Tag Archives: Minigames

Care Bears: Care Quest Review

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The Care Bears is one of those franchises that makes you smirk whenever it is brought up. However when you think about it just a little bit harder you remember that it is a really moving series that brings tears to your eyes. The kind of title that makes you remember how wonderful the series can really be. Well I knew that I had to buy this game and let me tell you something…..it’s okay. It’s not bad and it’s not that good. It’s the kind of game that you play for a little while and then put down for good. It’s a collection of 12 minigames so it’s not particularly long after all.

There is no story and there are no other modes. The minigames are all that you get and I suppose what you can aim for is to get high scores in all of the minigames as many times as you can. They range from being extremely short games to being fairly long. The first and last minigames were definitely the longest ones I’d say since they went on for at least 5 rounds while most had 3. The games all start to get pretty similar so I’m thinking the devs were running out of ideas by the end.

The best minigame is easily a platformer where you have to run to the goal while trying to dodge the rain drops. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart and you have a health bar so you can actually die. Definitely make sure you take it slow as you go through. The scores are all based on how many stars you collect and none of them are time based. So slow and steady is literally your best option throughout. I liked that you could actually run and jump here.

A few of the minigames have you flying in the air as you drop different things on the Carebears. Sometimes you are putting them to sleep, other times you are making them fall in love, etc. There are a few different remakes of the same minigame here. Considering there are only 12 in total, that may make you raise an eyebrow but at least the gameplay is smooth. The one where you are firing off an energy blast to wake up the Bears was pretty fun.

Then you’ve also got a minigame where you have to match the bears together. It’s a very classic kind of matching puzzle that you would have seen often throughout the free game industry. It’s always fun but my main gripe is that it’s too slow. When you make a match you have to wait for the Bears to slowly walk away before your next attempt and those second really add up. It’s the little things that expose this game for not being an ultimate AAA title. A truly hype Care Bears game would definitely be possible with their flight and energy blast abilities but I guess that might not be in the cards for a while.

The final minigame has gits falling down from the skies and the Carebears need the right ones. So you have to grab them and give to the bear but unfortunately we ended with the worst one. It is completely RNG which gifts rain down and they go slowly. So whether you win or lose…you have no influence on the outcome. The worst part is that when you lose you have 3 lives so the whole game takes an eternity either way. A minigame should be fun and fast. Give me 30 quick minigames over 10 long ones for example. Wario Microgames and Mario Party are two of the best series in terms of balancing that.

The graphics are okay but nothing special. They’re nice and colorful so that helps the GBA title hold up better than most. The soundtrack is more on the nonexistent side but again that does make sense since this wasn’t the highest budget kind of title. It’s not like you would want to go all out on a minigame compilation right? So the technical elements aren’t really doing the game any favors but it didn’t really need them. To move up either way the game would have needed a lot more content. A game this short cannot get a positive score no matter what. It’s just too extreme. Still, it is a fun time and so that’s why it manages to hang in there at the middle.

Overall, The Care Bears may be out there to help make sure that everybody has fun but at the end that’s about all that they are doing. This game isn’t trying to rock the boat in any way and I would have liked for it to have really stretched the boundaries of what a GBA game is capable of. If you can find this one for a few bucks then I’d say to pick it up for the novelty factor. That said, this is the only reason you would get it as there are numerous games that are simply better than this one in every conceivable way. The Care Bears are not going to become the next Mario or Sonic. Not now….and possibly not ever.

Overall 5/10

Princess Peach: Showtime! Review

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I remember being unbelievably hyped for this game when it was first announced. Yeah, I know Peach already got a video game a long while ago but this time she was getting the home console experience. So that was a lot of fun to see. Ultimately I do think they could have gone in a more interesting direction with her but at the end of the day this game is still fun. It is a little on the short side and there isn’t a ton of replay value but you will have fun here.

The game starts off with Peach heading to the theater but the place is taken over by Grape. She’s one of the most powerful villains in creation and uses her reality warping abilities to cause a bunch of chaos. Peach must now jump into various shows and take over as the main character to get things back on track. She uses her various abilities to turn the staff back into their true forms and along the way she will also work to also put down Grape’s gang of villains. Does she have what it takes to do this without Mario around though?

I do think it is an absolutely massive missed opportunity to not have Mario and Luigi in here though. They should have shown up even briefly to get rolled by the villains and show just how high the stakes are. By not having them here, there are no real stakes. If Peach were to lose then she would just be kidnapped as she usually is and the game would turn into a classic Mario title. Now that could have been an amazing way to end the game. Like she beats Grape but then gets kidnapped by Bowser with a “To Be Continued” ending. It would have been a little rough for Peach fans to be sure but at the same time you can’t deny the potential there.

Ah well, story is not really why you are playing this game anyway. You are here for the gameplay and that part is mainly fun. It’s sort of like an anthology where each form has different gameplay. Peach has 10 different costumes here that all have fairly simple, but different styles. Because of that the game does feel almost like a minigame compilation at times though. Each costume gets 3 levels to it and they’re all rather quick so you’ll be blasting through them in no time flat.

The best costume is absolutely Mighty Peach. In this form she is able to throw meteors and land solid punches on all of her enemies. It’s a lot of fun and plays like a 2D beat em up. It’s definitely a true highlight. Another costume I liked a lot was Ninja Peach. In this mode you have to avoid enemy detection and then launch lethal counter hits. Really good stuff but you can tell that the game’s balance was not 100% because you could usually just run up and hit someone. It’s a one hit KO so they often don’t have time to sound the alarm. In a way that’s part of why it’s so good though because it ends up being very fast paced.

Then for a weaker one, we had Mermaid Peach. In this form you have to use singing to keep the fish at bay and you sort of attack with this but not really. Ultimately there just isn’t a whole lot to this one. It certainly didn’t keep me all that interested but then again I’m not a big underwater fan as it is. There is also baking Peach. It’s weak relative to the other costumes but still not bad I’d say. This is sort of how I would picture Cooking Mama to be in a lot of ways. The game is very lenient on your cake design skills so don’t worry about it being 1 to 1.

Then you have Detective Peach. This one’s also on the weaker side because it just feels a lot more slow paced. The mysteries are also really easy so while you are solving the case you are just waiting for the cutscenes to end so you can get to the end. It’s why you always want to be moving at a fast pace whenever possible. Figure Skater Peach is in a similar position. You aren’t able to speed up these levels and they aren’t the toughest ones out there so you are really just ready to move on.

A really good one was Kung Fu Peach though. The hand to hand attacks were great and reminded you of just what kind of game this could have been with this form as the mainstay. They did a great job with the combat and there are even quick time events here. There’s also Swordfighter Peach which is another really fun costume. Make sure you don’t miss the controls for this one because the parrying actually tripped me up for a little bit there. I got the controls backwards which was tricky. I really liked the speed effects used for this form.

Next up is Cowgirl Peach. This form’s fun, I’d put it around the middle. Mainly the issue with this one is that it is by far one of the easiest modes. So I do like the gameplay here but you can really beat the levels in your sleep. Then we have the toughest one which is Thief Peach. IN this form I actually had my one and only loss in the game. Some of the jumps in the last level actually take a whole lot of timing and get rather tricky. It made me really enjoy this form quite a bit.

Each costume has a boss battle as its third level and there are a bunch of bosses scattered in the normal levels but those tend to be mini bosses. I think the main problem the game had is that it spread itself a little too thin. It was trying to do too many things all at once and as a result there wasn’t a lot of time for any individual costume. Cut the amount in half so all of them have double the levels and then you’ve got yourself something. Additionally, with less development time for all the different styles, maybe you could actually quadruple the levels. Considering how small they are, there definitely should have been way more levels if you think about it.

In terms of graphics, the game definitely looks really solid. It’s definitely a AAA Nintendo game all the way. The soundtrack is more on the limited side but I did like a few of the tunes. You’re just going to hear them a lot since each costume effectively just has one theme. So if you don’t like any of the tunes then that will definitely hurt. Now there is replay value here even if there isn’t a ton of it. For example, you can work on getting all the collectibles and acing each level. It seems like that will unlock something but it’s hard to say what that is. So that’s still something to think about right? Hopefully with the Switch 2 Nintendo eventually adds trophies since that would be an automatic win right out of the gate for replay value.

Overall, Princess Peach makes for a decent main character in a pretty fun game. You’re just left feeling like this is really just a minigame showcase rather than a full game. It’s simply too short and while the simple nature of each costume makes this an easy game to pick up and play, there’s not a lot of depth to it. I will say that the game goes all out with the climax though. It really gets cosmic like in the Kirby games which was awesome. Definitely the strongest that Peach has ever looked. I do guarantee that you will have a lot of fun with the game though. It’s part of why we are all sad about the game being so short because it was a lot of fun to play through the whole time.

Overall 7/10

30 Great Games: Winter Fun Review

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It’s time to look at the latest installment in the 30 Great Games series. The franchise has definitely not been known for its high quality standards or anything like that but when I see it in stores I can’t help but give it a shot. Party games are just nice to give a look at even if you know they won’t be very good. This game clearly had some effort put into it but being on the Wii didn’t help matters. The motion controls are just terrible heavily hold the title back. Even the games with the best of ideas ultimately aren’t able to do anything to save themselves.

When you get into the game you can see right away that there aren’t a lot of options. I’ll just defend the game here as in a party game you really only need two options, a main party mode and a minigame mode with friends. This title has both of those so it doesn’t technically need any more than that. So long as the games are fun then this isn’t a problem. There are 5 worlds and each one has 6 games. The idea is to clear them all and you will have played 30 “great” games. That’s not a bad approach right? Well, the game fumbles the ball on the execution a bit. How it should work is you just beat all of the worlds one at a time. Instead the game has you replay them.

When you first enter a world it only has 5 games. You have to complete the world once and then complete it a second time to play the 6th game. When you beat the first 3 worlds twice then you unlock the next world and the games that accompany it. This is an awful lot of replaying for a game like this though. You really just want to go through the worlds once. It’s better than in another Wii party game I played though where they had a bunch of different worlds but they kept re-using the minigames to pad out the length. This is still better than that.

The game has a winter theme so naturally all of the games follow that path as well. They can be pretty similar but I’ll quickly mention some of the games that weren’t that bad. One that I enjoyed was trying to climb down a mountain. The idea is you let go of the rope and free fall for a few seconds but then you have to grab again or you’ll plummet to your doom and waste a lot of time. If you land on ice that will also waste some time. Then you’re got a minigame where you have to try and sink your claws into the mountain as close to the edge as possible without falling over. It’s pretty fun to see how close you can get. We even get a Bomberman type game where you have to drill through and blow up some blocks as you try to get treasure. While I like the idea, I don’t like the fact that this game is 100% RNG. You never know if you’ll get treasure or a bear.

The worst games are easily the ones that have you racing. Whether you’re snowboarding down the trails or using skiis, these games just aren’t fun. They suffer the most from the motion controls. You’ll find yourself bumping into the edges quite a lot and the computers will just leave you in the dust. It’s no coincidence that the best games in the collection used minimal motion controls. I can’t stress enough that this could have actually been a pretty good game if it had been for a different console. Imagine it on the Gamecube with a solid set of controls. It actually might have been pretty fun because I did appreciate the creativity behind some of the games.

The graphics for the game aren’t honestly all that terrible. This looks like a reasonable party game if you just take a look at the graphics. The levels and minigames all appear very clear and the character models are good as well. I had no complaints in this area. The soundtrack on the other hand is basically nonexistent. I can’t think of a single theme in the game. They’re all very forgettable so hopefully you are too engaged in the activities to notice this too much.

In terms of replay value it will completely depend on how much you like the actual minigames. There are literally no other options for things to do outside of that. You just play the minigames and try your best to see why this game had potential. If the game were to explain its minigames better the first time around and didn’t use motion controls then this could be a very different review. Part of the problem that I didn’t go into earlier is aside from the minigames having terrible controls, the rules aren’t explained very well either. Usually you won’t win a minigame the first time around because you just aren’t really sure of how to play it.

As a little aside, the game did have a fun start though. Nobody could cross the goal in time so we timed out. Keep in mind that I was playing by myself so the other 3 players were A.I. and they couldn’t win either. I think that speaks to the overall game design because there’s no way that should ever happen. After that first level the A.I. went back to normal and started clobbering me though so it was a one time thing. I thought it was pretty funny though.

Overall, This is one title you should avoid. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst game in the series which is kind of sad in itself, but it’s just not a good game. Even though the going price is only around 2-5 dollars there is no reason to buy this game. There are far better titles to be obtained in the same genre or even in any other genre. You’d need to be really desperate to pull the trigger on this one and if you do just be prepared for those motion controls. Some of the games have good ideas at least. I think if you play this with a few friends with the intent to have fun it can certainly happen. Since this is a party game maybe it still ends up succeeding in its objective even if in an ironic way.

Overall 4/10

Club Penguin Game Day Review

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It’s time to take a look at one of the new WIi games that I got to play. This game was a steal over at Gamestop since it was only a little over a dollar. How can you beat that right? The short answer is…you can’t! This title is very short as you would expect and I’m not even very familiar with the Club Penguin franchise, but it’s easy to enjoy the game anyway. It’s really short so I likely would have been sad buying it for 20, but it’ll give you some fun.

There is a light plot as you decide which group of penguins you want to hang out with. I went with the red team of course since I always go with the red group. Red is such a cool color right? You are tasked with conquering the island by taking over the bases of the other teams. There are a few areas and each one has 4 minigames so the game is fairly short, but still long enough that it doesn’t feel as rushed as your average 1-2 dollar game. The minigames are also quite fun for the most part. I’ll list a few of them (The ones that I remember) to show you just how fun they were.

One of the minigames rips off the Mario Party series as everyone is on top of a ball and you have to knock the other Penguins off of the arena to score a point. Keep on doing so and you will win! This was probably my favorite minigame. It’s a lot of fun and the game has heart. Another fun minigame was the sledding one. You get into a canoe and you have to make it to the goal line as quickly as possible. It’s rather self explanatory.

One minigame that I wasn’t a huge fan of was the sack race. You have to wave the Wii remote around a lot, which does a number on the wrists. I do like races though so there’s always that. We get a snowball fight towards the end of the game, which is fun since it’s like playing a third person version of Call of Duty. It takes a lot of skills and gets quite competitive by the end. There’s also a level for rolling a snowball and you have to grab as much snow as possible to win the match.

There are around 12 minigames and you can see how they are higher quality than the average Wii party game. My only complaint might be that some of them can be a bit long, but they’re still quite fun on the whole. If you don’t have a Mario Party game to play, I could definitely see you deciding to play this title from time to time. There is some replay value as you can beat Story Mode with all 4 colors for maximum personal satisfaction. The game’s short enough that this won’t really feel like an obstacle for you. Sounds like a plan right?

Between the minigames, there is a little free roam through the various areas. With a little more of a budget, I could see some big things happening here. We could have had rival encounters with other Penguins and some bonus minigames with high stakes! As it is, any dialogue is fairly rare and the only real cutscene is the final one of the game as the other Penguins are forced to acknowledge how awesome you are for winning the gold trophies. It was probably the proudest moment of the main character’s life and he’s just getting started with the wins.

The soundtrack is ultra generic and you’ll forget all about it as soon as you turn the console off. That sounds a little sad, but no worries, it beats having bad music right? If you strain yourself, you may remember the main theme of the game as it’s a little catchy. The graphics are decently good. They’re not as bad as they could be, but they’re not exactly at Mario Galaxy levels. They serve their purpose and the game is always nice to look at.

I’m already starting to run out of things to say about this title. There really isn’t much to discuss past the gameplay and the replay value here. The game is 4 players so you can have a blast playing it with friends. I’m not sure how long it can last as entertainment, but hopefully long enough to make you feel like you got your money’s worth. I know that I got mine even though I may only play this game one more time in my immediate future.

Overall, Club Penguin Game Day is another good find in the 5 dollar bargain bin over at Gamestop. With Wii games soon to be discontinued, I had to make my move fast before things could get out of hand. The graphics and soundtrack are decently good and the minigame selection was actually a lot better than I could have expected. It’s hard to recommend buying this game with a straight face since it’s really short and you could just buy Mario Party for the superior experience. That being said, it’s not a bad game by any means and you can buy this instead of a slice of pizza the next time that you find yourself needing some entertainment on a rainy Friday night. This game will not disappoint you there and you will realize the wonders of the Club Penguin world!

Overall 6/10