If you think it will be like Bad Fur Day you will hate it, but if you come into it with a open mind, it is O.K.

User Rating: 7.5 | Conker's Pocket Tales GBC
Story: The story is when Conker and Berri are kids. Berri has thrown Conker a surprise birthday party. As the cake is being brought out, Berri realizes it is not that cake she made (the manual says this but it is not the cut scene she just stands there like normal). Before she can do anything (or notice) an evil acorn pops out of the cake and kidnaps Berri and steals all of the presents. Now that I am actually writing it this is a pretty dumb premise. You know in Bad Fur Day a stripper would be popping out of that cake, but this game is for kids remember. It is very simple like Mario games and you are only reminded of the story when you are about to go into a boss battle. Only thing that got me about the story is that they never explain why the evil acorn did it, in the Mario series Bowser did it so he could marry peach, but here there is no explanation for it. It is not that squirrels eat acorns either because all the other acorns help you get your presents and Berri back so maybe he is just a jerk.

Game play: The game is a 3D top down adventure game where you collect blue presents to continue, and you can also collect invitations and special red presents (they are special for no reason at all under then that they are hard to find). The beginning of the game is the worst beginning in video game history for sure though. You have no weapons and everything is trying to kill you after you leave your house so you have to run over to the forest guardian's house so he can help you (if you don't talk to the acorn out side of your house you will not know this and wonder aimless till you die). The only problem is that you don't know that you have no weapon since you can still you the B button to slap which does nothing at all to the enemy and you will take damage and die quickly. After you get the slingshot you have a weapon to defend yourself and they game gets much better. You will quickly realize a few things

1. Acorns (smaller ones not talking ones) serve as health and there is no limit to how many you can have, but acorns don't respawn after you pick them up ever. No, I really mean they never respawn so if you are low on health and you took all the acorns already you are screwed and have to start a new game.

2. Conkers (plate shaped nuts) serves as ammo and do respawn.

3. You need 8 blue presents a world to continue to the next world. Which you get from fetch quest, point A to point B quests, bosses etc.

The bosses at the end of each world are easy once you know there weakness except for the boss a claw swamp no matter what I always loss 15 health on that boss before he dies. There are mini games that you need to do to get the presents they control well and are good except for the Maiko Islands ones. They are just button mashing and even though they are just button mashing they are hard and you will have to replay them again and again till you win… My finger changed color from the pain. There are also box puzzle and switch puzzles but they are just mostly trail and error till you get the right one. The box puzzles are really over used I mean really overused latter on in the game till the point that every 5 minutes there is a new box puzzle.

Controls: The controls are not that good. It is hard to move is the right direction and fast enough to dodge the enemies. You have to double tap the directional pad to make Conker run which is hard at times to do and hurts your thumbs. You press A to jump and A twice to jump slam which is used to activate switches and to kill mice and snakes. This is really poorly done and because of this you will likely die a lot until you get the hang of it since the mice are so hard to hit. B is to shoot your slingshot which is done well. Start is to pause which is simple and pressing select while doing in start saves the game simple enough.

Sound: The sound and music are good but they reuse it too much, like they repeat the same tune everything you fail a mini game and every time you see the evil acorn. Also you can tell that they reused all of the old sound affects from Donkey Kong Land. (I would know my game spot title is named after Donkey Kong)

Closing Statements: This game is a not a great game, but not a bad one either. It is an ok/good game but I think it was worth the money I paid for it I got it for 1 cent but plus shipping and handling it was 3 dollars. It takes 12 hours to complete (if you don't have to restart, but since I did it took 14 hours DX), so if you don't invest time in it you will not learn to enjoy it. But unless you want to know what Conker was like as a kid you really don't need to play this game.