#mousecraft

Runner3 (Steam)

The third game in the Bit.Trip Runner Series, the first of which was the 4th game in the Bit.Trip Complete pack. I’m a big fan of these games; the first and second ones were really tight and fun, a very difficult yet fair romp through several wacky worlds and each had their own unique look. I was excited to try this one out for sure, though I admit I took my sweet time getting here (It’s $20, so I wasn’t in that much a rush)

I hate to say that I’m a bit disappointed. It builds off the crazy, gross but in a good way, wacky the-narrator-is-actually-just-the-voice-actor-Charles-Martinet-as-himself vibe that Runner 2 made and I love that so that’s good. Where it fails however is in its gameplay. It’s fine; by no means terrible, but the “normal” levels have you replaying the same level multiple times to accomplish different goals after passing alternate routes the first time around, some of which lead to some pretty weird and wacky geometry you’re not clear how to handle, which is a bad thing for this. I kinda which they had elected to the alt paths being equally optional instead of adding a second “gem run” to it that’s essentially a whole new level. And really should’ve been.

The double jump opens up new possibilities but makes the game feel a lot more loose since you can do it at any time and that’s a whole new angle to run into obstacles with. The vehicle sections similarly rely more on placement than on timing your actions (the core gameplay of the series, since you time the result of your actions to the beat otherwise).

The worst offender is the unlockables and the Retro mode. See all those wacky characters up there? I couldn’t figure out how to unlock any of them while I was running through. It was bizarre beating the final boss just over 3 hours in, and then going back to the title screen to still not have unlocked anything. The retro mode returns from Runner 2 as well, though in Runner 2 it was supposed to look like an NES game, in 3 it looks like an old cartoon mixed with Newgrounds Flash animator’s first game. And plays like it too; it’s clunky, it isn’t even timing or music based, enemies behave very strangely and even unfairly at times, and it just felt like I had been conned into it; There appear to be just as many normal levels as Retro levels as well, so after playing a few I just stopped and zoomed through the rest of the game. Honestly, the Bit.Trip series has a lot to offer and I’d recommend giving each title a try, but for this one? Runner2′s a more solid experience, and you can definitely skip 3.

Gris (Steam)

This game is gorgeous and lovely and charming, play it.

It’s a fairly simple Indie 2D platformer, but where it stands out is it’s artstyle and how it winds that into the gameplay and narrative. It’s not a hard game, nothing really can kill you and none of the puzzles or platforming is difficult, but that’s fine. That’s not the point; Think of it like Journey, but with a different theme which necessitates the lack of other players. It’s beautiful and sounds great, and is definitely worth the praise it got.

Honestly I went back and looked at some of the reviews to see what everyone thought about it specifically, and was pretty surprised about some of the criticism it got. People saying it was too easy, or that the game shouldn’t deal with the themes it does; varying wildly from “why are there no enemies” to “why can’t this just be a pretty game I just run through” and everything far between. And I could try and say games don’t have to be inherently fun or challenging in order to be enjoyable, but I don’t even need to go that far. This game is fun, a nice 3-hour run through some unique and amazing scenery with a bunch of random secrets to collect if you’re so inclined. But this game was made with a specific theme and narrative in mind, and complaining that it’s overdone for an indie-platformer to focus on that in the same breath as saying it should’ve done something more challenging with it’s gameplay very much misses the entire point of the game, and I’d argue even playing it.

Soviet Jump Game (Steam)

So I played this only a couple times; once when it first came out (very buggy, virtually unplayable), and then again a month or so later. It’s in Early Access at this moment and they’re constantly adding features and improving it. It’s also free. Honestly, it’s definitely not a bad game; there’s quick fun to be had here and there’s enough variety in power-ups for re-playability, but it’s also a Battle Royale and I am not a huge fan of those so. Worth a pick-up just to see if you like it though

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, Modded (Steam)

So I had the urge to replay this game and see if I could go for the 100%, but knowing that the Sonic community is really big on fan games and mods I decided to go on and try them out to see if I could get rid of its famously bad jankiness. I got them all of Gamebanana, and they built their own mod manager so I used:

Character Select Plus: https://gamebanana.com/guis/35023 (Allows you to select any character, including MP only ones

Chao World Extended: https://gamebanana.com/gamefiles/6336 (adds back a lot of missing/new features to make Chao raising less tedious and more varied)

Amy With Shorts: https://gamebanana.com/skins/169559 (she’s 12, SEGA wtf)

A variety of other Chao and visual improvements, including HD gui, textures, no model tinting, etc.

A couple level specific fixes, like Crazy Gadget but fun and a fix for random crashes

And a few cheat codes built in that let characters use other characters’ power-ups

I then proceeded to painstakingly 100% the game. What did I learn? Unless the mods mean to completely redefine the game, they’re not going to make it a whole new experience. It’s still Sonic Adventure 2, and that means the game  is 80% jank. It’s also not worth your time to 100%, since it’s a whole lot of insane, glitchy jumps and looking for invisible springs and all kinds of nonsense. If you’ve not played SA2 since it first came out and remember liking it, it’s worth looking through the Mods on GameBanana if you want to relive the experience slightly improved, but really this game’s age shows through either way.

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger (Steam)

So I bought the whole quadrilogy not realizing they’re making an HD remaster of this one.

Whoops.

Anyway, I was on a 3D platformer kick I guess and decided to indulge myself of these games. This first one is definitely like “Oh this is early GC platforming.” It’s not bad, but it’s a lot of random things scattered around the level kinda nonchalantly and then telling you to go find it. It’s kinda buggy, but they put a lot of effort into the characters and theme, so there’s points to it there at least. It’s not particularly noteworthy for what it is, but it’s a fun 3D platformer to kill a few hours with. If you haven’t played other, more notable 3D platformers though, go ahead and give this a pass; I’d honestly recommend New Super Lucky’s Tale first.

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2 (Steam)

You know that 2000′s era thing where a bunch of game companies turned their mascots and franchises into edgier, “cooler” versions of themselves and added guns and cars and made it GTA like in aspects? You know, Shadow the Hedgehog, Bomberman, Jak II, Ratchet & Clank’s focus on combat, etc.?

This did that. Hard. I could only play through the first level where I went from idly throwing boomerangs in a warzone to piloting a mech that was manning a turret to destroy giant mechs, and like, I have no idea how to recommend this one because that age of edge was a pass for me.

Chibi-Robo: Clean Sweep (Emulated DS, Fan Translation)

I have a big beef with the Chibi-Robo series that people who have read previous review from me would get. Mainly the first GameCube one was amazing, and then they’ve been degrading in quality ever since. Queue this game, the actual one to one sequel both gameplay and plot wise to the GC one that never got localized because ???

It’s really good, not as good as the GC one, but does an excellent job of scratching that itch. The toys are interesting, the story’s funny but has some genuine compassionate moments, and it plays pretty well. All in all, for a portable vision of the GC this knocks it out of the park so I still don’t get why they went pure gimmicks from here on out.

Mousecraft (Steam)

One of my beefs with a lot of the steam games that I own is that they’re just ported phone games. That really shouldn’t be a beef, but when I start up a game I’m a tiny bit interested in and I see a level system with 3 Stars ad ideal solutions to collect the bonuses and all the typical phone stuff I’m just like “I can do without this tbh”

That being said, I played a bit of this one, and it’s fine. Kinda like Lemmings or the Mario Vs. DK series, you guide the mice to the cheese while making them run into things, but you only have tetris blocks and various powerups to do it with so you can’t do it directly. It’s a fun puzzle game that’s fine in micro-doses, but I’m not terribly into that on my PC so I only played half the first world. There seems to be a lot of content in it though.

Other games that I played in 2020 but never got around to reviewing: