Although Momodora 1 is free and an okay linear platformer for the most part, I’m hesitant to recommend it because of how many problems the final section has: 1) one of the frequently-used solid tiles looks too much like one of the frequently-used background tiles, 2) a newly-introduced enemy can pop out of unindicated solid tiles with only half-a-second of warning or so, 3) the final boss’s first phase requires you to do the Ocarina-of-Time knock-the-boss’s-projectile-back-at-it, but the way the game and fight are structured, you’d think it’s just a normal projectile you have to avoid (I had to look up what to do at this point), 4) the final boss’s third phase is extremely variable in difficulty depending on where you defeat the second phase, but most frustrating of all is 5) the game doesn’t have a save point before the final boss, so unless you edit your save file and change the 72 to an 80, you have to redo the entire final section every time you die against the boss. Despite this, the game does have a health-restoration point before the final boss, so there’s really no reason not to have a save point there as well; it’s just unnecessary tedium.

I also beat this game:

• Quilts and Cats of Calico
  

  6 hours playtime

  10 of 25 achievements

Card game. Tiles are one of six colors with one of six decorations; you have two in your hand at a time, and at the end of your turn, you pick one of three available tiles in the draw pile to add to your hand. Three same-color tiles placed next to each other always gives you a button worth three points (with bonus points if you get at least one button of each color), but the number and shape needed to get extra points for same-pattern tiles is different each game. For one last layer of complication, you pick three (out of four available) Goal Tiles to place on the board, and if you eventually surround them with tiles matching their pattern, you get even more points (extra if the pattern is matched for both color and decoration instead of just either one). The goal is to have more points than your opponent(s) once the board is completely filled, but they all have their own boards, so the only thing you can really do to interfere with their plans is to take a tile from the draw pile that they were hoping to get. Honestly, that detail makes the whole “having opponents” thing kinda superfluous, like the 2-player mode in the original Super Mario Bros.

As someone who isn’t a big fan of card games, I played this because the store page promised the campaign would be more puzzle-oriented, and in fairness, this is partly true. You’ll often be given a unique board, a specific objective, and always have the same tiles given to you in the same order. Unfortunately, the card-game-isms leftover from the original mode result in some unnecessarily cumbersome mechanics. The main one is that even though you often have zero opponents, you’re still restricted to two tiles in hand and three in the draw pile; you can’t just pick any tile, even though most levels have zero placement restrictions. Extra annoying are the “no hand” levels, which ironically still make you drag your chosen tile to your hand before you can place it on the board (instead of letting you take it straight from the draw pile to the board). Heck, the tutorial never even tells you that it’s possible to see which tiles will get added to the draw pile next, so I didn’t even know it was possible until near the end of the second act; I just assumed you had to place everything down with limited info until you inevitably failed before you could actually start to solve the puzzle. Turns out, the preview window is on the lower-right corner of the screen, partially obscured by some decoration that serves no gameplay purpose (you can also click a little bag icon below it to see the rest of the upcoming tiles). Even after you figure that out, though, the pointless tile-selection restrictions mean you’re often better off just taking a screenshot and solving the level in paint.net or something.

However, the worst part of the campaign, in my opinion, is the fact that several of the levels aren’t actually puzzles as promised, but are just standard vs matches with maybe one or two extra requirements tacked on, like “get at least one of each button color.” These all play out effectively the same, and the only time I lost one was when I was holding out hope to get the extra bonus points for a Goal Tile instead of surrendering to the inherent randomness and resigning myself only to getting the standard Goal Tile points. For further disappointment, the cutscene after the final level promised postgame content, only for said content to be more vs matches instead of more puzzles: I tried two and they were both vs matches with the “get at least one of each button color” extra objective, and not only will the game not tell you what type of level it is beforehand, but once you start, you can’t quit back to the overworld; the game saves you into the match, so even going back to the title screen won’t get you out of it. Because of this, I didn’t bother to check if any of the other postgame levels were different and just stopped playing.

Overall, this isn’t for me. There are a few decent, tricky puzzles near the end of the campaign, but unless you’ll also enjoy the base card game mode (and you have plenty of people to play it with), there isn’t enough here to justify its $20 price. Maybe if it ever goes for 75% off, but that’ll probably be a while.