(9-year-old's review, typed by his dad)

(adopts old-sounding voice) My son recently began— Dad, type it.

My son recently began his wonderful journey into his nice, wonderful, bean-covered world, and also there's purple stuff underground, don't go in there. And in the sky, baby islands. Nonononono I said "they be islands".

(Drops fancy voice) And also there's this weird goat, who's name is ROAR-oo. And also there's a boat in the sky. You have to hop on rocks. Bye.

[Dad's Note: When he said "Rauru", he didn't say the word "ROAR", he roared as loud as he could, and then said "oooo".]

This game was such a nice place to be for a few hours. A mashup between a 3D Zelda and a 3D Platformer Collection mixed with cozy childhood summer vibes??? Add humor, charm, wacky items, and post-game tools to help you find everything you missed (I was at 96% completion before rolling credits), and you'd be hard-pressed to find an indie game more tailor-fit to my tastes.

Honestly this feels like it might be a 5/5, but I'm super judicious about what I slap that score on. I'll think about it for a bit!

(9-year-old's review, typed by his dad)

'Tis be fun. Ye olde people fight over ye olde monsters. 'Tis good! 'Tis be knights 'n elves. I think they're archers.

'Tis goodbye.

Oddly enough for an NES game, I was able to discover it in 2019 and actually enjoy the unique mechanics.

But NOT odd for an NES game is its ABSURD DIFFICULTY. Would have been a whole lot better if the jump had variable height depending on how long you held the button, but nope! Every jump is as high as possible!

Cool to play around with for a bit, but not enough to commit to the whole game.

Funny! Charming! Decent puzzles! Subpar movement and combat!

Was near the end and my Xbox decided to sync save data from the cloud, overwriting my progress with an older save file. Booooooo.

The game is good enough that I was going to finish it, but it's not good enough to replay an hour to catch up to where I was.

I REFUSE to believe anyone ever saw all 72 levels of Dig Dug II without save states or emulation

This is the kind of sequel games used to get. Like Zelda II or Super Mario Bros. 2, it keeps some of the same basic concepts but ends up feeling like a totally different game. We're not digging down anymore, were slicing chunks off of islands and micro-continents, baby!

It's kind of cool as a novelty for fans of the first game, but the only time it feels better than the original Dig Dug is when you manage to lop off 40% of a landmass, sending a baker's dozen or so demons down with it to establish New Atlantis. It feels far more unfair than its predecessor, with inescapable ambushes aplenty. I never could have finished this without retrying levels over and over again on NSO. Pretty sure I beat it out of pure spite. Three stars!!

Your enjoyment of this game will ultimately depend on how much you love cats.

Fisti-Fluffs is a simple game. In single player, you're able to dress and play with cats, but it's about as deep as the camping elements of Pokemon Sword/Shield. Everything else must be 2-4 players, and there's no option for bots.

The multiplayer consists of three modes. "Tussle" is a basic 3D arena fighter with overly simple controls and way too much health. Fights drag on for quite a while, and they're not exactly engaging. The cutesy style and relaxed music do make for an interesting contrast with cats mauling each other to death (or rather, to "sleep").

The second mode, "Crown Control", is nearly identical, but instead of wearing down HP meters, you're fighting for possession time of a crown. This plays much better than Tussle as the cat mechanics are better for fleeing and chasing than straight-up fighting, but I found it quite difficult to get anyone to actually lose their crown once wearing it. Good mode idea, but doesn't always work well.

In the vein of the Burnout series' Crash Mode, the third and best mode is "Destruction". Your cats are placed in a small area filled with stuff, and whoever racks up the most costly property damage wins. Tussle seems to be positioned as the main feature here, but this is clearly the superior part of the game.

I don't think Fisti-Fluffs does enough to set itself apart from other wacky indie fighters like Duck Game or Stick Fight in terms of gameplay. But the presentation is charming, the music and sound is great (like Duck Game's quack button, "A" always meows here), and there's a solid amount of customization for your cats. If you just can't get enough cats in your life and have other cat-lovers to play with, you could have a great time with this!

Be advised though, the performance gets pretty rough on Switch. When 3 or 4 cats are rushing around crashing into things, the frame rate stutters can be enough to make your attacks miss.

There is very little in gaming that bums me out more than starting a game because of gorgeous visuals and a cool premise, then realizing it's practically a visual novel, putting presentation and famous actors over gameplay.

The only thing worse is starting a cool action game, dying, and realizing it's a Roguelike.

It's gorgeous! Charming! But very, very much not for me.

DO try this if you're into games like Oxenfree, Afterparty, or visual novels.

MAYBE DON'T spend money on this if you're into the aesthetic and setting, but need more engaging gameplay. Doesn't hurt to try it on Game Pass though!