Nintendo Badge Arcade

Genre: Arcade / Misc.

Players: 1

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES MICROTRANSACTIONS

Nintendo Badge Arcade is a free-to-play Arcade-style game released on the Nintendo 3DS in 2015. Players play amusement-style crane games (using real money) to earn a chance to get cosmetic items they can use on their Nintendo 3DS home screen.

The presentation in this game is good, featuring a well-animated 3D rabbit mascot, and nice-looking crane machine games to play. The actual cosmetics you’ll be playing for include background images for your home screen, as well as “badges”, in-game sprites and character art from various Nintendo games, as well as a few other pieces of Nintendo memorabilia. These items can then be freely placed on your Home screen much in the same way you can move around actual game icons. The game itself is backed by energetic synthesized music befitting this presentation.

The actual crane games are good, albeit simple. There’s a few different types of crane games depending on which set of badges you’re trying to get. The controls are generally simple one-button affairs, which isn’t especially deep, but it’s fun enough.

No, the problem with this game isn’t the gameplay or the presentation, it’s the value. Players must spend $1 for every 5 tries they want to make in these crane games. In terms of spending money on cosmetics, this is particularly egregious because you can’t know for sure which cosmetics you’ll succeed at getting, or if you’ll even get any at all. And while being able to arrange these “badges” on your home screen makes for some unique appeal, I do not see it being worth the expense. In addition, this game makes use of its cartoony mascot and Nintendo’s popular characters in a way that’s clearly intended to appeal to children, and that’s just gross in a game that wants you to keep opening up your wallet.

I won’t say there’s no fun to be had in Nintendo Badge Arcade, but compared to the cost it simply isn’t worth it, and it’s kinda’ disgusting that Nintendo thought they could get away with trying to peddle this money-grubbing game to children by dressing it ina cartoony veneer designed to appeal to them. If you have a Nintendo 3DS, be wary of this game.

tl;dr – Nintendo Badge Arcade is a free-to-play Arcade-style game that has players playing crane games to earn cosmetics to use on their Nintendo 3DS home screen. Unfortunately, this game wants players to constantly be paying to play it, and wrapping it in a kid-friendly cartoony presentation only makes the way it’s reaching its hand into players’ pockets more disgusting.

Grade: F

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