Game & Watch Gallery 2 (1997)

I was honestly considering knocking this one down a star, but thankfully the games contained within are thankfully entertaining enough and have some interesting spins on them in Modern mode that keep them from being too frustrating.

However, Game & Watch Gallery 2 feels like a downgrade in some regards, even with the upgrade to color. The visuals look surprisingly less impressive, with smaller sprites from trying to push more on the screen and push the color angle. The goals with 1000 points in order to get enough stars to unlock games (the only unlockable is Ball at this point) is insane and excruciating, requiring a zen-like state to get enough.

As for the games, though, the mix of Helmet, Parachute, Vermin, Donkey Kong, Chef, and Ball are a much well-rounded bunch, with none of them dropping to the lows of Octopus. The game even has a novel way of switching screens to contain the entirety of Donkey Kong (a multi-screen game at the time) on a single screen. The Modern versions switch things up with more angles to consider (Vermin), extra objectives like cooking food (Chef), or multiple stages with wildly different environments (Helmet, Donkey Kong). It's a full package that can be very enjoyable if you're not aiming for unlockables. If you are, well...good luck.

History:

My introduction to Game and Watch game from Super Smash Bros. Never actually played any of the games.

Expectations:

You know I'm really not a fan of these types of games, and I'm not expecting this to change my mind. I do love WarioWare though, but I don't know if this is quite that...

Day 1:

*cracks knuckles* Here we go!

I started off with Parachute because it's at the top and nature of man and all that...

I'd be lying if I said this wasn't a fun little minigame. Seeing Yoshi diving off an airship with a parachute would have been the best thing I've see all day if not for playing Chef and Vermin shortly after this. The giant angry fish swimming around was pretty fantastic as well. After playing around with this game, I decided to switch over to Classic mode...

This is the original version of Parachute. Same idea, but super retro. The like of animation frames actually changes the strategy, making the game more difficult in some ways. The was a point where my brain kind of went on autopilot and I score about 80 points... that was weird...

The Classic modes are all neat to see, but the Modern versions are definitely where it's at for me.

That rhymed.

I didn't understand Helmet at first. I thought the objective was to gather coins as your character got progressively slower and slower. Switching over to Classic mode actually cleared that up for me, and I found the real objective was navigating the falling items and making it to the door on the other side before you got too slow. With that knowledge I tore through this game for a good while. I'd say about 535 points or so.

Here's another game that took a couple playthroughs to understand. I burnt all of my food (like in real life) thinking the goal was just to juggle it until it vanished. Meanwhile Yoshi is following me around like a starving dog watching me throw away food. I finally realized that the goal is to get the food cooked to the proper point, then maneuver Yoshi under it. Happy dinosaur.

Chef is easily the most dexterity demanding game of the bunch, and I had a really good time with it as a result.

Parachuting Yoshi. Starving-dog Yoshi. Nothing is better than crazy dual mallet-wielding Yoshi.

Despite racking up over 800 points with Vermin I found the game to be pretty boring. It's basically 360 degree whack a mole which, while not horrible, didn't stay fun for very long.

The bottom of the literal barrel would be Donkey Kong. It's an interesting take on the original arcade game, but ultimately it's just clunky and boring. The Classic mode is even worse. They can't all be gold.

Conclusion:

This is actually a really fun compilation. Most of the games can be pretty addicting, some fall a little flat, and it's all about high scores, which is great.

My biggest issue with the game as it exists today is that I have a fancy pantsy smartphone I keep on my person at all times. My smartphone has One More Line and Smash Hit and Jetpack Joyride on it, and those are all within much easier access than a Gameboy cartridge.

That said, as my as I loathe Nintendo's entering the smartphone market, this is exactly the kind of game they should be looking to bring to the party. With microtransactions, of course.

Liked:

- Games are actually pretty fun and addicting once you pick them up.
- You can choose to play between modernize, Nintendo-ized versions, or the original Game & Watch versions of all the games.
- Art and music unlocks if you're into that kind of thing.
- Yoshi. A thousand times Yoshi.

Disliked:

- A couple of the games were on the dull side.
- In this day and age, it's difficult to justify this cartridge over easily accessible mobile games.

Personal Score: