(Retro Game Crunch disclaimer: this is a collection of 7 small games that were all programmed within 72 hours as part of a challenge. The BBacklog Challenge isn’t really compaible with this collection for a number of reasons.
To consider Retro Game Crunch as its own game would be unfair as each game would then get a little over 8 minutes to make its impression (or one game would get the full hour and the others would be judged based only on that), but the games aren’t really meant to be taken individually either. The “point” of the collection is more to show what can be done in just 3 days of work and in this regard all the games are very impressive. Basically- don’t put too much stock into the Fin or Bin for RGC games.)
Super Clew Land starts off in an interesting manner, with Clew finding food in order to evolve and gain extra platforming abilities (the first new evolution is legs allowing you to jump). Eating a bug activates a little minigame played at the same time as the main game in which you try to chain together like-coloured beads. It’s a simple mechanic but paired with playing the main game at the same time it gets pretty hectic even with simple patterns.
Unfortunately, the evolution part of the game is over very quickly and then it just becomes a fairly dull exploration platformer with some annoying frame-perfect challenges required to progress. I don’t mind tricky platforming, but it doesn’t feel well-crafted here and I quickly got sick of it.
Fin or Bin:
After 23 minutes, I decided to Bin it after one of the challenges required me to plummet about 10 screens-worth of distance, time a mid-air jump at the end perfectly, navigate a spike maze, and then make my way back again with no checkpoints or respite. I can tolerate that as part of something greater, but the interesting part of this game was already over with.