Bought this on a whim after seeing it on Twitter. Overall it's played pretty straight - you get like 4 or 5 of these 'mobile game ad' minigames and you can unlock harder versions of each. There's something to it that reminds me of Make 10 for the DS, almost? Very simple premises that become more complex, but never really approach 'puzzle' so much as a slightly longer and straightforward exercise.

I was sort of hoping for some kind of weird twist or extreme version of these sorts of games, but ah well.

had a similar experience as ffxii in that no matter how dense, well-written and ideologically sound a game's themes and messages may be, i have a hard time getting invested enough in them to care if i'm not interested in the characters, setting or writing. with ffxii i was at least extremely invested in fran and balthier and charmed by the refreshing mediterranean/middle eastern/south asian setting of dalmasca, but i didn't feel any of that about tactics or its particular portrayal of ivalice.

i think it's really that i honestly just don't care for medieval fantasy

Prime example of a mediocre game. Although you can see a lot of effort was put into it (the art, the music, the locations...) it still falls kinda flat, mostly because of the execution of the writing and the plot in general. While it's not horrible, it's just kinda dumb.
The characters, while interesting at first, offer almost no progression and remain quite one-dimensional and unengaging, not to mention the mediocre english voice acting they gave them. And while the initial setting and worldbuilding are very interesting, the plot is dumb in its execution and how they carried it out. Like, okay, this world is shitty and it's gearing towards destruction, and the party's goal is to make sure that happens (without really giving us a reason as to why), but when it comes to the specifics as to how, the whole game is just "uhh... dunno, just keep killing everybody" for every situation, right up to the end when they decide they're striving for something else entirely, and actually how could that work is completely ignored, just like with every other relevant plot point.
The first portions of the game felt interesting enough because it was brimming with potential, but as plot marched on and it didn't do anything to make use of that potential, it fell flat.
This isn't to say you can't find enjoyment in this game, you could certainly take a liking to it, but it isn't worth much investing your thinking cells on.

Frogun is an interesting little game that has garnered divisive opinions. It's a 3D platformer with visuals that harken back to the PS1/N64 days. Before I even started the game, I was enamored by its visuals with a few screenshots and a glimpse of gameplay. The characters and their facial expressions remind me of Mega Man Legends, and I think that's what Molegato intended to aim for, and it just oozes charm.

The game's plot is simple; Renata's parents have gone missing, and she has to rescue them. There are six worlds to traverse with linear progression plus a seventh world post-game. The gameplay mechanics are pretty simple; you jump, and you shoot with Renata's primary weapon, the Frogun. The Frogun is like a grappling tool, where it can stick onto walls and grab onto enemies from a distance and chuck them like they're yesterday's garbage.

Each level consists of these main collectibles; two emeralds, one obsidian skill, and coins. When you clear a level, you obtain an emblem, and you can decorate them by finishing the level in a short amount of time, and another one for the expert time trial, one for clearing the level without dying, and the collectibles I've mentioned earlier. Sadly obtaining all of them in every single level doesn't reward you anything outside of a few trophies, but it looks cool, and I had fun searching every nook and cranny in every level in the first few hours of the game, but later on, it was starting to get tedious when I progress to the later worlds.

Every world consists of six levels, with a race between you and Jake, and a boss battle at the end of every world. I like how there's a bit of variety within the levels, but they follow a similar progression pattern, and like with the collectibles, they start to get a little dull when progressing further on. Every level is structurally grid-based and is designed with speedrunning in mind, and I love using the level design to my advantage to take shortcuts and shave off time if the Frogun was precise. My main issue with the game is that the Frogun can feel kind of cumbersome; it's great for chucking and killing enemies, but it's not great for the time trials. It felt as if some of the shortcuts I take, whether it's reaching for a wall for a spring pad are luck-based, and this can be infuriating for people attempting to go for completion like I am. The camera isn't the greatest either and it does contribute to the Frogun issue, but only minor.

The game is also glitchy, but the only thing I've ever encountered was the timer glitch. There are a few occasions where the timer was stuck on 0:00, and it was just an easy ticket to earn those time trial emblems. You'll encounter these sorts of bugs eventually, but nothing that breaks the game. The boss battles can be tedious as trying to dodge their attacks patterns tend to drag on for long (more so the final few bosses), but once I've got the hang of it after dying and battling them again via the Boss Rush and Brutal Rush, they weren't that bad. No, the tedious part for me was grinding for coins to spend on different hats and gallery pieces, and if you're going for 100% this is a necessity if you want to go for the platinum or get all the achievements in the game. The best farming spot for coins is in the third level of the first world, "Twisty Bridge." This'll take you roughly two minutes to collect every coin in the level and keep replaying the level until you have enough.

Despite my issues, I enjoyed my time with Frogun. I can understand where people are coming from after feeling disappointed with the game itself; the game leans close to the jank you'll find in 90s platformers, and the game's structure can feel repetitive. But after playing the game myself, I didn't think it was that bad. My original rating was a 3/5 after beating the game, but after experiencing the post-game content, I'm bumping it up to a 3.5. It's good for what it is, and I recommend it if you're curious, but don't expect it to be a top-tier 3D platformer when coming into this. It's a decent little game, and I hope it gets a sequel someday.