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I'll be the first to admit that seeing a game with match-three or Threes!-like mechanics generally illicits a groan from me. There are simply too many of these kinds of games regurgitating these puzzle formats with little to no innovation. Rocco's Island: Pocket Edition is different, though. While there are plenty of arguably rote and tired puzzles in the game, they are contextualized within an adventure filled with a lot of twists, turns, and heart that make for a special experience worth playing.

Perilous puzzling

Rocco's Island: Pocket Edition starts out looking like a run-of-the-mill point and click adventure game. You play as a young woman who has woken up on a mysterious and magical island. Shortly into this visit, she rings a bell that initiates a world-ending set of events that she immediately wants to stop with the help of a little magical companion who alerts her of her mistake.

From there, you tap to wander around and island answering riddles, completing match-three puzzles, and reaching score goals in 2048-style challenges to uncover the mysteries of this island and prevent the doomsday countdown you unintentionally initiated. Along the way, you meet all manner of magical creatures like the hand of the king who is literally a large, disembodied hand or a large talking fossil that has been around long enough to see and record the entire island's 30,000 year history.

Matching with mystery

Although the puzzles in Rocco's Island: Pocket Edition are not particularly elaborate or original, the context in which you are completing them is. The entire island is full of bizarre secrets and goofy characters, and if you make your way through the end of the game there is a pretty satisfying (though convoluted) narrative payoff.

It also helps that Rocco's Island: Pocket Edition has an interesting structure. Due to the world-ending nature of the bell, you are actually given a limited number of lives to complete every puzzle in the game upfront and you draw down from this pool if you happen to fail any challenge. This raises the stakes of what are otherwise generally pretty standard and familiar puzzles in a way that is fun while also not feeling overly punishing.

Putting the pieces together

It may sound weird for me to be praising a game with unoriginal puzzle design, a convoluted story, and–as I'm just now about to mention–a strangely low frame rate, but somehow everything Rocco's Island offers combines to elevate its high points and minimize its uglier aspects.

Part of this could have to do with the fact that this is perhaps one of the most ideal candidates for a mobile port I've seen. The relaxed and familiar puzzle-based gameplay feels better suited to playing on a phone or tablet than just about anywhere else. It's not a perfect translation, but players can get a really great sense of whether what Rocco's Island: Pocket Edition offers is for them or not thanks to its free-to-start model that allows players to complete basically the first quarter of the game before asking $ 4.99 to unlock the whole thing.

The bottom line

Somehow, Rocco's Island: Pocket Edition is enjoyable despite itself. I'd even go as far to say its odd combination of puzzles and story make it particularly special. It's not often this happens with games that base a lot of their gameplay around tired match-three mechanics, but that is just a testament to how this game has found a brilliant use for such a worn out concept.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/roccos-island-pocket-edition-review/

The pitch for Endling – Extinction is Forever is certainly intriguing. Marketing material will tell you it's a game where you play as the last fox left on Earth as your scrounge for food for you and your cubs and bear witness to the destructive power of humans. Technically this is all true, but the way Endling executes on these ideas is woefully underwhelming and plagued with technical issues.

Sneaky survival

Endling is a bit of a survival stealth game. You, as a fox with young cubs, venture out into the world under the cover of night to simply scavenge enough food to keep your family alive. You do this via direct control of the fox, though you are constantly locked into interweaving, rail-like paths you can hop between to dig through trash, hunt other wildlife, etc.

Making it to the next day isn't just a matter of finding food, though. There are humans and other creatures that may see and attack you, traps to look out for, and even certain food sources that have their own dangers associated with them. You also need to make sure you get back to a shelter before daybreak, as there is some implied mortal consequences for being out and about during the day.

Sniff out the story

On any given nighttime excursion, there are no other required objectives outside of scavenging. That said, there are points of interest that appear on the in game map as well as scent trails that can lead you to uncovering bits of story about Endling's world. The entire game is wordless, so the story bits are conveyed via still images and some character interactions, and in my time with the game it was hard to piece together a coherent narrative, really.

Things happened, of course, but it was very difficult to distinguish some characters from one another and figure out what any of it really had to do with the game Endling asks you to play. Eventually, additional events also come to a head and funnel you toward what felt like the inevitable conclusion of the game from the start, though I'll avoid spoiling anything in case someone can't or doesn't want to try to predict how a game like this might end.

Thorny and threadbare

Endling looks pretty amazing in motion and it definitely creates some emotional moments, but enjoying either of these aspects of the game can be pretty frustrating. Endling suffers from a number of bugs that can prevent you from making progress or force you to restart the game from a checkpoint.

Even without these bugs, Endling is systemically very thin. There's a single meter you have to manage throughout the game and doing so isn't particularly difficult or satisfying. There are peripheral systems like fast travel points, cub skills, and others, but none of them are particularly impactful on any of the core actions you perform to make progress in the game. As a result, Endling feels pretty tedious almost immediately and never really evolves into something that makes that tedium feel worth it.

The bottom line

I can see and appreciate the things Endling is going for, but it mostly only makes troublesome and weak attempts to reach them. Outside of the marketing, it never really feels like a game where you are the last fox on the planet. You don't actually get a good window into the horrors of human destruction. Yes, you play as a fox and you see cut down trees, but the message isn't sold to you within the game itself or through the things it asks you to do, which is pretty disappointing.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/endling-extinction-is-forever-review/