While a lot of people tend to get most games for Christmas, I generally get games on release date. It’s rare I pass up on one and usually if I do, there are a variety of reasons such as having too many games to play right now or not having enough information on a key feature (both were factors for LBP3). Regardless, I still ended up getting two games in December–Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker on its release date and Little Big Planet 3 for Christmas from my parents.
I’ll talk about them in order so lets start with Captain Toad! Captain Toad is an amazing puzzle game. The story is rather simple and you don’t really get a choice of characters, but it’s still pretty fun. I’d love if they added in some co-op puzzle DLC where you can play as both Captain Toad and Toadette.
The challenges live up to their name with some easier than others. We managed to get all 3 books done and the challenges for each after quite a while and did most of the Bonus Book until, well, the Mummy stages.
Captain Toad is well worth the money. It easily finds ways to make the levels feel unique and it’s just a lot of fun. The Mummy is my only complaint for the game. It’s essentially like the Cosmic clones from Super Mario Galaxy and I hated those with a passion. I don’t like being chased and it’s one thing where you just need to solve the puzzle–it’s another when you need to get tons of coins. There are SO MANY enemies in the game. The mummy just feels like a waste and it turns a relaxing game into something that is actually kind of frustrating. Right now, we have all but one bonus challenge complete (Getting the coins in the Gold Dragon’s level) and we can’t continue until we finish it and it stinks.
That said, I’m also disappointed that time trials seem to come into play when you finish all the bonuses in the normal level books. I’ve always had issues with Time Trials (I have only one done in Mario Kart 8) and I just… I don’t feel they add anything to this kind of game to be blunt.
The game is still fantastic, but I just hate those two difficulty additions beyond reason :( And I’m not sure we’ll ever get further.
As for Little Big Planet 3… I want to start by saying I loved Little Big Planet. I also really loved Little Big Planet 2. I’m… not enjoying Little Big Planet 3 though. I find the characters interesting enough, but the same magic doesn’t feel there. I don’t care much for the way the worlds work at all, I don’t like the constant switching characters, certain levels are just plain cruel versus challenging (Such as the final two levels–you lose on a later character’s part and run out of lives and need to start all over. Or the final boss which we’re still working on.), and I just… don’t feel attached to it.
It doesn’t help that the transfer procedure was terrible and many of the items aren’t even available yet. I feel that should’ve been good to go before the game released.
I’ve heard people say the game makes up for it in the Creation Mode but I don’t play in the Creation Mode. I’ve never been able to get good enough to do anything I could think up and I just didn’t care to mess with it more. And to be honest, if I’m not enjoying the main point of the game, I don’t see myself caring much to deal with Creation Mode since you kind of have to earn everything from the main game.
And that’s the biggest thing–backtracking feels so much more exaggerated in the game–not to mention just how difficult getting certain things are. I just feel it crosses the line from challenge to cruel and keeps going. A good example is the boss you fight as Toggle–it reminded me a bit of the boss in the Wedding levels in LBP1. We had some issues with it. We definitely went through it a lot. But it was no where near as cruel as Toggle’s level and we had less lives to work with for it.
I also feel so many levels being very character specific kind of takes away from having new characters in the first place with the way LBP works. That said, I do think the side challenges are kind of neat, but I still wish the overall world was better.
I’d really like to complete LBP3, but I’m not sure if I will ever have the motivation to finish it when it just feels more frustrating than anything :(
Anyway, with that said I still have plenty to do with older games. I still need to do a lot more in Smash Brothers for the Wii U, I’m still working on Animal Crossing, and I’m still playing Fantasy Life, Tomodachi Life, and Disney Magical World… Not to mention Pokemon Art Academy and a few other titles.
I’m also looking forward to the Rosalina Amiibo coming out next month. I hope I’ll be able to get one.