Recently I have had the opportunity to spend some time with three separate “Nintendo 3DS” titles. I could not decide which one I would rather write about, so I decided to give all three a try.
The first game I looked at was “Paper Mario: Sticker Star,” a game that lacks purpose and personality. In this romp, Bowser interrupts the annual Sticker Fest, steals something shiny and kidnaps Princess Peach, as he tends to do.
The Paper Mario series is a well-beveled cult RPG franchise, a fact that Sticker Star constantly tries to subvert. Enemies do not give you XP or any sort of incentive to fight them, so there is no point in picking fights with them. There is no point in collecting coins since all you can use them for is buying items that you can just find in the environment. And there is no point in saving the annual Sticker Fest because the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom have some sort of festival, fair or holiday every other week.
Losing this one to Bowser is no big deal unless you feel like spoiling the entitled Mushroom citizens some more. Skip this one. Find any other game in the series to play instead.
The second game on the list is “Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion,” a throwback to “The Castle of Illusion” title released on the Sega Genesis. This is by far the best game in the “Epic Mickey” series so far, and manages to be a reliably solid platformer.
The visual style is appealing and it is nice to see Mickey Mouse actually do something noteworthy for once. As you explore the Castle of Illusion, some famous Disney characters pop up from time-to-time and they all hang out at the lounge and wait for Mickey to make all their lives better through side missions.
If there is a shortcoming with P.O.I., it is the paint system they have going on. Players will come across points in the environment where they can draw on the touch screen and add something to the top screen. This is fine at first, but it gets tedious and frequently breaks the flow of the game. Despite that, “Power of Illusion” is still fun.
And to wrap things up, it is “Adventure Time: Hey, Ice King! Why would you steal Our Garbage!?” This game is a must-play for fans of the show, adapting the wacky humor into a platforming adventure title reminiscent of “Zelda II.” If you are not a fan of the show, there is no point in playing it. Watch the show instead. Then when you fall in love with it, buy the game and have the time of your life playing it.
