Hello everyone. I recently got all the trophies in the 2015 PS VITA exclusive game “Phineas and Ferb Day of Doofenshmirtz” and wanted to talk about it.
The game is one of the few Vita exclusives still trapped on the Vita so this is arguably the most “obscure” game I’ve ever reviewed lol. Anyway, the core/main gameplay is that of a twin stick shooter. The left stick moves the character. Right stick orients your character’s direction. You have no control over the camera. X is used to jump. O is used to interact with objects. L does a dodge/slide. R shoots. Left and Right switches between your 3 main weapon types. Up and down switches between Phineas Ferb. And Select lets you go into your inventory to switch your weapons’ alternate ammo types.
My first complaint was how sluggish and slow the base movement feels. I found myself mashing L just to speed through areas almost as much as I was mashing R to shoot at enemies. Ladders especially make you move so slow when climbing. Platforming was a mixed bag. The game offers what feels like a full 360 degrees of fine movement which would normally be great for a twin stick shooter. But it means the times the game asks you to do precise platforming are way more tricky because even though I feel like I’m pointing the left stick at the 3 o’ clock position, I could be pointing ever so slightly below that and my character is slowly falling off. I’ve had a few deaths from that. One challenging optional section requires you to traverse a series of launch pads back to back without a drop shadow telling you your position. It was a leap of faith for me on my second attempt holding right on the stick and hoping it would work. Perry’s platforming works a lot better because he has a double jump, letting him correct his jumps. Phineas/Ferb sadly have to make due with 1 jump each. But sadly you can’t choose to be Perry all the time.
The core combat/gunplay is functional if basic. Most enemies have simple patterns and only require you to circle strafe and shoot them. Later levels do throw more enemies with more health so combat can feel somewhat hectic. In addition, you don’t have many other abilities. No melee, parry, grenades, utility moves on square or triangle. The end result is that combat doesn’t really evolve much as you progress. Your guns change but not so much the encounters.
Speaking of guns, you have 3 main weapons. A Sports Gun that fires various sports balls and is also needed to hit certain targets in the environment. A fire gun that fires various fire themed shots and is needed to melt ice in the environment. And a water gun that fires various water themed shots and is needed to put out fires in the environment.
The basic starter ammo of the Sports Gun are slow and low damage tennis balls with infinite shots. However, later you can get a Frisbee ammo that ricochets between enemies and does decent damage at the expense of only having 25 shots. Or ping pong ammo that functions as a short range shotgun that absolutely melts enemies. Or a bowling ball ammo that can kill multiple enemies if you line it up. The Fire gun has options like flamethrower and AOE bombs for its later unlocks. The water gun’s starter ammo is a weak stream but later unlocks include homing icicles, scattering snowballs, tornadoes etc with limited ammo.
The more interesting thing (though not for the better) is the way the game handles weapon unlocks. And just listen to how convoluted this system is:
To unlock and equip a new subweapon, you need to first go to the workshop (located in the main menu), then tap on your workbench (because buttons don’t work here), then tap on a shop icon there. This takes you to the shop where you can buy new weapon chips and batteries for tokens. To actually unlock subweapons, you need to back out of the shop, back out of the workbench, tap the computer to enter weapon crafting. The game then shows you the subweapon chips you have and how many batteries and scrap (currency earned for defeating enemies) you need to craft the weapon. You then need to drag the chip, the batteries and scrap to the center of the screen to finally craft and unlock the subweapon.
My question is…. Why? Why is unlocking new subweapons/ammo such a convoluted process? It’s not hard or confusing. You’ll have enough tokens and scrap to usually afford some of the newly available weapons after every story chapter (and only a couple minutes of extra grinding after 100%-ing the game to be able to unlock all weapons/ammo).
When I first played the game, I initially assumed the game was built around some kind of resource management or Roguelike loop where while you'd always have infinite starter ammo, crafted sub-weapons had ammo that had to be re-crafted as you played the game so you'd have to be careful with your choices to justify the convoluted setup. Maybe you'd choose a specific sub weapon chip because it was really economical with how many batteries and scrap it required or something. But no. By the 4th level, you learn the game restores your ammo in between levels and even within levels, you find restock points that fill you up entirely.
My other conspiracy is that perhaps this game started life as a mobile title that Sony then picked up for whatever reason and that originally, these additional currencies would have acted as progression roadblocks and included as microtransactions or ad packs. That would explain the limited controls and touchscreen-only design of the menus. But alas, I guess we will never know.
Back to the gameplay, the core gameplay is controlling Phineas/Ferb and Perry through the twin stick shooter levels. When playing a Phineas/Ferb Level, you can swap between them by pressing Up/Down or tapping their icon. Phineas is slightly faster but takes slightly more damage. Ferb is slightly slower but takes slightly less damage. I found myself maining Phineas in those levels due to that slight speed boost. Perry's levels only have him been controllable and his levels are way more fun. Like I said earlier, Perry can double jump which gives his platforming more to work with. I also found his levels to generally be longer with more open ended sections and even a few puzzles.
The boss fights in the game were usually more frustrating. You have very little health and sparse checkpoints so a few mistakes were enough to set back all your progress. Perry's were usually more fun. Shout out to the final boss of the game that Phineas/Ferb have to face. This giant robot creates so many electrical attacks and projectiles that the Vita drops down to 10-15 FPS and plays in slow motion which ends up making the fight easier and more fair.
In between the regular levels, you also have minigame/gimmick levels. Like a 2D bullet hell level with Perry's ship complete with a challenging bossfight that was easily the most fun in the game. A sort of "left brain/right brain" Warioware style minigame where you control Phineas with the Right Stick and Ferb with the Left to move goods on a conveyor belt system that I found myself really engaged in. And stuff like a static rail shooter level. These were fine as the odd change of paces.
In the main menu, you also have the "Arcade" Game mode. This throws you into a turrent defence minigame lasting 15 waves that costs 100-500 tokens per round to continue and can nab you up to 30k tokens. Later waves ended up requiring me to lock in and it was pretty fun. You do need to do all 15 waves to get a trophy.
The game is a mixed bag in terms of production value. There's no voice acting or vocals at all. Even the opening has a weird remixed instrumental version of the show's theme song. The story is told entirely through textboxes. But the visuals are really good. This is, no exaggeration, one of the most vibrant and colourful games I have ever played on the Vita. There's a level towards the end of the game where Phineas/Ferb are shrunk down and have to navigate toy store (and as a bonus, collectible tokens are also much larger now to reflect that). And the reds and greens are so striking. There's a level after that where Phineas/Ferb travel to an "evil" future "Across The 2nd Dimension" style that's more grey and washed out and it actually makes that contrast stand out far more.
The general graphics and art direction is just solid all around. If you ever read my past reviews, I criticized the original release of Spongebob Battle For Bikini Bottom and Nicktoons Games' artstyles for looking so washed out and desaturated compared to their 2D shows (and subsequently, how great the Rehydrated re-release looked). Phineas and Ferb Day of Doofensmirtz Vita fortunately avoids that. This game looks exactly how I'd want a 3D adaptation of Phineas and Ferb to look like. Huge Props to the game for that.
The game wasn't a huge challenge to 100%. The game essentially requires 2 run throughs. One to beat the game and collect teleporter pieces. And another to run through and use the teleporter pieces to access secret areas and collect enough Tokens to finish each level with at least an A rank. You are only ranked on how many Tokens, Secrets and Scrap you collected rather than time or damage taken. While some secrets and collectibles are sneakily hidden, there is a nice Guide on PSTrophies that highlights the important ones. The only other notable trophy is that on the main menu, you can tap on flying enemies in the background to shoot them and destroying 50 gets you the trophy.
In closing, Phineas and Ferb Day of Doofensmirtz Vita is an..... well I'd call it a D Tier game on average. Graphically, it is cool but the slow paced gameplay and lack of engaging scenarios and limited production values make it an obscure novelty at best.
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