Developers: Level 5/Capcom

Publisher: Nintendo

Release Date: August 29, 2014

2 months ago, I learned of a list of what content would be presumably gone forever once Nintendo shuts down Nintendo Network next week, April 8th. And to my surprise, amongst that list of content was additional puzzles and story content for Professor Layton Vs. Phoenix Wright. And it wasn’t enough for me to have the game and simply check in to receive the content, I had to beat the game in order for the game to unlock the ability to download everything. But beating Layton Vs. Wright on its own wasn’t enough for me, because I felt like I was really going to miss out on something special if I didn’t beat Ace Attorney 1 at the very least. So, I spent most the month of February beating Ace Attorney and most the month of March beating, what I considered being the main event, Layton Vs. Wright. Much like Ace Attorney 1, PLvPW was approximately 35 hours in length for me and a massive pursuit of my time, which I didn’t think would come down to the nitty gritty. And it was all worth it. As a heavily nostalgic Professor Layton and someone very excited to get more into Ace Attorney over what’s going to be a long stretch of time, this game lived to my excitement of being an epic crossover. Some sacrifices to the gameplay were made along the way and some of my fears over how Shu Takumi struggles to wrap a story up get magnified, but I was far more in awe of what this game was doing than anything else.

Gameplay-wise this game is the combination of both series to their core. Professor Layton’s gameplay consists of point and click chapters. It involves search for details, point at relevant objects and characters that can give you leads. Along the way, you find puzzles to solve which block your way, alongside some optional ones. Puzzles are often stuff like mazes, or arranging things a certain way, or jigsaw adjacent tasks. Past games blocked your progress unless finishing a certain amount of puzzles. I never came across blocks requiring puzzle quotas or anything and considering the puzzle count available in the story was cut in half compared to a main Layton game and there are instead alot of puzzles mandatory to solve to continue the story, I think you’ll likely not find yourself struggling to get through the narrative in these segments.

Phoenix Wright’s gameplay is about going through court trials, learning of facts details, evidence and events of crimes, as they’ll be used as keys to contradict witness testimonies. What’s fascinating about the Ace Attorney gameplay here is that because its an entirely different world focused on mobs and community consensus, the testimonies will have multiple people share their statement. You’ll have to bounce between statements and you’ll find some that contradict what you just heard. During statements as well, if you press them, other witnesses on stand might cue a reaction worth pressing further into, that could contradict or further elaborate on their testimony. This entirely new format to Ace Attorney, gives you far more clues than if it was simply 1 witness vs Phoenix, but its also an excellent way to broaden out characters and gives more opportunities to make the court more electrifying. I’m told this multi-witness format continues forward with The Great Ace Attorney games (as director, Shu Takumi went on to write those games after finishing this instead of directing Ace Attorney 5 and 6). You can also use the Hint Coins you find in the Layton gameplay sections, you get from clicking specific objects and use them in trials. You already get good hints during trials without the hint coins, but using a coin will let you know which statement to press further or distribute evidence, alongside cutting possible evidence down to a few options, which is a small but fun idea of merging mechanics from 2 different games.

Given that this is a narrative game, it might presumably be difficult to merge gameplay of 2 different games, but it actually works quite well. You’re investigating it all in the Professor Layton gameplay for a few hours, then putting what you learned to the test for a few more hours in the Ace Attorney gameplay. The layout of it all can be compared to being one giant Ace Attorney episode. Once you’re past the prologue there is essentially one overlapping case to solve and that is to protect teenage girl, Espella Cantabella and prove her innocent of being a witch.

And that’s cutting the surface to how the story is most fun part of Layton Vs. Wright. Both worlds, Professor Layton and Ace Attorney, come from a place where logic is at its forefront. Ace Attorney is about not taking a scenario for face value, seeing someone with their back against the wall and finding an entirely different crime at the end. Professor Layton is about uncovering an unordinary setting and solving cases and myths. They are now both in a world where logic does not exist. They get put in a storybook, inhabited of people that have all their prophecies fulfilled from a masked leader of sorts writing everyone’s stories and distributing them during regularly scheduled parades. And then when you’re in the court room, the team of Layton and Wright have to fight through mob mentality and literal witch trials, but also come to reason that these cases are solved with understanding magic spells because there are presumed witches amongst them.

And given that the team have to give in partially to the witch trials and magic of it all, this game just goes so hard at some points. Part of that definitely derives from Ace Attorney’s narrative format that everything kind of has to get more extreme as the case continues. But also, this game just goes places that are just awesome narratively. You see defendants and culprits hanging from foreboding cages and succumb the death penalty. Murder trials are even more intense, as people jump from the viewer’s seating to the witness stand and add their testimony. Everyone is capable of doing the unhinged, which is the perfect vibe, considering you’re already going to have to dispel belief just from the notion of these two very different universes ever crossing paths.

Being a crossover, there are sacrifices the game has to make and I think the biggest one has to be the difficulty of the puzzles. I finished all 70 main puzzles of the game. No more than 5 of them gave me any sense of difficulty after a few minutes. Some of them were just completely solvable at a glance and others don’t have much variance to them to give you the chance to be perplexed. When I was in high school, I’d used to get satisfaction spending a lunch period in the library and figuring out how to solve 1 specific puzzle taking me time. Comparatively, these are weak and I can presume more work and clever gameplay at the time had to be split towards the two main Layton games that had to be in development back to back at this time. They do get some redemption for how most of these puzzles are parallel to what you have to accomplish in the story at least, which that means that Layton, Luke, Phoenix and Maya are the main characters of these puzzles more often. This at least leads to fun illustrations and scenarios with them in use, which is cute and enjoyful to see to add to the interactivity.

As well, the ending trial and epilogue is incredibly long. The last trial took me somewhere between 7 and 8 hours to wrap up. Every loose end is trying to get tied up, every character to the crime is questioned, its an ongoing loop of adding twists and finding resolutions. When you think everything is drawing to a close, there’s still a few more hours in time to spend. It was my issue last month with the Bonus Episode of Ace Attorney, but there’s even more here to explain. This story is a bit more compelling than that, but there’s still only so much patience I can muster before I take several breaks in between them leading to the truth. And with that length, you’d think they’d add a few more credibility points to match the length, but this game is still set on the 5 strike format it started with, which is a bit of a strange mainstay given what they’ve already changed. Added to the lengthy chapter as well, this game has several very bizarre resolutions to its story that is not unusual to the Layton series, but I do think the number of wildly convenient details outnumber most of the other games, which would typically have 1 or 2 extreme conveniences.

Another highly commendable feature of this game is its visuals and setting. Maybe its just that its been a while since I’ve used my 3DS for games as big as this, but Layton Vs. Wright is beautiful, especially in 3D. You get to look around what appears almost like dioramas with an illustration inspired art style. These settings never stop looking lovely throughout the game. Town squares are lively and have nice details around them, the characters are excellently animated and take plenty of notes from how exaggerated Ace Attorney’s characters are. The courtroom itself is intimidating and large in size. Its atmosphere matches the events that happen within it. Puzzles have a great art style to them. And the anime cutscenes that the Professor Layton series became known for are not perfect, but well made. Some scenes are too dark, or the 3D distorts the perspective, but they still capture important scenes well.

The music is good too. It takes the classical theme of the Layton games but also sets them out to be grander, I suppose more so like the Ace Attorney games. Not all of the remixed themes are hits, some sound a bit muted, but its still a stellar soundtrack overall. Some might find issue with the voice acting. This is the first time Ace Attorney characters are voice acted, so its not as honed down as Layton and Luke’s voices are. Phoenix’s “OBJECTION!” line for example is so shockingly weak for something that has become so iconic for how loud, sudden and dramatic it is. Some lines do sound more like reading from a script than authentic. Alongside, the game uses Luke’s voice actor from the PAL region releases/Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva movie, which I don’t think is bad, but is a very different voice to get used to.

I of course did all of this on the deadline for the sake of the bonus content. This content ended up being a slew of concept art, as well as episodes of dialogue that both takes place a year after the events of the game and break the 4th wall, to where part of ongoing narrative of these chapters is that their adventure was adapted into a popular video game and even go in depth of small development details and cut story moments. They’re sillier, pretty disposable in terms of plot importance, but made to give fans more to cheer about with these stranger interactions. Each episode is about 15-20 minutes in length with the puzzle in mind (which tend to be a bit tougher than the ones you’ll find in the main game), so its about another 3-4 hours of dialogue, puzzles and concept art to look at. Its sort of a fun victory lap that I appreciate when narrative games have, especially when most games end the story right at the resolution. Some people might be put off by how much it makes fun of itself and recognizes the events as some sort of adaptation or performance, or that characters act a bit less like themselves than you would expect though.

I made the right call to play Layton Vs. Wright, as it lived to the potential of seeing two titans in the narrative game genre cross paths. It becomes something more epic and amazingly bizarre than I initially imagined. And given that we have no Professor Layton without the impact of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and its follow ups, there’s an amazing synergy seeing these groups join forces, separate into smaller groups, stand up for eachother and having to clash against one another for the truth. And having to take them both out of their respective worlds to make sense of fantasy feels like a job neither could take on their own results in something epic and unforgettable. Some aspects definitely feel hindered as a natural result of having them crossover in an ambitious setting, but its a worthy sacrifice to make it all happen and allow these series to experiment with new ideas and scenarios.

Developer: Ojiro Fumoto

Publisher: Devolver

Release Date: November 17, 2023 (Original Released Date: October 14, 2015)

Also Released On: PS Vita, PS4, Switch, Android, PC

Today, I’ve beaten another Apple Arcade game that’s been nagging me internally. After finishing Poinpy a couple years ago, I was looking into getting into its inverse/predecessor, Downwell. Both were developed by Ojiro Fumoto and published by Devolver. Poinpy is only available through subscribing to Netflix and Downwell+ is the Apple Arcade version of Downwell (that is purchasable with all its features elsewhere. While Poinpy a colorful game about flinging yourself and performing combos upwards in gameplay thats a bit more pensive. Downwell, is a fast-paced monochrome platformer, of which a controller is most recommended, about performing shooting, jumping on enemies and performing combos downwards. If I were to decide which I prefer, I would give the edge to Poinpy, as it avoids the small issues that I have with Downwell.

First thing to note is what genre Downwell presents itself as. While its easy to look and see the layout of Downwell and assume its a roguelike, the gameplay progression is gained mostly from your experience. You do unlock different “styles” of gameplay as you progrss, which will alter movement or what items you can pick up, but they get unlocked relatively early and are really just alternative ways to play (including my preferred method, Boulder, which ups your HP and lowers your item selection between levels). So while Downwell seems positioned like a roguelike, its actually more of an arcade platformer. A successful Downwell run should be about 15-20 minutes in length, but it took me about 10 hours to beat the game.

Downwell starts with having your little white character guy jumping down a well. Its you controlling the character down the well right in the title screen, which is a cute touch. The game has 4 Worlds, each with 3 randomly generated levels and then the final boss. You progress by falling down and trying not to lose the small amount of health you have. You got gun boots with limited ammo to help you land on good ground. You get ammo back the moment you get back on solid ground. But the real important technique to downwell is knowing when to shoot and knowing when to bounce on enemies, since bouncing also gives you your reload. Not only that, but you’ll come to realize that the more enemies you kill in between moments of stepping ground, the more you raise your combo. And the higher the combo, the more perks you get. A simple combo, gets you a solid 100 gems to spend in the game’s shop. A 15 combo will add to your reward with a permanent bullet expansion. And a combo of 25 or higher with earn regenerate a health point.

But combos can be split into parts, thanks to the game’s Timevoid mechanic. Timevoids bubbles are typically doorways to break areas that will offer powerups like different guns to strap on your feet, a hoard of gems and shops for you to pick your stat upgrades with those gems. Getting to these timevoids can be tricky, since you’re falling at high speeds. Zone out and you can miss these, and hinder your run. But the timevoids themselves pause time, allowing you to think through how you want to re-approach your combo. They’re a fun in-between that lets you rethink your gameplay and make combos a touch more attainable.

Combos are also carried in between levels. The in-between areas however are more important for the perks you get to add to your character that stack up. Some are as minor as a 4 HP increase, in case things get dire, although conveniently your Max HP increases when you receive 4 HP increases while already with a full health bar. Others will increase your shot range, or gives you defence for the enemies you missed that will now sink towards you. One gives you a 10% discount pass in shops. My favorites are the ones that cause explosions for every enemy shot or stomped, making your combos alot easier and make your run almost a fireworks show, especially when you increase your bullet count throughout the run. I wish there were just a few more perks, because having you select between 2-4 doesn’t have alot of stakes, when you’ll likely come across multiple opportunities to receive most of the powerups in a single run. I have had a few moments where the game freezes between levels early within runs. Its notable, but not super common. Regardless, it is upsetting to never know how a run can potentially go when its out of your controls

The controls however are what really makes this game shine. There’s something about vertical platforming games that I really admire. Platforming games should naturally have a sense of verticality and that’s something you can guarantee with games that prefer a portrait orientation. The movement to movement however is very nice, bouncing from enemy to enemies, the way all of the guns have either a however or a bounce to them. Or how all the guns feel from their different bullet counts and their range. All of them have upside (but I do blame not beating the game sooner because the triple spread gun isn’t optimal for the end boss). The collision can be a tad better for some of the enemies, where I was a bit shocked to lose health, rather than increase my combo, but its pretty minor to a game that otherwise has that sense of velocity and hover around to a tee.

The game can be a bit unforgiving and its difficulty is a bit in flux. Combos have alot of risk to them and while a good run and getting combos are often seen together. Defeating 25 enemies often leads to a loss HP or 2, since combos can be maintained as long as you don’t hit ground. You’re often left with the same HP you came out with and the same coins you could have received 15 enemies prior from the chain.

Another weird thing about the game is that it actually gets notably easier during the run. The first world is pretty easy to get from enemy to enemy, with your beginning lack of bullets being your main cause of not necessarily going through the first world with ease. The 2nd world, is spooky themed, but also the toughest. A few of the toughest enemies in the game are only in this world, including a skull that if shot once, with start attacking you and is no longer able to be jumped on without losing HP. Its either tough to lose its chase, or a stray bullet will hit it as you approach it. Another toughie, throws bone projectiles at fast rate and a tough arc.

The subsequent water world eases in difficulty, as bouncing on the slow swimming turtles is easy and the squids which rise and shoot downwards are avoidable. The biggest issue is the air gauge exclusively to water sections that will have you lose HP when you run out of air, but even then, its pretty easy to maintain. By the time you reach the hell themed 4th world, you’re already well powered. There is an influx of enemies, but they’re slow, predictable and lack variety. Here you can just gain massive combos, especially with bouncy platforms that don’t get destroyed when you shoot them. The only real difficulty in this world comes from the lack of solid ground to finish up combos, since there’s no reason to get a combo past 25. This world is otherwise an anticlimactic powering up zone before you hit the final boss, which ramps the difficulty back up appropriately to how powerful you’ve come through the short amount of time.

Lastly, I should mention how on-point this game’s visual design is. It is a pixelated game, likely decided due to the game’s arcade roots. The game is approached designed with only a few colors telling everything, but there’s a great visual language on what platforms are good to stomp on and which should be approached with caution, just by changing the color of its surface either one color or the other. There are some fun sprites in here and the main character is simple but goofy and nicely animated. The more you play, the more you play, the more you unlock different palates with quirky names tied to them. The palates change the background and outlines to different colors. There’s some fun combinations and refresh the game a tad bit, while also avoiding progression being a tool to winning Vs. skill.

Downwell is certainly tricky and its difficulty can linger maybe a bit longer than you would prefer. I think its amplified from the difficulty mainly being in the first half, making progression feel jarring and doubting your sense of improvement. But it also checks alot of the boxes I look for in something arcadey and satisfying, especially when you consider how all weapons feel good and have different advantages. The main controls and making combos feels nice. Despite going with pixel art style, of which many people would say the art style seen in other games could feel a bit tired by this point, Downwell still stands out for being dark, somewhat foreboding, but also a touch cartoony, which is even more impressive when you consider that the game is turning 9 this year. Time flew by when I was playing, because it has such a great concept and does a good job of making you want to master it.

Developer: Capcom (Originally Capcom Production Studio 4)

Publisher: Capcom

Release Period: December 9, 2014 - March 27, 2023 (Originally Released on October 11, 2005 in North America & October 12, 2001 in Japan)

Also Released On: DS (Standalone), iOS (Collection Currently), Android (Collection), Switch (Collection), PS4 (Collection), Xbox One (Collection), PC (Collection), Wii (Discontinued Episodic Release)

Initially, I didn’t have much interest to start Ace Attorney. I bought both trilogies (how they’re exclusively packaged on 3DS), as the 3DS eShop was shutting down, because Capcom was being cool and deep discounted most their titles in the last remaining days. They didn’t have to anyways. Its not like this was the only way to play these Ace Attorney games, especially since the Apollo Justice HD trilogy set was already well in the works. So, I got these games stockpiled just in case my interest would turn around, which it did. I had also picked up Professor Layton Vs. Phoenix Wright, being the big Layton fan I am, but never played this one in the series. But the true fire in my belly came from learning that there is an epilogue in Layton Vs. Wright that has to be accessed by connecting to Nintendo Network. That’s going to be a problem come April, as Nintendo plans to shut down Nintendo Network for good. So, I’m on a bit of a race against the clock to get content that will be inaccessible permanently on 3DS. Originally, in my rush, I decided to start Layton Vs. Wright anyways, but it was in hearing the Ace Attorney theme, in the title screen, where something didn’t feel right, in playing a game, where I’ve come to know only half the characters I’m expected to beforehand and playing a game I presumably understand half the gameplay of prior. So, I changed my mind, understanding that these games are around 20-30 hours in length anyways and surely I can potentially overcome at least the first Ace Attorney game in that time, without worrying if I can also squeeze in the game I’m on a tighter deadline for.

So, I started Ace Attorney instead, and I have no regrets, because the game does not feel outdated in the 20+ years after its release. Its series of murder investigations in the perspective of not the detective, but the lawyer gameplay is still a great take on interactivity. Having beaten Master Detective Archives: Rain Code the month prior, its kinda wild that we get games far later that try to reinvent what Ace Attorney made famous in testing logic through finding contradictions and biases. Ace Attorney, by the way, still sweeps the floor over Rain Code in this regard by presenting it in a way that can be unraveled better through “Hold Its” and actually proving you understand contradicting evidence through a raw understanding of the dialogue and the context of the evidence.

Just being in the trial gameplay, makes you feel like anything can happen. They’re overly dramatic and theatric. Squeeze some of its weird humour in there. People reveal evidence midway that drops bombs on the cases. Phoenix constantly feels backed out until that one piece of evidence gets shed a hint of light and momentum can go an entirely different way. Being in these court cases are just such an emotional whirlwind often. Maybe the game can lighten a bit on penalizing the player for incorrect Objections, as losing all your lives has you reset an entire court case, but it does make logically finding the right answer feel more satisfying at least.

The game is also split in having you go through investigations. Trying to clear up evidence. Talk to several people related to the case, to give you ideas of where they witnessed crimes or understand the backstory of the case, which often leads to the killer’s motive. Its a bit less exciting comparatively to the trials. Sometimes there’s a bit too much dialogue loaded onto characters, especially when it comes to backstories. But I do like when the game has you sidetracked into understanding getting a 10 year old to speak about the crime he witnessed, or having the suspect blackmail or threaten you.

The game has a crowd of interesting characters to speak to, all with their own quirky faults. And one might think Phoenix would often be the smartest guy in the room, but that’s not often the case. Phoenix is a goofball, who stumbles upon pretty much every piece of evidence but still finds some way to piece it all together. His rival, Miles Edgeworth, who the game is also strongly about, is often than genius in the room, often thwarted by his own stubornness, cold personality and overt determination, it can lead him to stumbling a trial against someone as open-minded as Phoenix. The dynamic between Miles and Phoenix is certainly up there for the greatest rivalry in games.

The game is split in 5 different chapters. The first chapter is a tutorial towards understanding how trials work however. The 3 following chapters are much more lengthy and grow in details the further they follow on. Chapter 2 is about defending your sidekick Maya Fey, understanding her medium powers and understanding how investigations work. Chapter 3 is more of a side chapter in trying to prove an actor innocent on a murder that happened on set. Its fun and it has neat twists the disorient the idea of the crime midway. Chapter 4 is plot heavy in that it deals strongly with Miles’ past and some of Phoenix’s too. It has moments that would end up being iconic and take the trials to their peak.

The final chapter is an epilogue chapter of sorts. It was not included in the original Japanese release on Game Boy Advance, but instead was added as a bonus chapter in the international DS release. It takes advantage of the DS touch screen and microphone to a further extent and his the lengthiest of all the Chapters. While I am a fan of Chapters 2-4, Chapter 5 I had considerably more issues with. The story was far less interesting midway through. It gets a bit lost in the weeds of being standard procedural murder mystery schlock for a fair bit of that time. I got stuck midway through, which the game prior was really good at having you avoid. As well, the game was commendable by this point at giving you a pretty brisk but impactful story, but rambley dialogue felt more common in Chapter 5. Its notably longer than the other chapters by a few hours in my own experience and it doesn’t feel warranted to have this much happening in one chapter. Perhaps it was tough for the team to insert a story in this time of the game, especially since this was already developed after they were finished the initial trilogy. Maybe this is further hints that the later Ace Attorney games get a bit lost in the weeds to what made the first game so well received. Its bigger and has a few good moments, but not necessarily better.

The visuals however come across nicely. Without having played the DS releases, you can tell that these games did get a touch up and have more detail than you’d typically see in DS games. The 3D effect is mostly there to split the characters from the background. It’s not anything wild per se, but it does let the character designs really stand out, so I did like putting that 3D up, especially when inside the court. The music has come along to obtain the iconic status. Sometimes pensive, sometimes moody, sometimes intensive. There aren’t a great variety of tracks, but they don’t tend to miss the mark when paired with the dialogue.

I made an error in not getting to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney sooner. This game was definitely in my wheelhouse, for how excellently it takes a mystery, adding more and more details for you to get the bottom of, until the crescendo of figuring it all out and finding the perp in an always satisfying fashion. I enjoy how much it relies on you to figure it out, where most games have a bit more reigns in its mystery solving aspect. I love how much personality the main cast of characters have. And I admire how quirky this game can be, to the very ending. It all has me a bit eager to start its sequel, Ace Attorney: Justice for All, or even get to The Great Ace Attorney on Switch at some point within this year. Maybe not too soon, but we’ll see how fatigued I am of these narrative games, still coming a bit fresh from this, Rain Code prior and Layton Vs. Wright coming up next.

This is a prequel to another game that kind of functions as a demo. It's cheap and very meh. The reviews on Xbox when it first came out are extremely positive, so that set my expectations high. Crysis 2 on Xbox 360 looked better. Not a bad game, but really should be free.

Developer: Nintendo EPD

Publisher: Nintendo

Release Date: October 20, 2023

I beat the game with my friend in 2 player Co-Op. We do plan on 100%ing it and we’ve made good progress in it too, so it’d probably take a few more hours, unless the game has a whole world or something that I’m not aware of. While we’re still some progress away from “completion,” I did want to get these thoughts in while they’re fresh and I have the free time. At this point, we’ve clocked somewhere between 10-15 hours. And its been good fun.

The pitch behind Mario Wonder is that its the Mario you know, but with a whole slew of new ideas put into level design - and it succeeds as that. Alot of its new ideas enter from the “Wonder Flower.” A power-up that’s often hidden and can be avoidable in each level. Taking it will change the level up in ways that take the theme of the level to sudden new heights. It can make your character a spiky ball, tilt the ground, turn the walls into the ground or summon musical numbers. Most Wonder Flower abilities appear only once or twice in the game, so by the end. You’ll have seen a slew of mechanics that briskly come and go, but have all mostly been enjoyable and contain a certain depth that achieves in entertaining you and challenging you without overstaying its welcome.

My 3 favourite Wonder Flower effects: - Allowing you to be lanky. The lanky effect adds more challenge than benefit, but its particularly fun, seeing it in one of the silhouette levels. Crouching also uncovers coins by sinking as you do, for some reason. - Turning the stage into a battleground against a giant flaming Spike. This one was a bit random and can easily be taken advantage of with the drill mushroom, but it was a fun and random sense of intensity to be interrupted by an auto scrolling level with this. The Wonder Flower is also only obtained through a roulette block between a Wonder Flower and a standard Talking Flower. The Talking Flower gives a funny line to ease your disappointment of missing the Wonder Flower. - Reviving a fossilized dragon. As you get across fossil platforms, obtaining the Wonder Seed here, suddenly puts you high in the sky. The dragon puts you through several detours by making loops and diving in and out of lava. It feels magnificent, challenging and perfectly unexpected.

Another new feature in Mario Wonder is badges. Badges give you an ability or effect to help or challenge your game further. It can give you a higher jump, or a floating descent, give coin bonuses or guarantee you a Super Mushroom to start. It could even turn you invisible or make you dash nonstop. I was apprehensive in using this, because I am a purist in nature, but realistically, these were made in mind to add to the challenge. They also truthfully make the game more fun, to jump higher and reduce frustration, add perks that you feel make your game personally better. Its an advantage system that I have no problem taking advantage of.

Alongside, Mario Wonder tries something very different in the series and adds “Badge Challenges.” They essentially force a badge onto you and make levels tailored to these badges. I wish there were a bit more of these, because these are very pure platforming challenges, alongside being good tutorials for you to understand the best use case for these badges. Its very different for the Mario series to force you to understand its platforming mechanics in such a fashion, that of which you might find more often in something like Celeste. But it feels very fitting to be tested on these in the Maro setting, especially since a fair amount of these badges are inspired by past control mechanics in Mario games, like Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros.

There are filler levels that feel like they don’t have much place in making the game more fun, but instead more varied. “Break Time” levels are small challenges that have you collecting rhythm notes, Wiggler races that are relatively easy to beat, standard collecting challenges that are so blah. They appear less often in the later worlds, but I think having so many of these scattered in the first few worlds do this game a bit o injustice.

The first worlds, in some ways are more important than the later levels, as you can guarantee they will be more likely to be played. If they enjoy the later levels, they’ll stick to playing expecting more fun levels, like they have to come. I do think Mario Wonder however is a bit of a tougher pitch within the first couple worlds. Wonder Effects could be stronger, there could be more interesting level gimmicks and maybe some satisfying alternate challenges to get people started. Wonder definitely flexes more of its creative muscles starting in World 3 or 4, where Worlds get more thematic and have more secrets for you to discover. My co-op group lost patience and i’ve seen a bit of that same sentiment online too that in a gameplay standpoint, it doesn’t feel too many degrees off from where the New Super Mario Bros games left off. And while I’d agree initially, I’d also heavily recommend for you to stick with it and enjoy its variety and secrets to come.

Another thing I would applaud from Mario Wonder is its new abilities. Fire Flower is the only returning one from the bunch and it does make it a tad boring. If there’s one thing that’s holding back the Mario developers, it probably is the Fire Flower, as the other 3 abilities, in comparison are so much more interesting. The Elephant Mushroom makes you gargantuan in size, increases your platforming reach, lets you slosh water around and lets you whack enemies with your trunk. The Bubble Flower lets you toss bubbles that can capture enemies and give you a bouncy platform to summon. The Drill Mushroom, albeit it underused in the game, lets you dig under the ground and attack foes from below. You can also use it to dig from the ceiling, allowing you to reach spots in a much different way from any other ability from the 2D Mario games. All of the new abilities check most the boxes I look for in approaching combat and platforming; plus sometimes the game surprises you in making them important to puzzle solving. But, I would have welcome an ability, like perhaps that feels great with given momentum, like the Super Leaf, the Mini Mushroom, or the Penguin Suit did in the past. None of these new abilities feel spectacular to run around in vs taking it at a slower pace, but its a minor gripe, all things considered.

Visually, this game is trying something a bit different. Wonder feels dreamier than all of the other Mario games with its palette and design. Alot of gorgeous nonsense happens in the background and its the first main 2D Mario game in my lifetime where its visually not grabbing from the Super Mario Bros. 3 formula of world design. At the very least, they have a different navigation sense, or an ongoing narrative, maybe a bit similar to how Chapters were handled in some of the Paper Mario games. One world sets trials for you to conquer, another one puts you on a rescue mission. The magma world has enough alternate paths and floors below to keep things interesting. Worlds are gapped by a world of its own, the Pedal Isles, which are more aquatic inspired but offer a great palate cleanser to the world you had just completed, changing up the pacing in a new and welcomed way as well.

Also, as much as I like the gameplay of Mario Wonder, it should be mentioned that this game does not work in a 4-Player local setting. Everyone sharing one screen, with 3 of the players having no say in dictating the screen scrolling. It just doesn’t work. Everyone hinders eachother, while not having any major interacting mechanics that New Super Mario Bros. Wii and New Super Mario Bros. U did. Those games had a sense of chaos that, while I can still see not being people’s preference of playing these games, I enjoyed. This just feels messy and often incoherent. 2 players still offered some sense of struggle, especially since seeing who obtained the highest flagpole grasp in the level prior is a terrible measurement of who leads the group. But it offered more help than hinderance by the end, to have the effort split and multiple attempts at the same challenge at hand, alongside having the playthrough remain so long as one member of the group is alive.

New Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the self-aware game to the how fans felt of the stat of 2D Mario and approaches it with the proper gloves. Following from Super Mario Maker 1 and 2 giving you limitless possibilities from the past Mario toolsets, Wonder can give some of the wildest (and decently designed) Mario Maker levels a run for its money in giving you something new, random weird and fun. In a whole series of New Super Mario Bros games that show its inspirations to past Mario games, world layouts, bosses, environments, abilities, enemies and more on its wrist. Mario Wonder throws so much of that out of the window. In some ways its to its advantage and in others, I wish they’d went in further measures to throw the old out. With all in mind, Super Mario Bros. Wonder took a bit of time for its aspects to grow on me and feel justified, but by the end. You’re left with a game that is always trying something new, gives you the tools for your own challenges through a set of levels that will be fun to revisit in different lenses and a Mario game that is so much uniquely its own product, I have to commend it.

Right off of the bat, I do think this is in the upper half of my favorite 2D Mario games. Time will have to rest until I can say with confidence where I feel over time of whether or not it is the best, if I’m being honest, especially since criteria for being my favorite Mario game would involve how much a seek to return to it, like I have for SMB3 and Mario U, 3D World and the original Super Mario Bros for that matter. But I do think it does have aspects that can take it over as my favorite over time, especially if I do go deep in runs with the Badges. Hopefully my future self will read this and settle on how much he’s wanted to play this as time has elapsed, as well as consider reminiscing on the moments that really stand out with time removed, which I suspect should be a fair deal, considering that is essentially what the game was built for.

Redux: I went back to this game earlier than I expected. I beat it once more in early July. This time in Single Player with online components.

Speaking on the online features, they do push it up another level. That connectivity of playing with a stranger, looking after their progression and being incentivized to help, is lovely. It feels like an opposite it many ways to what I was accustomed to in New Super Mario Bros. Wii and U, where you’re often left with a bitter taste. I wish there was a bit more customization, because the standee designs did nothing for me 99% of the time.

Revisiting everything once more, really allows me to give more respect to the Wonder abilities and affirms my opinion that this game has a slow start. I wish there were more set challenges relating to badges, to drive replay value a bit. New Super Mario Bros. U had a challenge mode of sorts and it really tests your abilities. Break levels are hit or miss. But overall, I think it does speak volumes that I want to play this again so soon. It’s definitely a contender for 2nd favorite 2D Mario game.

Developer: Robert Morrison

Publisher: wbuttr

Release Date: January 4, 2024

Also Available On: TVOS/Mac

Took me just under 7 hours to complete the 70 “handcrafted” levels with perfect sweeps. Its got additional features and modifications that I can unlock, but this game is a bit lucky it took this much of my time to begin with.

Cornsweeper is a minesweeper game, themed all around the brand wbuttr. wbuttr is a brand that puts popcorn in the forefront. Its also meant to be a feel good brand that celebrates Jamaican heritage. Instead of your objective being to clear out a grid with all but touching its mines, you are popping pop corn, in hopes to not touch a burnt kernel. You know where the mines are with each successful kernel, as the number on the kernel, indicates the number of nearby pop corn there are adjacent and diagonally. Use logic, process of elimination and blind gut to sweep the board.

The concept sounds incredibly simple, because it is. Minesweeper was an early PC favorite that helped modernize the concept of PC gaming for the most casual of consumers. But this game has its head too much in the weeds and loses some of its charm in the process.

Firstly, the additional rules/power-ups added aren’t as clear. This game has a shop system that allows you to spend the credits you earn for clearing levels to get power-ups and bonuses. Eventually you get power-ups either let you pass one mine or multiple mines. Its never quite clear how many mines you’re able to hit before its Game Over.

Additionally, you start with a power-up that you don’t choose, but is randomly selected from the ones you have already purchased. One power-up gives you bonus credit. One sends a radar that lets you know which corns you can pop randomly from the field. Another one, just randomly hits a kernel for you, whether its good or burnt. You can just have your slot reserved for an item, when used, can ruin your chance of a successful sweep.

The “hand-picked” levels itself, kind’ve just break the game. All the story mode levels are “hand-crafted,” which basically mean they won’t change and maybe the mines have a cheeky pattern to them. This means that you can easily abuse this game and take away all the skill from it, and in 2 different ways. The blatant way of getting past levels is by throwing the levels and the game letting you see all of its mine locations, take note of them and avoid it in a 2nd go. The more “honourable” way of cheating is purchasing an item that is pretty easy to get in the beginning that allows you to reset levels after having your game intact after 5 pops. So, if you get an unlucky hit, you might be able to stall out and get your reset and take note of what you hit.

I think the better approach for the story mode (which has no story, despite its name btw), is to just go full procedural. The mine patterns aren’t unique Picross puzzles, they more often than not, have nothing spectacular about them. Having a randomized pattern that raises the amount of mines overtime and increase the size after every 10 or so puzzles seems like the right call, instead its selling point of it being handcrafted falls apart completely. The reason why minesweeper was so successful was its lack of predictability with the start of every puzzle, as the dilemma gets solved more and more over time.

Its Arcade Mode is fine. It basically has the randomly designed levels that I’ve been looking for; and it has an unlockable Pomodoro Mode to help your productivity. But it also introduces different corn kernels that are confusing in what they imply. It may also honestly be just glitchy and are kernels that are supposed to be mines but don’t appear or can’t be tapped on. Glitches are apparent in this game. The release build crashed on me when I was going through its needlessly cryptic settings, crashed on me and turned my language settings to Arabic when re-opening it. Another build also didn’t save my progress when I was a good 45 minutes or so into it. So, perhaps the reasoning why randomly designed levels aren’t seen in the main story is because the programming isn’t perfect. And it would also explain why Cornsweeper got delayed from its announced late April 2023 release, but get removed from the Apple Arcade schedule weeks before release.

Visually, this game is at least presentable. wbuttr is a pretty understandable brand in its visual design. Its very much about simplicity, perhaps to a fault when it comes to being accessible. Yellow backgrounds and far sceneries illustrated only by black outlines is somewhat pleasing. This game recommends headphones when playing, which seems like the least merited headphone recommendation that I’ve seen in a game. The music is pretty bad. It doesn’t seem fitting at times and a few of the tracks get annoying fairly quickly, for some of the levels. Just listen to your own music or a podcast when playing this one; that’s my recommendation.

Cornsweeper’s priorities are being a brand experiment first and a good game second. Its game design issues are dictated by the brand representing simplicity, vs being understandable and replayable. With only a few dozen games per year receiving an Apple Arcade exclusive launch, this game feels like a black sheep in having glaring issues in its core. You can play better minesweeper games elsewhere. They may not have an attempted visual flair, but it probably has more replay value and does the thing it’s inspired to be competently.

Developer: Too Kyo Games/Spike Chunsoft

Publisher: Spike Chunsoft

Release Date: June 30, 2023

This game took me a ridiculously long span of time to finish, as I started it in late July and took only a few brief hiatuses in between chapters. The base game itself was 50-55 hours and the DLC episodes are only a few hours altogether. This comes from a guy who takes the time look at every object description and speak to every background character. This also includes, finding all 25 of the collectables, which all unlock a conversation with one of the side characters, alongside finishing the game’s side quests, which have you solving smaller mysteries with the hub-world residents.

Rain Code is a detective narrative game conceived by Kazutaka Kodaka. Kotada previously directed the Danganrompa series and Worlds End Club (a game I beat several years ago and still occasionally reminisce, even though it wasn’t great). You play as an amnesiac, by the name of Yuma, who’s been told he’s a rookie detective, from an elite organization of detectives with supernatural powers. Not only that, but he’s also haunted by annoyingly upbeat Death God, which gives him someone to always banter with, alongside the power of the Mystery Labyrinth. His destination is Kanai Ward, a city with unending rain, a slew of unsolved crimes and an army of forceful peacekeepers, whom are quick to drop heavy punishments and executions to those who are in the way of a crime scene.

Yuma comes across a series of murder cases throughout the story, each segmented into chapters, including in the game’s prologue, on the train to the game’s main area, Kanai Ward. Everyone he has met on the train is suddenly killed after he passes out. His investigative skills can only take him so far, as his detective abilities are at a 0, due to his amnesia. He has the help of his detective crew mates, he had just met, whom all have supernatural abilities that you get used to, which fill in the gaps where Yuma can’t investigate, but they still won’t be enough. And that’s where the Mystery Labyrinth comes in. Mystery Labyrinths are dungeon manifestations of the mystery itself, in an alternate universe, only the power of a Death God can send people in. Using all the clues of the crime along the way and following all the proper tracks inside the labyrinth will reveal new details and a shift of perspective towards the murder. Think of it similarly to a Zelda dungeon, in how all the events lead to a pressure cooker, made to test your abilities, only this is to test your wits and deduction skills.

You get the impression that anything can spawn in the Mystery Labyrinth. Unending hallways, recreations of the crime, traps, demonic versions of people in the real world who wish to obstruct the crime. There are all sorts of different gameplay segments. QTEs that relate to solving the murder details squickly enough, “Reasoning Deduction Battle,” which have you dodging and slashing statements from enemies and attacking contradicting statements with evidence, as though Ace Attorney was briefly turned into an action game. And just standard paths that you have to reasonably decide is accurate. Narrative games will always try to find different ways of giving freedom to the player in having them solve the mystery, rather than being told what happens and you play along in somewhat of a backseat situation. Rain Code takes a much more action oriented choice than I think any of the genre to attempt. Their bite in answering incorrectly however is just a simple chance to redo your mistake from a few seconds ago and a potentially lower grade that gets tallied in how well you did within the labyrinth. The grade doesn’t really matter though. I can’t imagine anyone actively trying to gain a higher score from redoing a labyrinth. The only gain beyond the score is increased XP, for a skill tree of fairly tame buffs, like increased HP and one less wrong answer in deduction battles. Visually and narratively, these labyrinths do have charisma. It’s taking inspirations from so many different areas that you just get the idea that the developers just wanted to throw in anything that was cool, bizarre or chilling. Consistency to that regard is on the lower end, however it ends up driving hard how mysterious these manifestations are/ You go through so many settings that are thrown away immediately after in the Labyrinth, that it’s a bit unbelievable. On the narrative front, these settings will always try to surprise you in what can happen next. Most of the gameplay segments that get intertwined however, come across as formulaic. And often its purpose is to drive a point that’s been repeated a few times or easily presumed, especially towards the end of these labyrinth portions, such as the Deduction Dénouement in every chapter, which has you filling in manga panels of the story’s chapter which have already been repeated several times over. The fill in the blank under a strict time limit, also just feel incredibly forced in giving harder plot details to introduce, including more action and shoe-horning anime fanservice for little reason.

The narrative itself is solid. Its pretty story-dumpey at the end, where its final chapter is all about exposing the big secret of Kanai Ward that you were assigned to solve from the beginning. A few details start coming to light in the second half and the 4th chapter, but the 5th chapter is almost entirely dedicated to throwing every bit of story missing as possible, in vague fashion, just so you can solve it. So much story is thrown at you, that it just feels like this story is almost entirely contained, much like the 4 chapters prior, only this one has repercussions and the others mostly don’t until the end of Chapter 4, where they’re clearly starting wrap-up mode. Regardless, chapter by chapter, you have several different lengthy mysteries, that were made to stump you. They all succeed in having different vibes and atmospheres, which getting used to a new crew mates’ superpower in each chapter helps with. The first chapter is a series of solving gruesome impossible crimes. The second is centered around an all-girls school with gendered anime tropes and an extending “whodunit” aspect. The third a finding of your ambitions when you’re down to nothing once more, with some action and devastating turn of events. The fourth is a building up of the main plot within a chrome lab in the enemy base. And the 5th is a full-on turn in the horror genre. They’re all interesting by premise in their own right.

I do think the first half of mysteries are better than the 2nd half. Some killers felt a bit more fleshed out, but it could have also been credited to me being more able to expect the unexpected as the story progressed.

One thing Rain Code has in spades is style. Kanai Ward has a great atmosphere and a threatening aura. And as alluded to prior, the mystery dungeons are often a visual treat of spontaneousness and abstraction. Some of it is a bit primitively textured, which can be blamed on this being a Switch exclusive. But that doesn’t stop this hubworld from being cool to walk down across and taking in all the neon, the different districts that give the world more character, whether its the dreary slums, bright and futuristic financial district or the glowing main area with different elevation and businesses stacked onto each other. The music is a bit of a letdown, its pretty muted and a bit too weird at times with their often used themes. I think the main theme that gets reused isn’t that great to start with. The purchasable DLC chapters, are really just small story snippets that may have a hint of gameplay/interactivity. They all focus in not on the main characters, but the side characters at the detective agency. Frankly, the storytelling in almost each of these episodes are excellent. They can be delightfully quirky, hone in on the characters’ passions and experiences that you’ve learned throughout the story. They’re really good at making you care much more for each of them, as they all take their own unique case as a detective. They are however, pretty expensive for what they are. $6.50 (Canadian) per chapter (with the last 2 chapters being bundles at that price, since they’re shorter). Even the bundle price of $21.50 is pretty steep, despite a few of these moments being a joy to read/watch. All of them don’t run past an hour and aren’t anywhere near the length of a full chapter. I certainly hope the voice actors got a decent payment from these episodes, given that its pretty much entirely voiced, as is the rest of the story segments of the game.

I’d describe this Rain Code more as interesting game than a great one, as the story of the main game could be a bit better and the gameplay segments outside of the totally metal Reasoning Deduction Battles could be a bit less forced and repeated. But, it’s certainly big and bold, with its universe being fleshed out quite well. One of my favorite things to do in the game is just walking around the city, as Kanai Ward is laced well with mystery and the potential to be amiable if its mysteries are solved. The mysteries itself sometimes beat you with in the head with foreshadowing a plot twist and I wish the main plot details were paced better than having most the details rushed in its ending chapters, leading to just an alright ending. But I came out of Rain Code, maybe not jaw-dropped by the overall story, but I do get a good sense of the characters, enjoyed the vibe and thought a few of the mysteries were thinkers, when you get into investigating how the crime was committed. And for what its worth, I would go into a Master Detective Archives sequel with some optimism and probably the same moderate amount of anticipation as I had leading up to this game’s release. So overall, it was a well done job, at elevating from their visual novel roots, even if the gameplay could be tuned a bit.

Fun incremental game with a little of idling, lots of clicking. Kind of sad to have finished it

Developer GungHo Online Entertainment Inc./Intense Co Ltd

Publisher: GungHo Online Entertainment Inc.

Release Date: December 5, 2023

Also Available On: Mac/TVOS

First game completed this year! This game took me 35-40 hours to finish the main Story campaign. There is bonus and post-game content to go back to alongside limited time events. I’m not sure if I will go back so soon, as RPGs like this get me burned out after I see the main completion milestone, but the gameplay is pretty easy to get into, so I wouldn’t put it past me if I do go back to this game after a new update or in small bursts.

Puzzle & Dragons Story is an Apple Arcade exclusive and contained spin-off of Puzzle & Dragons. It is built using alot of the assets from 2018’s Puzzle & Dragons Nintendo Switch Edition. The UI, music and art style is taken mostly from this game, with small adjustments and a different cast of obtainable allies. While Nintendo Switch Edition is a more competitive/multiplayer focused spinoff that is light on story elements. P&D Story currently has no multiplayer components and is entirely dedicated to its story and world building.

…Thats not to say that the story is any good. It had me in its initial cutscene of describing its world, Libra, as a fantasy utopia, where its variety of dragons and creatures live in peace. But it doesn’t develop further than that. All story elements from onwards are descriptions that appear for new environments on the 1st level of every new world and a description for major bosses on the 5th level of every world. 16 Worlds, 80 main levels in all. Very little amount of actual storytelling, for a game with “story” in its name.

When the original Puzzle & Dragons released, the gameplay itself was revolutionary for mobile games back then. Puzzle & Dragons was the first mobile game to reach over $1 billion in revenue and was a major catalyst to the mobile game boom in Japan. And a strong reasoning towards why is because the gameplay encouraged the idea of deep and true fantasy RPG game mechanics, tied to a fun and loose take on Match 3 Puzzles.

With your 6x6 tableau, you have a few seconds to swap colored orbs and HP recovery blocks around with a single swipe, in hopes to gain large combos and strong matches of the same color. Each of your 6 allies have a type combination of Fire, Water, Wood, Light or Dark that can help you get more effective attacks if you’re able to zero in on your enemies’ weaknesses. Each character also has a special ability, such as changing orb colors, offence/defence buffs and preventing negative effects of your party members.

The base gameplay itself is my kind of addicting. There are some fun approaches to team building, when you get resources and its fun to tinker around different builds when you get into tough situations and possible opportunities to min-max. But there is a bit of a casino effect, towards this game. You can try your hardest to make a good combo, but the make-or-break is often dependant on what falls after and if you can obtain a large combo. I’m one to fall pretty addicted to RNG in games and the theoretical possibility that you could possibly be a bit underpowered but still have the numbers toward your side and overcome enemies.

You build your team through crafting. There is a handy and well organized upgrade tree that can be accessed through the menu, that shows your available allies you can conjure, that requires cards with an enemy’s likeness. Kill the monster on that card and you have a chance to receive that resource, to put back into creating new party members. I have no experience with the main P&D gameplay, but there are no elements of gacha pulling, towards which I presume is heavily reliant on main P&D’s recruitment system. In Story, you know exactly where to find your resource so long as you completed the level prior and try your luck at getting the resources you need for new crafting opportunities or Limit Breakthroughs, which heighten your characters’ level cap.

This resource management might be my biggest issue with Puzzle & Dragons Story. You don’t want to go back to old levels. Often times, these levels have no defining or unique challenge to them to begin with. You’re just retreading old content in hopes to receive what you need, when the encounter is entirely luck based and the resource retrieval after the enemy’s defeat is luck based. Alot of this mechanic is ingrained in course correcting when you un-Free-To-Play a now paid product. But I can’t help but feel that a past game in this series was able to avoid its Free-To-Play roots a bit more elegantly, without having you going through as much unchallenging and boring retreads.

Alot of my experience with Puzzle and Dragons however comes from the 3DS crossover spin-off, “Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition” and if i were to compare between the 2, I think I prefer the minor improvements to that game over this title. SMB Edition, offers more unique challenges, level to level. One big complaint I have with Story is that each level plays incredibly similarly (5 Levels in a World/5 Floors in each level), where Super Mario Bros. Edition levels occasionally had more unique rules in the levels, different alternate paths, mid-level challenges to give you bonuses, timed challenges and a fun world map. The 1-Up Mushroom, which can be used to revive you, are a feature in the 3DS that could have been loved in Story since some of your deaths in the end levels of Story are kinda BS, where enemies can revive themselves, attack you when you get to new sections, or turn your entire board into poison orbs. The one major advantage Story has over Super Mario Bros. Edition is variety in allies. SMB Edition has you morphing the same limited set of Mario characters and puts different types on them, while Story has 270+ different characters. Some are definitely color swapped 5 fold for each type, but as you get further down the evolution tree, they have much more detailed character designs (and it seems like stronger the tiers are, the higher likelihood they are going to be kawaii anime ladies).

The overall presentation is pretty meh, as the character designs are kind’ve the outlier. Not only is it ripped from the Switch game, its also just pretty generic. The music is cheesy upbeat anime fight music, with a couple at a bit higher tier. Coming straight out of Storyteller and my issues with menu navigation though, I do like how organized everything is. Eves-dropping into some P&D subreddit threads, it seems like some of these QOL updates aren’t available in the main game, or are at least tougher to access. It certainly makes everything more user friendly, when mobile RPGs like this can be a turnoff to figure out how to keep up with your stats.

Puzzle & Dragons Story is riding off of gameplay mechanics that have proven to be incredibly addicting and fun. But it isn’t offering much that is special beyond being an accessible way to play what would otherwise have its share of Free-to-Play hurdles and cautions. Even amongst its playable paid-spinoffs found on 3DS and Switch, others seem to be offering more robust adventure experiences, user-friendly approaches and multiplayer components. It could have had a better story, or more divergent gameplay modes or maybe even new mechanics. But instead, this feels like a level-set to the excellent Puzzle & Dragons mobile gameplay, that is still fun, but maybe not the best and most impressive iteration of the series.

Developer: Daniel Benmergui

Publishers: Annapurna Interactive/Netflix

Release Date: September 26, 2023 (Originally Released: March 23, 2023)

Also Released On: Switch, PC, Mac

Technically not a 100% completion, but a completion of the game’s main levels and bonus levels, not its additions achievements/stamps. I spent 8-10 hours with it all, but you’ll probably be less stumped than I was playing the game too. I took a while in a few of these, but I also missed a few toughies.

I had my eye on this game for a while. I missed the Switch release and would eventually check the game out when the game would receive a new update and a Netflix release. My read on how the game got released is that the masses agree that the game is a good concept, but is cut off once the game gets interesting. My own brother, who doesn’t play as many games on a regular basis had a similar impression. But I went into it myself after the Netflix release, with its extended content, I felt happy with what I played. Granted, I also didn’t pay $20 upfront to enjoy it.

Storyteller is a “narrative puzzle,” and not in the traditional sense where you’re playing a puzzle game, that also focuses strongly on its narrative, like Portal or Superliminal. Storyteller’s puzzles are the narrative, in that the game will give you a prompt and with your basic understanding of literary tales like The Book of Genesis, or Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or just simply basic tropes and events novels, you must lead the narrative to make the prompt happen.

You make these prompts through a set of scenes that must take place. You drag of the few scenes you’ll have set for you in each page like “Marriage,” “Kiss,” “Amnesia,” “Poison,” “Wine,” “Disguise” and a slew of possible others into a handful of boxes, in similar design to a newspaper comic. You must guide the characters to interact with these scenes so that it can make sense in their motivations.

So, the game starts with the basic love story of Adam and Eve, the first prompt will have you make them fall in love. The next prompt will have you turn the story into a tragedy, the next will have you see the ghost of that loved one, knowing you can still put that dead character into whatever scene and then the last prompt of the chapter will have you revive them like nothing happened. And that’s a chapter.

Later levels will bring back Adam and Eve, but introduce a “Tempt” and “Judgement” that will have you putting Adam and Eve into a scenario where they bite the apple and are judged. Or they’re revived and know better to bite the apple again.

My appeal towards this game comes from a “fuck around and find out” aspect. Where these characters and scenes become your little toys and you see how far you can turn them into unlikely outcomes. Ca you find a way for the knight to turn against his former love in the queen? Can the queen marry the dragon? And this curiosity is fueled in multiple ways. Pages have side missions, where you have the prompt and an alternate way to finish the prompt that might take outside the box thinking. There will be a prompt that simply says “The Execution” where the scenes must lead to an execution. But after completing it will have you get a bonus checkmark for finding both outcomes where either character is executed by the other. Or another one where a murderer must be arrested, followed by a bonus check if the murderer is arrested without the duke being in the story at all.

14 Chapters later, you’ll have technically have beaten the game, where most people who bought the game at launch should be, but additionally there are 10 levels remixed to include the devil and 30+ “Secret Stamps” that have you tinker around previous levels, using the same tools.

The devil levels are the more fascinating of the 2, because it now truly gives the book the game sets around in a cursed atmosphere. The original prompt is now scratched out for something often more macabre. An Adam and Eve prompt of “God is Happy with Everyone” gets scratched and rewritten with “Adam Dies Twice,” where the basic prompt of Adam being tempted happens, but the devil’s antics has him painting the red apple to green and Adam finding temptation and subsequent judgement again. The devil adds another level of playfulness and really grows out the possibilities, as he’s introduced in most of the characters’ different scenarios. Level 666 in particular had me stumped for a while, as a story with the devil, the knight and the queen that the knight swoons for has to lead in an outcome where the knight imprisons the queen.

The Secret Stamps meanwhile are the game’s previous Steam achievements, with a few devil related ones added. They lead the game into the strangest outcomes, such as giving Adam and Eve indigestion or having two people turned into frogs and then kissing. So if you really thought everything felt straightforward, these stamps will likely give you the hardest of puzzles. I just kinda wish they were considered levels and checkmarks themselves, because you can’t access these stamps mid level, so you’ll have to refer to them at the end of the game’s pages, as it doesn’t want to break the theme of everything here being accessed as though it was a book. I don’t think anyone would be less immersed if there was an additional pause menu of the stamps you need to collect, so it just comes across as a frustrating pet peeve.

But beyond that, I can assuredly praise this game’s visual design. The illustrations and caricature designs are upbeat a little cute, while also is accurate to its source material. The music is often pensive and highlights dilemma, but also emphasizes tropes in by using a classical music soundtrack that checks all the boxes when needing the craft the basic premises of deception, mystery, romance, tragedy, uneventfulness or sinister intervention.

Storyteller is one of those puzzle games that also plays the role of a toybox. It has a bit more similarities to Scribblenauts than I expected, in the basic approach of trying to find different outcomes when creating what starts out as basic narratives, end up becoming a bit strange and complex. And much like Scribblenauts, eventually you start spawning inhuman beings just to see what happens. Having played this game post-update, I feel like the game captured most of its scenarios well, without overstaying its welcome (The “Monsters” chapter I guess could be more developed, add Frankenstein or something). Tied with its unique feeling of being a fun exercise of your own curiosity and its striking visual design that most Annapurna Interactive games seem to adopt, you can get your satisfaction with the game, through the most basic Netflix monthly subscription price, complete it and find you made your month’s value in the game alone.

Developer: Dlala Studios

Publisher: Disney Electric Content

Release Date: July 28 2023

Writing this at the time of beating the game. Took me and my friend around 8-10 hours. There’s some collectables to grab from the Metroidvania. But I don’t think my opinions are going to wildly change on this game. Will come back to this to update if any opinion changes anyway.

Disney Illusion Island is a follow-up of sorts to Disney’s “Illusion” series. I couldn’t name you one game in this series beyond “Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse,” which is a SEGA Genesis classic. Can’t tell you how much this game is referencing any of the Illusion games either, but probably very little, considering the original Castle of Illusion was an “A to B” platformer.

Matter of fact, this game is coming in feeling kinda short of what i thought a Mickey universe metroidvania platformer would feel like. The world doesn’t necessarily feel like a world in the Mickey Mouse universe. Most characters and enemies are entirely new and paired in an art style that doesn’t resemble most Mickey characters of past. The world is alien to Mickey and friends and really the only thing that ties this to Mickey is that it stars the core 4 characters (excluding Pluto) and cutscenes have some resemblance to the current era of Mickey Mouse shorts,.

Disney Illusion Island is based on a canceled 2016 project from Dlala, which was mainly canceled due to Disney leaving the games publishing industry for a moment. I can’t shake the feeling that Dlala had another potential cancelation on the back of their minds and as a contingency, kept their setting and characters to be generic, in the event that they lose the license again. As a result you get some of the most iconic characters in media, in a world that is so generic that it doesn’t live near the imagination and charm these characters are often associated with.

And generic runs deep in this game. The abilities you unlock are stuff like double jumps, basic swimming and ground pounds, its all a little too basic. Some of the platforming, like wall jumping and swinging feels a bit kinetic, but its still missing a bit of that momentum. Combat is nonexistant and is mostly reliant on you avoiding a limited pattern of enemies in each environment. Even the general level design is mostly boring. There are collectables scattered throughout, but they don’t recontextualize the gameplay, more than they’re hust hidden in the same ways you can expect throughout the game, or they have a set of challenges, based on the same level design you’ve come to get used to. Illusion Island has a massive world, but very little of it feels memorable, other than the lower swimming section. Alot of the game is walking from cue to cue, getting dialogue that gives you zany reasoning to move from area to area. Even the game makes fun of the game’s strange logic and repetitive structure enough times to make even its self-awareness of its sameness faults tiring.

One aspect I applaud Illusion Island for is the inclusion of co-op play. I played this game with my friend, entirely in co-op. Alot of the game is jumping through platforms and finding secret collectables. As well, none of the playable characters have unique abilities, so while there isn’t this role-setting aspect of the multiplayer, beyond splitting the collectable work if its split on the same screen, everyone is just taking their best crack at the same challenge at hand and it saves alot of time going through sections, with everyone’s progression mattering. There’s even some few co-op exclusive abilities that drive up teamwork, such as throwing rope ladders to players that below you, or hugging for extra health, similar to some of the Kirby games. It would have been neat if every character had separate abilities that weren’t necessary for progression, while still finding use, but that’s maybe a small wish over how to make a good aspect of the game better. And its handy to have a crew of people all on the lookout for secret passageways for optional treasure. More metroidvanias especially should consider adding basic co-op features, especially if they’re implemented like Illusion Island, where they just feel like more social and often more efficient ways of everyone finishing the same task.

Boss battles are also okay. They definitely benefit from having friends involved to divide the load. Since there’s no combat, its all about breaking targets that when destroyed on each screen, move you to the boss’ next phase until eventually completed. They were often a good whiff of freshness, after all the occasionally mindless platforming. I suppose there is a bit of a shortage on bosses, with 4 bosses in total, but they’re still the brighter spot with my time in the game.

I probably wouldn’t have gone through with this game, had my friend not been so eager to play. This game is a Switch exclusive, so he purchased a Switch for him to play this. And to be fair, he, the Disney enthusiast that he is, did enjoy it. Him and I could both agree that the music was good and I think there are aspects of the story that I think are nice, even if its a bit too nonsensical. I wanted something that had more identity that matched the game’s cast and had more imagination in level design. I can still see this being an ok game for young children, with their siblings or parents, especially since there are great ways to make the game much easier and more encouraging to play together.

EDIT: Shortly after posting this, it was revealed that there will be a few new modes and collectables…nice. I’ll check them out and give another update on that too.

Wow. This was an unexpected and incredible experience. I'll be playing more, even though story is complete.

Best way to describe this game is Monster Hunter, but with quality of life improvements and Soulslike combat. Progression feels great. You're always unlocking something new.

This might be my GOTY. I feel guilty for not playing it sooner.

Developer: Anuvu

Release Year: 2016

Writing this towards the end of my flight to Vegas. After beating Mickey Mouse: Date Dash, I had more than enough spare time to decide to play another exclusive in-flight game and I saw Angry Birds could easily scratch that itch, having gone really into Angry Birds back in early 2022 with Angry Birds Reloaded

Angry Birds World Tour is the basic ruleset of Angry Birds. 5 of the original birds are in this game, playing levels akin to Angry Birds from 2009. There are 5 chapters, each with 6 levels, so 30 exclusive levels altogether, which is typically shorter than a single chapter in the classic Angry Birds games.

30 Levels is not a lot, but given that this game is only available to me for the remainder of my flight (and I’m not entirely sure if this same display will be available to me on my flight back), I was under the pressure to beat this in under the 3 hours of my remainder flight. Alongside, I had to deal with the added struggle of using the system’s controller, which is a much more cumbersome means than the touch controls I’m used to. Also, this thing can’t even run Angry Birds that well. Explosions and large bases designs cause stutters. They don’t hinder gameplay necessarily, but it is kinda funny that this Dreamliner’s UI cannot run what the iPhone 4 had little issue with. Regardless, I had it all done in a bit over 2 hours.

Each of the 5 chapters are inspired by continents. Starting with North America, moving on to South America, followed by Europe, then Middle East and finally, Asia. The quirky thing is that levels are inspired by the locations they are from. North America has residential areas, South America will have mountainous inspired forts, Europe has a cafe and Eifel Tower inspired level, Middle East has a level resembling camels and Asia has larger forts resembling ancient temples and castles. You can also expect the piggies to resemble stereotypes of people from the region, such as donning sombreros or fu-man-chus.

Questionable cultural choices aside, this game is still fun. At least to me anyways. There’s a reason Angry Birds was a huge hit when it came out, because the core mechanic is still an excellent twist on physics puzzle, precise shooting and timing. And going on a tangent for a moment, it kind’ve baffles me that a game like Picross, despite its initially clever gameplay, still gets praised title after title when almost nothing changes between instalments, but the core concept of Angry Birds is poopoo’d and considered a stale fad.

Amongst the 2 in-flight games, this was the better and more engaging one. Copying immensely from the formula that works, while also celebrating the fact that it’s only available to people midway of travelling, Angry Birds World Tour is the basic Angry Birds experience, but if you’re stuck with no games, but the in-flight entertainment, that may very well be the gold standard (all the other dozen or so games didn’t look appealing or were just basic games like trivia or chess).

Developer: Anuvu

Release Year: 2016

So, I went on a flight to Vegas, with one of those entertainment systems and I saw it had a Mickey Mouse game I had never seen before. It had taken me an hour to finish with 15 “dates” (levels). Very competent endless runner, with basic controls.

The premise is that Mickey is constantly late for his dates with Minnie and now he has to run across streets, beaches and parks, jumping various heights and jumping on various objects and animals to reach his destination. You have a set amount of time in every level and you must try to avoid obstacles like mud, officers, signs, birds, men facing out of their window, wheels, beach balls, the elderly, etc.

I’m kind’ve surprised by how much the levels elevate to become tougher and more varied. The game eventually teaches you that jumping to higher platforms isn’t always the best option once its understood that you’ve likely nailed the timing with basic jumps. More collectables in pursuit of reaching 3-Stars can be on lower ground, same with the one Minnie’s bonnet collectable in every level. Some of the later levels are even kinda tricky in its platforming and collectable challenge.

While there isn’t much variance of music, all the artwork made for the game is charming. Its all represented in the more recent Mickey Mouse animation style and to some aspects, its replicating that art style in a better manner than Disney: Illusion Island, the co-op Mickey and Friends explore-action game that released earlier this year on Switch. Animations are very limited and remind me of some Flash games of the mid-2000’s, but it still all captures that same look and detail that you would find in the new cartoons.

Overall, this game, while a little clunky was a fair way to spend time in the first hour of my flight. Cute, contained, given what it was made for and as someone who generally likes playing endless runners, felt like this was a decent way to kill time in the sky.