The success of the free mobile hit, Flappy Bird, was arguably one of the darkest periods in the history of video games. It was a title with questionable assets, a tedious concept and flawed mechanics that was made in just a handful of days. Despite this, it was clearly addictive, going viral with unprecedented downloads and media coverage which eventually developed into an entire saga of ongoing events. Since 2013 there have been a line of clones, inspired by the original and attempting to cash in on its fame.
Flap Flap for the 3DS eShop is exactly that; launching at a premium price, yet the experience is anything but. The title's offerings are slim; there's a choice between an infinite mode and level select featuring five randomised stages of difficulty – play sessions are designed to last a few minutes at best.
The task is simple. You're required to flap a bird's wings to keep it afloat by repeatedly tapping the touch screen or pressing A, B, X or Y. At the same time you must navigate your way through the level whilst avoiding both enemies and environmental obstacles in the form of pipes (which is at times seemingly impossible), collecting gold & silver coins which contribute to the overall score, and gathering special abilities to enhance the bird's chance of survival.
The special abilities available include a shield acting as an additional life, a clock allowing realignment of the bird, a glider enabling the player to move the bird to any location on screen, and a speed boost ability which also makes the bird invincible for a short period of time and able to travel through pipes. These items achieve little but a higher score, and unfortunately do not enhance the core experience of Flap Flap.
While a leaderboard has also been included, at the time of writing it does not appear to feature local sharing or online scoring; this means you have no-one but yourself to compete against. There are also medals to collect on each of the five levels, ranging between bronze, silver and gold; they also fail to provide any sense of satisfaction.
The art and assets in Flap Flap are rather amateurish, as are the few animations shared between the bird, enemies and items on-screen. The backgrounds and objects lack a sense of style, although at the very least, are easy on the eyes. The music isn't much better, with a single upbeat tune on loop and a series of generic sounds.
Conclusion
Given its premium price and slim offerings, Flap Flap for the 3DS eShop is extremely hard to recommend. With imitations of Flappy Bird readily available for free on the internet and digital mobile platforms - not to mention more affordable and better quality alternatives already on Nintendo systems - there are few reasons to pick up this eShop variation at such a high price when it offers such a minuscule amount of content and even lacks a proper set of leaderboards, which could have potentially added longevity and a much needed competitive edge. If this game goes on sale in future, or reduces its price to a few bucks, only consider it if you're absolutely desperate for this type of experience. Right now though, Flap Flap can flap off.
Comments (35)
Junk food. Expensive junk food.
You're far too kind, @Liam_Doolan. Far too kind.
Is it possible to start a petition to stop certain games releasing on the eshop or remove them once they drop?
That subtitle. Pent up frustration maybe? Lol
Not to nitpick, but I don't know of any other games like this one for 3DS.
On the eShop, this title is under the card/download section. Does that mean they will release a retail version of this crap?
£7.19 for this?! Come on, this is just a money grab
@HylianJowi Frenchy Bird, never forget
This era of gaming will be remembered as 'The Flappening'
It really says a lot about the dedication of this site when they always review every game, even if it's the 511th Flappy Bird clone.
It also says a lot about their sanity, or what's left of it after all those Flappy Bird clones.
Wait, Flappy Bird only came out last year? It feels like it came out two years ago.
@JoakimZ I found a pre-order on Amazon Germany and the box art on the Nintendo of Europe website. Apparently the retail version is €20 but either way it is published by Big Ben Interactive so you probably won't be able to find it in any case.
@Nintenjoe64
You, sir, win the internet today.
I'm flappergasted by this clone's price tag.
"one of the darkest eras of gaming" lmao
Flappy Bird is a quality game and there's nothing wrong with it. I'll stand by that. Flap Flap, on the other hand, smells like trash from a mile away.
You can buy 8 copies of SPIKEY WALLS for that price
@Barbiegurl777: Did you seriously pay $8 for this?
Bird Mania 3D is more fun and a lot cheaper if you are looking for this sort of thing. It has more complexity as well as a catchy theme.
I think there's something seriously wrong with this review; UNLESS this game is actually terribly bad and broken in some way that isn't really apparent from looking at the review text or gameplay footage of the game on YouTube.
There's actual working human beings on the other side of this game who've clearly poured more than a few hours into making it and they're giving people the free choice to pay 8 quid for it, a full video game, which if you just ignore the ridiculous mobile situation* for one second isn't some kind of sinister rip-off scheme or something.
Give games that are total junk, with terrible graphics, broken controls, endless ads and micro-transactions etc, scores like this but don't just arbitrarily score hard working developers and their games 2/10 just because you personally and totally incorrectly think this game isn't worth a few quid, even though you clearly have no clue what it takes to actually make even a simple game like this and apparently think every developer should basically be giving away their games for peanuts just because a bunch of other developers have figured out a way to do and abuse this on mobile devices, usually by bombarding you with ads and micro-transactions at every turn, and basically destroyed the whole ecosystem for any other honest developers who don't actually want to abuse their consumers but are still businesses.
You're also definitely not being objective or fair in the criticism labeled at the graphics either because I'm looking at this game and it looks pretty decent for this type of game and perfectly suited to a more casual and younger skewed gamer. These clearly aren't some scribbles hastily chucked together in five minutes or whatever. They're simple, bold and cartoony looking graphics and that's pretty reasonable imo, regardless of whether the game appeals to me personally or not. Also; there's literally hundreds of classic and still brilliant old school NES/Master System games with no more time or effort put into the graphics than what we are seeing here and that doesn't devalue those games in the slightest, so let's not say the game looks bad just because it isn't some super rendered 3D masterpiece that cost millions to make by an art team of 20+ guys and instead is just comprised of pretty decent looking cartoony sprite art, with a few simple but perfectly appropriate animations for each character, in this type of game, and multiple layers of parallax layers and incidental graphical effects etc.
This very clearly isn't the kind of crappy thrown together consumer abusive type of game you seem to have scored it as.
I mean get some perspective and give honest developers making simple but still well put together games, from what I can see, fair reviews for Christ's sake.
I honestly shudder to think what you'd score my totally free, including ad free and micro-transaction free too, and highly polished but simple pixel style Flappy Bird game, Tap to Flap!, which by the way doesn't have online leaderboards either, just like basically no console games before the likes of Xbox did (You don't even realise the amount of hassle it is setting all the crap up)
PS. The original build of Flappy Bird was rather clunky, with some terrible and very unfair hit detection, but by the final update it was/is a solid, fun and very addictive game, totally irrespective of it being an extremely simple idea, and that's all any developer owes you; nothing more.
*Where you can even give away entire quality polished games for totally free and some people will still give you 1 Star ratings for whatever utterly stupid and ignorant self entitled reasons.
@KnightRider666 look at the name, look at the grammar... Look at the name again... Look at the grammar again... Of course they bought it xD
@Kirk
whoa there pal, what's with all that passion? While I agree that his criticism of Flappy Bird is unwarranted (it's one of the better single button games IMO) his comments on the price and lack of originality and features are fair. Just look at what's available at and below that price on the eshop: amazing, original games with lots of content which ooze quality, talent and effort. This isn't one of those games.
Granted, it's not a 2/10 game, that does indeed seem a bit unfair. The reviewer's frustration at having to play another one of those clones certainly shows, but the tiredness of the formula is very real.
@B3ND3R: I'm not surprised, lol. @Kirk must have bought it too;)
Anything that attempts to copy Flappy Bird is a failure, i don't know if people do it as a joke. It may have be fun to play the original but copying it exactly just doesn't work
@LemonSlice
The score should not reflect a reviewers opinion on the price relative to certain other games but the actual quality of the game.
Sure; if the game was £80 or £800 THEN it becomes a major issue and one that deserves a whole load of points to be knocked off, just to make the point, but that is simply not the case here.
From what I can see, this developer has been grossly mistreated with such a misleading review score that suggests this games is literally terrible and basically not even worthy of a single look; which also from what I can see, simply isn't the case at all.
@KnightRider666
Nah, I never bought it lol but I'm just defending developer's rights to a fair and honest review that actually reflects the real quality of the game experience they are offering.
If this were a genuinely terrible game, 2/10 utter trash, then this would/SHOULD have been reflected in the review multiple times, which it clearly wasn't and it's definitely not coming across that way in the gameplay footage I'm watching either.
Basically, this developer has been massively wronged based on everything I can see of the game and what I read in the actual text of the review at least.
You can have yout opinion without insults, thank you — TBD
@Kirk Makes you wonder if this game was selling at the same price as Spike Walls what the review score would be.
Holy moly, 8 dollars? For a flappy bird clone?! HELL NO
lol 8 dollars for a game that is Flappy Bird number 393943? No thanks
Just like "Frenchy Bird" on Wii U, another garbage title spawns on the eShop. Yay...
@Spectator
Or if it were released before Flappy Bird caused such a storm, or was free, or was made in the 1990s...
I mean other than in certain extreme situations I think a game should be judged on its own merits rather than being subject to exact conditions and criteria it has no obligation to meet in order to still be a decent game in its own right.
@Kirk Then buy it for $8 and write down what you think.
Wow, talk about a failure in pricing! This is a $2 game, tops.
@TingLz
I can't because I don't own a Wii U and I'm genuinely skint regardless. It's also not my type of game either way, although that certainly doesn't equate to me thinking it's not worthy of more than a 2/10 based on what I've read and seen.
Lame. Flappy bird can go rot...
"Flap off"? Oh my, the sheer audacity of that pun!
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