perhaps the pirates of the caribbean game ive been needing, in terms of buoyant swashbuckling anti-authoritarian escapism ofc but also just the Physicality of ecstatic and yet inherently comedic action spectacle. so many combinations of actions and fast reversals of fortune that are just Inherently Amusing!!! and the written jokes aint bad either, on the whole they give the game a much more lighthearted and breezy tone then the movies im comparing it to and it works perfectly well for this,,,i can easily picture a worse version, but its all exuberant action movie giggles completely sold on the gravity of how Awesome ur character and her accomplishments are. just pure joy!!! and one of the best swordplay games ive yet come across, as fantastic as the main crowd control stuff is i was always happiest to just sink my teeth into a good one-on-one duel...lots of promises fulfilled here

A lot of the whining this game gets mainly comes from people who treat games like these as fun little timewasters instead of full fledged games, this was never meant to be a replacement for SRB2K like so many people keep insisting (the devs have said that the master server for SRB2K will be kept up) if you wanna play a fun basic MK-Like kart racer then SRB2K is still right there! This game is NOT SRB2K however.

I don't think gating online behind completing (you don't even have to beat it!) a cup is unreasonable at all and the whole "you need 80 spray cans to unlock time trials" is straight up a lie, all you need to do is beat all first page cups with a bronze medal minimum (completely reasonable since you can get all unlocks on any difficulty unless its specified otherwise)
The tutorial WAS pretty terrible since it emphazises too much on mechanics you won't use normally during a race (unless im wrong none of the first page levels have any shortcuts involving the switches, only secrets) and it completely glosses over important mechanics unique to this game like the start position change, tether system, and the drift you can do after hitting a boost panel. I did like the way it was presented though and the interactions between tails and eggman were cute and well written.
There are also some problems with the AI being WAY too rubberbandy, I understand its needed for games like this but sometimes due to the tether system your "rival" in second place can sometimes get an invincibility powerup and theres not really anything you can do to stop them from passing you.
The presentation of EVERYTHING in this game is gorgeous and the amount of love this game has for everything Sonic and SEGA related is incredible (there are entire zones based on levels from fangames!) Just an incredible looking game.

Overall I think with a few tweaks this could easily be one of the greatest kart racers of all time, just hope the devs don't over correct due to all of the mostly misplaced negative feedback.

far be it from me to pin down something hyper-intricate to one central thing but i truly think that just about everything in disco elysium, or at least all of its sources of power, comes back to the fact that harry du bois is not a character that literally anyone would choose to play as. the western rpg and its roots in tabletop games are so fixated on systems and stats and customization as controlled self expression...it is not a question of if the world will bend around your whims and personality, it is a question of which world-bending tools will be most easily used by you. the most obviously intuitive way to approach an rpg is to project an idealized version of yourself...to be able to carry your ideals, tastes and curiosities into a world that will react to and reward your unstoppable individualism. even in a group setting, this has to be one of the most common sensations being chased.

if there is any character in the world of disco elysium that can give you this power fantasy (and there almost certainly isnt), it is not harry du bois. harry is a horrific bloated shell with a largely unchangeable past that u are forced to exist in, no part of even as something as mundane as his appearance would come from a character creation menu. and despite your uneasy judicial power, you have no ability to sway the horrific and contentious material state of the post-everything world around you. and, of course, you'll endlessly fail a bunch of dice rolls.

it is both crushing and balming. relief from the responsibility of saving the world, overwhelmed by the responsibility of saving yourself...but both tasks that should not be approached alone. you cannot create a better world on your own, but if you are so inclined, you can see and create little glimpses of one everywhere around you. the cruelest and kindest aspect of the game is that it will never give you an out...it will never let you sit with any complacent excuse. you must still interact with the world and others...even, Especially, since you cannot simply bend them. the deconstruction of rpgs starts as comical and disempowering, and slowly brings focus to all the tiny lights and colors around you that you would miss from the birds eye view. the world is a canvas...just not a blank one meant exclusively for you.

no matter how much we think we understand, no matter how powerfully we spec into Whatever, no matter how thoroughly we sketch out this wretched world and its interlocking mechanisms, we can never comprehend everything. there is always something strange and wonderful out there, something that will increase your understanding of what was ever possible. perhaps the world wouldnt be beautiful and wondrous enough to be worth saving if the one person who had the power to could perfectly understand everything. perhaps this should be misery for those who seek understanding...but really it's the opposite. the joyful process of understanding is never over...and everything you learn along the way will be worth it for its own sake. there is never any excuse to stop. so go and be free...you are living a power fantasy an rpg protagonist could only dream of

so fucking blessed to be living in the golden age of 3d platfomers. was gonna say golden age of indie 3d platformers but tbh no reason to section them off, its not like theyre a AAA genre for anyone other then nintendo anymore. this one scratched some itches that even a bunch of the others i love havent quite scratched...perhaps one of the most comforting games for me in the comfiest genre for me, despite also being a good deal more difficult and finnicky then many of them. or perhaps its because of that!!! for a 6 hour experience that amounts to a tutorial, one world, and a big final stretch, every single part is mined for as much as it can possibly give in its small size...a reminder of the experience of these older games, which demanded that u cut your own way thru them until u knew them in and out, from your own abilities to the spaces u are asked to traverse to the quest threads you follow to promised rewards. what begins in overwhelm is slowly chipped away into total intimacy, and surprises under the hood of every aspect...a seemingly complicated and janky moveset turns out to be both simple and extremely versitile, a seemingly chaotic and dense world turns out to be perfectly compact with no uninteresting space, big intimidating platforming challenges turn out to just be a few more persistent attempts away from delicious satisfaction.

two random notes: (1) this rly brings back the lost art of Needing To Orient Your Movement In Relation To An Unideal Camera Angle. i think a lot of ppl have it in their heads that this is """bad game design""" because its a barrier to instant satisfaction, and its understandably perfectly avoidable in a dual stick world. corn kidz mixes dual sticks with weird n64 type buttons for specific camera reorientations (like zoomouts and top down views) and occasional semi-fixed angles, or just places where there Isnt rly an ideal angle. this game rly affirms to me that the skill of orientation is as valid as any, it was definitely one that you Needed to develop playing n64 platformers, so admittedly i had a head start. they know their audience! ppl should be more willing to accept "awkwardness" before we optimize and overpolish the entire character of Play Experience out of video games. (2) your hooves make clopping sounds. perfect video game

the hardest a game has sought to capture my specific childhood dreams since i played tunic. perhaps my new personal favorite moveset to use in any 3d platformer, replacing a lot of more typical zelda/metroid item progression with increasing mastery over movement, both for myself and the character. and what a world u move thru...love the lore and story that has more in common with zelda's arch fables then fromsoft's hyper-dense tomes, with a constantly maintained sense of mystique and history,,,vibes on vibes, familiar tropes of places in a rich and sincere presentation that make me feel like im seeing them for the first time. topping it all off are the high end void challenges, which at their best are the closest ive seen to a 3d version of celeste or super meat boy...pure compulsive and disarmingly approachable joy of accomplishment in 30 to 60 second increments of frantic Not Screwing Up. kinda cant believe this exists, i wanna cry about it. a last minute highlight of my entire year.

alchemically irresistible to me, just the perfect cross-section of interests from all over my life: my relatively recent affection for the work and world of jay tholen, my since-youth affection for retro shooters, and my Deeply Ingrained Primordial Attraction towards art that is wantonly self-indulgent and wish fufilling to the effect of exposing the psyche of its creator...here its deployed to the effect of an extremely striking character study, as melancholy and compassion-inducing as it is straightforwardly thrilling and charming. i used to seek out "bad" fanfiction for this effect, and in general i find this stuff freeing and wonder-inducing even if its also illustrative of flaws in the person. as always with thelon, deeply and unrelentingly humane, while always feeling expressive without compromise. also v funny and v fun !

It's always nice when you play through a game again after nearly 10 years and you end up appreciating the game a bit more!

Is Zelda 1 a hard game to get into in 2023? Absolutely, and I can see why this game would be off-putting to so many people. But, if you can get past the oldness and clunkiness here, you get a game that's incredibly impressive for it's time. It shows a game philosophy that you don't see as often nowadays: a game built around community. A game that's designed to share secrets about it with your elementary school classmates. A pre internet gem. It has it's issues, but in the end it's so charming and unique that I think it's worth going back to nowadays.