I figured, since this is pretty much a carbon copy of pokemon diamond, a game I already finished before, I’d spice things up for my playthrough of ‘Strahlender Diamant’. I played through the entire game in German to help me with learning the language, and I figured I’d make it the first nuzlocke I ever finish. I pretty much did it blind, not looking up strategies, guides or mon recommendations, just going with the flow and trying to adhere to level caps as best I could with the permanent exp share. Tonight, after a very, very close battle against Cynthia where Günther the Dialga was the only one left alive, 8 levels lower than Cynthia’s Garchomp but managed to one-shot with roar of time because Garchomp swords danced instead of ending it all right there, I can say I completed my first nuzlocke and had tons of fun learning German too!

Now, that was a 8/10 experience, but the remake itself? As lazy as it comes. It’s enjoyable, but that’s because the game that came out years ago was fun. Props to the expected features that make gen 4 much more bearable to play in this way though: HMs don’t require you to turn one of your pokémon into a slave anymore and the way to go is much better signposted on the map because it can get a tad confusing when you go off the beaten path to remember where you have to go or what you have to do. Then again, they also for some reason took features away: exp share can’t be turned off and exp gains feel completely wacky, getting you overleveled in a matter of seconds. Plus, everything Platinum-exclusive, not present here at all. Besides that, it’s pokemon diamond, but with a cheap chibi look, lifeless 3D pokemon models and not much added to make a different experience from before. Instead of adding features, they figured the genius move was to take features away, because Platinum should have been the game they remade! It reeks of pure greed to go for the ‘two version’ approach again because they knew it would sell… and gen 4 deserved better. There’s little reason to play these if you still own the previous versions.

All that aside, I had fun, it was a thrilling nuzlocke and they made the elite four even tougher than they were before, that was a scare, but I made it! This game did not deserve to be sold at 60, it’s a frankly laughable excuse of a remake, but if you enjoyed gen 4 and want to play it again with the QoL features of ditching HMs… I guess this’ll do,

For a game built entirely around the satisfaction of sorting things in an aesthetically pleasing or logical way, it does hit that sweet spot quite well. There's just a few too many puzzles where it's less about how you'd organise these items to be satisfied, and more you asking yourself 'what does the game want from me here, exactly?' The hint system is pretty useful for that, but not perfect. The puzzles also get rather reptitive after a while and lose a bit of their novelty and fun to figure them out, but this didn't bother me terribly since it mixes it up just enough. The music didn't really hit the right tone for me to feel fully zen while playing it, plus the game seemingly centred around this cat that keeps messing up your sorting by the end feels a tad random. It's a fun, relaxing diversion, but doesn't have much of an identity besides that. Still, if the premise of satisfying sorting seems like something you'd be into, this is the game for you!

Short, sweet and most of all fun! I played most of the game without even knowing the inputs for the transformations, so that could’ve been communicated better, but then you have the in-game manual that explains it and all the neat little extras that make this a surprisingly interesting dive into the game design aspect of this game. You can beat it in an hour and the base price is a little steep for what it is, but the shortness of the experience helps to keep it fun.

If I’m completely honest, the game itself looks great but the gameplay is quite unremarkable, nothing really leaves an impact besides the music which is very catchy. It’s fun in a rather similar way to the very first kirby. A very basic, simple but ultimately fun experience.

It’s so intriguingly bizarre, with a simple concept that is just plain fun. Where it falters for me is in the controls, which are decidedly unique, but never really felt like I could get to grips with them because they feel rather unintuitive. When it’s not the controls, it’s me constantly getting stuck on things or getting bumped around. It ended up being a tad more frustrating than I imagined, but it was still mostly fun once I decided I didn’t care about 100% completion. I think that’s the best way to play this, too: don’t care about completion rates or percentages, just keep rolling and have a blast while doing it. I recommend it to anyone who’s curious, just go in with an open mind and strap in for a weird, weird ride.

I personally started my Layton journey with miracle mask, but of course I wanted to check out the earlier games in the series at some point too. No better place to start than the very first one, and it does certainly have the mark of first-game-in-the-series-itis. It’s a relatively low stakes story where I feel for most of the plot not much really happens. The conclusion has some of the qualities I would come to love Layton for shining through though, and the characters are filled to the brim with charm.

Puzzle-wise they strike a good balance so that no puzzle takes too long to solve, and there’s plenty pf hint coins around if needed, but the difficulty of said puzzles is kind of all over the place sometimes. Some I cleared in 5 seconds, some took like half an hour if not more, and these would both happen rather randomly during the course of the adventure. As it is the first game, it’s clear they still had to iron that out a bit, but most of these puzzles are still quality.

Overall, I really liked this first adventure, and looking forward to moving on to the next one, where I also started collecting layton games in different regional dubs just for the fun of it.

So, I played it on NSO with three other people with plenty of lag that made even basic jumps a true challenge to pull off, especially with three other people pushing you off the platform because they want the most rupees. RUPEES. You collect rupees together, a whole bunch of them, and the aim is to finish levels with the most rupees. If one of you gets knocked out, you lose rupees, and if you have no rupees left to lose, it's game over. So the rupees go into a big shared pool, but at the end of a stage, you're ranked based on the amount of rupees you collected. This throws teamwork completely out of the window, if it wasn't already. If you care about the ranking, you'll actively avoid helping the others out or even sabotage them so you can get the most treasure. This can go from waiting for the other player to do something then coming in and grabbing the rupees or chests that appeared, or the more nefarious hitting other players off of platforms so you can be the first to get to the loot. Now, say you don't have this infuriating problem of the game turning it into a free-for-all, then you're still not safe. Taking on enemies with the four of you usually means that you'll get in each other's way constantly because sword strikes hit other players as well. If you have four players on a small platform, chances are you'll push each other off just by standing too close. You can also pick other players up, and there's nothing they can do but mash for dear life to get free. It can happen by accident, it can be funny, but mostly it gets really annoying and takes control away entirely when it happens. It can be a good way of making the game more manageable in a tough platforming situation but then why is the game designed for four players at all?? The game design just does not seem made with four players in mind. It allows four of them, sure, but having actually played it, you constantly get in each other's way and the rupee ranking actively encourages you to sabotage teamwork if you want to win.

So, the multiplayer aspect aside... it's not very interestingly designed as a whole either, honestly. Painfully simple puzzles and uninteresting locales with multiplayer gimmicks that felt like they made boss fights last longer instead of making them more fun. We were running around not knowing what exactly the game expected us to do on multiple occasions, since the game’s puzzles and boss fights can be quite odd in their approach compared to the usually rather intuitive zelda puzzles. Maybe it's more bearable with two or three players and when you ignore the rupee ranking aspect, but as a whole, it's just brimming with flaws and doesn't even make for a 'stupid' good time where you turn your brain off and laugh with buddies.