Game Review #229: FUN! FUN! Animal Park (Nintendo Switch)
Reviewer: Bradford “TheWaffinator87” E.
Developer: Aksys Games
Publisher: Aksys Games
Category: Party, Sports, Multiplayer
Release Date: 3.28.2019
Price (at time of review): $29.99 (physical & digital)
Buy FUN! FUN! Animal Park from the eShop here.
Buy FUN! FUN! Animal Park from Amazon here.
What’s My Age Again?
If you haven’t heard yet, there is a new party game in the neighborhood, and it’s animal themed! Everyone is a sucker for a cute doggy, so watch out Mario! As I am playing this new party game with my six-year-old and my two-year-old to try and see how I feel about it, why do I find myself getting drawn in? What is the age range of this game? 2-10 (and creepy adults)? I joke, I joke. Seriously though, this new party game that’s staring all kinds of lovely animals is a fresh new look, and gives Mario Party a run for its money in the party-themed game section.
If you still don’t know what game I am talking about let me introduce you to Aksys Games’ newest baby, FUN! FUN! Animal Park.
Just like any other party game, FUN! FUN! Animal Park is more geared towards multi-player, but don’t worry, it has a loner—I mean single-player—mode. In FUN! FUN! there are two characters: The Director (the lion on the left), and The Jr. Director (the bunny on the right); and when you play multi-player, The Director is Player 1, while The Jr. Director is Player 2. There are three modes to choose from that you can play:
Tour Mode- Tour Mode is a multiple-level two-player mode. You can choose from 4 different courses: Laid Back Course (3 matches avg 10-minute play time), Thrill Seeker Course (5 matches and 20-minute play time), Nail-Biter Course (9 matches and 30-minute play time), and Extensive Course (15 matches long, and about 40-minutes of play time). In these matches you will be competing for Director’s Coins, and whoever has the most by the end of the matches is the winner.
One Match Mode- In One Match Mode, you can choose from all the games available in Fun! Fun! Animal Park, and you can choose which level or levels in which you want to compete! There are 30 different kinds of matches you can choose.
Solo Mode- Yeah that’s right, there’s a solo mode. Not as fun by yourself, and nowhere near as many games from which to choose. There are a total of 9 levels you can play. I played this a few times, and it’s nowhere near as fun as multi-player.
Controls
Just like any party game, the controls will vary from game to game. One minute you are just pressing ZR/ZL—depending on if you are P1 or P2—as a counter-clicker, to completely shaking the Joy-Con back and forth to make your animal run faster the next minute. Either way, they were as basic and easy-to-grasp as can be. My two-year-old didn’t play—only watched—but my six-year-old was able to grasp how to play fairly quickly.
There was one game where no matter how many times we watched the “how to” video, we couldn’t get it to work when playing the game. It is the one where you are a dog running, and either have to jump or duck the poles. We could get the jump to work just fine, just not the low crawl/roll. We got a bit frustrated with that game, but other than that, all the other games’ controls worked just fine. I’m not saying it’s the game’s fault, I’m just saying, control-wise, the one stage could have been a little easier.
Audio/Visuals
The Director and The Jr. Director remind me of something that would come from Little Big Planet, like Sackboy, or the newer Yoshi games. I loved the sock animal set up, and so did the kids. I feel like it was done well enough to be pleasing for the younger audience, without being too cheesy for the older audience. The voices sound like something right out of a kid cartoon, which was another plus with the kids.
During Tour Mode, if you use the Fast Forward option when they are talking, it sounds like a speeding up of a tape, so it makes the voices really squeaky and very amusing for a good old family laugh. You can just hold any of the buttons to make it Fast Forward.
Wrapping Up
Overall, all the games are either played as an animal, like Dogs, Kangaroos, Lemurs—I mean monkeys, because apparently lemurs are monkeys now—
… penguins, pigs, pandas, and more! There are even a few games where you are a camera trying to take the better pictures. This game really is a good alternative to Mario Party to play with the kids, and overall, just a fun and cute party game all on its own.
Score: 8/10
Buy FUN! FUN! Animal Park from the eShop here.
Buy FUN! FUN! Animal Park from Amazon here.
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*Review Code provided by MMPR