Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish

Genre: Arcade / Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish is an single-button Arcade-style game with Platformer elements released on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2012 as well as being released on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. In this game, players adventure through the game as a character who they can only use a single button to control, with what that button does changing in every room.

It’s a clever concept, and some of the ways this game uses it are really ingenious. On one screen your button may allow you to dodge, on another it may let you jump, on another screen the button may allow you to inflate into a balloon. The fast-paced nature of the game feels like it has a lot of potential to be like a cross between a Platformer and one of the WarioWare games.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end up playing out that way. Players are given no advance warning what the button will do before hopping into a screen, and no chance to adjust to the new surrounding. Before you even know what you’re supposed to do, you may already be too late to stop yourself from dying. Alternately, if you jump the gun and instinctively press the button before you know what it does, it may cause you to die all the same. And then, there are some rooms that seem to be impassable either way no matter what you do.

It’s a shame this game is so utterly broken, because the presentation is quite good, with some solid 2D pixel art with decent animation and character designs reminiscent of the classic 16-bit game Earthworm Jim, along with a decent adventurous soundtrack as well. There’s also an unlockable level editor that I… well, wasn’t able to unlock, but I’ll list it here among the good stuff this game does, all the same.

In the end, while this game had a clever premise and features a good presentation, I absolutely cannot recommend it to anyone considering what a broken mess the gameplay is. Do not buy this game.

tl;dr – Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish is an Arcade-style game with Platformer elements, with the premise that you can only control your character using one button, and what that button does changes in each room. It’s a fun idea, and the presentation here is great, but the game design is so fundamentally flawed that the game will repeatedly kill the player without any warning. In short: do not buy this game.

Grade: F

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