A shadowy figure sneaks into a girl’s house and steals her prize-winning pogo stick!  So the girl goes after her on another pogo stick!  Go! Go! Pogogirl is a 2-D platformer where you’re constantly bouncing up and down on a pogo stick.  It reminds me of stuff I would’ve rented back in the SNES days, or even something you’d see on the Game Boy Color.  It’s available on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

You can stomp on enemies by jumping on them, but since you’re constantly bouncing, timing can be a little different here.  Luckily you have a few moves at your disposal to help with that.  One button makes you do a spin attack, which can add a small distance to your jump as well as hit enemies from the side.  If you hold down for a while and then jump, you’ll leap super high.  It’s also the only time you can stand still!  Finally, another button lets you do a slam move, handy for hitting switches on the ground.

There are 20 stages, each split into four regular levels plus a boss fight.  The stages are themed after the four seasons.  Most levels introduce some new enemy or gimmick, but the moment to moment gameplay is still pretty much the same.  You can earn coins by beating a level without dying, collecting all the green gems, or getting all three of the hidden red gems.  Not sure what those coins, do, though, besides adding a bit of replay value.

Aside from the constant bouncing that makes some platforming annoying, my only other problem with this game is that it’s one of those one-hit-and-you-die kind of games.  You can pick up a power-up shield to let you have an extra hit, but they’re really scarce.  It’s especially annoying since there are times when enemies are hard to see, or you have to make a blind jump and won’t know if you’ll hit spikes from below or anything.  But I still enjoyed this one about ¾ of the way through.

Kid Factor:

Go! Go Pogogirl is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Mild Blood.  I really didn’t notice any blood at all, and when you or enemies get hit, they just fly off the screen.  Younger gamers may get frustrated at the difficulty, though.

Tags: Game Reviews