I've always been a little fascinated with Miyamoto's devotion to Pikmin. For the last two decades, it doesn't seem like he's cared nearly as much for any other game. Mario and Zelda have continued to endure with his diminished involvement, but it seems crucial to him that Pikmin gets popular. Particularly with children.

My interpretation has been that this is his big, important statement. In a world of rapid ecological decline, it's imperative that kids take interest in science, space and nature. It's a lesson that could come off as preachy or sanctimonious in more patronising hands, but I think Miyamoto has a real respect for children. It's never explicit. He doesn't lecture. He just makes a pleasant game he thinks people would like to play, and interweaves that with dark and troubling subject matter in a way that encourages your engagement.

It seems so pretentious to dismiss anyone who just comes away from Pikmin with the impression that it was "cute" or "fun". I'll own that. Say whatever you like about me. Pikmin 1 is important.

It's a game that came out in an era that I've always seen as specially significant. At the start of the PS2 and GameCube, creative figures in the industry were at a bit of a crossroad. The previous gaps in console generations had been about the big new technological hurdles, but with the capability of the new hardware, it was finally time to make "the game". Projects shifted from "worn-out genre, but IN 3D!" to more esoteric stuff. ICO, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Shenmue II weren't just games that the previous consoles would have been incapable of producing, but projects the industry hadn't been ready for until this point. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, and devs were just caught up in all of Kutaragi's "Emotion Engine" patter, but the games of the early millennium often focused on the mood that could be evoked by the atmosphere of their environments as much as their explicit stories, characters and art styles.

Pikmin is the one Nintendo game that I'll readily lump in with its artsy contemporaries (well, maybe Chibi-Robo too, to some degree). Despite its colourful characters, whimsical inventions and burbling sound effects, it's a game about the nature of survival. Its world is simultaneously beautiful, threatening and lonely. Olimar is a funny little cartoon man, but the diary entries he writes at the end of each day confirm that he is a man. The reflections on how he misses the comfort of home and the concerns for his family are melancholic, wistful and sincere. They're written and presented in a way that younger audiences who aren't ready to empathise with it yet will skip them entirely, but they add such rich melancholy to the game for older players. If you're the kind of grown up who buys themselves a GameCube, you're ripe to see yourself in Captain Olimar.

I kid myself on that story doesn't really matter to me in games. That I'm sternly focused on gameplay. The thrill of split-second decisions and the slapdash attempts at skilful execution. Frequently, with the games that I hold the most dearly, that stuff doesn't seem nearly as significant. I think Pikmin can be exciting to play, and the potential of its gameplay gets explored excitingly in its sequels, but for me, it's the captivation of its scenario that carries me through each repetitive enemy encounter and frustrating sunset. Pikmin 1's mechanics show their age, with simplistic AI, unreliable collision and rudimentary camera control. I overlook all that though, because it doesn't diminish how the game makes me feel. How tangible it all seems to me. It's scrappy, repetitive and filled with constant frustrations, but that's survival. It's more real to me, because it's not always fun.

Throughout its various sequels and spinoffs, Pikmin seems less sombre. More friendly. The games are smilier now. It's a concern for the more miserable individuals in the audience, but that message is still quietly ticking away in the background; the human race will end, and it's your fault. Thank you so mucha for-to playing my game!

"?? MYSTERY BAG ??" review - Part two of eight

You want Freak on a Leash in your intro? Your search is over.

Look, I don't know anything about football, and that will become abundantly clear as I review this game. I like Taito's Football Champ/Hat Trick Hero and Monkey Football in Ape Escape 2, but that's about the extent of my appreciation for the sport.

My primary point of interest is that Sunsoft had some involvement with the production of this game. They made Hebereke on the Famicom, you know. How did they get here? Maybe I've been too quick to dismiss Puma Street Soccer. There's some outside chance of seeing overhead birds taking swirly dogshit dumps on the players.

The big thing I like about Puma Street Soccer is how limited its commentary system is. Any interaction with the ball comes with a one-second low bitrate transatlantic comment. Like a Cary Grant HitClip. "Great move!" "Don't let him get away!" "What a skill!". It's kind of a shame when a genre is so dominated by two competing franchises, the wartier outliers get totally forgotten, but charity shop bargain bin fodder doesn't often come as amusing as this.

You fumble around for a while, not knowing how to play a football game, and then the "Super Shot" comes in and knocks you sideways. Somehow, players can make a red energy bar come out of their kicks, and the ball goes double the speed. I don't know how you do this. I did not receive a Puma Street Soccer manual. There is a "CONTROLS" option in the pause screen, but it simply lets you decide which controller will operate either team. Super Shots are a mid-game surprise, akin to Aerith's death.

Despite the high-energy, no rules version of the game that's being portrayed, I don't think there's a tackle button in Puma Street Soccer. I don't know how to get the ball when the other team has it. I was just trying to stand in the middle of their passes.

In fact, I don't know how to do anything in this game. All my shots go well over the goal, and the opponents just keep kicking at my goalie until they get in. I'm being made a fool of. One of the victory celebrations is the Ally McBeal oogachaka baby dance though, so that picked me up.

After what feels like all fucking day, my game ends.
SCOTLAND - 2
ENGLAND - 20

Goodbye from the timeline of events in my life, Puma Street Soccer.

"?? MYSTERY BAG ??" review - Part one of eight

Today, I attended PLAY Expo Glasgow 2023. They rent out a hockey rink and fill it with a load of arcade machines, old home computers and vendor booths. I didn't have a lot of time to spend there, but I'd regret it if I didn't go, and it was nice to have a shot of Dragon Wang on the Sega Mark III. One of the vendors was selling a £10 "?? MYSTERY BAG ??", adorned with Google image search results for "Sega", "Nintendo", "Xbox" and "PlayStation". I'm such a mark for these things.

I have fond memories of a subscription service called "My Retro Game Box" that ran during the height of Loot Crate's popularity. They'd ask which consoles you owned, which games you had for them, and what kinds of games you'd like more of. You got your fair share of stinkers, sure, but it's also the service that gave me Super Mario Advance, Kirby's Dream Land and Skate or Die: Bad n Rad. A wee surprise each month, and even the rotters were a good laugh for 20 minutes. The folk running it were real champs, and they got nothing but grief from cunts on Twitter complaining about being sent games like Shenmue and Ristar. It was unsustainable, and I don't think they kept it running for even a whole year.

That allure still sits with me, though. The games you didn't know you wanted to play.

I opened my bag.

TouchMaster for the DS is a collection of 23 touchscreen-based games from Midway. Despite their history of arcade hits such as Mortal Kombat, Rampage and NARC, they've opted to fill this with simple puzzle and card games. This was their pitch at the Touch Generations market, and there's little to draw the interest of gamers. It's also very skewed towards an American audience. There's a trivia game here, which asks you how many stitches are on a baseball and which sitcom Haley Joel Osment was on in 1997. There's an attempt at a Tetris-like puzzle game, but it's about coloured balls with numbers on them, and you can match three balls by either their colour or number, and it's really ugly and boring.

Those looking for action will be most drawn to "Hot Hoops", where five identical basketball players in #81 jerseys stand in a line as a hoop moves left and right at a constant speed. Touch each player in time and they will throw the ball at the hoop. Find the rhythm, and you'll play a perfect game.

I'm committed to reviewing each one of these eight games, to find some value in the £10 I spent on my bag.

I do not recommend TouchMaster.

I don't know if any new game release carries the same sense of weight as a new Zelda. I've remembered the release of each new mainline title as a marker of a significant new point in my life, and I know I'm not alone in that view. For anyone who's ever fully bought into the setting, story and "legend" of any of the games, there's a sense of sanctity to the series, and there's little that can match it for that. The godesses and rituals and sacred artifacts that the games fill themselves with plays into this sense of sacredness, but frequently, it's how earnestly the stories and themes have connected with fans that have gained it such a passionate and devoted following. And unlike most long-running franchises, there's a vague, fleeting chance that its best days could be ahead.

There's a cautious optimism that goes into approaching any new Zelda. It's almost certainly going to be really, really good, but there's also a chance it could underwhelm. That some aspect of the formula won't really connect, and you'll cling tighter onto the seemingly-forgotten qualities you hold so dearly about the personal favourite, wondering if they'll ever be able to recapture that.

Tears of the Kingdom really wants to earn its status as The New Zelda Game. Breath of the Wild dared to shed off a lot of recent series conventions to single-mindedly devote itself to freedom and exploration, but Tears of the Kingdom tries to dial that back, with big dramatic story beats and elaborately decorated dungeons. As much as I loved BotW, there was always some ennui with how muted the Proper Zelda Stuff was. TotK attempts to remedy this, but it's mostly focused on exploring the potential of BotW's gameplay. Structure is loose and hands-off. It's a quality that has the potential to either give players a deeply personal sense of satisfaction, or undercut any sense of classical adventure.

I struggle to view Tears of the Kingdom as its own thing. It's really easy to adopt a cynical perspective on how much content they've repackaged. You can't really do Breath of the Wild again. Can't recreate that initial shock and overwhelming sense of liberation. A million little distractions over a huge map, and each one of them, Industrial Strength Zelda. Ultrahand, Recall and Ascend are abilities that Tears of the Kingdom utilises as if they were standard Zelda items, but they offer so much freedom to Play The Game Wrong. Yes, I did the Fire Temple, but climbing up the walls and gliding down to each gong feels like the kind of thing I'd be locked out of a Platinum Trophy for in any other game. I want Zelda to be more firm with me. To pay attention. To show it loves me as much as I love it.

That was kind of what I liked so much about Breath of the Wild, though. Its unwavering devotion to freedom. How you could vanquish centuries-fabled demons by throwing mushrooms at them if you wanted. By attempting to compromise, Tears of the Kingdom never really commits to either the theatrical pageantry of old or the sense of wild discovery that's been introduced. You're warping around the map, doing things in the wrong order, and not really connecting to any part of it as much as you feel you ought to. Breath of the Wild often put you into hopeless scenarios, miles from safety, creating personal stories of overcoming desperate conditions through grit and ingenuity. Link's new God Hand is so concerned about not boring returning players that you're only ever a couple menu clicks from warping back to the Poké Center and getting a full recovery.

That's probably enough moaning. I really, really liked Tears of the Kingdom.

The sense of confidence that the team have gained from Breath of the Wild's reception has spurred them on to do a deep dive into the history of Hyrule, the ambitions of Ganondorf, and Zelda's resolute devotion to her kingdom. It reshapes the audience's view of the world and characters, and it's stuff I'm going to be thinking about as I replay Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker or Zelda 1. It takes big swings, and when it works, it really works. It feels like a weird old folktale, and that's what I think The Legend of Zelda ought to be. I loved what they were willing to do here.

There's so many things Tears of the Kingdom does that I just love. It brings back that old N64 scariness. There's stuff in this game I know is going to give kids nightmares, and I've just got to stand up and applaud them for that. Knowing that young audiences will be as petrified of the power this game holds over them as the earlier titles did for me when I was their age makes me feel alive. The fact that this game will serve as the next stop on the Nintendo bus for a bunch of children coming off Mario Odyssey... I can't explain how excited that makes me. The scariness is all handled very carefully. There's nothing traumatic here, but there's places in the game that they will just not want to go to. It's kind of Minecrafty, actually. I don't know if grown-ups appreciate how well that game deals with horror for younger players, but we've all seen a 6 year-old in a Creeper t-shirt. Man, that's just how ReDeads made us. Terror is back, baby.

Sidequests are a bigger part of the formula here. It's where you get a sense of what life in post-Calamity Hyrule is actually like. There's some really good stuff covering Gerudo culture, which is more interesting for how it reflects on the one male of their race, Ganondorf. The strict, authoritarian doctrines that run through the lives of otherwise relatable, likeable characters, and how they integrate into a more inclusive society. Again, it's how these these things shift my perspective on some of my favourite games that I really like. It's not like going back to earlier Metal Gear games and attempting to determine what Cipher's objectives were as they manipulated every action behind the scenes. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo consulted decades-old internal documentation about how Hyrule works before writing a single line of fetch-quest dialogue. This is the game that the series' core fans are seeing that casual audiences can't appreciate.

I always like a horse in a game, but Zelda's horses are special. Galloping across unknown plains and delicately navigating treacherous cliff faces. That's a vision of adventure that really resonates with me. Breath of the Wild loved its horses, but Tears of the Kingdom goes further. There's so many sidequests about the horses, and so many NPCs who love the horses too. We're past the vision of cold, masculine reliance on animals as tools on our grand quests. We want to feed them and pet them and treat them with love. I find old men talking about beauty of their steeds very sweet. These people have earned their protection from the Demon King.

I've reflected on the decision to call the big new mechanic "Ultrahand". That was the name of the extending grabber toy that got Gunpei Yokoi hired by Nintendo, before going on to create the first handheld game console. Handhelds have always kept Nintendo going, even when their home consoles failed to build enough of an audience to support the business. The Switch's success is largely owed to the groundwork Yokoi laid. The Game & Watch was essentially a fun new use for cheap calculator components, and the Switch took the same kind of approach with the global ubiqity of mobile hardware in the 2010s. Ultrahand in Zelda doesn't have all that much in common with the original toy, but it's a fitting tribute to the man to get the term trending on Twitter as it spearheads the company's biggest game in years.

Repurposing the old locations is a mixed bag. While the diversity and complexity of locales doesn't bring the same sense of awe as they did in 2017, the process of discovery brought back a lot more of the emotion felt on that first playthrough than any of the subsequent discourse and merchandise did. Seeing the familiar mountains, that have now been hollowed out for elaborate Link's Awakening-style mini-dungeon caves, remembering all the other locations that seemed so significant in Breath of the Wild, and rushing over to see what they've done with the place. I think revisiting the previous game's environments kind of cheapens both titles, but the team seem aware of that risk, and it's hard to argue against Aonuma's suggestion that more could be done with this huge world. The developers are keen to make up for any sense of disappointment that the new Zelda game might not seem new enough.

It's all so subjective though. I'm a bitter old bastard who thinks that Zelda will never feel quite as perfect without a set of C-Buttons for quick item access and ocarina manipulation. Something I cherish about my experience with Ocarina of Time was that I was much older when I eventually finished it than I was when I first tried it. Reflecting on how my life had changed in those intervening years greatly complemented my appreciation for the story and themes. It's easy to picture the 11 year-olds who played Breath of the Wild at launch may have the same level of investment in Tears of the Kingdom as they approach adulthood. I don't know if Zelda could ever mean as much to me as Ocarina of Time does, but I'm glad to see Nintendo continue to make these precious memories for people.

This one didn't totally work for me, but they've got so much right here, I'm still open to the idea that the next one might.

Murtop is a neat little Dig Dug clone that's just gone up on the eShop. You're a sweet little bunny who has to fight angry moles. Instead of a pump, you drop bombs that explode in straight lines, just like in Bomberman. You can still crush them with rocks for the biggest payouts, too.

I think I should warn you that it doesn't really play all that much like Dig Dug. There's only one enemy type that will chase you, and just until they get bored. Rocks drop instantly, so you can't keep them held up until the perfect opportunity emerges below you. And unlike Bomberman, you don't drop bombs directly where you're standing. They fall a square behind you. It can play havoc with your strategies early on. On top of this, there's a pretty tight time limit to each level. This changes the dynamic quite dramatically. The levels are less a playground to try to squeeze the highest scores out of, and more a puzzle to attempt to solve as efficiently as possible. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Just disarmingly different when the game presents itself so unashamedly as a Dig Dug clone.

There's also bonus levels every few levels, where you try to collect falling carrots and avoid the rocks. A bit like Flicky or Balloon Fight. Unlike those games, you can't get a perfect score. The positioning is randomised, and you can't physically run from one side of the screen to the other in time to get everything. I don't love that, especially when older designers worked so diligently to make these stages play like clever puzzles. I guess those old traditional values are gone today.

The game really tries to seem authentic to the era. There's even a boot sequence and an Insert Credit button. I don't think the game could totally pass for an eighties arcade game, though. The character designs look pretty modern, and definitely aware of the bold, colourful presentation of late 90s/early 2000s arcadey stuff like Mr Driller and Pyoro. The promo artwork was definitely drawn digitally. The game also refers to dropping bombs as "pooping". That kind of profane language may fly today, and I'm sure it's all the rage with the youngsters on Tick Tock, but would never appear in a game they were hoping to sell to restaurants and hospitals.

Once you get the hang of it, and stop trying to force your Dig Dug strategies into it, the real game emerges. It plays a bit more like Pac-Man Championship Edition, or something. You can see the enemies, and you know what they'll do when you appear before them, but your traps are never all that elaborate. It makes the game feel a little punchier, though. There's still plenty of appeal for fans of old arcade games. It's refreshing to see the indie space celebrate stuff older than Mega Man. It's neat, it's a fiver, I don't think there's a chance in hell you're ever going to buy it, but I'm happy to show it some support.

After being pushed back twice and ultimately not shipping from Amazon dot com, I caved and picked up Pocky & Rocky: Reshrined from Gamestop. Like an absolute lunatic, I also purchased two gigantic boxes of batteries because my addled brain would rather slap an extra 25 dollars on an order and get something rather than cough up six bucks for shipping. The real question is, was all this trouble worth it?

I think so. Like Tengo Project's other releases, Reshrined does such a great job at replicating every element that made the original games work while innovating on them in a way that feels like a natural progression, you'd almost think it was released a generation apart from the originals rather than 20+ years. If anything, the most "modern" aspect about the game is how the difficulty has been scaled back. It's still certainly challenging, but unlimited continues and mid-level checkpointing after game overs makes it a lot less frustrating when you bite it. I found myself entering into a sort of Castlevania rhythm where failure only meant another chance to approach a level armed with foreknowledge of enemy patterns and item locations, and building a new route accordingly.

Pocky and Rocky still play like how you would expect them to, but you're quickly given a new technique that allows you to set crystal balls that ricochet your attacks, and a chargeable shield that reflects most incoming projectiles. These new skills can sometimes be tricky to set up, especially in later stages, but I suppose it needs to be balanced out somehow given the absolute havoc you can unleash with them. The roster is also expanded with three new characters, all of which offer more varied movesets over Pocky and Rocky. Ikazuchi is easily my favorite among the three with her homing electrical spell and snappy dodge making her feel both nimble and overpowered. I was less a fan of Ame-no-Uzume, who attacks using two Options positioned at her sides, giving her a broader base attack while leaving her open down the middle. To make up for this, she can float over bottomless pits and bodies of water, but in more narrow passageways having her spell power at 0 feels more punishing than any other character.

My one real complaint about Reshrined is that there's NOT. ENOUGH. ROCKY. Look at that little guy! You're telling me I can only play as him for three levels!? AND one of those is just a boss fight where the whole gimmick is the boss runs left and right? Get outta here... Docking a whole star for that. Yes I know I can play the whole game as him in free mode, but I've always had a hard time doing a second run of any arcade game right after finishing the first.

The game is of course great to look at. The sprite work is incredibly detailed and colorful, and you can tell a lot of care was put into the animations. There's some weird censorship in the US release where they covered up Ame-no-Uzume's chest in cutscenes, which feels a bit unnecessary but also kinda appropriate for a game that is so closely trying to emulate its 90's predecessors. Speaking of, the translation isn't great. Some lines of dialog just sound off, but maybe that's just me. The plot is fine for what it is (see: time travel shenanigans), but also bizarrely convoluted for a Pocky & Rocky game. The cutscenes can go on a bit long too, which I don't entirely mind because they are great to look at, but the pacing of free mode feels a whole lot better.

Like other Tengo helmed Natsume games, it comes at a pretty steep price for the amount of game you're getting. I prefer to look at it as supporting quality work. Reshrined takes maybe an hour or two before you're watching the credits, but the game just plays so good that I really don't mind dropping 30 bucks on it. No doubt it'll hit 10 dollars on PSN as routinely as Wild Guns Rearmed. In any case, I'm a big stupid freak for Pocky & Rocky and I just had to have it on disc along with, like, 50 AAA batteries. My cup runneth over...