Game Reviews #1

I was initially thinking of doing a series of game review posts, but my backlog was getting big and I just didn't have the time or energy to complete a full game review for anything in an entire post, so I thought instead I could do a series where I review some recent games I played. I will be going over mobile games, console games, and board games. Reviews will be out of 5, using emojis of course.

Survivor.io (Mobile)

 I rarely find a game on my phone that I feel like I need to rave about. The first set of games were made by a developer called Hexage, and Radiant was a wonderful, beautiful shmup style game that I shared with all my friends.

Today, the game I want to share with the world is probably already popular enough, but Survivor.io by the same folks who make PunBall. A very different game, Survivor.io serves as a top-down shoot-em-up style game where you take control of a little dude, geared up with armor and weapons varying from shotguns to katanas. During the course of playing a stage, you collect powerups that only help you through the course of that singular stage, not too dissimilar from various other roguelike games today. You can upgrade them throughout the stage, and if you collect the right upgrades (passive and active) you can upgrade your active upgrades to an ultimate stage. For example, upgrading the shotgun all the way turns it into a gatling gun which rips through enemies like nothing.

It's a very fun, slightly chaotic game that is a great time killer. They are constantly updating it, and at the time of reviewing it I haven't played the game in several months but it appears they've updated the game with some sort of online functionality.

🧟 🧟 🧟 🧟 🧟 / 5

JAWs (Board Game)

I received this game as a gift months ago, but finally got around to playing it. I've been enjoying spending a lot of time with my family as of late, and have introduced my dad to the world of tabletop games (beyond monopoly and chess). We've played a slew of games including: Everdell, Clank, Azul, Tavern Masters, Villagers, Labyrinth, and Sushi Go. I've been happy to see that he's been enjoying many of them, particularly ones where a tableau is laid out in front of him for him to be able to plan ahead or get a better picture of what he needs to do next. Everdell and clank have been some of his favorites, along with the recent trial run of Jaws.

As with every game that I get, I first played through the game by myself to understand the rules and how each player interacts with the game. My first impressions of act one were tremendous. I could really see how playing the shark could be really fun, and I could see how the team playing the crew searching for the shark could work well to collaborate in finding where the shark was in order to win the first part of the game. Act 2 was quite a bit more intense for the first time playing. It played more like an RPG with some deception or hide and seek aspects to it that were difficult to really get into. As a single player. I had a strong feeling that it was not going to be the most fun part of the game. One of the great things about the game, though, is that you can choose to play each act individually if you'd like as a standalone game, instead of playing both acts sequentially.

When the time finally came to play with my dad and my wife, I declared that we would be playing only act one. My wife took the role of the shark ( mostly because my dad forgot his glasses) and my dad and I took the roles of the crew. My wife was having a grand old time eating the swimmers and hiding from my father and I while the two of us were plotting about where she would be striking next. It was a lot of fun, enough so that we played a second time. Both times my wife ended up winning as the shark. She enjoyed it so much that she refused to give up the role.

The following day my wife and I played it again, just the two of us, and we went through both acts sequentially. We discovered that my wife misread one of the shark powers and that gave her a bit of an advantage the last two times we played. This time however, we follow the rules and she was still successful within the first act. Once we reached act 2, it became a bit more disheveled as we tried to understand everything that needed to happen to play the game correctly. Basically, the shark either needs to destroy the Orca or kill all three crew members, while the crew simply needs to kill the shark. This place out in a series of turns where the shark secretly chooses where she will strike, the crew chooses where they think the shark will strike, the shark is revealed, the crew attacks, then the shark attacks. The crew has the distinct advantage of having the ability to do massive amounts of damage within one turn if they choose the correct space to target, whereas the shark has the advantage of having to do less damage to be able to win. Overall, it was a fun round and we discovered some neat strategies to going through it, but it was a bit more involved and complicated, which in turn made it less fun than act one.

For act one, a good strategy for the crew seems to be to have Brody focus on delivering barrels first, then Hooper can use the fish finder, and Quint can focus on launching barrels. If you're not launching barrels every round, you're not making effective use of the turn. For act 2, a strategy for the shark that works is focusing on attacking the boat instead of the crew, because the boat is much easier to destroy and you have the ability to hinder the crew by knocking them into the water. Once a boat space is completely destroyed, you can use that space to attack any adjacent boat piece, which is especially effective.

I don't have a particularly huge collection of board games, but this is definitely one that I will be revisiting frequently. I still strongly prefer act one over act 2, but I think next time we may try both acts with my dad. 

🦈 🦈 🦈 🦈 🦈 / 5

Pocket Card Jockey (3DS)

I bought Pocket Card Jockey on my 3DS after seeing several articles on my Google feed talking about how it was the hidden gem from the team that created the Pokemon games, GameFreak. They weren't wrong!

For the price, it's really worthwhile. It's kind of it's own take on Spider solitaire, combined with a fairly in depth horse racing and raising mechanic, where you play solitaire as fast as you can to help your horse and jockey win races. It is great in small bursts and not tiring to play for long periods.

🐴 🐴 🐴 🐴 🐴 / 5

Fire Emblem Awakening (3DS)

When I was a wee lad, playing games on my transparent blue Game Boy Advanced, I was introduced to the Fire Emblem series and the tactical RPG genre as a whole and really fell in love with the style of gameplay. It's been quite a while since I played any other entry in the FE series and decided since I had a 3DS it was time to get the highest reviewed one, Fire Emblem Awakening.

At first I wasn't blow away by the graphics or characters, especially since for some reason the 3D models don't have feet (still weirds me out). However, after playing the game from start to finish, and changing the combat settings to skip the battle scenes where not needed for the story, I really found myself engulfed in the gameplay. The wide variety of classes I found to be a fresh start for me, coming from playing the first FE game on GBA as well as Sacred Stones. It took me a while to get used to the fact that dark magic and elemental magic are not part of any combat triangle like spears, swords, and axes, but that's something I was willing to get over.

Definitely a lot of replayability as well, even if you just want to hop in a do a few battles with the random encounters that refresh on the map every time the game loads up. Combat is A+, and Tharja is an excellent wife.

🗡 🗡 🗡 🗡 🗡 / 5

Forager (Switch)

I was looking for something simple, casual, and not $60. What I came across on Switch was the little gem called Forager, which is reported to be inspired by games like Terraria. What I was really hoping for was a game with a good fishing mechanic, but what I ended up getting was a game that I would spend way too much time playing.

In Forager, you take the role of a little dude on a square-ish island, and you need to harvest materials and fight monsters to stay alive and expand your exploration. You use money to buy access to more islands, and you use the resources to improve your equipment and build more buildings that produce more things, like fabric, ingots, bricks, etc.

I played it almost to the end, but to finish the game in its entirety you need to unlock all the islands, beat all the dungeons, and solve all of the puzzles. It got to be a grind near the end to finish it all, so I never did, but I enjoyed every minute up until then. There is fishing, farming, and you can even craft decorative items to decorate your islands however you want. I personally just ran around blowing shit up and harvesting whatever resources I could. Bombs are amazing. There's also a really neat mechanic where you can have your buildings autocraft for you as long as there are resources, and if there aren't enough they wait until there are. Worth the full price 100%.

🌳 🌳 🌳 🌳 🌳 / 5

Pokemon Scarlett (Switch)

I've always been a stickler for getting the "other" of the two Pokemon games that come out - Blue, Silver, Sapphire, Ultra Moon, etc.. However, with the Scarlett and Violet games containing respectively past- and future-based Pokemon, I knew I was going to lean more into the creatures of the past, as history has always interested me.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun. There is plenty of content, lots of new Pokemon, lots of ways to enjoy the game. The ability to choose your order in which to tackle the main story is very enticing and exciting, though I will admit it is slightly impeded by the limited ability of your starter "legendary" Pokemon. As you progress, you get more and more abilities that the legendary can use to navigate the world. On top of that, while you can chose where to go next, each area is sort of level-locked, so unless you are a high enough level to navigate it you will want to stay away.

I have to say I was greatly disappointed with Quaxly as the water starter. I had high hopes, but deep down I had a feeling that the final evolution may not be one that I would be really interested in. No hate on the people who really love Quaquaval, but a dancing duck is not the Pokemon that I would normally throw out. Instead, I ended up swapping out my main water squeeze for a Veluza, which between Veluza and Baxcalibur, I couldn't tell you my favorite new Pokemon. All in all, a very enjoyable game that felt worth my time.

🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 / 5

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (Switch)

My most recent addition to my gaming library, Mario + Rabbids has never been on my list of favorite franchises. To be honest, Mario hasn't even been on that list, and definitely not Rabbids on their own. The games however do have much to enjoy.

This sequel bring a lot to the table. Yes it is the same goofy, childish characters, and yes the Mario characters have guns, but the tactical gameplay is almost on par to what I really enjoyed with games like Divinity: Original Sin. I do wish that I had the ability with characters like Bowser to be able to freely aim where I want to fire an explosive, so that I can trigger multiple barrels to explode. Regardless, it feels like a solid tactical RPG with elements of platforming. Each world you explore has "planet coins" you collect for completing main quests and side quests, and while in Kingdom Battle it felt more like you just had to progress with the story, in Sparks of Hope you feel more rewarded for exploring and solving puzzles.

🐰 🐰 🐰 🐰 / 5

Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe (Switch)

I've been on a big Kirby kick lately, definitely since Forgotten Land came out. I never played the original game, but Return to Dreamland Deluxe was everything I expected it to be, and just a little bit more.

From what I know of the original, the main story of the game plays very similar, with the addition of some new copy abilities - mech and sand. I'm still a sucker for ninja whenever I see it, but the new abilities are pretty cool too. Since this is a remake, I won't go too into the gameplay, but it is very much what you expect for a more traditional Kirby game.

The big addition, and where I honestly had a lot of fun, is Merry Magoland, the expanded multiplayer minigame part of the game. You can play all of the games single player against CPUs, or you can play locally with up to four people. The games are so much fun, with ninja star throwing, bumper car style games, and a variety of others. One complaint I do have is the majority of the games require reflexes more than skill, but I don't feel that it takes away from the joy of the game.

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 / 5

Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch)

This is the game of the year for me. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the game that I enjoyed playing the most in 2022, and I go back into it all the time just to play the alien stage in the amusement park. Not only that, but my daughter loves watching and dancing to the "Kirby car" movie.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land sees Kirby in a 3D, fairly open world, full of exploration, dark stories, and exciting abilities. The updates to be able to upgrade the copy abilities is awesome, and the little town where you can interact with the Waddle Dees is just adorable. There always feels like there's plenty to do in this game, and if you get stuck, you know you just have to keep trying and you'll eventually get it.

The boss battles are awesome, the minigames are fun, the story is wonderful and intense at times, and the gameplay overall is just outstanding.

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 / 5