POPGOES Arcade 1 & 2 - Fangame Review

[Music] so popcorn so what began only as a mere concept spawned from some dumb five nights at freddy's through teaser grew into well not just a fan game rather a catalogue of ideas and potential and while not all other plans popcor's content announced and developed over the years has ended up in a fully developed or playable state the amount of work to get so many of these projects off the ground in the first place is commendable the biggest playable projects have come out of all this of course is pogo's the main attraction as like i mentioned in my review of that game despite some hang ups over four years later it still holds up and yeah there was some stuff about it that didn't sit too well with me most notably some of the weirder animatronic designs and material choices as well as the way the mechanics work with each other or rather lack thereof but other than that it was quite a tightly wrapped piece of fang content with a lot to love about it with the unique setup variety in the mechanics and an overall code of polish that outlines this especially at the time of release is a pretty big deal and it's a hefty game for what it seems to offer at face value around double the size of your typical fanaf unfortunately any and all attempts at a pogo sequel were scrapped at some point along the lines some concepts hardly making it to the light of day others well into development and fully plans for release only to be canned due to several reasons including pressure from the community and doubts over whether finishing such a huge project would have been worth it but despite the games that never came to be there's still a bit more fully playable buffalo's content to delve into prior to the release of pop goes on april 1st of the same year a playable teaser under the name popcorn's arcade was released on pop girls game show page presented as a simplistic rpg you'd play as pop goes the weasel himself making your way through forest and castle to defeat king cultivate while part of the original pop goes canon the game was actually released on the assumption that people believed that the main pop goes fan game was about to drop except well no doubled as a punchline to an april fool's joke oh guys bob goes is totally gonna release april first uh no well that didn't end up happening what we got instead was a short hour-long romp through an in-universe arcade game and uh yeah that's what i want to look at first so here we go pop goes okay the title is pretty self-explanatory we're playing at an arcade machine in the podcast pizzeria apparently one day before the events of pop goes and they really push the idea here having us play the game projected on a 3d render of said arcade machine inside the restaurant and to my knowledge this is something i don't think had been done before this so perhaps that's a nice level of detail even the little joysticks and buttons move in accordance to the key presses that's right as hell dude well okay the entire game isn't presented this way for the short opening sequence anyway we're introduced to popcorn's arcade through a little introductory minigame where we control the puppets you can make him struggle yeah that's really all there is to it struggle is the puppet so some forearmed alien gets closer and closer towards you hmm hey here we go the premise is pretty simple you're thrown into weasel world as it's called where you'll play as pog goes fighting potted plants gathering pocket change and getting real spooked i'll get into all that in a bit the game definitely has its spooky moments but yeah this is certainly the definition of a teaser game it's under an hour long consists of two fairly short areas and for all you fans of clever and thought-provoking puns you haven't been behiving very nicely the game's plot is as standard as you can get the gist of it being that it's time to take back this world you need to help the other garden animals it's clearly not meant to be taken very seriously just something simple to give you a reason to go out and do the things you gotta do and sometimes you know that's all you really need especially for a gamer straight to the point is this progression is incredibly straightforward your correct coins by either simply walking up to them just laying about in the overworld or as a reward for defeating enemies which can be spent on your attack power max health and purchasing healing items by interacting with son the crow the squirrel sisters or like the badger dotted around the map wow yeah this really is as simple as you can possibly get with an rpg no no weapons no buffs even a concept as simple as separate consumables are absent just a vague healing item to boot the combat is ridiculously simple your two options are attack or heal if you can't defeat an enemy go a little further back in the game and fire them a few easier foes to rack up coins to level yourself up oh and farming enemies is kind of a joke it got to a point where i realized you don't even need to walk around to trigger encounters it'll just happen randomly so if you've increased your attack and max health beyond a certain threshold you can in fact just sit idle and spam the space bar to win fights and generate coins this might have just been an oversight but yeah that really is all there is to the gameplay here aside from exploring your environment even that can get a tad tiresome too though you move fairly slowly making hunting for secrets a little draining but like i mentioned the game does get a tad creepy at times references to some of the more noticeable events in the popular timeline appear as subtle or sometimes not so subtle easter eggs but even with the context of that game sometimes which it'll happen with no explanation or none that i could find for example i died and had to restart from a save point which are these little 3d printers in accordance with popcorn's focal mechanic of 3d printing robot parts and i traveled downwards from this screen only to find the fountain here filled with blood and surrounded by dead plants this totally caught me off guard with no music hue changes or anything almost like it was unintentional another instance i can recall albeit more of a direct reference as when you're able to swipe 10 coins from this well but if you keep inspecting and inspecting and inspecting you'll find an axe floating in the water it's not equippable and merely a reference to a plot point in the timeline but again it's definitely not something i was expecting but then you go and fight the sentient egg from one night flumpty so i don't know who checks out huh uh yeah pretty much every enemy here is based on a pun usually on some pre-existing character of some kind and just like flumpty or dumpty i guess as he's called here there are a few other fan game characters here uh tester a parody of chess to the chimpanzee from five nights at candies and doug a parody of well doug from those nights at rachel's the flavor takes you'll get for each counter is equally corny you're simply being rude i forgot the last time i had a good fight you guys are such buzz kills i want to pop go and play a game where the flavor text is anything but puns so once you pass egg [ __ ] you'll be taken to the castle no garden animals as the floor reads again it's very silly and tongue-in-cheek the enemies you pass along the way to the king of the castle reinforce this too telling you that you've taken too much and to turn back now the ending is a little unsettling though for context in addition to the silly messages you'll get some battle flavor text is occasionally a bit strange in tone you're on your own did the others branch out what have you been doing to our plans once you beat can cultivate we'll make it clear to you that with him gone you'll starve calling the animals evil before perishing i can't help but imagine this is some kind of parallel to the popcorn's timeline something to do with the animatronics in the restaurant maybe i'm just spitballing there is one other ending here though back at the beginning of the game there's an inaccessible silver key behind a wall that you can't access fairly early on in the game and on a regular run likely won't be picked up but hey pogba is ready to be some kind of ghost facing through rules on that yeah there's a fake wall here and by traversing left you'll follow a linear path right back to that silver key and you'll be able to use it to unlock the previously inaccessible silver gate and once you do you're able to enter the house locked right behind it going right takes you to a whatever this is but otherwise a totally dead end you'll have to travel back to the entrance follow an invisible path here run through a collection of snap 3 secret mini games and damn yeah talk of unsettling moments aside from the visual novelty of having papa's arcade visually surrounded by a physical arcade cabinet as well as further pushing that suspension of disbelief having that literal extra space to play around with gives the developer the perfect opportunity to set up moments like these you become so accustomed as the player to focusing purely on the game in front of you that something as simple as a hand to reaching out the game screen is really effective that's the sort of stuff i love and want to see more people in the fan game community not be afraid to branch out into most from that fan content sucks in that regard jump scares are cheap and totally suck ass most of the time when it comes to genuine scares which is why something like squimpus mcgrimpus's financial series is so popular it doesn't rely on cheap shock rather cleverly takes these otherwise bloated and overplayed concepts and elements from the fnf games and incorporates them into a setting that plays around with your expectations to create some legitimately scary scenarios that kind of solidity and horror goes a long way one detail i found interesting about this thing though if you quit out the game prior to reaching this secret ending your parents came back playtime is over it is all that's read on screen but quitting after the black rabbit ending tonight his shift begins appears below that indicating that this very well may be the canon ending to pogo's arcade with the cracks toy bunny mask on the arcade screen indicating a certain canon story element that precedes the events of bucklers and on any subsequent playthroughs of the game anytime you die you'll be met with a fairly ominous message from well who i assume to be you know this so all in all the game is fairly simplistic and a bit [ __ ] yeah it's barely bad bones or things considered the gameplay visuals are barely there the only real redeeming quality about this thing is the soundtrack it's fairly short of course but features some colorful chiptune bangers that hit that fairly general adventurous tone pretty bang on but i do think context is important here this wasn't anything that was dropped on fans after weeks or even months of anticipation this was at the very least just something to tide people over for the main game and i think it works well as just that fill the content for those itching for something after nearly a year's wait it has its moments but it's really not something i consider revisiting it just isn't really all there in the grand scheme of things so hey good thing a sequel that improves on essentially every aspect of its predecessor exists huh pop goes to the dead forest this was a canned sequel to the original pogos however it didn't go without its anteaser game pop goes arcade two it's genuinely a massive improvement in every department for starters visually things have definitely seen an upgrade the first game had a steal with essentially what was a recreation of the style of those mini games from five nights at freddy's 3 which worked fine for a minute long post night segment but stretched out across an hour long romp it's not the most appealing aesthetic here things are significantly upgraded while that similar style is retained it's far more fleshed out here the environments are colorful and appropriately detailed as are the enemies you'll fight against there's a certain level of visual appeal here that just wasn't present in arcade you know of course taken into consideration that red sand split shade across the game screen i don't know how anyone wrote shaders and the programmers ancient has clicked infusion so that a lot is pretty cool the environment that's being emulated here too playing on some old busted ass arcade cabinet and fastball threads i like the change of scenery here it's definitely refreshing as is that extra level of polish here and the exterior the arcade locked on a little so diving into the game itself fazbear world the phantom scourge it's probably totally mispronounced that just like arcade arcade ii is a small scale rpg but this time actually qualifies for something more significant than this these are both technically still teaser games but one of the two is significantly more teaser than game which is why i'm happy to announce the arcade 2 does a far better job at delivering just a fun time the premise is fairly simple again in fastball world i guess the leaders of each area have caught some kind of virus believed to have originated from a dark curse on the puppets the lord of fazbear world you have opted to help out the residents of the world readying up to make your way through each area find the king or queen of said area and as it puts essentially punch the curse out of them in response to this freddy fazbear has asked the residents of each area to initiate a fight with you training you up for the final bouts with the puppets you'll begin your journey in fazbear forest here you're fighting some predetermined battles against several iterations of freddie classic freddy fazbear toy freddy and golden freddy not unlike the first game you'll run into a few random encounters too with the phantom or ghost variants of the enemies you encounter in any given area accompanies by splash text discouraging you from continuing you shouldn't be doing this we need to stop you these apparitions clearly have some foresight the others don't or they just dumb i don't know the battle system has seen a bit of an upgrade it's gone as the oversimplified uh whatever this was uh here in addition to your basic attack you now have the options to guard and use an item guarding works fairly simply when an enemy charges up an attack indicating this by flashing a wife return you're given the option to stand guard to minimize damage taken item usage is nothing special you'll be able to spend a turn using a consumable or a buff of some kind that's really it in concept this stuff is nothing too crazy but it at least makes this thing more of an rpg than pogba's arcade ever was you won't be sitting idle waiting for attacks to just happen that's for sure oh and do the battle transitions remind anyone else of like some non-existent earthbound psi move totally ambiguous observation just thought i'd mention it speaking of items the shop has seen an improvement here too do you have any idea how hard it was to put down it with all these trees in the way it's now run exclusively by balloon boy with some running gag about how difficult it is for him to reach all these unconventional areas uh i don't know i feel that's pretty good in terms of new stuff there's a big range of merchandise i guess that's about it you do now have the option to purchase attack and defense buffs able to be equipped to last during battle until either one of you falls as well as a shield that will absorb any hits you get for four moves in addition to now having access to a bit of variation in consumables cupcake for a smaller health boost pizza slice for moderate and cake for a full restore and upgradeable overall speed thank you and uh yeah you bet your ass i maxed that [ __ ] out as early on in the game as possible i think from the pure anxiety that the overworld speed and arcade gave me you'll once again purchase items with coins collected from battles no extra cash in the overworld this time around which i think is fair i don't know it seems like a bit of a pointless feature to me so once you've defeated each essential enemy in an area the ones the game will make you fight along a linear path you'll finally be able to reach the rule of the area in freddy forest case this is king freddy who could have guessed then a skipper bob you beat the ever loving [ __ ] out of him he'll thank you for saving him and in reward for doing so he'll grant you the freddie mask all right that's another thing about this game okay so the puppets the game's final boss is only able to be defeated with the four life masks to aid you the freddie bunny chica and foxy masks which you'll receive for each boss you take out these masks also serve an overworld purpose allowing you to interact with the variance in the character the mask is based on for cash quiz questions of all things characters will ask you about the history of the fazbear brand essentially inquiring about past restaurants characters any and all of that sort of thing what gives these questions a bit of a twist however is the fact that just like the pogo's timeline they only take into account the first three freddy's games as do the podcast arcade games themselves for example the answer to what color is fredbear's had in bowtie well that answer would be purple if we were going off the official five nights canon the popular timeline still doesn't involve any of the official freddy's games that extend past from f3 so based on one of the secret mini games from the game the answer here is actually brown this makes some of these questions fairly tough and honestly the challenge is kind of fun trying to imagine what some of these answers would be and this hypothetical where final four and onwards never existed however it's not as straightforward as all the bonnie variants exist within bonnie barrow you know while most of the character variants will reside in their respective area you'll also interact with two themed characters from two of the other areas in the game and an original cameo animatronic themes characters work like this each area aside from freddie forest will feature some kind of overarching motif artistry within bonnie burrow a pirate theme within foxy coast and chica meadow will feature a couple librarian characters with that in mind and bonnie boro you'll run into artist freddie and artist foxy foxy coast pirate bunny and pirate chica that's all the deal and sure enough you are able to ask any of these special themed variant characters quiz questions if you approach them with the appropriate mask cameo animatronics on the other hand are more or less an entirely original concept in the original pop ghost canon where it was explained in pop goes through one of the phone calls that each freddy fazbear's pizza location would feature its own unique cameo animatronic as an incentive to visit each franchise location namely lily the lamb cody the coyote and owen the owl they'll act as mini bosses of swords they're considerably weaker than any of the rulers but they'll give you enough of a tough time that you'll want to make sure you're powerful enough to defeat them so hey once you defeat the majority of enemies in any given area you do not gain immediate access to the king or queen the only way you'll be able to access any area's ruler is by finding the key to the locked gate they're sitting behind now in the case of freddy forest it's simple it's on the opposite end of the map but in regards to the remaining three areas the respective key is hidden in another area the foxy key and bonnie borough the chicago foxy coast and the bonnie key in chica meadow as far as this is to encourage some variation in the gameplay structure as once you defeat king freddie and unlock access to the rest of the areas you're free to pick and choose where you go i suppose in the long run it doesn't make much of a difference though it does just kind of feel like switching up the gameplay purely for the sake of it unless i'm missing something super obvious here don't get me wrong though this isn't anything that hampers the gameplay for me in fact maybe it's just purely for the variation which just in itself can make things more interesting now with that being said the idea of the game giving you total freedom and where you want to go first there is still a difficulty curve here it's nothing too complicated each roller defeats the game increases in difficulty in concept and in practice this works totally fine for me but a potential exploit did cross my mind here i haven't tested this at all but if the difficulty only increases when you defeat a boss would there be anything stopping you from going into one area clearing the floor and moving on to another area without defeating that first area's boss you know as usual but then going ahead and intentionally ignoring any of the rulers keeping the game at an easier difficulty while levelling yourself up to make knocking out that less serious enemies a breeze don't know if this would even make much of a difference to experience on nothing as like i mentioned you'll go without any kind of difficulty increase without clearing two or three areas anyway but hey whatever shut up the game's pretty good what it is i'll criticize a hypothetical all i want so once you've taken out each king and queen pacifying any remaining npcs didn't fight beforehand you'll finally be able to enter this button-shaped portal and face off against the puppets after traversing stretches of purple baths blooming over avoid cakes in the very ooze that somehow seems to be associated with the curse that brought about anguish in this world in the first place once you reach him nothing like can cultivate from pogba's arcade he'll belittle you it's soothing to know you're only here because of your companions you're not here because you're stronger you're here because you're lucky uh yeah these guys don't hold back huh but that's kind of an interesting point right traditional rpg is happening upon some crazy whack scenario that lays out the foundation for your adventure it sure is often a case of luck most of the time and every piece of the puzzle has to fit together in a certain way for you to reach the end of your journey you know video games and sure suspension of disbelief but man's really out his spitting truth bombs up but what is this a critique of a common video game tripping my sequel to an rpg spin-off interactive teaser chronologically proceeding the five nights for this fan game is based on get out of here so yeah lord puppet we finally get to see these live masks getting put to use in battle and well it's nothing too crazy in trade of the crude basic attack here the puppet has his own set of four masks and instead of attacking just once each one he'll rapidly flash any one of the masks corresponding to the mask you'll need to be wearing in order to minimize damage taken when he strikes i gotta say this was a fairly brutal fight with this dude starting off with an initial whopping 750 hp and 30 attack power and while i do love it when games do this sort of thing squeezing multiple uses out of one mechanic to be used in multiple gameplay scenarios i feel like a little more good have been done with the masks while it's an improvement over the game's standard battle system it's ultimately nothing more than a game as simon says aha but contextually i don't want to make this out to be any bigger of a deal than it actually is you know it works well enough as it stands for what it is so once you obliterate this guy into absolute pace he'll thank you profusely thank you jj for defeating the phantom scourge oh huh that's pretty neat popcorn's interpreting amir freddy's two easter egg as the playable character of the teaser game preceding what would have been pogba's two i believe to the point of making her at least a somewhat significant character in the game or at least in the general populist canon to some extent uh yeah so that's popular's arcade too yeah there's a secret ending to this thing it's a five nights freddy's fan game spin off whatever so begin the game as usual knock out the bear [ __ ] sinking freddy to the moon slip past the portal here and here you'll find a secret area with shadow freddy facing away from you congratulations you found me this encounter connector's personal proof that i exist and this mask can act as yours you have a mission now completed and meet me back here the mission in question is essentially a fetch quest where you'll be tasked with hunting down a series of hidden cupcakes shadow freddy mask aside from maxing as a substitute for the freddie mask is what's going to allow you to find these things as once it's equipped while they're quite literally hidden in plain sight this concept is actually very similar to knight 3's hidden task in five nights at freddy's 3 that'll require you to click around the cameras hunting for grey cupcakes this could be a coincidence but judging by popcorn's strong connections to freddy's three i'd assume that this was intentional it's really a straightforward as that and a piece of cake to work towards just keep the shadow freddy mask cooked at all times and you will run into each and every cupcake maybe even a little too easily the fifth and final cupcake is hidden in the puppets are bowed once you enter the portal and search around a bit you'll find the golden cupcake in no time marking the end of your mission returning to the room you met shot at freddy in and placing down the first four cupcakes will open the room up into a hallway taking you through a series of pieces of dialogue detailing the rumors of the purple man his motives the results and this seems to all be taken from his own point of view capping off his speech after you place down the golden cupcake with you can't say the results don't speak for themselves look at me do you see what i've turned into oh damn i wonder what he turned into i was sick now in concepts this is a very cool moment with some very appropriate writing that does a good job of building up what this entire second play through has led up to for whatever reason though i feel like the springtrap jump scare just wasn't as effective as the subtle hand grab move in poplar's arcade not only would this be most people's second time around experiencing a setup and execution like this for a secret ending scare i don't know i feel like subtlety is more effective for something like this especially as i'd guess most people will figure out that it's the purple guy speaking before the reveal that you know kind of diminishes the surprise anyway the game will crash after this and opening it back up brings us to a short cut scene featuring screens with what looked to be documents of some sorts only for the camera to be pulled back to simon fitzgerald's robot replica chained up against a wall this is fritz glades office so uh yeah that was pop goes arcade too i definitely consider this thing an improvement over the original and that's not to say it isn't between a genuinely cool little rpg and a teaser for something far larger in scale oh and also yeah that's a thing that happens sometimes don't worry about it yeah if i got to get caught so off guard by this dick eater you do too at total random it's entirely possible for this shadow bonnie sprite to stop your game in its tracks only to flip to a text concerning disappearances appearances of the purple guy and other info screens of a similar tone perfectly matching those in that cliffhanger cutscene i'll admit that i did play this game when it first released but this totally slips on my mind that this was even a thing that could happen it's really rather cool unless you forget to save because it will crash your game afterwards yeah i wasn't too big of a fan of that i did have to redo quite a bit of progress on the off chance i've run into this guy though one of those times it was kind of my fault yeah this stupid idiot got stuck during one of the encounters and wasn't going for me uh i exited the frame and well yeah what was i expecting of course this is all an extension of the purple guy or in pogba's case simon fitzgerald's doings documents surrounding the aftermath of the storm he began and while there isn't much else in terms of research pertaining to the dude you will in fact occasionally spot fine simon underneath the game over screen in place of a tip so for real that was popcor's arcade 2 and you know for what it offers there's nothing i really have against any of it i mean i do have a couple minor nitpicks like this letter e next to what looks like a fuel gauge of some kind that's your inventory which i didn't even know you could access until freaking right before the final bus now to be fair it is explained in the controls in the main menu so that's probably just my stupid asphalt for not recalling though with that being said something as simple as a mechanic as that couldn't have had to have implemented some basic prompts during gameplay to remind players hey this is a thing you can do and with that being said those were the pogo's arcade games do they stack up nicely today no and yes arcade has its moments but ultimately just isn't an experience i feel too drawn back to especially someone with prior knowledge of the story the most you'll get out of this is a couple notes exhaust if you're lucky there just isn't a lot here that's interesting enough to want to delve too deep into and while that may have been the intention for it to have been nothing more than any type of teaser it serves that purpose but i can't say it did anything more for me than that arcade 2 is definitely an improvement i'd argue in nearly every department gameplay visuals variety music dude i didn't even mention the music arcade 2 has it's all great stuff yet again and there's a lot more of it and hell i've been playing most of it in the background of this review these two games are now they're cool nothing more than interactive teasers of varying quality sure but the fact that we received any extra free content designed for two already free full fnaf fan games is a testament to what some of the content creator community is willing to do for these passion projects just to entertain their fans while i wouldn't recommend both these games i'd say give populars arcade look if you're interested in checking out some of the earlier populous content for the sake of it and well the adarkie popcorns rk2 is genuinely a fun romp if you want something light and simple to go out for an hour or two but hey forget all that because holy [ __ ] does popular k2020 look insanely good dude everything about this looks like such an improvement over either of these two games in fact i've heard nothing but good things about it even from people who have in the past expressed nothing but distaste for the series yeah do i even have to mention that i really really want to check this thing out so hey what better way to follow up reviews of the original teaser games than with an in-depth look at a totally reimagined shot at the beginning of the pop goes reboot [Music] you

Channel: gomotion

Views: 221,209

Rating: 4.9700627 out of 5

Keywords: gomotion, go motion, popgoes, popgoes the weasel, fangame review, popgoes arcade, popgoes arcade 2, kane carter

Id: ZilcR_tYo7Y

Length: 25min 28sec (1528 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/-Gnostic28]

Go motion

[u/EpicJosh84]

I literally just started listening to Flowing Free after like 3 years and this video shows up 5 minutes later what universe have I fallen into

[u/bvisnotmichael]

its always nice to see you upload

[u/MMillion05]

finished watching! that was a good video, popgoes is cool

[u/Very_Epic_Goku_Meme]

i enjoyed now take upvote and like

[u/superbloxyalt]

u/gomotion_ please review Fun Times at Homers 1 and 2.

[u/Bearmam123]

Hi jodie uhh... can you ever actually make popgoes printed dreams a full song? I’m getting tired of having to just listen to the first part on loop