Party Planet Review – Party in Your Pocket

<p>The Nintendo Switch has had an unbelievable first year&comma; and while there has been a great influx of indie games&comma; it seems that mini-game collections haven&&num;8217&semi;t really made the jump yet&period; Well&comma; <em>Party Planet<&sol;em> changes all of that&comma; bringing a budget-friendly mini-game collection to the Switch made for gatherings with friends&comma; but also with some solo-play focus as well&period; However&comma; is<em> Party Planet<&sol;em> really what we need&comma; or is it just another shovelware collection marking the first of many potential titles on the Switch&quest; The answer is somewhere in the middle&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><amp-youtube layout&equals;"responsive" width&equals;"500" height&equals;"281" data-videoid&equals;"FPdbyHXRhYs" title&equals;"Party Planet &lpar;Nintendo Switch&rpar; - Debut Gameplay Trailer"><a placeholder href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;watch&quest;v&equals;FPdbyHXRhYs"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;i&period;ytimg&period;com&sol;vi&sol;FPdbyHXRhYs&sol;hqdefault&period;jpg" layout&equals;"fill" object-fit&equals;"cover" alt&equals;"Party Planet &lpar;Nintendo Switch&rpar; - Debut Gameplay Trailer"><&sol;a><&sol;amp-youtube><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>First off&comma; <em>Party Planet<&sol;em> is available on the Nintendo eShop digitally&comma; but physically only at GameStop or EB Games in North America&comma; and has a good price for the number of games that you are getting in the package&period; The game sadly has no story mode&comma; instead&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;re shown the available mini-games&comma; and the ones that you can unlock when you start the game&period; Due to the number of single-player only games&comma; and the fact that you need to grind out countless games to unlock more&comma; you would think that Mastiff would include some sort of story to keep you engaged instead of casually picking up and playing random games&period; Regardless&comma; there is a decent amount of variation in the games represented&comma; even if many of them are clones of popular mobile games&comma; and video game classics&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;132906" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-132906" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-132906" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;01&sol;08184117&sol;party-planet-nintendo-switch-20170926-001-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-132906" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Party Planet&comma; Mastiff<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Some of the games&comma; while being clones of popular games&comma; aren&&num;8217&semi;t really that bad&period; The weird vegan snake game is a decent version of <em>Snake<&sol;em>&comma; but it feels weird to even be talking about <em>Snake<&sol;em> in a game review in 2018&period; I played that game a ton on my calculator back in high school&comma; and then on my first cellphones&comma; so having an &&num;8220&semi;updated&&num;8221&semi; version feels even weirder than the <em>Asteroids<&sol;em> clone&period; There are also versions of mobile &&num;8220&semi;classics&&num;8221&semi; like <em>Flappy Bird<&sol;em>&comma; if that is even a classic&comma; and<em> Doodle Jump<&sol;em>&comma; amongst others&period; For the most part&comma; the games control well enough&comma; but quite a few&comma; like the mini-golf&comma; I wanted to smash my controller on more than one occasion&period; Out of all of them though&comma; the game I played the most was the <em>Zuma<&sol;em> clone&semi; I just find something so relaxing about that game and was actually quite happy that it was included in the collection&period; There are a few original games that are good&comma; like the Viking game where you are inputting controller commands&comma; but the good ones are few and far between&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While the games vary from just OK to uninspired and just frustrating&comma; the game does look very good&period; When you start up the game&comma; the graphical sheen is incredibly noticeable&comma; and the game does a good job at being one of the better-looking mini-game collections on any system I&&num;8217&semi;ve played&period; As well&comma; the music is pretty catchy and I was humming the songs more than a few times while I was grinding out games to unlock more games&period; So while the game sometimes falls a bit flat in the gameplay department&comma; at least it looks and sounds pretty good&period; I would like to mention again though&comma; that the game would have benefited from some kind of story mode&comma; where some of these environments and characters were explored further&comma; as Mastiff has done a really good job with the overall design&comma; the game just needed a bit more meat to it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;132908" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-132908" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-132908" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;01&sol;08184229&sol;party-planet-nintendo-switch-20170926-003-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-132908" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Party Planet&comma; Mastiff<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>However&comma; the question is how is <em>Party Planet<&sol;em> as a party game&quest; Well even with some of my issues with it&comma; the game was a blast over the holidays with my family and friends&period; We had numerous gatherings over the holidays&comma; and of course&comma; the Switch was incredibly popular&period; While people mostly wanted to play <em>Mario Kart<&sol;em>&comma; I would bust out <em>Party Planet<&sol;em>&comma; and everyone&comma; aged 5 to 65&comma; had an easy time just grabbing joycons and playing the mini-games&period; Obviously&comma; older gamers latched onto the <em>Asteroids<&sol;em> and <em>Snake<&sol;em> type classic games&comma; while the younger kids that play games on their tablets were more familiar with the <em>Doodle Jump<&sol;em> type games&period; The gaming sessions tended to last an hour or so&comma; and everyone was pretty happy with the games and only once did someone complains about a game that I hadn&&num;8217&semi;t unlocked and that they couldn&&num;8217&semi;t play until a later date&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>When all is said and done&comma; <em>Party Planet<&sol;em> is an OK mini-game collection&period; Playing it solo wasn&&num;8217&semi;t the most enjoyable experience&semi; just grinding by playing games I didn&&num;8217&semi;t have an interest in to unlock other games is aggravating&period; However&comma; when other people were added to the equation&comma; it was very much a serviceable party game experience&period; If you have a bunch of kids&comma; or have people over often and are looking for a good mini-game collection&comma; well <em>Party Planet<&sol;em> is pretty decent&period; The graphics are quite nice overall as is the music&comma; and while there are many rehashes of classic games&comma; Mastiff has done a good job at putting together a nice little package&period; Just be aware that some of the games have some control issues&comma; and there is some grinding involved&period; If you&&num;8217&semi;re OK with this&comma; and want a mini-game collection for your gaming library&comma; well you could do far worse than <em>Party Planet&comma; <&sol;em>and it&&num;8217&semi;s worth giving a go if you&&num;8217&semi;re in the market for such a game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>A physical copy of Party Planet was provided by Mastiff for the purpose of this review&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;