amphibious_ReViews

I hadn't even finished the first Dadish before I started playing Daily Dadish. The allure of a new level every day preyed on my FOMO in the nicest way possible. Instead of time-limited events designed to push micro-transactions, every day of the year has its own unique level to conquer. While its nature necessitates the absence of even the bare-bones narrative structure of the series' numbered entries, the rest of the game makes up for the shortcoming in spades. Having more than double the number of levels as the previous three games combined, Daily Dadish is a huge adventure and makes for an excellent year-long advent calendar. Daily Dadish plays similarly to its trilogy of predecessors, presenting you with handcrafted platforming levels that challenge you to think quick and move with precision. Stages are filled with hazards and enemies to keep you on your toes while you run, jump, and bounce toward Dadish's truant children. All of the components used in the stages are d

Celeste really surprised me. Having played the PICO-8 original first, I thought I knew what I was getting into, but there is so much more to this full-fledged release. Of course, the precision-platforming challenges were carried over, they've just undergone some impressive growth and are no longer the sole focus of the game. I'm not usually a fan of punishing difficulty in games, but Celeste never held back and I ate it up. The whole experience felt incredibly rewarding, both in terms of my personal growth as a player and in regards to Madeline's growth through the surprisingly emotional narrative. Madeline is the player character and the protagonist of Celeste. Seemingly in the hopes of achieving a sense of peace and clarity during a difficult time in her life, she sets her mind on climbing to the top of Mount Celeste. Along the way, she encounters a colorful collection of characters that inadvertently help her understand better the real reason that she's on this jour

It took me ages to finally get to Sonic. I've been wanting to try his 2D games recently, but for the longest time before that, I just had no interest. My first Sonic game was Sonic Rush back on the DS, and I really wanted to like it back then, but the water stages put such a sour taste in my mouth that I pretty much gave up on the Blue Blur's mainline titles. I still enjoyed the Olympic crossover titles with Mario, and he was one of my favorite characters in Smash Bros , but it wasn't until Sonic Mania became such a phenomenon that I thought about giving his origins a second chance. Going into this Sega Genesis original, I was expecting "gotta go fast," but I ended up getting the much less exciting "gotta land precise jumps with slippery controls," and I'm a bit disappointed by the whole thing. Sonic's first outing sees you controlling the titular blue hedgehog as he races through increasingly mechanized locations in order to stop the evil Doctor

Not only did I find Kirby Tilt'n'Tumble to be one of the most intriguing Kirby spinoffs, but also possibly the most intriguing Gameboy-era game in general. An 8-bit handheld game from the turn of the century that uses real motion controls and is actually playable? I absolutely had to try it for myself. Unfortunately, it wasn't very accessible for the longest time. With the secondhand price being way too much for me to consider, and the emulation options being subpar, I didn't really have much of an option to play it. When Nintendo announced it was coming to the NSO Gameboy app though, I was ecstatic! I would finally have the opportunity to emulate a motion-controlled game on a machine designed for motion controls in an official capacity, so I was confident this would be the best way to play outside of the original hardware. After playing, I'm confident that it's outright the best way to play this game. Kirby's Tilt'n'Tumble is a motion-controlled mar

As a young kid playing Flash games on my grandparents' computer, I had a few staples I liked to return to. I loved the feel of the Fancy Pants games, and they earned their status as a staple in my catalog, but I was never any good at them. I could tell that there was something good there, but I never had the coordination to make it more than a couple levels into either of the first two games. Thankfully, I have gotten a little better since then, and with the entirety of the first three games available within The Fancy Pants Adventures package, I finally had a chance to redeem myself. The Fancy Pants games are what I like to call momentum platformers. Like the Sonic the Hedgehog series, much of the gameplay revolves around building and maintaining momentum in order to efficiently traverse the levels. There are plenty of times when the games force you to stop and act with a little more precision, especially when it comes to the combat, but most of the time, you'll just be going f

Pushmo was always on my radar as an interesting Eshop title, but I ultimately ended up getting both of its 3DS sequels and never actually Pushmo itself. The closure of the Eshop pushed me to finally play it, and like its successors, it's a great mix of puzzles and platforming. I like to think that Pushmo is someone's answer to the question of what would happen if a simple puzzle was made to be the size of a house? Instead of solving these brainteasers with a pencil or a stylus, our protagonist Mallo must push, pull, and climb blocks using his own raw strength. What results is a cute puzzle game that stands out in a genre mostly known for purely logical, flat experiences. Pushmo tells you right away that it isn't going to be like those other guys. Instead of a simple tutorial,  it treats players to a little story that establishes the importance of Mallo solving every puzzle. The puzzles in question are explained to be a type of theme park attraction that little children enjo

My first experience with Kirby's Adventure was actually the remade version for 3DS. I got it as a Club Nintendo reward and really enjoyed how much it reminded me of the DS Kirby games I used to borrow from friends. I played it a lot, but eventually got stuck on the Kracko boss fight and moved on to other games. Recently though, I've been interested in going back and playing all of the old Kirby games, and Kirby's Adventure was the next on my list, so here we are! I went with the NES version this time around, purely because it's easier to pick up and play my Switch than my 3DS, and I don't mind the slowdown or flickering. Unfortunately, and I don't think this is the fault of the platform, I just didn't enjoy it as much this time around. As the first Kirby game with copy abilities, it makes sense that those would be the main draw. However, that's not really anything new anymore, leaving the whole game feeling pretty vanilla. Thankfully, even the plainest K

Over the years, I had built up quite a reputation for Super Mario Land 2 in my head. It seemed like everyone who had played it felt like it was incredible, or even on par with the console releases. Relative to its status as a Gameboy game, I would certainly agree. However, taken on its own merits, I'd say that Super Mario Land 2 is a bit overhyped. That doesn't mean I dislike it or think it's a bad game, it just means that I don't think it's fair to stand this up to Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World without considering its context. The first Super Mario Land game was released as a launch title for the Gameboy, so everyone was still trying to figure out how to make games for it. This led to some unique design choices and technical quirks that I don't think we would have seen if the game came out later in the system's lifespan, yet they became integral to the Super Mario Land identity. Super Mario Land 2 may have had the extra development time needed

Every once in a while, I'll come across a game that I know will be good, even without having virtually any background knowledge about it. A pixel-art platformer starring a radish that is a dad? Yeah, that's going to make the list. I would often see the Dadish games when browsing the Switch eShop, but for ten dollars a pop, I never looked any further than the listing. However, if we mosey on over to the Google Play store, every Dadish game is available (ad-supported) for free! How could I resist? With the Android port having full controller support and surprisingly infrequent ads, the experience is going to be identical between mobile and console for most players, and I had an excellent time with it. Dadish is a straightforward affair. In this precision platformer, you'll be playing as the titular radish himself and you'll need to track down all of your children. It's not like Dadish is an irresponsible father, he was just taking a well-deserved nap when all of his k

I wouldn't necessarily consider myself an expert on video game history, but before Shovel Knight made indies mainstream, I credit games like Limbo for putting them on the radar in the first place. In an industry increasingly dominated by big-studio, big-budget, big-name titles, it was notable for a game like this to break out from the noise and find widespread acclaim. I didn't end up playing more than the first few chapters when I originally bought it on PC, but I've never had enough time to dedicate to PC gaming in the first place. Once I bought the game on my phone though, that was a different story. Thanks to the portability and generous checkpoints, I could pick up and play for minutes at a time, slowly working my way through Playdead's dark world. Limbo is a game about a boy trying to find his sister. The plot leaves a lot of room for interpretation beyond that, but to avoid giving anything else away, I'll just say that I was surprised, then confused, and fina

It was only a few days after Christmas and I was exploring the capabilities of my new retro handheld. I had already experimented with the usual emulation and native-run games, so I started to dive deeper when something caught my eye. A few years previous, I had learned about PICO-8, a fantasy console that interested me, but that I had never gotten around to doing much with. Casually listed amongst the consoles my new handheld could emulate, PICO-8 sat ready to bid for my attention once again. This time, I couldn't resist the invitation, so I downloaded the only game for the "console" that I knew off the top of my head and I didn't put it down until I had beaten it. The original Celeste game is a short, yet challenging, precision platformer. Your goal is to scale a wintry mountain through thirty stages of increasingly complex platforming challenges, mastering your full array of movement capabilities along the way. You'll encounter walls to cling to, gaps to clear,

Super Mario Run came out when Nintendo was still testing the waters with their mobile offerings, and it shows. The game is entirely without microtransactions, but to play more than the first couple of levels, you'll need to pay a solid $10. That purchase price does net you a full Mario game that was intentionally designed for one-handed play during bite-sized sessions, but it feels grossly out of place on a platform largely dominated by free-to-play titles. I'm used to seeing console ports like the Final Fantasy series having relatively staggering price tags, but games designed exclusively for mobile rarely require purchases as large as that, at least at one time. Fortunately, once you jump that hurdle, the product you receive is actually pretty good. Super Mario Run is built on the familiar New Super Mario Bros. engine but has a few control alterations to make it feel more at home on mobile. As its title implies, this is a "runner" style game, with Mario consta

Gunman Clive is one of the best values you can find in a platformer. Although it's rather short, it's both affordable and replayable. I only paid a dollar each of the three times I bought it, and I ended up playing through the campaign multiple times on multiple platforms. The sepia-toned sketchbook style looks absolutely amazing, and the soundtrack was so good that I bought that too, but even if the pure joy of playing isn't enough to keep you invested, you'll still likely appreciate the four unique characters and the ways they change how you approach each of the stages. However, even if you just play through the game once, I think it is a worthy investment. Gunman Clive starts out as a pretty standard action platformer, having you run and gun your way across the old West as you try to save the kidnapped Ms. Johnson (or Clive himself if you play as any of the other three characters). It's not until you come across your first duck that you'll get the subtle fe

It took me way too long to get to Owlboy . There are so many stellar indies on my backlog that continue to get usurped by the bigger-name games. It's a lot easier to talk to friends about big-budget AAA games since they are so much more likely to have played them, but less recognizable games like this can pull off some really special things. I only chose to start  Owlboy after owning it for nearly four years because I wanted a shorter game to fill the short lull before Christmas beefed up my library again, but I found that the game actually helped me to better appreciate the value of well-crafted independently-developed videogames. Owlboy is a story-oriented platformer that feels incredibly polished, no matter what angle you consider it from. You play as an owl named Otus, and, along with his friends, you go on an epic adventure that covers important themes, like loss, forgiveness, acceptance, and redemption. The characters and their animations can often feel comically over-the-t