This was the first main entry in the Legend of Zelda series to be released on the Game Boy Advance – a remake of A Link to the Past (along with a new side game, Four Swords) had been done before, but this time they decided to tread wholly new water and I think they did an exceptional job.

Done in the classic 2D, top-down perspective this game has Link travelling around Hyrule to collect different elements which can then be forged into a sword that will be powerful enough to defeat the sorcerer Vaati, who has taken over Hyrule Castle. A standard story for the series which sets up a fun adventure, but one which sets itself apart from previous games because this time Link gains the ability to shrink himself down to a tiny size, which he uses to interact with a race of little creatures called Minish. It also opens up a whole world of possibilities in terms of new challenges and puzzles, letting Link interact with everyday objects while only the size of an insect. It’s pretty cool and gives you multiple perspectives from which to look at every room and every puzzle.

Link’s trusty companion in this game is a talking hat called Ezlo (who Link wears on his head). Ezlo is short tempered and sarcastic and I found him to be quite entertaining. Indeed, the whole game is filled with a colourful cast of characters: there are many NPCs who fans of the series will recognise from previous games. You have Mutoh and the carpenters, Beedle, Tingle, Anju, Goron Merchants, Malon, Talon and many others. They all get to do quite a lot, as this game focuses quite heavily on side-quests (similar to Majora’s Mask, in that sense). These are normally built around kinstones (rare items you can collect on your travels), which can then be ‘fused’ with the kinstones of NPCs and cause something to change in the world. I thought that this was a really fun addition to the game and made Hyrule feel like a real, living, breathing world, rather than just the generic fantasy location in which the game takes place.

On another note, I really enjoyed the selection of enemies that are in this game – again, it’s a nice mixture of things you’ll have encountered in previous games all brought together. You’ve got all the classics like Octoroks (land octopuses who spit rocks at you), Like Likes (bizarre tubular enemies who eat you and steal items) and Wallmasters (creepy hands which take you out of dungeons), then also enemies from the 3D games like the Moblins as they appeared in The Wind Waker and ChuChus (strange jelly creatures). Of course, there are new enemies too (Keatons who will mug you, for example) and even some crossover creatures, like Bob-ombs and Lakitus (from the Mario series) and Puffstools (from the Pikmin series). It’s fun to fight such a variety of monsters and it actually brings to mind Link’s Awakening.

As a side note, with all these great characters and enemies to fight, there’s actually a figurine collecting side quest which gives you the opportunity to collect figures of literally every character in the game – it really makes you appreciate them all and I always enjoy collection-based side-quests in games, so it was fun for me to try and fill up my figurine set.

All in all, it’s a brilliant game. Often overlooked (even when just the 2D games in the series are considered), but I think it has a great interpretation of Hyrule and its people and is something all Nintendo fans may benefit from playing.

Score: 9.3/10

The Donkey Kong Country games are some of the best games on the SNES and they’re also some of the best games on the Game Boy Advance. Some fans aren’t so fond of the GBA versions of the games, but I grew up with the originals and can appreciate the GBA games for what they are: alternative takes on the classic formula which offer a unique and distinctive experience. This is especially true of Donkey Kong Country 3, which has more changes than any of the others. Do read my review of the original version, by the way, as I’m mostly going to be talking about the changes here, rather than the basic components of the game.

One of the best parts of the series, in my opinion, is the fact that it has an exceptional soundtrack. The GBA was inferior to the SNES when it came to sound and with the first two remakes, it was noticeable that the music was primarily watered down versions of the tracks you heard in the original. Not so this time: David Wise actually composed a completely new soundtrack for the whole game. I adore the original soundtrack, but I love that this gave us some new music. It all sounded great to me, on the level that you’d expect from a Donkey Kong Country game, so it’s wonderful to have so much new music.

However, it’s not just the music that’s been changed – all the sound effects are different too and most of then I don’t like. In fact, some of them are quite weird choices. For example, K. Rool’s voice clips are recycled voice clips from Chunky Kong. Some of it just doesn’t work. Some of it, though, is fine. Also, though I like the music, I did sometimes questions the decisions about how and when it’s used – it doesn’t always match the music or the scene it’s in.

The gameplay, meanwhile, is just as good as it ever was – quality 2D platforming and you know what’s even better? There’s now a new boss fight and a whole new world full of levels! They’re really fun and creative levels too, which give you something different to what you’ll find in the original game: my favourite example is that there is a level which features a sunken forest. Very cool stuff indeed.

Outside of that, there are some new mini-games. Funky Kong now hosts a game which is a homage to Rare’s old game, Cobra Triangle. That mini-game even features a cameo from Chunky Kong, making it his second and, so far, final appearance in anything. Swanky Kong now hosts a weird game that has Dixie running down a three dimensional tunnel – it’s not really that fun and, sadly, it replaces the target game Swanky used to host. Cranky Kong also has a comical game where he dresses as a ninja and deflects hedgehog enemies. It’s a fun, if inconsequential, little addition.

All in all, I love it. When it first came out, I was delighted to have the game available to play on the go… now you can play the original on the go, but there’s enough original content in this one that it’s still worth coming back to. I strongly recommend it.

Rating: 9.4/10

The first Yooka-Laylee game was incredible and soon became one of my all-time favourites. When I found out that its sequel would be a 2D platformer, rather than a 3D platformer like its predecessor, I was a bit disappointed. I was still going to get it as soon as it came out, but I thought it might be a step down from the first game due to the change in formula.

As it turns out, I had absolutely nothing to worry about. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is just as good as the first game and, depending on my mood, I sometimes think that it might actually be even better. Like the first game, it is now one of my favourite games.

There are two sides to the game: the first is the 2D platforming. Every level is beautifully designed and has just the right balance between being fun and being challenging. There are tonnes of beautiful environments (forests, airs ships, cliff sides, towns, factories and more) which look really nice and are full of nice little details – then each level also has an alternative form. For example, a level with a lot of water in it might change so that all the water is completely frozen and you don’t swim in it anymore, one level in a factory gets completely flooded, one level even gets rotated by 90 degrees, which changes everything. It’s always fun to play a level again in a new way and this is a fun new mechanic that I’ve not seen in other games.

The other side of the game is the world map, which isn’t just a map, but more like it’s own game. Building on top of the more interactive map from Donkey Kong Country 3, you walk around in a 3D overworld with a kind of top-down perspective. To me, it felt a little similar to the 2D Zelda games, except that it was pretty much better than all of them. You walk between different Grand Tomes (which are the entrances to new levels) which are scattered around the overworld and you have to find ways to do things to the Grand Tomes so that you can unlock the alternative versions of them. Sometimes its as simple as waiting for the tide to come in and spill over it, other times its very convoluted, like a particular instance where you have to make a frog start fishing inside the Grand Tome. The overworld is, honestly, just as nice to explore as many of the 2D levels – with deep forests, beautiful beaches, dark castles and more. There’s even an NPC who tells you that there’s a really well hidden secret somewhere in the world and, to my knowledge, nobody has ever fond it. How exciting. In order to progress in the overworld, you need coins which you can collect in the 2D levels.

Now, as you can probably tell from the title, there’s a really hard level called “The Impossible Lair” and this is something you can actually access right from the start. The idea is that for each of the 2D levels you win, that’s an extra hit you can take in The Impossible Lair. As someone who has been playing 2D platformers for my entire life, I arrogantly believed that I wouldn’t have too much of a hard time with this – but let me tell you, this is a very, very tough level, even if you have loads of hits you can take. Frankly, I almost gave up on it, but I was able to persevere because I love Yooka-Laylee so much. I’ve seen a lot of people who got very angry over the difficulty of The Impossible Lair… but, to me, it seems like the whole point was that it was supposed to be really hard? And after a lot of tries, it is manageable. Though there’s an extra reward for doing it without any extra hit points, which I can’t imagine myself doing any time soon.

The real icing on the cake for this game though, is that its absolutely charming. Dialogue with characters on the overworld is hilarious and there’s a nice mixture of new and old characters (though I wish Clara Lost were in it). There are tonnes of references to games like Donkey Kong Country (some of them pretty overt) and you can find and purchases lots of fun different Tonics which alter gameplay in different ways – sometimes making things easier, sometimes making things harder and sometimes just changing how things look. On top of that, it has just about one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard for a game – it’s one of those ones where you’ll stay in a certain spot in a game just to hear the music.

So if you love Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, the first Yooka-Laylee or just 2D platformers in general, I heavily recommend this game. It really is something special.

Rating: 9.7/10

Buy it here.