Virtual Boy Complete - Game #9

I feel nothing towards this title. It has less depth than a Cool Math Game. Only two shots despite the VB being twin-D-pad, and no multiplayer. Doubles is fine enough I guess? but singles feels barren. It's not "bad" per say, as much as it is a null void that it's impossible to feel positively or negatively towards, so I think I have to give it a really low score. Gets an extra half a star for 1. not being 3D Tetris, and 2. Yoshi serving with his tongue, which is cute.

I will say there's a fun novelty to a major, multi-generational Nintendo IP like Mario Tennis having its roots on VB, and I do like the outfits, glad they brought that back for Aces.

Drill Dozer is clunky and slow - this is not a negative! It's fun to stomp around in this machine of destruction for that exact reason - the gameplay loop is really addictive, you collect semi-permanent power-ups throughout each level, and then lose them in the next, it's a loop I'd love to see in more games, and the game utilises backtracking very well, with the mystery of an inaccessible area, that you can go back to and demolish before you forget about it. A lot of fun ideas and set pieces are done with the drill too, I really like the jelly blocks and lifts. The graphics and character designs are fun and vibrant - there's a bit of Powerpuff Girls/Teenage Robot vibe to it, even if drawn a lot more smoothly instead of in the sharp UPA style.

Why is it missing a whole star then? Well, it's a 2000s platformer, and with that naturally comes two things: the first is genre swaps, and god damn the flying/underwater stages are the worst in this game. Might be the worst underwater levels ever, and you occasionally get some bizarre mini-game-kinda-not-really thing like opening a safe that just drags it down. The other platforming burden of the time this game is infected by is tutorials. This is a game-length tutorial, even in the final levels they're teaching you what to do instead of just trusting you to figure things out.

I'd say my relationship with Bubsy is less love-to-hate and more hate-to-love. These games are ROOOUUUGGGHHH, not good at all, but I think there's some interesting ideas in the franchise and Bubsy himself is a very strong character who does deserve 9 lives' worth of second chances. CEOTFK is probably the best of the original 90s batch, Bubsy himself is fun to control but is unfortunately stuck in stages and with a camera not designed for speed. I don't mind the fall damage actually, it works well with the glide, but with such a short camera it's not that good. Is a decently fun time if you go into it expecting a Cat Mario-style rage game, but even then, you'd be better off playing well, Cat Mario. The playable-cartoon aspect is a good idea but maybe not executed the best, with the graphics being too 3-dimensional to really make it clear -
I'd say games like Cuphead or even Pizza Tower managed to pull off what Bubsy was going for quite well in recent years, hopefully whoever is trusted with the Bubsy IP next can look at games like those and strive for a similar quality.

Virtual Boy Complete - Game #4

There are echoes of a great pinball game in Galactic Pinball, the physics are fantastic, and I had no problems getting the puck where it needs to go, even without using the tilt (which is there, mind you). The game feels a bit less gimmicky than Nintendo's IP-based pinball offerings (even if a bit more so than something like generic NES Pinball or Revenge of the 'Gator), which is welcome to me at least.

So, why is it only getting 5 out of 10 stars? Simple: the boards. The boards are barren and deserted, most of them are just empty space with a single gimmick either in the middle or to the left, and maybe something at the top - the most populated is the Colony board, which is also the most fun (even if it still doesn't feel as zippy and bumpy as a 3D pinball game should be), if every board was fun as the Colony, this would be a 7/10, but even that suffers from having a meteor-shooting minigame with strange controls, where it's basically impossible to time the shooting right.

Good soundtrack though, as to be expected from the red menace.

Virtual Boy Complete - Game #5

I don't know what makes a golf game good, this is really my first serious experience with straight-forward golf, buuut - it's fun! The physics work, and while the putting is hard to figure out at first, it makes sense once it clicks. I love psuedo-3D graphics, and this game has that. Biggest problem is, unsurprisingly for a VB game, depth. I often had to close one eye when positioning my ball to make extra sure that the arrow is in the right place - this was only really an issue with the arrow though, in all other parts of the game I understood the 3D plane very well. The sound effects are very nice, there's a fake crowd which is appreciated in any sport game.

There's really not much to say about this. It does what it's trying to do and lacks notable flaws, so it's the best VB title thus far. (until I get to Wario Land, I've played that one before, I know it's gonna be 9 or 10 stars) I have a feeling I'd be more harsh on it if I had more golf experience though. Does make me want to get into golf games more however.

One of my all-time favourite games. It's very expressive, very fast, and very silly, all fitting the Nickelodeon brand, but it manages to be mostly fair with some great, unique ideas. The graphical style pops out really well, looking like vibrant toys instead of real characters, a perfect fit for this premise; the movesets aren't overcomplicated and instead hide obscured nuance - there's a lot of secret things you can do with characters' tools that you have to figure out yourself; the gameplay is completely its own, you can see a lot of cues from Smash 64 (the best Smash game) but it's ultimately unlike anything I've played before or since (including its own highly disapointing sequel). I have no complaints in the areas where it matters, except maybe RPS. RPS sucks.

I'm at a severe crossroads with this game. The gameplay is BAD - Yoshi's complex moveset doesn't adapt well to simple easy baby time difficulty like the series would take after Island, buuut there is so much visual merit to the art and music, experimental but unashamedly cutesy and sweet. I'd say my thoughts on it are similar to my thoughts on PaRappa the Rapper and EarthBound, where it is creatively genius but a slog to play, but I'm a bit more forgiving on those games given rhythm and RPG games aren't directly gameplay genres like platformers are, if that makes sense.