amphibious_ReViews

Over the past 25 years, Pokémon's pop-culture dominance has grown astronomically, making it the highest-grossing media franchise of all time by a pretty significant margin. At the start of it all was a humble pair of monster-collecting RPGs that encouraged collaboration and competition between real-life friends, classmates, and coworkers. Now, over two decades later, we have received seven more "generations" of Pokémon games, each leaving that classic formula virtually untouched. Each of them saw massive success, showing just how strong the foundation is, but with repetition often comes boredom. Because the competitive side of Pokémon is so important, major adjustments can't really happen without running the risk of inadvertently damaging a huge draw to the franchise. However, with each successive release that avoids altering the formula, players' interest in retreading old ground fades a little more. Pokémon Legends: Arceus singlehandedly destroys that compla

Back in August of 2021, I reviewed the arcade classic, Joust , essentially just by saying that it was just an inferior version of Balloon Fight . After replaying Balloon Fight to make sure I wasn't full of crap, I stand by what I said. The maps have more variety, the controls are more straightforward, and the additional modes mean there's even more to do. Though, even without the comparison to Joust , Balloon Fight  can stand on its own, whether you play alone or with a friend. The goal of  Balloon Fight  is to flap around, popping your opponents' balloons while keeping your own intact. However, its most impressive feat isn't the gameplay, but rather how remarkably responsive the whole experience feels. Thanks to the intuitive physics of flapping around while attached to a pair of balloons, I feel like I'm in full control of my character, despite not actually having perfect control. The system of building momentum combined with the collision and bouncing effects fe

Undoubtedly Nintendo 's MVP of COVID-19, Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out at the perfect time. While the whole Animal Crossing series is delightful, with cute aesthetics, essentially endless gameplay, and solid life-stimulator gameplay, only this entry released when the closest thing people had to real life was a simulation. The pandemic opened up the perfect little niche for New Horizons to fit into, and helped it to become the second-best-selling game on the Switch practically overnight. I only got around to playing it once people actually started going outside again, but New Horizons still manages to be one of the most fulfilling experiences on the Switch . I found the game's biggest strength to be its heavy dosage (and healthy balance) of both freedom and structure. Instead of starting the game with an existing village like you do in the previous entries, your new home in New Horizons is an overgrown desert island. There's no infrastructure, and the only oth

It's hard not to accidentally review the Pokémon Trading Card Game itself when taking a look at PTCGO since it manages such a perfect virtualization of the official game. It even includes the main competitive formats sanctioned by The Pokémon Company , which is the major draw to the title. However, I think that PTCGO is worthy of recognition for all of the choices it made to improve the overall gameplay experience. The steps they took to make the card game itself more convenient, like highlighting playable cards or sorting the discard pile, are fantastic, but I'm more impressed by the decisions made outside of the actual gameplay. One of the biggest surprises is the complete lack of microtransactions. Because every real-world TCG product comes with a code to redeem it in PTCGO , the physical products are treated as microtransactions, and digital-only products can only be earned, never bought. That way, if you never buy real cards (and if you stay away from the second-hand cod

A few games found an unexpected spotlight during the pandemic, mostly thanks to their ability to bring people together digitally when in-person interactions were less common. However, I was still blindsided by Wordle . Contrary to most other COVID-era hits, it initially seems as single-player as a game can get. The only thing that helps get your friends involved is the spoiler-free share option, but that ended up being a lot more important than I had given it credit for. Now the game is big enough to make news headlines every day, and the rights were even bought by The New York Times for their own collection of daily word games. As a daily Wordler myself, I think it can be a fun challenge, and it's definitely better when playing alongside friends. When I first played Wordle , I was immediately reminded of Mastermind . The idea is generally the same, but instead of a pattern of colors, you are trying to guess a five letter word. You get up to six guesses, and each time you can see

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

One of the most natural translations to VR is the first-person-shooter. Not only because it's already in the correct perspective, but also because the basic gameplay of aiming and shooting couldn't be simpler. Mighty Games recognized this and released a spin-off of their mobile arcade shooter, Shooty Skies , for virtual reality. While it is fairly simple and has about as much content as a mobile arcade-style game, there's plenty to enjoy here. To play, you grab hold of a tiny animal piloting a tiny fighter jet, and guide them as they take down hordes of strange enemies while avoiding incoming projectiles. With your other hand, you can catch secondary weapons that fly out of defeated enemies, providing support to your little buddy for a short time. Amongst this secondary arsenal is a chainsaw that extends about a yard to hack your foes to pieces, an energy shield that splits your main attack into two while deflecting enemy projectiles, and, my personal favorite, a buddy pla