Bit of a trip, this game. You play as a flying eyeball with a tail? Like a one eye snake that flies around? I dunno. Change color when you change directions too. You can speed up and slow down and blink and that's about it. Touch pad also makes the body like glitch out almost and go static-y. It's neat to just fly around and watch colors change and make basic shapes with the trail of your snake body.

The actual game is pretty neat. You go to different areas/worlds/levels and interact with things their in the way the space dictates. One level has you swim through water and interact with fish, one has you in like a theme park where people ride you and you can put them in rides and make those work, hell one is even like a series of grids where you can only move in 90 degree angles and have to do various tasks in that way. Each area feels pretty unique in terms of looks or how you move or what goes on and it's always fun to see what the next one has in store.

The core point of this game too is to find 16 other one eye snake guys like you. Each one has their own level but not all levels have one I think? Anyway the whole game is like "the friends we made along the way" meme but real. Each snake friend is directly related to the world its in and it's really fun to find them after solving whatever problem the world throws at you. Each friend is also accompanied by a short motion comic type thing that shows how they ended up where you find them.

Hohokum is a charming feel good game to play. It's a bit weird at first but it quickly becomes just fun to roam around and find things out. There's a bunch of little extras to reward people who explore and play with thing just for the sake of it. Also each level has it's own banger song so the whole game is like playing a really good record. Definitely recommend to anyone. A short enjoyable trip with some light puzzle solving.

lmao I'm so fucking done with Spyro. Maybe someday if someone gets to really work out a fourth game and it's done well with some new ideas I'd try that. A few years ago I promised a friend I'd beat the trilogy cos I think he gifted it to me? I forget. Anyway the first one was pretty jank and shitty but there was that stink gen 5 game charm I guess so I stuck with it.

I heard the sequels were better and rode that hope into 2 which was a bit more interesting and had some fun characters and a good villain. I dunno if it really felt better to play or what but I had a not terrible time with it overall.

Now I've finished the third game and it's back to being just annoying. I dunno if it's just this game was rushed or if it's that I just inherently find the gameplay in Spyro to be not that good or both. I mean I enjoy the general concept of a collectathon game, I loved DK 64 and Banjo Kazooie back in the day but maybe I was just more tolerant of it as a kid or Rare just spoiled me by being the best at it.

I think a chunk of it comes down to the controls. I just don't like how Spyro himself moves. I'm not saying it's flat out wrong, I just don't think I like it. He's a creature on four legs so it makes sense he turns more widely than other 3D platformer characters. Just little bits of it get annoying after a while. Also the camera is just straight up wonky to me and I find myself running off a platform or just dying to things because it doesn't keep up with how I wanna move. It just doesn't mesh with my mind that well.

All of this stood out in my mind worse than in 2 because in this game there is a multitude of other characters you play as in their own sections. I was told by the friend that these sections as other characters are regarded by fans as the worst aspect of the game and yet I found myself enjoying it. I liked flying around shooting stuff as the penguin or smashing guys as the yeti. Hell my absolute favorite was the like "bullet hell-esque" sections as Sparx. I would take a whole game of that. I thought that to myself though and realized I was enjoying this game most when it wasn't being a Spyro game and I think that's ultimately pretty telling.

There's also a bunch of little things in this that I wouldn't say are a detriment necessarily but stuff that stood out to me as being worse than the last game. Like in this there are areas where you skateboard around but you start them on foot and get on the skateboard but they're still treated as separate areas within a level you have to load into. It's a bit of a contrast to Spyro 2 levels that felt like pretty big and you can get lost in almost. Maybe that game just hid its loading well but the big purple portals in this one just feel like corner cutting and make me wonder if this one was more rushed out.

Speaking of rushed, I feel like they didn't really do enough to establish the characters in this one. The villain is definitely the weakest in the series and just wasn't a thing I was like excited to be building towards. There's only really one other new character who they play into like a villain becoming one of the good guys but stuff just kinda happens with her and it doesn't feel written in an engaging way.

I know that's probably thinking TOO MUCH about character and plot development in a Spyro game but just something about the opening cutscene in 2 with being sent to another world and meeting the professor and his companions and how it all tied into Ripto just got my attention right away and made me want to involve myself more. It was neat! Compare to this game where everything feels placed around. Like even returning characters just feel wasted overall.

So yeah I dunno. This game kinda exposed itself to me in how much I maybe don't like it after all. Going through it just felt like checking things off a list. Some of the worlds and music are neat but it all falls flat in my mind compared to 2. It's probably not the best highlight but I did enjoy the side stuff as other characters. Playing as gun monkey was funny. Gimme Sparx 1943 I dunno.

I didn't despise this game because of the amount of times it allows you to NOT play it and it's still probably better overall than the first one. I don't think I could recommend this now though. I mean, fans of it will play it regardless but its not gonna be in my top like 10 3D platformers I recommend someone try if they want one. Still glad to have completed what I said I would do and I'm glad I did Year of the Dragon in 2024, a proper Year of the Dragon in itself.

Boy there sure is a lot of game here. It's weird when a game or series goes open world or semi open world like this game. A lot of times they feel the need to shove a bunch in to the game. Maps littered with icons to walk to and do busy work. A crafting system is implemented and so the ground is littered with things to pick up. There's a robust minigame card game made for this and there are people around to play in ALL major locations regardless of tone of the events. Also just minigames for days. There's nothing inherently wrong with them but when a game sets a tone of haste and then forces me to do minigames it just feels bad.

The busy work stuff too is just so dull too. Activate towers is something Ubisoft burned into everyone's brains. Fine. Zelda did this well though. Activate a tower and see more of the world and pick places to go. Rebirth tower just puts more chores on your map to go do. Go to shrine and play memory game, go to fountain and press triangle three times, go fight monsters in specific way, and so on. You could say open world stuff just isn't for me and that's true but it also hurts more when I've seen other open world games have their open world and keep it engaging rather than like house work. Also fuck whoever said "oh you wanna move around the world more quickly? do this hackneyed stealth section first". Double also fuck glorified box moving puzzles you solve in your head near instantly and take forever to actually "solve" in comparison.

That said, the core JRPG stuff is mostly fun. I enjoy the combat and how you're encouraged to use other weapons for new moves. The pressure and staggering effects add some depth to how you approach things so you can't always mindlessly hack through stuff. I also still love how the kept in the auto battle system so you can choose to let the characters move around and build up ATB on their own but also take control whenever you want. It's all still well implemented. Materia is still fun to swap around and experiment with I think although this time around I found myself using more character abilities than spells in general. The only thing that felt a bit much was the Folio system which was like a skill tree for each character. It's neat that it's there I guess but it's kinda cumbersome to navigate and ultimately I just ignored it and really didn't have much trouble getting through the game (except dying twice on the final final boss but whatever).

They also kept in and expanded on synergy moves. This is actually something the Folio system is good for as you can unlock new synergy moves with different characters as you ascend the branches of the skill tree. I did this enough to have a couple and it was pretty neat. You get moves shared between characters that are strong and cost no ATB. Instead you build up to them by having used ATB moves already with each character. So like after you do two ATB moves with Yuffie and two with Tifa for example you're then able to use their sync move. They're all full of spectacle and feel great to build up to and pull off.

On top of sync moves being flashy fun to use in battle, they also have a slight effect outside of it. Specifically doing sync moves with a character and Cloud can help deepen their relationship. Yeah in this game they have like the equivalent of Persona social links (though not as in depth). So you can increase friendship with characters in combat but the bulk of it is usually done when you get to a new location and the game gives you the opportunity to talk with each character. Find them all and there's some good character moments that usually trigger a timed dialogue tree choice where the "right" one will deepen your relationship with said character. Of course this also leads to having a "romance" scene with whoever you have at the highest affection level by the time you get back to the Gold Saucer. It's a fun addition to the game and really helped in feeling engaged in the character's personalities.

OH also to build into deeper character engagement they have sections where you play as a different character and they have some gimmick specific to them that you have to use to progress. It ranges from kinda neat and inoffensive to mildy annoying and then straight up "fuck you Cait Sith" tier. I get what they're going for but it kinda sucks. Fortunately they also have sections of the game where they split the party into groups and this does a much better job showing the developing comradery of various characters.

So then how's the actual story? Well it's mostly just ok lol. It's the same weak connections that were present in this chunk of the OG game. You go to places on weak reasoning because plot. It's good they implemented the character stuff I mentioned before because that's where any sort of plot element really shines. The actual story at play here is just "Sephiroth gonna do something lets chase random almost-leads." and then like two thirds the way through and a couple personal character arcs later they stumble onto the plot to get the thing. It's whatever. The best bit is the wacky Nomura incoherent space fights and the "Zack is out there" extra story bits. It ultimately just leads to more "what the fuck are they thinking?" but it's still on the third game to see if they deliver on anything substantial or not. The story in this is more or less exactly as it goes in OG FFVII. I think it's fine.

So yeah. It's the second act of FFVII but made to look real pretty. It was too self conscious to just be a JRPG but bigger so there's a bunch of open world crap in it. Maybe you'll like it but it's clearly not for me. I enjoy the base combat and seeing the OG game realized as like this full thing. Also the character moments and the wacky extra stuff going on keeps me going. It definitely felt like a lot though and I'm ready to play something shorter and more video game-y. Don't need to recommend anything here. People playing this already know they're gonna play it. It's a sequel after all. Enjoyable enough but way too much extra junk for my liking.