crystal-frost

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX is a game where you play as a human turned into a Pokemon, that goes on rescue excursions in dungeons. Honestly, out of all the Pokemon games, the Mystery Dungeon games have been my favorite. The objective of having to enter dungeons to engage in search & rescue missions is fascinating. There are dozens of worlds to adventure in, with hundreds of unique Pokemon characters, and infinite rescue missions. The story-mode itself takes roughly 20-30 hours, depending on your skill level. As with previous Pokemon Mystery Dungeon titles, essential reading skill is preferred for the player (or someone to interpret) to enjoy the story. Otherwise, rescue missions themselves require simply being able to identify dungeons and respective rescue floor numbers. It is not required to memorize the physical appearance or names of the 300+ Pokemon featured in this game. The game makes it very easy to inform you within a dungeon- when you are on a floor with a rescue client. This can be especially helpful when you're doing multiple rescue missions within the same dungeon. After passing the story-mode, one could easily play this game for hundreds, if not thousands of hours. The earlier dungeons have a few floors, taking minutes to solve a rescue. However, later dungeons (unlocked after story-mode) have up to 99 floors, taking at least an hour per dungeon. For younger audiences or those easily startled, some of the cut-scenes depict Pokemon engaging in nonviolent combat sequences. Some of the story-mode plot itself involves natural disasters induced by some Pokemon creatures. There is also a team of antagonists, actually called 'Team Meanies', that value fame and wealth more than the well-being of their rescue clients. It needs to be stated that the watercolor visuals in this game are simply gorgeous. The dungeons have unique soundtracks, offering atmospheric adventures. Even if you're not a fan of Pokemon, if you like fantasy-like creature/animals and the concept of rescue, this game is highly engaging.

Forest Home is a puzzle game with an increasing challenge of guiding forest animals to their respective habitats. As you progress in the game, you earn a currency that lets you unlock different animals through a shop. You may swap these animals with existing animals. The game gives you the option to change among previously unlocked animals. Each animal has their own little respective habitat. There are thousands of puzzles to unlock in the main mode. And there are thousands of more puzzles in a free-play mode. If you just want quick currency to accumulate for buying animals, the side puzzles are fantastic. The menus for side puzzles differentiate levels of difficulty in puzzles. A player could easily replay the same simpler puzzles to accumulate money, without dabbling into the more brain-crunching puzzles. The only negative about this game is that the background sound effects can become a bit grating after continuous play.

Hamster Bob is an interactive coloring storybook. There are different chapters correlating to respective categories, each introducing a small plot, sometimes with characters. Hamster Bob narrates the story, as you color the objects and optional characters. A neat feature is that things you color move in animated sequences as the story progresses. Aside from the story, there is a dress-up game where you can place various clothing and accessories on Bob. This may be humorous, as Bob will be displayed wearing such outfits when serving as the narrator in story-mode. Hamster Bob is frequently on sale on the eShop. However, I feel Hamster Bob is worth the original sale price as well, for those into saccharine content such as this.

The animals are cute, but the game itself is an appalling experience. Harvest Life feels like a game that had high ambitions, but the devs lacked the budget to fulfill them. This would be endearing, if it didn't come at the sacrifice of feeling as if too many corners were cut to get this released. The framerate is extremely rough, the menus have font sized for ants, the overworld is graphically inferior to an N64 title, and there is little if any unlockable customization, aside from paywalls to remedy roadblocks. Also, this game is so poorly optimized it can turn a Nintendo Switch into an egg-fryer. I would give this game a score of 0, but the cows and chickens are too precious for that.