Once again I did zero research on this game and instead just downloaded it with the intention of spending at least an hour on it to see if it caught my eye and if it did, I would continue playing it for longer. A game has to work pretty hard to manage to make it past this "hump" because they have to do a lot of things right in order to get my attention and then keep it for an hour or perhaps more. Of all the games I have played so far this was one of only two games where it felt like a chore to actually finish the 1 hour I dedicate to any game, regardless of if it is any good or not.
This game is so bad that I can't believe that it actually is a sequel.
The game starts out with you falling from the sky for some reason that isn't really explained and you go through a series of motions that gets you to safety. This is meant to be funny but for the most part it is just a ton of dialogue that thankfully you are able to skip to a certain degree. Let's just say that after a few sentences I was already skipping the dialogue because it wasn't giving you backstory, it was trying to be funny. It was not funny and the voiceovers were annoying.
During all of this a button will pop up on the screen indicating that you have to hit "X" in order to jump to a new platform but your placement, or your timing on when you hit the button, are completely irrelevant as to how the game progresses. After my 8th or so jump, I decided to get up and go to the bathroom and see if by doing so this resulted in me failing and falling to my death. It did not. I'm guessing that you could leave it on that portion all night long and the same would be true. If this is the case then why bother with having us get involved with button pushing in the first place? It's just stupid.
After that they have a tutorial mixed in with the running of the pre-credits as far as the game creators are concerned and while this is a creative way of doing the tutorial, it was entirely too time-consuming and repetitive already. I was already annoyed at this point but had promised that I would put an hour in regardless. Eventually the credits were finished and I found myself getting transported to a castle to witness a conversation between a queen and her princess daughter and dear lord did that go on forever.
The "fun" is just beginning at this point because as soon as mother leaves the room you are tasked with walking all over the room and interacting with a ton of different items that happen to be in there all the while talking to your pet bird "Cheep Cheep." The controls for walking around the room are just awful and you find yourself getting trapped behind furniture on a regular basis. The camera is fixed for the most part and you walk out to the balcony over and over before eventually interacting with EVERYTHING until finally figuring out how to trap the bird in a music box so you can leave. This was a convoluted mess that gave you almost no clues as to how it was meant to be done all the while having terrible controls and camera angles. The BEST news is that every time you interact with something you are forced to wait for a voice-over about that particular item, even if you have already accidentally clicked on it 6 times before.
All in all it probably took me 30 minutes just to get out of the very first stage of the game and I find this unacceptable in any game. I was hopeful that the next section would be better and that was just a hiccup. Unfortunately it got a lot worse. Now I was faced with a much larger area with more items that when interacted with would activate a voice-over and the process continues. Now I am trapped in the garden instead of the bedroom.
After wandering around the garden and interacting with everything that was there and in the library behind it (while also running into things and encountering a lot of "invisible walls") I finally reached one of the most arduous hours I have ever spent gaming in my life. This "game" kind of reminded me of Sierra style games of the late 80's and early 90's where your objective was to solve puzzles in order to progress. This was acceptable back then because we didn't have the graphical or storage-medium capabilities to do any better. We have exceeded the capabilities of the early 90's hundreds of times over by now and I don't know who this game was intended for, but it certainly isn't me.
Perhaps it would be better or at least "less unbearable" if someone was playing with a mouse because it appears that this is exactly what this game had in mind when it was designed. The process of simply walking from place to place is an exercise in frustration and it indicates to me that the original intent was to simply click on something and the character would walk there automatically.
I find it quite amusing that this game was ever released on consoles since the design is something that really can't be done with a controller. To make matters even more ludicrous, this game, if you are dumb enough to pay money for it, still costs around $30. I got it for free and thank goodness for that.
When the clock struck one hour of playtime I immediately switched it off and I am damn certain that I will never play it again. This game has no redeeming qualities and is by far the worst PS-Plus Extra game I have played up to this point.
Definitely... NOT.... recommended
Games played so far in my trip through all the "Extra" games on Playstation Plus
- Windbound (survival game with rogue-like elements - not recommended)
- Magicka 2 (top-down humorous multiplayer hack and slash-sort with immense spell system - maybe recommended)
- Tearaway: Unfolded (charming casual 3D platformer with inventive graphics and gameplay designed for all ages - recommended for casual players)
- Spiritfarer (casual simulation / resource-management style game with an extremely good story - recommended for all)
- Observation (point and click survival sort of... interactive game of sorts set in space - found it very boring after just one hour and do not recommend)
- Gabbuchi (simplistic puzzle game that I feel is better suited to mobile devices. Not recommended on consoles)
- The Messenger (8-bit style action/platformer that is a throwback to original Ninja Gaiden. It's simplistic fun. Recommended)
- Megadimension Neptunia VII (typical JRPG with some adjustments made to combat for uniqueness. Could be fun and I lukewarmly recommend for someone willing to dedicate 50 hours to a turn-based RPG)
- Monster Jam: Steel Titans 2 (monster truck racing game that will appeal only to people who are already fans of the sport - not recommended for any other people)
- Entwined (Visually appealing rhythm pace game that is very easy to pick up but gets repetitive after 30 minutes or so - recommended for anyone that can get it for free.)
- 2Dark (8-bit graphic survival horror/stealth hybrid. The game becomes extremely difficult really fast and therefore failed to hold my attention - not recommended)
- Virginia (interactive-cinema...not really a game and it is over in a couple of hours. Not recommended)
- Trials of Mana (simplistic action RPG that will definitely appeal to the casual gamer that is a fan of old-school RPG combat mechanics - recommended)
- Journey to the Savage Planet (FPS exploration game in a semi-open-world environment. The game is intentionally silly and I loved it - recommended)
- Resogun (arcade-style single-screen SUP that will get boring to most people after an hour or so. Not recommended)
- The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 (point and click adventure game that doesn't work on consoles and is just irritating to play - not recommended)