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The Gardens Between (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Well that was over quickly. So much so I’m a little annoyed I paid £11.99 for it, and that was an offer price! That much money for a game that offered no challenge, lasted less than an hour, and has zero replayability? At least Pan-Pan was a tenth of that.

Money aside, The Gardens Between is a beautiful and clever puzzle game. Each level is a small island, and your only controls are to move forwards and backwards in time, and sometimes press a button to ring a bell or trigger something. As you control time, your two characters – one who can hold and put down a lantern, and the other who can interact with bells – move through the level, sometimes together, sometimes independently. The aim is usually to “catch” a light in the lantern then take it to the pedestal at the top of the island, but as time moves forward things happen to prevent this.

It’s hard to describe but considering how little control you have and how linear (albeit backwards as well as forwards) it is, it’s incredible how many ways they’ve managed to use the gimmick.

Sadly, this works against it too – with so little to interact with, levels are very easy to solve, and even though there are a lot of ways they’ve used the formula, they ran out all too soon.

A clever experience, and one I definitely enjoyed, but over far, far too quickly for the price.

The post The Gardens Between (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

PixelJunk Monsters 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Well this turned out to be disappointing. As a big fan of the original PixelJunk Monsters, this sequel with its incredibly pretty clay graphics (rather than the somewhat minimal ones seen in the first game) was a certain buy. I’d played the demo and yep – it was great.

Sadly, the demo didn’t make clear the horrific loading times. Starting a level? Wait for ages. Want to restart? Wait for ages. Complete a level? Wait for ages. And I mean ages. Literally several minutes in some cases. The entire game took less time to download and install than it takes to restart a level. That can’t be right, can it?

Stupid fat bee things.

And although loading times aren’t the end of the world, they certainly make a difference between “oh I’ve screwed this up, restart!” and “oh I’ve screwed this up, off it goes!”. Why no instant restart? Exactly why does the game need to load all the assets in again even though they’re already loaded? It’s frustrating and kills the fun.

Perhaps the loading times are there to bulk out the game, as there aren’t many levels here either. Around 20 in total, which doesn’t seem nearly enough for a tower defence game, especially since many of the maps look like they were intended to be reused (with blocked off routes opened up) but never are.

Thankfully, the actual game itself is still as good as it ever was. It’s just a shame it’s been hobbled in between the good bits.

The post PixelJunk Monsters 2 (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Pan-Pan (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Having been on sale a number of times, and being pretty cheap already, I’d eyed up the lovely looking Pan-Pan on several previous occasions. Reviews saying it is slightly disappointing tempered my enthusiasm and so I always put my virtual cash away. Until today.

And sadly, the reviews were right. Pan-Pan looks really nice, with its flat shaded, low-poly graphics and almost Pikmin-like world to explore, but it falls very short of excellent for a number of reasons.

Firstly, its world is very small, but it’s the way it appears very open that’s the problem. Most of the puzzles in the game are reachable almost immediately, but some are somewhat obtuse and you’re left wondering if the reason you can’t solve it is because you’re missing the trick, or because you’re not supposed to be able to yet – and there’s no way of knowing.

This little bird doesn’t want you to steal his eggs. But you are a cruel woman.

Secondly, there’s just not enough game here. It’s perhaps ten puzzles in total, and sure, the game was only £2.99 but when I obtained the five items needed to complete the game, I was sure there’d be another chapter – or several chapters – afterwards. But nope, 90 minutes of game and that’s it. No replayability at all.

For what it is, it’s a quaint little thing, and perhaps the sometimes there, sometimes not (it depends where you read) subtitle of “A Tiny Big Adventure” should have tipped me off, but it feels more like a short demo of a larger game, which is a shame.

The post Pan-Pan (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Yoku’s Island Express (Switch): COMPLETED!

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This game is, now bear with me, a pinball metroidvania adventure game set on an island where you’re an ant who also happens to be the new postman, and you collect fruit whilst taped to a ball. As soon as you arrive on the island, the god creature that oversees it is attacked and it’s up to you to find all the tribal elders who together can heal the god. Oh yes, and you’re armed with a party horn, and hoover up exploding slugs, and wear a little fish in order to swim.

So generally standard game stuff, really.

It’s a pretty looking 2D affair, with exploration broken up by caves and caverns that amazingly resemble pinball tables, and strangely convenient “flippers” dotted around the island to assist in getting you about by flicking you up trees and mountains and so on. I mean, it’s hardly a believable world, not least that all this pinball infrastructure only seems to benefit you and not the majority of the rabbits, rats, fish and various other creatures that you chat with.

Don’t forget to actually deliver letters while you’re out saving the island.

It plays like a metroidvania game through out of reach areas becoming available due to abilities you unlock as the game progresses, which let you blow up certain rocks, swim, or fling yourself around buds, as appropriate.

Yoku’s Island Express is a relatively short game with a compact map, but you criss-cross it many times through various routes and shortcuts so it feels quite a bit bigger. It’s not especially difficult, not least because it appears to be impossible to die (it is possible to get stuck and have to restart from a – thankfully frequently placed – restart point though). Some of the trickier “shots” are frustrating however, and the knack for sucking up exploding slugs seems a little random and so a minor annoyance, but aside from that the only real difficulty is figuring how to get to the points marked on the map.

It’s fun while it lasts, and once completed there’s still a multitude of things to collect and deliveries to make (you’re a postman, remember), so completists will get even more value from this already cheap title. Yoku is definitely worth picking up.

The post Yoku’s Island Express (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Gradius (Switch): COMPLETED!

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And another NES-game-onna-Switch, bus-based game completion. Gradius isn’t something I remember completing before but at the same time none of it seemed new to me. Which is odd because I don’t often play shooters like this.

Anyway, it was hard, especially the bit with the Easter Island heads, and the final boss was a complete walkover for some reason. All you have to do is stay in the right place and keep shooting – no dodging necessary!

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