Date played: December 25th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 10/10
Captain Toad was one of my Christmas gifts from my daughter. She loves sitting with me while I play games. She gets involved and gives me tips and suggestions. My girlfriend thought this would be a great choice for playing with my daughter and she was absolutely right.
Captain Toad takes the small, bite-sized levels from Super Mario 3D World and expands them into a full sized game. The eponymous captain cannot jump and has very limited fighting abilities, so he must cleverly navigate the very small and very dense levels to succeed. The objective is to grab the star at the end of the level, but there are also three crystals to collect in each level. There is also a bonus objective for all levels which varies to include things like finding a well hidden gold mushroom,defeating all enemies or gathering a certain number of coins.
The visual style is just fucking fantastic all around. Everything is super cute, well designed and the attention to small details is awesome. The game also looks really good considering it's on Wii U, a system known for it's graphical weakness. Treasure Tracker wouldn't look out of place on a PS4 or Xbox One.
I played the first 17 levels. The level variety is great. I went to beautiful tropical beaches, a hedge labyrinth, a haunted house, a desert, a falling block level and everything in between. The challenge here is that without the ability to jump, the path needed to victory is a lot more complicated than it seems at first. I had to use clever navigation of levels by constantly tilting and rotating the camera. I used touch screen activated blocks to move the environment around. I twisted little valves to rotate bridges and paths. I blew on the microphone to lift and move platforms and much much more.
There are a few weird levels too, like a mine cart level where I had to aim at enemies and other items by using the gamepad's screen to see in first person, while seeing the action from a wider view on the TV. I used a turnip cannon to battle enemies and blow up blocks. I used a little mine pick to break blocks and kill enemies. I even climbed to the top of a lava filled chamber as the gigantic fire dragon boss was spewing dangerous fireballs at me!
I really love Treasure Tracker and can't wait to play more of it!
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 10/10
Captain Toad was one of my Christmas gifts from my daughter. She loves sitting with me while I play games. She gets involved and gives me tips and suggestions. My girlfriend thought this would be a great choice for playing with my daughter and she was absolutely right.
Captain Toad takes the small, bite-sized levels from Super Mario 3D World and expands them into a full sized game. The eponymous captain cannot jump and has very limited fighting abilities, so he must cleverly navigate the very small and very dense levels to succeed. The objective is to grab the star at the end of the level, but there are also three crystals to collect in each level. There is also a bonus objective for all levels which varies to include things like finding a well hidden gold mushroom,defeating all enemies or gathering a certain number of coins.
I played the first 17 levels. The level variety is great. I went to beautiful tropical beaches, a hedge labyrinth, a haunted house, a desert, a falling block level and everything in between. The challenge here is that without the ability to jump, the path needed to victory is a lot more complicated than it seems at first. I had to use clever navigation of levels by constantly tilting and rotating the camera. I used touch screen activated blocks to move the environment around. I twisted little valves to rotate bridges and paths. I blew on the microphone to lift and move platforms and much much more.
There are a few weird levels too, like a mine cart level where I had to aim at enemies and other items by using the gamepad's screen to see in first person, while seeing the action from a wider view on the TV. I used a turnip cannon to battle enemies and blow up blocks. I used a little mine pick to break blocks and kill enemies. I even climbed to the top of a lava filled chamber as the gigantic fire dragon boss was spewing dangerous fireballs at me!
I really love Treasure Tracker and can't wait to play more of it!
