Class of '09: Puzzle Showdown

As a major fan of the visual novel games, this game is really bad. it feels like a mobile flash player game, the high quality character portraits don't mix well with everything else looking like something made in 2008, the high quality character portraits also makes the game feel like they were just stripped off of the internet then put together with the low quality UI elements, everything else feels really low quality too, you can literally see the pixels on a ton of text strings. The actual concept isn't even original, actually, NOTHING in this is original apart from the story (which sucks by the way), the concept, the UI, the mechanics, EVERYTHING is stolen from a pokémon game from the year 2000 The story sucks, completely unrealistic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, the past games weren't realistic either, but the whole story for this one is just 'everyone got hacked and now everyone gotta play a game' ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Characters here are suffering from flanderization (according to Wikipedia: " [i] Flanderization is the process through which a fictional character's essential traits are oversimplified and exaggerated over a serial work. it is often associated with and cited as a consequence of "jumping the shark", a term used to demonstrate a creative work's gradual decline in quality which leads to a sudden decline in popularity. [/i] ") like, every character here feels like a stereotype of themselves when compared to the other games. Can't forget the fact that some characters are completely different from their past appereances, like Kelly for example, who went from this kinda dumby ♥♥♥♥♥ girl who was nice to everyone and desperate for male attention to someone who criticizes everything in a political way, almost like Nicole, but without the anger Nicole has. The sudden switch from a underground visual novel series with a offensive and sometimes deep themes to a mobile/flash game from 2008 feels ridiculous. The game is also unbearable, never fun, either extremely difficult or extremely easy depending on the stage Overall, is this worth $20? ♥♥♥♥ no. Unless you'd like to pay $20 to play a game you could play for free in an emulator.

just go play the original or the re-up, this franchise has been going downhill ever since the flip side released :(

This is definitley rage bait. I know I spelt it wrong, but who cares? This game takes SKILL. Not to mention it keeps getting harder and the CPUs have so m,ucvh more advantage than the players. But, its somewhat fun, I guess... 4/10

Overall, I like this game. I don't usually play puzzle games like these, but given the Class of '09 theme and getting to hear lines from classic characters, it's a pretty good game. I don't think it's worth $20 since there's less story content than expected, so try to buy this on sale. Areas of strength: I like the wide variety of background music across the game menu and during the puzzles. I also like that the shock value kind of humor is still here because it's my favorite part of the entire franchise. On top of that, there's the little cheers you hear when you or the opponent get a chain combo which add even more flavor to the game. When it comes to Weekend at Kelly's, I felt that all the endings made sense for Kelly. Without spoiling, I'll say I got to every ending and thought, "Yeah, that makes sense. I see how Kelly could get here in life." The stories here were definitely more cohesive than some of the endings in Class of '09: The Flip Side. One final thing I want to add is about the difficulty. I felt the range of difficulties was good. I found myself breezing through the Nicole campaign (except spending 18 minutes against Coach Colby) without any retries, but the Emily campaign was a brutal slug, taking me 48 retries to complete. I also managed to complete the Nicole + Jecka campaign but it still took 15-20 continues or so. Cons: What would I improve? Maybe offering an in-game tutorial for those not familiar with puzzle games. Although I read all the "About" and "Credits" and "How to Play" sections before starting to play, it's unwise to assume everyone has the time or patience to read. On top of that, not everyone learns visually/by reading instructions. I. for one, learn by doing, so an in-game tutorial would make the game easier for everyone to learn. Also, "underwhelming" is the word I would use to describe the first 5 of the 6 ending cinematics. For the players not skilled enough to complete all the campaigns, it's going to feel awfully anticlimactic completing the campaigns. I too was hoping they would at least be longer. For Weekend at Kelly's, I would add a place to see which of the 8 endings you've already gotten, just like in the story trilogy games. For online multiplayer, rather than only a join-by-code system, there should also be a way for the game to match opponents based on who is currently online. This means you wouldn't have to have friends who play this game to enjoy multiplayer.

if you wanna buy the game then buy it (make sure its on sale tho), but i have several critiques. look, i ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love class of 09. the first two games in the series were amazing but the feetside only made it go downhill. - the ai of your opponents is pretty hard and you can lose within seconds if you dont instantly analyse every combo possibly in front of you. it makes the game stressful, tiring and overwhelming. it being "hard to master" was probably intentional but its ridiculous at this point on how annoying it is. weekend at kelly's is also just as evil, if not worse. - the dialogue is shallow with the same 5 repeated jokes. emily is always going on about "i love adderall" which was only funny the first time plus other examples. ari's character was just dumbed down to her saying she self harms all the time, which is HORRIBLE to people who do suffer from that. it puts a bad look on those individuals especially if people playing the game and seeing that have no idea on what a self harm addiction looks like, making them get the wrong idea and spreading misinformation on something serious. - the ui is also pretty buggy and the controls are annoying. i couldnt find any information in game (or maybe i didnt look hard enough idk) on what the controls are either and i had to try to figure them out as i was playing. i havent tested out online pvp or marathon mode tho. pvp would be better if it had a match-making system. now looking at it, the whole thing feels like a cash grab and i do regret spending $30 AUD on it, but im still going to continue playing it and try to 100% because im stingy and i dont want my money to go to waste. but i have a feeling im going to give up on it eventually. i still do like some parts and i did laugh a few times but now im just euuughhhh the music is nice, doesnt make up for anything else tho.

believe the negative reviews

This game is genuinely the worst addition to the series. It's impossible to progress through any story line without completing nearly a hundred "puzzles" to get to an ending. Every interaction is interrupted by this knock off candy crush minigame no matter which mode you play. The developers clearly stopped caring about what made Class of '09 a fun game to begin with and just want to make a trash candy crush game with ultra-short cutscenes of dialogue, which is ironic considering there's slim to none that last longer than 30 seconds. A lot of us have been anticipating the next addition to the series and for the developers to stray so far from the original idea and mechanics is immensely disrespectful and disappointing to the fans. If you want to play a puzzle game, go play a puzzle game. If you want to play a Class of '09 game, don't waste your money on this game. The characters barely get fleshed out and almost the entire game is just the candy crush sh!t. Do not expect a funny VN that you can choose how the story unfolds when you play this game. Expect an endless stream of puzzles preventing the player from progressing through the story even remotely quickly. The puzzles are not very hard, but doing 5 in a row with increasing difficulty (Weekend at Kelly's mode) after making any single decision is just absurd. Incredibly disappointed in this game and hope it's genuinely taken off steam. Bring back what the fans loved in the first place! TL;DR: I requested a refund, I wouldn't recommend buying this without the intention of returning it an hour later!

this ♥♥♥♥ is so ass, its clearly a cash grab, good lord who asked for this stupid ♥♥♥♥.

People are complaining a lot about the "lack of plot" but it's a puzzle game, not another visual novel. There are some pretty funny cutscenes and stuff and the gameplay is enjoyable. However, whoever in the reviews said that Weekend At Emily's was the best part of this game must have been paid a lot of money to say that. It's alright for the first couple stages, but the speed gets so fast towards the latter levels that you can literally lose in 1 second, no exaggeration. I was playing just thinking "there's no way this is humanly possible." It raises the win line so high by the end, it's higher than where your blocks start. That's how little confidence the game has in you beating it. That, and in the finale of the campaigns, the amount of trash rows the opponent gives to you frequently left me with literally one row of blocks to work with, like, how is that even playable?? You just have to get super lucky and hope the cpu is extra stupid one round. I know I have a lot of gripes to write about, but this is still a good review, really. So yeah, other than that it's pretty good. Something fun to play.

this game makes me want to cut off all my fingers i dont mind getting fu0cked by the crazy ass pazzle combos but like 46 speed on the 3d set of 5 come on and not just that the ♥♥♥♥ ass controls for me are now skiping over a line so i just cant play i even switched it to wasd but it still does it anyway im gonna go hang myself