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...