@cornishlee Because it's more of a twitch / reaction-based 2D platformer that revolves around quick, bite-sized levels than it is a long, Mario-style platformer. Different genres, and I feel this is a good example of its type.

@mch 3DS games are patchable, so maybe it could be smoothed out in some ways, but I think it's a deeper issue with the engine more than anything which may make things difficult.

@Tech101 Digital version.

I used to love these things!

@Omega Ah, that's odd — it's in both 3DS eShop and VC section but has the correct eShop heading. I'll look into it.

EDIT: Fixed now, it had an incorrect tag on it.

@Ark_Sin Unfortunately Harvest Moon: A New Beginning isn't out in Europe and still isn't planned for release over here as far as I know, so I can't right now!

@Omega , @Bass_x0, you'll notice that this was fixed — just human error.

As for the A Wonderful Life debate — I love that version.

@squashie Bubble Bobble is definitely one of my favourite games of all time.

Thanks for that @ph0x — I have updated the notes at the bottom of the review to advise a fresh install.

@Nintendojuenger I've noticed the patch changes and added an update to the end of the review to reflect the adjustments.

I can't speak for Petit Computer as I didn't review it, nor have I played it. They're completely different games aimed at separate audiences, though, so I'm not sure it's a fair comparison. One's more a programming tool, whereas this is a straight up arcade / endless runner game.

Every game is judged on its own merits; Jon clearly thought a 7 was appropriate for Petit Computer as I find the same score appropriate for Goony. I think (hope!) both scores are justified in their respective reviews!

@daveh30 I wondered the same thing for a little while! There's a blue terminal outside the police station in front of the garage doors — use that and the garages will open.

@Morphtroid It's difficult to tell exactly what it's doing; I thought the same thing and tested it by collecting set amounts of coins before deliberately throwing myself off the edge to check the result, but I didn't seem to get concrete answers. My guess is that it gives you a jump start / continue point within a certain range depending on how many coins you collect in the previous round. You need to collect at least ten coins in the previous round to activate it as far as I can tell, though.

Perhaps @ph0x could share some information about this? It doesn't really affect my opinion either way, I'm just intrigued!

@Drobotic No off-TV play, nope. The pad is used for map / scanners instead.

@nathatruc I don't think so; if you select a language it applies to both audio and subtitles.

@Jukilum Sorry, missed your question about save slots earlier. You can have four per profile, which should be more than enough!

@Arthedain I've got hold of a code from the toys, so I've just tested it out. You enter the code at a terminal outside the police station, which opens up two garages. You can then hop in either car to start one of two bonus missions. If you go in the police vehicle, a robber will jump into the sports car and drive off — you have to chase him down, ram his car off the road and arrest him before he reaches his base. If you choose the sports car, the roles reverse and you have to evade loads of police vehicles while you try to take the car to a lock-up.

You only get to unlock the vehicles if you complete their bonus missions. It's maybe 5 - 10 minutes of extra content and a couple of new vehicles. It'd be interesting to see if they do more!

Thanks for all your comments everybody. If anyone has more questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

@AdelbertSteiner Here are the languages supported in the PAL version: French, German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Russian, Dutch, Portugese. I picked a couple of these at random (French and Russian) and they were both translated fully, subtitles and audio.

If there's any particular one you want double-checked let me know. Hope that helps!

@Jukilum Haha, thanks for pointing that out! Corrected to Group.

@Firejonie Once in 25 hours, but I couldn't replicate the error and it didn't come up again so I didn't mention it. Could have been because the system was on for a few hours, couldn't say what the exact issue was.

@AdelbertSteiner I'll double check language options for you later, but pretty sure these are covered, yep. I accidentally selected French subtitles when I first booted up so that's definitely in!

@cornishlee There should probably be a comma in there, I'll fix when I get a chance. I mean it's an easy to pick up combat system that responds well. Basically you don't really go on the assault; you wait for enemies to attack and then hit X in timely fashion to pull a reversal on them. You can also pick up and throw enemies or perform a smaller tackle/throw-like move.

@Peach64 It's more down to the fact that, while the load times are indeed horrible, they're not very frequent. In a typical play session of a few hours I'd have four or five loads, but they're usually followed by a hefty chunk of gameplay with little further loading required.

The driving controls can be loose, but it's not something that affects every vehicle terribly. I would say it's worth highlighting as something that frustrated me a couple of times, but IMO it's not prevalent enough to ruin the game.

@Grubdog I found them floaty at first, but after some practice I no longer had any issues, completed levels without taking any hits on repeat goes, etc. I think it's partially down to learning the objects; I was useless with the five-hit object (I don't want to spoil any of the items!) when I first unlocked it, now I have no problem. I was yearning for D-Pad controls in my first hour, but Circle Pad has suited me fine through the last four hours!

@Matillion It's single player.

@Shiryu Not exactly. There are set vehicles that can be called up at Super Build points (i.e. if you want a specific car, you can grab it from there). You can choose their colour too, rather than being stuck with the default colour. Sorry for any confusion!

@RogueBologna Good spot — I've edited the article to reflect this.

@Burning_Spear Funnily enough, my original image caption was "We're sending our stones down the well"...

@Dodger Haha, she was totally an angry Samus I think!

Really enjoyed Floating Cloud God Saves the Pilgrims (gave it 8/10 on Push Square), so definitely looking forward to seeing what they can do with Wii U!

Mario Chase is now probably my favourite local multiplayer game. Absolutely hilarious.

This shares a similar concept with Fluidity, but they're completely different games within the same 2D physics-based puzzle-platformer realm. No ripping off here.

This can be followed as a standalone release, though, and I think that's important to note considering an entire territory didn't have easy access to the first game.

Thanks for the comments guys.

@sandwhich I had a couple more complaints than that: writing sometimes OTT and long winded, animation a bit lacking, and I wasn't fond of some of the puzzles as some were somewhat obtuse. I feel that the puzzle room controls are the major one, though, as they take up a significant portion of the game and I see no reason for a lack of sensitivity options, choice over whether to use gyroscopes, etc. Nothing game breaking there, but enough to stop me giving it a 9.

As for the save bug, I never encountered this and was unaware of it. When I review games I basically lock myself away from anything about them, so it's only now that I see there have been mentions of it online. As I never saw it for myself, I couldn't really comment.

@uel There's a little flag at the top that says it's the PAL version reviewed; maybe this is something that we could look into making more visible.

@RetrogamerFan This is mainly because Europe never got the first game and so I was unable to compare the two fully. I think there's a reasonable chance that, if you're a fan of the first game, you'll get more out of this title, but as somebody who never got round to importing 999, I had no problem following the story. There are definitely references back, including a couple of characters, but I can only recall one segment where I was a bit lost, and even then it was explained within this game fairly rapidly.

6 isn't low: it's "not bad", above average. I enjoyed my time with it and there's loads of content, but it's very easy to use almost exactly the same strategy to solve each level which takes away from it. Certainly not a bad game!

@Buzzthebatgirl Unfortunately we only got a review copy last week due to demand; hopefully the wait for the Wii U review won't be as long!

@TheDreamingHawk As promised — I've triple-checked for you and Mallo's movement is locked to the Circle Pad in either control scheme. The default set up has rewinding and free-look on the shoulder buttons, the second option switches camera rotation to the shoulder buttons and maps rewind to Y, the free-look button to X.

I was very close to a 10, but something wasn't quite there to elevate it to the top score. I can still see ways the series can be improved — better level sharing, for example. I don't give out 9s lightly though, so rest assured this is a very strong recommendation. It's one of my favourite games of the year.

@TheDreamingHawk I will double check this for you later, but I believe D-Pad is camera only. There could be an option; I know you can switch camera rotation to the shoulder buttons.

@jibberldd5 I believe all the information applies to Black and White / Black and White 2 only.

@JusticeColde Hopefully.

@Daggo A limitation for Trauma Team is that it unfortunately was never released in Europe. Good game though, I agree!

@Gridatttack Epic Yarn is brilliant!

@kobe1724 This is a 'personal favourites' list from a collective group, not based on scores.

Personally I wish Zack and Wiki had made it, and I ranked Excite Bots pretty high in my voting.

EDIT: Also Rhythm Heaven Fever / Beat the Beat.

@Koto Thanks for the extra info Koto!

As far as I know, in Japan the first character was free for a while and then became paid, then the rest were all paid from the beginning.

Definitely my launch title.

La Mulana for sure!

@Prof_Clayton Thanks — I've fixed that now. A fitting avatar!

@StephenYap3 I agree, along with Canvas Curse / Power Paintbrush.

@mamp Not entirely serious...

My bad, it's North America as a whole according to the press release. Corrected.

Ahhh, brings back memories of Continental Circus.