RGB Recommends: Frogger 3D, Tak Fuji's EXTREEEEME 30th anniversary Frogger celebration

Video Games
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Game: Frogger 3D
Release Date: September 2011
Platforms: Nintendo 3DS (Physical release only)
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami and Alpha Unit

In a nutshell, Frogger 3D is what you get when Tak Fuji produces a Frogger game.

Frogger 3D takes classic Frogger gameplay to new heights by way of the 3DS’s improved processing power, and a game that’ll surprise and delight you in equal measure just because of how inventive it gets with its level setups.

Here’s a few highlights of what obstacles Frogger comes across en route to the goal. You’ll play levels that see Frogger:

  • Avoiding coin payouts from a row of operational slot machines in a casino
  • Navigating a dangerous military base in the middle of the night, while spotlights simultaneously light up traps on the floor while alerting missiles to intruders
  • Hopping around the wing of a fighter jet while avoiding airborne missiles
  • Navigating a busy road that’s obscured by an overhead crossing which needs to be climbed up and traversed to reach the goal
Level gameplay

https://i.imgur.com/6Yq5GqG.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/ioYCciz.mp4

The amount of variety the level designers got out of a game where you can only use the D-Pad is frankly staggering.

You’ll rarely see the same idea used more than once, in classic Nintendo fashion, and each stage has three goals, evolving between each one. For example that fighter jet stage evolves as follows:

  • Goal one: Hop to the goal toward the left of the wing, dodging the missiles
  • Goal two: Flames have engulfed the wing, forcing you to take a long route around the wing. The fighter jet now banks and turns, giving you moments of safety from the missiles
  • Goal three: Goal two but even more difficult!

It’s the dynamism of the levels which impresses the most, and it really shows that the development team wanted to bring to life a Frogger game that couldn’t have been done on previous platforms. The game’s opening sequence, at the top of this post, almost serves to highlight this on purpose as Frogger emerges from the classic arcade game that you just cleared, only to enter even more precaurious circumstances.

The game also includes a remixed endless version of the original arcade title, but it’s the main single player that really shines.

Check it out if you can! It’s EXTREEEEEEEME.

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On your recommendation I got this and am currently at the end of world two. on the rusty roof of a moving truck, avoiding road signs, and having to keep moving due to the threat of a bird of prey overhead

It is brilliant.

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That’s my favourite boss fight so far!

Probably the highest praise I can give to the game is you can never quite expect what happens next. Been playing world 5 lately, set in Japan, and the level designers are on top form. My favourite Japan stage is one that’s set at the Itsukushima Shrine complete with a rising and falling water level. Really inventive stuff, and a superb use of the 3D effect - you sort of peer into it and you can judge the water level instinctively.

Also forgot to mention how the secret exits become puzzles in themselves later in the game.

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:interrobang:

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Extreme

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Recommended this to somebody and they pushed back “but is it really good? there’s nothing positive written about it online. there are no good reviews” (of course there are, but mostly in Japanese).

So I just wrote a review on Backloggd.

4.5 out of 5

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Launch window 3DS games in general seem to have gone under the radar - even first party Nintendo stuff like Steel Diver, Pilotwings Resort and Nintendogs + Cats are oft spoken about. Shame.

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