Review: 100 in 1 Game Collection (Nintendo Switch)

“Oh, great,” your little guide through the minigames of 100 in 1 Game Collection tells you as you unlock the next one. “A terrible puzzle game.”  At least our little Dante is aware that you might not be enjoying your trip through hell.

Look, I knew exactly what I was in for when I loaded 100 in 1 Game Collection. I was expecting 100 minigames, most of which would be inferior to other games out there, and none of them would be worth playing more than a few times. I got exactly that. What inspired me to buy the game? It may or may not have been the back end of a bottle of wine. But I did it, I played it, and… frankly, I don’t know if I regret it. There is something nostalgic about this thing.

However, I will say that whoever made the utterly nuts decision to make you unlock the minigames one at a time needs to be fired into the sun. I know why some decision makers thought that would be a good idea, as it would force you to sit down for hours to play everything, value for money! But in practice, it’s a stupid decision that makes you play everything, including the minigames that actively annoy you, in order to get to the ones that you find relatively enjoyable. I would have understood if there were some minigames unlockable after earning enough points – say 20 or so of the 100. I would have understood if they unlocked in packs of ten, and you didn’t need to complete them all to unlock the next pack. But no, I do not understand the nuclear option here.

Getting to the minigames themselves, there is everything that you would expect to see here. You’ll start off with a Snake clone that controls worse than Snake did back on the old Nokia phones. Then you’ll move over to a Game-and-Watch style single-screen twitch action game (which plays worse than the old Game & Watch Gallery titles on the Game Boy and GBA. After that, it’s a Bejewelled clone, a Zuma clone, Tengrams, Flappy Bird and one of the worst efforts at a Pac-Man clone I’ve ever come across. And then a Bomberman somehow worse than the worst Konami has done with their mascot (some of those games have been really, really bad)

To be clear, each of the games does work and is playable. It’s just that the controls are that little bit slower, clunkier, and less enjoyable than the counterparts they borrow from. Each game also has an art style straight out of the $0.99 cent mobile game era, and, as I said, by the time you’ve played it a second or third time, you’ll have run out of patience for it. To unlock the next minigame, you need to complete the level enough to have earned a star. To unlock the next “set” of minigames you need to have earned enough stars to pay the cost of the area. Most of the minigames are simple enough that you’ll have the three stars by the time you’re sick of the game (which is, again, about the second or third time you’ve played it).

Now, in fairness, the developers have tried to encourage people to keep playing as every single minigame has its own dedicated leaderboard. Once you’ve completed the minigame once you can jump in and start competing to be the best in the world at that minigame – wouldn’t being at the top of one of the boards there be a credit for the resume.

Unfortunately, I don’t think many people have actually bought 100 in 1 Game Collection, let alone want to invest time in the competition. A solid week after release now, and there were, like, six scores on the leaderboard for one of the better minigames (Dragon Gold). I’m currently sitting at #3 after playing it once – literally once – and posting what I can assume must be a very mid score, as I spent less than a minute in the game getting there. Potentially, there is some longevity in there if enough people end up playing the better minigames enough that you want to challenge yourself to move up the rankings. At the same time, this is hardly Pinball FX and I’m not sure if topping the leaderboards here is something to be proud or ashamed of.

The thing is, though, I did find myself having fun with this stupid thing. Each time you unlock a new minigame, that little Dante guide (actually a body-less mouse-creature with long arms) gives you a very self-aware summary of what the minigame is. He knows that three quarters of them suck, and he doesn’t hold back in his assessment of that. So with 100 in 1 Games, you’re playing bad games that the developers know are bad and have a sense of humour about their project. If that isn’t the dictionary definition of a game that is an utter hoot when you’re on the beers, then I dunno what is. But perhaps it’s also a sign that I should get on the beers a little less often.