As a kid that actually used a lot of time on children 2000s MMO games, Neopets was a household name for a while. Even before Flash appeared in the scene - but embracing it beautifully later - the World of Neopia was part of childhoods across the globe. The Altador Plot, the Puzzle Adventure PC game, NeoQuest, the Moltara discovery, the now-defunct Key Quest... So many!

But, as it would be common for all those children 2000s MMOs, capitalism got in the way. Neopets was sold to a company that imploded the game from inside (and even tried NFT bullshit at some time) before it was sold back to actual fans and old employees that had the mission to keep Neopets alive. For my experience some years ago, I don't think they actually know what to do with the game, though.

A lot changed in the past 30 years: small, vertical screens are the default, Flash (and all the content made with it) is essentially gone, and the user base is divided by old players that accumulated a lot of Neopoints and rare items and new (or returning) players realizing that getting those resources is mostly impossible nowadays. How to make Neopets work in 2026 where most of your content is gone and you don't know exactly who to target?

Neopets: Mega Mini Games Collection - The Neopian Arcade Odyssey is their next try, with a huge title and a huge promise: a collection of the most beloved (and now "lost") Flash games of the website, remastered for PC and consoles. This new software allows you to connect to NeoPass, the new account system for the Neopets brand, and send your scores to the website as you would to in the past. Essentially, instead of remaking those games for free in the web, they package with a little bow as a sellable product.

At a bare minimum, the concept works. Apart from some strange bugs, yes, you can play 25 original Flash games from Neopets.com that aren't available anymore officially. You have some classic favorites like Usuki Frenzy, Snowmuncher and Extreme Herder, and I would lie if I said that my inner child wasn't happy playing Spinacles again. Some of other games are just "legally distinct inspirations": Meerca Chase is Snake with steps, Kass Basher is just YetiSports and they actually ported their Mahjong Solitaire too. I think they just chosen the fastest ones to port that could be controlled with a D-Pad.

The collection also features "new, exclusive content" that also doesn't justify as selling point at all: Starlight Symphony is a really bad Guitar Hero clone (Club Penguin did it better decades ago), Turmac Roll 3D is the result of a "I remade Neopets on Unreal Engine 5" YouTube video and the story mode is, at its best, forgettable. If you are going to buy this, you are probably going for the old stuff.

It's also important to talk about what isn't present in this collection. I wasn't expecting a level of care and extra content as Digital Eclipse's Gold Master Series, but as a Neopets fan, the Mega Mini Games is disappointing. Nothing besides the actual gameplay moments were ported, and this means that even the main menus of the minigames were replaced by boring, yellow buttons. Those versions aren't a 1:1 recreation either, and the original version of those games aren't available, not even on the PC version.

At the end, you have a collection made of small Flash minigames made with little care and being sold as a full premium price point for consoles. I don't think the new generation of players will choose to play a Snake clone instead of any other game, and old fans can be a little happy before finding all that's missing. Not even the argument of making those minigames acessible again works: a lot of the games chosen for the collection are already available in HTML5 form, for free, right now, like Hasee Bounce, Destruct-O-Match, Ice Cream Machine and the original Turmac Roll.

Who's buying this, then? Half of the games aren't impressive, the new content is just a joke, it doesn't work as preservation and online players can already play a lot of them anyways. It's hard to not look into Mega Mini Games Collection as an easy cash grab for people that remember Neopets from decades ago. Although I think a little bit of care is put into this, the lack of priority and focus makes all things Neopets, including the brand as a whole, still lost in a modern world. I really wish to Neopia to be back as a great place to play and have fun, but we are not there yet.