Game Quicky: I Spy Spooky Mansion (Wii) ~ An Unexpected Remake!

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Sometimes you don’t expect a game to get a remake. One of these games is “I Spy Spooky Mansion”. I have fond memories of playing this game on my aunt’s computer when I went over to her place. A few years ago, I was able to snag my own copy during a garage sale. Now, when I was browsing eBay for cheap old Wii games, I found this game. I got confused. I honestly thought that somebody mislabeled this game. I thought there was no way for a game from 1999 to get a port to the Wii in 2010. But, the truth is quite different. This game did get a port in 2010 and got released to the Wii in North America. I say North America, but it’s quite possible that this game also got released in the EU, but I haven’t seen a copy in the stores. Now, I played this Wii port and this article will talk about my opinions on the game. Maybe in a future article, I’ll talk about my thoughts and opinions on the PC version of the game. But, now I kindly invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article. 

The good

The story of this game isn’t 100% the same. Well, sort of. You are still trapped in the spooky mansion together with Skelly and you have to escape. But, the method of escaping is different in this version of the game. I won’t spoil it, but I enjoy the original and the new endings to the game.

The sound design of this game is amazing. Compared to the original, this game feels more alive. There are a lot of obvious “spooks” in the game, like when you are upstairs, you hear somebody going up the stairs. Not to mention, the voice acting for Skelly is amazing. I personally enjoy the voice acting in this game more than the original. Well, I also have to compare a dubbed version of the game with the original English voice work now, so take that how you want.

The gameplay is mostly unchanged in this port of the game. You still get an I Spy riddle where you have to find a handful of objects inside a certain area. With easy to understand controls, you have to find these objects in the scene. The big difference with the original is the fact that most of the scenes are in 3D or are bigger than the screen itself. In the original, you have a 2D picture to “stare” at, to find all the objects. I quite like this style and it allowed the developers to put more details in the scene and hide the objects in more creative ways.

Apart from that, there are some gimmick Wii minigames where you have to make a certain motion with the Wii remote to win the minigame and find the hidden object. While you can’t really lose these minigames, they are a nice distraction from the hidden object quest. One minor thing that annoyed me was the fact that I couldn’t skip the tutorial speak and that the tutorial box stayed a bit too long on screen in my opinion.

While it would have been amazing to freely walk around in the mansion, sadly enough, that’s not the case in this game. You can walk around by pointing and using the A button to go into a moving transition. This minor change compared to the original makes the mansion feel more alive. In the original, you had to click on a door and you immediately moved through it. In this game, you go through a, sadly inescapable, cut scene.

The hidden object scenes are quite easy to spot. While exploring through the mansion, the scenes where you can play an I Spy riddle play a small animation. While some areas are the same compared to the original like the dining room and the kitchen, there are a few new rooms like underneath the bed and a board game in the living room. Fun times!

The bad

While the explore able mansion isn’t that large, I think it would be great if a map feature would have been implemented. Once or twice I wanted to go to a room and I forgot if it was downstairs or upstairs. Then again, this is only a minor problem since you were able to get quickly up and downstairs.

Something that I could also critique in the original and that’s still present here is the fact that you can still access the puzzles you have completed. This makes it quite annoying when you are looking for that final piece of the puzzle to beat the game. Now, I totally understand the reason for that decision. In the middle of the game, you need to look for pieces of paper and those are hidden inside parts of the puzzle.

Now, I might be spoiled by playing a ton of casual games/hidden object games but a hint button would have been an amazing addition. Sometimes I got stuck because I wasn’t able to find one hidden object and I restored to spam clicking the entire screen. In addition to that, it would be nice if I had some sort of sound effect or something on-screen when I reached the end of where I could go. Some puzzles go from left to right but not the full 360°, so either make the player hit a wall or give a visual clue that you can’t continue to move the camera.

While the sound design is really well done, the music is a major letdown. While there is some music in the game, it’s nothing to write home about. Most of this game is played in silence together with the great sound design. It’s a bummer since a lot of horror or horror-themed games have amazing soundtracks and I really missed it in this game.

Conclusion

This port surprised me. In a good way. While this game isn’t perfect and could use some polishing, I enjoyed my time with this game. I wanted to complete this game to see what they changed in this version and how it played. The differences with the original PC version of the game are refreshing changes to the formula.

If you enjoyed the original, puzzle games, casual games or hidden object games; this game is a perfect short title to play through. I highly recommend it when you are into those style of games. Now, if you didn’t get interested in this game during this review, I would highly advise you to stay away from this game since the repetitiveness gets boring really fast.

I’m so glad that I gave this game a chance and didn’t write it off as another piece of Wii shovelware. It’s an enjoyable title for young and old. While I could totally understand people not really liking this game, I argue that this game has a lot to offer and enjoy. I might not go replaying this game in the near future, but who knows… Maybe one day.

And with that, I think I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. Thank you so much for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 70/100

 

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Review: Kirby Epic Yarn (Wii) ~ Hiyaaah

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I have promised to review this game, so here I am. I really thought I had reviewed this game last year. But it turns out I was mistaken. In any case, let’s talk about Kirby Epic Yarn. The first game in the “Epic Yarn” series. I have beaten this game quite a while ago, so I have replayed a few levels to remind myself how the game played. So, I hope you are ready to dive into the wooly world of this game. I have played this game on the Wii and almost 100%’ed it. For those who are curious, why I called this game a part in a series is because two years ago, Nintendo released a spiritual successor to this game called Yoshi Wooly World. I haven’t played enough of that game in order to write about it. But hey, I’m getting off topic. Back to reviewing this Kirby game. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Wool, wool and wool everywhere!

In this game, Kirby is having a peaceful day in Dreamland, when suddenly; the fire nation attacks. Oh, sorry. Wrong game. I meant, an evil wool named Yin-Yarn wizard attacked.

After Kirby has eaten a tomato that was possessed by that Yin-Yarn, the evil wizard uses his interdimensional sock to transport Kirby to Patch Land where his adventure starts.

But Yin-Yarn wants to take over the world (of course!) and possesses Meta Knight and King Dedede. This way, Yin-Yarn tries to take over DreamLand, Kirby’s homeland. Surprisingly, there is a narrator in this game. Usually, in Kirby games, everything is told through text boxes. There is only one voice though. That’s the one of the narrator.

As is tradition in these kind of platformers, the story tacks a backseat during gameplay.  Apart from some cutscenes between sections, the story isn’t that present. While I prefer deep an interesting stories in my games, this was a welcome change of pace. It was relaxing to play a game with a light story and more focus on gameplay.

While this game supports a two player option, I haven’t played it much. So, I can’t review that mode. So, in this review I’ll only focus on the single player mode.

If you are looking for a traditional Kirby game, this game isn’t it. In this game, you can’t use Kirby’s copy ability. This game is centered on the wool mechanic. In some levels, Kirby can transform in various vehicles. But how that works, I’ll leave as a surprise if you still want to play the game.

Creative ripping

This game is a platformer. Yet, in some areas you need to think outside the box. Since Kirby doesn’t really have his float ability in this game, you need to jump over all gaps. And some gaps are very wide. So, you need to find a way to get into the background to move over the gap or use your new wool abilities to pull the other side closer to you. It’s hard to explain in just text, but when you look at some screenshots, it will explain itself.

In this game, you can’t die. The challenge in this game is in the collection of gems in each level. At the end of each level you get evaluated by the amount of gems collected. You can earn a bronze, silver or gold medals. But completionists, beware! This game hasn’t a completion bonus. But, it can keep you busy for a while since trying to earn a gold medal in each level can be difficult and finding each collectable isn’t an easy task either. The collectables are extras like movies and the soundtrack.

The wool mechanic is used in very creative ways. Like I said before, it’s used to “rip” the world. And not only that, the game is presented beautifully. The wool theme is present throughout the whole game and it looks amazing. It’s colorful and relaxing.

When I was playing this game, I felt in a relaxed state. This was a game to wind down. Overall, this game isn’t very hard for a more veteran player. If you aren’t a stranger to this game, you won’t have a lot of trouble with this game. There is one minor issue with this. I wasn’t able to play this game in long sessions. After an hour or two, I usually stopped playing this game. I got bored. This might be a personal issue… Since I had a great time with this game.

The music in this game is amazing. It’s amusing to see that Nintendo labeled the soundtrack CD of this game as the “Epic Soundtrack” like the title “Epic Yarn”. When I was playing this game I saw the soundtrack to this game as my most favorite Kirby soundtrack ever made. Now-a-days that title has been taken by the more recent 3DS games. But that doesn’t take away the fact that the soundtrack is amazing.

The sound design of this game helps a lot with the atmosphere. It adds to the design of the game and I have no complaints. Sometimes I even felt that the game almost came alive.

Hiyaaah!

Now, let’s talk about the menus and the UI. And honestly, I didn’t have any problems with it. This game works perfectly on the Wii. I have no issues about the UI. One thing I would have changed was that the menu and the area select menu were integrated into one menu, but that putting it into two different menus works just fine.

The controls of this game are perfect. I have played this game with the WiiMotion Plus and I barely had any problems. Again, I have no complaints about it.

The mini-games are a lot of fun when you have some time to mess around. They don’t add a lot to the main game.

This game has a rather decent length. This game has 8 worlds with a variable amount of levels. So, no complaints here.

Well, so far you would think that this game doesn’t have any flaws. But, there are some things I didn’t like about this game.

It’s nitpicking but… I found that some moments of the narrator weren’t that good. They felt forced or too much focused on a very young audience.

There is one thing that got underused. And that’s the decoration of your own apartment. I wish you could do more decorating.

And honestly, that’s about all that I can say bad about this game. When you like to play charming platformers, you can’t go wrong with this one!

So, the pink thread ends here. Because I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. So, it’s time to make the summary of this article, for those who are just looking for a quick review of this game.

Conclusion

The good:

+ Very relaxing game.

+ Amazing soundtrack

+ Light story

+ Amazing visuals

+ …

The bad:

• Sometimes mixed performance of the narrator.
• The apartment is very underused.

Final thoughts:

This game is one of the best games I have played on the Wii. This game deserves its spot on various top 10 Wii games list. It got 8^th place on my list.

While the visuals might turn some people down, for those who give it a try are in for a very relaxing and enjoyable game.

This game has a lot of polish by the developers and a lot of love was put into it. And it shows.

I loved to play this game and I hope that this review might win over some people who haven’t tried it.

In any case, thank you for reading my review and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to welcome you in another article on my blog but until then; have a great rest of your day and take care!

Score: 100/100