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Bye-Bye Box Boy! (3DS): COMPLETED!

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You know, the positive thing about having my Switch stolen by my daughter is it means I get to play other games on other systems now. Like this, which I bought ages ago when it was on offer then promptly forgot to do anything with it.

Like the first two Box Boy! games, both of which I really enjoyed, Bye-Bye Box Boy! is a puzzle game where you create a chain of boxes and use them to traverse a level, avoid dangers, press switches, and so on. For the most part, it’s the same as the other games, but some worlds here have new gimmicks, like teleportation boxes, baby boxes you have to help navigate to the goal, bomb boxes, and remote control boxes.

It’s also a lot easier than I was expecting. I managed every single level, without struggling, collecting every crown on my first try. Of course, now I’ve completed it there are more – no doubt harder – levels that have opened up, but I don’t remember the other games being as simple as this. Maybe I’m just wise to the tricks now.

Still excellent though.

The post Bye-Bye Box Boy! (3DS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Yellow (iOS): COMPLETED!

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That podcast that I do, you know, the ugvm one? Well, Luffer was on it this week and he told us all about a mobile game called Yellow. It piqued my interest, despite being a mobile game, so today I looked it up and discovered it’s free. Free! Something I read said it was ad-supported, but I didn’t see any, so not sure how that works. Free!

It also does the other thing that negates the issues I have playing telephone games, buy having sensible, touch-screen usable controls. No virtual sticks and buttons here. Ticks all round.

Click to view slideshow.

The game itself is a set of 50 puzzles where you have to turn the whole screen yellow. The thing is, you’re not told how to do this, and the puzzles are all different (with only a few sharing similar ideas). You have to not only work out what you’re supposed to do, but how to do it.

Some involve pressing shapes in order, others need you to move things around. There’s a Rubik’s Clock type one, a couple involving wordplay, and one with RGB sliders – only they’re not exactly RGB.

None of them are especially taxing, and the whole game is only around an hour long, but it was fun, and clever, and that’s more than enough a free game needs to be.

The post Yellow (iOS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Universal Paperclips (Web): COMPLETED!

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It’s one of those clicker games, only this one plays out in several phases. First, there’s the Grow Your Paperclip Making Empire, then there’s Take Over The Earth With Paperclips, and finally, The Universe Needs Paperclips. They’re my names, by the way.

Across these three phases, instead of just one “currency”, there are a number that build up different things or make your production more effective. It adds a bit more to the proceedings than your usual clicker game, and in fact – relatively at least – there’s not actually that much clicking. It’s happier for the most part just idling while you click every so often to spend what you’ve earned.

I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, but it’s worth a play through at least. Which you can do so here, for free.

The post Universal Paperclips (Web): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

R-Type Dimensions (PS3): COMPLETED!

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Well that came out of nowhere and has now gone whence it came very soon afterwards.

R-Type Dimensions is one of this month’s PS+ titles, and since my daughter stole the Switch this evening I thought I’d have a look. And I looked, and played, and completed it.

It’s R-Type, as in, the original arcade game. Only you can press R1 and swap between original graphics and music, and new graphics (a new art type, if you will, oh ho ho ho) and music – much like how you can with the Monkey Island remaster and Wonderboy: The Dragon’s Trap. As it’s just the original game, it’s short and it’s impossible.

R-Type was always too hard for me to complete, but it’s one of a relatively small number of games in the genre that I enjoy. Thankfully, you get infinite lives here, and I needed over a hundred of them to complete the eight levels. It was fun. Some of the baddies are impossible to hit. And that’s that.

The post R-Type Dimensions (PS3): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Super Mario Odyssey (Switch): COMPLETED!

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This is a hard one. Well, not hard in that way (the game is easy – very easy), but hard in how I feel about it.

Unlike pretty much every Mario game ever, Super Mario Odyssey didn’t instantly grab me. Perhaps it was the terrible looking first “world”. Maybe it was the stark art style changes between worlds. I don’t know. Definitely, I started enjoying it in my first hour – but other games in the series I was hooked from the second the game started.

Now I’ve completed it, insofar as beaten Bowser and reached the credits, I can look back and see Odyssey is excellent. But not perfect. And certainly not the best Mario game. I’m feeling a lot like I did when I played Breath of the Wild, actually.

There’s just something missing. A spark of something. Something which Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine had which is missing here. Yes, I’m saying Super Mario Sunshine is better than Super Mario Odyssey. Super Mario 3D World is too. And so is New Super Mario Bros U, but 2D Mario games are a different beast.

On paper, it’s all there. Blue skies, great platforming, throwback references, varied levels, secrets, post-credits content, the very best controls – the lot. In my hands, it’s a bit flat, a bit off, a bit… wrong. But I can’t put my finger on it.

Remembering the few days I’ve been playing it, very few parts of the game stand out in the way I can fondly reminisce about the clock or the flying carpet or the Koopa race or the penguins or the wing hat or any one of a thousand other things from Mario 64. I know I’ve not played it as much as that game, but aside from the (spoiler) boss in the ruined castle, there hasn’t been anything that wowed me.

It’s probably me.

And it’s so easy. Really, really easy. Again, I’m aware the challenge of Mario games is mainly to get 100% and the straightforward route to the boss is not the hardest path, but I’ve picked up around half of the moons on each level so far and just one of them caused multiple deaths. It’s the easiest Mario game by a long way.

All that said, and I’m sure most people will disagree with my comments, but all that said, it’s a great game. One of the best. It really is. Nothing I can say can detract from that. I think I was just expecting Mario Odyssey to be a contender for the Best Game Ever Made, and in my eyes it isn’t even top 5 Best Mario Games (yet, at least). But that’s OK. It doesn’t have to be.

The post Super Mario Odyssey (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.