Another day, another underwhelming Wii U eShop experience. This time we have a port of a game that’s freely playable on internet browsers and mobile devices. I understand the person or people at RCMADIAX aren’t too interested in taking a long time to develop a quality game for the Wii U. However, he/she/they could at least have kept making their own stuff instead of licensing out a freebie for a release that costs money! I could end the review here but I do suppose I have to make an official statement. So let’s pretend this is designed for Wii U, not released for free elsewhere, and keep the show going shall we?
Graphics
Panda Love‘s visuals consist of pixels and sprites. It’s par for the course with an indie title by this point but it is no less pleasing to the eye. Different scenery would’ve been pretty nice, though. It also gets sort of monotonous to have spike beds as the only obstacle in the entire game.
Audio
The music is the best part of Panda Love; it’s atmospheric and drenched with a “dreamy” vibe to the point where it could have been more fittingly used in a game that doesn’t feature a pixel art style. The sound effects work but for some reason there’s a tire screeching sound for when the panda uses a portal to move on to the next level.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Panda Love consists of basic platforming with the catch being that the panda is always moving. The only bit of control is making the panda jump. Levels center around that and would require the panda to grab coins, turn around from colliding with walls, or both. Then a portal would open up and the panda would have to hop into it to go to the next level.
As a simple experience, there is a lot of potential to be had for this kind of play and dozens of levels could be created to expand upon the premise of the game. While there are loads of games that would gradually add to their basics though, Panda Love stops far before its momentum hits its peak. At nineteen levels that potentially last only seconds apart, the entire game can be beaten in around five to ten minutes. That means this $1.49 game isn’t any longer than the demos for many other games!
And with that, now’s a good time to call back to earlier when I said this is a free game on phones and computers. There’s no reason at all whatsoever regarding why the Wii U version has to have a price tag on it.
Verdict
If you want to play Panda Love right now, just click here. For what it is, Panda Love is a tolerable little freebie that could help scratch a quick arcade itch. As a game with a price tag on the other hand? It doesn’t have a chance. There are better games for the same price and less, and what are the odds of people preferring to play this on Wii U than a smart device or computer? Let alone to where they’d be wiling to pay to play it on Wii U?
