Club Penguin apps have been a mixed bag. Puffle Launch was pretty good. The My Penguin app was fine until it became the Club Penguin app, at which point the team started wasting their money and time on transporting the whole CP world to mobile and everything stopped working. Sled Racer was one of the only great things this year. But where does Puffle Wild stand? On a nine year Club Penguin scale? Near the bottom. On a 2014 scale? Pretty close to the top.
Puffles are my arch enemies, as, just like the gremlins, their cuteness hides their plan for over population and world domination. At this point, Club Penguin is playing Jedi mind tricks with us. "Yes, you want seven more puffles. This is the content you're looking for."
With Puffle Wild, Club Penguin's plan for puffles comes full circle. But, really, I was more than OK with a straight line.
The over saturation of Puffle content really downgrades the actual enjoyment of the app. But, beyond things the outside world has imposed on it, there are too many puffles in the app itself. Instead of having several puffles in each land to unlock, wouldn't it have made more sense to have just one Puffle at the end of each land's levels as a grand finale? Who comes up with this stuff?
To be fair, though, the puffles this app gives us are cool...I guess. They don't bring anything new to the table and they really don't need to have color variations of the same animal, but they are designed well...I guess. I'm over it all.
Puffles aren't the only things we've seen too much of lately. The whole match three concept is as uncreative as uncreative gets. We've seen dozens of these games - including copycats from Disney itself - but yet the team felt that there was still room for one more. The puffle powerups are at least somewhat of an original thought, though for a game that revolutionized the online gaming industry, it all feels beneath them. If you need to argue that Club Penguin doesn't like developing new ideas, look no further than this app and Jet Pack Joyride's cousin in the Club Penguin app.
To its credit, though, the game tries more than most CP games in recent memory. While there are no secrets, which is disappointing though anticipated, there is an actual challenge for older players, particularly if you want three stars on every level. While the game stops adding new things into the mix after about level seven, it still manages to be at least partially interesting all the way through its sizeable selection of levels. Also: the game is very responsive, has great artwork and animations, and has decent music (though it could be switched up a bit more often). One other small complaint I had is scrolling through the puffles on the selection page; my finger always seems to snag a puffle I didn't want to move around when I scroll through my list.
Exploring the wilds of Club Penguin is a good and senseable concept, but the app doesn't try very hard at building the Club Penguin world. The two maps on the app have good details, but they don't have a lot of Easter eggs and varied artwork. Much like everything else nowadays, it feels like we're scratching the surface of a bigger concept without ever actually seeing the potential of said idea.
I have to say I resent the app because it promises more puffles to come once you finish the game. This shows me that without a doubt things aren't going to get better in this war anytime soon.
In closing, Puffle Wild offers welcome challenge, but has many problems preventing it from being a true hit. This is the best product to come out of all these persistent puffle updates, but when said product is barely above average, what does that say about the state of the game?
"This is the content you're looking for."
Score: 6/10
Three words: TOO.... MUCH.... PUFFLES....
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