Antoreas
11 reviews liked by Antoreas
Super Mario 64 DS
2004
nintendo salvaging the american gaming market with the release of the NES was the modern inflection point for our industry, in some ways that are less obvious than others. the console enshrined gaming as a medium with legitimacy beyond the original fad-like relevance of the atari VCS, but the centralization of this success around nintendo gave the company an uncomfortable amount of leverage. this immediately portended poorly with the simultaneous release of the console's killer app: super mario bros., which gestured to a sinister rejection of the console's original intent. look to the japanese launch line-up and you'll see arcade staples such as donkey kong and popeye; games that lauded precise, restricted play with definitive rules and short runtimes. super mario bros. was a refutation of this design philosophy in favor of the loosey-goosey variable jump heights, frequent health restoration items, and long hallways of copy-paste content replacing the tightly paced experiences that defined the era before. the NES still featured arguably the greatest console expressions of the rigorous arcade action experiences that defined the '80s - castlevania, ninja gaiden, and the early mega mans all come to mind - but the seeds super mario bros. planted would presage a shift into more and more experiences that coddled the player rather than testing their fortitude. in some ways, super mario bros. lit the match that would leave our gaming landscape in the smoldering ruins of the AAA design philosophy.
the '90s only deepened nintendo's exploration of trends that would further attempt to curb the arcade philosophy, which still floated on thanks to the valiant efforts of their competitors at sega, capcom, konami, and others. super mario world kicked off nintendo's 16-bit era with an explicitly non-linear world map that favored the illusion of charting unknown lands over the concrete reality of learning play fundamentals, and its pseudo-sequel yoshi's island would further de-emphasize actual platforming chops by giving the player a generous hover and grading them on their ability to pixel hunt for collectables rather than play well, but the most stunning example of nintendo's decadence in this era is undoubtedly donkey kong '94. the original donkey kong had four levels tightly wound around a fixed jump arc and limited ability for mario to deal with obstacles; its ostensible "remake" shat all over its legacy by infusing mario's toolkit with such ridiculous pablum such as exaggerated flip jumps, handstands, and other such acrobatics. by this point nintendo was engaging in blatant historical revisionism, turning this cornerstone of the genre into a bug-eyed circus romp, stuffed with dozens of new puzzle-centric levels that completely jettisoned any semblance of toolkit-oriented level design from the original game. and yet, this was the final fissure before the dam fully burst in 1996.
with the release of the nintendo 64 came the death knell of the industry: the analog stick. nintendo's most cunning engineers and depraved designers had cooked up a new way to hand unprecedented control to the player and tear down all obstacles standing in the way of the paternalistic head-pat of a "job well done" that came with finishing a game. with it also came this demonic interloper's physical vessel, super mario 64; the refined, sneering coalescence of all of nintendo's design tendencies up to this point. see here a game with enormous, previously unfathomable player expression, with virtually every objective solvable in myriad different ways to accommodate those who refuse to engage with the essential challenges the game offers. too lazy to even attempt some challenges at all? feel free to skip over a third of the game's "star" objectives on your way to the final boss; you can almost see the designers snickering as they copy-pasted objectives left and right, knowing that the majority of their player base would never even catch them in the act due to their zombie-like waddle to the atrociously easy finish line. even as arcade games stood proud at the apex of the early 3D era, super mario 64 pulled the ground out underneath them, leaving millions of gamers flocking to similar experiences bereft of the true game design fundamentals that had existed since the origination of the medium.
this context is long but hopefully sobering to you, the reader, likely a gamer so inoculated by the drip-feed of modern AAA slop that you likely have regarded super mario 64 as a milestone in 3D design up to now. yet, it also serves as a stark contrast to super mario 64 ds, a revelation and admission of guilt by nintendo a decade after their donkey kong remake plunged modern platformers into oblivion.
the d-pad alone is cool water against the brow of one in the throes of a desert of permissive design techniques. tightening up the input space from the shallow dazzle of an analog surface to the limitations of eight directions instantly reframes the way one looks at the open environments of the original super mario 64. sure, there's a touch screen option, but the awkward translation of a stick to the literal flat surface of the screen seems to be intentionally hobbled in order to encourage use of the d-pad. while moving in a straight line may still be simple, any sort of other action now begets a pause for reflection over the exact way one should proceed. is the sharp 45 or 90 degree turn to one side "good enough", or will I need to make a camera adjustment in-place? for this bridge, what combination of angles should I concoct in order to work through this section? the removal of analog control also forces the addition of an extra button to differentiate between running and walking, slapping the player on the wrist if they try to gently segue between the two states as in the original. the precision rewards those who aim to learn their way around the rapid shifts in speed while punishing those who hope they can squeak by with the same sloppy handling that the original game allowed.
on its own this change is crucial, but it still doesn't cure the ills of the original's permissive objective structure. however, the remake wisely adds a new character selection system that subtly injects routing fundamentals into the game's core. for starters: each of the characters has a separate moveset, and while some characters such as yoshi and luigi regrettably have the floaty hover and scuttle that I disdained in yoshi's island, it's at least balanced here by removing other key aspects of their kit such as wall jumps and punches. the addition of wario gives the game a proper "hard mode," with wario's lumbering speed and poor jump characteristics putting much-needed limiters on the game's handling. for objectives that now explicitly require wario to complete, the game is effectively barring you from abusing the superior movement of the original game by forcing you into a much more limited toolkit with rigid d-pad controls, the kind of limitations this game absolutely needed in order to shine.
that last point about objectives that specifically require a given character is key: the remake segments its objectives based on which characters are viable to use to complete them. however, while in some cases the game may telegraph which specific characters are required for a particular task, in many cases the "correct" solution is actually to bounce between the characters in real time. this is done by strategically placing hats for each of the characters throughout the map - some attached to enemies and some free-floating - which allow the player to switch on the fly. this adds new detours to the otherwise simple objectives that vastly increases their complexity: which toolkit is best suited for which part of each mission? how should my route be planned around the level to accommodate hats I need to pick up? will I be able to defeat an enemy that's guarding the hat if I had to? this decision-making fleshes out what was previously a mindless experience.
there's one additional element to this system that truly elevates it to something resembling the arcade experiences of yore. while you can enter a level as any character, entering as yoshi allows you to preemptively don the cap of any other character as you spawn in, preventing the player from having to back-track to switch characters. on the surface this seems like another ill-advised QoL feature, but some subtle features reveal something more fascinating. yoshi has no cap associated with him, so to play as him, one must enter the level with him. however, you often need to switch to another character in the middle of a level. how do you switch back? by taking damage. to solve the ridiculously overstuffed eight piece health bar of the original, this remake transforms it into a resource you expend in order to undergo transformation. sure, one could theoretically collect coins in order to replenish this resource, but this adds a new layer onto the routing that simply didn't exist in the original game, where there were so many ways to circumvent obstacles with the permissive controls that getting hit in the first place was often harder than completing the objective. by reframing the way that the player looks at their heath gauge, the game is calling to mind classic beat 'em ups, where the health gauge often doubled as a resource to expend for powerful AoE supers.
the game still suffers from much of the rotten design at the core of its forebear; these above changes are phenomenal additions, but they're grafted onto a framework that's crumbling as you delve into it. regardless, the effort is admirable. for a brief moment, nintendo offered an apology to all of those hurt by their curbstomping of the design philosophies that springboarded them into juggernaut status in the first place, and they revitalized classic design perspectives for many millions more who first entered the world of gaming after it had already been tainted by nintendo's misdeeds. the galaxy duology, released a few years after this game, attempted to rework the series from the ground up with a new appreciation for arcade design by limiting the bloated toolkit of previous games and linearizing levels, but the damage had already been done. the modern switch era has magnified nintendo's worst tendencies, putting proper execution and mechanical comprehension to the wayside as they accelerate the disturbing "the player is always right" principles that have infested their games since that original super mario bros. by looking at super mario 64 ds in this context, we at least get a glimpse of what a better world could have looked like had nintendo listened to their elders all along.
the '90s only deepened nintendo's exploration of trends that would further attempt to curb the arcade philosophy, which still floated on thanks to the valiant efforts of their competitors at sega, capcom, konami, and others. super mario world kicked off nintendo's 16-bit era with an explicitly non-linear world map that favored the illusion of charting unknown lands over the concrete reality of learning play fundamentals, and its pseudo-sequel yoshi's island would further de-emphasize actual platforming chops by giving the player a generous hover and grading them on their ability to pixel hunt for collectables rather than play well, but the most stunning example of nintendo's decadence in this era is undoubtedly donkey kong '94. the original donkey kong had four levels tightly wound around a fixed jump arc and limited ability for mario to deal with obstacles; its ostensible "remake" shat all over its legacy by infusing mario's toolkit with such ridiculous pablum such as exaggerated flip jumps, handstands, and other such acrobatics. by this point nintendo was engaging in blatant historical revisionism, turning this cornerstone of the genre into a bug-eyed circus romp, stuffed with dozens of new puzzle-centric levels that completely jettisoned any semblance of toolkit-oriented level design from the original game. and yet, this was the final fissure before the dam fully burst in 1996.
with the release of the nintendo 64 came the death knell of the industry: the analog stick. nintendo's most cunning engineers and depraved designers had cooked up a new way to hand unprecedented control to the player and tear down all obstacles standing in the way of the paternalistic head-pat of a "job well done" that came with finishing a game. with it also came this demonic interloper's physical vessel, super mario 64; the refined, sneering coalescence of all of nintendo's design tendencies up to this point. see here a game with enormous, previously unfathomable player expression, with virtually every objective solvable in myriad different ways to accommodate those who refuse to engage with the essential challenges the game offers. too lazy to even attempt some challenges at all? feel free to skip over a third of the game's "star" objectives on your way to the final boss; you can almost see the designers snickering as they copy-pasted objectives left and right, knowing that the majority of their player base would never even catch them in the act due to their zombie-like waddle to the atrociously easy finish line. even as arcade games stood proud at the apex of the early 3D era, super mario 64 pulled the ground out underneath them, leaving millions of gamers flocking to similar experiences bereft of the true game design fundamentals that had existed since the origination of the medium.
this context is long but hopefully sobering to you, the reader, likely a gamer so inoculated by the drip-feed of modern AAA slop that you likely have regarded super mario 64 as a milestone in 3D design up to now. yet, it also serves as a stark contrast to super mario 64 ds, a revelation and admission of guilt by nintendo a decade after their donkey kong remake plunged modern platformers into oblivion.
the d-pad alone is cool water against the brow of one in the throes of a desert of permissive design techniques. tightening up the input space from the shallow dazzle of an analog surface to the limitations of eight directions instantly reframes the way one looks at the open environments of the original super mario 64. sure, there's a touch screen option, but the awkward translation of a stick to the literal flat surface of the screen seems to be intentionally hobbled in order to encourage use of the d-pad. while moving in a straight line may still be simple, any sort of other action now begets a pause for reflection over the exact way one should proceed. is the sharp 45 or 90 degree turn to one side "good enough", or will I need to make a camera adjustment in-place? for this bridge, what combination of angles should I concoct in order to work through this section? the removal of analog control also forces the addition of an extra button to differentiate between running and walking, slapping the player on the wrist if they try to gently segue between the two states as in the original. the precision rewards those who aim to learn their way around the rapid shifts in speed while punishing those who hope they can squeak by with the same sloppy handling that the original game allowed.
on its own this change is crucial, but it still doesn't cure the ills of the original's permissive objective structure. however, the remake wisely adds a new character selection system that subtly injects routing fundamentals into the game's core. for starters: each of the characters has a separate moveset, and while some characters such as yoshi and luigi regrettably have the floaty hover and scuttle that I disdained in yoshi's island, it's at least balanced here by removing other key aspects of their kit such as wall jumps and punches. the addition of wario gives the game a proper "hard mode," with wario's lumbering speed and poor jump characteristics putting much-needed limiters on the game's handling. for objectives that now explicitly require wario to complete, the game is effectively barring you from abusing the superior movement of the original game by forcing you into a much more limited toolkit with rigid d-pad controls, the kind of limitations this game absolutely needed in order to shine.
that last point about objectives that specifically require a given character is key: the remake segments its objectives based on which characters are viable to use to complete them. however, while in some cases the game may telegraph which specific characters are required for a particular task, in many cases the "correct" solution is actually to bounce between the characters in real time. this is done by strategically placing hats for each of the characters throughout the map - some attached to enemies and some free-floating - which allow the player to switch on the fly. this adds new detours to the otherwise simple objectives that vastly increases their complexity: which toolkit is best suited for which part of each mission? how should my route be planned around the level to accommodate hats I need to pick up? will I be able to defeat an enemy that's guarding the hat if I had to? this decision-making fleshes out what was previously a mindless experience.
there's one additional element to this system that truly elevates it to something resembling the arcade experiences of yore. while you can enter a level as any character, entering as yoshi allows you to preemptively don the cap of any other character as you spawn in, preventing the player from having to back-track to switch characters. on the surface this seems like another ill-advised QoL feature, but some subtle features reveal something more fascinating. yoshi has no cap associated with him, so to play as him, one must enter the level with him. however, you often need to switch to another character in the middle of a level. how do you switch back? by taking damage. to solve the ridiculously overstuffed eight piece health bar of the original, this remake transforms it into a resource you expend in order to undergo transformation. sure, one could theoretically collect coins in order to replenish this resource, but this adds a new layer onto the routing that simply didn't exist in the original game, where there were so many ways to circumvent obstacles with the permissive controls that getting hit in the first place was often harder than completing the objective. by reframing the way that the player looks at their heath gauge, the game is calling to mind classic beat 'em ups, where the health gauge often doubled as a resource to expend for powerful AoE supers.
the game still suffers from much of the rotten design at the core of its forebear; these above changes are phenomenal additions, but they're grafted onto a framework that's crumbling as you delve into it. regardless, the effort is admirable. for a brief moment, nintendo offered an apology to all of those hurt by their curbstomping of the design philosophies that springboarded them into juggernaut status in the first place, and they revitalized classic design perspectives for many millions more who first entered the world of gaming after it had already been tainted by nintendo's misdeeds. the galaxy duology, released a few years after this game, attempted to rework the series from the ground up with a new appreciation for arcade design by limiting the bloated toolkit of previous games and linearizing levels, but the damage had already been done. the modern switch era has magnified nintendo's worst tendencies, putting proper execution and mechanical comprehension to the wayside as they accelerate the disturbing "the player is always right" principles that have infested their games since that original super mario bros. by looking at super mario 64 ds in this context, we at least get a glimpse of what a better world could have looked like had nintendo listened to their elders all along.
Mega Man Zero 4
2005
its the fourth one. mega man zero, four. its not the zero 3 two that i wanted, although it’s the fourth zero game that we needed. i’m rereviewing this because this is the only zero game i haven’t expressed my current thoughts on regarding replays. also i went on vacation and brought my ds plus zero collection and ended up replaying all the games for the millionth time lol so this is fresh in my mind.
this game occupies a weird space in my head. like, yeah i really enjoy it but i’m not sure how to stack it up against the others due to its more lackluster motives. its the perfect emotional tie up for the series however gameplay-wise it’s a bit confused. the classic eight stage level select seems to be there just for the sake of being different than the previous titles. ironically on replays i end up doing a similar order of stages because most of the bosses just aren’t that fun to fight against without certain ex skills that i want from other bosses. heat genblem (da turtle) was the only boss i fully enjoyed due to his fun patterns along with weil phase 1. the other bosses did things that you had to deal with, while these two had patterns that you could accurately form more of a strategy based on.
i think inti realized they had made a masterpiece with zero 3 and didn’t know where to go from there, so they tried to incorporate new things to differentiate it from zero 3. in retrospect, i’m not disappointed that this game is less like zero 3 in design simply because i think another zero 3 would be boring. if every zero game was like zero 3 they would all be great games yeah but there wouldn’t be much to identify specifics between them. each game has that special quirk or technical intention that makes it a recognizable entry in the series (minus the story/graphics). i feel like zero 4 is kind of the sonic cd of these games. does weird shit for the sake of doing weird shit. weather system is cool but the challenges added to stages feel artificial and more so challenging your endurance rather than skill. i prefer the old method of getting ex skills because it’s reliant more on actual skill than some bullshit obstacle tacked on to stages. the cyber elf system was downgraded to be…simpler? not sure what they were going for. regardless it serves its purpose and works effectively. my only gripe is that effects don’t stack which most would assume to be the standard.
all in all, i seriously do love this game even with my frequent frustration with it lol. these complaints aren’t ‘minor’ per say, they just display z4’s quality in comparison to z3 which set the bar really fuckin high. i love playing this as much as z1 and z2 due to its fundamental and mechanical roots. shit feels good to control. collective and accurate usage of ex skills is as fun as ever despite removal of the shield boomerang. also the music fucking bangs EVEN on gba. i will defend the gba ost until i die i really like listening to it. the cd versions are obviously godlike and i prefer them though.
“I don’t ever recall calling myself a hero, I am Mega Man Zero 4.” - Zero mega man, 2005
this game occupies a weird space in my head. like, yeah i really enjoy it but i’m not sure how to stack it up against the others due to its more lackluster motives. its the perfect emotional tie up for the series however gameplay-wise it’s a bit confused. the classic eight stage level select seems to be there just for the sake of being different than the previous titles. ironically on replays i end up doing a similar order of stages because most of the bosses just aren’t that fun to fight against without certain ex skills that i want from other bosses. heat genblem (da turtle) was the only boss i fully enjoyed due to his fun patterns along with weil phase 1. the other bosses did things that you had to deal with, while these two had patterns that you could accurately form more of a strategy based on.
i think inti realized they had made a masterpiece with zero 3 and didn’t know where to go from there, so they tried to incorporate new things to differentiate it from zero 3. in retrospect, i’m not disappointed that this game is less like zero 3 in design simply because i think another zero 3 would be boring. if every zero game was like zero 3 they would all be great games yeah but there wouldn’t be much to identify specifics between them. each game has that special quirk or technical intention that makes it a recognizable entry in the series (minus the story/graphics). i feel like zero 4 is kind of the sonic cd of these games. does weird shit for the sake of doing weird shit. weather system is cool but the challenges added to stages feel artificial and more so challenging your endurance rather than skill. i prefer the old method of getting ex skills because it’s reliant more on actual skill than some bullshit obstacle tacked on to stages. the cyber elf system was downgraded to be…simpler? not sure what they were going for. regardless it serves its purpose and works effectively. my only gripe is that effects don’t stack which most would assume to be the standard.
all in all, i seriously do love this game even with my frequent frustration with it lol. these complaints aren’t ‘minor’ per say, they just display z4’s quality in comparison to z3 which set the bar really fuckin high. i love playing this as much as z1 and z2 due to its fundamental and mechanical roots. shit feels good to control. collective and accurate usage of ex skills is as fun as ever despite removal of the shield boomerang. also the music fucking bangs EVEN on gba. i will defend the gba ost until i die i really like listening to it. the cd versions are obviously godlike and i prefer them though.
“I don’t ever recall calling myself a hero, I am Mega Man Zero 4.” - Zero mega man, 2005
Mega Man X7
2003
to move away from the obvious “yeah this sucks,” i do wanna highlight how there really was a genuine attempt at making a defining title in the series; i can tell the environments wanted to express its predecessor’s tropes in a more unique way, but ultimately beg to be put out of their misery when clashed with unmemorable level design and annoying hazards. i can tell the devs did try and put their all into this but with their lack of knowledge in mega man and the genre, it was inevitably going to miss its mark at least by some margin. to say this is “one of the worst games of all time” is giving X7 way too much recognition. it’s one of those games where i just kinda shrug when it’s over. it’s not offensively bad in a way where i’m left angry. i was probably way more frustrated with games like NMH2 and DmC. X7 is just, disappointing. though i still do question how it ended up like this. the dev team stated they wanted to focus on “getting 3D right,” but any person attuned to games can tell you right off the bat that everything feels off. the controls are sluggish and the inherent satisfaction of landing jumps is completely lost. i wish there was some more documentation of the actual development because it’s almost like another DMC2 situation. devs who were inexperienced with said series and only had the previous game to go off of. i noticed there was some weird fixation with trying to make the game better than X6 at minimum. hindsight is a bitch. i can’t even give X7 funny points because, while yes that one youtube clip you saw screaming BURN was funny out of context, actually playing said clip i found to be quite miserable. did the devs just not care enough to fix it? who playtested this and said ‘yeah i NEED the boss to not only try and kill me but also my eardrums too.’ most of the game is this strange sensory overload both audibly and visually. a damn shame too since the soundtrack is up there as one of my favorites in the franchise. there isn’t a whole lot to be said on X7 at this point but i do think there’s been too much said on it. seriously does not deserve the attention it so comically receives. it’s super funny apparently to talk about and recommended this game when you’re someone who hasn’t played it. it’s just simply a sad game in my eyes.
Mega Man X8
2004
I get why people who are super into planning their routes and stuff through Mega Man games might not like X8 but it's going for something different than it's predecessors. Take the game for what it is and you'll find a genuinely great game with a lot to appreciate. I'm serious, this game is actually pretty awesome and is full of cool stuff. There were so many times I went "wow, what a smart idea," or "what a challenging section," or "this game is fucking cool!" X8 is different from the previous games but in a good way! I really enjoyed my time here and it's a damn shame that a title that tried so hard is stuck between the sticky tentacles of the previous two or three games. Go in with an open mind and you might find a new favorite.
That ending reminded me of my uncle's wedding video...
they were divorced three weeks later
they were divorced three weeks later
I love Sonic Riders, ever since my family first got a copy of the Xbox release way back in 2006, and yes while the skill ceiling is very steep as people have often mentioned, what's in store is one of the most addictive and thrilling racing games ever created, and something I always check back and play every now and then cause of it. Alongside the formation of Extreme Gear Labs, a group of dedicated fans and modders creating the DX mod, a multiplayer-oriented overhaul that just recently launched its new update, and it's safe to say it firmly established itself as one of the biggest cult racing games around.
However, while I spent so much time with OG Riders, I never actually spent a lot of it on its sequel here. I can distinctly remember my brothers getting the game on Wii at some point, but for one reason or another gave it away (probably cause of the tilt control BS and we had no idea we could've just swapped it to Gamecube Controller inputs in the options). Thanks to the aforementioned team's custom Dolphin build, I was able to replay the previous game vanilla, as well as finally get my filling of this one with the story mode, two grand prix races, as well as the two Sega-themed tracks, no mission mode since I heard and saw it was largely the same as last time. Overall it's fun, but I'm unfortunately one of THOSE guys that thinks this is a large step back and gross streamlining of what made the original so compelling and unique.
First though, I will say there are definite improvements, or at the very least attractable sidegrades, this has over OG. For starters, and to get it out of the way, the OST is fantastic, easily one of my all time favorites from the blue blur's music repertoire. The previous game's music was already great, but this feels a lot more varied in tone and composition, while still consistently engaging and earworm-inducing, and its main vocal theme, Un-Gravitify is genuinely like top 5 Sonic Vocal theme to me, and I prefer the remix of Catch Me If You Can by a slight margin (and while it's kinda cheating since they're just the instrumentals of the two vocals, even the menu and option music go harder than they needed to). Next, some of the streamlining are admittedly beneficial, such as only needing to jump in the vicinity of a rail to grind on it, and the flight controls being easier to get the hang of, plus I do think the whole type management being done through the actual vehicle instead of character types, while different, is pretty good on its own, especially since there's a decent variety of ones available that have their own sets of available upgrades to make them a bit more standout than just sticking with the default for a majority of the time like in the original.
The campaign this time around is about as entertaining and thrilling as the original. I'm kind of confused when some people say it's more expository by comparison, cause there's only so few additions to the "characters stop and talk about lore" shtick here, though since I did play Jak X a few months back, maybe my standard on how much a racing game is so focused on story has thus shifted. Aesthetically speaking, this doubles down on the techno-future stuff instead of being a mixture of that and the more grounded aspects of the Sonicverse, and though I can see some not being that into it, I think the courses, story places, and overall vibe of it are good and consistent enough to give it its own identity even today. On the note of courses, I'll also say there's at least an attempt to give each one their distinctive flair and mastery of said types to go through the races, and there's some good shit in here like more alternating paths, any sort of items now drop a little more often, and the new Gravity Drop mechanic sometimes leads into new shortcuts with the right finesse and ingenuity, usually during a jump, which gives me the same dopamine feeling as with Generations, and some more impressive setpieces. Though, like I said, sometimes it can do that, and there in-lies the main issue I have with Zero Gravity: the actual meat of the races and course design.
I know OG Riders fan bitch about the over-simplification made to the formula a LOT, but it really does bear mention cause it's incredibly noticeable, even if you didn't dabble that much into the game. Tricks and jumps are now automated with a button press, getting higher and better the closer you are to the edge, which means if you were already good managing jumps in the first game like I was, you'll consistently get AA rank or higher, as well as access a few of the shortcuts those contain, only exception being the X rank cause it's a lot more tighter in where exactly you must press the button in order to get the special animation. And like yea, I guess it being automated is fine, but the trick system from the first game can give you major Air back as well as be consistently satisfying to make it all work, at the very least I would've liken an option to do it all manually, even if it'd be kind of a mess for Wiimote users. Another change I don't like is how corning is done now, you use the aforementioned Gravity Drop mechanic to turn sharp corners instead of a regular drift like before, and for any looser turns you can just do it normally. I REALLY don't like this change, it cuts away the potential for tight turns into a Type path or minimal and quick fixes, as well as the fact controls here feel a smidge more heavy which, while I did get used to, doesn't really sat right with me regardless. It also just hurts the overall course design, cause now there's always gonna be a part where you use the Drop for a corner-turn, which takes this potentially (and as mentioned before, indeed applied) race-defining path management into more of a gimmick than anything.
By far my biggest gripes though, are with the Gravity Dive and its feeling of automation, and how the AI operates. See, the Dive is this game's version of a Boost, so to speak, with the press of a button you glide through the air and have to hit objects to not only go faster, but as well as refill the gauge at the bottom left that lets you do this (as well as the Drop) in the first place. Sounds cool, but it's always, ALWAYS used during straightaways, which are WAY more prevalent than the tight corner issue I have with the Drop by comparison, along with there being little things on the ground during these sections to give you choice as to whether or not it'd be a viable option, which in turn makes this feel so boring and gimmicky. It also leads into the automation issue, while granted this was also present a bit in the first game, it's way more noticeable here due to the two previous issues creating a sense of homogenized track layouts even when I do think each stage are more standout than others, as well as there being instances where you just kinda... do nothing except maybe turn a smidge. I legit spent some amount of time on some tracks not touching the controller, and nothing bad really happened to me. I'm not exactly as picky about this sort of thing like other Sonic fans are, but at the very least I'd like there to be a balance between automated setpieces and input-based satisfaction, and while far from the worst instance of managing the balance, it's still rather lopsided at it, not helping is the fact that, with all this combined, there's little to do in order to play catchup to the competition, meaning if you're not in first, you're more than likely never gonna be able to obtain it. Finally, hot damn the AI here rarely puts up any sort of challenge, a majority of my time has been clearing out the competition within 15-30 seconds ahead of the player from behind. I tend to play racing games solo, so no matter the content I'd like there to be AI that makes me want to get better at the game for various reasons, so I'm pretty bummed I can't even do that here as well.
The last few paragraphs make it sound like I don't like this all that much, but that's not true at all. Despite how glaring those are to me, I can at least say that the positives are pretty favorable, and when it all clicks into place, it CAN be a fun and thrilling racing game on its own. In fact, part of that is what gave me my conclusion once I finished both (and in fairness, definitely better than the original's) Sega-themed courses called 80s Boulevard and 90s Boulevard. After all was said and done, I got the feeling that Sonic Team didn't really know who to make this for. It sands off a lot of the appeal I and others have for OG Riders, and it doesn't really take advantage of its new design and direction that often to slot itself as a standout amongst other casual racing games, let alone the ones Sonic has. Maybe the Regravitified mod the people at EXGL made could fix this, but I haven't dabbled in that yet to really say. Regardless, if you bounced off OG Riders, you could probably enjoy this more, as seen by a couple of other reviewers on this site.
On a more general note about the Riders continuity specifically (I am not playing Free Riders for a long while, especially since I don't even know if I still have my Kinect), I just want to say that man, I wish Sega would free the Babylon Trio from Dropped Character Hell like they did with a couple other characters recently, and utilize them again for something. Between the Main Trio being a close-knitted group going through the toughest of spots together, and Team Dark being a found family bonded together through melancholic backstories, I feel like BT does a good job being around the center spot by being Complete Fucking Dorks.
However, while I spent so much time with OG Riders, I never actually spent a lot of it on its sequel here. I can distinctly remember my brothers getting the game on Wii at some point, but for one reason or another gave it away (probably cause of the tilt control BS and we had no idea we could've just swapped it to Gamecube Controller inputs in the options). Thanks to the aforementioned team's custom Dolphin build, I was able to replay the previous game vanilla, as well as finally get my filling of this one with the story mode, two grand prix races, as well as the two Sega-themed tracks, no mission mode since I heard and saw it was largely the same as last time. Overall it's fun, but I'm unfortunately one of THOSE guys that thinks this is a large step back and gross streamlining of what made the original so compelling and unique.
First though, I will say there are definite improvements, or at the very least attractable sidegrades, this has over OG. For starters, and to get it out of the way, the OST is fantastic, easily one of my all time favorites from the blue blur's music repertoire. The previous game's music was already great, but this feels a lot more varied in tone and composition, while still consistently engaging and earworm-inducing, and its main vocal theme, Un-Gravitify is genuinely like top 5 Sonic Vocal theme to me, and I prefer the remix of Catch Me If You Can by a slight margin (and while it's kinda cheating since they're just the instrumentals of the two vocals, even the menu and option music go harder than they needed to). Next, some of the streamlining are admittedly beneficial, such as only needing to jump in the vicinity of a rail to grind on it, and the flight controls being easier to get the hang of, plus I do think the whole type management being done through the actual vehicle instead of character types, while different, is pretty good on its own, especially since there's a decent variety of ones available that have their own sets of available upgrades to make them a bit more standout than just sticking with the default for a majority of the time like in the original.
The campaign this time around is about as entertaining and thrilling as the original. I'm kind of confused when some people say it's more expository by comparison, cause there's only so few additions to the "characters stop and talk about lore" shtick here, though since I did play Jak X a few months back, maybe my standard on how much a racing game is so focused on story has thus shifted. Aesthetically speaking, this doubles down on the techno-future stuff instead of being a mixture of that and the more grounded aspects of the Sonicverse, and though I can see some not being that into it, I think the courses, story places, and overall vibe of it are good and consistent enough to give it its own identity even today. On the note of courses, I'll also say there's at least an attempt to give each one their distinctive flair and mastery of said types to go through the races, and there's some good shit in here like more alternating paths, any sort of items now drop a little more often, and the new Gravity Drop mechanic sometimes leads into new shortcuts with the right finesse and ingenuity, usually during a jump, which gives me the same dopamine feeling as with Generations, and some more impressive setpieces. Though, like I said, sometimes it can do that, and there in-lies the main issue I have with Zero Gravity: the actual meat of the races and course design.
I know OG Riders fan bitch about the over-simplification made to the formula a LOT, but it really does bear mention cause it's incredibly noticeable, even if you didn't dabble that much into the game. Tricks and jumps are now automated with a button press, getting higher and better the closer you are to the edge, which means if you were already good managing jumps in the first game like I was, you'll consistently get AA rank or higher, as well as access a few of the shortcuts those contain, only exception being the X rank cause it's a lot more tighter in where exactly you must press the button in order to get the special animation. And like yea, I guess it being automated is fine, but the trick system from the first game can give you major Air back as well as be consistently satisfying to make it all work, at the very least I would've liken an option to do it all manually, even if it'd be kind of a mess for Wiimote users. Another change I don't like is how corning is done now, you use the aforementioned Gravity Drop mechanic to turn sharp corners instead of a regular drift like before, and for any looser turns you can just do it normally. I REALLY don't like this change, it cuts away the potential for tight turns into a Type path or minimal and quick fixes, as well as the fact controls here feel a smidge more heavy which, while I did get used to, doesn't really sat right with me regardless. It also just hurts the overall course design, cause now there's always gonna be a part where you use the Drop for a corner-turn, which takes this potentially (and as mentioned before, indeed applied) race-defining path management into more of a gimmick than anything.
By far my biggest gripes though, are with the Gravity Dive and its feeling of automation, and how the AI operates. See, the Dive is this game's version of a Boost, so to speak, with the press of a button you glide through the air and have to hit objects to not only go faster, but as well as refill the gauge at the bottom left that lets you do this (as well as the Drop) in the first place. Sounds cool, but it's always, ALWAYS used during straightaways, which are WAY more prevalent than the tight corner issue I have with the Drop by comparison, along with there being little things on the ground during these sections to give you choice as to whether or not it'd be a viable option, which in turn makes this feel so boring and gimmicky. It also leads into the automation issue, while granted this was also present a bit in the first game, it's way more noticeable here due to the two previous issues creating a sense of homogenized track layouts even when I do think each stage are more standout than others, as well as there being instances where you just kinda... do nothing except maybe turn a smidge. I legit spent some amount of time on some tracks not touching the controller, and nothing bad really happened to me. I'm not exactly as picky about this sort of thing like other Sonic fans are, but at the very least I'd like there to be a balance between automated setpieces and input-based satisfaction, and while far from the worst instance of managing the balance, it's still rather lopsided at it, not helping is the fact that, with all this combined, there's little to do in order to play catchup to the competition, meaning if you're not in first, you're more than likely never gonna be able to obtain it. Finally, hot damn the AI here rarely puts up any sort of challenge, a majority of my time has been clearing out the competition within 15-30 seconds ahead of the player from behind. I tend to play racing games solo, so no matter the content I'd like there to be AI that makes me want to get better at the game for various reasons, so I'm pretty bummed I can't even do that here as well.
The last few paragraphs make it sound like I don't like this all that much, but that's not true at all. Despite how glaring those are to me, I can at least say that the positives are pretty favorable, and when it all clicks into place, it CAN be a fun and thrilling racing game on its own. In fact, part of that is what gave me my conclusion once I finished both (and in fairness, definitely better than the original's) Sega-themed courses called 80s Boulevard and 90s Boulevard. After all was said and done, I got the feeling that Sonic Team didn't really know who to make this for. It sands off a lot of the appeal I and others have for OG Riders, and it doesn't really take advantage of its new design and direction that often to slot itself as a standout amongst other casual racing games, let alone the ones Sonic has. Maybe the Regravitified mod the people at EXGL made could fix this, but I haven't dabbled in that yet to really say. Regardless, if you bounced off OG Riders, you could probably enjoy this more, as seen by a couple of other reviewers on this site.
On a more general note about the Riders continuity specifically (I am not playing Free Riders for a long while, especially since I don't even know if I still have my Kinect), I just want to say that man, I wish Sega would free the Babylon Trio from Dropped Character Hell like they did with a couple other characters recently, and utilize them again for something. Between the Main Trio being a close-knitted group going through the toughest of spots together, and Team Dark being a found family bonded together through melancholic backstories, I feel like BT does a good job being around the center spot by being Complete Fucking Dorks.
Pokémon Showdown
2011
There's an argument to be made that competitive Turn-Based games are a lesser alternative to their Real-Time counterparts. Making split-second decisions under pressure is more 'skillful' than sifting through menus, making FPS, RTS, and Fighting games the better choice for competitive gaming. You can force pressure in turn-based games by implementing a time limit on every turn, but that still doesn't account for execution and technical skill. Precise menuing will never be as impressive as landing perfect headshots, nailing difficult movement tech, or micromanaging 100s of units with rapid-fire button presses.
Even if we assume that Turn-Based games are just as competitive as Real-Time games, you have to consider if Pokemon represents the best the genre has to offer. The lack of positioning limits the game's skill ceiling and an overemphasis on RNG undermines strategy by arbitrarily robbing the player of their agency!
But these issues don't bother me too much. It's not the BEST ESPORT EVER, but I still think there's value to Pokemon's combat, even with the obvious design flaws. I really wish Pokemon had some level of positioning (even a grid would be cool!), but the mind games that go into swapping party members add a lot to the skill ceiling. And that's not even mentioning the layered decision making that goes into building a cohesive team. Even if you only pick from a small pool of ~30 'viable' pokemon, the ability to customize movesets, stat distribution, and equippable accessories give players a crazy amount of leeway to come up with their own strategies. If you're willing to think outside the box a little, you can even turn 'low-tier' mons into game winning carries!
While I struggle to accept the game's RNG, I believe inconsistencies resulting from accuracy/damage variation will naturally level out over time, ensuring that better players consistently come out on top.
My biggest concern is the potential for cheating. I'm not referring to manipulating the online client or even generating pokemon for offline events (that's not cheating lol). I'm referring to people making an ass of themselves by using outside influences to get a leg up on live, in-person events.
Game Freak has tried their best to curb any sort of cheating, but there are still obvious holes that anyone can take advantage of. When a person makes a crazy read, is that the result of proper conditioning and outplaying their opponent? What if their motorized butt plug is feeding them all the right moves? Is it hooked up to a super-computer that perfectly calculates the best decisions? Is a team of trained professionals feeding live data through morse vibrations? Maybe someone in the audience is just futzing with the remote?
This uncertainty taints the outcome of every match, undermining good sportsmanship with the presence of filthy cheaters. I still enjoy pokemon casually, but Game Freak will need to implement some sort of wireless signal jammer for me to respect competitive pokemon again
Even if we assume that Turn-Based games are just as competitive as Real-Time games, you have to consider if Pokemon represents the best the genre has to offer. The lack of positioning limits the game's skill ceiling and an overemphasis on RNG undermines strategy by arbitrarily robbing the player of their agency!
But these issues don't bother me too much. It's not the BEST ESPORT EVER, but I still think there's value to Pokemon's combat, even with the obvious design flaws. I really wish Pokemon had some level of positioning (even a grid would be cool!), but the mind games that go into swapping party members add a lot to the skill ceiling. And that's not even mentioning the layered decision making that goes into building a cohesive team. Even if you only pick from a small pool of ~30 'viable' pokemon, the ability to customize movesets, stat distribution, and equippable accessories give players a crazy amount of leeway to come up with their own strategies. If you're willing to think outside the box a little, you can even turn 'low-tier' mons into game winning carries!
While I struggle to accept the game's RNG, I believe inconsistencies resulting from accuracy/damage variation will naturally level out over time, ensuring that better players consistently come out on top.
My biggest concern is the potential for cheating. I'm not referring to manipulating the online client or even generating pokemon for offline events (that's not cheating lol). I'm referring to people making an ass of themselves by using outside influences to get a leg up on live, in-person events.
Game Freak has tried their best to curb any sort of cheating, but there are still obvious holes that anyone can take advantage of. When a person makes a crazy read, is that the result of proper conditioning and outplaying their opponent? What if their motorized butt plug is feeding them all the right moves? Is it hooked up to a super-computer that perfectly calculates the best decisions? Is a team of trained professionals feeding live data through morse vibrations? Maybe someone in the audience is just futzing with the remote?
This uncertainty taints the outcome of every match, undermining good sportsmanship with the presence of filthy cheaters. I still enjoy pokemon casually, but Game Freak will need to implement some sort of wireless signal jammer for me to respect competitive pokemon again
As far as I’m concerned the grand innovation of 1990’s Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light is the introduction of mechanics and storytelling concepts typical of JRPGs into the strategy game genre for the purpose of crafting a more intimate ludonarrative. Marriage between gameplay and story, and even the word ludonarrative itself, are kind of played out concepts for games criticism at this point. That being said, the original Fire Emblem stands tall as both a landmark moment in video game history and a remarkable example of the concept even today and, because of that, I think it’s worth discussing. In preparation for this analysis I played the game twice, firstly through its original Famicom release and secondly on the Switch using the 2020 official English localization. I will not be referencing either the Super Famicom or DS remakes of this game, or any other Fire Emblem in this write up. Mild spoilers to follow.
War stories are a common aspect of not just strategy games but games as a whole; and for good reason. The context of a fight to the death is both universally understandable and inherently interesting. In a move clearly inspired by 80’s sci-fi classics like Mobile Suit: Gundam and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Fire Emblem decides to characterize its combat not through a heavy action focus but through an exploration of the drama, characters, strategy, and resource management associated with large scale conflict. This isn’t to imply that an action focus is somehow “lesser” than what Fire Emblem does, but it was still quite a bold direction for the time.
Those who have played the game may find my mention of “drama” to be curious. As a Famicom game, Fire Emblem’s script is quite small. A cursory search on YouTube shows that all cutscenes in the game including optional village dialogue take less than an hour to watch. In that hour, only the circumstances surrounding a certain late game enemy general can be considered particularly “dramatic.” This, however, is offset by a system that is nothing short of transformative for the game, permadeath. The fact that every single character in your party can die at any given point in the story and that their death has logical mechanical and narrative consequences allows for an absolutely insane level of emergent storytelling for the game. Thanks to Fire Emblem’s focus on encounter variety and level design all of this “emergent storytelling” is also way more complex and interesting than JRPGs of its time. While in the original Dragon Quest one could describe most interactions with “X healed/damaged Y” Fire Emblem provides something richer. “When reinforcements spawned from behind I had to leave Hardin at the fort so he could stall the enemies while Marth raced to the throne, hoping to seize in time before Hardin died.” Instead of relying on narrative expository set pieces to contextualize its battles, Fire Emblem can present you with such a dynamic story entirely through its mechanics AND THEN permadeath ties that scenario right back into the actual narrative. While most characters do not have a very grand effect on the story when they die; thanks to the game's small script every single one affects a more significant part of the story than most games just through their own character endings. And of course the mechanical loss of a character is intrinsically linked to the narrative as we’ve mentioned already. When people speak about a game’s narrative themes being represented in gameplay they often do so through vapid metaphor by saying something like “the necessity of persevering is conveyed through the game rewarding you for pressing on.” Similarly, when developers try to marry their gameplay and narrative often times it is boiled down to a series of transparent binary choices. Fire Emblem did not see fit to articulate itself with such basic design and, as such, cannot be analyzed effectively that way. Even though permadeath is often avoided by series fans through the process of save scumming (and the developers of the original Fire Emblem were keenly aware this would be the case) I implore you to play this game without resetting if you give it a shot. While the process of engineering a so-called “perfect playthrough” can be quite engaging in its own right, the beauty of Fire Emblem is on full display in an “ironman run.”
The intensity lended to every situation by permadeath also does a great deal to characterize the player’s units. While the variety of classes and statistics do a lot of good for making the game's roster feel more diverse, those aforementioned anecdotal play experiences are paramount to characterizing the characters. When speaking about the game. designer Shouzou Kaga said “Yeah, as much as possible, we tried to remove ‘stats’ and numerical data. We tried to make it so that even without relying on stats, players could still get a sense of an enemy being really powerful by how much damage they dealt.” While this ambition to remove stats from a turn based strategy game is on the surface, kind of flawed, the desire to convey characters through their mechanical play experience is something I find to be extremely valuable. If you sit two people down who have played Fire Emblem once, even if they used the same units, they likely have completely different thoughts on how useful they are just by virtue of the dynamic nature of unit growth and combat. The unit growth system is also a very clever design decision in that it allows units to trend toward certain baselines while keeping them varied enough that maps are not linearly solvable in the way traditional puzzle/strategy games are.
Of course in most games the player characters are only half the equation. I suspect that because the characterization of player units is largely determined by the player, Intelligent Systems decided to focus pretty heavily on diversifying enemy behavior. Basic enemies can be stationary, aggressive, wait for you to get within movement range, and even flee to be healed when they’re on low HP. Beyond that about 1/3 of your playable units actually start off as enemies. A cute little detail about this is that because Marth is not an avatar for the player and wouldn’t be aware of which enemies are friendly you often can’t recruit enemies by talking with Marth, instead they have to talk to him of their own accord. Similarly units like Minerva behave irrationally for “enemy” units because of course their disposition as a character is more complex than just being an enemy. This culminates in the iconic 20th chapter of the game “Camus the Sable,” where Fire Emblem spins its most dramatic narrative. The decision to make Camus impossible to recruit is a clear homage to Mobile Suit: Gundam again, but the effectiveness of this trope in adding reality to the world of the original Fire Emblem shouldn’t be understated. Camus is effectively the most complex character in the entire game and you can’t recruit him! The realities of war, where your enemies acknowledge the errors of their way and die for them anyway because of the context of their lives. Good stuff.
Strategy is of course the name of the game with Fire Emblem and even from this first outing most of the mechanics are very well considered. Of particular note to people who may be familiar with the genre is the way Fire Emblem structures its turns to emphasize thinking ahead. In Fire Emblem you have the opportunity to move every player unit once before the enemy gets the opportunity to move all of theirs. The significance of this combined with the relatively predictable AI is that you have to plan to take multiple attacks from the enemy before you are able to respond and don’t have to play as reactive as you would in a game with smaller turns. The game also offers a large amount of incentives for most of its maps that encourage the player to charge ahead and meet the enemy head on to prevent turtling, which would otherwise become a boring and dominant strategy. Every map also requires Marth to seize the throne (well I guess the last one is defeat boss) which is a solid objective when compared to something like routing the enemy as it allows the players to rush the throne with their strong units and warp staff for an early clear or methodically work their way through the map and move their inventory around afterwards if that’s what they’re into. Inventory is honestly quite the drag on this game's pacing. I won’t dwell on it here because it’s not particularly interesting but there’s some convenient tips on how to make it as painless as possible by one of my friends at the bottom of this post.
There are a few other complaints I’ll take the time to make here. Weapon stats and formulas are all contained within the manual but Nintendo of America didn’t actually translate that part of the manual so you’ll have to use sites like Serenes Forest to get weapon stats. Units also make any tile they’re standing on look like a grass tile even when it isn’t one (assumedly because of some sprite limitation) which can be a minor annoyance as terrain is important in this game. Also while most recruitments are pretty transparent as the game makes excellent use of its sparse script in setting up characters and situations, some of them are not very obvious which can lead to very slow trial and error recruitments(Just google it if you don’t know). Marth is also an absurdly strong unit and it seems the AI has a tendency to target him, assumedly because his death can cause a game over, which can lead them to kind of suiciding on him a bit too often.
Yet another stroke of genius in the design of the original Fire Emblem is its limited resource economy. Money balancing is unfortunately way too much in the players favor but the decision to forgo the ability to grind brainlessly to make the game easier, does a lot for the game. Experience is a limited resource in Fire Emblem. It adds a long game of strategy to the experience. At any given time you’re considering trade-offs of options in the short term (surviving the current situation,) mid term (how you outfit your units for the next couple maps,) and long term(which units you plan to take a risk on investing in.) This consideration is almost more reminiscent of classic Resident Evil than it is Dragon Quest. Fire Emblem does actually have a way to grind infinite experience and money though. In maybe one of the games most charming touches, on any map with an arena you can gamble your money on your units ability to win a one on one fight, but if you lose that fight you’re paying with not just your gold but also your life. Some really intense risk reward right there. Good shit.
At the end of the day it’s hard to call Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light anything but a classic. While the game has its misses, particularly in regards to quality of life decisions, this game really does showcase a confident core design philosophy that exemplifies many of the strengths of games as a medium. It’s hard to find a turn-based RPG with a tighter mechanical loop than Fire Emblem. Consider giving it a shot if you have the chance.
Thanks for reading y’all. If you have any feedback I’d love to hear it as I plan to expand on this and then turn it into video. (Also forgot to mention but Tsujiyoko and Tanaka made a straight dootin’ ost)
FE1 Inventory management tips https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/ik7j40/how_to_make_the_fe1_inventory_as_painless_as/
Also go read this
http://shaym.in/fe1/lp.html
War stories are a common aspect of not just strategy games but games as a whole; and for good reason. The context of a fight to the death is both universally understandable and inherently interesting. In a move clearly inspired by 80’s sci-fi classics like Mobile Suit: Gundam and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Fire Emblem decides to characterize its combat not through a heavy action focus but through an exploration of the drama, characters, strategy, and resource management associated with large scale conflict. This isn’t to imply that an action focus is somehow “lesser” than what Fire Emblem does, but it was still quite a bold direction for the time.
Those who have played the game may find my mention of “drama” to be curious. As a Famicom game, Fire Emblem’s script is quite small. A cursory search on YouTube shows that all cutscenes in the game including optional village dialogue take less than an hour to watch. In that hour, only the circumstances surrounding a certain late game enemy general can be considered particularly “dramatic.” This, however, is offset by a system that is nothing short of transformative for the game, permadeath. The fact that every single character in your party can die at any given point in the story and that their death has logical mechanical and narrative consequences allows for an absolutely insane level of emergent storytelling for the game. Thanks to Fire Emblem’s focus on encounter variety and level design all of this “emergent storytelling” is also way more complex and interesting than JRPGs of its time. While in the original Dragon Quest one could describe most interactions with “X healed/damaged Y” Fire Emblem provides something richer. “When reinforcements spawned from behind I had to leave Hardin at the fort so he could stall the enemies while Marth raced to the throne, hoping to seize in time before Hardin died.” Instead of relying on narrative expository set pieces to contextualize its battles, Fire Emblem can present you with such a dynamic story entirely through its mechanics AND THEN permadeath ties that scenario right back into the actual narrative. While most characters do not have a very grand effect on the story when they die; thanks to the game's small script every single one affects a more significant part of the story than most games just through their own character endings. And of course the mechanical loss of a character is intrinsically linked to the narrative as we’ve mentioned already. When people speak about a game’s narrative themes being represented in gameplay they often do so through vapid metaphor by saying something like “the necessity of persevering is conveyed through the game rewarding you for pressing on.” Similarly, when developers try to marry their gameplay and narrative often times it is boiled down to a series of transparent binary choices. Fire Emblem did not see fit to articulate itself with such basic design and, as such, cannot be analyzed effectively that way. Even though permadeath is often avoided by series fans through the process of save scumming (and the developers of the original Fire Emblem were keenly aware this would be the case) I implore you to play this game without resetting if you give it a shot. While the process of engineering a so-called “perfect playthrough” can be quite engaging in its own right, the beauty of Fire Emblem is on full display in an “ironman run.”
The intensity lended to every situation by permadeath also does a great deal to characterize the player’s units. While the variety of classes and statistics do a lot of good for making the game's roster feel more diverse, those aforementioned anecdotal play experiences are paramount to characterizing the characters. When speaking about the game. designer Shouzou Kaga said “Yeah, as much as possible, we tried to remove ‘stats’ and numerical data. We tried to make it so that even without relying on stats, players could still get a sense of an enemy being really powerful by how much damage they dealt.” While this ambition to remove stats from a turn based strategy game is on the surface, kind of flawed, the desire to convey characters through their mechanical play experience is something I find to be extremely valuable. If you sit two people down who have played Fire Emblem once, even if they used the same units, they likely have completely different thoughts on how useful they are just by virtue of the dynamic nature of unit growth and combat. The unit growth system is also a very clever design decision in that it allows units to trend toward certain baselines while keeping them varied enough that maps are not linearly solvable in the way traditional puzzle/strategy games are.
Of course in most games the player characters are only half the equation. I suspect that because the characterization of player units is largely determined by the player, Intelligent Systems decided to focus pretty heavily on diversifying enemy behavior. Basic enemies can be stationary, aggressive, wait for you to get within movement range, and even flee to be healed when they’re on low HP. Beyond that about 1/3 of your playable units actually start off as enemies. A cute little detail about this is that because Marth is not an avatar for the player and wouldn’t be aware of which enemies are friendly you often can’t recruit enemies by talking with Marth, instead they have to talk to him of their own accord. Similarly units like Minerva behave irrationally for “enemy” units because of course their disposition as a character is more complex than just being an enemy. This culminates in the iconic 20th chapter of the game “Camus the Sable,” where Fire Emblem spins its most dramatic narrative. The decision to make Camus impossible to recruit is a clear homage to Mobile Suit: Gundam again, but the effectiveness of this trope in adding reality to the world of the original Fire Emblem shouldn’t be understated. Camus is effectively the most complex character in the entire game and you can’t recruit him! The realities of war, where your enemies acknowledge the errors of their way and die for them anyway because of the context of their lives. Good stuff.
Strategy is of course the name of the game with Fire Emblem and even from this first outing most of the mechanics are very well considered. Of particular note to people who may be familiar with the genre is the way Fire Emblem structures its turns to emphasize thinking ahead. In Fire Emblem you have the opportunity to move every player unit once before the enemy gets the opportunity to move all of theirs. The significance of this combined with the relatively predictable AI is that you have to plan to take multiple attacks from the enemy before you are able to respond and don’t have to play as reactive as you would in a game with smaller turns. The game also offers a large amount of incentives for most of its maps that encourage the player to charge ahead and meet the enemy head on to prevent turtling, which would otherwise become a boring and dominant strategy. Every map also requires Marth to seize the throne (well I guess the last one is defeat boss) which is a solid objective when compared to something like routing the enemy as it allows the players to rush the throne with their strong units and warp staff for an early clear or methodically work their way through the map and move their inventory around afterwards if that’s what they’re into. Inventory is honestly quite the drag on this game's pacing. I won’t dwell on it here because it’s not particularly interesting but there’s some convenient tips on how to make it as painless as possible by one of my friends at the bottom of this post.
There are a few other complaints I’ll take the time to make here. Weapon stats and formulas are all contained within the manual but Nintendo of America didn’t actually translate that part of the manual so you’ll have to use sites like Serenes Forest to get weapon stats. Units also make any tile they’re standing on look like a grass tile even when it isn’t one (assumedly because of some sprite limitation) which can be a minor annoyance as terrain is important in this game. Also while most recruitments are pretty transparent as the game makes excellent use of its sparse script in setting up characters and situations, some of them are not very obvious which can lead to very slow trial and error recruitments(Just google it if you don’t know). Marth is also an absurdly strong unit and it seems the AI has a tendency to target him, assumedly because his death can cause a game over, which can lead them to kind of suiciding on him a bit too often.
Yet another stroke of genius in the design of the original Fire Emblem is its limited resource economy. Money balancing is unfortunately way too much in the players favor but the decision to forgo the ability to grind brainlessly to make the game easier, does a lot for the game. Experience is a limited resource in Fire Emblem. It adds a long game of strategy to the experience. At any given time you’re considering trade-offs of options in the short term (surviving the current situation,) mid term (how you outfit your units for the next couple maps,) and long term(which units you plan to take a risk on investing in.) This consideration is almost more reminiscent of classic Resident Evil than it is Dragon Quest. Fire Emblem does actually have a way to grind infinite experience and money though. In maybe one of the games most charming touches, on any map with an arena you can gamble your money on your units ability to win a one on one fight, but if you lose that fight you’re paying with not just your gold but also your life. Some really intense risk reward right there. Good shit.
At the end of the day it’s hard to call Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light anything but a classic. While the game has its misses, particularly in regards to quality of life decisions, this game really does showcase a confident core design philosophy that exemplifies many of the strengths of games as a medium. It’s hard to find a turn-based RPG with a tighter mechanical loop than Fire Emblem. Consider giving it a shot if you have the chance.
Thanks for reading y’all. If you have any feedback I’d love to hear it as I plan to expand on this and then turn it into video. (Also forgot to mention but Tsujiyoko and Tanaka made a straight dootin’ ost)
FE1 Inventory management tips https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/ik7j40/how_to_make_the_fe1_inventory_as_painless_as/
Also go read this
http://shaym.in/fe1/lp.html
ALL KILLER AND NO FILLER. IT'S MOEBIN' TIME BBY!!!
Inti finally went and finally made a successor to actual Gunvolt gameplay! I couldn't be happier! Sure our man is a DOG now and there's seemingly some gacha inspired loot shit, but LIGHTEN UP~ Give this one the same 10 or so years of marination and romanticizing the other games got, and I think folk will see things aren’t so different to how they’ve always been for our beloved anime rhythm game. FOR BETTER OR WORSE~
SO WE ARE BACK to the tagging multiple enemies and unleashing hell from a distance type gameplay that I've been missing from the series ever since they got us stuck in the spinoff hell playing as a non-platforming ass character whose whole thing was dealing with dudes one at a time real lame like with an overpowered air dash for half a decade now. I much prefer this! Considerately tagging and dancing between all the enemies you want to dust as you actually platform forward I've always felt was more engaging than whatever the hell vague flying shit Copen had going on.
All the bosses ROCK, there are ZERO unremarkable filler stages, you've got a big meaty perk system and extra as hell special attacks to get fiddling with for variety's sake, and even some hard mode modifiers for after ya beat the game too! Everything I'd want from a good ol' Gunvolt grind is accounted for and expanded! I loooove content!!! Kinda sucks the stages themselves are unaltered for those extra difficulties and the repeating content game is a biiiit excessive, buuuut I’m not really surprised about that kinda thing. JUST that classic Gunvolt experience, ya know??? A few good ideas and a couple steps forward and a couple steps back! What else is new from those guys at 'Interior Creators'??????
I thought I'd be way more irked having to witness Gunvolt seemingly take a backseat in plot importance yet again, but I did not! He is still very much at the center of most discussions, and the new main girl Kirin is super nice to see interact with him. The two of them got a real nice partner kind of relationship going on; it's pretty sweet! Really refreshing dynamic over the usual 'PROTECT CUTE GIRL' shit Gunvolt was always rocking in prior adventures. Recruiting a corny superhero club like it's the chad Mighty Number 9 and everyone eventually quipping together and busting GV's balls for being so old and overpowered now is just some hella cute found family kinda stuff; I love it. And having GV be SO STRONG that he becomes your go-to win button for the gameplay this time around ALSO weirdly feels just SO 'AZURE STRIKER GUNVOLT' and I'm totally okay with that as well.
Like the reaction time expected of you and enemy telegraphing has always been overtly suspicious in these games. TO SUCH A CONSISTENT DEGREE that I've come to assume the priorities of all this Gunvolt-ing have always been more about perfecting cool anime 'spectacle' over creating anything traditionally fair and action-game-like in the first place. I MEAN - Do 'REAL' action games go so hard out of their way to not just KILL you if their point is to grant satisfaction through overcoming difficulty? These games are ALLERGIC to killing you! And they've never been very tough to get through either! They've always elected to invent god-mode options and invincibility to keep this ANIME OVERSTIMULATION hype easy to lean into every installment!
So after being written in the story to be SO powerful, to have Geevs himself be made a resource and now like the epitome of this style over substance anime idea just... MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. They want you to bust him out now as this COOL secret weapon of yours whenever things expectantly get a little much and it’s time to UNLEASH THE AZURE STRIKER, MAN!!!!! I think it works! and it's pretty hype, dude... I enjoy nothing more than watching Geevs COMBO THE FUCK OUT!!!! I feel less guilty engaging with these 'easy modes' and can better appreciate the "LIGHT NOVEL 2D ACTION" VISION when these things are like definite meters and shit I'm working to build up over just the on/off switch versions of these ideas the older games had! REVEL in his POWER as you will! And combo-mad as stylishly and as cool as the characters are in the story along the way!!! THAT has always been 'GUNVOLT' to me. And even if we ain't playing as the guy normally, THE WILL OF THE AZURE STRIKER LIVES STRONG IN THIS ONE ALL THE SAME, DUDE~
The WORLD'S STRONGEST ADEPT is rightfully harder to get points with, but the scoring system and equips you can play around with ensure that you can still get high ranks with him by just ARC UNLEASH-ing smartly. It’s fiiiine!!! About as ‘STYLE OVER THE MAX POTENTIAL SUBSTANCE’-like as I’d expect from a real Gunvolt game anyway! The 'Special GV' Gunvolt only challenges are a really nice touch though; those are quite fun to engage with and optimize. A great bonus for anyone who still ONLY wanted to play as GV :)
I don't know what else to say! I had nothing but fear in my heart after iX2 came and pretended to be a 'normal action game' for a bit and sucked total shit balls, but we're here! We're finally here! A real GUNVOLT game again... With all the hype anime melodrama and simple yet satisfying FORWARD MOVEMENT-Y COMBO MAD SPECTACLE focused gameplay I'd ever wanted! It's even fully dubbed! English GV screaming and grunting is some GOOD FUCKIN FOOD for my ears, man. I loved ALL of it.
Your fate is sealed!!!
Inti finally went and finally made a successor to actual Gunvolt gameplay! I couldn't be happier! Sure our man is a DOG now and there's seemingly some gacha inspired loot shit, but LIGHTEN UP~ Give this one the same 10 or so years of marination and romanticizing the other games got, and I think folk will see things aren’t so different to how they’ve always been for our beloved anime rhythm game. FOR BETTER OR WORSE~
SO WE ARE BACK to the tagging multiple enemies and unleashing hell from a distance type gameplay that I've been missing from the series ever since they got us stuck in the spinoff hell playing as a non-platforming ass character whose whole thing was dealing with dudes one at a time real lame like with an overpowered air dash for half a decade now. I much prefer this! Considerately tagging and dancing between all the enemies you want to dust as you actually platform forward I've always felt was more engaging than whatever the hell vague flying shit Copen had going on.
All the bosses ROCK, there are ZERO unremarkable filler stages, you've got a big meaty perk system and extra as hell special attacks to get fiddling with for variety's sake, and even some hard mode modifiers for after ya beat the game too! Everything I'd want from a good ol' Gunvolt grind is accounted for and expanded! I loooove content!!! Kinda sucks the stages themselves are unaltered for those extra difficulties and the repeating content game is a biiiit excessive, buuuut I’m not really surprised about that kinda thing. JUST that classic Gunvolt experience, ya know??? A few good ideas and a couple steps forward and a couple steps back! What else is new from those guys at 'Interior Creators'??????
I thought I'd be way more irked having to witness Gunvolt seemingly take a backseat in plot importance yet again, but I did not! He is still very much at the center of most discussions, and the new main girl Kirin is super nice to see interact with him. The two of them got a real nice partner kind of relationship going on; it's pretty sweet! Really refreshing dynamic over the usual 'PROTECT CUTE GIRL' shit Gunvolt was always rocking in prior adventures. Recruiting a corny superhero club like it's the chad Mighty Number 9 and everyone eventually quipping together and busting GV's balls for being so old and overpowered now is just some hella cute found family kinda stuff; I love it. And having GV be SO STRONG that he becomes your go-to win button for the gameplay this time around ALSO weirdly feels just SO 'AZURE STRIKER GUNVOLT' and I'm totally okay with that as well.
Like the reaction time expected of you and enemy telegraphing has always been overtly suspicious in these games. TO SUCH A CONSISTENT DEGREE that I've come to assume the priorities of all this Gunvolt-ing have always been more about perfecting cool anime 'spectacle' over creating anything traditionally fair and action-game-like in the first place. I MEAN - Do 'REAL' action games go so hard out of their way to not just KILL you if their point is to grant satisfaction through overcoming difficulty? These games are ALLERGIC to killing you! And they've never been very tough to get through either! They've always elected to invent god-mode options and invincibility to keep this ANIME OVERSTIMULATION hype easy to lean into every installment!
So after being written in the story to be SO powerful, to have Geevs himself be made a resource and now like the epitome of this style over substance anime idea just... MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. They want you to bust him out now as this COOL secret weapon of yours whenever things expectantly get a little much and it’s time to UNLEASH THE AZURE STRIKER, MAN!!!!! I think it works! and it's pretty hype, dude... I enjoy nothing more than watching Geevs COMBO THE FUCK OUT!!!! I feel less guilty engaging with these 'easy modes' and can better appreciate the "LIGHT NOVEL 2D ACTION" VISION when these things are like definite meters and shit I'm working to build up over just the on/off switch versions of these ideas the older games had! REVEL in his POWER as you will! And combo-mad as stylishly and as cool as the characters are in the story along the way!!! THAT has always been 'GUNVOLT' to me. And even if we ain't playing as the guy normally, THE WILL OF THE AZURE STRIKER LIVES STRONG IN THIS ONE ALL THE SAME, DUDE~
The WORLD'S STRONGEST ADEPT is rightfully harder to get points with, but the scoring system and equips you can play around with ensure that you can still get high ranks with him by just ARC UNLEASH-ing smartly. It’s fiiiine!!! About as ‘STYLE OVER THE MAX POTENTIAL SUBSTANCE’-like as I’d expect from a real Gunvolt game anyway! The 'Special GV' Gunvolt only challenges are a really nice touch though; those are quite fun to engage with and optimize. A great bonus for anyone who still ONLY wanted to play as GV :)
I don't know what else to say! I had nothing but fear in my heart after iX2 came and pretended to be a 'normal action game' for a bit and sucked total shit balls, but we're here! We're finally here! A real GUNVOLT game again... With all the hype anime melodrama and simple yet satisfying FORWARD MOVEMENT-Y COMBO MAD SPECTACLE focused gameplay I'd ever wanted! It's even fully dubbed! English GV screaming and grunting is some GOOD FUCKIN FOOD for my ears, man. I loved ALL of it.
Your fate is sealed!!!
Sonic Rush Adventure
2007
I was pleasantly surprised by this game! The first Sonic Rush really didn't do all that much for me, so this one kinda blew me away. The level design is honestly pretty great all around, the soundtrack is underappreciated, and the atmosphere was refreshing. All the padding and extra junk is dumb but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy the game because of it. Sonic Rush Adventure is a bit of a guilty pleasure due to all of the weird extraneous elements, but deep in here I believe there to be a very solid game. Maybe I only enjoyed it so much after getting exhausted on the first game, I dunno. If you similarly got tired of the original Sonic Rush, give the sequel a shot.
Blaze is also the coolest character.
Blaze is also the coolest character.
