Clap Hanz Golf (iOS) Review

The Masters was last week, and the golf season continues to be in full swing--and yes, that was definitely some play-on words for you there on this Sunday. SPC brings to you the first review of its kind on the site--an Apple Arcade exclusive game review. It's Clap Hanz Golf, the first self-published game from the eponymous developer, formerly of Everybody's Golf fame. Is this first solo trip to the tee for Clap Hanz a Cinderella story, or is its golf game struggling? Let's find out with the SPC review!

How about a round of applause for this great game of golf?

I love the Hot Shots Golf / Everybody's Golf series. I love it because it strikes a brilliant balance of arcade-y golf goodness and simulation-style gameplay. It also doesn't hurt that Clap Hanz hasn't really bogeyed on an entry of the series yet, and this is after nearly a dozen entries across multiple PlayStation platforms. However, now Clap Hanz is on its own with a self-published, non-Everybody's Golf round on the links, and my admiration for the developer and its prestige games was the bait that got me to bite on an Apple Arcade subscription. The studio's first--and hopefully not last--self-published game is the not-so-creatively-titled Clap Hanz Golf, essentially taking the charm, the fun, and the accessibility of the Everybody's Golf series and giving it a mobile (back)spin. The end result is a solid round of golf for pros, beginners, and everyone in between!

If you've played a Hot Shots or Everybody's Golf game in the past, then you'll no doubt feel right at home with the presentation of Clap Hanz Golf. You have your similarly cartoon-y anime-style characters to play as, though they only show personality through their movements as there is no voice acting for them. You also have the familiar HUD elements, helpful menu prompts, and much more. 

Everything is pretty much Hot Shots Golf / Everybody's Golf with a new name. Though, that's not to say it's the same golf experience on Apple Arcade. Gone is the traditional three-click / three-button-press swing system from past Clap Hanz projects, where clicking once started the gauge, a second time set the power, and the final click set the accuracy. Instead, whether you're playing via touch screen or using a compatible controller, you're using a flick system to swing, drive, chip, and putt. 

Clap Hanz Golf is essentially Everybody's Golf on Apple Arcade.

This swing system utilizes a vertical bar that has you drawing a line downward to set the strength of your upcoming shot, and then flicking upward on the screen to initiate said shot. Depending on how straight your flick upward is, that determines if your shot will be hit straight or not. Of course, things like wind velocity and lie of the ball also affect your shot's trajectory. Flicking up all the way will result in topspin for your shot, which I found happened a lot until I discovered that the game just wanted me to flick halfway up the vertical shot gauge. However, occasionally my shot would peter out quite quickly, traveling but a short distance from my golfer through doing it this way. 

Furthermore, putting is a bit challenging, and I think the developers understood this as the greens in Clap Hanz Golf are nowhere near as steep or as complicated in undulations or curves as in the Everybody's Golf series. It was difficult for me to putt straight, oftentimes resulting in frustration when putts that would otherwise be a piece of cake in any other golf game with a different swing system would find themselves just short of the hole in any number of directions. Even with a controller and flicking the right analog stick upward to putt or hit, my shots often went astray. 

The greens are rather generous, but my putting ability in this game is certainly not!

That said, I must admit that part of that is because Clap Hanz Golf isn't the most accessible golf game for someone with my condition. I suffer from tremor in my hands, so it's difficult for me to use a touch screen or hit straight consistently with a controller's analog stick. Even so, I can't say I loathed the controls of the game or found them overly frustrating.

There's a good reason for that, too. Perhaps lessening the burden of lesser skilled players or for the mobile audience, Clap Hanz Golf isn't anywhere near as challenging a game as past titles from the developer. Even earning multiple pars on holes and the occasional bogey or birdie can result in a win rather than needing to be incredibly consistent like past games. Match play rounds often saw the AI hitting their shots in errant directions or missing otherwise easy putts. And tournament rounds didn't require high scores even late in the game's primary mode.

Look at that ball fly!

While we're on the subject, Clap Hanz Golf's primary mode is Tour Mode. This mode has you collecting characters and going up the ranks by earning stars from completing different events around a world map. The higher the rank you get, the more characters, courses, and events open up to you, the more challenging the latter gets, and the more stars you earn from completing said events. 

It's a golfing expedition around the world in Tour Mode.

Rather than taking one golfer in a round in Tour Mode, Clap Hanz Golf mixes things up considerably. Instead, you take a team of golfers into a round, and on each hole, the preceding character "tags in" the next character. There's a bit of strategy involved in picking which character to use on which hole. Obviously, you don't want to select a character who can't strike the ball far to lead off on a Par 5, for instance. 

Tag! You're it and you're IN!

Aside from 3, 6, and 9 hole rounds of golf, which can be suspended at any time in a mobile gaming-minded way, there are other event types to play through as well. Match play rounds pit you and your team of golfers against one computer-controlled character. The winner of the most holes serves as the victor. If you end of winning, you get that character added to your team. There are also drive challenges and closest-to-the-pin challenges, where you and a CPU opponent both get three shots to hit as far on the fairway or as close to the hole as possible, and the average distance of all three determines the winner. Unlike tournament-style rounds, these events don't earn you stars. Instead, winning unlocks new costumes and color variants for each character. Tour Mode also throws in different rules occasionally in events, such as mirroring the courses, playing a round without any wind, or the much maligned by yours truly "bunkers are out of bounds" or worse yet, "rough is out of bounds" rules.

You can build up quite the impressive assortment of golfers, each with various unlockable costumes and color variants.

Regardless of whether you win or lose an event, it's worthwhile to play through the round. Characters that participate in an event, even they don't step onto the tee, earn experience just for being on the team. Leveling up increases their maximum driving distance by a small amount, but this adds up with continued levels earned. Additionally, each golfer has a specific ability (such as being great at playing out of bunkers) and club that they favor, allowing them to make otherwise impossible shots possible, especially on-the-fringe-chip-ins that would otherwise never happen with a 3-wood, for example. 

Speaking of an alternate costume and color variant, here's one right now.

If you want a traditional round of golf where you play as one character for the entire round, then Score Attack is the mode for you. Offering the ability to play a nine-hole round of golf on any course you've unlocked with any character you've already unlocked, this mode offers plenty of fun. Depending on your character's score on a given course, they earn a ranking, which in turn, earns them points--up to five per course. After reaching certain point thresholds, they earn new costumes and color variants. Another way to unlock additional content outside of the Tour Mode.

Touching and pinching the screen to move around the camera and zoom in/out respectively
feels quite natural on the iPhone/iPad.

Clap Hanz Golf contains plenty of fun and content to keep players enjoying themselves on the links. However, the lack of any online multiplayer or even leaderboards is a bit disappointing. (CORRECTION: I was made aware on Twitter that there are online leaderboards for Score Attack and Survival modes.) Only local multiplayer is available currently with no news on any plans for online multiplayer. Furthermore, there is no way to record memorable shots to view them later. Past Clap Hanz games have had a way to view memorable shots and holes, so it's also just as disappointing that there is no such feature in this particular game. 

Between the over 20 characters to join your golfing team, 6+ themed courses taking place in locales like New York City's Central Park or the Egyptian pyramids, and hours upon hours of thrilling golf gameplay, Clap Hanz's first foray into self-publishing is a great success. While the swing system takes a lot of getting used to, as it has a somewhat steep learning curve, the overall difficulty of the game isn't that high that it creates a ton of frustration. Sure, I wanted to curse the golf gods when yet another shot of mine went off track or I missed a simple putt, but ultimately, I kept plugging and putting away, enjoying myself with Clap Hanz Golf. 

[SPC Says: B]

Mario Kart Tour (iOS, AND) Review

Mario Kart Tour revved up its engines and roared onto mobile devices several months ago. Now, that the exhaust has settled, it's time to take a deep dive into the game two months after the game's launch. Has it improved? Is it a worthy title to spend time with? Let's get behind the steering wheel and race for the finish line with SuperPhillip Central's review of Mario Kart Tour!

More of a Tour de Farce than a Tour de Force

Nintendo's mobile offerings haven't exactly set the gaming world on fire. They're meant as more of a sampling--a tease, if you will--to get mobile players gaming on Nintendo systems by providing them with a taste of what will come from buying, say, a Switch or whatever. Between Miitomo, Super Mario Run, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Fire Emblem Heroes, and on, Nintendo's found varying degrees of success, but mostly less than satisfactory results. Nintendo hopes to change that with one of its largest properties, and instead of bringing but a small tease of Mario Kart to mobile, Mario Kart Tour is pretty much a valid Mario Kart experience in phone and tablet form. However, as we'll see with my review, a valid Mario Kart experience on mobile has plenty, and I do mean plenty of bumps in its road.

The main draw of Mario Kart Tour is its seasons. Each season in Mario Kart Tour is comprised of multiple cups of three main races and a Mario Kart DS Mission Mode-like event. The latter can be things like time trials, passing through rings, defeating as many Goombas as possible, avoiding damage, and so forth. The actual racetracks featured in Mario Kart Tour are throwbacks from Mario Kart 7's selection of new tracks and retro track selection. Few of the returning tracks from past Mario Kart games come from anywhere but Mario Kart 7, such as Mario Kart Double Dash's Yoshi's Circuit.

With regard to Mario Kart Tour's various seasons, it's not just about getting first place in a race (though that's somewhat important as is); it's about getting enough points to pass thresholds to acquire Grand Stars, which open up new cups in a given season. You earn points from doing all sorts of tasks--hitting opponents with items, performing tricks, collecting coins, and gaining hang time from flight sections of racetracks. Chaining actions together is paramount in achieving high scores on tracks. All of this adds up to a grand total, which determines how many Grand Stars you earn for that particular race.

However, Mario Kart Tour implements a system where even players who race more than adequately and cross the finish line in first place may and probably will still not have enough points to earn five Grand Stars in many races. Each track in a cup has a specific character, kart, and glider that gives different benefits for using them. The most egregious example of this comes from all tracks needing a specific racer to earn the ability to get three individual items upon driving through an item box. This can also result in a "Frenzy" when you get three of the same item, allowing you to enter invincibility and use as many of that item as you like until the effect wears off.

If you aren't fortunate to have the driver a specific track wants you to have (which you generally won't), you might be stuck with a racer who can only hold two items at once, or worse off, just one--which puts you at a severe disadvantage both race placement and point-wise. Using track recommended karts and gliders also helps in adding a bonus multiplier as well as increasing the amount of time your chain multiplier lasts. Seeing as the characters, karts, and gliders you unlock to use are mostly luck of the draw from pulls that require the use of expensive and hard-to-acquire Rubies, it can be darn difficult to stay competitive in the game.

I say "competitive", but outside of weekly tournaments where you compete against your particular tier of twenty players to see who can earn the most points in a specific cup for prizes like gold and Rubies (good luck if you don't have the "right" racers for the chosen tracks), there is no multiplayer to speak of in Mario Kart Tour. Yes, the racing series synonymous with multiplayer fun with friends and family does not yet have this feature. That said, the feature is coming, but I worry how balanced it will be (or not be) if the same rules for single player play out in multiplayer.

Of course, it wouldn't be a freemium mobile game without microtransactions and a Gacha system. Nintendo has unfortunately satisfied both conditions to be a freemium mobile game with its repulsive pricing and downright scummy odds with driver, kart, and glider pulls. Rubies are handed out like candy at first in Mario Kart Tour, but soon they become like water to a Koopa in Dry Dry Desert--incredibly hard to come across. Considering every pull in Mario Kart Tour--that is, launching a reward out of the pipe for a chance at earning something new--whether that's a new racer, kart, or glider--costs five Rubies. The odds of getting one of the featured items of each season is disgustingly low, but the odds of pulling multiple copies of characters, karts, and gliders you already possess are frustratingly high. Yes, duplicates of already possessed goodies do eventually level up your drivers and such to make them earn more points in races, but it can be absolutely deflating to make ten pulls and have nothing but lame, low rarity items to show for it.

Then, there are the microtransactions. This is Nintendo kowtowing to investors who wanted the company to go all-in on MTXs because the prices on display here are hilarious in how bold and brazen they are. For example, Mario--the character that Mario Kart is named after--once was in a pack for $20. Yes, the main character of the game isn't even available at the very start of Mario Kart Tour. You either had to get lucky and get him from a pull like I did, earn enough coins to buy him from the shop, or just give in to the evil pricing strategies being conveyed here and straight up buy the pack.

That's not even the worst of it. There's also a Gold Pass that unlocks more rewards for players for going through the various seasons. You earn more Rubies, more Gold, more goodies like drivers, karts, and gliders--but the catch here is that the Gold Pass costs $4.99. Oh, I'm sorry. I left out an important piece of information. That is $4.99 PER MONTH, a price that is insane. While you can try the Gold Pass out for a two-week trial (just be sure to cancel it before you're charged a day before the two-week trial ends), you better believe that this isn't really worth the asking price. Not by a long green shell shot.

And that's a shame that Nintendo seems to be doing everything with its pricing strategy to turn people like me off from the game, as Mario Kart Tour is rather fun. There is no real stamina system to worry about, which would otherwise limit how many times you can race per day. Instead, the amount of coins you can earn is capped at 300 per day, and the amount of experience you can earn per driver, kart, and glider is also capped at a limit per day as well.

Pretty much all of Nintendo's mobile offerings have been poor man's versions of its popular franchises. With Mario Kart Tour, you pretty much get the full experience of Mario Kart on a mobile device. Obviously, unlike say, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch, with Mario Kart Tour you're able to play with just one hand, using your finger to slide from left to right on the screen in order to steer and drift. In order to launch an item, you swipe either forwards or backwards to fire off in the desired direction. That said, it's quite a bit of a challenge to properly aim an item in the direction you want all while negotiating a turn and especially a drift.

Mario Kart Tour constantly keeps you driving forward. There's some auto-steering involved and boundaries to make for a less frustrating experience. What I mean by the latter is that in Mario Kart games where it'd be easy to fall off the course, you automatically hug curves as if there's an invisible rail keeping you on the track. The only opportunity to plummet off a track is when you're hit by an item in midair while crossing a chasm, for instance.

It can be a bit frustrating to avoid items in Mario Kart Tour, especially because racers automatically hold whatever item they have on deck right behind them. This makes it all too easy to steer into it, making your character careen off course and lose precious podium and places and seconds of time. That said, it also makes it so you don't have to hold a button down to have an item trailing behind your character for safety purposes, so there's a pro and a con with this setup.

Mario Kart Tour's tracks forgo the typical three laps that the series has seen used since Mario Kart 64. Instead, Mario Kart Tour's races are two laps each. While the amount of total tracks isn't very high, and they do repeat a lot each season, the game cleverly alters how you race on them. There are four versions of each track--a normal version, a reversed version where you drive on it backwards, a trick version that has a multitude of ramps and other places to perform point-accumulating tricks off of, and a reversed trick version.

Additionally, the "Tour" in Mario Kart Tour refers to how many of the game's seasons sport a featured track that takes place in one real world location. So far, New York, Tokyo, Paris, and London have been featured as locales with unique tracks of their own, but these haven't been too exciting overall design-wise. They're certainly appealing to look at aesthetically, but they don't get the adrenaline driving as much as I would have hoped--particularly the Tokyo track, which was quite a letdown. Hopefully, Nintendo continues bringing new tours as well as new returning tracks into the roster of races to keep things fresh, in addition to new characters, karts, and gliders.

Mario Kart Tour's tracks look absolutely delightful and brimming with color and personality. This is a mobile game that looks really good, even if it is a bit too taxing on my iPhone 5S (thus resulting in a lot of crashes--one every four or five races--before and after races). It's also quite a battery hog, quickly taking down my phone's battery, though this is somewhat remedied with the power-saving mode that helps lower the depletion on my phone's battery but downgrades the visuals severely. Sound-wise, Mario Kart Tour takes nearly all of its sound and music directly from past Mario Kart games with the only new compositions coming from menus and the new tour tracks.

Overall, it says more about how much I love Mario Kart that I can put up with the slimy Gacha and microtransaction practices than it does my delight for Mario Kart Tour. While the game is structurally sound on a gameplay note, the systems designed to inhale all of the contents from players' wallets are just horrid and completely disgusting to me, especially coming from family-friendly Nintendo. For most players, I feel Mario Kart Tour makes for a stopgap as they wait for Mario Kart 9 to come out (whenever it does--maybe even Nintendo's next system at this rate), and even then, it's a poor one. You'll most likely find yourself wishing to go back to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. As for me, I see myself sticking with Mario Kart Tour for a little while longer, hoping I don't get to a point where I'll get truly repulsed and put off from playing the game for good--but deep inside knowing that I probably will.

[SPC Says: C-]

Dan the Man (iOS, Android) Review

After today's earlier Kami 2 review, SuperPhillip Central continues to seek out interesting mobile releases with Halfbrick Studios' latest, Dan the Man. Is this game by the dev team behind Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride worthy of standing next to those great games?

Dan, Dan. Dan the Man. If he can't do it, no one can!

From the makers of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, Halfbrick Studios, comes the team's latest title, a game based on a web series, Dan the Man. Without much context to the game, the story portrayed here is a bit confusing. Who the heck is this army of characters, what's up with the two dudes-- one bald and one with a hat, and just what in the world is going on? It says something then, that even without a cohesive story to its name that Dan the Man ends up being an enjoyable platformer/beat-em-up.

One thing I was worried about with a platformer with beat-em-up combat was the touch controls. Sometimes a game of this type can be let down by its touch-based inputs. Thankfully, this is not the case with Dan the Man. All it needs is its left and right movement inputs on the left side of the screen and its attacking, jumping, and special weapon buttons on the right side. However, if you want a more traditional experience, you can use an MFI controller for analog inputs, which was my preferred way of playing. Regardless, it's great that the standard touch controls work well, and that you have the option of playing with analog inputs if you so desire.

There are 16 levels in total in Dan the Man, and they are split up among four worlds, if you will. They are quite lengthy too, usually taking at least five minutes even when rushing through them, and up to ten minutes if you're playing more leisurely or exploring levels for secret areas. I would have enjoyed more bite-sized levels for convenience's sake, but there are ample checkpoints throughout. Still, many levels can feel long in the tooth, especially with all the "fight rooms" that impede your progress until you clear out the area of enemies. At the end of each level, your point total is accumulated based on how many enemies you defeated, secret areas found, damage you took, and how many objects you broke-- true to the style of the arcade games Dan the Man is inspired by.

The story mode won't take any more than a few hours to beat. The difficulty slowly increases as you play through the levels and worlds, introducing a steady amount of new, harder, more resilient enemy types, new obstacles and hazards to concern yourself with, and more challenging platforming bits to overcome. The game being but a few hours length-wise for a first play-through makes for an adventure that doesn't overstay its welcome. In fact, you might want even more after you've vanquished the impressive and enjoyable final boss.

That's where the two alternate modes of play come in for Dan the Man. One is an arena-style brawler that pits your character in a variety of battlegrounds, needing to take out all enemies in a set amount of time to get as high as score as possible. The other mode presents daily challenges to the player, where completing them nets some rather snazzy prizes in the form of coin bonuses.

Coins are a precious commodity in Dan the Man. They have a variety of uses to them, from upgrading each of the playable characters' fighting abilities in between levels to buying helpful inventory items from in-game shops that appear frequently throughout levels. These items include things like revitalizing potions that save your bacon when your health runs out or temporary weapons like shurikens, shotguns, and even explosive RPGs.

Outside of typical platforming in Dan the Man (which some can be a bit difficult as it can be hard to distinguish what you can and can't jump on occasionally), the combat reminds me a little of the Double Dragon series. There are kicks, punches (both from the ground and in midair) to unleash on foes, as well as holds and throws, performed by holding a direction while standing close to an enemy. It's a lot fun, frenetic action that is simple enough to be learned and perform with the controls, but mindless button mashing won't do you any favors. It's all about picking your shots and thinking ahead to avoid damage.

However, not all is perfect with Dan the Man, and there are two big issues I have gameplay-wise. For one, the knockback that Dan receives upon taking damage is insane. It has Dan rocketed backward, and this is only compounded by the second issue: there are no invincibility frames for Dan. That is to say that when you take damage, you can sort of be like a pinball, bouncing off hazardous objects and projectiles to quickly find yourself killed. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it's maddening. Enemies also get knocked back from punches, so both the player and enemies are on even ground there, but at the same time, enemies don't have to go the entire level.

Still, death isn't a major blow to the player. Through watching a video or playing 200 in-game coins, you can revive yourself from the last checkpoint you came across. Most checkpoint signposts where progress is saved let you pass by freely, but sometimes a 30-second ad plays. These can be removed entirely by paying the premium price of $2.99. This also results in statues bestowing you with rewards when you pass by them instead of needing to break them and watch their videos to get the same reward. Other in-app purchases consist of new playable characters and bundles of coins. None of these IAPs are required to enjoy Dan the Man.

With Dan the Man, Halfbrick Studios has successfully created another winner. With a fair ad and pricing model, satisfying gameplay in both its brawling and its platforming, beautiful art, and respectable level design, Dan the Man delights in many ways. Yes, some of the gameplay issues do detract from the experience, and levels can be a bit too lengthy, but overall, Dan the Man is a short but sweet adventure from beginning to end.

[SPC Says: B]

Kami 2 (iOS) Review

Two years ago I took a look at Kami, which released on the Nintendo 3DS as well as mobile platforms. Now it's 2017 and its sequel, Kami 2, has unfolded onto the App Store. With easily digestible puzzles and new features, Kami 2 is a definite improvement to the foundation built by the original game.

Into the Fold

With puzzle games, developers can fall into the trap of not providing much in a sequel to distinguish itself from the original game. Kami 2 falls into such a trap gameplay-wise, but in the realm of content, the game brings enough newness to its sequel to make it a worthwhile download, especially at its free price.

As stated, Kami 2's gameplay remains unchanged from its predecessor. You get a screen-long series of differently colored shapes, and you essentially have to use your finger as a fill tool to paint the entire screen in one color in as few moves as possible. Tapping one segment of the screen will transform it in one color. Instead of paint filling the areas, the origami-inspired aesthetic results in the filled areas folding up like paper. Both the process visually and hearing the paper rustle as it folds are ultra satisfying to the senses.

If you succeed in completely a given puzzle at par (or the required amount of moves), you earn a Perfect Badge. Earning enough of these unlocks new batches of levels that are increasingly more challenging to solve.

Kami 2 feels a bit like an expansion pack of sorts. It's the same base game but with over 100 levels to solve, which have to be solved in a set order (in this case, by batches of six levels). The extra included content makes the game shine even brighter. From the aforementioned 100 levels in Journey mode, daily puzzles that appear for completion, and the ability to create as well as share your own Kami-style puzzles with the world (you unlock more color varieties by playing through Journey mode), the extra content available in Kami 2 makes for an appealing package.

So, what's the catch? Well, Kami 2 doesn't have one with regards to its pricing strategy. Being free, you might expect ads being shoved in your face, some sort of energy meter that restricts how many levels you can play for a specific period of time, and things of that sort, but Kami 2 has none of that. Yes, the daily puzzles and the create mode require an online connection, which isn't too baffling, but Journey mode can have its entirety be played offline. The only charge of money comes from when you want to buy a new batch of colors for the create mode or need a hint for a particular puzzle

That said, you might need hints, as Kami 2 can become mighty difficult. While beginning puzzles require just a few moves at most to complete, later levels force you to perform 10 or more moves. This brings up a problem with the game, and that is that on puzzles with an enormous amount of necessary moves, you will no doubt make a mistake or several. There is no option to undo a move or series of moves. Instead, you're forced to restart the puzzle from scratch. This is not only tedious and time-consuming, but it can make solving puzzles much harder to do, as it's troublesome to remember the order of the moves you made when you SO close to solving a given level.

Journey mode can sort of feel like you're going through the motions by the halfway point, and it can feel a bit repetitive. A sense of joy I found in Kami 2 came in the levels crafted by members of the Kami 2 community. New levels pop up routinely, offering an active community filled with creative creators. You can apply different filters to weed out the types of puzzles you don't want to play, and you can like specific puzzles to help curate what puzzles stand out to other players. Creating your own puzzles is an easy process. It just requires you to solve the puzzle you made yourself, complete with setting a par amount of moves based on how many moves it took for you to complete your puzzle.

Kami 2 is a consumer-friendly game that doesn't get in the way of players' fun and engagement with the title. Its 100+ puzzles in Journey mode provide a great deal of content if you can stomach to play them all, but some quality of life improvements could have been made to make for a less bothersome experience when attempting to solve particular puzzles. The daily puzzles and create modes offer even more longevity with its constant influx of creative levels by the community. You can't beat a free price tag, so the problems in which Kami 2 couldn't really spoil my fun as much as they could have.

[SPC Says: B-]

Red's Kingdom (iOS, Android, PC) Review

Before we close out this week's activity here at SuperPhillip Central, we have a review of a game that released last month on iOS and Android devices as well as PC. It's Red's Kingdom, a unique take on the sliding puzzle mechanic found in other games. Is it fun, or will it drive you nutty? Let's find out with the SuperPhillip Central review.

Backtracking again? Aw, nuts.

Sometimes developers need not come up with a wholly brand-new gameplay mechanic to create a novel experience. Sometimes it's just taking one mechanic and introducing it with some new dressing or with a completely different structure than the norm to create a fresh experience. That's what Cobra Mobile's Red's Kingdom does, and while it isn't totally successful with their approach, the overall game is worthy of checking out, especially for its low price.

The main gameplay mechanic of Red's Kingdom isn't that new of an idea. You control Red by swiping in one of four directions, and Red rolls continuously in that direction until he hits a solid object. As I said, the idea isn't really novel, but the structure of the game is. Instead of being a linear level-based affair, Red's Kingdom takes place in a wholly interconnected world. While this quite cool, it also becomes one of the main issues with the game, which I'll cover later.

Red's Kingdom has players moving from room to room, whether indoor or outdoor, by finding the correct path through them. This means to clear each room you'll have to do the correct combination of rolls to reach the exit. Sometimes there are multiple exits to take, which offers some exploration into the fold. Often, going off the beaten path can have you come across hidden goodies like a heart in a jar, where collecting three of these increases Red's health by one heart.

The beginning of Red's journey sees him rolling his way to this castle.

Starting off, you simply roll around rooms until you find the right means to reach its exit. As you go through the game, you'll find that the developers add multiple new hazards and obstacles into the game to keep things interesting and engaging. These range from buttons that open doors, levers that alternate between raising and lower red and blue blocks, puddles of sticky tar that stop Red right in his tracks no matter if there's a solid object nearby or not, and ramps that send Red flying over chasms.

There is a Metroid-style influence also found in Red's Kingdom. In the game, Red will come across certain items that allow him to access previously unreachable areas. For instance, early in the game Red will meet up with a fellow squirrel who will give him a medallion. With this medallion Red is able to deal damage to enemies that were once invincible to his rolls. Attacking enemies is as easy as rolling into them, but if you're only doing this, you also take damage. Thus, there is a cool technique the game teaches you, and that is to tap the screen right before Red rolls into a given enemy to deal a critical hit and take zero damage from rolling into the foe. Another item grants Red the power to roll into pink plants that spit him out to reach otherwise inaccessible locations.

Enemies can be rolled into, but if you don't tap the screen
before barreling into them, Red will take damage.

For some of the secret goodies to be found in Red's Kingdom, you'll have to travel back to previous areas to use your new acquired item or ability to get them. Here comes a host of the game's problems. For one, backtracking in Red's Kingdom isn't as simple as say, The Legend of Zelda, where you can just run through a room. Instead, Red's Kingdom requires you to essentially solve a puzzle by navigating through each room by rolling from solid object to solid object until you finally reach the exit. The requirement to resolve rooms gets very tedious very quickly.

Another problem with Red's Kingdom is that many of the areas of the game look similar to one another, especially dungeon areas. It can mighty difficult recalling which dungeon or even outdoor section of the game's overworld contains the destination you wish to go to. "Now, where was that section of the world where that one spitting plant leading to that hidden chest I'm missing?" Questions like that will occur often, and since the world of Red's Kingdom is such a maze full of annoying backtracking, this becomes a serious problem.

What there is of the story is lighthearted fare that doesn't interrupt the gameplay too terribly much.

All this would be fine if the save system was adequate. In its state, however, it's really not. Red's Kingdom automatically saves when you cross save icons in specific rooms. It also saves when you reach various transporters strewn throughout the world that allow you to travel to any other transporter you've already discovered. The problem with the former is that you find yourself in the wrong area of the game (again, easily done as a lot of areas are indistinguishable from one another), you can't just quit to a point from where you were transported because the game automatically saved when you rolled over a save icon-- usually one deep in an area. This means you have to backtrack all the way through an area just to reach the transporter to hopefully warp to the correct area.

Red's Kingdom sports an isometric view that generally works well. However, sometimes parts of the scenery can be obscured by other objects, making it hard to get a full grip on the room you're currently in. There were more than a couple of occasions where I aimlessly rolled around not knowing what to do until I finally saw a lever that could be barely be seen due to being obscured by another object.

An issue with the isometric view that I'm glad the developers got right is the ability to hold the touch screen to show dotted lines that represent all the paths Red can roll. This is crucial to use when there are multiple elevations to take in account as well as damaging hazards like enemies, pools of dangerous liquid, or spiked barrels. Having the dotted lines show what Red will be stopped by or will run into makes the isometric view much less of a bother than it could have been.

For rooms with different elevations, it's good to get a grip on where Red will roll.

Red's Kingdom delivers a delightful visual package with 3D rendered graphics and detailed environments, whether outdoor with its lush vegetation or inside with its well done lighting effects, offering radiant auras that illuminate corners of the otherwise dank dungeons. The handful of animated scenes in Red's Kingdom are also pleasant to look at and cute to boot. What isn't so pleasant is the soundtrack. The song you'll hear the most in the game that features the bagpipe really grates on the ears after a few play-throughs. Now, imagine hearing it repeatedly as you frequent the area it plays in.

Overall, Red's Kingdom has its fair share of problems from the tedium of backtracking, the need to resolve rooms during said backtracking, areas that look too similar to one another, the maze that is the interconnected world, and an imperfect save system. However, even with all of those faults, Red's Kingdom offers an adorable adventure that will test your brain and sometimes even your reflexes. While the overworld structure of Red's Kingdom doesn't really work for a sliding puzzle game of this type, it's far from a bad game. It's just not a particularly great one.

[SPC Says: C+]

Super Mario Run and the Devaluation of Gaming

Super Mario Run released this past Friday on the iOS App Store in a wide variety of countries. It was downloaded nearly 25 million times in its first four days and currently holds the number one position on the App Store in many territories. However, while somewhat a success, this didn't stop Nintendo's stock price from falling after Super Mario Run's release, regardless of how fickle investors and the stock market are. A main complaint about the game is its $9.99 price. However, a game on any other platform (i.e. not mobile) would be comfortable with an asking price like this for a game with as much content as this, say on Wii U or Nintendo 3DS, for instance. The disparity between the console/handheld market and the mobile gaming market is tremendous, and the desire of mobile consumers for games to be cheap and/or free is one that hurts the medium immensely.

One of major things that disturbs me about the people complaining about the pricing of Super Mario Run is that they seem that they would be more satisfied if the game was free but riddled with microtransactions. It appears that a pricing model where players would be able to play a level or two, exhaust a play bar of some type, and then either wait for the bar to fill back up after some-odd amount of hours or pay to get more lives and time with the game.

This makes me confused because I thought microtransactions were seen as a cancer to gaming. It's one of things that puts off a lot of gamers to mobile gaming. Going after whales (i.e. those who spend ridiculous amounts of money on otherwise free mobile games) was not Nintendo's M.O. Sure, its investors and stockholders would love for Nintendo to nickle and dime players because they don't really care if consumers are screwed over. They just want their bottom line improved, and their pockets made fuller and richer, but Nintendo made it clear what the pricing strategy was. Thus, it's strange how many gamers would have preferred it if Nintendo went with a more typical pricing formula.

With a $10 one-time-only purchase, the full version of Super Mario Run is available. There's no need to wait for some annoying play bar to refill so you can continue playing the game or keep putting money into the game. That was Nintendo's intent to not con consumers. If you think the $10 price tag is too much, that's not the fault of Nintendo. It's the mobile market to blame here, where sizable games with tons of content and features are demanded by mobile consumers to either cost pennies or to be free. The latter is usually what this market desires.

It's the mobile market that has continuously devalued games, making consumers feel entitled to cheap games no matter how much content and how much care was put into them. It is a market where people would rather spend dozens upon dozens of dollars on microtransactions and more plays instead of having a one-time cost that would give them the entirety of the game to play whenever they want (except on a subway or in an airplane-- those are no-nos thanks to the always-online requirement of Super Mario Run, a subject for another day). It's a frontier that is quite disheartening and more so very scary.

We had people who paid for Monument Valley when it released a few years back on mobile (for a very low price, by the way), and then these same people felt cheated and furious because the developer dare add an expansive amount of content to the game in new levels for a tiny fee in order to make some money from the game's development. How dare they! How dare a developer ask for money for months, maybe years of work!

When we have people wishing Nintendo had decided to stuff countless microtransactions instead of giving a full experience on the iPhone or iPad, it really shows how screwed up the mindset of mobile consumers and how crazy the mobile marketplace truly are. The majority of negative reviews of Super Mario Run complain about the game costing money. That's how bad it is on mobile-- people really do feel entitled to get everything free from the hard work, blood, sweat, and tears developers of all types making these types of games. And I'm talking about smaller devs who are nowhere near the behemoth size of Nintendo.

While Pokemon GO was a success for Nintendo in that it got a lot of people re-energized with Pokemon, buying Nintendo 3DS systems for new and old Pokemon games-- something the late president of Nintendo Satoru Iwata wanted and why Nintendo went mobile in the first place-- it is of course yet to be seen if Super Mario Run will have such an effect on consumers. Regardless of whether you think Super Mario Run is a success, worth the asking price, or even a quality game, it's rather disappointing that a good sect of mobile gaming consumers want nothing for something, no matter how special, fun, or worth the price it is.

Disney Crossy Road (iOS, Android) Review

I started covering mobile games at SuperPhillip Central in February after a long time coming, and since then, I've been quite busy preparing new mobile games for review. The market is absolutely saturated, so it's hard to get an idea of the good, polished games from the rubbish. Disney Crossy Road is one of the good, polished games. Certainly not rubbish, as you'll be able to tell with my review.

Why did the mouse cross the road? To get a high score!

I'm not a huge Disney aficionado, but I can't lie and say that Disney doesn't have some place in my heart, as corny and dramatic as that sounds. I love a good animated yarn, whether it's Hercules, Aladdin, or my personal favorite, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Of course, Disney Crossy Road doesn't have any of those franchises in them, but the game is ever-expanding anyway, so maybe some day. Even still, the movies that it does contain are wide and varied, offering a robust roster of characters for each in wonderful voxel form.

Upon reading the title of this game (and assuming you know what Crossy Road in general is), you should know what to expect from it. You move diagonally through multiple lanes of traffic, hoping to avoid getting squashed or run over by an obstacle as one of many Disney characters in various Disney environments. It's simply Crossy Road with a Disney flavor, right?

Well, yes and no. The addictive quality of Disney Crossy Road comes from acquiring new characters with the Gacha machine, giving you one turn at it for every 100 coins you collect. This is done by waiting a specific amount of time until you're rewarded money and collecting coins strewn about the game's levels. With any Gacha machine, some characters are easier to get than others.

Because why should that blasted chicken get all the fun?

When you unlock a new character, you're not just getting a new figure to look at and admire. Depending on which series that character you earn is from, whether it be Mickey Mouse, Toy Story, Tangled, The Haunted Mansion, or Inside Out, to name a handful, the course you play is different. The Haunted Mansion houses dark corridors that need you to touch lights in order to brighten up the room, enabling you to get a better view of upcoming obstacles. Meanwhile, Tangled has a forest setting with rolling barrels that hurdle towards the player that much be evaded. Having different levels types based on the series your character is from makes you want to collect as many characters as possible from as many series as possible. It makes something already addicting even more so.

A racetrack so sweet that it'll give you cavities.

Those who know Crossy Road's gameplay will feel right at home, and those who don't will still find themselves welcomed thanks to the intuitive control system. You tap the screen to move your character forward and swipe left and right to move your character in that direction. It's a simple, easy, and accessible control method that most anyone can use.

There are two main goals in Disney Crossy Road, and they are to gain a high score-- each movie has a different personal best high score to keep improving on (or at least try to keep improving on)-- and to amass a collection of characters. The former's longevity comes from how much you enjoy setting high scores or not, while the latter is much more engaging, making you want to keep playing to build up your coin amount and character collection.

Egad! A stampede! Find your bearings and cross when it's safe, or SPLAT!

While Disney Crossy Road is free it does offer some in-app purchases to unlock characters more quickly. For instance, buying Hamm from Toy Story for $4.99 (USD) gives any character you play as a faster accumulation of coins. Additionally and occasionally the game will show a character you can purchase with real world money in-between plays.

Disney Crossy Road is fantastic for its free price, and can easily be played without investing a dime. However, if you want to unlock characters at a swifter speed and pace, then you have that option. Otherwise, beating your personal best high scores for each movies' obstacle course and building up your character collection are things that will keep you coming back for more.

[SPC Says: B+]

Better Late Than Never Reviews: Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (iOS, Android) Review

Time for a new Better Late Than Never review, a review for a game that has been out for a long while, but not old enough to be a retro review. It's for a mobile version of a kart racer I absolutely adore, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. How does it handle on iOS and Android devices? Let's find out together (even though I wrote the review and already know the answer).

Why did the hedgehog drive a car? It's not a riddle. Really I don't know why.

One of my favorite mascot kart racers of all time is Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, which released on last generation consoles and even the Nintendo DS. This obviously made me want to experience the mobile version of the game, as my fan fever for the racing series is as high as ever. While the mobile versions of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing has more in common with the DS version than the console versions, the game is overall a pleasant kart racer for iOS and Android device owners to entertain themselves with.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing offers multiple modes for its relatively low price. The Grand Prix offers four cups and three difficulties that have to be unlocked. Thus, you start at the Chao Cup on the easy difficulty, and once that is completed, the next cup is available for you to play.

The graphics of this game are a compromise between the Nintendo DS and home console versions.

One really annoying part of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is its highly frustrating competitor AI, especially in later difficulties such as normal. The AI loves attacking you with homing missiles, and it seems like it happens so much that you can seldom get a good lead going because of this artificial means of difficulty. It makes races closer than they should be, and sometimes you'll be cursing the game and the AI because of how seemingly cheap it is. Thankfully, clearing all of the difficulties and cups in the Grand Prix mode isn't necessary to get all of the achievements of the game, if you're into such a thing.

The AI is highly aggressive in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing's mobile versions... and highly annoying.

Another mode offered in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is the Mission mode. This mode puts you in different scenarios with the task of earning up to ten stars based on how you do. For instance, you might have to drive through as many gates as you can in an arena before time runs out, or play as Sonic, carefully aiming and shooting at creatures resting on the track, hoping to reach the goal in a set amount of time. The missions are quite fun and add some nice twists to the otherwise standard racing formula.

The Super Monkey Ball tracks require the most technique with their many sharp turns.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing on iPhone, iPad, and Android devices uses two methods of control. The first is tilting your smartphone and tablet to steer. The other is a virtual analog stick to drive about and navigate the game's many twists and turns. Either works well, though you get more precision with the virtual analog stick than you do with tilt controls, which feel a little loose. Item use and drifting are done by pressing buttons on the touch screen. There are three stages of drifting, and drifting longer around a turn or corner results in a bigger boost once you let go of the drift button. Just be careful to not crash into a wall while drifting, or the effects of your boost will be negated.

Sega Miles is the currency of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, earned from participating in races, grand prix events, and missions. You use this currency to purchase in-game items such as new characters and race tracks for use in Single Race and Time Trial modes. Compared to the console versions of the game, the prices are considerably higher, and that is probably as an incentive to get players to use real world money to buy Sega Miles. While this isn't necessary at all, it can be quite a grind to earn enough Miles to purchase everything the game has to offer.

Unlock new racers with the use of Sega Miles, the currency of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.

Speaking of the tracks, there are sixteen from various Sega series, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Samba de Amigo, Jet Set Radio, Billy Hatcher, Super Monkey Ball, and The House of the Dead. A good number of tracks are taken directly from the home console versions, but the majority of tracks are specifically made for this mobile version. Some feature shortcuts, but this is rare unfortunately. Otherwise you're just speeding around linear tracks with very little to enjoy.

Use items like these boost-granting speed shoes to gain a slight edge over your tough opponents.

In the realm of multiplayer, what is offered is a bit limited. There is online play, but it's difficult to find any opponents, obviously due to how old this game is by now. There is also local multiplayer for multiple owners of iOS or Android devices to race each other.

Each racer has a chance for an all-star ability if they get too far behind the competition.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing isn't that much of a looker, using a lot more simplistic models than I would have expected for an iOS and Android game. The tracks and environments aren't too shabby texture-wise, and the draw distance is really good. It all runs at a firm frame-rate, too. Sound-wise you get all the same voice clips from the console versions and you get track music from other franchise games. The only difference here is that you cannot choose what song is played on a given track. This is because only one song is played per track. A disappointment, but understandable for this lesser version of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.

If you don't mind the infuriating AI or the need to grind for Sega Miles to unlock content, what you'll get is a very capable kart racer on mobile devices that plays better than it looks. The online may be a ghost town, but the single player content you can enjoy is pretty loaded with things to do, whether it be the Grand Prix events, Mission mode, or the Time Trials. While nowhere near the caliber of its console bigger brother, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing on mobile is a nice port that offers a good deal of fun.

[SPC Says: C+]

Adventures of Mana (iOS, Android) Review

The first review of April for SuperPhillip Central delves into a mobile game that released not too long ago. It's an action-RPG that is a remake of a Game Boy classic. It's Adventures of Mana, and here's the SuperPhillip Central review.

What a mana, what a mana, what a mana, what a mighty good mana.

In 1991, a Game Boy title called Final Fantasy Adventure released in the Americas. It's otherwise known in Japan as Seiken Densetsu, or in Europe as Mystic Quest (note that that is not the same Mystic Quest as what North America got on the Super Nintendo). Regardless, now that game of all games has gotten the remake treatment from Square Enix, and unlike its many re-releases of past games on mobile, such as its collection of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest installments, the remake of Final Fantasy Adventure, Adventures of Mana, has a good deal of new qualities to it that makes it worth its rather expensive price tag (at least for a mobile game) of $13.99.

Final Fantasy Adventure has already seen a remake of sorts in the form of the Game Boy Advance's Sword of Mana, and while that title introduced a lot of parts to it that dragged the experience to a slow crawl-- mostly referring to the added story elements-- Adventures of Mana is as straightforward a remake as you can get. The game is fast-paced, light on story for the most part, and it doesn't really hold your hand.

What story Adventures of Mana has is unobtrusive and light.

The most obvious change between Final Fantasy Adventure and Adventures of Mana is the amazingly rendered 3D graphics. No more are you just limited to simple black and white sprites and backgrounds. Areas are ripe with color, and the characters get the most out of the new 3D visuals, offering extravagantly detailed models that look amazing. Furthermore, Kenji Ito's original game score of catchy beeps and boops on the Game Boy has been given a glorious symphonic makeover as well, making an already great soundtrack even better.

Other alterations made from the Game Boy original to this new iOS and Android version are a quicksave feature that can mess with you in multiple ways (one being if you are poisoned and die after entering a room; since the quicksave saves after entering each room, when you load your quicksave, you'll end up loading the time where you die), achievement support via Game Center, and MFi controller support, my preferred way of playing Adventures of Mana. Otherwise I found myself accidentally running into enemies and traps when I didn't want to because of the less than perfectly precise virtual analog stick.

The world map and dungeons are full of ferocious foes to take on and overcome.

The closest game I can compare Adventures of Mana is The Legend of Zelda, the NES original, that is. You move from screen to screen on the world map, though enemies do spawn on the screen a second or two after the screen has loaded, making it easy to have a foe spawn on top of you if you're rushing, While The Legend of Zelda was much more about the freedom to explore anywhere you wanted on the overworld, Adventures of Mana is more linear in its exploration. There is generally but one way to go, so you're seldom wondering where you have to go. It's usually that you overlooked something in the environment or in a dungeon. However, as you progress in Adventures of Mana, eventually you gain the use of a Chocobo (this was a Final Fantasy game at first, of course) and eventually are able to swim across bodies of water, being fully able to explore the map. This obviously opens up the game immensely.

When you're not exploring the world map, you're entering inside towns and dungeons. The former is just an excuse to stock up on items like helpful health-restoring potions, magic-restoring ethers, door-unlocking keys, and mattocks to bust open cracked walls in dungeons with. It can be rather frustrating to run out of keys and mattocks in the middle of a dungeon, making you have to be forced to leave said dungeon and return to a town to stock back up.

Dungeons are home to many battles to win and puzzles to solve.

Regardless, Adventures of Mana offers light puzzle elements in dungeons, usually requiring the defeat of all enemies in a room or the use of buttons that need to be pressed or held down. The latter is done by freezing an enemy with the Blizzard magic and pushing the frozen snowman of an enemy on top of a button to hold it down, thus leaving the way to the exit of a dungeon room wide open.

Outside of items, you earn weapons to progress through Adventures of Mana as well. There are chains that allow you to swing them around posts to pull yourself across gaps, morningstars that destroy heavily armored foes and rocks, and axes that cut through trees like butter to provide a passage through areas. Not only are weapons great for solving simple environmental puzzles, but different weapons are useful on different enemies. Some won't flinch at all to a sword attack, but use a sickle on them, and they'll be crying home to their mamas. Well, not literally in any case.

Boss battles like this are quite common in Adventures of Mana.

In addition to new weapons, you earn new armor and shields, too, to boost your defense. Through defeating enemies you also gain experience points that boost your level, rewarding you with a pick of four stats to upgrade by choosing between a Warrior, Monk, Black Mage, or White Mage path upon leveling up. Magic is also earned throughout Adventures of Mana, making the journey all the more convenient, allowing you to use attack magic and helpful support magic like the ability to heal HP and cure status ailments like poison and petrification.

Use the intuitive menu to switch between equipment, items, and magic.

Adventures of Mana isn't an extraordinarily long game, but it also doesn't overstay its welcome. My initial run through the game took about nine hours total. There's the aforementioned achievements via Game Center to keep you coming back for more (collecting every weapon, every magic spell, every helmet, every armor, etc.), and the game is just a blast to play anyway, so multiple play-throughs definitely don't hurt.

For a remake, Adventures of Mana definitely brings enough new to the table to make it modern enough for today's market. It still offers some old school eccentricities, a lack of hand-holding, and some occasionally obtuse means of progressing. Nonetheless, if you're searching for an engaging action-RPG that isn't overly difficult, features great visuals and music, and plays great, Adventures of Mana is definitely an adventure worth embarking on.

[SPC Says: A-]