amphibious_ReViews

Blue's Big Musical marks the start of a review series I hope to continue for a long time. I'm calling it "Daddy-Daughter Game Night," and it will consist exclusively of games that I'm playing with my kiddos. While Blue's Clues will always hold a special place in my heart, I doubt I would have even found out this game existed if my eldest daughter didn't love the show too. I sought out any Blue's Clues games I could find to play with her, and this was the standout in terms of both accessibility and show-accuracy. Starting off my new review series strong, both my daughter and I had a ton of fun snuggling up and finding clues together. As it was designed with kids in mind, Blue's Big Musical is unsurprisingly pretty simple. You are granted control of Blue as she and Steve work together to set up a musical in their back yard. Other than the mini-games, most of what you are doing is moving Blue to the left and right and interacting with the characters a...

This is it folks. We've made it. The grand finale. Just over a year ago, spurred on by the release of NetPass, an online resurrection of the 3DS's native StreetPass feature, I decided to beat every game in the StreetPass Mii Plaza. That journey concludes here with Feed Mii. While it took me the most real-life days to beat out of the bunch, it was one of the shortest games in terms of how long I actually played per session. It's thanks to that and the clever premise behind the game that it was one of my favorites in the plaza. Long before I embarked on my Mii Plaza quest, I was playing Puzzle Swap and Find Mii . These two games came packed-in with the software, whereas all the rest were introduced later as paid DLC. Because it was free, I would be surprised if anyone with a 3DS hadn't also invested at least some of their time into Find Mii. That's where this game comes in. Running with the assumption that the heroes in Find Mii were not adventuring on an empty stoma...

Returning to my StreetPass Mii Plaza quest after a multi-month hiatus, I decided I had to adjust my play style for Monster Manor. This game, while initially one of the more engaging choices in the collection, was the primary reason I took a break from StreetPass at the start of the new year. I was consistently spending the most amount of time on Monster Manor with every pass through the plaza, but the gameplay never changed and the finish line always seemed so far out of reach. There is a fake ending about halfway through the base adventure, and if it was a real conclusion, I would have been okay. Instead, my frustration with Monster Manor peaked and my interest quickly started to fade. My restructured strategy felt a little sloppy, but it did speed the game up a bit, giving me the strength to see it through to the end. Monster Manor is an exploration-style game that finds you trapped in a haunted tower. Your challenge is to find the way to the top so you can defeat the master of the m...