Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia (PS5, NSW, XBS, PC) Review

It's a Marsupilami kind of Monday here at SuperPhillip Central. That's because it's time to check out the sequel to Marsupilami: Hoobadventure, a Donkey Kong Country-style game I really enjoyed. Check out that game's review from August 2024, if you'd like, HERE. 

Otherwise, sit back and enjoy this new review of that game's recently released sequel: Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia. HOOBA! 

Pure Palombian Platforming

My knowledge on Marsupilami is admittedly quite narrow and limited. Really, I only knew of the yellow, long-tailed character from the Disney-produced series of the 1990s and a little-known Sega Genesis game. However, Marsupilami goes way beyond that as a franchise, debuting in Belgian comics in 1952. Since then, the character's popularity mostly sticks and is situated in Europe, more specifically in France and Belgium where the character originated. That said, Marsupilami has taken quite a storm as a multimedia franchise, appearing in cartoons, movies, and yes, video games.

The latter I'm most familiar with, having played Marsupilami: Hoobadventure several years ago--a surprisingly enjoyable, highly competent and capable Donkey Kong Country-like platformer. Now, Ocellus Studio brings out a sequel: Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia, with a meatier adventure, three playable characters, and local co-op. 

Right from the get-go before the gameplay even occurs, Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia doesn't hide its Donkey Kong Country inspirations and influences all that well. Whether that's intentional or not is up in the air. Nevertheless, even its simple story is reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country Returns, where a strange and mystic melody begins playing within the jungles of Palombia, the home to our Marsupilami heroes Twister, Hope, and Punch. This melody puts all of the local wildlife into what essentially boils down to a trance making them all dance, which causes nothing but havoc all around the nearby islands. To put a stop to the melody and the one who started it, the Mummy Queen--villain of the first game--our trio of long-tailed protagonists have platforming adventures through four unique worlds ahead of them.

From there, the first level of the game, Palombia Skies, introduces players to the action. As I moved through the utterly gorgeous sunset-soaked skies of the jungle background and hear the boisterous flute main melody and tribal beats backing it, I was pretty impressed. The tutorial is limited to this level, showing button prompts for everything from jumping, rolling, ground pounding, wall jumping and climbing, grabbing and swinging, as well as a new mechanic debuting in Marsupilami 2, that of the different playable characters.

Our heroes' lengthy tails can grab onto latches, hooks, and swings, as well as smack down foes.

In the original Marsupilami from Ocellus Studio, Twister was the main playable character, and even in this sequel, he's learned some new tricks. More on those shortly. With a press of the top face button, you switch between characters on the fly, one of two different protagonists. Each level automatically chooses the two characters you play as, while the third is temporarily left out. This is because all levels are designed for specific members of the Marsupilami crew. Plus, I imagine it'd be mighty confusing to have to cycle between three different characters on the fly, or at least quite a bit clunky.

Regardless, each Marsupilami has their own special abilities. Twister, our yellow-furred friend from the first game has those previously mentioned new tricks. He can dive forward and twist in the air, gaining some invincibility frames in the process to pass through enemies, and can also spin his tail after to slowly descend to the ground and hover across chasms. 

Hope springs eternal. She also springs into action in this Rail Graveyard level!

Meanwhile, Hope has no power of flight (or hovering, as it were), but can instead double jump. She can spin in the air to slowly make her descent, as well as spin off the heads of the Zinger-like bat enemies in the game, that would otherwise harm her and any other of our heroes. Last but not least is the decidedly unwieldy Punch, who can wrap himself into a big ball and bounce about. Spikes and thorns are no danger when in this form. Controlling this bouncy ball of Marsupilami isn't the greatest aspect of the game, as there is quite the learning curve.

At any rate, with two Marsupilami able to be cycled between with the press of a button, it opens up the level design quite a bit. There is more complex design to be discovered in this sequel to Hoobadventure, and to be fair, Salsa Palombia's predecessor wasn't exactly weak in its levels. But here, in this sequel, there are a lot of fun ideas, challenging platforming here and there, and plenty of well-hidden secrets, too. One level you'll be avoiding the snapping jaws of carnivorous plants within the jungle, while another you'll be evading and sometimes even using traffic to your advantage to reach hard-to-reach areas in a beautiful city setting. 

Whatever level you find yourself in, you're due for a rather breezy challenge to start, but by the endgame, the platforming gets a little taxing. It's never so much that it seems like a giant difficulty jump either. Salsa Palombia does a great job in easing the player into its platforming challenges. 

And sure, running, rolling, and jumping through levels is simple enough. If you're going straight from start to finish, the levels might not trip you up too terribly much. With that said, you're not only cheating yourself out of the myriad secrets and collectibles to nab in levels, but you'll probably hit a roadblock, too. That is because each island's boss in Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia requires at least 40 Musical Notes to unlock. It's similar to Super Mario 3D Land or 3D World in how you needed to collect a certain amount of Star Coins or Green Stars respectively to open up levels, or else you'd be blocked from progressing until you gathered the required amount to continue. That's the case for Salsa Palombia as well.  

An example of one of the many Musical Notes to find and collect for our Marsupilami friends.

There are 13 Musical Notes available in each level of the game. Five of these are located within a given level themselves, two are rewarded from completing Donkey Kong Country-style bonus rooms within hidden portals in the levels, and up to three are earned at the end of a level depending on how much fruit you've collected. 

Now, no doubt if you were counting along, you noticed that all of this doesn't add up to 13--just 10 instead. The other three are earned in a separate mode of Marsupilami 2, which opens up after its corresponding level is beaten. It's also the mode that based off Marsupilami 2's subtitle: Salsa Mode.  

Salsa Mode replaces the time trials that were seen within Marsupilami: Hoobadventure. Though you still need to be pretty fast with your platforming and running through the levels nonetheless. This mode is all about collecting fruit as fast as possible to build energy in a meter. As the meter fills with fruit collected, you eventually gain a fruit multiplier: up to four times the amount of fruit grabbed. However, the multiplier ends if you take damage, if you haven't collect a fruit in a handful of seconds, or otherwise take too long. 

The final three Musical Notes of the level for Salsa Mode are earned by meeting certain fruit total thresholds, much like the normal mode's levels, but here, it's important to not take damage while also being fast. I found I could lose my combo/chain/multiplier/whatever at least once in a level and not fail to meet the point goal I needed to reach to earn all three Musical Notes. That said, one obnoxious flaw is that if you find yourself failing in the middle of a level, you simply can't restart from the pause menu. Instead, you have to back out to the world map, and re-enter the level to try anew. A frustrating oversight.

The presentation and polish are somehow even greater than the original Marsupilami with this Salsa Palombia sequel!

Apart from the standard levels and the extra levels that are unlocked by paying a fee of fruit, each of the four islands in Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia house dojo levels. These are like the bonus room portals of standard levels, but you have to complete three in a row successfully. These throw challenges at you such as collecting all the music notes in a room, smashing all jars, defeating all enemies, or simply surviving for a set amount of time. Needless to say, these dojo challenges can get quite difficult when you have to flawlessly pull off three in a row without taking damage or failing. 

Generally, though, Marsupilami 2 is a rather breezy game. The life system of the original Hoobadventure is gone, so you have the ability to plummet to your doom as much as you'd like. Checkpoints are generous as well, so you're seldom ever having to redo large portions of levels. Even the last level that unlocks upon beating the final boss is gracious enough to include checkpoints. 

Speaking of bosses, this is where Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia might turn off some players. They're not bad boss battles by any stretch of the imagination--you dodge attacks until you can lay waste to the boss's boombox. The fact of the matter is that the difficulty jump here is noticeable. While I didn't struggle facing the game's bosses myself, I can see that younger or more inexperienced platforming fans might find these fights frustrating. Fortunately, you can change the difficulty of the game, bestowing players with more hearts aka hits they can work with, if push comes to shove.

A boss battle awaits, and the challenge dial gets turned up a few levels!

Marsupilami 2 isn't too lengthy of an adventure. It's certainly longer than Hoobadventure's base game before that title saw a free expansion in the form of a dinosaur-themed world. That said, in order to 100% the game, it took me about eight hours. For me, that was a perfect length.

One aspect of Marsupilami 2 I briefly mentioned but didn't go into detail yet about was the local co-operative play. You and a friend, or family member, can indeed play the entire game together. Each player is assigned a character from a given level's game-selected pair, and before starting the level, you can swap the two characters between players. Thus, if you have Twister and your co-op partner would rather play as them rather than Hope, you can swap and switch characters before the level begins. 

The top face button doesn't change characters in co-op, instead it puts your current character into a New Super Mario Bros. Wii-like bubble--or in this case, an egg. This is good for those platforming sections of levels that admittedly don't work well and/or don't seem to be designed with co-op play in mind. 

This particular level is essentially all about sliding along these icy rails. Hooba!!!

In co-op, part of the Salsa Palombia experience is easier, while others parts are decidedly more difficult. For example, bonus rooms aren't failed when one player gets hit. Both players must take damage for the challenge to be failed. Conversely, in Salsa Mode, if one player takes damage or if one player is much slower than the other and is forced to "bubble" or enter an egg when they go off screen, the fruit multiplier immediately ends. On the matter of entering an egg, this actually can be abused. If you're about to lose all of your health, you can manually enter into egg form, pop out of it, and have a full set of hearts. Plus, if one player perishes in a level, they return immediately in an egg. Thus, all in all, the positives, I say, definitely outweigh the negatives, and co-op is an enjoyable addition to Ocellus Studio's Marsupilami series. 

Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia is every thing a sequel should be: It improves upon pretty much all aspects of the original--gameplay, level design, and presentation--adds more features and content, and is just an overall greater adventure. The three protagonists play uniquely to one another, each have their own special uses, short detours and paths through levels they can access, and all I would consider useful to play as. The local co-op could be better, and Salsa Mode especially desperately needs a quick retry option--but otherwise, Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia certainly got me into a very good groove.

[SPC Says: B+] 

This game was played via the PlayStation 5 version. Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia is also available on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series consoles, and PC.

Lou's Lagoon (NS2, PS5, XBS, PC) Review

With a new banner for the fall season proudly displayed on SuperPhillip Central's header, we also have a new review to read together on the site. It's a cozy game that is one part platforming and one part crafting. It's all Lou's Lagoon, and here is the SPC review.

 You win some, you "Lou-se" some.

Lou is a local hero at the ol' archipelago--a famous, fabled deliveryman loved by all, who helps supply the tropical seas with the materials and goods each island demands, needs, wants, requires, etc. When a sudden strong storm hits the archipelago, Lou goes missing upon going out to do a little investigating. His current whereabouts? Well, they're unknown! That'd be a problem indeed for the archipelago, but your character has a more personal stake in Lou's disappearance: he's your uncle! So in his absence, you tentatively take over his island, get help from his employees, and take the keys to his airplane to soar around the archipelago in search of him.

The beginning of Lou's Lagoon eases you into the most essential gameplay loops and formulas through some simple tutorials in the form of quests. It all starts with being handed an impressive and important tool known as the Swirler and being tasked with siphoning up materials with its electronic tendril-like vacuum arm in order to repair your plane. 

I'd carry more materials, but I currently don't have "mushroom" to do so.

Starting out, the Swirler lacks a powerful enough oomph to it. It can grab level one materials like driftwood and pebbles, for starters, but anything else will cause it to futilely attempt to suck stronger materials until it eventually overheats. The Swirler is helpful enough, and you earn other gadgets along the way to assist you on your adventure, such as fishing rod, an excavator to find hidden goodies underground, and even a Breath of the Wild-like glider. All of these can be upgraded with various materials in addition to in-game currency.

You'll find out relatively quickly that upgrading is not only helpful but pretty much a prerequisite to make progress in Lou's Lagoon. There are some roadblocks that get put in front of you which require certain tools requiring specific materials. Not all materials are found in the wild.

Your inventory may be limited, but at least pleasant views are in a surplus within Lou's Lagoon.

No, instead, they must be crafted. You have myriad means to craft in Lou's Lagoon. You have a refiner that takes scrap and other junk and transforms it into more useful materials. You have what essentially comes down to a loom which creates textile materials like silk and cotton. Then, there's the manufacturing station that makes components like processors and chips. 

All of these craft-able goods need you to earn their recipes through various skill trees of sorts. As you complete quests around the archipelago, you earn what amounts to points that unlock new recipes on these trees of recipes. The deeper you delve into each type of crafting stations' trees, the more complicated and costly the required material becomes. 

This doesn't just stop at the cost of materials or money. No, there's also a rather sizable time investment as well. Lou's Lagoon uses a crafting system that works in real time. It's not instant. If you insert materials into a given crafting station or machine, you're going to be waiting a fair amount of time for the machine to finish and cough up your bounty of desired materials. This can take upwards of minutes just to get one material--now to be fair, that's one of the higher rated materials in the game. Still, it's a long time to wait.

As the late and great Tom Petty once sang, "The waiting is the hardest part."

Sure, you can explore the islands of the archipelago or even wander around Lou's Island in the meanwhile to grab more materials for later, but that compounds things with another of the game's problems. Starting out, your inventory is limited to about ten different materials that you can hold at once. This can be upgraded through completing quests and finding upgrades in treasure chests, and you can also hold a modest amount of extra materials in your plane's cargo hold, or sell them to a shopkeeper to later repurchase. 

The point here is that you will find yourself quickly running out of space for materials and constantly juggling between what to carry and what to leave behind, especially when a fair number of quests require you to build something with materials, return to the quest giver with the correct materials, etc.

Like your character, your plane is yours to customize as well. Aye-aye! That's a sharp dresser!

Lou's Lagoon is, as stated, set on an archipelago, so you're not limited to the starting island. After all, what good is a plane if you can't FLY it!? You do get some time in the sky, mainly transporting yourself from one of the four main islands of the game that eventually open up to you. There are also materials and money that can be received by flying through balloons and specific crates in the sky, as well as time trials where you attempt to fly through a set amount of rings within a time limit, but for the most part, your plane is to travel from island to island. 

Times like this are when I wish Baloo was piloting this bad boy instead.

The islands themselves contain one major town apiece surrounded by what amounts to platforming playgrounds, covered in materials to nab, optional treasure chests to find, and uncharted areas to explore. Your character has no health bar and has no real dangers to worry about. Yes, there are pirates that don't take too kindly to your arrival in the archipelago and will attempt to attack you with a smack of their sack full of plundered booty, but this is but a daze. There's no fall damage, and the only actual danger is getting stuck in a buggy part of the environment with no way out. Fortunately, the pause menu houses an "I'm Stuck!" prompt specifically for these occasions, taking you back to the entrance of an area for the times this occurs.

Lou's Lagoon's four islands each have their own environments, challenges, and, of course, quests to complete.

Really, the need for an emergency teleport is the least of Lou's Lagoon's technical problems, at least when playing on the Nintendo Switch 2 version like I was. Truth be told, Lou's Lagoon is one of the most unpolished and uneven games of this cozy type I've played in a long time. There were glaring turn-offs like frame-rate issues where the FPS sunk to slideshow levels at rare but certainly noticeable times, and moments where the camera couldn't focus on the character you're speaking to, instead opting to awkwardly focus on the background. (This was a much more commonplace problem with the presentation.) Loading times also leave something to be desired, as well.

I think I see a shrine over ther--wait. Wrong game.

Still, Lou's Lagoon left me warmly wanting more rather than instead of leaving me out in the cold. Yes, its inventory and crafting systems should be updated if even a little bit to help with the grind, and polishing and debugging for the presentation and multiple technical issues are required for certain. Even with all of my gripes with the game, I deeply enjoyed the adventuring aspects, the platforming, the exploration, the massive amounts of customization, and much of the colorful cast of quirky characters. As it is now, Lou's Lagoon is a tough game to wholeheartedly recommend in its current shape when half of the experience is mired and betrayed by its design.

[SPC Says: C] 

A code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review. 

This game was played via the Nintendo Switch 2 version. Lou's Lagoon is also available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles, and PC.

Aggelos 2 (Multi) Review

A rare Saturday morning review to start your weekend on the correct foot--or perhaps, "the correct wing" would be more apropos to say! Our first review of September takes us to the angelic skies, to the demonic depths, and all lands in between with Aggelos 2.  

 An angelic Metroidvania with a little bit of a demonic side to it.

2018 saw the original Aggelos release, a Wonder Boy-inspired 8-bit style action-adventure game that I ended up enjoying. Now, almost a decade later we see the sequel arrive on all major platforms, upgraded with a 16-bit style, much more ambitious series of worlds to navigate, and the RPG systems eliminated. 

Aggelos 2 features the ability introduced early in the game to shift between Angel and Demon forms on the fly. Both have their own uses, as light attacks will deal more damage to dark-based foes, and conversely dark/demons attacks will deal more damage to light-based foes. Though it works the same against our hero as well, where if he takes damage from light attacks in Demon form, he'll lose more health. 

Our angel/demon hero has both melee and long-ranged offense available to him.

Regardless, both forms can launch magical beams from their sword for super helpful ranged combat, as well as get up, close, and personal with their sword for melee maneuvers. Both can also fly to the left and right for a temporary amount of time, and true Metroidvania fashion, this power of flight eventually allows both to fly around without being locked to the X-axis. 

Perhaps the greatest point of contention I have with the Angel and Demon forms in Aggelos 2 is how the right-most face button uses a magical vial. In Angel form, this magical vial heals for a set amount. However, in Demon form, this vial merely speeds up your character. Within particularly stressful and intense moments of action with Aggelos 2, chiefly boss battles, I found myself often wasting these potions in Demon form instead of healing myself. Needless to say, this resulted in many deaths when healing instead of speeding my character up would have sufficed and saved my attempt. When runbacks to bosses (i.e. the path and time it takes to head from the nearest save point to the boss you're aiming to take down) can be a bit lengthy a lot of the time, this can be mildly frustrating at best and utterly agonizing at worst. 

Demon form prefers to make his enemies get the "point".

The original Aggelos was a smaller endeavor, featuring a world that could be crossed and explored within minutes. So small, in fact, that a map wasn't even included for exploration. Aggelos 2, by comparison, is a much meatier game, for better or worse. Not only is there a massive light world to explore, but there is also a second map, a dark, demon world to navigate as well, entered through various portals scattered around the game world.

Fortunately, this time around, a map is included in Aggelos 2. However, that isn't without a series of issues. For one, it's difficult--if not flat out impossible--to tell where different environments and biomes are within the map. Everything on the map is the same color. Collectibles, of which there are many, in Aggelos 2 do not appear on the map when discovered or collected. Instead, the developer insists on putting beacons on the in-game map to note where important, notable discoveries and places to return to are located. This is its own ball of worms, as it's quite easy to forget what reason and why a beacon was placed, so you can return to where a beacon was placed only to remember, "Oh, wait. I still can't do this yet." Different icons for the beacons would alleviate this problem.

Use your energy to perform powerful sword and beam attacks. Just watch that energy meter!

It's not helped that there's not always the best signposting or generally logical leading or luring of the player towards where they should head to next in Aggelos 2. This is one aspect where Aggelos 2 utterly fails in its world and map design. Many times I found myself completely without a clue on what was required of me and where I should explore. I even did some unintentional sequence breaking by having enough hearts to brave entering lava-filled paths and coming out the other side with enough health to progress safely. Apparently, desperation breeds exploration, especially when you just want to make some semblance of progress and the aforementioned lack of helpful map markers don't assist in allowing you to do that.

The two-map world allows for fast travel within it, but you're limited to particular statues at the start of the game. It's not until about halfway through that you find a weighted button you can stand on, which opens up all statues--not just as certain type--to allow yourself to be teleported to on the fly.    

The aforementioned collectibles come in various forms in Aggelos 2. From heart and energy vessels that boost your maximum health and magic energy respectively, to wallet upgrades that boost the maximum amount of currency you can carry by 100 with each upgrade collected, Aggelos 2 is in no shortage of things to find and collect--which makes the previously mentioned map issues so vexing. 

In the early game, flight is limited, so you use a grappling hook to latch onto a scale walls.

The greatest collectible is that of golden eggs, of which there are 100 spread around the game's two maps. These offer different rewards upon returning to the shrine in the game's lone town, one reward for every ten eggs returned.  

No doubt the original Aggelos was a challenging game, all said and done. Aggelos 2 isn't necessarily an easier or harder game; it's just different in its difficulty. Aggelos 1 used an experience point and level system, where you could pretty much grind your way to be stronger. In Aggelos 2, this leveling system is gone. Instead, and in true Metroidvania fashion, through collecting upgrades as well as finding special statues and shrines that boost your attack and defense, you become stronger and more resilient. Aggelos 2 does have a mostly steady difficulty curve, but it does noticeably jump up the first time you enter into the demon world.  

Perhaps the largest challenge within Aggelos 2 other than overcoming confusion in navigating the world and knowing where to go next, is that of boss battles. These are all required in order to achieve the best ending in the game, and these require some serious skill to beat. Between the area of effect, occasional bullet hell patterns being launched at you (these can be negated by slicing your sword at the bullets with the correct matching Angel/light or Demon/dark form) and learning when to go on the offensive and when best to bob and weave to avoid the attacks, these battles usually aren't a "first try, GGs" affair. You'll be attempting them multiple times, and the previously discussed runbacks make for some added aggravation.

Bosses are large, in charge, and will generally take several attempts to overcome.

Aggelos 2 took me about 12 hours to achieve the good ending while finding all of the collectibles to be discovered across the game's two worlds. Needless to say, the latter part was no easy task. In this time, I did encounter several glitches, such as enemies clipping through walls and becoming stuck, my character being caught in a specific animation upon accidentally using my sword and beam special attacks at the same time, and other graphical issues. 

That said, Aggelos 2 is an impressive looking game all the same. The 16-bit visual style is full of color, detail in the environments and especially the beefy amount of monster types in the game, as well. Musically, the soundtrack offers catchy themes of a retro styling that one can't help bounce around in their heads, even after the game's been turned off. 

Aggelos 2 is all-in-all a solid Metroidvania that delivers lots of sweaty palm-inducing action, especially with its level of challenge and difficulty when it concerns its boss battles. Perhaps the greatest challenge, however, comes in a less than stellar way, with its confusing navigation due to a lackluster map system and quality of life features that are entirely absent. Aggelos 2 doesn't necessarily rise up to Heaven, but it also doesn't plummet into the depths of Hell, either.

[SPC Says: B-]

A code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review. 

This game was played via the Steam Deck and PC versions. Aggelos 2 is also available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles, and Xbox One.

1,100th Review! Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time (Multi)

It's somewhat mind-blowing to me that SuperPhillip Central has reached this latest milestone: 1,100 reviews. I have no plans of stopping any time soon, at that! 

Our 1,100th review (not-so-coincidentally published at 11:00 a.m. Central time) is a game I've been meaning to cover, but it got lost in the shuffle, like so many games did when I was focused on other aspects of life. Speaking of Lives, this game has 12 of them, but after playing this game over 100 hours over the past year, I feel I have zero, ironically! 

That said, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is a meaty game, and would have probably been runner-up for my Game of the Year for 2025 behind Donkey Kong Bananza. Does that spoil how much I enjoyed this particular game? Perhaps, but I hope you still enjoy this milestone review all the same. 

 A game that steals time, too. /complimentary

The original Fantasy Life released in 2012 on the Nintendo 3DS. As a game, it was a life sim that featured plenty of cozy elements, combat, and plenty of Lives to manage. The sequel had been in development for quite a while, even having to retool itself during development. When a game gets in "development hell", for lack of a better term, like Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time did, it's hard not to assume the absolute worst of the final product--or at least worry heavily about it.

Somehow, someway, the sequel released, and it's no wonder why the game took so long to come out of the oven. With three unique worlds, so many gameplay systems interacting with one another, and an overwhelming amount of things to do, it can feel like Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time would suffer from bloat or feature creep. Instead and again, somehow, someway, Fantasy Life i manages to mesh and gel all of these systems into one comprehensive and complete entity.

As the subtitle would suggest, Fantasy Life i's story is a time-traveling tale through the past and present. It's a humorous affair with plenty of chuckles and even laughs to be found, though it occasionally can get slightly serious as well. The latter moments are few and far in between, keeping the game's story light in tone overall.

Well, Ranoah, after playing this game for over 100 hours total with every achievement unlocked, 
I can confidently say that... no. No, I do not.

It's difficult to describe what Fantasy Life i's main draw is, because there is honestly so much to this particular sequel. There's, of course, the Life system, which essentially puts your character in the role of various jobs. These Lives come in the form of three categories: combat, gathering, and crafting. Each Life starts at level 1 and gain experience points to level up in various ways, and each time a Life levels up, they get points that can be spent on that Life's skill board. This grants them better proficiency and abilities to utilize their Life better. 

Obviously, combat-related Lives spend their time battling creatures and other enemies. Gathering-oriented Lives chop trees, reel in fish, and mine for ore, in the case of Woodcutter, Angler, and Miner Lives respectively. Finally, crafting Lives do all their magic at workbenches, using drops from the former two Life categories to create all kinds of goodies, whether that be equipment, furniture, food, etc. 

Find the sweet spot by circling around this ore, and strike to deal some serious damage!
Just be sure to mind your stamina meter "ore" you'll tucker out before you finish the job!

Each Life starts you off as but an apprentice, but as you complete specific tasks for each Life, you earn points that eventually grant you to higher ranks. These ranks give rewards to your Life, as well as introducing a higher tier of more challenging tasks to complete. For combat Lives, these require felling certain monsters. For gathering Lives, it's all about chopping down certain trees, catching certain fish, or mining specific ore and reaping the rewards from them. Crafting Lives require you to make specific recipes via time-based mini-games, and some need to meet a certain quality as well. 

Crafting takes the form of these mini-games, requiring taps and holds of buttons and 
occasional spins of the analog stick to make new equipment, furniture, food, and more.

In a way, all of the Lives are interconnected. You need combat and gathering Lives to get enough drops and materials to assist your crafting Lives to make the required recipes for new ranks, as well as to better equip your combat and gathering Lives. That's whether with new weapons and stronger tools, or armor in the case of combat Lives. 

That's why it's pretty ideal to essentially sign up for all Lives at the start of the game once the Life system opens up. To be fair, it's a pretty tedious process to start the process in 12 different Lives, and it can also be overwhelming to have SO many different tasks available at once. However, it also makes the world much more accessible and available to you, opening up a ton of places and activities to enjoy.

You always have something to do within Fantasy Life i, whether you follow along with the story or not!

That said, Lives are just one part of Fantasy Life i. Another piece of the game is that of an open-world land called Ginormosia, introduced relatively early in the game and not mentioned until close to the very end of the base game's story. Ginormosia is home to various regions, each with pop-up challenges to optionally complete, monsters to defeat, ore to mine, trees to chop down, fish to catch, and so forth. As you complete challenges and perform feats within the world, you gain points for that specific region. Once you reach certain point thresholds, you can speak to the talkative tower of that region to level it up, making the rewards and challenges of that particular region greater. 

Ginormosia is well, quite a bit ginormous with plenty of points of interests to find and visit.

Ginormosia also features inspirations from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, between its Korok-like Leafes hidden all around and with its shrines sprinkled and scattered all across the land. Inside these literal shrines are simple enough puzzles to solve and challenges to complete to unlock characters called Strangelings, which can be turned back into human form at your home base.

That includes these shrines that are scattered all about the land of Ginormosia.

This leads me to yet another part of Fantasy Life i: your home island. This can be outfitted with homes (including your own, which can be customized and fully furnished inside), farms, and other buildings for your Strangelings turned humans to live. The indoor and outdoor furniture and other knickknacks can be placed all around your island as well. This is another optional part of Fantasy Life i, but it is rather rewarding. It's essentially something out of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so if you have any familiarity with that game, then you'll feel right at home (both figuratively and literally) with this part of Fantasy Life i. 

Also on your home island is that of Treasure Groves, which grant you access to Rogue-lite dungeons where your Lives are put to the ultimate test. Some floors require specific proficiency in a particular Lives to pass. Some floors are Harvesting ones, needing you to dig up all of the crops. Some are Fishing floors, requiring you to fish up all you can in search of a specific item. If you're not at a proper level with a given Life, you'll find these objectives next to impossible, especially as you go back in time further and further. Each Treasure Grove sapling you plant grows a completely different grove to explore, and seldom are two ever the same. However, both the challenges and the prizes for completing them make the Treasure Groves incredibly fun and rewarding to take on.

So much of Fantasy Life i can be immensely overwhelming when you lay everything out like I just did, especially as there is a TON of grinding is present--whether monsters, monster drops, leveling up Lives, etc. That won't be everyone's bag of Dosh. Fortunately, you're seldom ever really forced to do anything. Sure, you're encouraged to follow along with the story, which helps in advancing the plot and reaching new areas to access better materials and rewards, but truthfully, you're allowed to do what you want when you want. 

One of the combat Lives is that of a Magician, for magical ranged fighting!

Thus, if you want to dedicate time to customizing your house to your heart's desires, you can do that. Heck, you can even NOT customize your house to your heart's desires, and you can still enjoy the game fully. Whether it's leveling up your Lives, finding new materials help in crafting better gear, exploring and ranking up Ginormosia's dozen or so regions, tracking tasks to rank up your Lives, or engaging in one of the myriad other overall fun activities in Fantasy Life i, it's all up to you. There is certainly no shortage of things to do and accomplish in Fantasy Life i, and an aspect I really enjoyed is that while playing, while exploring each piece of the game, I was always making progress towards something. There's seldom downtime or the feeling that I was just spinning my wheels for no reason.

Perhaps the most impressive piece of Fantasy Life i is how you have multitudes of all of these contrasting systems, such massive gameplay systems that overlap, that you'd think a game this seemingly bloated just wouldn't work. The mind-blowing aspect of this to me is that it actually all does. Between the Lives, the open-world Ginormosia, the story, the exploration, the island and home customization, the various tasks, challenges, and quests to complete--it all works and it pretty much all complements each other well without feeling like the game is too big for its britches.

Speaking of being too big for its britches, this Napdragon is about due to take a dirt nap with our team fighting it!

It's not all well thought-out, as multiplayer somewhat seems like an afterthought in Fantasy Life i. You can have friends visit your islands, but there's not much interacting or activities to do together on said islands. While you can explore both the Past and all the unique places it entails, as well as enter Ginormosia with friends, you're limited in how long you can explore together. There's a strict time limit, and while you can remake a lobby and rejoin each other after time runs out, there's really no rhyme or reason to why this limitation is required. Treasure Groves, however, can be embarked with a full party of four friends or strangers, offering the full grove to be enjoyed.

Beyond the limited multiplayer options that aren't too impressive, what did impress me was the presentation of Fantasy Life i. The game is positively gorgeous, and moments where you stand at the top of a peak in Ginormosia, seeing the massive draw distance revealing pretty much the entirety of the continent for your viewing pleasure? Absolutely jaw-dropping. The character and creature models are delightful, as are the environments you embark in and explore. 

Bring along some CPU companions to aid or cheer you on in battle, as well as level up more quickly, too!

On the sound front, the voice acting is suitably charming, much like the rest of the game, though quips by CPU party members that can optionally join you while out and about can get extremely repetitive. After hearing a companion say, "I'm worried about you" for the tenth time in less than three minutes, I realized maybe this was less commentary on my character's well-being and more on the fact that I hadn't eaten in five hours because I was so enamored with the game. 

Musically, many of Nobuo Uematsu's magnificent compositions from the original Nintendo 3DS Fantasy Life make a return in the sequel, but there also brand-new themes and tracks to be heard as well.Either way, the soundtrack is comprised of a lot of lovely songs that seldom if ever get grating on the ears, unlike your companions' various quips.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is a game that after such a long development time and arguable development hell, it shouldn't work as well as it does, and perhaps it's a miracle for that reason. Between its complementing gameplay systems that hardly ever clash against one another, the "play as you want and as the mood strikes" level of freedom you eventually get, utterly massive post-game, and stupendous visual style and presentation, Fantasy Life i is an easy game to get lost in and lose hundreds of hours to. I admittedly did and have no regrets either. Not when the game is such so lovingly crafted and well done as a whimsical adventure.

[SPC Says: A-]

This game was played via the Steam Deck, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2 versions. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is also available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

Teeto (NS2, NSW, PS5, PC) Review

After this past week's LIFTED review, we take a look at another indie platformer from the month of July. Whereas LIFTED took on a 2.5D approach, we're going full three-dimensions with the cute, charming, and colorful Teeto, available on PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2 (the latter is the version of the game this review is based off).

Saving the world from sinister shadows? It Takes Teeto, baby!

Teeto is a 3D platformer built off the same vibes as exploration-based platformers such as Spyro the Dragon and Banjo-Kazooie. The latter is highly reminiscent of Teeto, as both star a pair of protagonists that work together to run, jump, and otherwise platform their way through levels. Whereas Banjo-Kazooie has a more complicated move-set to it, Teeto utilizes a simpler control setup. Teeto can jump, double jump, glide with the help of Nory, a pink bunny companion, roll, attack, and ground pound. 

A brief pause, a momentary respite to breathe and take in the scenery.

It's with Teeto's special transformative abilities that make what otherwise might be a standard fare platformer into something more intriguing. Teeto can interact with various objects in the levels of the game and take on their properties. For instance, a flower can transform Teeto into a vine form, allowing him to grapple specific faraway points with his vine arms and swing across them. There's also big boulders that Teeto can assume the abilities of, allowing him to ground pound with more force, breaking open floor and ground that otherwise would be impenetrable. 

Teeto looks ready for spring with all of that flower power!

Teeto features four acts within its 5-8 hour runtime, and each act consists of six levels. The first five levels are exploration, platforming-based with different side and main objectives to complete. The sixth is always a boss level of some form. 

There are three types of collectibles to be found within Teeto's levels: powerful purple polygonal vessels of energy known as Vionite, which serves as the game's Power Star equivalent to Super Mario 64, or to bring Banjo-Kazooie back up, that game's Jiggy equivalent. Collecting these is paramount as a certain amount is required to open up future acts in the game. 

Vionite are housed in hidden locations, but other times they're rewarded for completing objectives and tasks for NPCs in levels. Some may have you finding and fetching a lost bone for a dog, destroying a set number of shadow flags in a level, or even reaching the top of a small summit in a literal ode to the popular co-op multiplayer game PEAK. The objectives are varied enough to keep the game from growing stale, if the platforming and creative level design don't do that already.

Give a dog a bone, and you'll be rewarded with some much wanted Vionite!

Other collectibles include tiny, cute, blue, gooey creatures called Michaels. These are small in stature, but have a late-game purpose. While difficult to discover since they are tiny, the telltale sound of their giggling makes sure you won't miss them hanging around. Michaels humorously come in unique styles, such as "Chronically Online Michael" or "Michael Who Just Bought a Drone". 

The other type of collectible fills up a gauge, and that is of stars. Different sized and colored stars bestow more energy in the gauge, and a side goal is to fill the gauge in each level. The stars are also Teeto's form of currency, which is used to purchase new costumes and outfits for Teeto to adorn--from a Lucahdor wrestling costume to a superhero outfit.

I like a game where the collectibles are shown in order. That is, if you're near the level's exit and you pick up a Vionite, it won't be listed as the first Vionite collectible in the level in the UI. This is insanely helpful and welcomed for knowing if you've missed a collectible in a level. Usually you have time and the opportunity to backtrack, but sometimes you're stuck having to replay a level to pick up a missed goodie. Because the objectives and platforming are so enjoyable with tasks being fun and movement feeling great in general, I found myself actively seeking out every collectible and thus, 100% completion.

Teeto is positively energized, ready to [literally] charge into battle.

The levels themselves are full of interesting challenges and locales. While you start in traditional mascot platforming fare, such as caves, forests, and mountains, Teeto quite quickly picks up the pace on originality, having our two heroes enter subway stations, grocery stores, and through electrified backyards of suburbia. Some levels are more open-ended, while others have a more linear design to them. Either way, there is plenty of ways to go off the beaten path, discover a cleverly hidden collectible and find something of value.

Speaking of electricity, an electrified lawn certainly is one way to keep unwanted guests off of the grass!

Teeto is designed not just for solo play, but you can even bring a friend locally to play the game with you via split-screen play. Both players have a surprising amount of freedom, able to move far away from one another and pretty much can split up tasks between them or opt to work together on an objective simultaneously. The only times players are forced together are between areas/rooms or certain story triggers in levels. I was amazed by how well the co-op worked, and really, Teeto truly shines in its co-op and how it executes it.

Platforming is pretty breezy, as is the game itself. Checkpoints are fair, and falling to Teeto's demise is seldom a huge punishment. You don't lose progress or collectibles nabbed; you simply start at a nearby point in the level. Really, the only sticking point in the level of challenge is that of boss battles. Teeto and Nory only have three hearts between themselves to work with, and while bosses do drop hearts of restorative health when they're attacked, these battles are more challenging than anything else within the game. A certain 2D plane battle in the third act I found more frustrating and difficult than anything else by far in Teeto's adventure, other than the final boss battle itself.

Bosses serve as a modest but noticeable jump in difficulty compared to everything else within Teeto.

If there are any huge gripes other than the difficult jumps that come from the boss battles, it's that the enemy variety is woefully lacking. There's probably just four or five generic enemy types of Shadows to contend with. 

More worrisome and annoying were the crashes, at least on the Nintendo Switch 2 version that I played. These crashes happened twice upon falling into two separate pits in the final act of the game. Further, there were moments where the game completely locked Teeto out of certain actions, like aiming and attacking with his blob blasts, or worse yet in the snowy mountain level, being completely unable to jump after being shot out of a cannon. I either had to return to the hub or better yet, just plummet from the summit to my doom to get the controls and actions working properly again.

Nevertheless, what always worked for me was the presentation of the game. Teeto is a charming and cute game graphically, offering nothing truly amazing visually, but what style it has works and works well. The draw distance is rather lovely, and certain vistas and vantage points, like the top of the aforementioned snowy mountain level, shows off a gorgeous sunset. 

Absolutely breathtaking. Just be sure not to slide off the side, Teeto and Nory!

On the sound side, Teeto doesn't disappoint, but also doesn't overly delight either. The voice acting has a charm to it, but the music I would struggle to say is excellent. It's certain serviceable, but there's nothing truly memorable outside of perhaps the level clear theme. Certain typos in the game, especially during one of the more important scenes in Teeto, made for a less than fantastic impression, as well.

Teeto shines in its simplicity, whether that's its platforming gameplay or its graphical style. Its transforming mechanic, used to solve environmental puzzles and perform platforming, lends itself naturally to the gameplay without feeling shoehorned in. Glitches and bugs aside that will no doubt be cleaned up as time and patches roll on, between the co-op, fun objectives, craftily hidden collectibles, and level of charm, Teeto was a game I enjoyed hitting 100% completion on. While it isn't a title that hits the same highs of Banjo-Kazooie, Spyro the Dragon, or any other 3D platforming titan Teeto might have inspiration from, it's a wonderful game all the same. 

[SPC Says: B-] 

A code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review. 

LIFTED (PC) Review

A pair of indie games is what awaits on the agenda next for SuperPhillip Central. The first is a short romp, but one packed with adventure: LIFTED. Let's check it out with a full, in-depth review!

A game clock-ful of adventure

LIFTED is a 2.5D cinematic action-platformer which follows the tale of high school student Ari and his teacher, mentor, and friend, the Professor. The latter is in love with Ari's history teacher, and thinking that he has no shot with her otherwise, he opts to take Ari on a time-traveling trip (courtesy of his invention, the Anytime Elevator) to acquire a specific tiara. Extra credit for Ari and a potential way for the Professor to successfully woo his crush. A win-win and a "two birds with one stone" situation!

No doubt Ari and the Professor's friendship is meant to draw familiar parallels to the relationship found in Back to the Future's Marty McFly and Doc Brown. After all, it's a time traveling story, and that's not even going into how Ari's voice actor even sounds like he's doing a Michael J. Fox impression. You'll certainly hear a lot of it, as characters within LIFTED are exceptionally chatty. Some players might find this obnoxious, and perhaps I would have, too, if not for the fact that the dialogue throughout the game is abundantly charming and humorous often, as well.

Oh, and let's not forget that the spirited, little chinchilla Julius joins the adventure, as well.

LIFTED is an adventure that takes players through a handful of unique locations throughout time. By the conclusion of the game's short, initial three-hour runtime, Ari and the Professor will pass through Egyptian canyons and temples, a pirate island and caves within Tortuga, swing on vines and infiltrate a temple in the deep jungle, and spend some time on the snowy and incredibly gusty mountaintops, as well.

Starting off in Egypt, you get a sense for the controls and how the game plays. As a 2.5D platformer, you're seldom moving along a strict side-scrolling perspective. Instead, the camera tends to be at different perspectives, sometimes at an angle, sometimes panning into position to create a cinematic flair. 

This can be challenging to contend with at times, because while the camera can move around in a three-dimensional orientation, your character is stuck on a strict, 2D path. This means that you can be holding right to move in that direction, and then the camera changes position, altering the direction you're supposed to hold. This never resulted in cheap deaths or anything like that, just some very occasional befuddlement with knowing which way to move the stick to, in turn, move Ari.

Ari must have misunderstood and taken it literally when he read about "cliff notes".

Through the initial Egyptian chapter of LIFTED, you learn how to move, jump, double jump, climb cliff faces a la Nathan Drake in Uncharted (Ari certainly did not skip gym class with the amazing acrobatics and miraculous-level of mobility he affords and offers to players), and also the ability to use a grappling hook to latch onto specific points in levels, swing across chasms, and pull himself up to reach new heights. 

There's seldom any enemies to concern yourself with in LIFTED. The only real danger is missing jumps and having Ari plummet to his doom. The Professor would definitely take some points off his extra credit for doing that. There is no "live" system or health to worry about in LIFTED. You fail, you simply retry from a nearby checkpoint, which are generally generous in location. 

In Tortuga, Ari learns how to leap between and slide down walls.

Though I do have a minor issue with the checkpoint system in LIFTED. That issue being that checkpoints are not marked, nor does the game give an indication when you're reached one. Not only does this make you not know if an unintended death might make you have to redo a potentially frustrating potion of a level, but LIFTED also contains plenty of collectibles. It can be quite easy to miss them, as a lot of them are located in crafty and clever areas. There are lots of "points of no return" in levels, where if you pass a certain section, you're locked out of backtracking. This means that you have to back out to the main menu and redo the entire level all over again just to get another chance at a given collectible. 

Levels aren't too terribly long, but it can feel obnoxious, especially when going for certain achievements where you have to do a flawless run, for instance, through a section of level. Most of these are deep within levels, meaning that it's not just annoying to have to reach these sections, but if you fail the achievement's requirement, you have to redo the level and make it back to that section. Frustrating. 

Regardless, it's not just all about platforming in LIFTED, either. Various environmental puzzles are thrown in for good measure, as well, to keep the gameplay feeling fresh. One early puzzle in the Tortuga Island chapter features block-pushing onto specially colored pressure plates. When a certain plate is held down, the complimentary colored gate or door opens. The puzzle is essentially figuring out which plates to hold down in a specific order to access new areas which house new blocks to utilize. 

Mirror, mirror on the slate, can Ari help the Professor with his desire for a date?

A lot of the puzzles are simply trial and error or aren't too tricky to solve, but some of them did actually cause me to need to step back and ponder over them some. I definitely appreciated that they weren't all thoughtless brain teasers, and instead were quite smartly thought out in execution.

LIFTED is a quick romp. The beautiful and well made cut-scenes, although entertaining and often humorous, take up about a third of the initial playtime. Everything else is split up between running, jumping, and puzzle solving. However, there is an appropriate amount of extra content to sink your adventuring teeth into, from the previously mentioned collectibles which unlock various unique outfits for Ari to wear, to nearly 70 different achievements. These achievements range from perfect runs through sections of levels, interacting with the environments in specific, not-always-obvious ways, and collectible hunting. 

Some of the vistas seen in LIFTED are just jaw-dropping spectacles.

Gorgeous and impressive are two words that come to mind when I think of LIFTED's presentation. The game offers an abundance of eye candy through its expansive vistas, cinematic camera angles, and visual splendor. I particularly like the Rayman-esque character designs, where each character in the game lacks appendages like arms and legs, but possesses disconnected hands and feet. It's a cute and charming art style that works, and I imagine helped to make animating the given characters less of a workload. 

"Snow" time to hang around, Ari--adventure awaits!

Meanwhile, the sound design is stellar, too. The voice work is exceptionally well done with great comedic timing and delivery by the actors, and the music especially packs a powerful punch, particularly in more dramatic and action-oriented sections of the game.

LIFTED is indeed a short adventure that some may balk at the $20 asking price, but I find there's plenty to like and even love about this charming cinematic journey that Ari and the Professor set on. Some checkpoint-ing quirks do annoy, and some camera angle issues do less than delight. However, in the end, the overall package is one that I am glad I had the opportunity to check out. I might even go back and complete the final six achievements that I'm missing, which is something I seldom have the motivation to do nowadays, so that certainly speaks to LIFTED's quality. 

Like an action-packed epic you'd watch in a movie theater, LIFTED is a game you can finish in an afternoon and feel like your time was spent well. The only difference is that with LIFTED, you need not worry about stepping around on some nasty, sticky floor to do so.

[SPC Says: B-] 

A code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.