amphibious_ReViews

When I booted The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD up for the first time on my Switch 2, I had not expressly intended it to be a part of my Daddy-Daughter Game Night series. My eldest was playing more Tomodachi Life at the time, so I figured she was focused on that, yet I hadn't even cleared the introduction before she saw giant birds on my screen and was locked in. About a third of my time with the game from then on was spent with her as my cheerleader, pointing out interesting things on the screen and listening with rapt attention as I read the game's dialogue with storybook voices. I have heard many times over the years about how frustrated people were with both the controls and the structure of Skyward Sword. As a kid, I was able to play my brother's copy of the Wii original a few times, and I only ever loved it, so I thought I was just immune to such frustrations. Now, playing the HD version as an adult with a lot more experience (and, arguably, less patience) with vi...

I'm not usually one for reviewing demos, since I don't think a pared-down experience properly exposes you to the game it represents. I've been known to review them anyway if they're a wholly separate experience, not just a vertical slice or content-limited introduction, but the new Tomodachi Life demo does not fit that bill, so what gives? When I downloaded this demo, I was driven by the nostalgia of receiving the "Move-In Version" for the 3DS game over a decade ago. When I first booted it up, I wanted to show my daughter how silly it was, but I intended to be the one who played it. However, she was immediately so interested that I switched over to her profile and handed her the reigns. What followed was a little girl enjoying a short demo so much that it seemed like a full game through her eyes. She got significantly more time out of it than I would have, and still wants to keep playing around with her Mii islanders. In light of that, I thought this absolute...

Most of my gaming in 2025 was with Xenoblade Chronicles X. I picked it up on launch day in March, and didn't finish it until early November. Relative to my usual gaming consumption, I hardly played anything else during that time, devoting most of my attention to this release. I entered the game with the expectations that it was going to be a starkly different experience from the rest of the games in my favorite series, but also that I would still like it just about as much. On both accounts, I was nearly correct.   While some of the standards held by the rest of the series are disregarded here, Xenoblade Chronicles X was not as different from the rest of the games as I had anticipated. Because you control a customized character, the story makes room for you to have some agency, even in cutscenes, so the usual TV-show-like quality of the story is lost. One can (and I have) watch a compilation of all the main story cutscenes from any of the other games and it plays like it was design...

This is not a review I was hoping to write yet. I genuinely planned on playing through the entirety of Rhythm Heaven Advance when I started it. I was even prepared to struggle. However, I did expect to get good enough at the game that it wouldn't be a battle. Unfortunately, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that I am one of those rhythm-less white guys who can't manage to clap a beat if his life depended on it. I only made it as far as I did in this game (not far) thanks mostly to memorization, and I was not having any fun. I desperately want to like Rhythm Heaven, but I just don't think I'm the right audience.   Simply put, Rhythm Heaven Advance is a collection of mini-games that ask you to hit specific buttons in a rhythm that you can both hear and see. You'll kick flying garbage as a martial artist, march toy soldiers to the order of their commanding officer, pluck hair off of stubbly vegetables, and more. I only saw five of these mini games before I decided i...

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...

I first played Pokémon Trozei on a friend's DS while at a sleepover while I was still in elementary school. I didn't have much time with it, but I loved Pokémon and I was into puzzles, so I just couldn't get this game out of my mind. The 3DS received a digital-only sequel that I bought pretty early on, but it never hit quite the same. Now, closing in on two decades later, I finally buckled down and played the whole campaign. I think my conclusion is that I moderately enjoyed Pokémon Trozei. It has a lot going for it, but it definitely wasn't the juggernaut my nine-year-old brain made it out to be. As a puzzle game, Pokémon Trozei had the opportunity to be mind-numbingly basic and it still would have sold on the Pokémon name alone. Instead, Genius Sonority developed a unique take on the falling-block genre that cleverly took advantage of the still-new Nintendo DS hardware. Using the touch screen, you'll be sliding Pokémon in the bottom five rows as you try to make ma...

I got Cadence of Hyrule years ago, and its initial announcement actually the catalyst that led me to buy the original Crypt of the NecroDancer. I played Crypt as soon as I bought it, but never got very far. However, thanks to a perpetually growing backlog, it took me until recently to actually play Cadence. Now that I've beaten it (and went back in for seconds), I can say with confidence what a fool I was for sleeping on this game. Simultaneously a surprise indie sequel, a glorious 2D Zelda revival, and a reference-stuffed celebration of both franchises, Cadence of Hyrule was a true delight to play through. The game's map, while procedurally generated for each new playthrough, is still Hyrule kingdom. Representing the series as a whole, it's stuffed with familiar locations, like Kakariko Village from A Link to the Past  and Gerudo Desert from Ocarina of Time . The shakeup here is that the world is built on a grid, and you can only move through its spaces in cardinal directi...

Before I get started, I want to make it clear that this is a review of Infidelity's SNES port of Metroid, not the NES original. As part of his long-running porting project, this version of the game takes advantage of the SNES's increased power to eliminate all slowdown and sprite flickering found in the original. In addition, thanks to the MSU-1 virtual coprocessor, you can select one of four soundtracks to play behind the game (I chose the Japanese Famicom Disk System version). However, my biggest reason for choosing Infidelity's port wasn't the smoother gameplay or the improved music. During the porting process, Infidelity will occasionally add optional quality-of-life improvements to his releases. These upgrades modernized the NES original Metroid just enough to make it fun to play without betraying its spirit. The save system from the Famicon Disk System release was re-implemented here, so you don't have to copy down passwords anymore. A new pause menu accessed ...

I can't remember anymore if this was my first Picross game, but it absolutely played a huge role in my love for the series. While the free-to-start model has some obvious drawbacks, it's likely the only reason I was willing to pick Pokémon Picross up in the first place, so it paid off. If you max out on purchasable picrites, the otherwise drip-fed premium currency, then most of the free-to-start influences are nullified, significantly improving the experience. That's how I played this time around, and I think it became my favorite entry in the entire Picross franchise. Around a decade and a half after the announcement and subsequent cancellation of Pokémon Picross for the Game Boy Color, Jupiter Corporation was given a chance to redeem their lost game with a successor on the 3DS. While its price-point and its Pokémon branding surely garnered it plenty of extra attention, Pokémon Picross for the 3DS also had a distinct gameplay advantage compared to it's 20+ predecessor...

I have owned a copy of Pokémon Sapphire on the GBA for years, but I got stuck grinding levels for the same battle both times I started it, and ultimately gave up on it. I still wanted to play through the Hoenn region, though, and with the modernizations of the sixth generation, I was planning to do so via Alpha Sapphire. It took a friend who lives abroad to get me to turn my attention back towards the original release. He's working on completing his Pokédex in FireRed, so I lent him my copy of Ruby and agreed to play through Sapphire so we could exchange version exclusives next time he's in town. It surprised me how quickly I got hooked on the game this time around, despite my poor past experiences and my interest in the remake. In fact, I only meant to play it in bits and prieces, but ended up blowing through the whole thing in about a week! Pokémon Sapphire has all of the expected mainline Pokémon tropes, but I was surprised by how many additional gimmicks were stacked on top...

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...

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 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 ...

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...