50 Pinch Barrage!! is a game that requires you to be patient, constantly strategizing and in some ways withholding the urge to throw your poor 3DS into a wall. Yes, folks, it’s that difficult. While I don’t know much about the backstory, other than a gentleman departing from an airplane into a ravaging jungle full of crocodile, piranha, spikey-bears, snakes and other things trying to prevent you from getting from point A to point B, it doesn’t seem too complicated.
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If you ever had the pleasure of playing the 80s classic Jungle Hunt, then you get a taste of what’s to come when you play 50 Pinch Barrage!!. The gameplay is simple, though it does have a nice complicated layer underneath it. Your guy basically runs and runs in platformer style avoiding terrible things along the way. One wrong move and you have to restart the stage. For example, if you get touched by a crocodile’s mouth, you’re dead. If you accidentally touch the spike of a spikey-bear, you’re dead. If you swing on a vine, but decide to stall and wait for the next vine because you’re unsure of the jump…you might make it, but if you don’t watch out for the snake crawling down, you’re dead. There are so many ways to die in this game and all of them keep you on your toes, which is also the brilliance of the game.
The pace of the game requires you to be fast and furious from movement to movement. Sometimes the game doesn’t give you a chance to think about what’s coming up, which results in a pretty quick death. This can happen over and over again, and more than likely will, so if you absolutely don’t have an infinite amount of patience with this type of gameplay, then you’re going to find the experience less than enjoyable. Of course, this game is a $2.99 title, so that helps when it comes to this difficult style of gameplay.
If this type of gameplay in 50 Pinch Barrage!! wasn’t enough to give you a challenge, the game offers up some gameplay components in the main character that will add another layer of complication. For example, should you decide that running as fast as you can through everything is the best bet, welcome to reality when the main character runs out of breath, stops and gives enemies a chance to catch up. Should you decide that the main character is going to jump off a large cliff while escaping from a giant bolder, then prepare for the moment where the character has to regain their legs after falling a large distance. It’s the little gameplay elements that make this game special, as it’s clearly not enough for Mobile & Game Studio, Inc. to torture gamers with obstacles and animals. Honestly, these layers of complication make sense, but nonetheless create another factor to think about.
Having said all this, don’t misinterpret my feelings about this game. I did enjoy 50 Pinch Barrage!!, as I think it did enough to bring a more complicated platformer that won’t coddle people, nor will it push them completely over the edge with frustration. Playing one or two stages at a time is what the game is built for and the game knows exactly what it wants to avoid when playing with a gamer’s feelings. The stages last about 30-40 seconds, depending on skill and what type of gamer you’re going to be with the 50 Pinch Barrage. You don’t have a lot of time to get frustrated, and you’re not committing too much time between stages. The game is built for short stints of gameplay and that is what makes it tolerable, if not enjoyable. What’s even better is that if you get frustrated, you can just quit the game, close the 3DS and come back to the exact same stage you left when you’re ready.
I dug that about it and appreciated it. It’s not as cruel as a Dark Souls game. Although, you only can play one saved game at a time. Should you want to start a new game, then you’re going to have to erase the previous. In other words, keep this out of your children’s hands! They could potentially erase good progress.
On the presentation style of the game, the 3D portion is good, yet simple. You have some great separation between background and foreground layers. Beyond that, it’s not like Sega’s Outrun or even Xenoblade, so don’t expect breathtaking 3D. Speaking of simple, the animation style is in that same category. It’s like a more visually appealing Loderunner. Your main character has a hard helmet and orange jumpsuit. The animation style of the animals is just as simple (as you can see below) and flat as it feels, which is fine with me. Like I said before, this game really has a Jungle Hunt flavor to it and I love that about it. A 2D character running through a bevy of obstacles in a variety of stages, all of the enjoyment depending on the gameplay and not the visual style. That works for me.
In short, don’t expect much out of the visuals. The gameplay certainly makes up for it.
So, after saying all of this, is the game fun and worth your money? Again, $2.99 for a game like this is an absolute steal. Sure it’s simple, difficult, and complicated, but you’ll find enjoyment in the short spurts the game offers. Come for the competitive fun of completing complicated tasks in short stages, but leave once in a while before the game makes you hate it.