Numblast

Numblast represents the merits of Japan Studio's approach during the PS3 era while also contrasting with the direction gaming was going in. It's a creative and charming game, but there just isn't much to it. It'll take a good amount of time to become skilled at it, but there are few ways to show off and test your skill in ways that reward such mastery, so for most, it'll probably feel like you're grinding for nothing unless you truly adore the game. There's the glimmer of an entertaining narrative with a great sense of humor, but it isn't given enough time to truly shine. It feels like it would have been perfect for the mobile market, but it failed to make waves there too. For whatever reason, Numblast just didn't stick.

Tokyo Crash Mobs

Tokyo Crash Mobs is the kind of game that’s emblematic of Nintendo’s digital download services. It’s a small, bizarre, yet charming experiment that you rarely find elsewhere nowadays, especially from a company as safe as Nintendo is. It clearly wasn’t a high budget production and it suffers from steep difficulty and unreliable controls, but it’s the kind of game that ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. I was honestly kind of fed up with its gameplay even before the end and that bug I kept encountering only made things worse, but because of how it all comes together, I find that it remains steadfast in my memory.

Disney’s Chicken Little

Chicken Little falls in between the extremes of licensed game quality and that's the most unfortunate place for it to be - too dull to recommend playing, but also rarely funny enough to get an accidental kick out of. Its GBA version fares better, being a simple but competent platform with a stronger focus on platforming and more consistently enjoyable design.