Philip_J_Reed

Back in school, I had a principal that would make anyone caught pulling a prank today write a paper on the origin of the "holiday".

Feel free to direct him to our contact form.

The whole of Lego City is a giant easter egg of Nintendo goodness!

It really is...and I'd have it no other way.

I just blogged about this being such a wonderful labor of love today...before I saw this confirmation of how far he is from turning a profit.

I honestly do hope more people check this game out. I'd hate to see this turn into another in a long line of WiiWare failures.

No offense taken, I hope.

None whatsoever!

A Circle game that isn't Castle Conqueror...

...a wary chicken indeed.

EDIT: Whoops, nm...just noticed they're publishing, not developing! Let me at it.

I ADORE this game.

Sorry. I just need to say that as many times as I possibly can.

HarmoKnight doesn’t pose a stern challenge

Man, I was terrible at the demo. It looked like a great game but was way too hard for me...I'm jealous, because if you didn't find the full game that difficult that just scares me more! Like the commenter above me, that says more about my rhythm than it does about the game though.

Time to get back to developing "legions" of Cake Ninja games...AMIRITE!?!?

It seems like nintendolife gave the lowest score... Metacritic score is quite high...

We gave it a six and the average is around a seven. That's not that much of a difference!

Errrrrr where is Startropics?

It was represented on several of our individual lists, mine included, but I guess it didn't rack up quite enough points. Still a great game, though!

I'd just like to mention that it was absolute torture to narrow this down to 10! The NES was such a brilliant system...and probably in my top 3 systems ever. Fantastic library.

Assign a new Mega Man game to WayForward. DONE.

What would be the point of that? "Oh, let's include the old game with crappy graphics for the sake of nostalgia!"

None of the Capcom Disney games had crappy graphics.

b-but i'm not ready to take FE:A out of my 3DS yet... D:

SAME. Also I'm not ready to stop playing Lego City Undercover.

TOO MANY AWESOME GAMES LIFE REALLY SUCKS

Rats, I was going to pick it up tonight. I hope I can still find a copy!

One note for Nintendo Life: I love Phillip Reed's writing, love for retro games and excellent game reviews, but could we have a NON-Mega Man fan write the rest of the Virtual Console Mega Man reviews?

I've only written two! All of the other reviews, including the Wii VC releases of MM2 and 3, are by other reviewers, so check them out if you do want a second opinion.

I've seen that bunny in my dreams.

It was after I had some expired seafood.

@RightHemisphereG MY EXACT QUESTION

It was my most anticipated game for the console, to be honest. I can't wait to get it.

And now I'll get this. Discounts work!

When you only cover one company's platforms and rely on good relationships with the industry, you get reviews like this, overly praising a terrible, ill-fated game

You've been here long enough to know we don't feel obligated to praise terrible games.

Tagline love.

Quite the timely review there nintendo life.

Quite the constructive comment there @nocode.

I probably would have gotten this at some point, in some form, but that "20k gift to the fans" thing won me over immediately. I downloaded it, and it's fantastic. That's about the nicest gift I've ever received. Sure, it cost me $10, but it cost him a heck of a lot more than that.

I'd be shocked if it hit the sales threshhold, but I sincerely hope it does. It's unquestionably one of the best WiiWare titles...and I wish it could have seen a larger audience on that platform.

Whelp, that's got a download outta me.

If you actually wanted to you could maybe discuss or even try to debate these issues?

I don't think it's necessary to do either. It's perfectly within somebody's rights to disagree that one game is better than another and move on with their lives.

At least I hope it is, because that's certainly what I intend to do.

Nah, not just hidden. Some of them were fights and rescue sequences that just refused to trigger.

What points were docked? It got the same score as the original vc release.

If you didn't like the game then simply explain that - don't use restore points and 3DS controls to put it down.

I do like this game. A 6 is not a bad score. We talked about the features unique to the 3DS version, and in this case didn't find the restore points to be much of a bonus. It's as simple as that.

Medusa just missed the cut! I started that one but wouldn't have had it done in time.

Next year?

/me doesn't know what to make of how many people are surprised Ganon(dorf) is single.

Donkey Kong was an arcade game, meaning high-scores were a major factor.

I'd argue that fun was even more of a factor. But once again, I already explained it in the review AND in my answer to your question, so I think my point's been made pretty clearly by now!

And we typically try not to spoil later stages and bosses in our reviews.

@Rayword:

I answer your first question in paragraph 7 of the review. Your mileage may vary of course but this is one of the games I've had the most fun trying to perfect, and there's more to replayability than alternate paths. (How many alternate paths does Donkey Kong have again?) And it's always great to go back and try the same stages with different weapons and approaches.

Also...I like it? Not sure what you're looking for with the Wily question.

Game length is a major factor

I won't get too deeply into this debate — as it's already been gone over by commenters above — but I'm sure the amount of time I've spent with this game in my life is in the hundreds of hours. It may well be short, but that's not an inherently bad thing. I'll take a short game that I'll play forever over a long game that I'll play once any day!

@Tasuki:
Buebeam Trap killed my no-death run. (Pun intended I guess.) This is going to be even harder than MM1 to no-death, I think!

Looks cool, but if Zelda didn't make it through, I highly doubt this will.

I agree, but I'm absolutely casting my vote for it. Stranger things have happened!

TRULY brilliant game. I love this one. Great review Jon!

Thanks Tyrone. I will of course confirm that the 3DS version was played for review (see our FTC disclosure above), and that the rating was in no way based on price. We appreciate the comment!

You've been lost me when you made countless comparisons to Cave Story. You even said it yourself; Cave Story came AFTER this. Comparing Cave Story to Ikachan makes sense; comparing Ikachan to Cave Story does not.

It makes sense for the reason that Cave Story is by far the more universal reference point for most gamers, and explaining similarities between the games is meant to give readers a better understanding of how Ikachan works.

IMHO of course.

Let me clarify, what does the Wii U version have to offer that the other systems don't?

Nothing, sadly. At least not as far as I can tell. I looked into reviews for other versions to see if any of the things I was experiencing was exclusive, but it doesn't seem like that's the case. You can tap the gamepad to select a character rather than using the D-pad, but that's the only thing that I'm aware of, and while it's not bad it's certainly no handier than the D-pad was / is.

Can someone re-review this game with an idea about how it looks and plays on the wii u?

We discussed how it looks and plays on the WiiU. Not sure where the PS3 concern comes in...I don't even own one.

I find it bullcrap that it gets negative on a review for not having off-screen play. That should not factor into the game experience AT ALL.

Citation please. That wasn't a factor and wasn't mentioned as a negative.

No problem Dr Karl! And folks remember... I didn't review Paper Mario so I can't really address that.

Does the author of this review not enjoy the logical thinking needed to solve these puzzles? Why does he feel the need resort to a "brute force" method of problem solving instead of sitting back and THINKING?

I'll definitely take a moment to address this, because I hoped the review made clear that the issue isn't that I don't like solving puzzles of this kind. I'm actually a huge fan of both Gilbert's and Shafer's games, and nearly everything Sierra was putting out in its prime. Believe me, that's not the problem. The issue we have with the game is its particular approach to problem solving.

I don't feel the need to resort to brute force, as you put it...but sometimes your rationalizing and lateral thinking can only get you so far. If you can make it through a game like this without experimenting then that's great, and my hat comes off to you, but I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of players — myself included — will have to experiment at some point in order to figure out what's supposed to happen next.

There's nothing wrong with that and there's no need to insinuate anything because of it. Sometimes it's clear how to advance (the Strong Man puzzle in the carnival) and other times it's less clear (pulling Excalibur). Nobody's playing the game incorrectly because they need to experiment...our issue is that the game makes that experimentation tedious.

When I cite the blind inventory puzzles of old I'm not saying that that was an ideal way of playing the games...but like it or not it was part of the experience, and that remains true today for anyone who doesn't immediately see how the solution is meant to play out. (Or in the case of The Cave, knows what they need to do, but doesn't immediately see the precise steps in the precise order that the game needs in order to let you advance.)

Part of the experience for you may be sitting back and meditating and returning with everything sorted out. Again, if that works, that's fantastic. But for lots of folks part of the experience is the fun of experimentation...in fact the best adventure games rewarded this endlessly...and The Cave hinders that fun by turning it into a series of tedious, circular treks to grab items and see what works.

I'm deliberately not spoiling puzzle solutions so forgive my lack of specific examples, but I will say that more than once I was confronted with a situation that clearly required a particular item. So I'd go off to find that item, locate it, bring it all the way back to the obstacle that needed it, and then find out that I couldn't use it yet. So I'd leave the item there, go off to see what else was required of me, and find out that I needed the item I left behind somewhere else first. So I'd go back and get it, bring it to the second obstacle, use it, then bring it all the way back to the first. That's not adventure...that's nannying! And it's not much fun.

We like The Cave. We think it did a lot of things wonderfully, and the concept is excellent. But it comes down to whether or not the constant meandering, backtracking and item juggling bothers you. If it doesn't, that's great, and we're very happy you're enjoying the game. But it bothers us, and we calls em like we sees em.

I'm asking a question. Is it so wrong to ponder over something as noticable as that?

Nobody said it's wrong...just that it's not relevant and, in all honesty, none of anybody's business. Some games are reviewed within a day, other times within a week, and other times longer. It happens, and I don't feel it's particularly productive to clog up the comments section wondering why...especially if the commenter isn't bringing anything else to the conversation. Thanks in advance for focusing on the reviews and the games themselves.

I'm just wondering, does anyone know why this took so long to review?

And I'm just wondering, is that anyone's business? Nevermind, I know the answer to that...and so do you. So that's quite enough about it, yes?

I'd be more interested in reading comments of actual substance on the work I do than irrelevant pondering over why it "took too long." Thanks for your understanding.

Guys, this sadly applies to nearly everyone commenting here: this is not a hunting game. While I'm all for open debate, it's pretty irrelevant as there is no hunting in this game. It's a gigantic misnomer, and that's addressed several times in the review! Let's try to stay on topic, because despite the title of this game, hunting isn't the topic.

And the tagline is taken from the Maru's mission review

Nope! Synonyms to the rescue!

Because the other 2 had a 1.

No, they didn't.

Out of curiosity, I know this game awards you with NO DAMAGE badges when you finish a level without getting hit, but are there other things as well? Like a SPEEDRUN badge or PACIFIST badge or anything? I haven't seen them, but if I know they exist I'll be glad to earn them.

Great review Thomas. I absolutely love this one.

Merry Christmas to the absolute best community on earth.

they have neglected their giant fan base

...by spotlighting fan creations.

Wait, what?