what the hell was this??? They tried to modernize frogger and it really feels like literally none of the design choices they made here compliment one another. The main gameplay loop is to find the 5 frogs in each level and get them all without getting a game over. Collecting a frog sends you all the way back to the beginning of the level, and frogger is stuck on a time limit to find each frog as if someone strapped a ticking time bomb to our poor froggy protagonist.
Having the game be like that works in the first world, which is meant to recreate the original arcade game. The map is clear, you can see where each of the frogs are, and the time limit prevents you from stalling around too long and keeps the gameplay engaging, just like the original arcade game.
Unfortunately, the other 8 worlds take these pre-established rules, and manages to exploit each and every one of them to be as infuriating as humanly possible. Levels are large and difficult, which combined with the zoomed in camera basically makes finding the damn frogs an obstacle in itself. Levels are also very pattern and timing-oriented, yet said patterns never reset upon death and keep going, which can lead to a lot of circumstances where death is unavoidable. If a level has a particularly difficult section with more than one frog past it, the frog collection taking you back to beginning forces you to go through that section over again, hope you keep all your lives. Even playing this with the infinite lives cheat turned on barely helps with its difficulty, it just makes the game waste less of your time in the grand scheme of things. It really feels like both the level design and the rules of the game are only created with the sole purpose of making sure most levels are herculean trials of both skill and luck. I'm baffled that all the playtesters thought this was remotely balanced...
On the more positive side of things, the OST is actually pretty solid all things considered, so they have that going for them. I'm really bummed that this game ended up being the way it is because I wanted to play the other frogger games to see how they would play but now I'm gonna see this mfin frog and have war flashbacks to the hell this game has put me through. Hopefully those games can redeem this absolutely horrid start. Don't play this.
Having the game be like that works in the first world, which is meant to recreate the original arcade game. The map is clear, you can see where each of the frogs are, and the time limit prevents you from stalling around too long and keeps the gameplay engaging, just like the original arcade game.
Unfortunately, the other 8 worlds take these pre-established rules, and manages to exploit each and every one of them to be as infuriating as humanly possible. Levels are large and difficult, which combined with the zoomed in camera basically makes finding the damn frogs an obstacle in itself. Levels are also very pattern and timing-oriented, yet said patterns never reset upon death and keep going, which can lead to a lot of circumstances where death is unavoidable. If a level has a particularly difficult section with more than one frog past it, the frog collection taking you back to beginning forces you to go through that section over again, hope you keep all your lives. Even playing this with the infinite lives cheat turned on barely helps with its difficulty, it just makes the game waste less of your time in the grand scheme of things. It really feels like both the level design and the rules of the game are only created with the sole purpose of making sure most levels are herculean trials of both skill and luck. I'm baffled that all the playtesters thought this was remotely balanced...
On the more positive side of things, the OST is actually pretty solid all things considered, so they have that going for them. I'm really bummed that this game ended up being the way it is because I wanted to play the other frogger games to see how they would play but now I'm gonna see this mfin frog and have war flashbacks to the hell this game has put me through. Hopefully those games can redeem this absolutely horrid start. Don't play this.