Assassin's Creed Rebellion (an ok Time Waster)

 Assassin's Creed Rebellion is a free to play mobile game developed by Behaviour Interactive and published by Ubisoft. Its wiki describes it as "Historic action-strategy RPG" which, while technically true, isn't as impressive as it sounds.

Rebellion is divided into 2 main modes, on mission and at the meta HQ stuff. Let's talk about the missions first.

Missions work by the player selecting 3 characters to bring with them from the pool of characters they've unlocked. This can include characters from the Spanish Inquisition Setting like Aquilar, or characters from completely different times and settings like Kassandara from 450 BCE before the Assassins were even officially established (and your chosen characters can chat during missions and with targets like nothing is out of the ordinary which is quite funny). Each character can be from one of 3 classes and further specialized into subclasses. The 3 classes are combat (characterized by a pink symbol), stealth (are blue) and support (are green). Subclasses for support include medics who can health other characters and mechanics who can disable traps. Subclasses for the stealth side include characters who can parkour better or those who can parkour well but also use the hidden blade to assassinate enemies. Each mission has a recommended list of which subclasses would be ideal but you can ignore it if you choose to play the mission yourself. You don't need one of every main class. You can totally do a mission with just combat guys or 2 medics and a trap guy regardless of what the mission recommends but it may be harder. On said missions, the level is divided into rooms that have their own specific hazards and obstacles like guards, traps, gaps etc. You have to choose which one of the 3 characters brought along gets sent into the next room to get to the end of the room. If a character runs out of health while moving through the room, you must send someone else to get through the room while that original character is benched for the rest of the level. Depending on the character chosen there can be  different ways to get through the room. In a room with guards, a stealth focused character assassinate guards or parkour their way above them. However, characters only have a certain number of times they can use specific abilities. Like Aquilar can only attempt to Assassinate 4 people in an entire level. After the 4th guy, you can't stealth kill any more enemies. Same for other abilities like better parkour and disabling traps so some amount of resource management is required to get through levels well. You might consider sending in a combat guy to fight enemies to save your stealth guy's stealth kills for a later room for example. Also note that many of these out of combat abilities have a % chance to succeed so it's possible to fail an assassination attempt and then have to fight enemies while also taking a slight health penalty for failing that assassination. Combat works on a turn based system where you and your opponents trade blows and both can use special abilities and attacks after a certain amount of turns pass. Combat abilities don't seem to have a limited number of uses and rely on cooldowns. Levels can be quite sprawling with many different paths through and occasional bonus rooms with some extra loot. Note, you cannot backtrack through a level.

The main issue I have with the missions is that they are quite shallow. It rarely feels like a real strategic operation I'm doing with my squad and more like a simple gauntlet of basic obstacles designed to whittle my team down. It's so simple that it could be automated..... and it is. There is an auto-play button that plays the level for you and the system appears to be decent.

All this means is that this isn't a game to really dive deep into. This is more of a chill time-waster type game. I mostly played this game while my grandparents were sitting with me and watching cooking shows. It was simple enough to keep me occupied while allowing me to chat with them and pay some attention to other stuff. 

The other side of the game is the meta stuff. You have to complete missions to find resources to let you craft gear for your squads, unlock more characters and upgrade your HQ. Your HQ is a collection of rooms that provide you benefits like levelling up your characters, crafting weapons and armour for them, healing them if they are wounded, generating some resources etc. Initially, I expected this to be like Fallout Shelter where I could build my own rooms and fine tune the experience I had in the field. Like, I could make lots of medical rooms so I could brute force through hard missions by always having someone recovering so I could play riskier. But you can only build a select number of each kind room. You don’t even have a choice in the order which you can build rooms since they are unlocked in a preset order based on when you level up as the rooms have a level requirement. Honestly, you could remove the HQ altogether and just have a series of menus that do the job probably faster. Have a menu for crafting and levelling up, you can have tabs telling you how much bonus healing and resources you are gathering. The HQ doesn't really have much more to it. There aren't any interactions or activities you can do with your characters. No Minigames or challenges at base. It really just is a glorified menu.

In addition to that, you have to gather resources to make your characters stronger for later missions. This is where the Free-to-play nature of the game comes in as you'll often have to go back and play older missions to play later ones, or pay to get more intel and resources faster. The game does have a feature where it lets you instantly complete past missions you've gotten a 3 star rank in to get their resources at the cost of some of your squad's health provided you send in members with the recommended subclasses otherwise you won't be allowed to rush the mission and either have to find a mission whose criteria you meet or play it manually.

The Presentation:

In comparison to most AC games which go for a photo realistic style, Rebellion opts for a cute chibi artstyle which I do like. It pops on phones. The soundtrack, sound effects, environments and models are all also well done.

One aspect the game tries to go for is a "gotta catch em all" approach by letting you collect AC characters from across the franchise as part of your squad. While this is kinda cool and fan-service-y, I question its efficacy for more casual fans. With something like Marvel or DC, such an approach works better because there's a massive list of very popular characters people are quite fond off and are even somewhat known by even casual fans. And even less popular characters are still somewhat iconic with cool designs, deep backstories and lore that could make someone unfamiliar with them somewhat curious. With Assassin's Creed, aside from the main protagonists of the games, the side casts aren't as developed or iconic or have that star power to make it cool when you unlock them. I don't imagine many players who unlock Qasim al-Dani, Gershon Deloya or Lupo Gallego will even know who these characters are never mind be excited by them. While the current pool of characters certainly has some iconic faces, the future is somewhat limited by who the games can add and people be willing to pay or play for. It's a somewhat similar issue I have with some RWBY mobile games. Besides the main squad and some of the villains, everybody else has very little to excite me when I unlock them. Though, at least with RWBY, the visual designs of the plethora of side characters at least look more distinct which I cannot say the same for with Rebellion. That's not a knock against the AC games or the franchise. Some franchises don't focus on large ensemble casts that would translate to more iconic ensemble video games. I imagine a GTA or Saints Row style game in this format would also have a similar uphill challenge because the source games are more focused on individual characters who are a jack of all trades rather than an ensemble of heroes.

The Story:

I'm just gonna let the Wiki describe what's going on here:

"Rebellion is an Abstergo Entertainment product created using a mobile version of the Animus 4.3 connected to the Helix servers, which was dubbed the Mobile Animus 4.38. The product was released in November 2018 and primarily dealt with the prelude to and immediate aftermath of the Granada War during the Spanish Reconquista, following Aguilar de Nerha and the Spanish Brotherhood of Assassins as they fought the Spanish Rite of the Templars who operated under the guise of the Inquisition lead by Tomás de Torquemada.

Through Rifts in the simulation, players could experience Events which occurred in other time periods, ranging from the Peloponnesian War to the Roman Empire's rule over Egypt. During its 2018 anniversary Event "Echoes Through the Animus", the product's servers were hacked by an unknown individual using the handle 3P3EC74R, who revealed the next planned Event was to take place in the Golden Age of Piracy. Features included in the product beyond the Helix Rift Events are the Helix Store, Animus Challenges, Animus Bonus Hours, Animus Carousel, and Animus Bounties."

Basically, the story of this game is that this game is a mobile game made by Abstergo (probably in collaboration with Ubisoft) using a mobile version of the new Animus to let users experience the aftermath of the Granada War and have special timed events to see other stuff from the past mostly related to the Assassins side. Which is quite ridiculous. Ironically that explains why the Free-to-Play stuff is so irritating but I do wonder how much of the Assassins and Templars is known in the in-game universe? Since at least AC3 Liberation, Abstergo has been making "Assassin's Creed Games" in-universe thanks to their Animus programs but the benefit of which isn't well used. Like, shouldn't making these in-universe games and products be a bad thing? It's harder to remain a secret organization when you are making video games about your secret organization from your rival's point of view using a device that tell you what was going on in history, albeit with some edits. But those edits seem haphazardly designed. They don't seem to work in convincing people the Assassins are bad or the Templars good or they don't exist or whatever since the edits these games make in-universe don't really cover the truth or skew it well. Like anyone playing Liberation with no context of the Assassins or the Templars beforehand isn't going to come away thinking the Assassins are the bad guys or whatever. If anything, it might make people more sympathetic to the plight of the Assassins. I'm starting to think these are more inside jokes designed to be meta for the sake of it that are carried from game to game rather than some serious aspect of the AC lore that's going to have major impacts. Still I'm quite enjoying them so I certainly hope they continue as they are certainly a better idea than a modern day set of missions. But I do wonder if these could have been integrated better with the other games as a form of storytelling. Imagine if the next Assassin's Creed game is like 4 where you play as an Abstergo employee gathering footage of the American Civil War or something in the modern day and Rebellion gets updates and events showing the progress Abstergo is making in developing and advertising this new project. Or the other way, if the next AC is like Valhalla and you could have outside Assassin cells contacting you and using your mobile Animus to gather intel about the past and even some insight into Layla's team. I imagine that's a tall order and Ubisoft doesn't seem as hands on as something like Disney is with all supplementary projects tying into their current Star Wars EU. Plus, would most players even enjoy such events? Would the game even allow these events to shine or feel like more than just ads for the new game? The current events the game had, like the one with Elvior was a decent bit of fan service even if it made no sense how your characters from the 1600s could chat with Elvior which did end up making it more funny though.

In Conclusion, I'd recommend playing Rebellion as a simple but charming time waster, casually seeing numbers, stats and resources going up as its design is closer to that of an Idle game than a traditional strategy game. To that end, Rebellion accomplishes its goal. Though it is a little sad to see it aim so low. But I guess if I wanted a full on detailed stealth strategy game, I could play Invisible Inc, hopefully that comes out on consoles and iOS one day. But there is potential in Assassin's Creed taking a stab at that design using its own unique elements and I hope that comes to fruition.

Looney Tunes Back in Action - A solid platformer with some missed potential

Looney Tunes Back in Action is a 3d platformer and collect-a-thon developed by EA in 2003 and based on the movie of the same name. However, unlike the movie, the human characters aren't there and it's pretty much just Bugs and Daffy who are in control. The story reflects this as its Bugs and Daffy who have to track down a monkey (spelled "munkey") who stole a giant blue diamond. Each of the major collectibles done by completing an objective gives a munkey who is then later revealed to not be the target munkey.

The game works by giving the player a series of linear objectives to complete in moderately sized locations. As said earlier, completing each objective rewards a munkey and is tied to the story going on in each area. For example, in the first area, WB studios, the first objective is to chase a munkey as Daffy. Completing that objective involves catching that munkey. The second objective when that's done is to play as Bugs and tear down wanted posters for Daffy in the area which rewards another Munkey.

So basically a collecthathon, although, unlike something like Jak and Daxter or Mario, this is a lot more linear with much less flexibility. You don't have multiple main objectives in an area active at once you can switch between and instead have to do them in the order presented. Each world has around 4-8 objectives and once you complete most of them, you can move onto the next world if you have collected enough money from levels (between $2-4000) or stay and complete the final objectives and find any remaining collectibles (which also reward munkeys). The worlds themselves aren't too big, feeling closer to the size of hub worlds in other games. I do wish there was something of a free mode you can toggle to explore freely to find collectibles because the way the game is set up, that's not really doable. You can select individual objectives from areas in the main menu and the objectives after that play out normally. But this can have issues. For example, some collectibles like Acme Bird Seeds Reset every time you leave an area, requiring you to find them all in one go through a world. Others like Svelster and Tweeties require you to find them in order. So suppose you learn that the 3rd and final Svelster is in the area for the 4th objective. You can't just pick the 4th objective from the menu and do the thing. You need to play from Objective 1, get the first 2 Svelvesters and then get the 3rd one when you do the 4th objective. This can make scouring areas quite boring as you have to keep replaying objectives.

As for the minute to minute gameplay, you have 2 major characters, Bugs and Daffy. Both characters can run, jump, roll, attack and swap into costumes. But Bugs can Double jump at the cost of all forward momentum, burrow underground to reach new areas and dig up treasure, wall jump at specific points. Daffy can flutter jump and swim. The 2 can have their own costumes at specific points. Bugs can wear a variety of suits like a Hula or Cowboy suit that are only there for one section to act as a key and never used again. Daffy gets his Duck Danger Suit that gives him invulnerability and lets him participate in specific minigames. Costumes cost around $50 to wear and last for around 30 seconds. You can swap between each character near instantly if they are free Lost Vikings style. Some levels and objectives take advantage of the concept by having puzzles and platforming segments that require the player to place the 2 characters and swap between them as needed using each character's unique abilities. However, the game very rarely does this. Most objectives tend to require one character and it's not until the last 2 worlds that the Lost Viking style design comes into play more often. I found myself playing as Bugs whenever I could as double jumping was more useful than anything Daffy could do. All of that's not really a huge negative because most of the game is paced well. You have solid platforming followed by a fun gimmick objective. Something like platforming to find a Munkey in one objective, followed by a bullfighting minigame, followed by more platforming under a time limit then a tennis with bomb minigame. It keeps the game feeling fresh even if the individual mechanics rarely get a chance to really get pushed to the limits. I remember a while back, I reviewed a game called Spongebob Creature from the Krusty Krab and it kinda had the opposite problem. The actual platforming was quite basic and shallow and levels went on so long that it got boring to play through. Back in Action gets that balance of a simple platformer and licenced game with set pieces much better.

Back to Back in Action, There are some platforming segments I quite like and ones that did try and push the mechanics the game has. In the 5th world, one objective requires the player to save 5 other characters under a time limit. 2 of the characters are in a room only Bugs can access and other is for Daffy so you kinda have to speed through each section somewhat quickly and using each character's unique abilities. I do wish this section was taken further. Maybe had one more version near the end where instead of the 2 rooms being entirely isolated from each other, stuff you do as Bugs affects Daffy's room and vice versa and it becomes a bit of a maze, a puzzle and a platforming challenge as you swap between the 2 characters. That's really my issue with the game, it is pretty short, clocking at around 4 hours for me and much of the gameplay rarely gets a chance to shine. I'd love to see a bigger version of the game where levels are somewhat more sprawling, there are multiple objectives to tackle at once, and you have many tools at your disposal and you have to figure out how to use them to solve some objectives. I also wish the game had some subtitles as my hearing isn't the best and an option to uninvert the camera. But the game itself is quite decent. The biggest praise I have for the game is how it uses the Looney Toons world and humour throughout the levels. The dialogue and scenarios you end up in are quite entertaining. I had fun with the experience, until the end that is.

After you complete the 6th objective of the 5th world, you reach a door. However, Bugs refuses to help Daffy open it saying "we should find more munkeys first so we can change them back". So you need to find 35 munkeys before you can play the final objectives to complete the game. This has several issues. For one, the game has never encouraged you to collect Munkeys until this point. Every past roadblock just required money. Other Collectathons like Jak and Mario 64 had Star Gates early on to encourage the player to collect more and expect roadblocks like this. Not to mention that in Back in Action, if you complete every major objective in every world thus far, you'd be at around 27 munkeys. The rest come from 4 sets of collectibles in every level. You get 1 munkey for finding 3 Svelsters in every level, 1 for paying between $1-3000 to Foghorn, 1 for finding 7 Acme Bird Seeds to play a (admittedly quite fun) minigame where you play as Coyote chasing Road Runner on a rocket, and finally 1 for finding 20 Frog Statues. I, having known there would be such a gate, though not remembering the specific number, was extra thorough in my play and only had 31 munkeys by this point. After paying Fogorn 4 times and finding one extra Svelster I got the 35 but that was quite the pacebreaker. Collecting $6000 and replaying levels to find specific collectibles is quite tedious.

What's more is that this doesn't even make sense in the story. At no point prior to this moment was it established that Munkeys were transformed from other people, hell that moment happens after the door cutscene. The munkeys had just been presented as, random munkeys that were mistaken for the target munkey. Bugs also never showed concern for the munkeys beforehand. His motive had just been "Daffy is looking for this diamond, so might as well tag along".

The content after getting the 35 isn't all that worth it either. You have one short side scrolling section as Bugs, followed by the heroes getting captured, the villain showing up out of nowhere using the diamond to turn everybody else on the planet into munkeys and our target munkey piloting a giant statue mech to stop this. Tweety gets hit with the Diamond Energy and turns into a giant monster to fight the mech in a boxing minigame while Bugs and Daffy offer quite repetitive commentary. Once you win this, a cutscene plays where the place gets destroyed, the heroes all escape, the diamond gets destroyed turning everyone, including Tweety back to normal. Tweety is given all the credit much to Daffy's sadness. It ends with everyone preparing to head to Tweety's movie deal with a cheerful Bugs offering a crying Daffy a ride at a discount with before the fade to black, Daffy shouting "You want how much?!".

While the whole thing is very silly which suits the tone the game had been going for all this time, there are some issues. For one, there isn't a lot of gameplay afterwards. Just one brief side scrolling section and a kinda repetitive boxing minigame. This minigame suffers initially because the controls aren't shown. If you haven't played a boxing game before, you wouldn't know that the controls are now switched to left and right sticks. Pushing a stick forward does an attack in that direction and you have to read the opponent to attack in the direction they are weak to. Pushing both sticks back does a block and pushing both sticks forward when you have landed enough attacks does a POW attack which knocks the enemy back. You win after knocking the opponent off the edge 3 times (even though the cutscene afterwards shows the mech on the platform).

Personally, if I had my way, I would have made the following changes. If the player doesn't have 32 munkeys by the time of reaching the door, Buggs and Daffy are captured by the uncaptured munkeys instead of Acme Chairman who then succeeds in turning the world into munkeys and makes a fortune selling Acme Banana peelers. It can be played for comedy instead of being serious with Bugs and Daffy being unconcerned with the rest of the world being turned into munkeys. This is the "bad ending" of the game. If they have 32, then it proceeds as normal (albeit with a much more meatier platforming and puzzle section) with Bugs and Daffy facing no opposition getting to the chairman who are then accidentally able to get Tweety into monster form to fight the mech (I'd also like if this fight had a bit more to it). This makes getting the munkeys feel more in line with what the game has established so far. The rest can play out the same with just an added control prompt for the boxing match and more varied dialogue from Bugs and Daffy. Though, ideally, I'd have loved it if this entire final section went full MGS4 with the Rex escape and Boss Fight but that may be too much. Having Tweety be the final star is fine. It maintains the silly tone the game has had and even works with a similar theme to the movie.

Graphics:

The game uses a 3D model artstyle that reminds me of that one Simpsons Episode where Homer enters 3D and I'm not fond of this style. I find it looks unappealing and a lot of games based on animated shows go for this. Spongebob Battle for Bikini Bottom and Simpsons Hit and Run have a similar approach as well and I'm not fond of their style either. I'd much rather the graphics either be more detailed or be more cell shaded and cartoony. Regardless, I'm not going to ding the game too much for this.

So in conclusion, Looney Tunes Back in Action is a fun little 3D Collectathon. The controls, platforming and gimmicks are fun if a little undercooked. The ending stumbles a little with the odd gate. I do recommend playing it at your own pace and when getting to the end, watching a lets play instead of backtracking and combing through levels. As a fan of Looney Tunes, there are a lot of references and easter eggs sure to entertain fans.

A review of Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet and Winnie the Pooh: Rumbly Tumbly Adventure

 

Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet is a 2005 game developed by Monkey Bar Games who mainly work on licenced properties. The game itself stars the titular Dora and Boots as they journey with a bunch of aliens across planets to find keys to unlock a space gate to take said aliens home.

The gameplay consists of the player controlling Dora as they move through linear levels collecting green gems, occasionally platforming and playing the odd timing minigame. The game has "set pieces" from the show itself like Dora needing to check her Backpack for an item, solving a basic puzzle that involves looking for stuff, a basic timing challenge etc. Each of the different planets has their own varied aesthetic and some minor gimmick that sometimes factors in. Like the Green planet is covered in Green Slime so instead of jumping, you can slide everywhere. The Blue Planet has less gravity so you can jump slightly higher. Though, these are never required. You have vents that can launch you as high as your big jump on the Blue Planet for example. The camera is controlled by the game.

I feel a little harsh reviewing this game because what can I really say? This game was probably designed for pre-schoolers so offering a full on critique would probably be reductive. It would be the same as critiquing the show itself, saying "I found it kinda boring to play/watch and it's not at all challenging in any way" like yeah, this isn't made for me.

But regardless, I kinda feel this game could have given a little more of an exploratory feel and some optional challenge to give kids a little something to reward them for thinking outside the box from more of a gameplay sense. Like, on the Green Planet, there could be a space gem that's a little out of the way so you would have to use the manual slide to reach it somehow. Little stuff like that that isn't necessary to complete the stage. Levels only need like 5 Power Gems to beat per stage. There are like 6 levels so you only need 30 to beat the game. I collected around 400 when I beat the game and even skipping many so this wouldn't make it difficult for kids. I also wish there was more of a reason to collect gems. I imagine unlocking skins or other such bonuses would make it more enticing to explore more rather than rush past them.

One thing I especially like (and I'm being serious and not backhanded) are the "hidden in the environment" gems. There are some gems hidden in stuff like trees and logs and you need to keep an eye out for them slightly shaking as you move through levels, go them and press A and Boots will jump in and produce a Space Gem from them. I like this because it somewhat does what I was saying earlier. These gems aren't hard to find but they do require paying some attention to the environment and since different planets have equivalents to trees and bushes, it asks the player to change what they are looking for every level. Granted, kids will probably learn the pattern quickly but the idea is solid.

I do feel the Aliens are underused. Despite being the whole reason for the adventure, the aliens themselves are barely present in the game, only being around for a few cutscenes and minigames. They rarely every get a chance to shine. Honestly, you could remove them and very little would change. I'd rather the game either use the aliens more, have 1 alien permanently accompany the crew or just make up an excuse for Dora and Boots to go it alone.

I did look up Speedruns of this game on Youtube, thinking perhaps it would be a "Battle for Bikini Bottom"-type situation where Speedrunners have taken this game to an unseen level, but sadly, the (extremely entertaining) ESA Speedrun was just the same with some minor optimizations. (I don't mean to dismiss their accomplishments, but it seems this game doesn't have a lot to really work with).

In terms of presentation, the game is actually quite good. It seems to use the actual voice actors from the show. The graphical style is a neat 3D Translation of the show and I like it even more than Spongebob BFBB and Simpsons Hit and Run's attempts at turning a 2D show into a 3D one.

So yeah, if you have a pre-schooler and want to give them a video game to play, I guess this Dora game will suffice. It's colourful and simple enough for them. Now for the other game I will be looking at:

Winnie the Pooh's Rumbly Tumbly Adventure was released in 2005 (also re-released as a PS2 Classic on the PS Store in 2013) and it seemingly fixes all of my issues with Dora's game.

A quick summary of the plot: Winnie the Pooh remembers the birthdays of his friends to keep his mind off his rumbly tumbly. And that's it. Said Birthdays involve characters from the show who seem to be voiced by their actual actors. The graphical style is also quite charming and interesting and surprisingly detailed.

As for the gameplay itself, unlike Dora, this one is more of a traditional game. With stuff like Fail States, minimaps and puzzles. You play as Pooh bear for most of the adventure. Levels/Chapters proceed as the player chooses which friend's birthday they wish to remember, the level then introduces the premise of the story (like Eeyore's Birthday requiring Pooh to go and keep Eeyore's present, a new house, safe from a rock. Or Tigger's Birthday requiring Pooh to go find Tigger costumes etc.). You then have to explore levels that consist of major hub like areas, usually some major location like a character's house, with route areas interconnecting these areas. Routes tend to have enemies in the form of Heffalumps and Woozles who will start chasing Pooh when he enters an area requiring him to dodge around them to get to a balloon and that when popped will scare away the enemies. If the enemies catch Pooh, they will scare him away restarting the chase. I like these because it's finally some action gameplay. It even requires a tiny bit of strategy as you may have to bait out the enemies to clear a way to a balloon. For example, suppose the balloon is across a bridge and there are enemies in front of the bridge, you have to lead the enemies away from the bridge first before going for the balloon. It's not much and does start to get repetitive after a while as every other route has enemies but the attempt is still admirable and more than what Dora had.

In any area where there aren't enemies, you can then safely explore for collectibles. Some objects have a yellow glow and hitting them releases 5 Honey pots that bounce around the area. Whichever you don't collect fast enough teleport back into the object requiring you to hit it again to release them. This is somewhat interesting at first but gets a little annoying as it's possible for the RNG to send one or two pots so far across the area that you can't get them in time even at your fastest requiring multiple attempts. You typically need to get around 30 per level to appease bee swarms to let you get an item needed to progress. Some areas have objects with a blue glow that can unlock music tracks.

Note that while major hubs remain the same in between levels, the routes in between can change. For example, level 1 requires the player to go south from Kanga's house to get to Piglet's house. Chapter 2 lets you go to Piglet's house from Pooh's while that south route is removed. Chapter 3 lets you use that South Route to help Tigger with a quest (by the way, this game is entirely Fetch Quests) so the world is somewhat open. And since areas are reused, you can get a lot of honey pots easily as locations of the yellow objects are consistent in-between chapters. It also gives a sense of "this is a consistent world" as some areas from earlier levels are explored more in later ones. Like the cave you can see during Tigger's Birthday in Chapter 3 is explored by Pooh in his Birthday in Chapter 5. This creates a far better sense of exploration than Dora's game as well.

So yeah, during chapters, you mostly play as Pooh bear, going from area to area, talking to characters and dealing with enemies, finding items and solving simple puzzles. It's a somewhat boring loop but I imagine small kids will quite enjoy it. For what it's worth, the game doesn't feel like a cash grab but genuinely trying to be a good Winnie the Pooh game.

Occassionally during chapters, you may switch to another character for a couple minutes. Eeyore's sections are the most brief. They are auto-running sections where Pooh riding on Eeyore must capture butterflies, frogs or birds in a time limit. These are really short but a neat change of pace. I do like the gag where something spooks Eeyore every time these segments start. Tigger's sections let him bounce around normally but have to stealth through sections with enemies. Stealth isn't hard as enemies have clear vision cones. I do feel it is a bit of a missed opportunity that Tigger's bouncing is never really incorporated into gameplay. Could have been an option to bounce to cross areas faster and attract enemies. Piglet's sections are the hardest and most fun. His gimmick is that when he enters an area full of enemies, he must stealth to get in front of them so he can start a QTE minigame where he makes scary faces at the enemies to scare them away. This QTE Section actually requires some strict timing and the enemies can mess you up by disabling some of your inputs or flipping the screen to try and obfuscate the controls. For example, suppose you have to press X then Right + Y then B to complete part of a sequence, an enemy can flip the screen upside down so you have to read from the other way and correct for the direction. I can honestly imagine some kids struggling with this. However, you can press A to break off from minigame to allow yourself to reposition farther away to try again with no consequence.

The game also has a "junior mode" which is just a place where you can move around small areas as the playable characters, interact with things in small cutscenes with no risk of enemies. It's a neat little mode for even younger players.

The options menu was also unique. You need to take a minecart to a specific area where all of the options are represented by diegetic machines. The option for mono or stereo audio is represented by a gramophone looking thing that either has one or multiple speakers playing depending on the option. Volume slides have 10 whistles you can pull to set the audio. This is quite nice but I prefer the standard menus since it makes it quick and easy to set up what you want. Also, there are no options for subtitles.

One criticism I do have are the load screens. They pop up whenever you are moving in-between areas and seeing as each individual area is quite small, they pop up a lot and the constant 15-30 seconds does hurt the flow.

So yeah, this game was oddly relaxing for the first couple chapters. But then started to get more boring and repetitive for me near the end as the backtracking and enemy sections started repeating. The varied environments and character switching did add some variety. But regardless, I really do think if you're going to give your kid a game to start playing games with, Pooh's game is a better bet than Dora's. However, these games do feel like relics from a bygone era. Seeing as game development has gotten more expensive, I doubt many studios are making games like these for preschoolers, instead relying more on mobile games. I expect Angry Birds is probably introducing more kids to gaming than console games made for them. I can't say I'm surprised or saddened by this change but it is somewhat melancholic, these games are arguably designed quite well for what they are going for but probably won't get much love or remembrance or even much of a chance to do what they are supposed to. After all, why go out of your way to get these kinds of games for your kids when the App Store is full of free ones they'd like anyway?