@mookysam Thanks for reading! Part of me avoided reviewing Everything or Nothing on home console because you've mentioned having it in your backlog, and I didn't wanna go into details that might spoil it for you, or give you any preconceptions. In terms of fully translating its gameplay to the GBA, I'm convinced that this was the best Griptonite could do. My appreciation of them making such an effort far outweighs any minor headaches and, at the end of the day, it's still very playable.
Well, at least the game's short, so when the batteries do die I won't be losing much. I play it so infrequently, I always return for a complete playthrough anyway.
Good to see another GBA fan around these parts! I'm finding some real crackers of late!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Oh, you don't need to worry about that. My memory is quite bad nowadays so I'll have forgotten any story details by the time I play it. If anything I'm now looking forward to playing it even more, just to see Willem Defoe attempt to revive the Soviet Union!
Part of what I love about the GBA (other than its portability) is how it was a new golden age for pixel art, so there's a lot of games you won't find anywhere else. GBA games in general seem to be very collectible these days, although typically the ones I want are rare and expensive. Finding ones complete with boxes and manuals in reasonable condition can also be tricky.
I used to keep all of my GBA boxes folded flat as I didn't have room for them, but it kept them safe and in pristine condition. That was until one fateful day, not long after I'd moved away, my brother decided to root through the box I kept them in, hoping to find something to play. Most of them ended up bent or ripped, so I threw them away in disgust. All I can say is thank goodness my Final Fantasy VI Advance box was largely unharmed!
What other GBA games have you bought/got your eye on?
Completion Status: All puzzles completed across both games, totaling 8.5 hours of playtime. No achievements for the first game, but I collected all but one of Puzzle Agent 2's achievements (the one I'm missing would've required me to play through the entirely of the second game pretty much perfectly from beginning to end, which I'm not really willing to do)
Professor Lameton
The Puzzle Agent games were developed by a very early career Telltale Games back in 2010 as part of a pilot program exploring alternative types of game design to supplement their episodic licensed adventure game model (as most readers will recall, they hit it big on this front not long after with their Walking Dead series). I'll be talking about this game and its direct sequel, which released a year later, as one entity, because they're really one experience. The gameplay and presentation are identical between the two games, and the mystery from the first game isn't really resolved until the second game.
The plot is, put nicely, absurdist. Nelson Tethers, the character you play as, is a member (the only member, in fact) of the FBI's puzzle research division. A bit of welcome satire is introduced early in this regard, as it's clear almost immediately that Tethers is bored out of his mind and really has nothing to do in this largely pointless pocket of the federal government. His tedium is brought to an end when he receives a field assignment, however: the lone factory that appears to supply the President of the United States with his preferred type of eraser (as in, pencil eraser) has mysteriously shut down production, and isn't responding to communication attempts, so Tethers is put on the case to find out why factory management isn't responsive. Tethers arrives in the strange little town of Scoggins, Minnesota, where the factory is situated, and quickly finds himself ensnared in a bizarre mystery involving a local cult, lost astronauts, strange scientific formulae, missing persons reports, and sightings of so-called "Hidden People." The key mystery seemingly tying all of this together is the inexplicable disappearance of the factory's foreman, Isaac Davner, and finding him becomes something of a fixation for Agent Tethers.
Despite the initial stupidity of the premise, this is still a lot to work with, and it could have been executed well. (Very) early on, there's a pleasant sense of mystery to proceedings: everyone in town is acting squirrely, and Tethers keeps experiencing strange phenomena. Unfortunately, this potential is largely squandered: the plot becomes dumber the more you learn about it, and, especially in the second game, a kitchen sink approach is taken to explaining the mystery. You start out with something manageable, with cover-ups, cults, and possible supernatural phenomena, and by the end of the second game, the plot is some sort of bizarre mess that attempts to tie together aliens, sentient garden gnomes, big foot, government conspiracies, mind control devices, etc. It's like the writers were trying to poke fun at bad conspiracy writing and you end up with something so convoluted and weird that you don't really care about anything that happens because none of it means anything.
Structurally, these games are dead ringers for the long-running Professor Layton series on the Nintendo DS/3DS. In particular, the very first game in that series, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, is called to mind: in both properties, you play an investigator with an aptitude for puzzle solving who is asked to journey out to a strange little town to solve a mystery that everyone seems to be in on, all the while hunting around for hint coins and solving puzzles for the puzzle-obsessed locals, each of which you're scored on depending on how many times it took you to get the answer and/or how many hints you used to solve them. Instead of hint coins, you hunt around for pieces of used chewing gum stuck everywhere, which Nelson Tethers will then disgustingly put in his mouth when he needs a hint because gum helps him to think. The scoring system in the Puzzle Agent games strikes me as a bit odd, though, as, unlike the Layton games, there's nothing really incentivizing skilled play. The grades you earn don't ultimately affect anything. In the Layton series, getting more Picarats (the currency obtained from solving puzzles) would go toward unlocking a variety of extras and bonuses after the game was done. But there's no post-game content here. It's all very barebones, in fact: Puzzle Agent 1 only has 37 puzzles total, with a similar number of puzzles in the second game.
I wouldn't necessarily mind a miniature Professor Layton-esque experience, but the failings of Puzzle Agent 1 & 2 highlight was made that other series special. The Layton games didn't always have amazing plots, but they held together as narrative experiences because of the engaging connection the professor had with his young apprentice, Luke Triton. Later games had large casts of interesting characters. Puzzle Agent has a cast of characters, but they're all utterly forgettable, and the writers didn't really bother to build up a connection between the main character and anyone else in the town. This would have been fine with sufficiently good mystery writing, but, as I established, the plot is ridiculous and not meant to be seriously considered.
What's left then? Well, gameplay, I suppose. Puzzles, primarily, aside from point-and-click adventure game navigation around your environments, which barely even counts as gameplay. The puzzles here actually aren't terrible, but considering how few they are, they're really lacking in variety. There are only a few different types of puzzles, so you'll have a sense of deja vu as you play through the game. The Layton games had similar puzzles as well, but those games had several hundreds of puzzles each, so some level of repetition is expected. With 37 puzzles or so in each Puzzle Agent game, you'd think each one would be unique and well-considered. The game also has an issue with occasionally explaining a puzzle poorly, which might cause the player to have to guess at the rules the first time through if they want to get a sense of what they're supposed to do. Once or twice, it also expected me to know things that I don't think were necessarily reasonable to expect from a logic-based puzzle, such as one that presented a sequence of numbers and challenged me to find the pattern and guess the next number in the sequence. I came to discover that there was no independently discoverable sequence, but that it was, in fact, the number pi, and the game wanted me to input the numbers seven or eight digits in. Now, dear reader, maybe you're a mathematic prodigy that has memorized pi past the first three numbers, but I ended up having to look it up, because I had no other means of answering the question.
With that said, I feel like I'm probably being harsher than I probably should be, because most of the puzzles are fun and well-considered, and these games scratched a very particular itch I've had for years since I finished the Layton series.
The unique visual style in these games is the result of a collaboration between Telltale Games and Canadian cartoonist/animator Graham Annable. Stylistically, it's almost indistinguishable from his work in comics, and while it's not a style I'd normally take to, the offbeat designs of these bug-eyed weirdos meshes well with the generally parodic feel of the games in general. Scoggins feels like a rudimentary send-up of the American Midwestern setting prominently featured in films like Fargo. With that said, the low production quality of the project should be noted: the animation featured in this game is VERY basic, and you won't notice a lot of movement on-screen at any one time.
Sound design-wise, there's next to nothing in the way of music, which is a bit disconcerting, but I did appreciate the fact that these games are fully voice-acted. And the voice acting is decent!
The Puzzle Agent games aren't terrible. The art design is unique, the offbeat style of the humor elicited a few chuckles from me, and the fundamentals of the game design, which feel ripped straight from Professor Layton, are solid enough. Unfortunately, the games don't feel fully developed, are lacking in puzzle variety, feature next to no music, and, in what is ultimately the series' biggest sin, there's no real reason to care about any of the characters, or even the story more broadly, which feels like two subpar, four-hour episodes of Gravity Falls and almost entirely falls apart near the end anyway. With that said, given the emphasis on puzzle-solving and their short length overall, the games don't wear out their welcome, and I can't really say I disliked them. Given how similar and interconnected the two games are, I'm giving them a combined score of 5/10.
@Ralizah I had no idea Telltale once tried to turn a comedy X-Files script into a puzzle game! This review reminds me of your previous pieces about Wizorb and Tokyo Dark, drawing from that same kinda range of mid-table Steam sale clutter. Would that be a fair comment?
It's a shame the writing lets itself down in the end (there's a fine line between satirising a genre and ending up yet another bad example of it) because I quite like the premise you describe. As the Layton games prove, you need more than puzzles to tie a puzzle game together, otherwise you might as well be a throwaway mobile release. Sorry you had to play through some proof of that, although at least it briefly scratched your Layton itch (memorising pi to seven digits notwithstanding).
A fair assessment, and another enjoyable one to read. Thanks!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Humble Bundle clutter, more accurately. Tokyo Dark was the only one of these games I actually wanted in my library. The others just came along for the ride when I bought bundles for other games. With that said, there's something fun about checking out obscure games that nobody has discussed in years. You occasionally find some real treasures that way. The musty corners of online PC gaming marketplaces have traces of that same magic small video rental stores used to have before the internet demystified everything.
These games were actually also released on mobile, I believe! But yeah, a game doesn't need to be perfect, but it does need to excel in something, and this one... doesn't. It's forgettable, frankly. The premise is a lot more attractive than the actual execution.
And yeah, agreed on satire/parody vs pure bad writing. There's value to be had in lovingly playing with common genre tropes, but that still requires some actual effort to be expended.
@Ralizah Fun review of Nelson Tether, I really enjoyed reading it. It's a shame that the writing in the game ended up being so mediocre, because the actual premise sounds really quite quite interesting and offbeat humour is always a draw. I like the Professor Layton games, but mostly because of the stories and overall presentational polish, rather than the puzzles themselves. With this the visual style is not my cup of tea. It looks like Quentin Blake reinterpreted Where's Wally while suffering a bout of narcolepsy in a box factory.
Humble Bundle sounds fairly hit or miss, but the value is there and it's always brilliant to discover a true gem.
It's possible people who like the style of humor in this game might be able to overlook the nonsensical plot, but it just felt like a wasted opportunity to me. Because, yeah, the idea of an adventure/puzzle game hybrid where you solve a mystery is attractive.
Well, with humble bundle, the important thing is that you get an amazing price on the games you're buying them for, and then get this weird stuff on the side. Like, when I got the Crash and Spyro collections for $15 (total, not each) a few years back, the bundle also came with a Call of Duty game, the Shenmue collection, and a couple of games I've never heard of. For $15. It certainly reduces the risk with trying stuff I've never heard of before.
Game: Astro's playroom (PS5)
When I got my PS5 the first game I was going to play was miles morales as it was the game I was most hyped for but then I saw an icon on my home screen with a little robot on it. I started the game and I was smiling the entire time I played! Here are my thoughts.
THE GRAPHICS
From what I saw, the original astro bot on ps4 had some really nice graphics. This game, however, takes the graphics to a whole new level! The textures on the playstation artefacts look so realistic, the shine on astro's face, it all looks lovely. This game is also a stunner in 4K with HDR on! Everything is so colourful and shiny and high quality! Astro has a nice roll in the Memory Meadow. THE DUALSENSE
The dualsense is an awesome controller but not many games have used it to it's full potential except this one. Every footstep astro takes is a little vibration in the controller. When he walks in the sand, the vibration feels crunchy and when he walks on metal, the vibrations feel clangy (not a word). When you use big robot hands to get toys out of a capsule machine, the triggers make you feel like you're popping the capsules or crushing the rubbish cans someone put in the machine. It truly feels like you are a part of the game world and you really need to try it for yourself to get what I'm saying. Astro definitely loves the dualsense.
THE MUSIC
Every song in this game is a bop! Ever since I first played GPU Jungle I've been hearing "GPUUUU! TELL ME WHAT TO DOOO! AND I'LL DO IT FOR YOOOU!" in my head (it really is a problem). The main theme is an earworm as well. I highly recommend you give the ost a listen. EDIT: THE OST IS STREAMING NOW! LISTEN TO IT NOW! GO! GO! GO! Dance Robot, Dance! THE GAMEPLAY
Astro is a joy to control. From the little hover he does to the spin and even just running and hopping around, it's all fun! I don't really have much to say about the gameplay. This game has really nice ice physics too! THE CONCLUSION
From the insanely fun gameplay to the adorable references to the amazing music and graphics, Astro's playroom is an amazing game that you need to play if you have a ps5. Definitely worth keeping on your console unless you're running out of space. It's also a little short for my liking. Astro walks the long and winding road. THE PROS
-Incredible graphics
-Incredible music
-Nice little easter eggs
-Astro is such a cute little boi
@Ralizah Good analogy. You're also describing an element of gaming I lost when magazine-cover demo discs went the way of the dodo. Everything's worth a shot, even if it turns out to be supremely average, because the only way you'll find a new favourite is by trying it first... and hey, at least you're getting to write some quality reviews as a result, so bonus!
These games getting a mobile release is equal parts surprising and unsurprising. I know that's a contradictorily-bizarre sentence, but hopefully you'll know what I mean!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@Jackpaza0508 Sweet, nice review! People keep raving about this, even without it being a free giveaway. From what I've read elsewhere, you're not alone in the whole "you need to experience this for yourself" take on the DualSense feedback, either. I need to remember not to overlook this when I get my PS5, as I was never interested in The Playroom before.
And "clangy" is totally a word now, by the way! Thanks for sharing!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Game: Bugsnax (PS5)
This seemed like a joke game at first but as more info on it came out I started to become interested. I've put over 20 hours into the game so guess if I liked the game or not! THE PREMISE
You play as a journalist who is sent out to an island called Snaktooth to investigate a new species of bugs that look like foodstuff and discovers that the island has a lot of secrets. You find a grumpus called Filbo who is the mayor of a small ghost town called Snaxburg and your task is to get everyone back into the town. THE GRAPHICS
The graphics are pretty simple. The framerate chugs when you're in the town. That's all I have to say. THE MUSIC
The music is really fun and upbeat! From the slightly awkward sounding interview theme song to the catchy theme song, every song is great. THE GAMEPLAY
The bugsnax are fun and rewarding to catch as a nice little jingle plays every time you catch one. You have many tools at your disposal like a tripwire or a strawberry with eyes in a ball that you can use to lead bugsnax to where you want them to go. Some of the final bugsnax you have to find can be tedious to find if you don't have a guide and there's NO FAST TRAVEL IN AN OPEN WORLD GAME IN 2020 WHAT. OTHER INFO
The game is fully voice acted and aside from Beffica, every character is funny and charming. If you don't like a particular character you can turn them into a disgusting food monster and they won't even mention it so that's fun! THE CONCLUSION
Overall this game is great! There are a few technical hiccups and some flaws like * clears throat * NO FAST TRAVEL but aside from that, this is a really fun time!
The pros
-Fun characters
-Great music
-Great voice acting
-Rewarding gameplay
-You can turn the annoying characters into pickle goblins!
The cons
-Some of the bugsnax are a bit tedious to get
-Some minor framerate issues
-* clears throat again * NO FAST TRAVEL
-Beffica
9/10 Excellent
A bit late to the party but nice impression pieces there @Timleon on the reboot Tomb Raider games.
I've only played the very first Tomb Raider game myself and then Legends on the PS2 but thanks to Sol, Rog and some of the other folks I've been tempted a number of times on trying the reboot trilogy and thanks to you I have a much clearer picture on what to expect with them!
I hope Shadow Of The Tomb Raider is more up your alley then Rise was!
Bit late @mookysam but I finally got to reading your Super Mario Sunshine and it was rather delightful indeed! I love this new mythos you're creating for the mushroom kingdom including Witches, Lakitu, the devil and Pat Butcher
Your sharp wit made for a really enjoyable read... It's unfortunate it seemed to recieve barely any effort from the sound of things into porting it onto the Switch as part of the the collection but it sounds like a much more enjoyable experience then 64.
I look forward to seeing what your Galaxy review looks like!
... Well at least you haven't gone off the deep end this time @RogerRoger with your latest bond review!
Good stuff and it really was a facinating time when all these different versions of games were made with differing gameplay styles to accommodate the less powerful hardware. Some very nice screenshots you managed to rustle up there and that tune you posted is a bit of a jam lol
Good stuff Rog and glad you got round to playing a nice and enjoyable Bond game, even if it was a bit brief!
Like the others have said @Ralizah I'll have to chime in and say the absurdist plot of Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent 1 does sound rather fun to me but it's a shame it seemed to have gone a bit off the deep end for you in the sequel!
I actually really quite like the look of the visuals myself from the screenshots you've posted and the mash of puzzles and the typical brand of TellTale episodic adventure game sounds rather neat.
It's a bit of a shame we never got to see some more unique genre mashups like Puzzle Agent but thanks for bringing it to my attention all the same!
And apologies for the late reply in regards to your comments on Bowser's Fury & Galaxy (Didn't seem to get a notification for that curiously) but I've taken a bit of a deeper look into Galaxy 1 & 2 since the and I can see what you mean with 2 and the difference in the design philiosphy with the levels and worlds.
Hopefully when Nintendo "terminates" the 3D Collection games in the next few weeks (Which I find rather disgusting practice to be honest) they upload Galaxy 2 for people to grab a hold of alongside the other games just seperately instead of in a package.
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Thanks, Foxy! I just couldn't leave Mr. Bond behind on such a bum note. Glad you enjoyed reading, looking at and listening to my review!
***
@Jackpaza0508 Great follow-up with Bugsnax there, and I'll add to the screenshot praise! Although I'm sorry to hear about the lack of fast-travel, as that can really impact enjoyment and make sessions feel like a chore. Very odd choice.
Glad you liked most of the characters, but what was wrong with Beffica, I wonder?
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Thanks! I would definitely recommend the reboot trilogy to any fan of the older titles, if only to find out whether you like the new approach or not.
I'm about 3-4 hours into Shadow now and it's looking good so far. Waiting to see how the whole thing unfolds though.
Game: Sackboy: A Big Adventure (PS5)
In the words of Caddicarus, "Are you feeling a bit sad? A bit down? WELL SHUT UP BECAUSE YOU'RE PLAYING SACKBOY SO YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO BE HAPPY!" He wasn't wrong! This game is so uncontrollably happy that you don't wanna kill the enemies because they're so god-damn cute! The gameplay
This is one of the only things I don't really like from this game! Sackboy runs so slow! He runs at the speed of an old age pensioner! The jump height is absolutely tiny and the flutter jump is pathetic. However, the weapons you get like the whirly tool and jetpack are really fun! The music
The music in this game is pretty great! From whimsical orchestral tunes to upbeat dubstep and even some licenced music from Mark Ronson, deadmau5 and much more! There is a surfer version of Take on me by A-Ha so yeah. The voice acting
This game's voice acting is also great! Dawn French (The Vicar of Dibley, French & Saunders) and Richard E. Grant (Withnail and I, Rise of Skywalker) steal the show as Sackboy's mentor Scarlet and villain Vex. The other characters like N.I.C.O.L.E and Gerald Strudleguff are great too! The conclusion
Overall, this game is fine but the boring gameplay holds it back from greatness.
Pros
Great voice acting
Lovely music
Overall peppy world
Some fun weapons
Cons
Slow movement speed
Painfully small jump
7.8 Good (almost great)
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