BAD NEWS BEAR

Kalimba’s story is minimal, offering about as much setup as the early Mario games. But that purity is tarnished by narrator-cum-challenge-room merchant Hoebear The Metabear. He’s gaming’s Jar Jar Binks: an intended source of comic relief whose heavy-handed joke falls flat from the off and is then repeated ad nauseam. At least you can usually skip his fourthwall-breaking patter, though since he prefaces every level, you might still be sick of his hexagonal mug by the end.