After five (mostly) good entries it’s only natural to expect great things from a sixth and final installment to a tenured franchise such as Mega Man Battle Network. Yet, just because it’s a capstone entry does not guarantee success or quality. Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar is a mixed bag of good and bad overall with the bad often undermining the good. Despite personal enjoyment and affection, I wish I could have gotten more out of my experience that rounds off this retrospective spanning almost a year. Improvements to existing systems and the return of proven systems make for a compelling reason to love this game. Poor writing and narrative design paired with questionable overall design choices limit how much you can engage with and appreciate those positive changes. After all, a game can feel good while still being bad. I insist that this Mega Man entry is good while leaving much to be desired.

The introduction brings about radical changes which feel necessary for the driving force behind the plot. For there to be titan programs capable of the sheer destruction and power demonstrated, it would almost certainly be required for them to exist somewhere we haven’t been to before. The Cybeasts, named Gregar and Falzar, still demand suspension of disbelief that you, the son of one of the greatest scientists in the world, would never have heard of these monsters before. In light of all that Lan has accomplished, it begs you to not consider this while proceeding with the plot. Regardless, the concept of MegaMan absorbing one of these great beasts is almost just as unbelievable were they not to give some sort of reason for it to work. At a surface level, this feels like a contrivance but given the history of MegaMan’s origins, it comes off as believable enough to move on from it.

The new characters that are introduced in this new setting have the potential to be compelling friends and allies, were they given more time to form attachments like that of Lan’s ACDC Town friends. Unfortunately, the narrative rushes you from the setup scenario to the crisis scenario before urgently pushing you to the next area so you can repeat the same formula until you reach the bittersweet end. The spaces occupied by these scenarios become bland the moment you resolve the crisis. These areas exist solely for the sake of the plot as the added NPCs do little to contribute to the intended “lived-in” feeling. We see this type of setup in previous Battle Network games too but usually, there’s a little bit more to justify the setting beyond the facilities that are rooted in these spaces. Places like Yoka in 3 have the zoo and the hotel with the hot springs and 5’s SciLab has a pathway to the marina. Nothing like that exists within Battle Network 6 and the game is worse for it. None of these places feel connected to each other either as half of these places are in unconventional spaces like the sky or out in nature.

The themes present in these areas go beyond their appearance too. This is most apparent in the Green Area where Cyber City’s justice system resides. The themes present in Green Area go further than what I imagine the developers intended. The idea of using program-based judgment works when you consider how all of net society relies on technology and its integrations into a daily living but when you take a step back and consider the social ramifications behind computer-based judgment it becomes immediately off-putting. Who put in the parameters that define justice? Is the computer capable of understanding nuance and contextualization? What happens when the computer reaches the wrong verdict? Furthermore, is it ethical for a prosecutor to create such a system and still do their job under the pretense that they designed that system? These are all questions that I don’t believe were intended to be explored by this area, especially with how quickly the plot resolves and the game moves on. All of these factors don’t even acknowledge the fact that justice has been weirdly married to environmentalism. None of this translates to the net aside from the background and a few cyber-trees that block your path.

The net design is perhaps, the greatest it’s been since Battle Network 3. While visually it’s about what you have grown to expect throughout the series, the layout is highly intuitive and is easy to follow and remember how to navigate. Obstacles are less present in favor of offering you shortcuts to navigate through areas quickly. The rush biscuits open up the opportunity to spend your gratuitous amount of money accrued from battle and then create paths that allow you to find otherwise inaccessible items or spaces. This is a completely missable feature but it’s incredibly useful for those repeat journeys through the net. Obstacles can also be cleared by using one of the various Link Navis that you obtain throughout the game. The Link Navi system is the continuation of Battle Network 5’s system that allowed Lan to operate other characters’ Navis. In this game, Lan is permitted to explore the net with some returning characters along with some new faces. Getting to run around as Navis such as HeatMan and ElecMan was a pleasant way to change up the gameplay and challenge you to synergize with these Navis. This also allowed you to clear the barriers that were present throughout the net. This could be tedious at times due to the static starting point of each Navi but it overall lends itself to a pleasant experience. Of course, the best part of exploring the net is busting viruses and gathering battle chips.

Gathering battle chips has never been better. The chip selection, accessibility, and synergy are next level. From the beginning, it’s easy to narrow your folder down to a couple of chip codes. Regular memory is available in abundance and the new tag system makes it even easier for you to put together Program Advances or set up to use chips more efficiently, all of which adds up to an excellent combat system. The problem is that the battle chips are too strong. Immediately upon arrival, you can gather chips that do sixty or more damage. Your folder starts with very fast-acting chips that do a lot of damage as well. This is most present with new chips. A lot of the Navi boss chips do a ton of damage and have low regular memory requirements. Like BlastMan, his basic chips do a lot of damage and only require 30MB to select as your regular chip. This allows for combat to be heavily trivialized and undermines any need for other systems that are present in combat. Namely, the Double Soul system that was rebranded to the Cross system and the new Beast Mode that is introduced when MegaMan absorbs Cybeast Gregar.

The Cross system is a feature that’s introduced with the Link Navis. It allows MegaMan to adopt the physical properties of the Link Navis and boosts the power of their respective elements. The crosses you obtain throughout the game are very powerful in their own respect. Specifically, HeatCross and SlashCross are the first two you can obtain and are incredibly strong. If there were tougher viruses to face the Cross system would have been critical to helping you compete but as mentioned before, battle chips are so strong that you only feel the need to use this system during boss battles. Any other time the animations and process of using the ability would take longer than the battle itself. This system synergizes well with Beast Mode though. Beast Mode boosts the strength of elementless chips and also gives you the ability to jump into the effective damage range of a chip before using it. This aids in hitting enemies while you’re also taking evasive action but it could also leave you vulnerable for an attack. The strongest implementation is the combining of the two systems. Combining a Cross with Beast Mode changes how the affected chips work. Depending on which Cross you use, combined with Beast Mode greatly magnifies the effects and strength of your battle chips. Effects like turning your chips into a seven-tile burning attack or adding a stunning effect to your electric chips. This is well presented and fun to use but it further trivializes content. All of these factors rush you through the game until you reach the end.

After facing off with the titular Cybeast, Gregar, you have finally reached the end of not only Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar, but you’ve also reached the end of the Battle Network series as a whole. While the franchise has had many ups and downs, this particular title perhaps has the deepest valleys in terms of storytelling while having the highest peaks in terms of gameplay elements. The gameplay feels so good that if you’re not paying attention you could miss just how poorly the writing and execution of this game’s narrative is. Breaking an established character’s behavior in an attempt to misdirect and then justifying it with an incredibly vague backstory is more frustrating than anything that has been done, narratively speaking, in the entire series. This is compounded by the fact that they gave this backstory to two different characters. At least with one of those characters it works because that character wasn’t established as morally grounded as the other character was. Then to right the wrong the characters basically admit because an eleven-year-old said it was bad and they should feel bad, that they were bad and feel bad for their part in the main villain’s plot.

Afterward, we’re given a few scenes that depict Lan and all of his friends talking about what they want to do when they grow up and the game ties it off with a proverbial bow that reads “and so they did.” It’s about as fulfilling as the narrative that we just experienced and it reminds you of how haphazardly this story has been put together. Between the linear area introductions and the immediate crisis that resolves just as swiftly, you’re left with a sentiment akin to “That’s it?” when the sentiment should be one of amazement. The Battle Network series as a whole has been a worthwhile experience, yet with this conclusion I’m left dissatisfied and desiring a follow-up containing a stronger ending. For as much fun as Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar was to play, as a final installment to an otherwise fantastic series I am left sorely disappointed.

Achieving the zenith in a series is often a lofty goal and realizing the true potential of anything can be a challenge. It’s great when you can reach a culminating point in a project while also achieving greater heights. When considering a series like Pikmin, it’s easy to dive into the philosophies and central themes but recognizing the merits of their innovative systems and the way they compel you to participate in them is a higher point for each entry. With each game building off the last, Pikmin 4 is the zenith of the series. While it’s not without fault, Pikmin 4 is the ultimate culmination of every concept achieved throughout the series thus far. With a strong compelling narrative, and fluid, cohesive gameplay, matched with stunning visuals, Pikmin 4 offers the most comprehensive and engaging experience of the series.

The introductory sequence is shaky with many cutscenes and tutorials that disrupt the flow of gameplay. Once you make it through the first couple of days of exploration you are given the freedom to approach the available areas in whichever fashion you deem appropriate. With all previous Pikmin types returning, the game brings about big changes to the formula for expanding your capabilities. The first thing they do is introduce you to the biggest new feature, space dogs! Instead of having extra leaders to do tasks with, you have a trusty companion who works independently and cooperatively with your self-made main character. Oatchi has a lot of unique capabilities like being able to take treasure back to the ship and return to you without having to take control of him first. You can also ride on his back with your Pikmin and carry them for more accurate navigation around hazards or enemies. This allows for different obstacles and pushes you to form a cohesive plan on what you want to accomplish before nightfall.

Nightfall brings a brand new type of mission where you go out and take on creatures that stir up at night. You are introduced to a new Pikmin type, Glow Pikmin, that are immune to hazards and have a neat ability to immediately return to the player. These Pikmin can only be found during these night missions where your goal is to protect a plant-like structure called a Lumiknoll. The missions in the first few areas are pretty straightforward, you collect crystals and kill enemies as they make their way to the Lumiknoll. As things go on, you eventually are tasked with protecting two Lumiknolls at a time during certain missions which challenges your ability to change focus between two defense points. Your reward for surviving until daybreak is this sap that’s excreted by the Lumiknolls so long as they survive the night. With this sap, you’re able to generate medicine for characters that have been infected with a condition that has been plaguing people who crash-landed on PNF-404.

Leaflings are people who have been infected with a condition that covers their body with leaves and makes them obsessed with Pikmin 4’s (along with the entire series) most present and consistent theme. Dandori is the art of organizing tasks strategically and working effectively to execute a plan. While this idea and concept has been present in every game prior, Pikmin 4 is the first to use the term explicitly. The main idea is to make the most of your time and resources. Your character is part of a rescue organization that was sent after receiving Captain Olimar’s SOS signal at the beginning of the game. Upon arrival, you learn that many people have crash-landed on PNF-404 and they all need rescuing. Leaflings are mixed in with several of these characters and the only way to cure them is with the Lumiknoll sap. So during the day you are finding and rescuing castaways, and at night you are finding the materials to cure the castaways that have been turned into Leaflings. Most of these leaflings demand that you demonstrate your Dandori abilities before they can be brought in for treatment.

These challenges consist of a variety of objectives that include retrieving as many treasures as you can or defeating as many enemies as you can within the time limit. Each area has a few of these challenges along with one Dandori Battle challenge. The Dandori Battle challenges are how the game incorporates multiplayer battle into the core gameplay where you’re tasked with collecting more treasure than your opponent. It’s a nice way for players to learn how Battle mode works without the stress of having to compete against real people. In the main story, your opponent is a leafling that looks strangely familiar. He consistently has a castaway hostage and always turns them into a leafling. The battles themselves are fairly easy as the opponent seldom tries to interfere with your gathering so most often you can bully him by just stealing whatever his Pikmin are carrying by outnumbering them with your own. Later in the game, they introduce new battle mechanics like a bomb that can make the opponent lose some of their points in the form of stealable treasures, a golden pear that’s worth a large chunk of points, and a bonus multiplier that changes throughout the battle that indicates collectibles worth double points. All of these challenges are designed around the central philosophy of Dandori. So much so that once you’ve beaten the game you unlock a series of exceedingly difficult challenges.

Immediately after beating the main story, the post-game grants access to Olimar’s Shipwreck Tale. This is a condensed callback to the first Pikmin game where you are tasked with collecting the thirty missing ship parts before Olimar’s oxygen depletes. In the original Pikmin, you had thirty days to complete this task. This time around you only have fifteen days. While this remains ample time, it leaves less margin for careless use of your time like the main narrative affords you. Once you complete this segment you are granted access to the Sage Leaf Trials. This gauntlet consisting of ten of the most difficult challenges present in the series truly puts your mastery of Dandori to the test. Most of these challenges took me several tries and gave me the impression that they are meant to be completed once you’ve finished the post-game narrative. These challenges operate on the assumption that you have obtained all of the upgrades for Oatchi and yourself and it necessitates the implementation of all that you’ve learned. The rewards you get for completing these challenges are appropriate for the difficulty presented. Still, by then you’re playing more for the satisfaction of beating the challenges than what the game has to offer. The way these challenges are positioned in the game and how they are presented, make for a great capstone of what it means to play Pikmin and make for solid endgame content as a whole.

In the endgame, your team returns to PNF-404 because Oatchi seems to be afflicted by the same disease as the castaways. This brings you to explore two more areas in the game before you’ve truly beaten it. These areas were well presented much like the main areas but they were not as impressive. Serene Shores and Hero’s Hideaway were both beautifully designed areas in ways that we had never experienced before. The theming and execution of these areas feel inspired and remind you of the capabilities of the series. Paired with the caves that return from Pikmin 2, you’re given a wide berth of spaces to explore. Caves make a great return to the series. They’re not procedurally generated like they were before and they’re generally shorter. Each floor is less complex but feels more focused on what challenges are presented and of course, comes with a large cast of enemies and bosses. The enemies feel the least threatening in this game as you have so many different answers to them. The more complicated enemies are less threatening to your Pikmin and the bosses can be rushed down so fast that you’re not likely to lose any Pikmin to them either. The only way the game made any of these challenges hard was to deprive you of the space to fight the boss. Yet, at that point, you’re better off using the copious amounts of items you have access to so that you don’t even have to bother. While this doesn’t necessarily take away from the enjoyment of the game, it does reduce tension as you work your way down to the final boss.

The Ancient Sirehound lurks at the bottom of the game’s final cave. We need a cell sample so that we can create a cure for Oatchi but Louie is down there causing mayhem. The cave itself is longer than any other dungeon in the game and rehashes a lot of older bosses from previous Pikmin titles. At the end, you face off with the Ancient Sirehound. This boss was visually and thematically well put together. Mechanically it leaves much to be desired as the powers presented don’t make sense to the creature, nor do they serve as real obstacles. The boss has more health than any other boss we’ve encountered but falls short in the repetitive nature of fighting it. This is emblematic of combat as a whole being significantly less challenging than before. There’s little satisfaction to be had from defeating this beast since it doesn’t challenge your ability to employ your forces like the Plasm Wraith or the Titan Dweevil do and you never find out why Louie is operating against you and Olimar. Despite the absence of challenge, I wouldn’t say anything in this game lacks enjoyment nor do these final moments feel inconclusive to the game.

Recognizing what makes each game good while acknowledging its faults, Pikmin 4 easily boasts the most content and accessibility of the series thus far. It’s the zenith of this type of success that begs for innovation in the form of departure. While that’s certainly not the only direction the series could go, I’d be impressed if something like this could be accomplished again. Pikmin remains one of the most endearing and visually appealing franchises in Nintendo’s roster of independent properties. While Pikmin 4 boasts a great array of features and content, it doesn’t necessarily capture the spirit of the series the same way that its first two entries do. Pikmin 4 is unequivocally the best Pikmin game due to its ability to provide all that previous entries have brought before it, yet still leaves enough to be desired for more in the future.

The art of deduction is the process of drawing logical conclusions based on available evidence and reasoning. Being able to examine the evidence and come to an accurate conclusion is the lifeblood of detective work. If the answers were to present themselves without having to do the work of gathering evidence and formulating inferences based on logical reasoning then there would be no need for detectives at all. While Detective Pikachu Returns demonstrates these principles, the player is scarcely expected to conduct any form of deductive reasoning. As a matter of fact, the player is barely allowed to conduct their own investigation. What Detective Pikachu Returns does offer, is a concise and moderately paced story. In the wake of the successful film adaptation, Detective Pikachu Returns is the next logical step for this Pokémon spinoff series.

The first thing that stands out when playing is the tutorial investigation. This was done well as it shows you, functionally, how the game flows between gathering evidence, speaking to witnesses, and making deductions. The investigation is short, and it effectively introduces the main characters and tells you about them. The next investigation then expands on these principles by giving you multiple factors to figure out. Each investigation has a unique setting that fits within the expectations of detective work. Investigations include a stolen jewel from a mansion, finding your way to an archeologist lost within ancient ruins, and gathering evidence in the city to prove the innocence of several Pokémon that were detained for crimes they did not commit. All of these investigations tie together for the overall story in which, our main characters (Tim Goodman and Pikachu) are trying to find Tim’s father who hasn’t been revealed as the very Pikachu that Tim is doing detective work with. Each investigation adds a new piece to the puzzle until you uncover the heinous plot being perpetrated by the mysterious organization called Unitas.

While each investigation is interesting in its own respect, the game never allows you to do the investigating on your own. At every turn, Pikachu, Tim, or another character tells you what to do. When investigating a crime scene the game tells you when you are looking at an object of interest, and informs you that you’ve gathered all that you can from the scene once you’ve interacted with every piece of evidence. Then once you’ve gathered all of the evidence, Pikachu or Tim will say “Alright! It’s time to start deducing” as a way to inform you to bring up your notebook and draw your conclusion. This is presented to you as a multiple-choice question such as “How did the professor open the door?” There are no consequences if you select the wrong answer as Tim or Pikachu will say something along the lines of “Hey that can’t be right because of this” or “Are you sure that’s the answer? Consider this” and then put an “X” on the answer you chose and let you try again. The overall experience makes you feel like you’re engaging in a visual novel with reading comprehension quizzes, rather than a detective game. If the presentation did a better job of conveying that then this would be less of an issue.

The presentation of Ryme City, and its surrounding environments, was effective in conveying the idea that people and Pokémon coexist more equally to each other than the traditional relationship of Pokémon and their trainers. The streets are bustling with activity as many different shops are run by people and their partner Pokémon. Being able to interact with the various people and Pokémon allows you to feel the sense of community that is present. Pikachu has a rapport with the owner of his favorite coffee shop, the quiz professor is present around every corner, ready with her partner, Toucannon, to test your knowledge of the Pokémon in the area, and the rival detective who always seems to be one step ahead of you with his Manetric. All of these factors lend themselves to a cohesive world and make interacting with it enjoyable. Some of the dialogue is corny but it’s endearing in its own way. The sum of it all makes you want to participate in the world and get to know the citizens of Ryme City.

Due to how the game plays out it’s a blessing how short it is. The game takes about 10-20 hours to complete depending on how much time you spend looking around and interacting with the other characters. There are a series of sidequests throughout each investigation but those are for the player's self-satisfaction as there is nothing to gain from helping anybody out. You do it more because it makes sense for Tim and Pikachu to want to help out more than to ignore everyone to focus on the main investigation. Were the game to allow you to take charge in your detective work then I would have enjoyed the game much more. That being said, the different settings present were still fun to explore and the story was interesting enough to encourage me to keep going and if the experience were a little more involved I would have wanted more from it. With these good qualities present, the experience of Detective Pikachu Returns overall remains bland and dissatisfying.

Only special types of games create a lasting impression on our youth. With a vast array of games to look back on, it’s easy to recall which ones were special. What’s even greater is revisiting these classics and finding that your affections weren’t misplaced. Many of those games earned that space in your memory and deserve to remain there. The inverse of this is also true. Some games that have garnered much praise have aged poorly. One of them being inFAMOUS. I remember charging through this game fondly. I beat it at least twice and made sure to find every collectible the game had to offer. Coming back to it 13 years later to discover monotonous settings, themes, and gameplay does not evoke the sense of nostalgia that I was expecting.

Initially, navigating Empire City was fun and interesting. You’re getting used to how Cole interacts with the world as the game drip-feeds you more lightning-based powers. The problem is that what you see in the beginning is what you get for the entire duration of the game. The dark and gloomy weather combined with rundown streets are designed to convey the oppressive atmosphere but it’s so ugly that it feels suffocating as a player to engage with. The enemy encounters never get more interesting because the design philosophy is just “more enemies” or “a handful of enemies and a bigger enemy.” The powers you gain along the way are supposed to facilitate change in the challenges presented but the daunting nature of constantly being shot by absurdly accurate enemies actively discourages you from wanting to participate in it. This combined with a half-baked narrative makes for an overall unpleasant experience.

You meet your core cast of friends and mysterious allies almost immediately but the game does not introduce you to the antagonist until much later in the story. You’re constantly facing the oppressive forces of the Reapers, Duskmen, and the First Sons but none of them are more than roadblocks as you push your way through them to get to the next objective. By the time you do meet the story’s villain, you’re ready to bolt your way to the finish line but by then you’ve been inundated with plagues of enemies constantly discharging fire upon you. This can be thinned out by doing the side quests offered in the game, but those quests are just as repetitive and unrefined as the primary gameplay. Bogged down by fetch quests, poorly designed stealth following quests, and elimination quests, you’re only hope of completing the game is to ignore it all and focus strictly on story missions. This resolves in one of two ways depending on a heavily imbalanced karma system that demands the player to commit to choices that are completely devoid of nuance.

Like many other games that came out during its time, inFAMOUS offers choices that are said to impact the storyline. These choices start off small where you have to decide whether you are going to share resources with the starving and desperate populace, or you can scare them away and horde them all to yourself. This choice serves nothing more than to generate karmic points towards either good or evil. The game informs you of which choice leans which way prior to you committing to it and provides nothing else for you. This is the case for basically every choice beyond that. They also usually boil down to scenarios where you either harm yourself or harm others. Towards the end of the game, the main antagonist gives you a choice to either save Cole’s love interest or a bunch of doctors. This is possibly the most frustrating choice in the game. It’s not a bad point of decision for what kind of character you want Cole to be, but because the love interest dies no matter what, the decision is immediately undermined. If you choose to save Trish, it’s revealed that the villain lied to you to prove a point and if you choose to save the doctors then you get a brief scene where Cole mourns his loss. Either way, it only skews your karma in one direction or the other. The game’s final decision is the only one that truly matters.

The game starts with you working as a courier delivering an object in your bag. Then there’s an explosion and you’re left in the epicenter with the power to control electricity. You later learn the object was an item called the Ray Sphere and it’s the source of your powers. In the game’s final chapters, you are given the choice to either destroy it or activate it again to enhance your powers further. This is the only decision that has a major influence on actual gameplay and the story’s ending. If you destroy it you gain a few points of good karma but if you activate it again you are locked into the evil ending and are realigned to full evil regardless of your karmic alignment prior to making that decision. You also gain some experience points and a power buff. From a narrative standpoint, it makes sense. Why would a hero committed to saving and helping people be willing to kill thousands of people to gain more power? The problem is the imbalance between the two decisions. Throughout the narrative, you’re encouraged to be a hero and do the right thing, the game practically shoves you in that direction by virtue of giving you good karma for simply not draining people of their energy to replenish your own. But were you to make it to the three evil ranks and choose to destroy the ray sphere you still remain evil. You have no true incentive to commit to one or the other when you can choose to go one way at the very end. After this decision, you are faced with the game’s conclusion.

Whether you are good or evil, you have to face Kessler (the main antagonist) at the end of the game. He’s been taunting you for all of the third act and now it’s finally time to end it. This battle takes place neatly where it all began and the setting is nicely designed to allow you to make full use of all of your abilities. These abilities have been the bread and butter of the entire game. Having shock grenades and rockets is a great way to make combat fun and engaging. This battle is one of the few instances where combat is actually enjoyable and engaging despite all of the powers you gain throughout the narrative. The boss has different moves that challenge your ability to maneuver and attack. Once you beat him, you are shown the big reveal that Kessler is actually you from the future where you were faced with an adversary that you chose to run away from. Shoehorning time travel into this already, weak story was the final nail in the coffin. This also depicts Cole taking actions that you, as the player, have no influence over which strips you of agency over whether Cole is truly good or evil. I wouldn’t call this a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. But the game’s active hostility towards the player whether it be from oppressive environments, overwhelming amounts of enemies easily overtaking you, or a weak story filled with meaningless decisions, I can easily call this a mediocre game that doesn't live up to the fond memories I had for it as a young adult.

Nobody likes moving. Anybody who claims to like moving is a liar. The laborious act of boxing up your belongings, transporting them to a new place, and unboxing them again so you can sort and sort again later is not what anybody should describe as fun. So why is it that when Humble Games publishes “Unpacking,” I found an immense amount of pleasure in opening up boxes and placing things in various places? Is it because I’m not doing it for real, or is it because helping somebody else unpack is more inviting? Regardless of the answer, Unpacking is perhaps the most unique casual experience I’ve ever had.

There’s no narration and you immediately start decorating a bedroom. Once you are done a picture is taken and the main character writes a note about it. Then you fast forward a few years and do the same thing but this time you are decorating a dorm room. Each level you complete takes place over the lifespan of the main character. You go from living at home to university to living in your own space, moving in with a boyfriend, moving back home, moving into your own space again, moving your girlfriend in, to finally moving into your forever home with your newborn baby. The span of our unnamed character’s story is brought to life with these small snapshots. As time goes by some belongings that were brought from previous living spaces are left behind.

Each time your character moves you have a little bit more to unpack. The game naturally increases the challenge by giving you more rooms to decorate. Sometimes while you are going through the boxes you’ll find items that don’t belong in that room. It’s up to you to figure out where they should go. Something nice about Unpacking is how the game allows you a certain amount of creative liberty. There are incorrect decoration placements but there is usually more than one correct answer as well. Having flexibility on where things go allows the player to have a more personal experience with the game. It makes for a much more immersive experience and is ultimately more engaging because you are given that freedom.

After eight levels, I can say that Unpacking was a solid experience conducive to winding down for the night. Finding the perfect spot for every little thing was engaging and trying to make out small details (like one of the movies is clearly “Jaws”) was fun. Learning what the characters were like and seeing them grow in their interests was more intriguing than some games with proper narratives. I took personal enjoyment in seeing the game consoles upgrade over time. Going from the GameBoy and a GameCube to a 3DS and a Wii console was fun for me. Getting an outside perspective on a young woman’s life and watching her grow up and mature felt cathartic. I still can’t figure out why playing this game was as enjoyable as it was, but I can say that unpacking has never been more fun than when it wasn’t real.

Only a handful of games have the legacy and tenure that Final Fantasy has. Being the property that serves as the foundation of Square Enix it’s no wonder that 36 years later the series realizes its sixteenth main entry into the series. With a wide berth of spinoffs spanning several platforms and genres, it’s easy to see why Final Fantasy is so widely popular. Final Fantasy XVI is the culmination of ideas that span the last decade of concept and design. The result is an average action RPG with some above-average sequences.

As a fan and active player of the hit MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, I was excited to see what the beloved producer, Naoki Yoshida, could do when given a single-player project to work on. Yoshida stated in interviews that his vision for a new Final Fantasy would be a darker fantasy that leans more into the fantasy aspect of the series. Final Fantasy XVI is certainly Yoshi-P delivering on that statement. While I have yet to play every Final Fantasy title, I can confidently say that this is one of the darkest storylines I’ve played in the series. The storyline begins in tragedy and is steeped in despair. For every moment that gives you hope, there is another to temper your expectations until the bitter end.

The story first grips you with Clive and Joshua’s brotherly bond. Sworn to protect your brother you do all in your power to shield him from harm. No time is wasted throwing you into the first of many large-scale spectacle battles between you and other god-like beings called Eikons. The battle between Ifrit and Phoenix is intense. Everything around you is marred in flame as you eventually watch the Phoenix’s fires extinguish. Bearing witness to the death of his brother both you and Clive are left stricken with anger and sorrow. Throughout the story from there, you meet several characters as you join a band of rebels that is headed by the charismatic leader named Cid. What they seek is a world that allows all of man to live on their terms. Free will and agency are some of the most dominating themes in this story. Fighting to tear down a hierarchy built on the foundation of a classist society, I was continually satisfied with the themes and how they were presented. Clive and Cid’s vision for the world swiftly became my vision and I felt committed to seeing the mission through to the very end.

The visuals in this game were impressive. So impressive that I had to switch my PS5 into performance mode to avoid frame drops. For being a dedicated release on a single platform, it seems silly to me that you would have to worry about performance. I appreciate that there is a way to smooth it out by reducing graphical fidelity but it would be better if the game performed properly without having to make that change in the first place. Frame drops mostly occurred during high-profile cinematics with a lot of effects but I noticed it still happened in a couple of scenes even with performance mode on. The world of Valisthea is gorgeous. From barren deserts to lush fields there is much to behold. The world is vast and well-designed. Creatures that you encounter feel like they belong there. The settings where the boss battles take place are just as detailed. There’s a battle that takes place in outer space that is immaculate. Another battle is outside a castle overlooking the ocean where you can see the ocean spray as the waves crash against the cliffside. Visually there was never a dull moment.

Combat in this game takes place in real-time. We’ve come a long way from turn-based combat and Active Time Battle systems. Having a free-flowing combat system felt good. Transitioning in and out of battle was smooth and using your abilities made sense within the confines of the game. Aside from boss fights and when you gained new abilities, the combat quickly became boring. The experience points gained from battles were marginal and the materials gained were often unimportant or unnecessary. At first, I would fight all that I encountered. By the time I got halfway through the game, I was running past packs of enemies because they didn’t matter. Battles where I had to fight were filled with repetition and button-mashing. There were interesting battle mechanics like being able to weave magical attacks in between sword hits but the damage contribution didn’t feel worth the added effort of timing out the button presses. I think the problem is there are a handful of enemy types and very little differentiation between them. Some of the notorious marks offered a new and unique fight but a lot of them were just hard-hitting versions of enemies we had already fought.

Combat flow boils down to burning through your Eikon abilities, dodging, and mashing your sword button until whatever you’re fighting falls. There’s a bit of strategy with the larger enemies that have stagger meters but that just means waiting to use some of your larger attacks to maximize their effectiveness. It doesn’t help that there is no increased difficulty. You get either story focus or combat focus and the difference is how much input you have to make as a player and how much damage you give and receive. After you beat the game you are given a harder difficulty mode but after sixty hours of mostly middling combat, it’s hard to believe that a harder difficulty is going to make a noticeable difference. There were encounters where an optional boss was ten or more levels above my current level and the only difference it made was that it took longer to defeat it.

The exceptions to the mundane combat are the major boss battles. What makes these battles different isn’t so much the combat mechanics themselves, but the visuals that are presented while you are playing. It’s easy to get swept up in the spectacle of these fights and forget that you are doing the same thing that you’ve been doing in between these fights. It helps that you are drip-fed combat abilities in your Ifrit form so each fight feels fresh and exciting. Each battle was exhilarating and made me forget about the mundanity of the regular gameplay. The peak of this excitement is around the halfway point in the game where you fight side by side with your brother in his Phoenix form against Bahamut. The visuals in that fight are stunning and the events that occur throughout the battle felt inspiring. The battle design and flow give you a new and exciting experience despite the core mechanics being unchanged. These fights alone gave me a high that almost obscured my view of the glaring flaws in the rest of the gameplay.

Only one of these fights left me feeling disappointed. It was the last fight before going into the endgame. For as much as the battle against Odin was anticipated, it failed to deliver. The story does a fantastic job building up this adversary until it reaches its boiling point and you are made to do battle. The entirety of the battle is done with Clive remaining in his regular form and employing the same boring combat that you experience throughout the game. The only difference is that you are focused on a single target and he has a big health bar. All of the exciting parts of the fight are done in cutscenes that are used to transition between battle phases. By the end of the fight, you are left wanting more because you weren’t given the same experience as you were from the previous six boss battles that successfully delivered an exciting and fun experience. The reward for completing this boss battle was amazing but I didn’t feel the satisfaction as if I had earned such a powerful boost in my abilities.

Customizing and increasing Clive’s gear and abilities was something that felt exciting at first but with the disappointment that was combat, it became a matter of picking your favorite abilities and equipping the strongest sword and armor that you had. Accessories were interesting as you could either equip accessories that assisted you in combat mechanics or you could equip accessories that benefitted your abilities. It was well developed and implemented but could have served a more interesting combat system.

Abilities were fun and exciting for me and easily the most interesting part of combat. Starting with simple abilities that were granted by the Phoenix quickly turned into fantastical displays of tornados sweeping up your enemies, explosive strikes of lightning, and a brutal onslaught of stone. I never tired of using Bahamut’s Gigaflare or Odin’s Zantetsuken. The latter was a blessing to receive towards the end of the game because it greatly assisted in expediting the regular bouts of combat. Being able to quickly destroy the masses of enemies that were thrown at me greatly encouraged me to run headlong into the final missions and see the story to its completion. These abilities stand as the main aspect of combat that held my attention because even though each fight played out the same, at least it could be visually appealing.

Every good action-based adventure has a good amount of side content to do. This is a great way to pace yourself through the story and enjoy the new abilities you’ve unlocked before you unlock more. Side quests were well-paced as you would unlock a handful of them between each story mission. These quests were used to help facilitate a sense that this is a world that is lived in. Most of these quests were able to give you a greater sense of weight in the decisions made during the main plot. It helped you connect with the characters of lesser importance. The actual gameplay of these side stories was a lot of traveling between characters, fighting an enemy of some sort, and then reporting back to the quest giver. Those quests were generally fine. The fetch quests were the ones that felt like fluff and filler even when you did get added characterization or lore. The lack of substance in these quests reminded me of a lot of the side quests offered in FFXIV. It works for an MMORPG because there is an inherent sense of grinding in that type of game. For a single-player title though, this failed to deliver for me. Oftentimes the story and lore that you gained from the quests were more important than the actual tasks which was okay in certain instances. I did find that some of these quests had way too much dialogue as it felt like they were trying to fit a larger story into what should have been a smaller bit of side content. This was most apparent with some of the bigger side characters as you would assist them with whatever personal problems they were facing. You were often given a long story of what the situation is and what needs to happen along with the background behind it all. I think appreciation for this content relies more on your investment into the character that you are doing the quest for. I paid more attention to my favorite characters and found myself skipping through dialogue for characters that didn’t capture my interest or if I felt like the exposition of the quest was taking too long.

Generally, through the story, there weren’t too many side quests to make you feel over-encumbered with content until you got to the endgame. As soon as you wrap up the last story mission before you reach the point of no return you are given twelve sidequests. Some of these quests are chained into other quests. So you were actually given around twenty side quests to do at the end of the game. These side quests were used to give conclusions to many storylines that were started earlier in the game and to give you access to the game’s strongest equipment. I know that nothing is forcing you to do this content if you feel ready to finish the story. That being said, I'm the type of gamer who generally likes to feel like I’ve completed all that there is to accomplish before finishing a story. Having so much content dropped right before the finish line was daunting. Except for a couple of the side quests it felt tedious to complete. It also took me out of the moment in the story. I wish the content had been made available sooner so that I could have remained focused on the conclusion.

Just before going into the endgame, you and your brother are whisked away by the primary antagonist (Ultima) to make you aware of his plans and motivations. While the revelations that are made are interesting and fitting to the lore of the world, the forced exposition makes this information feel unnatural. You’re completely removed from a moment where the stakes are high so that Ultima can give you a lecture on the history of the world and his people. You’re left wondering why Ultima is even wasting his time explaining this to you and doesn’t try to kill you right then and there. Ultima has been known since the first act so it’s frustrating that you couldn’t have been made aware of these details more naturally. By the end of the segment, you are left with a good sense of his motives. I feel that the writing team could have figured out a better way to relay this information to you.

Once you set out to complete the final mission, you are immediately sent into a sequence of battles against Ultima. This sequence gives you a healthy balance of everything that we have experienced throughout the game. You have battles that exercise all that you have learned. The battle wasn’t incredibly difficult but it was appropriately themed, balanced, and enjoyable. There’s a healthy blend of cutscenes, battles in regular form, and as Ifrit. Some new attack patterns call back to spells and abilities from older Final Fantasy titles that were fun and interesting to have thrown at me. The attacks themselves did a good job representing these callbacks as well. By the end of the battle, I felt a sense that I had applied everything that I had learned. Although the difficulty of the battle didn’t satisfy the part of me that appreciates a challenge, I was left satisfied with the narrative aspect of the battle.

I have mixed feelings regarding the conclusion of the story. On one hand, the ambiguous nature of the ending is fun, and watching the kids reenact their favorite moments from our story is cute and endearing. The part that didn’t sit well with me was the implications that were made as our hero’s journey ended. It’s incredibly emotional and the result could have worked either way. How they ended it didn’t make sense to me. I appreciate the poetic nature of it all but the suddenness of Clive healing his brother and then dying felt forced. Not every gritty adventure needs a tragic ending. Clive returning to The Hideaway as a hero could have been just as emotionally charged and I think would have worked better for the narrative. The game lays it on thick that Clive is going to die, especially in the narrative moments just before confronting Ultima.

After participating in everything that Final Fantasy XVI has to offer, I am left feeling mostly satisfied. The game never addresses what characters are going to do now that Ultima is no more. There's also the blight that is still spreading and is the catalyst for everything that happens in the game. That is the one thing that I wish the game had addressed but I also suppose the ending of the story implies that it's no longer an issue. Despite its shortcomings, I had an overall positive experience. Given the opportunity, I'm sure that Naoki Yoshida and his team could take their experiences with this game and improve with another title. With the resume that Creative Business Unit 3 has, I believe that they deserve it. That being said, with the qualities that have defined Final Fantasy over the years, I look forward to the many more entries to come.

Banjo-Kazooie, which was released during the Summer of 1998, takes a unique approach to the 3D platformer genre. 3D platforming had already been established by now with games like Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot but those games took a more episodic approach to level design and exploration. While all three games have the same basic collect-a-thon idea, none do so as seamlessly as Banjo-Kazooie. As we follow our lovable anthropomorphic duo through various levels of unique design and charm, we get to enjoy what will later become a much beloved and fondly remembered game developed by Rare Ltd and published by Nintendo.

The premise of Banjo-Kazooie is fairly simple. The wicked witch, Gruntilda, is jealous of Tooty’s beauty which was proclaimed by her magic cauldron. So Gruntilda kidnaps Tooty and it falls to our titular heroes to save her. Banjo the bear and brother of Tooty, and Kazooie the bird that resides within Banjo’s backpack set off to stop Gruntilda from stealing Tooty’s beauty and to bring her home. The plot hook has a short and silly presentation and is effective. This game has a through-line of silly undertones that are present in each area of the game. There’s lots of fourth wall breaking and an overall sense that the game does not take itself seriously.

The characterization in Banjo-Kazooie is both fun and unique. The gibberish that accompanies each character’s message does a good job conveying the character’s personality and does well as a companion to the dialogue. Banjo is characterized as a goofy bumbling bear that likes to sleep in. Kazooie is a sarcastic bird that isn’t afraid to bust the chops of anybody. Whether it be a mole that wears glasses or an aggressive and large hermit crab, Kazooie has a backhanded nickname at the ready. The game starts with a charming exchange of trash talk between Kazooie and the mole named Bottles. They go back and forth throughout the adventure as Bottles is the character that teaches you your abilities that you can unlock as you explore each world. This created a fun experience for me as I was more interested in the character interaction and the dialogue and less concerned about the gameplay itself. No single character is alike and all are favorable in their own respect. Even Gruntilda is lovable in her own despicable way as she taunts you in between levels in her lair. Just the fact that Gruntilda speaks strictly in rhyme makes her a joy whenever her wart ridden face appears on screen.

The controls for this game are simple, yet effective. Most of your interactions are going to be met with the A button or the B button. There is some camera manipulation and it’s a bit rigid and uncooperative but thankfully the game is usually pretty open and accommodating to where you can effectively control the character. This is one of the few games where I do believe that using an Nintendo 64 controller would have benefitted. Using the right analog stick as the replacement for the C buttons works well enough given where controller technology is. Though, I would have struggled less with certain aspects of the game had I not been accidentally turning the camera while trying to rapid-fire eggs. I can’t harp on this subject too much, however, because when the game was developed and published it was for a controller that wouldn’t have exhibited an issue like that. I liked how the game slowly drip fed you abilities throughout your adventure and gave you the proper space to learn and practice the techniques. With the exception of one area the developers did a good job allowing you access to all of the collectables in a level without having to backtrack once new abilities were learned.

There are nine levels offered in Banjo-Kazooie. Each level has a unique and interesting design and soundtrack based on some sort of theme. There is a pirate themed island, a swamp, an arid desert, a frozen peak, and more. Each level has 100 collectable music notes, 1 jigsaw puzzle pieces called “jiggies,” two honeycomb pieces (which are used to expand your health) and a hidden witch switch to make a jiggy appear in Gruntilda’s Lair which serves as the hub world for all of the levels. Out of the nine levels, the first seven of them took me anywhere from 45 minutes to 75 minutes to complete. These levels were the core experience that made me enjoy the game. My favorite of these levels is Mad Monster Mansion. The centerpiece is a haunted house but the level has all of your spooky staples. There’s a hedge maze, a chapel, a court with a fountain, and a nice variety of enemies ranging from ghosts, to headstones, to bats. You get to enjoy a fun little minigame where a ghost hand is playing the organ and you have to follow along and repeat each key that it plays. Each level is full of fun minigames that play with the physics of the game and make use of your character’s abilities. Each level usually has a boss encounter that also challenges you in some way shape or form.

Levels eight and nine were the most frustrating for me. I loved the concept ideas of the levels but the execution of segments led to a sour experience. Level eight is named Rusty Bucket Bay. When I first entered this world and started looking around I was having a great time. I liked the idea of the oil polluted water making you lose air even if you were at the surface and consumed air twice as fast when you were under the surface. I thoroughly enjoyed the shipyard theme. It was shaping up to be my favorite level until I went inside the ship. While I eventually learned how to make my way through this part of the level. I found it to be excessively punishing. Basically there’s no floor. You have platforms connected by a series of rotating pipes that have platforms that also rotate. In the back of the room you have a platform with fan blades that are guarding a jiggy. Something I should mention is that collecting music notes in this game goes on a scoring system. So whenever you leave a level or die, the game notices how many notes you’ve collected and does a leaderboard style. In order to walk out of a level with 100 notes, you have to collect all 100 notes in a single life without leaving the level. So imagine my frustration when I go inside the ship with 73 notes collected and die from a single badly timed jump and have to start over. Mastering this area took me an extra 30 minutes beyond the hour I had already spent here. It then took me another 45 minutes to clear that room and then collect everything else in the level. As I mentioned earlier, each level had taken me around an hour to complete. Having a single level double that time was less than enjoyable, especially with how needlessly difficult that area was. It’s not like the ship didn’t have a bottom to it.

Level nine is called Click Clock Wood. This is a level dedicated to the four seasons. It had a lot of charm to it, the jiggies were interesting to find, and the quests related to the characters were fun. Something I enjoyed was how certain actions spanned across the seasons. If you break a boulder for Gnawty in the Summer, you’ll be able to collect a jiggy as a reward in the Fall. There’s also an Eagle that you hatch and raise to maturity. This level took me three hours to complete. Part of that is because I died at 93 notes and that’s completely my fault. But the biggest time suck in this level is climbing the tree that takes up the majority of the level. I can’t tell you how many times I either fell out of the branches, or was struck by an enemy and knocked back to the bottom. While I recognize that those are skill related issues, it doesn’t change the fact that I probably spent the majority of my time climbing the tree over and over again. By the time I reached the end of the level I was ready to move on. Dying when I was 7 notes away from completing the level was the worst feeling.

Once you’ve collected enough music notes to progress, you gain access to the last challenge before getting to do battle with Gruntilda. It’s a trivia game titled Grunty’s Furnace Fun. It’s a stretch of tiles above a lava pit. Each tile requires you to answer a piece of trivia about the game. Seems easy enough, we’ve just spent the last 12 or so hours playing through the game. Hopefully we remember some simple trivia. The board consists of several different tile types so that you have a variety of questions or timed challenges to complete. One of these tiles is a sudden death tile. This tile can be any question or timed challenge or more difficult version of a minigame that you’ve already experienced. If you get the question wrong or fail the challenge then you are automatically ejected from the board and you have to start the entire board over. There are tiles that, should you get the question right, will grant you skip tokens. I opted to use those to skip the sudden death tiles to play it safe. My biggest hangup with this was the trivia questions specifically about Gruntilda. Throughout the game you can spot Gruntilda’s sister, Brentilda, and she will tell you facts about her wicked sister. I wasn’t interested in learning a bunch of random details about Gruntilda so I neglected to seek her out. I thought it was just a bit of added flavor to the game. I can appreciate that. When I reached this part of the game I was ready to finish the game and be done with it. So the last thing I wanted to do was backtrack and write down all of this silly trivia about the character. I wish I had. I probably spent more time trying to guess my way through the trivia questions than it would have taken to just do the backtracking. You can’t look the answers up online either because while the three answers available are always the same, the correct answer is randomized to your save file so that no save file is alike. I do appreciate that the game made these bits of trivia relevant and overall I like the concept of Grunty’s Furnace Fun. I wish the segment was a bit shorter and I also wish that one path across the board wasn’t clearly more favorable than the other. I believe that there should not have been so many questions related to Gruntilda because even if you wrote all of the answers down, you only get ten seconds to answer the question. It’s not like you can scan through 20 different bits of trivia in that amount of time and I don’t like the idea of having to memorize randomized character trivia. If I had at least entertained Brentilda and read through the trivia I might have stood a better chance at making it through the segment in a shorter amount of time.

Once you’ve cleared Grunty’s Furnace Fun, you rescue Tooty and you go home to celebrate. Some of the credits roll, it gives you a sense that the game is completed. But then Tooty reminds you that Gruntilda is still in her lair and she shouldn’t get away with what she’s done so you go back to finish what you started. By the time you’ve reached this part of the game, you have had the opportunity to collect every possible collectable. Four additional health pieces, 900 music notes, and 100 jiggies. If this is the case you are rewarded with doors that lead to fillups for all of your resources (eggs, red feathers, and gold feathers) and a door leading to a room with one last puzzle. When you fill in the missing puzzle pieces you are rewarded with a doubled health bar. This seemed frivolous to me but I still appreciated the recognition of accomplishment. Then I challenged Gruntilda and I fully understood why this was such a blessing of an upgrade.

Gruntilda is straight up, hard. Her attacks have a homing effect, the battle is resource heavy, and there are multiple phases. I had moments where I truly wondered how I would have accomplished beating this fight had I not found the character named Cheato where he gave me the ability to double my red feather capacity. I almost felt like I needed to go find him again so I could use his cheat code to double my egg capacity. After breezing through most of the game, and then struggling up through the last quarter of the game, it was great to experience a boss that truly challenges your mastery of the characters. From start to finish you have to use just about every ability you’ve learned throughout your journey. There’s dodging and attacking, there’s shooting eggs, there’s flying combat, and then there’s dodging while trying to fulfill another objective. All of her attacks have a recognizable pattern. She predominantly attacks using her wand to sling explosive spells at you. At first it felt like you couldn’t avoid them but once you figure out that you can dodge them by changing your direction after she’s cast the spell then you basically never get hit by them again. You slowly go from needing sixteen chunks of health to get through phase one, to only getting hit once or twice and she drops health between phases. The last phase of battle is the most intense. While you’re trying to activate the giant Jinzo statue Gruntilda is rapid-firing her spells at you and throwing in a homing spell at the end of each onslaught. When the cutscene plays and the giant Jinzo statue defeats Gruntilda once and for all, I was filled with joy and a sense of accomplishment.

Completing the game and defeating Gruntilda felt cathartic. After struggling over the past seven to eight hours the game was finally over. Your gang of friends get to relax on the beach while the credits roll. Mumbo shows you some pictures of things you missed unless you collected all of the jiggies prior to defeating Gruntilda. Then he shows you some images from a feature that wasn’t fully realized until the game was later rereleased for the Xbox. By the end of the credits I was left feeling satisfied with my platforming adventure. I appreciated the different style that Rare took when approaching the game’s design. Banjo-Kazooie was clearly well fleshed out and a sequel was already in the works by the time the game was published. Banjo-Tooie sounds like a promising sequel to a game that was already a joy to experience.