Pros: Attention Zelda fanatics, seek this one out! Anywho, welcome to Game & Watch Gallery 4, the most comprehensive and best curated collection of Game & Watch games ever released!
There are a whopping 20 G&W games included, and 11 of which have modern interpretations that involve the Mario universe cast of characters (everyone gets a turn here too, there's even a game where Luigi boxes against Waluigi!) where 6 of said modern games are remasters of previous G&W Gallery modern games. Whew, it's hefty, especially compared to previous G&W Gallery entries!! And not only are there a lot of games here, they've chosen the best of the bunch (Octopus, Fire, Chef, DK 1, Jr, and 3, Fire Attack Cement Factory, Rain Shower, Tropical Fish, Bomb Sweeper, Safe Buster, Climber, and more!), these are all quality titles included!! The higher the score, the faster and more difficult the games become, and if you manage to cross 1000 points in a specific game, you earn max stars, and those stars are currency, essentially to unlock more and more G&W games! Eventually, you'll unlock games in the museum menu, which is a sub-category that only includes 'classic' games, no modern titles, but even these selections are quite fantastic with upgrades from previous G&WG games, and additionally, classic games in this entry feature "shadow" images, which are just background "ghost" images that show where the active character objects will move across on the playing field, which helps greatly in gameplay knowing where exactly movement happens, and it also reflects what playing on an actual Game & Watch system feels like. I only wish these extra classic games also had modern takes (Mario's Bombs Away particularly, as it involves Mario in what appears to be... the Vietnam War??? hahah!).
But the final game unlock is the ultimate goal, which is the final G&W title to have ever released in fact, Zelda, and boy, is this one a cool as hell addition! Playing as Link as you fight off Moblins, ghosts, and Stalfos through various dungeons as you grab items and weapons to face off against a dragon boss to collect pieces of the Triforce, to eventually save princess Zelda! Comprehensive for a G&W game, right?? It's a bit simpler than what you're probably imagining, heh, but they manage to make it work, and make it fun, as you shield backwards or forwards on a 2D plane, avoiding enemy attacks, to try and kill the Moblin guard in each room, it... works! And definitely worth tracking down this game if you're a big Zelda fan, as this is one of the rarer officially developed Zelda titles from Nintendo.
And there's more! A couple of the games included are multiplayer, yeah, there were multiplayer G&W games back in the day, and now they have some modern takes here too! Two games, Donkey Kong 3 and Boxing, have multiplayer link cable support, where two people can face off against one another in simple but fun combative games. In DK3, Mario faces off against Donkey Kong in a 1-on-1 tug-of-war style game, where you're shooting either bubbles in modern, or bug spray in classic, on a three tier playing field, as a bug or fireball or ghost moves between them in the middle. Push those elements in the middle of the playing field using your spray all the way to your opponent's side of the arena to knock em out!! Can get quite energetic, it's probably my favorite (also playable Donkey Kong? Hell yeah! In fact, the classic G&W version might be the first time Donkey Kong was ever playable in any video game?!? Yeah, I think it is!) And boxing is essentially the NES game "Urban Champion" but, it's more fun, I promise, haha! Where you can raise or lower your fists, and punch high or punch low, and if you punch your opponent where they aren't guarding with their fists, you'll give em a solid whack, keep at it to give em a KO, and it's as simple as that! Fun little multiplayer games, whether classic or modern!
Also, for all those Smash Bros. fans out there, Mr. Game & Watch, the dude himself, actually shows up here, hah!
Cons: These are simple high score games, where you're doing pretty much the same few things over and over, with the challenge of keeping up your performance as the speed increases and additional variables are thrown in as well, it's like you're spinning multiple plates at once. I find it incredibly satisfying and fun, but I understand that it may not be everybody's jam. This is a "Minigame collection" after all. And like said above, I wish every playable game had a modern version, as a lot of the classic games playable in the museum are excellent, and I would've loved more. And if that's the major complaint, that I would've loved even more, then you know you got yourself a pretty great package here.
What it means to me: I grew up playing the Game & Watch Gallery series on Game Boy and Game Boy Color, so I had already been a fan, but when they announced this one, it was next level. All the modern games looked lush as hell, with vibrant colors and details pushing them beyond what you'd typically even see on the SNES, the backgrounds alone were stunning in games like Rain Shower and Octopus, I thought. And these backgrounds even change colors or go through different seasons the higher your score is, which is just lovely to look at, and keeps things fresh the more you play. It certainly became one of my most anticipated titles! And it delivered too! Dozens upon dozens of hours were put into this game, and I don't regret a minute of em, so much fun! Also, extra little note, this is, to my knowledge, the only video game to feature both Rare's Donkey Kong (who shows up in the title screen) as well as Yoichi Kotabe's Donkey Kong (the classic style DK from DK '94 on Game Boy), who's featured on the box art as well as in "modern" DK games included. Since this was one of Nintendo's first releases to include Donkey Kong after the Rare buyout from Microsoft (which happened in September 2002, and this game released in October of 2002, pretty dang close!) Just thought that was neat!
There are a whopping 20 G&W games included, and 11 of which have modern interpretations that involve the Mario universe cast of characters (everyone gets a turn here too, there's even a game where Luigi boxes against Waluigi!) where 6 of said modern games are remasters of previous G&W Gallery modern games. Whew, it's hefty, especially compared to previous G&W Gallery entries!! And not only are there a lot of games here, they've chosen the best of the bunch (Octopus, Fire, Chef, DK 1, Jr, and 3, Fire Attack Cement Factory, Rain Shower, Tropical Fish, Bomb Sweeper, Safe Buster, Climber, and more!), these are all quality titles included!! The higher the score, the faster and more difficult the games become, and if you manage to cross 1000 points in a specific game, you earn max stars, and those stars are currency, essentially to unlock more and more G&W games! Eventually, you'll unlock games in the museum menu, which is a sub-category that only includes 'classic' games, no modern titles, but even these selections are quite fantastic with upgrades from previous G&WG games, and additionally, classic games in this entry feature "shadow" images, which are just background "ghost" images that show where the active character objects will move across on the playing field, which helps greatly in gameplay knowing where exactly movement happens, and it also reflects what playing on an actual Game & Watch system feels like. I only wish these extra classic games also had modern takes (Mario's Bombs Away particularly, as it involves Mario in what appears to be... the Vietnam War??? hahah!).
But the final game unlock is the ultimate goal, which is the final G&W title to have ever released in fact, Zelda, and boy, is this one a cool as hell addition! Playing as Link as you fight off Moblins, ghosts, and Stalfos through various dungeons as you grab items and weapons to face off against a dragon boss to collect pieces of the Triforce, to eventually save princess Zelda! Comprehensive for a G&W game, right?? It's a bit simpler than what you're probably imagining, heh, but they manage to make it work, and make it fun, as you shield backwards or forwards on a 2D plane, avoiding enemy attacks, to try and kill the Moblin guard in each room, it... works! And definitely worth tracking down this game if you're a big Zelda fan, as this is one of the rarer officially developed Zelda titles from Nintendo.
And there's more! A couple of the games included are multiplayer, yeah, there were multiplayer G&W games back in the day, and now they have some modern takes here too! Two games, Donkey Kong 3 and Boxing, have multiplayer link cable support, where two people can face off against one another in simple but fun combative games. In DK3, Mario faces off against Donkey Kong in a 1-on-1 tug-of-war style game, where you're shooting either bubbles in modern, or bug spray in classic, on a three tier playing field, as a bug or fireball or ghost moves between them in the middle. Push those elements in the middle of the playing field using your spray all the way to your opponent's side of the arena to knock em out!! Can get quite energetic, it's probably my favorite (also playable Donkey Kong? Hell yeah! In fact, the classic G&W version might be the first time Donkey Kong was ever playable in any video game?!? Yeah, I think it is!) And boxing is essentially the NES game "Urban Champion" but, it's more fun, I promise, haha! Where you can raise or lower your fists, and punch high or punch low, and if you punch your opponent where they aren't guarding with their fists, you'll give em a solid whack, keep at it to give em a KO, and it's as simple as that! Fun little multiplayer games, whether classic or modern!
Also, for all those Smash Bros. fans out there, Mr. Game & Watch, the dude himself, actually shows up here, hah!
Cons: These are simple high score games, where you're doing pretty much the same few things over and over, with the challenge of keeping up your performance as the speed increases and additional variables are thrown in as well, it's like you're spinning multiple plates at once. I find it incredibly satisfying and fun, but I understand that it may not be everybody's jam. This is a "Minigame collection" after all. And like said above, I wish every playable game had a modern version, as a lot of the classic games playable in the museum are excellent, and I would've loved more. And if that's the major complaint, that I would've loved even more, then you know you got yourself a pretty great package here.
What it means to me: I grew up playing the Game & Watch Gallery series on Game Boy and Game Boy Color, so I had already been a fan, but when they announced this one, it was next level. All the modern games looked lush as hell, with vibrant colors and details pushing them beyond what you'd typically even see on the SNES, the backgrounds alone were stunning in games like Rain Shower and Octopus, I thought. And these backgrounds even change colors or go through different seasons the higher your score is, which is just lovely to look at, and keeps things fresh the more you play. It certainly became one of my most anticipated titles! And it delivered too! Dozens upon dozens of hours were put into this game, and I don't regret a minute of em, so much fun! Also, extra little note, this is, to my knowledge, the only video game to feature both Rare's Donkey Kong (who shows up in the title screen) as well as Yoichi Kotabe's Donkey Kong (the classic style DK from DK '94 on Game Boy), who's featured on the box art as well as in "modern" DK games included. Since this was one of Nintendo's first releases to include Donkey Kong after the Rare buyout from Microsoft (which happened in September 2002, and this game released in October of 2002, pretty dang close!) Just thought that was neat!