how the hell did that donkey kong feller fit through that fucking keyhole

the definition of adequate. no levels are too hard, and the game functions exactly how you'd expect. i never played the original version, and i did have some fun with it, so what more can you really ask for? i beat all the main levels with stars and might come back for the bonus levels later, but i don't really feel driven to at the moment. Mario vs. Donkey Kong (2024) is nothing special, nor anything to cheer about, but it's a game and you can play it and it's decent.

positive wildlife conservation themes and pretty wholesome.

the gameplay isn't anything too insane. most of it is just taking pictures and pressing A until you've interacted with everything in a given area, but it's clearly created for a younger audience and so i don't think its fair for me to say "wow gameplay chugs" or anything like that. definitely the best part is trying to get all of the animals scanned on your phone, as you can listen to the sounds they make in the wildlife guide and then recognize that sound in game to figure out where they are if you can't easily see them.

unfortunately, i feel like so many birds look like each other (lmao) and that's kinda just a fault of reality, i guess, but when they're flying in the air and such it's very difficult to actually tell what a bird is unless you're pointing the camera at it. as such, a large portion of this game is spent looking at birds with your camera that you already have logged, which ends up feeling a little silly. totally could be a me problem though for sure. also, the wildlife guide is disappointingly bare. it has all of the creatures, what they look like, their scientific name, and their sound, but that's it. there's no fun fact or diet or wingspan or anything listed about the creatures, and that ends up making them feel more like checks on a checklist as opposed to creatures that you should strive to conserve, which i feel reduces the effect of this game overall.

there is a website called Ecologi that supports reforestation, and the creators of Alba, Ustwo Games, commits one tree to that mission for every game downloaded or sold. as of my time of writing, they're currently in place 5th on the leaderboard for businesses with just over 1 million trees funded, which i think is pretty neat. to conclude: Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is a cute and simple game without much mechanical depth, but one for a good cause. i think it's pretty easy to get behind, and definitely deserves to exist.

Bastion (2011) is cool. i like it! it's got tight controls, it looks gorgeous, and the SOUNDTRACK goes sooo hard. seriously. there are some bangers. we need more sounds of hammers hitting anvils in songs, because that is the soundbite of my dreaaams.

by far the best part of the game is the soundscape: Darren Korb's sweet sweet bangers and Logan Cunningham's sweet sweet narration. the world of this game feels so full of life and yet so utterly ruined thanks to these two facets. the narration feels so natural and is so adaptive that it is almost as though it is completely tailored to your specific experience playing the game. if you fall off a ledge, the narrator will make a little joke about your journey ending there. there's unique voice lines for every combination of weapons you leave the arsenal with. in one area, the narrator even reminded me diegetically that i could use my specific special ability if the swarms of enemies were too much. it felt insanely organic, and as though it had to be planned that i would have that specific equipment in my loadout, but no! i could've had literally anything in that slot. the narration is so frequent that you may think it'd blend into the background, but i found it to be engaging the whole playthrough and it made me feel like the lore of this world was being transmitted into my brain via osmosis.

there's a pretty great sense of progression as you both build the bastion and build up your arsenal. there's always something to check up on, upgrade, or swap out every time you finish a level, which feels nice. there's a good number of weapons, and i'm partial to a good number of them. they're not all great, but i imagine there's some i don't care for that others swear by, so your mileage may vary. however, the final portion of the game where it forces you to use a different weapon was dreadfully boring and anticlimactic. it spits on all of that building up that i just gushed over and instead gives you the most clunky, unfun piece of equipment in the entire game.

the story and gameplay aren't all that crazy, but the narration and vibes are fantastic, and i would recommend this game based on those two factors alone.