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Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation – The Endless Seven-Day Journey (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Kaz Ayabe is known for making, well, the same summer holiday game over and over again. He has a series of titles called Boku no Natsu-yasumi (which means “my summer holiday”) which are quiet little games set in rural Japanese villages where you collect bugs and catch fish and run errands and, well, that’s it. You discover secrets and there are events and stuff but they’re like Animal Crossing on whatever the opposite of steroids are.

On the 3DS, Ayabe released a similar game called Attack of the Friday Monsters which is more of the same thing only with giant monsters and a not-Ultraman woven into the plot.

Anyway. This Shin-chan game, also by Ayabe, is the same game again. Only with characters from the Crayon Shin-chan series of manga and anime. I’ve no real knowledge of the series so that bit didn’t appeal to me, but an English translation of this game series is pretty unusual so has been on my wishlist waiting for a fat sale for a while.

As before, you catch bugs and pick plants, and talk to people – all of whom have weirdly deformed and badly drawn faces because that’s what they look like in Shin-chan – while you’re staying with some family friends in a rural Japanese village. Only this time, there’s a mad professor who wants to take over the world and he does this by summoning dinosaurs to wander the streets and forcing Shin-chan to relive the same week over and over – hence the “Endless Seven Day” from the title.

Despite this evil man and his dinosaurs, there’s literally no peril here. It’s still a relaxing tale where you explore the village, listen to cicadas, and chat to people. You can do collection quests for pocket money, submit all your adventures (like “I caught a new fish!”) to the local newspaper for more pocket money, and take part in a 1-on-1 miniature robot dinosaur fighting game like those beetle fighting games the Japanese love.

It’s a lovely little game, with two issues. One is that each area has a mostly fixed camera angles which causes problems for a few reasons. Firstly, sometimes you’re waaaaaay off in the distance which makes catching things tricky as they’re a pixel big. Secondly, the fixed camera isn’t the same orientation for every scene, so building the map of the village in your head is hard especially when it does that thing where you come off the right hand side of a scene and appear somewhere other than the left hand side of the next one. Very disorienting.

The other issue is that Shin-chan himself has a very disturbing voice. The noises he makes whenever he catches a bug or picks a plant or completes a task bring to mind the noises kids used to make to make fun of Joey Deacon, for those who know what that sounds like. Anyway, that’s what Shin-chan sounds like. It’s probably cute or endearing in Japan but it just sounds so wrong here. Especially since it’s every five seconds or so.

Those aside, it’s a nice little laid back game with a bonkers plot and ridiculous looking characters. Oh, and they do a silly dance every morning. What’s not to like?

Another Code: Recollection (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Another Code: Recollection, is a remake of two games that were originally on the DS and Wii (Another Code: Two Memories and Another Code: R). These games are essentially point-and-click adventures with puzzle elements and some great visual novel-style storytelling that digs into family secrets, memory, and loss. You play as Ashley, a young girl trying to uncover memories of her past while helping others do the same. See, the name is clever because it’s a “re-collection” and also a “recollection”.

The first game, Two Memories, starts with 14-year-old Ashley heading to a deserted mansion on Blood Edward Island, where she’s supposed to meet her dad for the first time since her mum passed away when she was only three. Her parents had been working on a memory-manipulating system called Another, which apparently her dad kept working on in secret on this remote island. But just as Ashley and her aunt arrive, they get separated, leaving Ashley on her own to explore the eerie mansion. Along the way, she encounters a ghost named D, a young boy who’s been stuck on the island for decades with no memory of who he is or how he died. As Ashley solves puzzles and navigates the mansion, she gradually pieces together not only her family’s secrets but also D’s lost memories.

The second game, Another Code: R picks up two years later. Now 16, Ashley is off to visit her dad again, this time at a lake near the research lab where he works. She’s hoping for a relaxing camping trip with him, but things get complicated when she meets new characters—some teens in a band, lab employees, camp staff, and yet another young boy with missing memories, though fortunately, he’s not a ghost this time. While the game ultimately ties back to the events of the first game and her mother’s research, it spends a lot of time exploring this boy’s story and his quest to remember.

Now, if you loved the original games like I did, you might find a few changes in this remake a bit of a letdown, especially in the puzzle department. The developers of the originals, Cing, really took advantage of the DS and Wii’s unique features to create some inventive, memorable puzzles. One of the best from the DS required you to close the DS slightly so one screen could reflect on the other—a real out-of-the-box experience. Sadly, those creative moments didn’t make it into the Switch version, aside from a few gyro-tilting puzzles.

And honestly, even the puzzles they did include are a bit hand-holdy. Often, Ashley or D will point out the solution before you have a chance to think it through yourself. You’ll come across a mechanism, and instead of having to work it out, you’re nudged in the right direction before you’ve even really started. It makes things a bit too easy and, well, takes away some of the charm of figuring things out on your own.

But, it’s all very charming and makes me miss Cing.

Frog Detective (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Once a set of three separate games on Steam, all the Frog Detective games are now bundled together on the Nintendo Switch! Of course I bought it.

You’ll never guess the premise: you’re a frog, and you’re a detective. You know you’re a detective because you get a magnifying glass right at the start, although you never actually use it. But the point is, you’re ready to solve mysteries.

There are three mysteries in total, and each one is just as silly and low-stakes as the next. First, there’s a ghost in a hole. Then, there’s a party that’s been mysteriously trashed. And finally, you’re off to find out who’s been stealing hats. Your main job is to talk to different animal characters, ask them questions, and do a few simple point-and-click style puzzles. It’s not tough, but that’s what makes it fun and relaxing. You’re there for the characters and the humour, not the challenge.

And let me tell you, this game is absolutely full of charm and wit. It’s one of those games that you can tell was made with a sense of humour that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I know some people might look at it and say it’s “too cute” or dismiss it as “woke” because it’s wholesome and nonviolent, but honestly, who cares about those people?

So, if you’re looking for something that’ll make you smile and laugh with its ridiculous characters and silly storyline, grab your magnifying glass, even if you don’t need it, and get ready to solve some very silly mysteries.

Pepper Grinder (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I’ve often said that some games that are previewed too far in advance of release are not doing themselves any favours. For me, anyway. Pepper Grinder is one such game, that piqued my interest in a Nintendo Direct long, long ago and then when it came out I’d totally forgotten about it whereas if it was wowgoshlookithtis and it was released a couple of weeks later, I might have jumped on it immediately.

Then I saw it in an eShop games-on-sale roundup video somewhere and I was repiqued. So I bought it. And it was great!

The main gimmick is that you have a big ol’ drill bit which you use to not only mole your way through soft earth, but also to damage baddies and turn gears and stuff. Digging through the ground (and ground that’s, uh, in the sky) will sort of launch you when you break out of it, so much of the game is about aiming your drill so as to launch and land in the right place.

There are some puzzles in that certain things have to be drilled or activated in specific orders, and tricky platforming where angles and timing are key to success, but you’ve also got baddies everywhere, and some clever bosses where you often have to make alternate use of your drill to damage them. Oh, and sometime you get a MASSIVE GUN and there are also shops to buy upgrades with stuff you collect along the way,

It’s also got nice pixel art and feels like the sort of game you’d play on a Game Boy Advance only this game didn’t exist then. Was Drill Dozer similar? I never had the £££££ needed to buy that rarity.

Cat Quest (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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My daughter picked this up on the Switch some time ago and loved it (and the sequel) so much she actually preordered Cat Quest III the day it was announced. She had never preordered a game before! I’ve always liked the look of it – 2D sprites on a map in a way that sort of feels a bit like Paper Mario but the game is more like Zelda and the camera angle is like those 2D-HD remakes of old 8-bit RPGs.

Anyway, after getting it for free on about twelftynine different platforms via PS+++ and Epic giveaways and stuff I finally got round to playing it on my Steam Deck (Lord bless the Steam Deck and its infinite supply of free games) and you know what – it’s really good. She was right.

It’s much more simple than Zelda, but it’s cute and mostly laid back. You, as a cat, travel the world and sword up baddies and enter dungeons and find better weapons and armour and level up your various magics like fire and ice and healing, and there’s nothing especially new or difficult here, but it’s all done in a polished way with great humour and silly events and characters. And I love the art style.