytone certainly is relaxing, if you want it to be. Or it can be a serious strategic hardcore puzzle game. The choice is yours. To better explain the game, let me show you a screenshot:
In Oxytone, you are the little beam of light off the side(not in the center). Your goal is to places the lined hexagons to form a path(in blue here). You rack up combos by making a path through multiple blocks at once, the longer the path, the higher the combo score. Reach a dead end or run out of tiles, game over. Now, each of the twelves maps has a set win score. Hit it and you unlock the next map in one of four sets. You can discard a tile you don’t like by pressing B, but you lower you tile count. You can refill the meter by filling a tile completely(using all the paths on it).
As I said at the start, Oxytone is what you make of it. It can be relaxing meditative game, or it could be a serious game of strategic tile placement for the hardcore. There are 99 challenges and twelve maps. There are also unlockable path colors, backgrounds and modifiers. Now, is this a Must Play? Honestly, yes, I think it is. It is a simple puzzle game, but because it what you make of it, more people can enjoy that than you’d think. Besides, this isn’t the only Must Play verdict I’ve given to simple games, Smashy Road and Cubic Light are two other examples. Not every game needs to be a flashy AAA to be good, sometimes the simplest games can be the most satisfying.
Overall: Oxytone is a puzzle game that either be relaxing, or hardcore. For that reason it earns a Must Play verdict.
PuzzMix bills itself as a “A fresh, exciting music puzzle game featuring The Muse, Lola!: Its a Suika Game clone. Suika now has an online multiplayer DLC. There is also Sushi Shot, which also has an online multiplayer version. My point is there is no particular reason to play PuzzMix, unless you want 19 bad Jpop songs that are unlocked the more you play. The reason being, other than the better versions existing, is they messed up the formula. The balls have weird attachments on them so they don’
PuzzMix bills itself as a “A fresh, exciting music puzzle game featuring The Muse, Lola!: Its a Suika Game clone. Suika now has an online multiplayer DLC. There is also Sushi Shot, which also has an online multiplayer version. My point is there is no particular reason to play PuzzMix, unless you want 19 bad Jpop songs that are unlocked the more you play. The reason being, other than the better versions existing, is they messed up the formula. The balls have weird attachments on them so they don’t roll at all, negating the physics aspect of the puzzle genre. Even Sushi shot made the sushi move as if they balls. What this all adds up to in an extremely boring game with hyper happy music that doesn’t excite me at all
I did not even finish one game of PuzzMix because it is so ungodly boring. I didn’t want to continue. Maybe I’m just bored of the genre, maybe I should redownload Sushi Shot and play that for a few more hours. It’s not like that was just thrown out the the door, there is a sizable staff listing for the game. Work went into this:
But just because a lot of work went into PuzzMix, especially the sound design, doesn’t mean there is a game worth playing here, especially when the physics is all messed up. Suika Game and Sushi Shot both got Must Play verdicts out of me. This will get a Not Recommended with a 5 back-end score. Oh and Suika and Sushi aren’t more expensive plain(though more expensive if you want the multiplayer expansions for both). There is no reason to pick this up all.
Overall: Puzzmix is a really boring version of Suika Game, just with 19 Jpop songs and an anime heroine.
Storyblocks: The King should have been an easy recommend on the Switch. It is a nice and relaxing puzzle game that is not particularly taxing. You have a starting block and multiple end blocks. You make a path to one of the end blocks using all of the provided blocks. The hook is that there is a story about young man leaving his home village for adventure. You can either continue the story by linking to a sign block, or end the story with a book block and start over. I got a few endings and enjo
Storyblocks: The King should have been an easy recommend on the Switch. It is a nice and relaxing puzzle game that is not particularly taxing. You have a starting block and multiple end blocks. You make a path to one of the end blocks using all of the provided blocks. The hook is that there is a story about young man leaving his home village for adventure. You can either continue the story by linking to a sign block, or end the story with a book block and start over. I got a few endings and enjoyed the idea immensely. I found other, similar games. like Dolemenjord more brain taxing that Storyblocks: The King is. This is fine. So far, so good.
What knocks Storyblocks: The King down to a Your Mileage May Vary are the controls. Simply put, placing blocks on the Switch is a nightmare. The controls were designed for a mouse(there is a Steam version). You can only use the stick and the blocks do not snap into place. This makes placing blocks far harder than it should be as you cannot connect blocks unless they have a green outline. Getting the green outline is often more trouble than it should be. The developers should have reworked the controls so that you can use the D-pad and the blocks snap into place. As it is, you are spending more time fighting the controls than enjoying the game and story. Also the menu button at the top does not work.
I wanted to like Storyblocks: The King. I wanted to recommend it. However, with the controls being what they are, I simply have no interest in experiencing more of it and getting all the ending. This is disappointing. This game will get a YMMV verdict with a six back-end score.
Overall: If you don’t mind fighting the controls, you might enjoy Storyblocks: The King.
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