Bliss Island - Review

Added March 18th, 2008 by Slunks

If we all had Fridays off, how would you spend it? That's the story's premise for PomPom's fuzzy title, Bliss Island. You play a small race of Zwooph's, which are fluffy creatures most likely found in your sister's old Beanie Baby collection. Its cute outset may be attracting, but Bliss Island isn't a paradise--only a cheap, short-lived ride that not only tries a familiar build, but does a pretty bad job at it too.

In this uninspired mini-game collaboration, you be play as Hoshi, a small blue creature accompanied by other admirable animals that you'll inexplicably take control of. It's coming to the weekend and Friday's a relaxing day for entertainment through fun events. At least that's what Bliss Island aims for, but never hits near its target. The mini-games range from frustratingly bad to a simple mediocrity at best. There's an average-sized library at selection, spanning about a dozen different events to select through the game's adventure mode or separately. However, these mini-games are often unoriginal and a bore, as they are too simple minded and drawn out. For instance, Block Invaders is obviously a sour replica of both classics Space Invaders and Breakout--faced blocks will fall from above as you knock them out with your beach ball-like creature. The only change is that if the blocks are angry, you'll take a strike--three strikes and you're out is the main rule that most mini-games enforce.

Since nearly all games feel too familiar and aren't inventive, the stale taste of gameplay isn't a bit refreshing. You can pick out the very few average games to play separately, but it's probably a better choice to head back to the dashboard and find another game to play. The graphical style is appealing with its cartoon-drawn slide shows. This is where a line of confusion is drawn, as the style drawn may attract young gamers, its difficulty can be on the contrary. Running through the game's adventure mode once isn't the end, though, since you'll have the option to play through it twice more with added challenge. The first time through feels about right, but the later levels use cheap additions that don't add to the game's quality--only to its difficulty. Losing all three lives will send you back to the beginning of the mini-game, and since they can be pretty long, there's no fun in having to play through the easy stages all over again.

There are three forms of multiplayer that includes little variety. Fluffy football, the game's main role of online play, is a soccer match where you push (there are no legs to kick with) a ball into the other side's goal post. Brick Invaders and Forest Frenzy have the same construction as the single-player versions, but slightly changed rule sets that govern competition. The audio doesn't show any hard effort either, considering you can easily notice four-second loops being repeated infinitely during certain events. There isn't a lot to do here, and what it offers isn't exciting or interesting. Even at four hundred Microsoft points you'll hardly find any fun in this title. An unoriginal set of mini-games, terrible story and dead multiplayer makes Bliss Island one where you would build a raft and sail off soon as possible without ever looking back.