It appears that episodes of games, much like episodes of television shows, can have varying degrees of quality between installments. Strong Badia the Free is the epitome of this idea: It’s not a bad game, it’s just a rather by the books effort when compared to its predecessor.

The story starts out in the typical wacky Strong Bad fashion. Strong Bad is checking his email when the King of Town busts in and puts our hero under house arrest for tax evasion. Trust me, it’s not as serious as it sounds. The ensuing two-to-three hours follow the titular character’s quest to conquer the entire land of Strong Badia and depose the King of Town as the ruler.

The set-up is pretty good, but the humor unfortunately fails to capitalize on its potential. We see Pom Pom’s abode for the first time, but little time is spend fleshing out the character, especially compared to the effort we saw with Marzipan’s house in Homestar Ruiner. There are too many reused lines from the original episode, and we all know that most jokes aren’t as funny the second time around, much less the thirty-fifth. And while the web series has never been known for biting social commentary, they really missed the boat with this episode. Strong Bad is not South Park, true, but there’s no reason why the writing can’t occasionally expand into other areas.

The gameplay is also slightly distilled. The challenge level has been lessened due to the more obvious progression, which is both a positive and a negative. After your first objective you’re given three areas to clear. Then, more areas open up. It’s nice to have your options limited in a genre where it sometimes feels like the answers are random (I’m looking at you, onions), but it also undermines the feeling of ingenuity some puzzles provide.

Of course, the game is still fun and most of the puzzles are still cleverly designed. Strong Badia the Free boasts a greater variety of tasks than Homestar Ruiner as well. There’s a strategy based board game challenge toward the end which does a lot to combat the monotony of talking to people, getting an item, taking them that item, getting a new item from them, taking it to the next person, rinse, repeat.

The Wii’s functionality is spot on. Those who don’t mind taking a hit in graphical fidelity have the option to play from the comfort of their couch with no loss of playability. Wii users who don’t mind thinking for a couple of hours may want to try this one out. Like several other WiiWare titles, it’s better than a lot of the retail products and is available for a fraction of the price.