Japanese Rural Life Adventure is more about restoring a community than farming and fishing. The limited character customisation options are more than made up for by the wide range of activities. The progression through the game is well-balanced, and there is satisfaction in completing the various events. However, where Japanese Rural Life Adventure really shines is its ability to immerse the player in the rich cultural heritage of Japan. The game encourages you to learn about the many festivals and traditions, demonstrates the patience needed to prepare some of the culinary delights, and teaches the importance of slowing down to enjoy your surroundings.
Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth is a heart-warming and enchanting story of courage and helping others, set in the wintry lands of Moominvalley. The artwork is beautiful, and the script was very funny in places. There are some scenes which were scarier and sadder than I was expecting, and the ending was a little prolonged, but overall a wonderful adventure.
I am thoroughly enjoying the Hello Kitty Island Adventure – City Town DLC. The cityscape offers a different vibe from that of Friendship Island. The inclusion of new shops and a functioning café gives more reasons to craft and forage across all of the Hello Kitty Island Adventure locations to meet customer orders. There is nothing in the City Town DLC which detracts or is out of keeping with the original game, and who would have thought an avocado plushie could be so adorable?
Cleaning Up! is a great cleaning simulation, and I really enjoyed my time vacuuming and sweeping around the delightful and varied dioramas.
Even without the many problems, I didn’t enjoy my travels in Hidden around the World. So much effort and detail had been put into making the cities feel authentic, only to be ruined by generic objects cluttering the scene inappropriately. Some of the objects are just too small to be distinguishable, especially in handheld mode, so it makes the whole experience disjointed.
Like the Meow Moments which came before, Meow Moments: Celebrating Myth & Machine is a delight. The soft tunes and great hint system make it less stressful than other hidden object games, and the gradual colouring of the scene adds interest.
SnapCat: Mia’s Cozy Adventure is a snappy little hidden cats game, with the added bonus of taking photos!
There’s a plethora of digging games out there, but DigDigDrill really impressed me. The different puzzles to create drills or enhance them added depth to the game, and I really enjoyed the strategy and planning needed to break through the barriers. A thoroughly comprehensive mining game, simple in concept, but designed to challenge.
Wander Scoop is a sweet treat, but it could do a sprinkling of additional customers and conversations to enhance the flavour.
There is a lot to enjoy in Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime; the Frogtime game is the absolute highlight. It’s clear the developers had lots of fun creating the game, doing the voices, and creating all the songs. For me, a quick replay option for the Frogtime battles and the ability to skip through the conversation or songs would have elevated the enjoyment of Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime. However, I’ll be humming the Rik Spek theme tune for a long while, and that’s not a bad thing!
The ebb and flow of discovering and cataloguing in Collector’s Cove is perfectly balanced. As the requirements get harder, the unlocked rewards offset the routine. It’s a simple idea, beautifully executed. There are a couple of minor niggles, but I thoroughly enjoyed my time sailing towards Collector’s Cove.
Mario Tennis Fever has lots of laughter value for a party game, and playing together, be that locally, via GameShare or online, makes for a great experience. However, for the solo player, there isn’t enough content to make it memorable. The adventure mode, which I was really looking forward to, was short and oddly balanced, favouring academy training rather than adventuring.
Clue: Murder By Death has a great framework for a video game. Appropriate graphics and a clever use of different dialogue give the game an authentic feel, more than just a remake of a classic board game. However, with slow loading times and character movement, it misses the mark and leads to cumbersome and frustrating gameplay. Clue: Murder By Death would have benefited from more user testing and proofreading to capture the typos and grammar mistakes. Although I initially liked the game, the game-breaking crashes mean I really can’t recommend it at this time.
Cozy Caravan is very cosy. Chatting with Bubba made me laugh, and it was just adorable when he patted the log next to the fire in the evening routine, so we could sit and eat together. There are some idiosyncrasies in the gameplay which need a little more work, and this is disappointing after being in early release for so long. However, I enjoyed playing Cozy Caravan too much to give it anything less than our top rating
Super Chipflake Ü: Quest for the Uncooked Schnitzel is a great open-world fetch quest and collectathon bonanza, with lots of varied tasks and humorous conversations to keep you occupied and amused. However, there are a few frustrations in the gameplay, which take away some of the enjoyment.
Oppidum has taken me on a roller-coaster of an adventure; from the initial “Wow, this looks great!”, through the “I’ve got no storage” frustration, and the “I’m dead again” disappointment, right down to the “That’s a ridiculous amount, I quit!” But I didn’t quit, despite the ups and downs, Oppidum intrigues me. I want to know how the story pans out. Will I be able to save the Bennies? So by re-focusing on the main story, and getting into a routine using the teleport scrolls to keep my backpack free of clutter, I am really enjoying my time in Oppidum.
A Game About Digging A Hole™ doesn’t disappoint in terms of gameplay. It is literally a game about digging a hole. There is something quite enjoyable about digging, gathering ores, selling and then upgrading the tools. The ending is somewhat different to what I imagined, but has its own humour. It can be a little frustrating when the shovel refuses to dig, or you get stuck on a few pixels of soil, but overall, A Game About Digging A Hole™ provides good entertainment.
Kirby Air Riders is an intense, fast-paced racing and battling game, with additional challenges to add variety. The price point may be restrictive for casual gamers, so I hope they introduce a demo and GameShare, so that more can experience the joys and thrills that Kirby Air Riders offers. If racing is your happy place, then it’s probably Two Thumbs Up. For me, there was enough to be greatly entertained, with the racing being challenging at points, but not so hard to make me feel incompetent.
I’m sure many Simon the Sorcerer fans will appreciate the trial and error approach to the problems, be thrilled to hear Chris Barrie bring Simon back to life, and laugh at the humour which fills the dialogue. And whilst I appreciate the passion, dedication and effort put into Simon the Sorcerer Origins to rekindle those 1990s classics, the lack of a hint system ruined my experience and highlighted the other shortcomings of the game, which in other situations would have been overlooked.
ILA: A Frosty Glide has some excellent gameplay – I thoroughly enjoyed exploring and collecting. There is a lot to savour and take pleasure in when roaming around, uncovering the secrets and customising Ila’s appearance. If rating the game solely on that aspect, it would score highly. However, I found some of the platforming too frustrating and too difficult to look fondly on my time with ILA: A Frosty Glide. The extreme highs and lows of emotion in trying and just not succeeding left me disheartened. If you like challenging platforming and lots of exploring, then this game might be for you, but for me…