Bonsai Quest

Break Space

Dave Sloane

Jamie

BONSAI QUEST JuanGM PWYW / $2 Sloany's Review Pesky Invaders. If it wasn't bad enough laying waste to the palace and murdering everyone in sight, they've gone and pinched the most precious and sacred collection of bonsai trees. As anyone who's tried to grow and cultivate one of those little swine knows, that's REALLY going to tick you off. So it's time to get suited and booted in your finest ninja gear and set off on a recovery mission. So begins Bonsai Quest, the second game from JuanGM, following hot on the heels of his debut Bearded Fantasy, which is so recent it's reviewed this very issue! First, let's address the elephant in the room: this is a ZXGM game, with the standard ZXGM movement mechanics. If that's a deal breaker, then this isn't for you. With that out of the way... Your unnamed ninja's quest consists of finding codes to unlock doors, avoiding baddies or downing them with your trusty shurikens and navigating moving platforms as you try to track down the 6 elusive perennials. Rather than lives, you have health points, which I think always works better in these types of games. You also have opportunities to replenish your limited throwing stars and health in the form of pickups as you go along. The graphical style works well and there's an appropriate tune accompanying the action. The level design is also smart but it does feel like it gets quite difficult quite early. The 'Game Over' screen is absolutely beautiful, which is a good job as there's a fair chance that you're going to see it a LOT as you navigate through the game. A frustrating point is that there is no indication of how many codes you need each time to unlock the doors & the codes you collect don't disappear or change their form in any way. This means when you are backtracking after coming across a locked door, there's no way of knowing which ones you have missed. Even though there are only 6 bonsai to collect, the hazardous hazards in your path are plentiful. Still, nobody said it was going to be easy, so if you're up for a hardcore adventure, then give this one a spin.

Codes, codes everywhere

The quest continues