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Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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After the travesty that was Kirby 64, I thought I’d play this on the SNES service on the Switch. It’s been ages since I last did (and even then it was in Japanese), and I’d forgotten – and been tainted by 64 – just how good it looked. In fact, it’s probably the best looking SNES game. How did they go from this to that? Unpossible.

I love the crayony style of the graphics. Kirby 64 just looks so empty and bland in comparison.

I haven’t collected everything on every level, and I’ve not done all of the “missions” each one presents you with. so I presume there’s a secret extra world yet to come for when you do, but I beat a final boss and got the credits.

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I had no idea there were bad Kirby games. Certainly, Kirby Air Ride and Kirby Not Smash Bros Because It’s Only Kirby in Different Colours Clash aren’t amazing, but they’re inoffensive and not really proper Kirby games. But Kirby 64 is bad. And not in a 1980s way.

Considering that it came out after Mario 64, and is a much simpler game being only 2D (well, 2.5D really), how is it that this looks terrible? It’s worse than the NES game. Hell, it’s worse than almost every game. But it was free on the Nintendo 64 thingie on the Nintendo Online doofer, so can I really complain?

Unusually for a game, it actually looks better as a static image than when moving.

It tries to make up for it by being cute and stuff and having the usual Kirby twee choons and jingles, but it’s so slow, so ugly and so impressively dull that it’s a wonder anyone can play it for more than ten minutes.

So after about three hours, I completed it. Obviously. And we shall Never Speak of This Again.

Worst boss ever.

Pac’n Roll Remix (Switch): COMPLETED!

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No, I have no idea why I played this either. It’s one of the games on the somewhat hit-and-miss Pac-Man Museum+ collection and although it’s not really bad, there’s nothing special about it. Not least because the USP of “stroking” Pac-Man with your Nintendo DS stylus in order to twang him around the levels is totally lost.

The boss levels are… sub par.

That’s said, I did enjoy most of it, aside from a couple of later levels where there are some nasty jumps-in-3D with no character shadow to assist with landing accurately and instant deaths if you don’t. That, and your dash move is incredibly fast and difficult to judge so more falling off the world and instantly dying. How I managed on the DS version back in 2005 I don’t know. In fact, aside from a hazy memory of the very first level, I had no recollection of any of the game at all.

Shinsekai: Into the Depths (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Just in case I’d not had enough Metroidvania games, I bought another one. Only this one is underwater!

Which means you constantly have to look for oxygen, and being attacked drains your oxygen, and jetting around drains your oxygen, and you move slowly and you have a harpoon. And at one point you gain use of a hovercraft cowfish shaped submarine which means you don’t need oxygen when in it, and – more importantly – you can survive deeper water. One of the main mechanics is that your suit can only deal with a certain amount of water pressure. Go deeper and you quickly die, but you can keep upgrading it to allow deeper exploration with the right resources.

Which is another “difference” with this Metroidvania. You get items mostly from mining rocks and collecting plants, rather than defeating baddies. Combined with the suit and floaty physics it certainly doesn’t feel like just another Metroidvania (not that I’d complain if it did, see previous entries on this blog!) but it is. There’s also two separate endings depending on how you deal with the end boss – I got both.

Bit Orchard: Animal Valley (Switch): COMPLETED!

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In case you were thinking this was like a Game Boy version of Stardew Valley, then you’re right. It is. Only very, very cut down. Well, maybe cut down is wrong. Streamlined? Slimmed down?

As in that game, you inherit a run-down farm (an orchard, in this case – albeit one with only one tree), meet people, grow crops (well, just apples), do a bit of fishing, complete some quests, chat to a ghost, and so on. Only instead of taking you over a hundred hours as it does in Stardew Valley, it takes maybe three or four. There’s a lot less to see and do, but sometimes, that’s OK.

Bit Orchard is a bit buggy, fiddly to control (and to lay out your trees, although that’s being fixed in an update I believe) and, of course, short, but it’s also cozy and cute and well worth the low price of entry. Which was a pound at the time of purchase.