When we first learned that this game would once again have WW:Twisted-style souvenirs I got really excited!
I LOVED the souvenirs in Twisted and the ones in Game & Wario were..... certainly interesting.
So how do the WW Gold ones hold up?
When the game was first advertised, we were told there would be a TON of them (I don't remember the exact number that was said). But are they all actually as unique as the ones in Twisted?
Well, lets go through them, shall we?
First of, the Minigames:
They're... not bad.
Some old ones, some new ones, some cooler ones, some more boring ones. I wouldn't call it the BEST selection they could've made...
At least Pyoro is here. ...well, the first one anyway. And "Super" Pyoro. ...which isn't that much different from regular Pyoro.
Pyoro 2 would've been nice as well, considering they already had most of the assets done. :/
The lame thing about this version of Pyoro is that... it seems they removed the sepia lullaby stage, as well as the neon disco night stage.
Either that or they increased the requirement to get there by a LOT. My current high score is 33620 and I still haven't seen it yet. But the game is ridiculously hard by that point so I don't think much is gonna change...
Phones:
This is kind of a waste. In Twisted the phone was just one item in another category and the numbers weren't even listed. You just had to write them down yourself.
On the one hand it's nice that you don't have to do that anymore, but on the other that's a TON of souvenir slots that aren't interesting at all.
In Twisted they were supposed to make up for running out of toys to collect. Here they are just part of the collectibles, which feels like padding.
So... kind of disappointing
Studio:
It's a neat idea... but not really my thing. I'm not a voice actor and I hate hearing my own voice so I probably won't be using it much.
Movies:
This shouldn't even be in the souvenirs. They should have their own category like they've always had. I wouldn't count them as souvenirs. Putting them there just feels like more padding.
Cards:
These are kinda neat, mostly for the info written on their backs. I guess they're only important if you like the "Kard" game.
Nintendo:
This was preeeetty disappointing too. I was expecting a lot more than just pictures and text.
There's no interactivity. It's just a museum.
Recods:
This was pretty much the most exciting category. Hearing all these songs again, some in better quality, was really great.
But of course, they fucked up Drifting Away and squandered their maybe last opportunity to release a FULL high quality version to the public.
This is just inexcusable in my book. All they had to do was replicate the GBA version. But noooo for some reason having another ultra short medley was enough.
Yes, I'm salty. Sue me.
It sucks even more for me since this was the song I was MOST looking forward to. The others are great too but this is the one I really wanted to hear in HQ and in full.
Misc:
Whelp, here we go, more padding.
The idea of an alarm clock that you have to turn off by playing a few microgames, thus keeping you from just falling back asleep is neat.
But... having one for every single character?
It wouldn't be an issue if there were plenty of other things to play with, but there isn't really.... much.
There's the amiibo thing, which is pretty cool, if you have amiibos. But also buggy or incomplete. I scanned Ness, Lucas and Meta Knight the other day, and all of them just resulted in abstract backgrounds without any actual characters on them.
Considering they are all just doodles, it's inexcusable to not just have pictures for every Nintendo IP amiibo.
Or maybe it really was just glitched.
Then there's the orbulon voice changer which doesn't work and looks like it would be more useful as a sex toy, there's all the 3DS models from the touch pen finding microgame, and you can play some microgames on them which is pretty meta, but there's little to no difference between them besides their looks, so I would count them all as one. (btw, I would do the same with the souvenirs in Twisted that were only slightly different).
Then there's the love tester pieces...
I don't get why this wasn't just one item. Why make this so mysterious and hard to get? It's not that special. It's not even very elaborate.
And lastly you got the credits. ...which are just the credits.
So all in all I can't help but feel a bit disappointed. Where are the toys? Where are the weird doodads and curiosities? Where are the little things you'd play with just for the heck of it?
Don't get me wrong, Twisted also had plenty of padding. And Game & Wario even more so. But both of those games, especially twisted, still had a ton of other unique things. Twisted had those figurines of all the characters that would do funny or weird things, you'd have those instruments that you could play around with, you'd have little gadgets, you'd have weird things...
There was that radio that would play a cool song you can't hear anywhere else in the game, you had that little pool game, you had those things to grate, you had a cat, a dog, a hamster, an autofellatio Crygor toy...
So much variety.
Even Game & Wario had some really experimental ones. (So experimental that I didn't even understand half of them...)
So where's the creativity here?
I was honestly expecting them to play around with all the different control schemes a lot more.
The souvenirs were always a fantastic way to make things that were too simplistic to make into real games. Wanna make something that has no real fail state or goal or objective or anything? I.e. a toy? Make it a souvenir!
Got an idea about an interesting interaction that doesn't fit anywhere else? Make it a souvenir! Wanna just make a figurine that can stick its own head up its arse? Make it a souvenir!
No other game had these things. The only thing I can think of that got close were the Gaddgets from Mario Party Advance, but those weren't nearly as creative most of the time.
So, all in all, the souvenirs aren't AWFUL, but they also aren't as fresh and creative as they used to be.
Heck, I would've even been happy if they had just remade a bunch of the Twisted souvenirs.
But as it stands there's just too much filler for my liking and not enough unique ideas or just silly novelties.
But what do you think?
Did you enjoy them (assuming you've already unlocked them) more than I did? Or maybe less?
I know I can be hard to please sometimes, but like I said, they weren't bad, just not as good.
I LOVED the souvenirs in Twisted and the ones in Game & Wario were..... certainly interesting.
So how do the WW Gold ones hold up?
When the game was first advertised, we were told there would be a TON of them (I don't remember the exact number that was said). But are they all actually as unique as the ones in Twisted?
Well, lets go through them, shall we?
First of, the Minigames:
They're... not bad.
Some old ones, some new ones, some cooler ones, some more boring ones. I wouldn't call it the BEST selection they could've made...
At least Pyoro is here. ...well, the first one anyway. And "Super" Pyoro. ...which isn't that much different from regular Pyoro.
Pyoro 2 would've been nice as well, considering they already had most of the assets done. :/
The lame thing about this version of Pyoro is that... it seems they removed the sepia lullaby stage, as well as the neon disco night stage.
Either that or they increased the requirement to get there by a LOT. My current high score is 33620 and I still haven't seen it yet. But the game is ridiculously hard by that point so I don't think much is gonna change...
Phones:
This is kind of a waste. In Twisted the phone was just one item in another category and the numbers weren't even listed. You just had to write them down yourself.
On the one hand it's nice that you don't have to do that anymore, but on the other that's a TON of souvenir slots that aren't interesting at all.
In Twisted they were supposed to make up for running out of toys to collect. Here they are just part of the collectibles, which feels like padding.
So... kind of disappointing
Studio:
It's a neat idea... but not really my thing. I'm not a voice actor and I hate hearing my own voice so I probably won't be using it much.
Movies:
This shouldn't even be in the souvenirs. They should have their own category like they've always had. I wouldn't count them as souvenirs. Putting them there just feels like more padding.
Cards:
These are kinda neat, mostly for the info written on their backs. I guess they're only important if you like the "Kard" game.
Nintendo:
This was preeeetty disappointing too. I was expecting a lot more than just pictures and text.
There's no interactivity. It's just a museum.
Recods:
This was pretty much the most exciting category. Hearing all these songs again, some in better quality, was really great.
But of course, they fucked up Drifting Away and squandered their maybe last opportunity to release a FULL high quality version to the public.
This is just inexcusable in my book. All they had to do was replicate the GBA version. But noooo for some reason having another ultra short medley was enough.
Yes, I'm salty. Sue me.
It sucks even more for me since this was the song I was MOST looking forward to. The others are great too but this is the one I really wanted to hear in HQ and in full.
Misc:
Whelp, here we go, more padding.
The idea of an alarm clock that you have to turn off by playing a few microgames, thus keeping you from just falling back asleep is neat.
But... having one for every single character?
It wouldn't be an issue if there were plenty of other things to play with, but there isn't really.... much.
There's the amiibo thing, which is pretty cool, if you have amiibos. But also buggy or incomplete. I scanned Ness, Lucas and Meta Knight the other day, and all of them just resulted in abstract backgrounds without any actual characters on them.
Considering they are all just doodles, it's inexcusable to not just have pictures for every Nintendo IP amiibo.
Or maybe it really was just glitched.
Then there's the orbulon voice changer which doesn't work and looks like it would be more useful as a sex toy, there's all the 3DS models from the touch pen finding microgame, and you can play some microgames on them which is pretty meta, but there's little to no difference between them besides their looks, so I would count them all as one. (btw, I would do the same with the souvenirs in Twisted that were only slightly different).
Then there's the love tester pieces...
I don't get why this wasn't just one item. Why make this so mysterious and hard to get? It's not that special. It's not even very elaborate.
And lastly you got the credits. ...which are just the credits.
So all in all I can't help but feel a bit disappointed. Where are the toys? Where are the weird doodads and curiosities? Where are the little things you'd play with just for the heck of it?
Don't get me wrong, Twisted also had plenty of padding. And Game & Wario even more so. But both of those games, especially twisted, still had a ton of other unique things. Twisted had those figurines of all the characters that would do funny or weird things, you'd have those instruments that you could play around with, you'd have little gadgets, you'd have weird things...
There was that radio that would play a cool song you can't hear anywhere else in the game, you had that little pool game, you had those things to grate, you had a cat, a dog, a hamster, an autofellatio Crygor toy...
So much variety.Even Game & Wario had some really experimental ones. (So experimental that I didn't even understand half of them...)
So where's the creativity here?
I was honestly expecting them to play around with all the different control schemes a lot more.
The souvenirs were always a fantastic way to make things that were too simplistic to make into real games. Wanna make something that has no real fail state or goal or objective or anything? I.e. a toy? Make it a souvenir!
Got an idea about an interesting interaction that doesn't fit anywhere else? Make it a souvenir! Wanna just make a figurine that can stick its own head up its arse? Make it a souvenir!
No other game had these things. The only thing I can think of that got close were the Gaddgets from Mario Party Advance, but those weren't nearly as creative most of the time.
So, all in all, the souvenirs aren't AWFUL, but they also aren't as fresh and creative as they used to be.
Heck, I would've even been happy if they had just remade a bunch of the Twisted souvenirs.
But as it stands there's just too much filler for my liking and not enough unique ideas or just silly novelties.
But what do you think?
Did you enjoy them (assuming you've already unlocked them) more than I did? Or maybe less?
I know I can be hard to please sometimes, but like I said, they weren't bad, just not as good.
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