Little brother got this for me for Christmas as a gag.

I’m one of those weirdos who loves this cartoon made for toddlers a lot, I think it’s very well written and does some really ambitious and innovative things in its little seven minute stories. I also have a weird fascination with cheapo licensed games, so this was def one I was interested in checking out from pure curiosity.

It’s okay, the graphics are pretty cute and I like that it tries to capture the feeling of the show rather than just slapping a bluey skin on some generic platformer or whatever, but this is a pretty egregiously empty game for 40 bucks lmfao. You can breeze through it in an hour and there’s not a whole lot you can do after the fact. I’m also not a five year old tho so what can I say abt that lmfao

A lot of the talk I found around this game while looking up info about it is kinda centered on it’s reliance on a rather basic and typical JPRG plot and structure, and I can definitely understand that not being to a lot of people’s taste. Heck, a few years ago I’d have probably felt similarly about it. But man, there’s just something so achingly earnest about this whole thing. It is so unconcerned with being clever or subversive or anything, it just has this unwavering love for the RPG as a medium, for its tropes and odd little rituals and wants to present them on this huge, epic scale. You’ve got this big globetrotting adventure, flying around on an airship across the map to all these real world locations, each city and village being its own lovingly crafted little diorama. The contrast of the grandiosity in its scale with it being a DS game adds a lot of charm in that sense, it’s a great looking game for the hardware but the adorably simplified character models really do a lot for it.

The game makes a fair few nods towards Indiana Jones, and it’s a fitting comparison. The game feels really Spielbergian in general, reassembling the elements of old school JRPGS much like the way Raiders of the Lost Ark reassembles the pieces of old adventure serials. It’s a very cinematically minded game in general, really, from the the phenomenal direction and cinematography during cutscenes, drawing emotionality out of inventive, dramatic camerawork. Even the battles themselves are filled with so many different alternating and inspired camera angles that always keep things visually interesting.

It’s hard to really recommend a 40-something hour RPG on the basis of it being “pretty good,” I can understand the lack of interest, but I dunno man. With how much my life lately has felt like I need to be constantly on the move, like there’s always something more I need to be doing and experiencing, that I need to be one step ahead of myself… a game like this that is just has no hangups about being what it is, its embracing of the simple joys that it loves so dearly…. its a really welcome thing. This game’s got soul, man.

Having a game tell me that “the real treasure was the friends made along the way” with 100% sincerity is a welcome reminder, for sure.

Pretty cool game! The challenges are piss easy for the most part, but the games here are really cool and fun! I love Haggleman and the development of that series as it goes along, it really feels like it’s own weird thing that would’ve come out back then rather than an imitation of something else. Most of these have their own personality that separates them from their NES inspirations, actually, apart from the Galaga clone that kicks the game off. The small-scale but still rather meaty RPG was a very pleasant surprise, even if it comes with all the QoL gripes that are typical of RPGs from the era it’s imitating.

While I like all the games here, and think the metagame surrounding them adds a lot of charm to the experience, I can’t help feeling like this format, the way it depicts playing a video game inside a video game had the potential to be something seriously amazing with a bit more narrative meat. I love the glimpses of world building you get, the peeks into the dev studios and culture surrounding this alternate history version of the 8 bit era, and I would’ve adored to see that fleshed out more, maybe through talks of studio rivalries or personal touches from the in universe developers to be found within the games themselves.

At that point, though, maybe I’m asking a bit much from a DS game based on a game show I’ve never watched! I think the fact that it got my imagination running like that is a sign that it’s a worthwhile time though, and one I had a lot of fun with.

A simple game that is boosted heavily by how dang charming it is. The marshy combat is about as deep as a kiddie pool but it’s hard to deny that it’s pretty satisfying, and exploring the levels is where the real meat is for me. The semi low poly environments look utterly gorgeous on psp, and even though there’s a bit of chuggy slowdown at times when too much is on screen, the game runs well for the most part.

The writing is really nothing special. The jokes are corny and the characters are pretty flat, but this thing rides high on vibes and presentation. The simple yet effective cinematography of the cutscenes adds a layer of gravitas to the whole affair, and it’s very endearing to watch the monster village rebuild to its former glory as you help them out and strengthen your bonds with the villagers. It’s adorable! I love all the little touches and aesthetic flourishes, they really go a long way in enhancing the experience. If I played this when I was a little kid it probably would’ve become a major core memory game for me.

I’m an outsider to Nihon Falcom (this is the first I’ve played from them), though I know this game is a bit of an outlier in their repertoire, so I’m definitely interested to see how I’ll feel when I get to their other more remembered games than this one.

Very chaotic in a way you’ll either love or hate, both screens have so much going on and you have to divide your focus between so many things at the same time, if you’re not down to clown I can see this being pretty annoying, but I find the hectic nature of it fun.

Music is varying levels of good to great, I can’t say any of the tracks really got stuck in my head, but I was also pretty preoccupied with all the crazy shit going on in the game so it’s hard to say if that’s more on me. It’s an eclectic soundtrack though, and always interesting. I loooove the aspect where the instruments are more or less on beat depending on how well you do in the game, it adds to the chaos of it all and makes those screw ups feel more tense and stressful (in a fun way).

I think in general I feel like if this went the extra mile in crafting a better narrative or having more interesting characters this could’ve been pushed into something truly amazing, but as it is it’s a really neat little thing. Hell, I appreciate that there even is SOME attempt at a story mode, but I wish it was as kooky and creative as the gameplay was.

A game that feels really mature in its themes and tackles them with a lot of thoughtfulness and sincerity. A lot of these puzzles are somewhat standard “use thing on other thing” affair for an adventure game like this, but a few of them use the DS in SUCH a cool and creative way (if you’ve played the game you know the ones I’m talking about), and it felt really rewarding uncovering the game’s mysteries bit by bit through figuring them out. I like how it balances character interactions with its plot, I think the stuff with discovering D’s past being optional to the ending actually adds a lot of pathos to that side of the story in the way only an interactive medium can achieve, makes it feel less like an artificial “video game-y” completion necessity and more like genuinely going out of your way to be helpful and kind to a friend.

Also it takes place on my birthday and me and Ashley share a birthday! That was a fun surprise haha