101 in 1 Explosive Megamix is, obviously, a new minigame collection for the Nintendo DS. What more do you need to know? Oh, what do you get for your twenty smackers? Well, a bit little of everything. There are card games, sports (air hockey and basketball among others), darts, and old classics like Snake. Sounds like a good deal, right? With over a hundred minigames on one cartridge, how can you go wrong?

It turns out that you can go very, very wrong. Atlus advertised Megamix as the ultimate value, at around twenty cents per game. Twenty is a good number, as twenty seconds is roughly how long you’ll spend playing each minigame, and twenty minutes will be most players’ maximum tolerance level before they put this title down. That assessment may sound harsh, and you’re probably thinking that this is some sort of hardcore-versus-casual rift, but that definitely isn’t the case.

The minigames in this collection are simple. They are pretty much the simplest representation of whatever game they are supposed to be. What the original developers didn’t grasp was that simple is not the same as casual. There has to be something there to stimulate your mind, something to compel you to keep playing. The best casual games have some sort of addictive factor and a hidden level of strategy to the gameplay. None of the minigames in Megamix have either of those. There is nothing compelling about any of the games here. They all feel like the Flash games that we played a decade ago. There is nothing addictive about having to tap the screen in the right place a couple of times. The minigames in the Wario Ware series are incredibly simple, but they work for a couple of reasons — they have amusing objectives and interesting visuals. Megamix’s minigames are too generic to capture that feeling.

The issue isn’t entirely the simplicity of the minigames — the real problem is that the minigames just aren’t any fun. One key issue is the controls. Everything is stylus-based, which isn’t automatically bad. It’s actually probably ideal for a collection of casual games. However, these controls just don’t work around half of the time. The stylus tracking in a few of the minigames is frustratingly unreliable. Good luck with “House of Cards,” one of the first few games that you’ll unlock.

For a collection clearly aimed at a casual audience, 101 in 1 has a really confusing interface. You start out with eleven games available, and you have to unlock the remaining ones by collecting coins. Not a difficult concept in theory, but the game doesn’t actually spell that out for you. Nor does it explain how to play any of the minigames unless you click a little button before playing them. It sounds like a strange thing to complain about, but I honestly wouldn’t have minded if they told me what to do the first time and made it optional after that point. I can almost guarantee that a casual gamer who picks up this game won’t be able to figure out that the icon means “instructions” the first time they play.

There must be something good here, right?

Well, the graphics do look pretty nice. There is a clear and colorful style to the game that is kind of charming. The minigames are filled with pretty animations and cute little sprites. So, the games may be frustrating, but at least they aren’t grating on the eyes. The music is also decent, reminding me a lot of old SNES titles. They could have used a little bit more music, but I didn’t feel the need to turn the volume off.

More than anything, I am disappointed in Atlus. They are one of my favorite publishers because they consistently localize cool games from other countries. Without them, we never would have gotten such awesome games as Persona or Trauma Center. It disappoints me that they would publish this piece of shovelware. I realize that, as a business, they need to expand their portfolio, but there are far better casual game collections that they could have picked up. My recommendation? Skip Explosive Megamix. If you are looking for a great collection of minigames for yourself or as a gift, look for Nintendo’s Clubhouse Games or one of the many Wario Ware titles.

Positives: Decent graphics, lots of variety.
Negatives: Boring games, bad controls, confusing interface.

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