Putt-Putt® and Pep's Balloon-o-Rama

Rage bait the game

oui

This game is genuinely not fun to play near the end. There are two concepts you will become painfully aware of while playing: Bucket Balloons and Regenerating Balloons. Bucket Balloons take up three vertical spaces and can only be popped when Pep hits the topmost space. Hit too low? Pep rebounds off of the spot and often comes crashing down. When it's popped, it comes crashing down, hitting Putt-Putt if he's below. The intention is that you get painted the color of the paint, but it also stuns, and you're likely going to just not catch Pep in that circumstance. Regenerating balloons, though... Regenerating balloons have a timer attached to the space they'll occupy, as well as a queue they'll follow if multiple balloons will take up the same spot. When the space is empty, the first timer will start, as long as Pep is up in the air. When time's up, a new balloon will take up that spot. Oftentimes it's just to fill in some part of whatever design the devs came up with. Other times, and the part that pisses me off, is that you will see a bucket balloon. And then sixteen balloons will appear as a shield for the top of the bucket balloon. And then more will shield those balloons. And then more. And if you pop any of those? The timer for the next balloons starts. One level starts out with a few balloons on the top layer, before filling the level spot by spot with balloons every second. You are not popping them all until they've all appeared. These two items used so flagrantly in tandem makes me believe the devs made this game out of a higher-up's request and not out of any actual interest.

This is probably the first bad Putt Putt game in my opinion. Gameplay is just boring for first half of the game, first 1-50? levels are pretty easy and don't introduce many mechanics, or gameplay elements. And the later half has a different issue of becoming tedious or even hard, the turning point is in level 69, where the balloons are made in heart shape, and if you don't pop them fast enough, they REGENERATE! Regenerating enemies/boss hp are already frustrating enough in more adult games, but putting it in a kids game is just mean xD. But if you do reach 70, I guess if you're a huge breakout genre fan, maybe you'll like the rest of it, but it just takes too long to reach it in my opinion, but maybe breakout genre isn't for me. Lastly the final level feels like it was designed by Devs who knew 99% of people won't see the end, because lemme tell you, idk how you can finish LvL 20 first try unless you have tons of extra lives. Also, The problem is that the gameplay just isn't interesting, or rich in mechanics to warrant a separate game, this should've been one of the mini games in existing Putt Putt games! Sure it's not an expensive game, but still it shouldn't be a standalone game. If the developers ever remaster/remake Putt Putt games, I hope they put all of these spinoffs and mini games from non spinoff games into one big catalogue game. So yeah, don't buy it and don't play it, a waste of time unfortunately.

There is no reason for this game to have 120 levels.

I won't go into too much detail, since it's a pretty simple game at heart, but it made my childhood nonetheless. This game is an Arkanoid-style game where you use Putt-Putt as your paddle and Pep as your ball. Simply bounce Pep into the balloons to pop them, and pop them all to clear a stage. Still, in typical Humongous Entertainment fashion, the whole game oozes with charm and character! The bouncy animation and bright colors makes even the simplest of levels feel lively! Overall verdict: 93/100. It held up great back in the day, and it still holds up well today. The later levels get pretty mean with the balloon placement and with spawning / respawning balloons, though there is thankfully some Junior Helper options to help ease the difficulty.