Poptropica Review

Poptropica is a browser game by Scholastic and that guy who did the Diary of a Wimpy Kid novels made to capitalize on browser games right as the Iphone was taking off. In spite of this it surprisingly did pretty well, at least up until flash’s popularity began to wane and they eventually moved to pretty much shutter the entire thing, only living on through archived copies and the Coolmathgames website where for some reason you’re still allowed to play it to this day, albeit without the full set of islands to enjoy.

For the record I’m playing the AS2 Flashpoint version as this is what I played when I was a goo goo gaa gaa toddler, minus the Flashpoint. Bafflingly this game managed to be totally archived due to a mix of hacking and Wayback Machine files. You even get to skip the ads and what not! Alright let’s just get into it.

General

Poptropica is a game where you go to a bunch of different islands to solve a bunch of different problems. Because of this, pretty much every single area available is separate in the particulars of its gameplay style, but there’s a few generic pointers that stick between each island.

Poptropica is best described as an action adventure game, taking inspiration from both platformers and point and click adventure games. You jump around platforms and gather items to solve puzzles and what not, and occasionally you have to do minigames that are separate from this general concept which could either be tests of skill, strategy, or just sections that involve more action than normal.

The platforming bits are pretty bad. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING is controlled with a mouse. You point and click in a direction to move, point upwards to jump, and point downwards to crouch and roll which is generally frustrating because all it does the majority of the time is screw up your jump by forcing you to go an extra step, usually right into a pit.

Minigames are generally okay though I lose my temper fast from fucking them up, probably because my mouse is busted. They’re usually pretty boring because this is an educational game and they have to be educational somehow except when they aren’t with which they somehow end up more boring. Usually involves even more platforming. They’re too varied to cover here.

Puzzling is alright but often falls victim to what I call ‘scavenger hunting’, where you’re not really using your brain to solve a puzzle but just trying to figure out where the devs decided to shove the maguffin you need to progress. When you do use your brain, it’s incredibly easy. Presumably it was done this way to pad out islands since a lot of the time you can end up spending on an island is just to go on a wild goose chase for a maguffin.

The stories feel like museums. Like, you’re going to the crime museum or whatever, and you walk up to the Al Capone statue and press the button and he goes “ehhh I’m Al Capone I was a bootlegger!” That’s everyone in Poptropica, they all talk like that. Everything is just a set piece that’s designed to get you moving forward, and very few characters have distinct personalities. The ones that do often show up multiple times throughout Poptropica in ads and shit because having a personality is just that notable in this world.

Okay onto the islands. Because they’re all pretty short, what I have to say about them will be pretty short too. None of them surpass an hour in length bar being incredibly padded out.

Early Poptropica

The first one, as the name implies. Also one of the ones that has the most ridiculous wild goose chases I’ve mentioned before, but thankfully I sort of remembered what to do beforehand.

Early Poptropica is a city that’s basically right next to the actual Early Poptropica, which is some 8bit pilgrim town that lost some of its shit and they want you to go find it. You do that, and then they reward you. There’s not much else to say actually, other than one of the items is way up in the sky guarded by a giant who wants a goose egg.

Easily one of the least coherent worlds thematically, after this everything gets pretty simple.

Shark Tooth Island

Largely a more coherent version of Early Poptropica, although here the conflict is a little more vague. Your goal is to go save some guy who’s trapped by a shark, but to do that you have to gather some ingredients to get them to a racist shaman.

This is literally just Hawaii. It’s on an island-y island and has all the tiki shit people like. Also very boring, I don’t have much to say about it since it’s so straightforward beyond figuring out what the objective is.

Time-Tangled Island

garbage

Time’s been fcuked so you need to go to a bunch of different time periods, get an item, then return it to its real time period. Every time period needs an item, every time period has one. All of the areas are pretty self contained so you generally don’t need to check areas twice for an item.

The gameplay here is bad and predictable. Go to a period, grab an item, go to another, repeat until you have all the items then go back and sort them into their time periods. It takes so stupidly long. It’s probably one of the more truly educational among Poptropica’s worlds which, despite the proported educational focus, tend to be lacking. That being said it’s not that great at this either since the gameplay is so bland.

The ending is the most frustrating part. In the end you go to the repaired future and Poptropica’s idea of such is a fucking Solarpunk shithole. Or, in other words, “If we just build a bunch of windmills and solar panels everywhere the energy crisis will be solved!” Fuck you.

24 Carrot Island

Probably the first good one, or at least I kind of enjoyed it more in comparison to the rest.

You head to what is essentially a rust belt American city, except instead of dealing in cars they deal in carrots. Except someone’s stealing all the carrots so everything’s gone pretty shitty. You take it upon yourself to investigate the goings on, and find out that an evil dude named Dr. Hare stole all of them to go into a carrot rocket and take over the world or uh something like that.

Most of this takes place in sewers and vents if I remember right. The actual gameplay sucked ass, shoutout to the part with the machine where one of the levers had to be pulled to the middle with no real indication that I could do so, but the presentation was pretty good here.

Maybe I’m just retarded.

Also I think this is the point they really start to give up on the idea of islands being like, islands. The other two were very obviously islands but now “island” is starting to become a euphemism for “paralell universe.”

Super POWer Island

Also pretty good presentation. This one’s one of the more minigamey ones, there’s not that many puzzles to solve.

Villians running amok in Townsville and you need to stop them with your not so super powers. This is either very easy or annoying depending on the villian at hand. The guy who threw rocks was an asshole because he kept throwing the rocks in the wrong direction and the speedster made little sense since instead of trying to bait him onto a slip you just jump over him until he arbitrarily decides to trip.

I do like the plot progression though, even if it wasn’t capitalized on. The idea of someone becoming a superhero by simply taking on vigilante justice at a dark time, only later to get powers when he’s truly proven himself to be a good man is a great concept. Marvel/DC would NEVER.

Spy Island

You get directions to stop bald people from being bald by a guy named Director D, who is evil. Eventually you get a secret message showing that Director D, who is evil, is evil. You need to save 3 spies who’ll help you get to a bald guy satellite so that the evil Director D, who is evil, can take control of it.

I honestly don’t get the plot in this one. I get that the bald people want the world to get balded but I don’t get why Director D needed an agency’s help to get control of what is effectively his own satellite or why he became a director to begin with if this was his goal all along.

Fairly action heavy and notably shitty platforming in this one. Using the grappling hook is fucking annoying because it’ll fling you everywhere unless you’re very precise with it, annoying at a certain part where you have to be pretty specific where you’re aiming. Also you need to stealth several times which is very boring.

The puzzle solving is based around solving incredibly basic cyphers to get told information that isn’t useful.

Nabooti Island

shit

Go across Africa to get African stones. Tedious your way up mountains to grab specific items that you need to trade for other items to go fdsfgsdfsdfsgs

I did not like this one at all. It didn’t even have anything to do with choosing your own adventure. Your adventure was entirely on rails, the only choices you get are which stones you wanna get first but in the end you need to get them all anyways.

Big NATE Island

Another series by the guy who did Diary of a Wimpy Kid. This one’s filled with cartoon logic which was pretty annoying. You can use a lobster to move a lighthouse’s light!

Other than that I’m not a Big Nate fan so there’s not much to say other than the titular character is a giant asshole. I guess the artstyle change was cool. Also it glitched out on Flashpoint and they shove an area to the left that doesn’t exist so it just bugs the game.

Astro Knights

One of the cooler ones that was genuinely pretty fun to play, actually having good structure.

Aliens attacked a medieval kingdom and you need to figure out what to do. Eventually you end up tracing the steps of a guy named Mordred to save the princess of the Kingdom.

I’ll leave this one a little vague so you can enjoy it more yourself, but it starts out with a lot of puzzle solving and then completely turns the game on its head with a lot of mediocre but still somewhat enjoyable action segments, culminating in a proper final boss fight.

This is one of the most highly rated Poptropica islands and for good reason, because it’s actually good. The entire game could just be based on this concept and it’d have been solid, I’m genuinely amazed this got thrown in here.

Counterfeit Island

Vaguely educational about art and what not and a very cartoony depiction of how counterfeit detection works. This doesn’t make any sense though because the island has nothing to do with counterfeiting and is instead about a planned art heist.

The first puzzle was very annoying because it’s completely disjointed. First you have to get a kid a balloon. Then you have to click on some random trash can to figure out some guy threw away his tickets, then you have to give him his tickets back despite the fact that he threw them away and clearly didn’t want them so that he can give you one and you can go on a stupid tour.

After that the actual puzzle begins with a lot of wheel grinding, eventually with you ending up in the super secret art theif’s lair who turned out to be the investigator that was very obviously the bad guy from the start. Pretty annoying overall. Also despite the loads of French stuff and references and English->French dictionary item nobody actually speaks French beyond “hello” and “thanks” and it may as well just be some random American town.

Reality TV

You’re in a podunk shithole of a town that looks like it’s somewhere in Mexico. Everyone here lives for nothing other than to watch reality TV and they’re obsessed with some guy whose claim to fame was being the first to get voted off of a Survivor ripoff they all love.

Heavily action focused. There’s minor puzzle solving at the start but beyond that you’re doing minigame after minigame to win a reality TV show. Losing means you have to spin the RNG wheel to see if you get voted out. Win to win!

None of the minigames are good so moving on.

Mythology Island

Another good island, you go on an adventure to get stuff for Zeus who is evil and wants to take over the world but will also destroy the world he wants to take over if you don’t do his bidding and ??? don’t think too hard about it.

The adventure aspect is pretty neat. I thought it’d be too big actually but it goes by fast enough once you get the ball rolling. Some of the action sections here suck ass (fucking river styx) but beyond that it’s alright and genuinely enjoyable to play through.

Also I had an auto clicker open so for the final boss with Zeus I just pissed really hard on him and won. I don’t like RSI that’s why I use autoclickers.

Skullduggery Island

A worse version of Sid Meier’s Pirates. You go around 5 islands earning a bunch of cash to sink a big bad guy. The cash is more or less to pay for crew and bigger ships, you’ll need at least the biggest ship to beat him since the big bad is designed to be a pain in the ass.

Surprisingly, you’re not really a pirate in this one. You’re more like a really loaded down merchant ship actually capable of defending itself.

Go to an island. Buy thing. sell thing. repeat until your eyes rot out of your skull and be reminded how much better Sid Meier’s Pirates was. I did like the way the islands looked but aside from aesthetics and their puzzles they provided nothing interesting.

Also the ship to ship combat blows. Ships aren’t even worth fighting, you’re actively losing money just from the time investment, which is horrible because this is easily one of the longest islands so far assuming you know what you’re doing.

Steamworks Island

Full on puzzling until the end with some not too tight platforming. A pretty good one, giving you simply a barren island filled with steampunk shit to figure out what’s going on. They don’t let up on the scavenger hunting here but it works more because of the inherent sense of exploration you get running around the place. All the puzzles were pretty good too, barring one or two which went into moron-tier.

Again, no spoilers on this one. I actually liked it.

Great Pumpkin Island

Charlie Brown collab. Probably as a result this one ended up very simple. You go around giving things to people, mostly Linus, so you can pop up in the Halloween party. Charlie Brown plays a surprisingly small role despite the series being named after him.

Nothing noteworthy to talk about other than repeated Charlie Brown gags and a very annoying action section involving Snoopy.

An aside, but I actually had no idea Charlie Brown basically influenced how modern cartoons are seen. I always just thought it was that shit people put on backpacks and pretend is funny but it actually seems like a pretty cute little comic.

Cryptids Island

First one I actually skipped. A lot of bad puzzles with a lot of bad and really annoying back and forth with terrible minigames thrown in for good measure. Also I just don’t care for bigfoot.

Shoutout to the one puzzle where, to get a guy’s car underneath a bridge, you have to release the air from his tire. That way he’s stuck with a diagonally tilted trailer and a flat tire.

Bad, don’t play.

Wild West

You have to catch the banditos. You miserably fail this at first and then go around doing a bunch of random disconnected chores until they show up again, then you chase them down and finish them off.

I guess the shooting minigame was alright, slapjack was very annoying but also impossible to lose as long as you just mash click whenever you have a jack. There’s surprisingly little to say about this one for the effort that was put into it.

Also of note is that there is no showdown at high noon despite having every other Wild West cliche under the sun.

Also hey this is the half way mark!

Red Dragon Island

Actually a crossover with The Magic Treehouse series, but it plays so comically small of a part past the first minute that I seriously wager Poptropica simply had a Japanese-themed island on standby and stapled Magic Treehouse shit onto it. You could easily remove these parts and the island would play out almost entirely similarly.

Anyways, the dipshit protagonists of The Magic Treehouse get kidnapped and held prisoner in uh… the big bad guy’s office, for some reason. The plot doesn’t really make any sense. Skipping to the end, he’s supposed to have a magic wand that grants any wish but fucks up and somehow makes a dragon destroy everything despite the fact that it would grant his wish and fdsfgs I don’t know I never read The Magic Treehouse.

This one’s fine. Up until the ninja platforming section, which was horrible because this game’s platforming controls are horrible. Also the depiction of Edo Japan is pretty bad considering this one seems to be edged more on educational value in areas.

Winter Wonderland

A crossover with Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which was by the guy who did the Diary of a Wimpy Kid novels. I honestly can’t think of much to say here, it’s a very generic island.

Walk around town trying to get Manny as he becomes death, destroyer of worlds.

Greg is a cunt. Manny is an unstoppable force of nature. Rodrick didn’t do anything really.

Shrink Ray Island

Fun idea. You get shrunk and have to puzzle through someone’s house to figure out where she went and who stole her invention.

Pretty platforming heavy, a lot of puzzles revolve around how to get where rather than what to do with things. I think there was only like 3 or 4 items of note in the island.

This one’s good to play.

Mystery Train Island

The name implies that this is some detective mystery thing where you use logic puzzles to deduct whodunnit but the reality is that it’s incredibly linear and involves you asking people questions to which they give very direct answers to.

Someone stole Edison’s invention. Whodunnit? I don’t know, it was dark for all of 8 seconds and somehow magically disappeared along with several lockpicks and another invention. The dunner’s motive barely makes sense and is nigh impossible without asstons of contrivance and the absence of all common sense.

In that sense I suppose it’s good that this was linear instead of various mysterious puzzles all to be investigated at once but it makes it pretty boring in practice.

Game Show Island

Very fun premise, a bunch of robots with game show obsessions took over the planet and you have to win all of their favorite ones to become the new gameshow champion. I could nitpick why the one guy they’re doing a global manhunt for is in the starting city but ah fuck it that’s not the problem here anyways.

The problem is one gameshow in particular, Kerplunk, is completely broken. I’m utterly convinced that the first obstacle just does not function properly, shoes that aren’t even near you kick you off into the water and if you get kicked off two or three times the platform becomes impossible to stand on forcing you to restart the show over and over again.

Two minutes of that and I was already too tilted to bother continuing. Those humans can rot in robot hell.

Conclusion

I’ve played like 22 islands at this point and like 4 or 5 of them were that fun. I get that not being a baby may impact my enjoyment of a baby game but goddamn this is starting to become a chore to play.

Is Poptropica worth a replay? Probably not. Especially not worth it if you’ve never played it before. Replaying is purely for the nostalgia and honestly it doesn’t last long.

If you do play, remember once again that this is the AS2 version. Big changes to Poptropica overtime ended up with a lot of dropped islands and many of the ones I said were good were also the ones that got thrown away.

I might do a part 2 sometime after I feel like playing it again. If I don’t then I won’t.