Recent reviews by LizardTaro

Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap plays just like the 2D platformers you know and love: you jump over obstacles, hit enemies with your sword, and discover secret areas. At the end of each level, a boss awaits you. Magical items such as thunderbolts, arrows, and boomerangs aid you in your quest, and you can upgrade your stats by buying and discovering better equipment. So in that sense, you could almost call it an "RPG lite." It's probably the coolest addition because it allows you to have a much easier time with certain enemies and bosses. Enemies too hard? Go back, explore, and find better equipment, more life potions and secret hearts which add to your health, then try again! Because some stuff is blocked off at the beginning, you could also call this game a "Metroidvania lite" since you have to revisit some areas again after getting a new ability - a new transformation.

Graphically the game looks absolutely fantastic - the 2D animations are just magnificent and fluid, the backgrounds are beautifully painted and the art style is rock solid. The music is fine. I'd say it sets the mood just right, although it does give off some "generic free YouTube music"-vibes sometimes.

There is one thing I am not too fond of: the actual platforming. Since you can switch to the original art style on the fly with just a button press, that means the game plays just like the original one that was released in 1989. That also means it inherits all the clunkiness and issues of the original game, and it does show in more hectic situations and situations that require precise jumps (the Mouse-Man "unknown area" is pure torture). Pro-tip: The amazing animations can actually be a distraction here, so switch to the original style which allows you to focus more on precision jumps. Once you are done with the difficult parts of the level, switch back to the new art style for some eye candy.

All in all, it's short and sweet with an art style that puts any Mario platformer (including Mario Wonder) to shame. More platformers should have 2D-animated, cartoony graphics. The actual platforming is a bit clunky though, making this game unnecessarily hard and unfair sometimes. You can really tell that this is a reskin of the original game because the level design does come off as archaic / outdated sometimes. Still, a solid recommendation from me. Bonus points for Piranha-Man, who reminds me of Hangyodon!

7/10

So, I have finally gotten and played the game to completion! My thoughts? Much better than any Paper Mario game released after The Thousand-Year Door. People might call games like Bug Fables, Born of Bread, or The Outbound Ghost as Paper Mario clones, but calling them clones is somewhat insulting in my opinion, especially since those games fill in the gaps left by Nintendo. But, enough with comparisions. This is about Born of Bread!

The gameplay of Born of Bread is similar to what you might expect: it's turn-based combat with timing-based input commands which increase damage dealt or decrease damage received. The main character Loaf is thrown into an adventure, trying to stop Jasper from getting the sun crystals needed to ressurect an ancient kingdom. On his way he meets several partners who also get their turn in combat. Sure, the story might be nothing particularly extraordinary (safe for a couple twists) and the gameplay is exactly what you would expect from a turn-based RPG, but it is executed incredibly well! The characters are charming, the dialogs are fun (although I wish there was a way to increase the text size) and the game is mostly well-balanced.

I say "mostly" because I feel that the last quarter of the game was much too easy. Suddenly enemy encounters only consisted of a single enemy (instead of multiple enemies) and the final boss only managed to deal about 22HP damage... while I had over 200HP. Maybe I was overleveled? Here's one point of criticism for the game: enemies respawn far too quickly. In fact, leave one area and return, and they are back instantly. I am not the kind of person who runs from a juicy enemy encounter, so I just fought them all and probably gained about 20 levels in one section of the game alone (Coldstock Cottage) because the game constantly required you to backtrack through the area and enemy encouters often gave you the maximum amount of enemies per encounter - which also means tons of experience points (here called "Might"). Gain 100 and you level up! With the maximum amount of enemies, you would need only four to five encounters until you level up again, and so on.

Speaking of areas - they are all beautifully designed! Sure, you have probably seen most areas in other games (forest, beach, snowy mountains, horror mansion) but where Born of Bread stands out is the sheer size of them! They are HUGE and there's tons of stuff to find and explore! I was amazed at how large the areas were during the first couple of hours. The soundtrack does its part, too, and is nothing short of outstanding! Even before completing the game I already put some music on my MP3 player to enjoy it when I was not actually playing it. It's epic, synthy, and just fits the mood. The battle theme also changes with each environment, making it feel fresh.

Badges are back, but they are called "boons" here, helping you out in battle! It's nicely balanced, as you can only equip up to eight of them. One minor issue is that some effects stack, while others do not. I had to experiment here to find out what works and what doesn't. Not sure if it's a glitch or because of balancing reasons. You also get to choose color palettes for your pals, which is a nice bonus, but going with their original attire felt the most natural to me.

Some of the features this game offers feel great, such as boons and weapons you can equip, while others feel a bit... "underbaked". I am mostly talking about the cards and Resolve Points (RP). You can collect cards with different designs and characters on them, but doing so does absolutely nothing except visually changing the design of the cards? I thought they played a bigger role during battle, but in reality changing the cards doesn't do anything. I also didn't make use of RP in the game, like at all. Even at the end of the game, I still had like only 5 RP and I haven't used a single special attack, because it just wasn't needed. Weapons and skills were enough to breeze through the game. The bosses were a joke. Some of the regular enemies felt harder to beat than the bosses, simply because there were more than one of them. The chat display and the special requirements for getting additional Will Power (WP, used for most weapons and special attacks) were also absolutely underbaked and I was completely ignoring those features after the second battle already. It IS cool that the game tries something new, but I feel that it really wasn't necessary or that the difficulty should have been increased significantly so that the player would be forced to make use of the additional mechanics. Ah... but maybe my criticism is a bit unfair here, because the game DOES offer a hard mode (so far I have only played the normal difficulty). I wonder what changes were made for the hard mode.

Another amazing addition to the game are the quests. Giving the characters who are in need of a helping hand a grumpy emoticon is a simple but effective way of showing the player that there are quests needed to be done (btw. the characters animations and facial expressions are amazing!!). But what makes this even better is a quest log! Let's say you can't play the game for a couple weeks and when you start again, you have forgotten what to do - fear not! The quest log in the pause menu shows you everything you need to know, and you can get back into the game really quickly. It's honestly amazing how a simple addition can significantly increase the quality of the game. The pause menu also lets you unlock skills from your partner's skill tree (provided you have collected enough lizards in the environments, which are sometimes hard to find even though they make a snoring noise) and there's also a helpful map. It's awesome how complex the pause menu actually is - maybe too complex. Even at the end of the game I had trouble shifting through the pages because I didn't know which buttons to press (L1 or L2?) to highlight a certain menu. The menu could have been made a little easier to navigate. It is certainly a bit overwhelming at first.

Don't be discouraged by the negative reviews saying that the game has tons of bugs. Yes, it does a have a few bugs. But as of now (July 2025), I have only encountered a few of them, and not a single softlock or game crash. There's some minor issues such as the speech bubble not appearing for characters you can speak to (going away from them and then approaching them again fixes this), some scrolling issues in the quest log, a camera glitch during a sidequest (when you have to give Papa Baker certain consumables), a sequence break (do the "Racing Through The Mines" quest before freeing Papa Baker, and the timer still goes on during the cut-scene, and if it goes to zero, you get teleported back to the mines and the cut-scene will be ignored, as if nothing ever happened) and I was delighted to find out that I can consume some items an infinite amount (yummy apples), allowing me to heal up completely without losing the item. People seem to forget that this is an indie game, not a product from a multi-million dollar company. Game development is complicated as frick, and I prefer a glitchy game with awesome gameplay to a polished turd. That is my opinion at least.

Anyway, this review goes on for far too long. Bottom line: great RPG, slightly glitchy, slightly too easy, but amazing nonetheless.

8.5/10

"Tiny Hands Adventure" has all the things a platformer needs: collectibles, enemies, jump mechanics, platforms... if you know what a generic 3D platformer looks like then you definitely won't be surprised by anything here. However, this game changes things up a bit by introducing special tools that Borti can hold with their "tiny hands": an extension stick that lets you collect things in hard-to-reach places, wooden sticks that let you pass through dangerous mud, a drill that lets you dig for treasure and extension arms with which you can reach new platforms that you couldn't reach before. All in all, the controls are done pretty well; as Borti's movements are pretty responsive and I hardly ever felt like it was the game's fault that I died. The difficulty is just right - veterans will probably breeze through the easy levels but the harder versions are definitely more of a challenge. The graphics are colorful and pretty and the enemy designs are pretty solid all the way through. The boss battles are really fun and it's great that the developers put some personality in the characters. The music, although not really fitting for a "dinosaur" game per sé, is pretty solid too and fit the themes of the different worlds at least.

There are some issues though: there are some grammar mistakes in the dialogs and the whole package is a bit rough around the edges. There was a glitch in one of the boss battles: when you quickly make a move before the dialog pop ups, the game kinda freezes (however, you are still able to open the main menu and simply retry the battle, which will fix this glitch). Some achievements didn't trigger. The worst offender is the level "High in the Sky"... despite looking everywhere and playing the level multiple times, I couldn't find the fifth crystal. Not sure if this is a bug or if it's hidden really well, but I was kinda disappointed that I couldn't finish this game. I really wonder what challenge I could have unlocked after completing the levels in the 6th area. One negative point I'd like to mention are the explosive boxes. In my opinion it is not obvious enough which boxes are explosive and which aren't... perhaps a more different design on the explosive boxes would have helped here.

Get it when it's on sale as it provided a solid 5 hours of fun. 7 / 10

This game was on my wishlist for quite some time and the latest Steam sale made me buy it. I'm really, really positively surprised with this one. Bubble Jungle is a really good platforming game with lots of content which will keep you occupied for at least 11 hours.

In this game, Chuck the Chameleon has to traverse many different worlds in order to find a working toilet because for some reason every toilet at the end of the level is out of order. Life-threatening hazards come into play and lots of jumping and running. While it might be a little finicky to set up your controller (the game unfortunately only has partial controller support and you still need keyboard and mouse for menus), once you set it up, the controls are really easy with just two buttons involved. Assign a button to jumping and a different one for shooting bubbles. Chuck has the ability to "shoot" bubbles which will entrap enemies and objects. He can then run straight through them and "explode" them. The explosion causes different objects to appear which Chuck can collect for bonus points.

Here's where the challenge lies: most objects are edible things like ice cream, candy, fruits and hamburgers but non-edible objects are also spawn. These objects have negative consequences on Chuck. A snowman for example causes rotten food to spawn which will deduct points if you accidentally collect them. A clock will slow you down. Other objects causes Chuck to burp or fart, rendering his only way to attack (shooting bubbles) useless. Edible and non-edible objects are spawn in contiguity so it can get difficult to collect objects which will net you bonus points while avoiding objects which will cause negative consequences. Collecting 5 coins will give you an extra life. Colliding with an enemy or falling into the abyss will obviously hurt you.

The level design is pretty good and there were some nice surprises such as references to other games or things that I wouldn't expect in this kind of game, like spooky graveyards with bloody zombie hands sticking out. I especially like the variety this game offers. Instead of using generic worlds like fire, ice, water, etc. the developers went the extra mile to create unique worlds with unique enemies and designs.

Graphically this game looks great on a 1080p screen. It has a mostly cartoony art style, similar to Super Mario 3D World. The music is nothing to write home about but it's pleasant enough. I really like the intro and ending sequences which feature drawn artwork of Chuck The Chameleon.

I also have to applaud the difficulty of this game. While it is really easy in the first half it gets increasingly challenging in the second half - but it never gets frustrating. It is perfect for casual players who just want to relax.

There are a few things that would make this game better. Starting from the 8-Bit-World, there are some objects that should be solid (like trees). However Chuck can walk right through them which can be a little off-putting. The backgrounds / skybox are mostly bland and without much detail. A few more boss battles wouldn't hurt either - the final boss is the only one you will encounter in Bubble Jungle. It's also sad that there are no leaderboards or achievements. The leaderboard on the official website seems to be only for the mobile version. I have over 5 million points and I can't brag about it! :(

Final rating: 8.5 / 10

Think about the old Bubsy games. These games were criticized for their level design, frustrating difficulty and stiff controls. When I played "Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back", it was nothing like that. The latest entry in the Bubsy series has tight, smooth controls, great physics, awesome level design and a very manageable difficulty. In fact, it might even be too easy for some players. A huge amount of checkpoints make this game perfect for beginners. While the game may be a little on the short side with 11 levels and 3 boss battles, it offers tons of replayability resulting from its level design. Every level has collectibles like yarn balls (usually about 600 or 700), five keys for the Woolie Yarn Vault (where more yarn balls are hidden) and T-Shirts which serve both as a shield for Bubsy (allowing him to get hit twice before he dies) and as additional lives. To fully complete the game you will have to get all the T-Shirts, beat every level without dying and open all the Yarn Vaults. Even after doing all this you might want to increase your score to nab the top places on the leaderboard. The graphics are great - a lot of work has been put into the detailed backgrounds and of course in Bubsy himself. The soundtrack is outstanding (especially if you are into synth music) and fits the game very well. There are a few minor issues with this game though... some Woolies walk straight off a cliff and hang in mid-air. Bees go through solid ground (major oversight by the developers!!). Another glitch involves hitting the Windows key while playing and going back into the game - Bubsy suddenly stops talking altogether, unless you change the "verbosity" value in the option menu which enables him to talk again. The voice fits Bubsy perfectly well. Playing this game with 100% verbosity however makes it clear that the developers didn't record enough of Bubsy one-liners. It gets a little bit repetitive to hear Bubsy scream "PILOT LICENSE?! WHAT FOR?!" or "I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I'M DOING THIS... BUT I LIKE IT!!" for the 300th time. Speaking of "pilot license"... this seems to be the only Bubsy game where gliding is utilized very well! It is a core gameplay mechanic and further enhances the experience. Pro tip: Jumping and then gliding gets you a little bit of extra height.

All in all: this is definitely the best Bubsy game ever released! This is every Bubsy fan's wet dream! It even dethrones my favorite Bubsy game, Bubsy 3D (I'm serious). True Bubsy fans already have this game but if you are on the fence - buy it! It's great value especially when it's on sale.

9 / 10