Review Mazinkaiser 3/5 · Sep 30, 2019
Game & Watch Gallery 4: Quantity As Quality
Game & Watch Gallery will likely never learn its lesson past forcing players into a repetitive 1000-point loop, but for its last hurrah in the Gallery, the game produces a staggering amount of playable content that provides the fullest package of historical preservation for the G&W series.
The drill is pretty much the same - each main game has a …
Game & Watch Gallery will likely never learn its lesson past forcing players into a repetitive 1000-point loop, but for its last hurrah in the Gallery, the game produces a staggering amount of playable content that provides the fullest package of historical preservation for the G&W series.
The drill is pretty much the same - each main game has a Modern and Classic version, with the original monochromatic (plus a bit of color) setup paired with more complex physics and prettier graphics for Modern. The Modern games look very good thanks to the GBA this time around and the UI overall is popping with life, which can really be felt in games brought back from previous Gallery entries to be remade for this title.
On top of Primary games, Secondary games can be unlocked and the Museum, originally for games not playable but viewed as gallery, can now be played. This gathers rare and intriguing content, including Tropical Fish, Climber, and the legendary Zelda G&W game. Plenty of these games, repetitive and tough as they may be, showcase a variety of unique gameplay modes and button setups (a G&W game with items? A Sokoban-esque puzzle game?). It would be impressive if these loops didn't dull out the flavor, but these are very light games to dip into to begin with.
Game and Watch Gallery 4 throws an entire pantheon of G&W games to wrap up the series with old entries remade and very interesting titles picked up for play. All four galleries together provide the most complete way to play this old and intriguing series, so it's worth at least a cursory look.