I never thought I’d say “This game is worse than Bubsy”, but today, I did. Today I felt a sense of suffering that is almost impossible to describe. A pain that cannot be fathomed by those who are privileged enough to have never experienced it. Little Adventure on the Prairie is the worst game I have played in my entire life, and I sincerely hope no one reading this ever has to experience it first-hand.
Little Adventure on the Prairie
Developer: Infinite Madaa Studios
Platforms: PS4 (reviewed), PS Vita, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo 3DS, and Android
Price: $2.99
Yesterday, a (soon to be former) friend of mine came over to my place. They had just watched a Let’s Play of Little Adventure on the Prairie, and said I should buy it. It looked incredibly bad, but I thought, hey, it’s $3. My friend thought it would be funny to see me play it, so I obliged. This was a poor decision on my part. A dreadful, miserable, ill-advised decision. One that I will likely regret until the end of my days.
There’s no story to Little Adventure on the Prairie. You play as an androgynous blue-haired anime character who I’m fairly sure has been lifted from some sort of stock photo library. Instead of animating Blue-Hair, the developers puppet it around using the pin tool. This is a bold move, and if the goal was to make mobile games look good in comparison, they’ve certainly succeeded. Though I have to give credit where it’s due, there are a grand total of six entirely different enemies in the game, some of which have layering issues that put their heads behind their body sprites. The blown up jpegs of foliage perfectly compliment the mismatched and poorly sized textures, which vary from “red rocks” in the lava world to “yellow sand” in the desert world. Sometimes the environments just end, so you’ll get a blank screen in place of the sky or ground. Flash games that were “blamed” on Newgrounds circa 2002 make Little Adventure look amateur, which is something of an achievement itself.
Little Adventure is supposed to be a 2D side-scroller/platformer, which it technically is. Platforming is hard when you get caught on platform corners and stuck on walls. The combat isn’t any better, as Blue-Hair just randomly swings his sword at enemies without any type of hit indicator. Enemies sometimes turn red, which I assume means they’ve taken damage, but how much damage they can take seemingly changes at random. There’s also no visual indicator to signal that you’ve taken damage, so you’ll have to stare at your health. Not that staring at your health will help you, since you die with a fraction of your health still remaining. The sanity-grating looping background music doesn’t help matters, though it does give credence to my theory that this game doesn’t really exist, and that I’m stuck in an endlessly looping purgatory.
At the end of the day, Little Adventure just reeks of laziness. The environments, sprites, and music feel as though they were lifted from royalty-free archives, which is actually entirely possible. This game would make Digital Homicide Studios blush, if it was still kicking I mean.
The Final Word
Little Adventure on the Prairie took a toll on me. It is the worst game I have ever played, and I will likely try to never think of it again. But hey, it’s got a Platinum trophy.
– MonsterVine Rating: 1 out of 5 – Abysmal
