Angry Birds Trilogy

Genre: Compilation / Arcade

Players: 1, StreetPass Compatible

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: Activision Blizzard

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Review:

The Angry Birds franchise started out in 2009 with the original Angry Birds, one of the first major hits for videogames on mobile devices. In 2012, this family-friendly physics-based Arcade-style game and its two immediate successors were bundled together in a Compilation and ported to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo 3DS, with ports of the Compilation coming to PlayStation Vita and Wii U in 2013. More specifically, this Compilation includes the original Angry Birds, its holiday-themed sequel Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio, the first of numerous Angry Birds games to feature a licensed crossover with a film franchise.

I won’t go into each of the three included games here – they all play fundamentally the same, with the main differences being the presentation. All three games use cartoony 2D visuals for the gameplay and animated cutscenes, although the relatively low resolution of the Nintendo 3DS does mean that the gameplay can look somewhat pixellated when zoomed out to see the full stage. The different games all have a similar style, but Angry Birds Seasons has levels decked out in various holiday themes, and Angry Birds Rio has menus and still cutscenes featuring the characters from the animated film, and in this game players are freeing birds from cages rather than knocking down green pigs.

These visuals are joined by lighthearted cartoonish music in the menus and as “victory” music between stages. The gameplay in stages themselves is largely silent, save for the occasional utterances of the various birds and their pig enemies.

As for the gameplay… if you somehow haven’t played Angry Birds at this point, I would guess that you’ve been living under a rock. If that’s the case, be thankful you aren’t a green pig, because the premise of the game is that players are using a slingshot to fling cartoonish birds at structures housing green pigs, aiming to destroy the structures and ultimately cause enough damage to knock out the pigs contained within. As you proceed through the game, the structures you’ll need to take down become more elaborate, but you’ll also gain the use of additional types of birds with added abilities.

Much as with the smartphone versions of the games, players can opt to play these games using touchscreen controls to precisely gauge the angle and strength of your shot. Alternately, players can choose to use the analog stick and face buttons for this task. Both of these sets of controls work pretty well.

In terms of value, it’s hard to say for sure whether you’re getting a good deal here. On the one hand, there are numerous Angry Birds games available on smartphones at this point, many of them free (albeit with ads and/or microtransactions). And the original Angry Birds is available for $1 on mobile devices. Currently, if you’re looking to find the game on eBay, you’re going to be spending about $7 or so… but the other side of this argument is the fact that Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio don’t seem to be available on mobile devices anymore, and having the option to use either touchscreen controls or more traditional gamepad controls is nice.

The other thing to note here is that Angry Birds is a pretty simple game. This was designed to be something you could really quickly play a few rounds of while waiting at a bus stop or in a doctor’s office. It’s entertaining, but not especially deep. This, combined with the fact that you may very well already have some of these games (or ones much like it) on your Smartphone means that there’s not much reason to get these games on Nintendo 3DS unless you specifically want to play them on a Nintendo 3DS. If that is the case, then this version of the games is sufficient, at least.

tl;dr – Angry Birds Trilogy is a family-friendly Compilation of Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio. These games look and play much as their mobile phone counterparts, albeit with the option to play using either the touchscreen or traditional gamepad controls. This is a decent port, but one wonders if it’s one that’s worth buying when there’s a good chance you already have Angry Birds in some form on your phone.

Grade: C+

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