PHOGS! is a wacky and weird time that I enjoyed every second of. I played co-op online with my best friend, meaning each of us controlled one half of the "Phog". Two players controlling one character let to silly hijinks and a desperate need to communicate. If you were to play solo you'd control each half with each hand, which is some Sakurai levels of skill I don't have. My only negative opinions of the game are that there were a few game breaking bugs that need to be patched out and the price for the game was a bit more than I wanted to pay. Other than that, it's a very fun co-op game I recommend people play!

Serão poucas as pessoas que se encontram atualmente na casa dos vinte anos e que não viram CatDog, um desenho animado bastante popular no final da década de 1990 que com muita imaginação, colocava um animal siamês entre um gato e um cão a enfrentar várias peripécias. PHOGS! inspira-se bastante nesse conceito, juntando na sua jogabilidade uma dose muito grande de Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. O resultado? Um jogo muito divertido e alegre, ainda que tenha algumas arestas por limar na Nintendo Switch.

Esta não é, contudo, uma história sobre um cão e um gato, mas sim sobre dois cães. Ou um. Depende do ponto de vista. A sua raça é conhecida pelo nome de phoggos e têm os nomes mais simples de sempre: Red e Blue, devido à cor das suas coleiras. PHOGS! apresenta-se como um jogo onde se utilizam as leis da física para resolver puzzles em cada nível, seja a solo ou a dois jogadores de forma cooperativa, localmente ou online. É importante mencionar que a experiência cooperativa é muito mais divertida, já que a solo é possível um jogador ver-se às turras com os controlos, mas em conjunto? É mágico.

Sendo possível controlar os phoggos com os dois analógicos, a resolução dos quebra-cabeças acontece com alguma facilidade mas também requer muita imaginação. Apesar de não disporem de mãos, estes melhores amigos do homem conseguem morder objetos e é esta a mecânica utilizada em muitas situações caricatas como por exemplo, morder uma ventoinha e o ar sair pela outra boca. É estranho mas devido à direção artística e à ligeireza dos temas, o jogo acaba por nos conquistar.

A forma como os níveis estão construídos ajuda bastante a enaltecer os quebra-cabeças. Os obstáculos são fáceis, mas ainda assim há um ou outro que obrigam a pensar fora do quadrado e a experimentar soluções menos ortodoxas. Engraçada também é a temática dos níveis, desenvolvida em três partes: Food, Play e Sleep. Faz sentido. Os cães só comem, brincam e dormem. Cheios de elementos carismáticos, estas etapas deixam sempre um sorriso nos lábios.

Apesar da premissa de resolver quebra-cabeças com base nas leis da física não ser algo de novo, é positivo ver que PHOGS! consegue executar tudo muito bem, fora um ou outro percalço técnico relacionado com saídas inesperadas para o menu principal e algumas falhas na física dos phoggos. A experiência pouco se ressente, mas é algo que tem de ser mencionado.

CONCLUSÃO

Terminar 2020 a controlar dois cães ligados entre si num mundo colorido e divertido com muitos quebra-cabeças não é de todo o que eu esperava. Ainda assim e graças ao seu conceito e execução, PHOGS! é uma experiência única e divertida, apesar de uma ou outra falha. Mais recomendável ainda se for houver parceiro para a loucura.

Pontos Positivos:
✅ Puzzles simples, mas divertidos
✅ Ambiente colorido e alegre
✅ Conceito fora do normal

Pontos Negativos:
❌ Alguns erros no desempenho

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See more @ https://www.starbit.pt/2020/12/16/phogs-analise/
Review written in European Portuguese
Published on 16/12/2020

When my brother first told me about this game, i thought it was called pogs and i got happy until i realised that it, was not about pogging. Then i thought it might've been frogs, but alas it is not about frogs either. This game is possibly about dogs. Why possibly you say? Because the enter button wont work at the start of the game, so i cant even go in the game. This game has the potential of being the next tony hawks pro skating but we'll never know because you can't join the game. As the famous Issac Newton probably once said "Any game called PHOGS! is likely going to make you meet your fiery demise" meaning that either A) I will burn myself alive, B) this game is a creepy pasta, or C) Issac Newton is a liar. And im betting on option B.

What if a catdog was a dogdog instead?

Amazingly simple controls with only two buttons and a stick make this drug induced dream of a game perfect for someone who never held a gamepad in hand.

Puzzles are simple and somewhat cheesable with how this game processes physics. We also had some bugs with flying into stratosphere after stretching but that actually added to a chaotic experience overall.

I spent at least half of the playtime mashing the bark button just because you can bark at grass, bears, waffles, balloons and giggle like an idiot doing so.

I feel though this game overstays its welcome. After completing three worlds there is another coming up and actually I would rather like it to not. But everything else before this point is pretty neat and enjoyable. And I think I got diabetes after playing food world. And I forgot to mention you play as an immortal godlike being who cant be chopped by guillotine, cant be ran over by a train and cant be shattered after turning to ice.

Also pirate dogdog is best hat. Fight me.

What happens to all that food though?

This game is a trap, a trap cleverly planted by demons, but not just any demons, the king of all demons, Lucifer himself. The myth, the legend, has sewn together this ruse of a game. With the wisdom I have aquired over my many years of life, I managed to spot this fib and get away before I was trapped. But my sweet, sweet younger brother was not so lucky. Oh, how unfortunate a day it was today that we happened upon this game on this day, for I have no younger brother on this day of all days, one month before his big day. Oh, the sadness in my heart, my heart aches. This evil, sinful game trapped my brother in the loading screen, where they ripped away the use of his Enter button so he could not progress to even the title screen! We just wanted to play, one singular game together, as friends, as brothers, as comanions. But no, this game of deciet, of lies, of treachery has done my brother in. No longer will I see his smiling face, the light in his eyes, now gone dim.

Game 7: Phogs

This is a surprisingly charming and cute co-op puzzle game. When I first picked up Phogs I did so with the intent of playing it co-op, but due to circumstances, I could only play it single player for the majority of it. While I can say that there is a certain chemistry for playing it with another player, overall Phogs really just stood out as a wonderful little puzzle game.

Perhaps Phogs biggest selling point is the aesthetic that it lends itself to in each individual world that really captures the heart and minds of an individual. While there is plenty of gameplay to be talked about, each world's theme
is utilized so well that without it a lot of the charm of the game is gone. Food world giving a step by step showcase of crop harvesting, cooking food, and sending it out to the masses being one such example. By doing so, each level can tell a little story while you sus out exactly what you have to do with each puzzle. Each level has certain characters that do something that you either help with or just showcase what the world is about. In doing so, the game can get us to care about the world of Phogs in such a subtle way that it almost feels non-existant, but that's exactly the point. When you are playing co-op rarely do you have time to digest the world Phogs shows you, and the game itself is fun because of the person you're playing with. But if you are playing the game alone, the game works just as fine as you now have time to look at everything properly and really feel apart of the world. Which honestly I just find kinda brilliant as it's effectively telling us the story the same way games like Metroid Prime do, by experiencing it and personally going out of our way to enjoy it.

It's always good to have a brain teaser of a puzzler, and Phogs being such a puzzle game delivers. As mentioned before a lot of the puzzles are feed from there respective worlds, and in doing so you are constantly given new mechanics to work with in each level as well as being tasked with finding a bunch of collectibles and doing certain side missions. While I don't find the puzzles taxing, they do engage you in such a way that the game requires your full attention to get everything out of a single level. I wouldn't say Phogs is a particularly challenging game tho, but there is a difficulty spike in a few places. Mainly whenever Phogs starts breaking out of the simple explore puzzle dynamic, and they try to take on other genres like stealth missions or arcade games. Thankfully these levels are mainly gimmicks, and only really cause stress if you're going for achievements. Still the final level really doesn't have such an excuse, and for being the last hurtle to overcome, it does it's job of being challenging, but not well. Basically the last level introduces mechanics that are only featured there, and aren't really explained well enough to implement in a way that other mechanics of the game have.

Honestly though, if you are looking for a good co-op game, or even a good puzzle game, Phogs really hit's the itch of being interesting and challenging enough to keep you engaged in it.