Truthfully, I think it's one of the best game's ever made. All elements including the dialogue, soundtrack, narrative, and gameplay, are beautifully intertwined and cohesively work together to create a singular experience. The pacing is top-notch, and the variety of weapon's, gives a sense of individuality to each playthrough, while the adjustable difficulty that appears before every level allows for everyone to play; properly rewarding those who are willing to challenge themselves. This game feels so effortless in its delivery, it makes me wonder how we don't have 500 video games like this already, each great in their own right. Kid Icarus: Uprising is simply the perfect step-up in nearly every department a video game can have, and it knows exactly how far away it needs to be from the sun in order to be successful.

To top it all off, I think it looks flawless on the 3DS. Every piece of the environment assists in the obfuscating of hidden chests and secrets, Pit's model looks great and always stands out from everything else on the screen, while still being detailed and animated enough to capture the concept art drawn of him. The enemy design's contrast and interact with the environment well, and the green directional arrows that casually point you to where you need to go don't ruin the sense of progression. The ground combat, can seem shallow, but like I mentioned above, the variety of the weapon's, and the will to challenge yourself is the deciding factor here in your experience. It's amazing to me that this game manages to do all of this, and still casually progress the narrative of each character introduced by having God's banter about trivial and mundane things. Not a single joke feels out of place, and it's consistently enjoyable to listen to, even when you're replaying missions.

Hoping to see more Drakengard-likes in the future.

this is my favorite game ever and is the reason i got back into gaming after so long. one of my dads friends got me dmc 5 for christmas and i thought it was cool but nothing really stuck out to me. then after i graduated high school i downloaded the dmc hd collection of the playstation store and holy shit was i hooked. i’m really bummed out they cut out the whole gothic setting and aesthetic of the first two games as i much prefer them to the cheesy action aesthetic of 3-5. if you know anything about dmc 1 you’ll know the reason why the first game is so different from the others is because it started life as the prototype to re 4 and you could really fucking tell that. the fixed camera angles a lot of backtracking and the use of keys the music and it’s so dope and makes it one of the most unique action games i’ve ever played although some mfs complain about the fixed camera angles which i mean get good at the game lol. another thing that i like about this game compared to other dmc games how much less shit there is in the game. there’s only two devil arms and if you farm enough red orbs you should be able to get every move for alastor (i use alastor for mode and ifrits on hard mode and i would recommend the same) i get in later games it’s for replay value but honestly i would rather much just replay the whole game rather than certain levels. i also love how this game doesn’t throw a boss at you every level too it creates a new sense of pacing and it feels more realistic fighting the same boss three times i feel like this getting too long so i’ll end it with this. if you bitch about the underwater levels you’re fucking gay lol

This game really wants to be a fighting game, but unfortunately it also wants to be a character action game. There's a reason these are separate genres.

It borrows mechanics like Bursting, Roman Canceling, parrying, and ex attcks from Guilty Gear and Street Fighter, and these have varying degrees of success in how they're implemented.

At first the game is frustrating as you try to chain together stylish combos only to get hit with D ranks over and over, but then when you figure out the game's intended loop, which is

>get all enemies on one side
>activate fatal sync (this games version of Devil Trigger)
>spam combos and EX moves
>when fatal sync runs out, burst out of a combo for free meter
>re-enter fatal sync
>repeat

It clicks and you stop having trouble.

This really is the optimal way to play, and after you realize it, it's kind of disappointing because the game, unlike the character action greats like DMC or Ninja Gaiden, never "elevates" above this loop. This game was explicitly designed for you to be in Fatal Sync ALL THE TIME since the devs idea of difficulty is to throw hordes of enemies at you, and all of them are big damage sponges. You MUST combo everything to absolute hell and back, even the basic mooks. It's fun and feels good, but it gets old since your moveset is limited and you inevitably will do the same MAYBE 3 or so combos over and over. There are no extra weapons or unlockable characters, you have your entire moveset available from frame 1 of gameplay. Some people like that, but I like to have incentives for replays other than the typical rank chasing, if nothing else.

Speaking of, the post game is also seriously lacking. Typically in a character action game, your first playthrough is to learn the combat system and to unlock everything, and then your real playthrough begins your second time around on a higher difficulty now that you're familiar with the systems. In Slave Zero X, there are no extra difficulty modes. All you have to look forward to after beating the main game is the Crimson Citadel, a bloody palace style arena mode where you fight every enemy and boss. It's decent, but very short. A typical Bloody Palace run can last upwards of 2 hours whereas the Crimson Citadel can be beaten in 20 minutes. Other than that, all you really have left to do is unlock color palettes and chase after stage ranks, which, thanks to your limited moveset, can feel like a grind.

There's also a serious lack of real defensive options. If you're in a group of enemies and you get launched, it's very possible you can get comboed from one enemy to the next until death from full health without ever touching the ground. Enemies can throw you back and fourth from one another with no cooldown, with no chance for you to recover, and don't EVER air tech in his game, as all it does is make you float helplessly in the air, which is the worst possible place to be unless you're juggling enemies. All you have is the third strike parry, which is completely infeasible when you're surrounded (example of a fighting game mechanic not suited for an action game, poorly thought out), and your dash which grants a tiny handful of i-frames. Sometimes the game will throw 2 boss enemies at you, who of course have hyper armor and multi hitting attacks or super long combos, and if they manage to get you in a pattern where they're hitting you back and forth, just set the controller down and go get a snack.

There's also a few times where the game resorts to some downright cheap bullshit to make things artificially harder, like putting big objects in the foreground to block your view, or even straight up turning out the lights completely at one part. In a hardcore action game like this, that is just not acceptable.

HOT TAKE OF THE CENTURY - METROID PRIME 2 IS JUST AS GOOD AS THE FIRST ONE.

Now granted - this is assuming some stuff about the way you're playing. There's three pretty massive issues that can stop plenty of people from enjoying this one.

1) AWFUL save placement in Agon Wastes - I just used save states during that part, but if you don't use them this is probably so much more painful.
2) Dark World draining your health - Don't wait until your health is all the way back up!! There's health pickups everywhere!! Don't be a coward!!
3) Both starting areas are pretty gray - If you can't have me at my Temple Grounds, you don't deserve me at my Sanctuary Fortress. 😙

But aside from the above? My GOD I loved this game. There's so many little improvements from the first.

Big open rooms that make the planet feel less claustrophobic, while still keeping things tight and tense when the devs want to mix things up. Dramatically more unique area theming, meaning you get way more than just the "ice area" or "lava area" of Prime 1. World design that uses ESPECIALLY creative vertical and interconnected maps compared to the "hallway" approach of the first game. Different beams that actually require some on-the-fly strategy to mess with. World progression that's convenient to navigate AND avoids having the solution be a room you forgot about on the opposite side of the planet (most of the time). Tons more focus on kinetic movement! Making Samus feel so much more powerful at the end compared to the start!! The Dark World genuinely making you feel powerless and spooked!! Actually fun bosses!!! (most of the time).

Even the ability to use mouse and keyboard on PrimeHack was such an improvement for my overall immersion...I wish I could use this control scheme for the first game's remaster. It's SO good.

I think there's some totally fair points against Echoes, like the Dark World's areas totally blending together, dimension hopping being fairly underbaked, the love-it-or-hate-it implementation of Zelda elements, and some pretty tanky enemies here and there. I also can't ignore the fact that emulation and some minor cheats - like automatically skipping the world transition cutscenes - definitely impacted my time with it, and in a more "vanilla" play-through I probably would be much more annoyed.

But even with those in mind...I still think Echoes deserves way more love. It's easily the most underrated entry in the Metroid series, and with some minor fixes, it's JUST as fun as the first Prime entry. IMAGINE what this game could look like with an official remaster!!

I'm eating SO good as a new-ish Metroid fan wowwww.