amphibious_ReViews

I have a mixed relationship with Ultimate Angler. On one hand, it is one of the better StreetPass games, both in terms of its gameplay and its visuals. However, the randomness implemented in multiple layers of the game had a habit of stunting my progress and I almost quit the game multiple times. I did end up finishing all of the main content, save for collecting every species of fish, but it wasn't always a fun road to get there. At the start of Ultimate Angler, you can unlock up to nine islands, giving you a wide selection of locations to fish, each requiring different bait to catch their local species. This is when the game is at its best. There is always a clear path for making progress, and you're all but guaranteed to be catching something new with every play session. As you finish islands, this selection narrows and progress can become frustratingly slow. Completing islands is the name of the game though, so there's no avoiding it. Ultimate Angler's story has you...

I will need some time to let my thoughts about the StreetPass games ruminate, but I think Market Crashers might be my favorite of the DLC. I wouldn't have thought a game about the stock market would keep my interest, yet it was always one of the most exciting to get to. This also ended up being the only DLC game in the plaza that I fully completed (so far, at least). My appreciation for Market Crashers isn't just random chance, though. Instead, it's thanks to an excellent combination of clever design and enticing rewards. I think something Market Crashers does better than any other StreetPass game is balance its playtime. By their very nature, each game in the plaza is pretty simplistic, and without the StreetPass aspect, they would come off pretty thin. Market Crashers embraces this limitation better than any of it's peers by delivering an experience short enough that I'm always excited for the next play session, yet long enough that it still feels substantial.   T...

Flower Town was one of the few StreetPass Mii Plaza games that I actually wanted to keep playing after I had beaten it and along with Puzzle Swap , the relaxing, collection-focused structure of this game easily made it one of my top three in the plaza. I had originally hoped to get one of each flower variety in my journal before quitting, but the later stretch of the game slowed down significantly, and I decided to stop playing before my opinion soured. While I didn't finish as much as I wanted to, I still really enjoyed everything Flower Town had to offer. While the game's premise is simple, it's supplemented by a wide breadth of complementary mechanics. Each time you open the game with a new set of StreetPass tags, the Miis you bring along will water your current flower one by one. Watering will start by helping a seed to grow into a blooming flower, but will later grant the opportunity for your flower to cross-pollinate with those of your tags. When done correctly, you s...

Postknight 2 is a prime example of how to properly monetize a free-to-play game. While there were still some aspects that I didn't love, it is clear that the developers respect their players. Similar games may use banner ads or unskippable pop-ups to supplement their micro-transactions, but Postknight 2 puts its players in control. If I wanted to, I could have played the whole game without seeing a single ad or spending a single cent. I had enough fun with my time in the game, and the incentives to watch ads were excellent, so I didn't take that approach, but I'm impressed that it was even an option. Postknight 2 is a simple action RPG, trimming down the genre so it's conducive to quick play sessions on a small screen. You take on the role of a fledgling postknight, and your job is to brave the dangerous wilds of your world in order to make all manner of deliveries. You'll face hostile animals, monsters, thieves, and more, so you'll want to be well-equipped. The...

I didn't know what to expect when I started playing Inscryption, but it did exactly what I hoped it would. I had seen just a little bit of the game, but it was hardly more than the screenshots on its store page. However, I was hoping there would be some kind of hook to pull me in beyond the already intriguing premise of playing cards in a creepy cabin. With so many unexpected layers and secrets, Inscryption delivered on that front many times over. I've seen other reviewers express some dissatisfaction with later phases of the game, but I was so thoroughly engrossed that I actually kept playing after I had beaten it! I normally don't do that, even for games I love, because I have such a large backlog to get through, but Inscryption wasn't letting go that easily. Inscryption's narrative has an unexpected level of depth that I won't explore further in this review. I was constantly surprised by what happened next, and I think your overall experience will be leagues ...

Outer Wilds was a game that I built a lot of expectations around. Over the past year or so, I've been upping my consumption of content from the indie game YouTube scene. It didn't matter which creator I was watching, though. One game kept coming up. Often described as a "Metroidbrainia" or a "knowledge-based game," Outer Wilds seemed right up my alley. I didn't want any spoilers, so I always skipped past anything but the most surface-level discussions, yet I was so convinced I would enjoy it that I pre-ordered a physical copy for Nintendo Switch at my local GameStop. While I could have saved money and started playing sooner by buying it digitally during one of the frequent eShop sales, I knew that this was a game I would want to be able to display on my shelf and share with friends. Now that I have finally beaten it, I'm happy to report that Outer Wilds: Archaeologist Edition is one of the most incredible games I have ever played. Boiled down to its ...

Concluding the second trilogy of mainline Ace Attorney games, Spirit of Justice is exactly what I expected Dual Destinies to be and more. The story focuses heavily on Apollo and Phoenix's intertwining stories, brings focus back on the plot set up in Apollo's first game , and builds upon the gameplay established in the previous titles. While Trials and Tribulations is still my favorite game in the series, Spirit of Justice absolutely gave it a run for its money and is easily the best in the sequel trilogy. Splitting time between Phoenix visiting Maya in the spirit medium kingdom of Khura'in and Apollo holding down the fort at the Wright Anything Agency, the story starts out a bit disjointed. Even the court cases are handled differently between the two settings, with Khura'inese trials introducing the ability to see a murder victim's last moments through their eyes. This discrepancy isn't bad though. In fact, I think it helped keep the game engaging because ever...

With Metroidvanias stand tall amongst my favorite game genres, I'm always excited to stumble upon a new one, especially if it has a unique twist. Gato Roboto is an excellent bite-sized example of that, giving you a mech suit that facilitates the formula-standard upgrades but occasionally requiring you to step out of it to run around as an agile, yet powerless, housecat! That gimmick, along with the smooth controls, excellent pacing, short playtime, and small price tag make Gato Roboto a wonderful introduction to the genre. The game begins with an astronaut crash-landing at an abandoned research facility on a small remote planet. He's trapped in his ship and facing fatal injuries, so he sends his surprisingly intelligent pet cat to explore the base and find some means of rescue. After a little exploring, you'll discover the mech suit and the game will really pick up. Most of the map will be closed to you until you discover the item or ability you need to open up a new pathwa...

Mii Trek was one of the StreetPass games that I truly looked forward to. The simplicity of directing my adventuring Miis and the excitement of making important discoveries made this a perfect successor to both Find Mii and Puzzle Swap . There's really not much to Mii Trek, and it feels like some of its major features were shoehorned in to help pad the game out, but I think it actually fits nicely within the StreetPass Mii Plaza for precisely those reasons. You're placed in the role of an archeologist seeking ancient artifacts, and your StreetPass tags make up your team for each expedition. Each of those tags contributes to the team's stamina meter, presumably based on the number of steps they had taken when they were tagged according to their 3DS pedometer. Since all of my tags were received exclusively through NetPass, most of the people joining me weren't walking with their 3DSs and contributed the minimum 500 steps (which gets you just about nowhere). This made the ...

I thought I learned my lesson the last time I played a Google Play Points promotional game, but then I won one of my now-favorite shirts from Diamond Valley and all my apprehension went straight out the window. While feeling similarly janky, The Playground was not stuffed with any advertisements, save for its tie-in, Zedd in the Park. While I have almost no idea what Zedd in the Park is even after playing the game, I do know what Google Play points are. After earning a collective 400 of them between both times I was allowed to play, I'm not even mad that the game wasn't good. I guess that's not fair, as I did have a few moments where I enjoyed myself, but the poor controls and unbalanced stages didn't do much to impress me. The Playground has three different levels, and each is some form of auto-runner. The first is the most fleshed out, acting like a pared-down Subway Surfers. Zedd is placed on a three-lane track and you have to swipe him from lane to lane to avoid ob...

I generally enjoyed Warrior's Way, but I wish I could have spent more time actually playing it. Warrior's Way is a strategy game about balancing risk and reward, but as a risk-averse person, I tended to play it very safe. That came down to playing very slowly so I could just about guarantee victory in every matchup. Oh, and it worked, too. I never once lost a battle during my entire time with the game, and I fought in hundreds of them. It wasn't until I started getting a little antsy in the last third of the game that I started to enjoy it though. That's because I actually started to take a risk here and there. There are two major phases to any play session in Warrior's Way. First, you recruit new soldiers for your army from your StreetPass tags. People who don't own the game appear as generals and bring a small group of soldiers who join you right away. Other Warrior's Way players appear as monarchs and visit with their entire army in tow. They may voluntee...

Ninja Launcher truly baffled me. It had a pretty good gameplay foundation, and there are plenty of game modes to try out, it just feels unfinished. I think what it came down to was a general lack of exposition. Where pretty much every other StreetPass game had at least some kind of dialogue before or after a play session, Ninja Launcher didn't have anything. It's a real shame too, because the concept could have been fleshed out into a pretty neat story. Now I'm just left to wonder what it could have been like. Ninja Launcher puts you in the role of a ninja, but all of your enemies are perched on top of unscalable cliffs. To fight back, your apprentice suggests that you hop into a cannon and strike at their level. Unfortunately, you can't take any weapons or armor for the launch. That's where your StreetPass tags come in. Everyone you tagged becomes an ally that will fly a kite along your flight path with weapons or armor attached that you can then pick up along the ...

I did a good job of coming into Edith Finch as un-spoiled as I could, but I still thought I had a pretty good idea of what the game was about. As it turns out, I was far more un-spoiled than I realized. I was initially drawn to it by the fascinatingly unique collage of gameplay styles and hadn't paid much attention to any mention of the story. However, that is absolutely the most important part of this game, and all the little gameplay shakeups in between just serve to amplify that narrative even further. As heartbreaking as it was, I was so engrossed in understanding the story of the Finch family that I could hardly put this game down. What Remains of Edith Finch puts you in control of the titular Edith Finch as she returns to her abandoned family home in search of answers. As the last remaining Finch, she wants to understand and document the stories of her eclectic kin by exploring a home that was largely blocked off to her while she was growing up. Throughout the house, she'...

While its sequel is an overall marked improvement, I felt like my journey through the StreetPass Mii Plaza wouldn't be complete without revisiting the original Find Mii. It may not be the one that I played the most, but I have a lot more nostalgia for this Find Mii than I was expecting. Something about it reminded me of playing the 3DS's built-in AR games in my brothers' bedroom while I was still discovering what the incredible new handheld could do. Thinking back on those times gives me a nice warm feeling that I just don't get with  Find Mii II . The original Find Mii is a relatively simple affair. There's no potion shop, no pairing up, no helper hare, and no branching paths. It's a linear quest where you use StreetPass-tagged adventurers to move from place to place and defeat the monsters that get in their way. This meant I couldn't cheese my way through with just one or two teams as I did in the sequel, but the journey was so much shorter that I didn...

The follow-up to the cult-classic EarthBound , Mother 3 never officially came to the West, but that didn't stop its fans from doing the work themselves. I'm so used to translation efforts for games that I care about petering out before anything playable comes from them, so I was shocked to learn that the fan translation for Mother 3 came out as soon as it did. With an initial Japanese release in 2006, the translation patch came out just two and a half years later and expertly replicated EarthBound's voice and tone. While an official translation would be amazing to see someday, there are certain elements to the game that I think will prevent that from ever happening, and other than a few Easter eggs, I can't see anything that Nintendo would need to change from the fans' amazing work anyway. However, the fan translation wouldn't be very exciting if the game itself wasn't as well-crafted as it was. I loved how Mother 3 approached its narrative. As an evolution ...

When the StreetPass Mii Plaza DLC was first rolling out, players could pick one of two games to receive for free as a demo of sorts. The options were Slot Car Rivals and Market Crashers, and I quickly chose the former because it looked a lot more exciting. Now that I've played both of them and learned that Market Crashers might just be my favorite StreetPass game out of all of the DLC, I know I probably picked incorrectly. However, Slot Car Rivals was still enjoyable in its own right. I can't think of any other racing games that are controlled exclusively with one button, let alone any that are still fun, but this one managed to pull it off! Mimicking the real-world hobby of slot car racing, Slot Car Rivals invites you to race against your StreetPass tags on increasingly complex tracks as you aim to become the champion. Each course has a set of challenges to complete in order to progress. Each of the four circuits has five tracks (although the fifth track in the final circuit i...

As the direct follow-up to Apollo Justice's breakout title , with a name like "Dual Destinies" that highlights the two major attorneys, I thought I knew exactly what I was getting into. It didn't take long for me to realize how wrong I was. Even though the previous game served as a soft reboot for the series by introducing new features and beginning the next major story arc, it seemed like Dual Destinies was attempting the reboot route too. This is seen most obviously with the introduction of Athena Cykes, another novice defense attorney who becomes the main focus of the game's story.   I knew that Athena was going to be in this game based on all of the artwork and promotional material, but I figured she was going to be in more of a supporting role, like Maya or Trucy. It quickly became clear that she was actually a third main character alongside Phoenix and Apollo. In fact, she was so central to the story that any major advancements in the narrative from the prev...

As I said in my review of Mii Force , I prefer the StreetPass games that are more passive, rather than those that are action-oriented and demand more focus. Because of that, Battleground Z was the game I dreaded trudging through the most. It was the final game in my lineup, so I had the incentive of getting a new set of Miis from the line and going back to Puzzle Swap as soon as I beat the next level, but I still had to work up the motivation to continue every time. It wasn't even a bad game, and I can see all the cool things they're doing, it just didn't fit with the way I like to consume my StreetPass-fueled media. Battleground Z takes place in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, with you and the people you meet via StreetPass being some of the few survivors. Following the instructions of a genetic scientist who thinks she can cure the zombie virus, you have to battle through various locations to protect survivors and collect zombie DNA for testing. The stages have a lot o...