Nintendogs + Cats (3DS)

Nintendogs + Cats is a pet simulation game for the 3DS and is a sequel to the super successful and super popular Nintendogs DS game. It came in three versions, where the differences are the breeds of the dogs available. This version is the Toy Poodle version, which has a total of 27 breeds including the titular toy poodle, shih tzu, labrador retriever and corgi. There is now also the addition of cats.

You start out by picking which one of the starting breeds of dogs that you want to adopt. It comes back home with you and from then on, you’re kind of just let loose to experiment what you can do. First off, you’ll probably want to pet it, and you’re given some early supplies such as food, water and shampoo. Using the stylus on the bottom screen is how you interact with your dog, such as rubbing it, throwing balls for it to catch and cleaning it.

The touch screen is also used to teach it tricks. By using specific movements, you can teach your puppy how to sit, give you its paws and other tricks. The system uses the microphone to then record your voice command so that the puppy will know what to do when you say it out loud. Similarly, it records you saying its name so that it can run to you when called.

Another big element of the game is taking your dog out for a walk. It sounds more interesting than it is. You pretty much just hold the leash as your dog walks down a street. Along the way, you must keep it out mischief, such as not getting itself dirty and eating what it shouldn’t be. You must clean up after it, and along these walks are opportunities for your dog to grow by interacting with others, finding items and training.

The game has a bunch of in-game shops to buy all the items you’ll ever need for your dogs and cats. These range from food, furniture, toys and clothing. There is even a shop that allows you to give it junk to swap for better things. All these cost money and you’re given a decent amount of starting money, so you can spend away initially without the fear of running out.

The game is designed for you to play a little bit each day, and not in long sessions. Your dogs will get hungry and thirsty, so you will need to feed them multiple times a day. They can only learn up to three tricks a day and can participate in each competition twice a day. The competitions are the main way to earn money, and you compete against two other dogs. You’ll always get some money, even though it isn’t much.

The three competitions are disc throwing, lure, and obedience. Disc throwing has you throwing a disc using the touch screen for your dog to catch. Lure has you reeling a lure on a course as your dog races to the finish line. While obedience has your dog doing the tricks that you’ve trained it. These have multiple difficulty tiers and can be very lucrative if you come first place. You can train your dog in the meantime inside the house or better yet, at parks or gyms while on a walk.

As you progress with raising your puppy, you’ll eventually gain enough money to adopt another pet, which includes kittens. There are only three types of kittens to choose from and you go through a similar process to name them. The things you can do with a kitten are more restrictive, basically you can only play with them and take care of them. You cannot take them out for walks or teach them tricks. However, they are still very cute, and it can be fun watching their interactions with your puppy.

Just like getting a real pet, while interesting in the beginning, it can start to become a chore as you need to feed, train and play with the pets daily. It is a neat feeling when you see your puppy start off not being able to catch your flying disc, but then eventually get better and better to the point of winning the top competition. Money then becomes much easier to come by as you constantly win the higher ranked competitions. However, it is all very repetitive and the types of things that unlock aren’t exactly thrilling, as the core gameplay remains the same the whole way.

Overall, Nintendogs + Cats (3DS) is a nice update to the original game, even though it didn’t really change too much. The biggest addition of kittens isn’t a big change either, as the things you can do with it are limited (basically just feeding and playing with it). The competitions are interesting but you’d wish that there were more minigames to play with your puppy. Decorating and buying accessories for your pets can only really keep your attention for so long.

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Scribblenauts Unlimited (3DS)

Scribblenauts Unlimited is the fourth game in the Scribblenauts series. The concept of the game gives it a limitless potential, although of course, the reality is it is a lot more limited. The game stars Maxwell, and we quickly learn about his parents, and then his 42 siblings. It focuses on one sister, who is slowly being turned to stone after Maxwell played a prank on an old man. The only way Maxwell can save his sister is to obtain starites, which is obtained by helping people.

So, the game has Maxwell traveling the world helping people out and then obtaining either starites, or shards which will combine to form a starite. And how does Maxwell help these people? Well, he has magical powers, anything you, as the player types, will be created in the world. Thus, there is theoretically many ways to help each individual person’s problems.

The reality is that usually these problems are so simple, as they only require one step or one item to solve. Most of the time, it is easy to know what particular item is required, and you can just create the most obvious item to save time. Although the most fun can come from creating unexpected items that the game still recognizes. You create items by typing into the in-game onscreen keyboard, and while the game can recognize a lot of words, there’s also a lot that it doesn’t.

The other way to solve a problem is to change the actual person or object itself by adding adjectives. You can make a character suddenly friendly, or an inanimate object alive. These make you feel like a god in this world. Truth be told though, the story is very light, and going from place to place, talking to all the characters, generate an item to solve the “puzzle”, and then rinse and repeat, gets tiring and bland quickly.

The game plays on the bottom screen, rather than the top. So there’s no 3D effect during gameplay. You also lose the widescreen, having to play on the smaller square bottom screen. You can either using the physical buttons to move Maxwell and interact with people, or just use the touch screen. It’s better to use the touch screen as you’ll be needing to use it constantly to type on anything. The graphics are in a 2D sidescrolling style.

Since the puzzles are so simple, and there is barely any story after the opening cutscene, the game gets boring and repetitive quickly. You have freedom in where to go to collect the starites, as it opens up a few levels that you can do in any order. Getting a certain number of starites will unlock more areas, and the themes and backgrounds are different. Yet what you are never changes, so it doesn’t make much of a difference in the end.

There are ways that you could miss getting everything in a level, such as accidentally killing a NPC that gives you the puzzle, or you do something that triggers something else. In such cases, it is as easy as resetting the level. The game gives you this option and you even get to keep everything you had obtained before resetting. You can be as evil or experiment as much as you’d like without fear of permanently locking anything out.

Given that you’re just going from level to world as you complete the fill-in-the-blank puzzles, you make significant progress in a short amount of time. The story takes a bit over five hours to complete, although you can continue to do the rest of the puzzles which will give you a few more hours. Some of the more interesting puzzles are the ones that isn’t completed with just one item, such as one where Maxwell is running a gauntlet to escape, and you can get as creative or as traditional as you would like, giving a lot of options and a taste of what the game could have really done with its premise.

Despite being mostly easy, and sometimes obtuse, the game has a good sense of humor. It parodies a lot of things, from pop culture to other games, and it is amusing when you recognize what it is trying to recreate. That said, not even that can overcome the tedious of the slowness of typing using a stylus on the touch screen, and that’s sometimes you constantly must do given it’s a core mechanic of the game.

Overall, Scribblenauts Unlimited is an average game. It has its moments, but they are far in between. When you write something and it does work, it is exciting and fun. All too often though, it doesn’t quite understand what it wants you to do, and you must just go for the boring obvious answer. It can be too repetitive, especially after the magic wears off in the first hour or so but it’s a short game, so there is enough here to keep you interested in finishing it.

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Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World (3DS)

Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World is an expanded port of the Wii U game. It contains all 48 levels of the original game plus bonus new levels featuring Poochy. The game is super cute, as you would expect, as the world is made of yarn. This is a spiritual successor to Kirby’s Epic Yarn. It’s a platformer at heart and plays into the yarn theme extremely well. The setup is simple, Yoshi’s yarn friends have been taken by Kamek and Yoshi must chase Kamek to save his friends.

The game has simple controls and Yoshi doesn’t have a huge move set. You can play through the game using only the four face buttons and ignore the shoulder buttons. Yoshi can jump and after a slight delay, he can hover upwards, mimicking some of the floaty feel from his appearances in the Mario games. Furthermore, he can use his tongue to grab enemies and turn them into yarn balls which will follow him around. Yoshi also has a slam attack.

Those yarn balls are key to most of the gameplay. Yoshi can fire the yarn balls to attack enemies, as well as getting platforms and other objects to appear in the world. Pressing a button will allow Yoshi to aim where to shoot the yarn balls and pressing it again will fire it. It takes a little bit of getting used to at first, but you’ll soon get the hang of it. This is a sidescrolling platform and the 3D effect is fine, it’s not too intense but does help make a difference giving the game some real depth. Of course, the graphics take a downgrade compared to the Wii U version.

Yoshi has a bunch of hearts signifying his life, and if he loses it all, he will go back to the previous checkpoint, where you’ll have to repeat everything, you did since, which can be annoying. Although the game is easy in general anyways, and it can be made even easier with Mellow Mode. In this mode, three Poochy’s will follow Yoshi and can be thrown like the yarn balls. This means Yoshi has unlimited yarn balls, and the Poochy’s will also highlight hidden areas and collectibles.

Each level is a decent length, taking ten to fifteen minutes to complete. It can take longer, especially if you try to find all the collectibles. Each level has a lot of collectibles, and it can be too many. In addition to the normal gems that Yoshi collects, each level will have five flower pieces, and five yarn pieces. Collecting all five flowers is required to unlock a bonus level in each world, while all five yarn pieces will unlock a new skin to use. There are also twenty coins which you can obtain by collecting batches of the gems. And finally, you will aim to finish each level with full hearts.

Spicing up some of the gameplay are parts of the levels where Yoshi transforms into something else. In one he will be gigantic and can easily stomp over all obstacles and enemies. In another he turns into a motorcycle and you’re zooming through the level. These are usually very fun, although each of them has a timer, so you need to speed through them, and collect clocks to extend the countdown.

Multiple levels contain mini bosses as well as bosses. They generally all follow a similar pattern and method of defeat. You dodge their attacks until you can fire a yarn ball, and then attack them again by jumping onto them or using Yoshi’s tongue. A neat element is progressing through the game will unlock badges which you can choose one to equip Yoshi with. These will cost the gems that you’ve been collecting from each level, which gives you a good reason to collect these gems. The badges will give Yoshi additional helpful powers, such as not dying from falls, or increasing the power of his stomp attacks.

While the controls are generally good enough, it can be way too easily to trigger the ground stomp while you’re jumping. If you’re using the circle pad, what seems to be the slightest downward pressure while jumping will cause you to ground stomp to your doom and it can be frustrating when you’re sent back to the last checkpoint, having to repeat a lot of things again.

The difficulty generally isn’t too hard. It adds new things as things go along, such as constantly moving or rotating platforms, where you need to aim and shoot something while it’s moving at the same time. Or on rails sections that gives you just enough freedom that you need to jump from place to place with the right timing or you’ll get left behind. With these harder sections, there also comes obstacles that can feel cheap. In particular, the instant kill ones are annoying, especially when it sends you back to the last checkpoint and you need to find the collectibles again…

The additional Poochy levels are auto-runners, and each level will have bonus objectives to meet, such as collecting a certain number of coins, or hitting a certain number of targets. You control whether Poochy jumps or ducks. These levels are pretty good for getting gems. The game takes around 10 hours to complete, and you can spend a lot more to find out every single secret. There are some shorts to watch as well and while they are cute, new clips only unlock every 24 hours which isn’t that great.

Overall, Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World is a fantastic platformer that’s fun. While it may not be the most inventive game, there is enough variety to keep things interesting. The game starts off easy but does increase its difficulty towards the end, especially if you want to get all the collectibles. The port from console to handheld is extremely well done, only let down by the hardware limitations of the 3DS’s low resolution screen.

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Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (3DS)

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire is a remake of Pokemon Sapphire (the third generation game for the GameBoy Advance), released for the 3DS. As expected, there is a major graphical overhaul but since the original were GameBoy Advance games which looks pretty good already, it’s not as big a difference as the remakes from the first and second gen Pokemon games. If you’ve played X and Y, then there’s nothing much that’s new to this game. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t have 3D in everything, which is disappointing. The only 3D sections are during battles, and so even though the game doesn’t look graphical intensive, apparently it would tax the hardware too much to have 3D all the time.

The core aspect remains the same. That is, you are a budding new Pokemon trainer as you travel out of your hometown. You’ll go through the region of Hoenn, catching Pokemon to do battle with, and eventually face off against the Elite Four and Pokemon Champion to become the next Pokemon Champion yourself. It’s a simple premise and one that still works well here.

As is customary, there is a subplot involving the villain team, in Alpha Sapphire that is Team Aqua. The third gen games’ villains actually had decent motives apart from the “we are evil” explanations. Team Aqua genuinely cares about the planet, in particular, the lakes and oceans of the world and they seem to have good intentions, even if they are going along the wrong way with it.

The game uses a turn-based battle system with a party of six Pokemon. Most of the battles are one on one, but there will be double and triple battles from time to time. Each Pokemon knows up to four moves, so you need to decide which ones to keep and which ones to replace as they learn new ones. Upon getting to a specific level, certain Pokemon can evolve into stronger ones and this collecting and evolving aspect is one of the most addictive parts of the game.

Each Pokemon also has typing and uses a more complicated version of rock paper scissors where each type is strong and weak against several others. Coupled with Pokemon being able to use moves that are not their type and it’s a strategic and varied experience. That said, given that you get the Exp Share item very early on in the game which gives experience to all your Pokemon even if they did not participate, and this is one of the easiest Pokemon games so far.

Pokemon are encountered via random encounters when travelling through grass or caves. Weaken the Pokemon enough and you can throw a Pokeball that has a chance of catching it for your use. There are plenty of Pokemon available and the main story (as well as most of the game) is designed in such a way that you can use any team you like and still be able to get through it.

Wild Pokemon variety seems really low. Each area only has one to three different types, and you start seeing the same ones in later areas. This makes it a bit boring in assembling your team, it’s worse on the water areas since there is a such a limited pool of wild Pokemon, despite comprising such a large portion of the map. This is also reflected by opponents, especially the villain team, who uses the same various Pokemon again and again. From the midpoint to the end of the game, you’ll start seeing the same types of Pokemon again and again, but right before postgame, and a bunch of new ones will be able to be encountered.

The game’s map slowly unlocks as you gain more abilities. Unfortunately, these are still tied to specific moves that you have to teach your Pokemon, using up one of the valuable spots. Using these moves is tedious as it takes several button presses and then you’ll have to wait for the animation to end. Flying high above Hoenn on Latias is really cool and fun, even if it is ultimately not a massive addition. The camera angles will shift from time to time, taking advantage of the 3D rendering. Despite these tricks, the progression can feel by the numbers, and not a huge improvement over the original games. It is also a lot easier as all your Pokemon will be of a much higher level than other trainers.

If you know where to go and what to do, the game feels really short. It’ll take you 20 to 30 hours to reach and beat the Elite Four to become the Pokemon Champion. That being said, at this point, there will be quite a bit of postgame content, and several routes that you would have not yet explored. Still, it does feel like it goes by way too quickly.

The biggest postgame content would be the Delta Episode. In terms of lore and story, it is also one of the most interesting as you investigate the meteor that is threatening to destroy the world, with a new rival, and the promise of Rayquaza. That said, the constant backtracking just to see a short cutscene is annoying. There are also a lot of Legendary Pokemon to capture. The amount is quite impressive, since it features the Legendaries from multiple generations including Hoenn, Sinnoh and Unova.

Overall, Pokemon Alpha Sapphire is a by the numbers Pokemon game. It doesn’t try anything revolutionary or take many risks, instead opting to go towards the same story beats that has been used for six generations of games so far. This means that while the game did get a graphical upgrade and several quality-of-life improvements, it doesn’t feel like a monumental leap over the original games. As a result, if you’ve played all the previous Pokemon games, then you just might get a tiny bit bored here even though it is still a solid game.

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Fantasy Life (3DS)

Fantasy Life is an action RPG developed by Level-5. The key gimmick to this game is the twelve different classes that you can pick, which are referred to as Lives. While you have to pick a life upon starting the game, you can change your Life any time afterwards and still be able to keep the skills that you have learnt. Therefore, you can chop wood or mine even while as a Paladin, or cook while as a Blacksmith. The game is set in the world of Reveria. As the character, you start off in the city of Castele, which is actually of a fairly large size that spreads over multiple screens. This is because here is a building for each of the Life classes that act as headquarters, as well as a bunch of shops. Furthermore, you start off living in the attic of a house but are able to move into larger buildings and decorate them with items. The game has colorful graphics and although there is a 3D effect, it’s not very strong or impressive compared to other games.

The story has you waking up on the day that you have to select your Life. You meet a talking butterfly along the way, named Flutter, and together you end up investigating the Doom Stones that has been falling down on Reveria. This will naturally spiral off into its own chain of events that carry you along for the ride. The story is very structured in that you’ll complete a bunch of quests that introduce you to the new area, and then you’re sent off to the next place to find treasures that’ll help with the Doom Stone issue. It never gets that intense or complicated, which makes it a casual easy game. The combat in the game is really simple since it’s pretty much mashing a button to hit enemies. Holding down the button will allow you to execute learnt skills, including special attacks. You may also block if you equip a shield. Since it is real time combat, you can run around and kite stronger monsters to slowly chip them down. The game encourages exploration at your own pace with big open areas filled with enemies and stuff to pick up. The game has a lot of unique items that you can gather, sell and use to fulfill quests. Enemies will respawn whenever you change areas, which can be a bit annoying, especially in the unique dungeons. These dungeons usually hold decent treasure as well as stronger bounty monsters.

The key draw here are the multiple Lives and the tons of fetch quests that accompany them, which is better than it sounds. There are three main sets of quests in the game: one is for the main story, one is related to your Life class, and the third one relates to random quests from the townspeople. These will all involve either killing a number of monsters or obtaining a number of items. Completing the ones for the story will increase your Bliss Level which unlocks nice perks such as extra bag space, while completing the ones related to your Life class will increase stats that helps that Life. Once you’ve picked your life at the beginning of the game, you’ll play through the introductory quest. Afterwards though, you’re free to change Life at any time with no penalties. This is great if you wanted to check out one of the other Life classes, especially since you can use their abilities for any Life later on. However, this also means that the game is easy on the whole since it is designed to be able to be completed no matter what Life you choose, even if you choose a non-combat Life.

There is a quick travel system that requires in-game money to use. This isn’t too bad but money is a bit harder to come by, especially if you want to buy a bigger house for your character to stay in or if you want to keep up to date with equipment. Travelling back home is easy and free, it’s travelling to other cities or areas that are more cumbersome as you need to go to designated points and pay in-game money. Eventually, you’ll be able to add up to two NPCs to your party and assist you in fighting. They automatically leave the party during story quests as those have their own party members that join. To form your party, you have to find the character (who are always in their same spot) and then manually add them, which is cumbersome.

Combat-wise, the ending is going to disappoint. However, story-wise, and the game gets pretty good in the last few chapters as the big fetch quest finally comes to an end and you learn a few things about this world. It’s interesting and holds a lot of potential, but doesn’t go far enough to fulfill that potential. There’s quite a bit of post-game left, including harder dungeons, as well as all the other dungeons you were forced to skip earlier on due to the powerful monsters. That isn’t to mention checking out all the other Lives and their mini-games and short sub-stories. Completing the story only takes around 10-15 hours, but it’s all the other optional things you can do that will rack up the time.

Overall, Fantasy Life is a fun game where you can chill and yet still make a lot of progress. It’s the perfect balance of a more casual action RPG, but has enough going for it to still be addictive. The various Lives are a unique idea, although since the game is designed that any Life can beat it, you might end up only trying out a few once or twice before going back to your favorite one. The story and game has a slow beginning, but picks up from around midway. Even though it’s a gigantic fetch quest, it is interesting enough, and the characters and visuals are charming enough, to take you through the time it takes to beat the story.

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Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros. (3DS)

Mario & Luigi:  Dream Team Bros. is the fourth entry in the Mario & Luigi RPG series, developed for the 3DS.  Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and the Toads all fly to Pi’illo Island for a holiday.  However, they encounter an enemy along the way although they still arrive at the island without too many issues.  They find an ancient artefact, which when Luigi sleeps on it, allows Mario to enter his dreams.  The enemy from before then appears, kidnaps Princess Peach and escapes into the dreams.  Thus begins he journey of Mario and Luigi once again trying to rescue Princess Peach. The dungeons, and the game in general, are split into several smaller screens separated by short loading screens.  They’re actually pretty interesting, with enemies roaming around that you can get the jump on.  Where it sucks, or at least it is noticeable, are when you transition into battle or when you exit the menu, because the delay / loading to get back is a tad bit longer than you would expect. The game uses a turn based battle system with the twists that the Mario RPG series are known for.  It’s a lot more involved than your typical turn based battle system.  For one thing, when you attack, you can time it right so Mario or Luigi will jump and do more damage to the enemy.  All enemy attacks can be dodged or countered by timing it correctly.

The unique feature in this game is the dream levels.  When Mario enters Luigi’s dreams, a dream Luigi pops in.  During battle, he merges and powers up Mario, leading to some visually interesting attacks that pack quite a punch.  Luigi can also merge with the environment at certain points and via the touch screen, touch Luigi’s sleeping head to affect the dream world.  Dream levels are usually the more imaginative and clever levels but can be confusing with their multiple paths, levels and puzzles.  These dream levels are also in 2D side-scrolling format in contrast to the 3D overhead view of the “real” world. The game adds in platforming elements from the Mario series such as blocks and platforms in lieu of treasure chests.  All of this combines into a unique and fun formula.  Although the amount of abilities you can use on the field, such as the hammer, spin jump and dig, will start to become unwieldy by the end of the game.  The graphics are colorful and looks pretty good.  The environments are in 3D but the characters are in some sort of 2D sprite, so it is a weird combination at first. There are typical RPG elements such as gaining experience points and earning money in order to buy better gear to increase your stats.  During every level up, in addition to the normal and automatic stat increases, you can choose one to increase even further, which allows your own unique build, to a degree.

The abundance of tutorials was the biggest complaint for the game when it was released and this is true.  There are way too many tutorials that come frequently throughout the game.  Since the game’s cutscenes are already slow enough waiting for the characters to move and talk, when a tutorial happens and you have to go through quite a bit of text, then practice going through the feature, it can severely break the flow of the game.  It doesn’t help that it pops up a tutorial from time to time on something that it had already shown a tutorial for. The game is mostly easy as long as you don’t skip on the enemies.  If you lose a battle, you can immediately try again or try again in easy mode.  Easy mode massively increase Mario and Luigi’s attack power, making it absurdly easy to win the battle.  It’s a bit disappointing if you wanted to fight an easier battle while still feeling a sense of achievement because this mode just allows you to steamroll the battle, whereas normal mode may have been just a tad bit too tough.  Several boss battles can be big difficulty spikes though.  You can easily dispatch the normal enemies in an area but then the boss of that area will hit like a truck with a massive HP pool.  It’s kind of annoying and makes the game uneven.

Since every battle is very involved with what are pretty much micro-games, the enemies become too gimmicky towards the end and too annoying to beat.  When run-of-the-mill enemies start to take more than a minute to defeat as you wait out their attacks, it can become tedious.  This coincides with the game outstaying its welcome.  You’re constantly sent to this place and then that place to collect this and then that.  There’s too much filler and even though you don’t have to backtrack a lot of the areas, the game becomes wearisome in the second half and you just want it to end. In addition to normal boss battles, there are giant battles, where Luigi becomes huge, which is impressive and fun... for the first time.  Every single time afterwards it is extremely tedious since it takes forever to knock down health and is laden with gimmicks like tilting the 3DS and excessively using the touchscreen.  Enemy attacks does way too much damage, so while most of them are easy, when you get to the one that relies on the stupid gyroscope and with the 3DS being terrible at it, you’ll die for no good reason.  This game is a prime example why you shouldn’t shoehorn non-traditional control methods into the game, because when they are broken, it makes the game unwinnable and causes far too much frustration.

The bad game design shows its ugly face in the final dungeon.  Most of the platforming in the game was simple and fun, but the final dungeon requires timing and pinpoint precision which makes it a massive annoyance in an already bloated section.  Yes, it is supposed to be the final dungeon but it is so overladen with gimmicks, which by this time in the game you’ve been playing 30-40 hours, it is tiresome and dragged out.  It severely overstays its welcome and normal battles somehow manage to last even longer than normal, dragging it out like a slow painful death. All of the bad culminates into a horrendous final boss battle which takes place in giant form.  It has one of the most uneven and unbalanced final chain of boss battles in a game.  It manages to combine everything wrong with those into one fight and it is disgustingly cheap with the enemy doing five to six attacks in succession before you get your own turn, which does tiny amounts of damage.  After grinding through all that in 15-20 minutes, you lose due to the gyro controls failing.  Every time you are forced to retry, you have to listen to ALL the talking and watch the stupid drawn out animations again and again.  That battle was seriously unfair and unbalanced, without checkpoints or even the option of an easy mode.  It is unbelievable that for a game that was somewhat well balanced for everything else, the developers thought that this was a good idea.

Since the core of the story is pretty bare bones with it basically being Mario and Luigi chasing after Princess Peach and collecting stuff along the way to open up paths, they get sidetracked a lot to lengthen the play time.  It’s not a bad thing since the rest of the game is pretty good but dragging this on for 40 hours will even up making it feel tedious when it does the typical things of needing Mario and Luigi to get five of this, or beat four of that. Overall, Mario & Luigi:  Dream Team Bros. is a fun game at the beginning but ultimately starts to wear you down with excessive gimmicks, excessive tutorials, and poorly designed giant battles that are horrendous with broken controls, cheap unfair difficulty and lacking any fun whatsoever.  It is hard to recommend the game when it is so unbalanced like this, the developers screwed up massively in bloating up the game so much and making it such a tedious chore to play.

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Dr Kawashima’s Devilish Brain Training: Can you stay focused? (3DS)

Dr Kawashima’s Devilish Brain Training: Can you stay focused? is also known as Brain Age: Concentration Training outside of Europe. While the game was released in America in 2012, it took until 2017 before it was released in Europe. This is a puzzle game that leans more towards being a piece of edutainment software. It is the 3DS entry of the popular Brain Age series of games that debuted on the DS. Upon starting the game, a crude 3D head representing Dr Kawashima (based on the real life scientist) explains that in today’s world, with smartphones and other devices being so handy, we are constantly receiving information that has reduced our capability to focus and concentrate. Thus, the game aims to improve that aspect. This is basically a selection of mini-games of varying levels with a focus on memorization and simple calculations. The key activities include combining simple arithmetic with memorization, memorization of cards and finding obscured objects that had been moved around. Considering that Dr Kawashima is your personal trainer, so to speak, and is only represented by the crude 3D model along with a pair of floating hands, he’s pretty charismatic. The graphics are simple and the 3D effect is quite subdued.

The goal of the game is to play through a few five minute sessions every day, and hopefully as a result of that, you feel yourself improve. The first mini-game it presents is part of the Devilish Training series, which feels like its flagship mode. It starts you off at the easiest level and depending on your results, it’ll increase, decrease or have the difficulty stay the same. These activities are short and so you’ll be completing a few of them within the five minute session. The way it increases and decreases the difficult is a bit sensitive. You might strike lucky in one and move onto the next level before you’re ready, or you just have a bad attempt and you end up going back a level. A lot of the core activities rely on memorization and missing one means that you’ll have no hope of getting back on track. It is better to retry than to carry on which makes it feel like that it depends on luck to get handed a set that’s fine.

There are numerous attempts to keep you addicted and coming back every day. There are achievements and tracks your stats of your daily efforts in graphical format. New content is only unlocked as you return on subsequent days and it takes a total of 40 real-time days before all the content is available. In the first few days, you’ll quickly run out of content because the game blocks you from repeating challenges after that day’s attempt, which is somewhat annoying if you wanted to practice more. It takes around a week or so before a sizable amount of content is unlocked and a month before everything is unlocked. There are optional mini-games that you can play as much as you want including a Tetris-like clone but with additional set of rules. The best modes and the ones that are the most fun are the ones that is not part of the “Devilish” series. Since these are more like mini-games, such as “battles” where your attacks are doing quick sums, or “Block Head” where you try and capture the most points on squares compared to the AI. They also feel less tedious as you’re not forced to repetitively do them for at least five minutes at a time.

All the mini-games uses the touchscreen heavily. Most of the time you’ll write down your answers, or manipulate the onscreen objects using the stylus. The number and letter recognition works for the most part but there will be instances where it reads it incorrectly and it marks your answer as incorrect which can feel unfair. Unfortunately, the game loses its novelty fairly quickly. It becomes tedious and boring since at the end of the day, it’s just basic arithmetic and memory exercises which are not substantial enough to be called proper mini-games. Several of the activities have varying difficulties. For “Block Head”, the hard stages takes the fun out of the easier stages. This is because your opponents get unfair advantages (moving twice in a row or having two separate icons compared to your one). Beating the stage just ends up being a process of elimination to see where your opponent is programmed to go, rather than it being a true puzzle or test of skill. It makes it frustrating and annoying to the point where you’re just going to give up since the opponent so blatantly cheats, and there is only the one way to beat the stage, i.e. the one route that the developer wanted you to.

Overall, Dr Kawashima’s Devilish Brain Training: Can you stay focused? is fun for what it is. It’s a piece of edutainment software that can be fun to track how you’re going, or improving, as the days go along. Sure, it does lose its novelty fairly quickly but the first week or two, with the frequent unlocking of new events, and interesting tidbits presented by Dr Kawashimi, makes it enjoyable and worthwhile to at least given it a try.

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Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn (3DS)

Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn is a port of the Wii game for the 3DS. It comes with minor new additions such as new yarn abilities for Kirby and mini-games. This was the last big first-party game for the 3DS and it’s not a bad swan song for the system. As with a lot of the later releases for the 3DS, it doesn’t support 3D. The concept of the game is that it takes place in a world made of yarn, this includes Kirby. This is explained via the story where Kirby encounters an evil yarn sorcerer by the name of Yin Yarn, who warps Kirby into Patch Land. There, Kirby becomes yarn and loses the ability to suck. Instead, Kirby retains the transform power by rearranging the yarn that makes up Kirby’s body. It is explained that Kirby has to help Prince Fluff recover all seven pieces of magic yarn in order to save Patch Land.

The game is a sidescrolling platformer and despite the yarn influence, plays somewhat similarly with previous Kirby games. Kirby can still jump and float by turning into a parachute. Running is replaced with Kirby transforming into a car and swimming by turning into a submarine. The main change is that instead of inhaling, Kirby can whip out a piece of yarn to turn enemies into yarn balls that Kirby can throw. The whip is also used to latch onto pulleys, levers and swing points. Transformation only happens if Kirby collects a special piece and once transformed, these give Kirby special abilities such as making and throwing bombs, slashing a sword and spinning like a tornado. Some of the best parts of the game are the special transformations that take over a part of a level. These are imaginative and clever, such as transforming Kirby into a giant tank so you can glomp and stomp your way through the level, or have Kirby surfing through a level.

Each level has beads to collect which are scattered about or by defeating enemies. These are plentiful and acts as currency to buy furniture so you can decorate your own apartment. There are three special collectibles in each level which are usually hidden away from the main path. Being hit by an enemy will cause you to lose a lunch chunk of your collected beads but if you’re fast enough, you’ll be able to collect most of it back. One thing to note is that Kirby cannot die but you can restart the level at any time. The game on the whole is on the easier side. The levels are imaginative and clever, often playing around with the foreground and background. The opening levels are pretty stock standard and a bit generic. However, it soon opens up with some clever ideas. Kirby may get a drill to drill through the ground, or have a boss battle against a yarn dragon where you dodge obstacles. The UFO special transformation allows you to suck up enemies and use a shockwave to clear the screen, and the game eventually has shoot ‘em up sections which are heaps of fun.

The levels get a tad bit harder towards the end of the game such that the collectibles aren’t as straightforward or naturally stumbled upon. You’ll have to go out of your way and do some slightly tricky platforming. It’s nothing that can’t be handled since at its hardest, it still isn’t too difficult. Boss battles are pretty fun actually. They’re not hard and rely on pattern recognition but there are enough variety and slightly challenging so that these levels aren’t boring. You’ll only have minor frustrations with the later bosses before you recognize their patterns (once you do, they’re a cakewalk) and areas where enemies keep getting in your way by respawning as soon as they’re out of the screen and you move back. The game is overall cute and happy. It gives everything a chipper personality and it works really well. There is just something charming and relaxing about a colorful world filled with inhabitants made of yarn. This is a fun and relaxing game that isn’t too long. It takes around seven hours to finish the fifty levels. All the new characters, including the villain, felt right at home within the Kirby universe.

If you thought the normal difficulty was too easy, then the newly added Devilish Mode is a harder mode where a bat constantly follows you. It hounds you and tries to hurt you. You’d want to avoid being hit since you can unlock new collectibles by doing so. In traditional Kirby fashion, there are various mini-games including bead collecting, hide and seek, Slash and Bead where you control Meta Knight to slash your way through four stages, and Dedede Gogogo where you rush through a level as Dedede to finish within the time limit. Overall, Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn is a great port of a fun game. Despite its transition into the smaller screen, it works flawlessly. The platforming is still as fun as ever, the yarn abilities is new and refreshing, and the game has a great cute overall upbeat atmosphere that’s perfect for a break between darker and more serious games.

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS)

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is a remaster / remake of one of the greatest games of all time. The game was originally for the Nintendo 64 and this 3DS version has improved upon the graphics, added some quality of life improvements and included the Master Quest version after you have finished the game once. While at first the graphics may not be amazing, keep playing and you start to appreciate it more. Yes, some of the walls and textures are still flat but there is plenty of detail packed into the 3DS’s screen. The 3D effect is really well done for most of the game, and very impressive in certain scenes. Ocarina of Time was the first 3D Zelda game. Playing through the first dungeon, you can just imagine how awestruck you would have been if you had only played the 2D games up until this point. Then you get to the big open area and your mind would have been blown again and again. Then there is the day / night cycle, which is a fairly short cycle. Townsfolk are in different places depending on the time of day, and it plays into the puzzles and exploration. Night is usually when enemies pop up and is more dangerous and thankfully, you’ll quickly learn of a way to manually change to day or night as you wish.

With the transition to 3D, the gameplay had to adjust from the previous 2D games. The basic controls remain the same where you can get Link to slash with his sword or block with his shield. There are four hotkeys that you can map an item or weapon to. Two hotkeys are mapped to physical buttons, and two are mapped to the touchscreen. It works well enough. One of the buttons are used as an all purpose action, changing depending on context. As a result, Link also automatically jumps when he nears a gap. Unfortunately, this is an obvious early 3D era game because the camera control is clunky. Given the 3DS’s lack of a second analogue stick, you have to make do with the L shoulder button to target and lock onto enemies, which allow Link to strafe. If there are no enemies, then it will reset the camera to behind Link. While holding down the L shoulder button, you can use the gyroscope to move the camera around. The camera is okay when used to explore but can be messy during boss battles when you want to quickly turn the camera around to keep the boss in view. The lock on system is required for accurate slashing of your sword and executing various moves.

Dungeons are an obvious part of the game and its biggest draw. They have clever designs, while it is sometimes hard to figure out what to do in order to advance; it all feels like a natural extension of the Zelda formula. There are plenty of secrets to find and optional upgrades to aid in your quest. There are changes made to the infamous Water Temple dungeon to make it clearer on where to go. It’s still confusing if it is our first time but the challenge there is on the layout, rather than tough enemies, so you have the luxury of taking your time and fully exploring every nook and cranny. At the end of each dungeon is a boss, with some mini bosses along the way. All the bosses rely on pattern recognition and can be daunting on your first try. Once you realize what the trick is, then they are fairly simple to defeat.

A key part of the game is the titular ocarina. Once Link gains possession of this, he can learn songs that have special effects. The usage of the ocarina is crucial in progression, with a few optional songs too. Playing the ocarina is just pressing the correct button combination and it is made easier when you can bring up a page with all the songs you’ve learnt and the buttons required. There are a few negatives though. It is annoying when you save and load the game; it sets you back in Link’s village where you began the game. This isn’t cool when you have to run everywhere with limited fast travel options that only unlock later in the game. It can be a pain when you have to run everywhere and the game requires you to go all around the place. Thankfully, leaving and re-entering a dungeon won’t reset the progress, and this includes dying. The game is filled with tricks and gimmicks, some of which can be annoying. There are things like Like Likes that steal your equipment, timed puzzles, hidden passages to progress and invisible enemies. Every time you go into a new room in a dungeon, you feel like you have to be careful and go through the list to see if you have missed anything.

If you had been used to the limited stories in the 2D games, then Ocarina of Time really fleshes it out with more depth. Link lives in a village where everyone except him has a fairy partner. After a nightmare, he wakes up to find his own fairy and is summoned by the Great Deku Tree to journey on a quest to save Princess Zelda and the world from a mysterious desert horseback rider. It explores the origins of the Triforce and gives us a lot of details about the world. There is a surprising twist midway through the game which was kind of like a false ending but wasn’t. After this point, the difficulty spikes up and the enemies are more powerful and difficult, this can be a shock if you were not expecting it.

The final boss was quite easy compared to some of the previous bosses but the ending was still very epic. Once you finish the game, you get that sense of wonder at what an accomplishment this game was, and how it is still so much fun and impressive after over a decade. The game takes around 20 to 30 hours to complete but it really depends on your puzzle solving skills and whether you explore to try and obtain everything. After you finish the game, you unlock Master Quest. This is sort of a New Game Plus, so to speak. The whole game is mirrored, so what’s left is right and right is left. This is very disorientating when you first start up the game and have to readjust to where things are. The second major change are the dungeons, most of which are completely revamped with new puzzles. Enemies are also tougher as they hit twice as hard, which makes the early game difficult.

Overall, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is a fantastic game and you can see why it was hailed as one of the best games of all time. The combat and camera system is still a bit clunky but once you get used to it, the game is unstoppable. From the moment you first step out to the world of Hyrule, to clearing the dungeons and finding the secrets, it is addictive. The game’s difficulty is good but it can be difficult in some areas when you first get to it, once you know what to do, it’s achievable. The graphical touch up is well done and this is a great remaster of an already great game.

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