This is a collection of minigames. Some people will enjoy this, but it's not my cup of tea, and I figured I'd share why. The biggest problem for me is that these are very "middling" games. The games are simple enough that I don't want to devote the time to mastering each one, but are more complex than a simple arcade game. The difficulty is above what would be considered a "casual" game, but not actually hard enough to give satisfaction for moving ahead.
My thoughts on each game follow:
[b]Super Clew Land:[/b] Mario meets Darwin meets Dr. Mario. You have to search around to find food to eat, and then have to use arrow keys to assign that food based on color to different directions (for multiple colors, order matters). Once you "fill up" your stomach, it increases your evolution bar towards jumping, swimming, etc. Most of the movement is slower than is typically fun for this kind of one-touch kills platformer. Especially annoying is that you lose all evolution progress between save points, despite that multiple prey items are typically found between save points. Platformers like Mario at least have a sense of frenetic pace to your ability to move quickly and time quick openings. The sluggish pace of the character in this, however, feels like Mario in molasses.
[b]End of Line:[/b] This is my favorite of the mini-games. It's a simple'ish puzzle game around robot suicide. Your goal is to die. There are several medical robots around that will repair you, though, so you have to figure out how to off all the other bots on the level, and then off yourself. The puzzle aspect is fun, but after a while it becomes more about timing than strategy, and like many minigames, the character is sluggish enough that this is more frustrating than satisfying.
[b]Gaia-ttack:[/b] A tower-climb fighting game, but with janky controls. This character finally platforms more like a Mario game, but in a genre that really shouldn't, as you slip and slide right into the enemies. Your attacks are a punch smaller than your body and distinctly in front of you, while enemies hurt you just by touching you. Enemies also parachute in from the ceiling, even when you're trying to climb a small scrolling screen that has insta-death at the bottom - that is, with zero reaction time to dodge as they spawn basically on top of you.
[b]Paradox Lost:[/b] Metroidvania inspired by the original Metroid. It's slightly frustrating that you don't get any kind of gun until after the first boss (who drops his gun). I would have played it more if not for the insane control of having a button to reset to the last save right where the map button usually is on other games. Just finished the boss and want to check the map? Oops, you just reset to [i]before[/i] you beat the boss. Have fun replaying it again. That control alone made me stop playing this minigame.
[b]Wub-Wub Wescue:[/b] Again with the ultra-sluggish characters! This one's dialed up to 11! Even on top of that, fall damage is so exacting that even dropping from one platform to another (a standard distance to just jump between in most platformers) is instant death. I suppose this isn't unrealistic for a pug (as dogs aren't exactly built for jumps/falls), but since when has realism been a concern in Platformers of all genres?
[b]Brains & Hearts:[/b] Simple card game, nothing to write home about. It's kind of like a cross between checkers, scrabble, and traditional playing cards. Your goal is to capture the opponent's cards via making runs (ascending or descending), with only 2-7 (and "Wormhole" cards, W, which act like Aces in being both high and low). Making runs removes your opponents cards but not your own. Like much of this pack, it's very "middling" - the rules are complex enough that it's not easy to just pick up and play, but it also doesn't have the depth to really capture my interest.
[b]Shuten:[/b] A shmup/bullet hell minigame, but flavored as fighting off ninja and oni. It's not a terrible game, but suffers from again being a bit more sluggish than is typical of its genre. The ability to deflect enemy projectiles with your sword, and the ability to "steal" enemy powers to get new attack types (instead of being random powerups) is an interesting twist. This is one of my top two for this minigame pack, but given a choice between this and a dedicated Shmup, I'd take the dedicated game any time.
[b]Conclusions:[/b]
For $10, this game is a good deal. You can potentially get a lot of game time out of a pretty cheap game, given this is basically 7 games for less than $2 each. That said, to some degree, you're getting what you pay for. If you're tight on cash or want a quick variety pack, this is a good option. If you particularly like any of the given genres, I'd recommend buying a dedicated game in that genre, as they will no doubt have longer/deeper gameplay and generally have more responsive controls.
Personally, I probably won't play this game any more now that I've sampled each minigame, and that's why my overall review is a negative one. Maybe some day I'll come back to it, but nothing in any of the seven games caught me enough to go into any greater depth. Paradox Lost is the most likely candidate to bring me back eventually, though I'm much more likely to go for a dedicated metroidvania title that [i]doesn't[/i] have a "shoot yourself in the foot" button.
