Consciovs
2023
There are a lot of people who talk about this game with hushed lips. I can see how this is frustrating for people that want a fuller recommendation and for those who didn’t enjoy it as much as people like me. If I’m being honest, it's probably wiser to just act as another voice echoing the “this game is great, just go play it mentality,” because this game DESERVES to be played unspoiled. If you like games in general, and are even slightly interested in it, give it a go. Stop reading this, you owe it to yourself to play a game as good as Void Stranger blind.
However, this game really is special. I really, really want to talk about it more in depth, and this site is where I talk about games. I will keep it very light on spoilers. I have been that spiteful person that continues to read/watch/listen past the spoiler warning, and I’ve often regretted it, so I refuse to actually spoil this game in full.
So what is Void Stranger? For those uninitiated, it's a 2D sokoban puzzle game. Sokoban is a genre that stems from the 1982 title of the same name, where the goal was to push around boxes in a warehouse. What you need to understand from this description is that everything is on a grid, including the player. Think Minecraft in 2D, but you can only move in increments of 1 block. Some more notable games in the same vein are 2019’s ‘Baba is You,’ and 2016’s ‘Stephen’s Sausage Roll.’ Sokoban games focus on creating puzzles in these grid like environments, usually with a gimmick that restructures the already existing format of Sokoban. In Stephen’s Sausage Roll, it's the fork. In Baba is You, it's how objects are defined in the space of play. And in Void Stranger, it's moving around the environment with a wand. It's these limitations that help Sokoban games to focus on their puzzles, as opposed to other titles that are games WITH puzzles, not puzzle games. The simple structure of Sokoban games (which oftentimes don’t have much more than four directional input) that allows the designer to hand craft situations to test the players wits, without having to account for a myriad of variables.
As far as structure in puzzle games go, I find it hard for a game to juggle narrative and gameplay in a coherent way. The easiest way I can describe this is by looking at various puzzle games and seeing which they decide to focus on. Tetris is a arcade-y puzzle game with no story, yet elegantly designed gameplay. Baba is You is the same, where there is no overarching narrative connecting the puzzles. These games are able to achieve good puzzles by not worrying about telling a narrative at all and just focusing on mechanics. Then you have games like the Portal series where the gimmicks behind the puzzles are fun to interact with, but the puzzles are kinda shit. However, I think these games are great (in particular Portal 1) because they use the premise of solving puzzles to create an interesting story. It also helps the pacing of the story, since the player isn’t very likely to get stuck on a hard puzzle (the puzzles are really easy). This approach is easy to see in playtime as well. The Portal games can easily be beaten in one sitting (I did so with both on my first playthroughs), yet the harder puzzle games might require hours for a single puzzle.
Now to be clear, I don’t think it is a fault of any of the mentioned games. They focus on only one of the two aspects mentioned and I like both approaches. I mainly bring this up to highlight that Void Stranger is able to do both. It's not that Void Stranger has a good story with a good puzzle game slapped on, or vice versa, but that they aid each other to elevate the whole experience.
It's here where I would like to interject with another spoiler warning, but with a bit more explanation as to why you should go play, as opposed to just saying go play. If you like hard puzzle games, you will probably like Void Stranger. If you like games with good stories, and are willing to put up with difficult puzzles, you will probably like Void Stranger. But most important to the discussion of spoilers, if you like what I would call “Mechanical Learning” games (some people call these Metroid-Branias) such as Outer Wilds, TUNIC, or Her Story, you will probably like Void Stranger. If you’ve played any of those titles, then I think you can begin to understand why the community surrounding this game is so careful with its spoilers.
It's this last element of design that allows for the game to intertwin gameplay and narrative so elegantly. This is because of how these “Mechanical Learning” games work. They operate in the design space that we might call ‘Meta’ gaming. Where part of the game is designed to interact with the player to a certain extent. Puzzles for the sake of puzzles can be boring, and yet, a game with a really good story that is constantly interrupted by tons of gameplay might also be considered to have bad pacing. It’s through this interactive part of the game that players that are attracted to both types of puzzle games can become more easily invested. When done correctly, meta stuff is often among the best stories games have to offer, mostly because of how unique it is to the medium of video games. Likewise, by incorporating these story elements into the game (as opposed to more and more cutscenes, exposition dumps, and item descriptions that modern games love to use) you actually get the benefit of having your story be directly tied to gameplay.
Void Stranger is a game where your understanding of it will be reshaped over and over as you continue to progress through the game. When you start the game for the first time, following a settings screen, you’ll be presented the opportunity to draw your own brand. This, along with the “inscription” you can inspect in the first room of the game, seem very obtuse and archaic by design. If you’re like me, these are the kinds of details that will stick out in your mind as you progress, wondering what purpose they serve, and why the devs so intentionally stuck them at the very beginning. It's this sort of prodding at your imagination that Void Stranger excels at. It's a game that rewards your observation with progress on larger mysteries found in the void. If these details elude you however, it will become immediately apparent that not everything is what it seems down here upon your first death. For most this will happen early on, so I don’t feel it's too big a spoiler, but essentially the game directly asks you to make a choice regarding how to proceed. This choice does have significance, but realization of what that significance is won’t happen until much later.
It's the process of learning new ways to interact with your environment that I love in these games. Learning new tricks by testing hypotheses is such a cool way to reward player curiosity. There isn’t much more to say about the meta elements without fully discussing spoilers. For me at least, they were really fun to interact with, and I had many “Holy Shit”, jaw on the floor moments. At least 5, which might be the most any individual game has had me in that mindset. I LOVED Void Stranger during these moments. Trying to piece together progression on a larger scale than individual puzzle rooms was just plain fun. I cannot praise this aspect of the game enough.
If you’ll allow a hard segway, the puzzles can be really difficult. Especially the “post-credit” content I found to be really hard when I “fully engaged” with it. This is the one reason why I’m hesitant to recommend Void Stranger to everyone. I’m really grateful I did all the hardest puzzles, as there is a good pay off at the end of all the content, and I really felt a sense of accomplishment by overcoming it. I think there was only one puzzle that I found to be unfair in the entire game, and that was the only time I had to consult a guide. I would consider that a success. It's very hard to talk about a puzzle game’s puzzles without visual cues, and without giving away the ‘a-ha’ moments where you begin to understand how to interact with simple mechanics, so all I can say was that I enjoyed it thoroughly.
The story, although simple, I found to be really compelling. It gets better the more you put into it, so I would highly recommend trying to find all narrative content. There was one scene in particular that had me nearly well up, and I think it was well earned. The Mother-Daughter dynamic feels fully fleshed out, although I can’t really dive too far in without more spoilers. As someone who doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with their parents, I found myself re-evaluating my own relationships thanks to this game. I don’t think I can give much more praise to a story than saying that it has affected me outside of my playtime, so I will leave it there for my thoughts on the game.
Miscellaneous thoughts that didn’t fit into the script:
The sound track is phenomenal. Like seriously, not just good, great.
I love the atmosphere in the game. I think it's easiest to feel when you walk into a ‘tree room’, but I love how it adapts as you find more secrets. Coming to an understanding of where you actually are, and what that place is, is hinted at far before you reach an actual explanation which I found to be really cool.
I loved all the little moments with NPC’s. This game doesn’t have sprawling prose or flashy use of figurative language, but I thought that all the writing was fitting for all the characters. That’s really all you need to be successful, and I’m glad that it was so focused. Not everything can be a Disco Elysium or a Planescape: Torment, and to be honest, not everything should be.
If you read this, thank you. Play Void Stranger.
However, this game really is special. I really, really want to talk about it more in depth, and this site is where I talk about games. I will keep it very light on spoilers. I have been that spiteful person that continues to read/watch/listen past the spoiler warning, and I’ve often regretted it, so I refuse to actually spoil this game in full.
So what is Void Stranger? For those uninitiated, it's a 2D sokoban puzzle game. Sokoban is a genre that stems from the 1982 title of the same name, where the goal was to push around boxes in a warehouse. What you need to understand from this description is that everything is on a grid, including the player. Think Minecraft in 2D, but you can only move in increments of 1 block. Some more notable games in the same vein are 2019’s ‘Baba is You,’ and 2016’s ‘Stephen’s Sausage Roll.’ Sokoban games focus on creating puzzles in these grid like environments, usually with a gimmick that restructures the already existing format of Sokoban. In Stephen’s Sausage Roll, it's the fork. In Baba is You, it's how objects are defined in the space of play. And in Void Stranger, it's moving around the environment with a wand. It's these limitations that help Sokoban games to focus on their puzzles, as opposed to other titles that are games WITH puzzles, not puzzle games. The simple structure of Sokoban games (which oftentimes don’t have much more than four directional input) that allows the designer to hand craft situations to test the players wits, without having to account for a myriad of variables.
As far as structure in puzzle games go, I find it hard for a game to juggle narrative and gameplay in a coherent way. The easiest way I can describe this is by looking at various puzzle games and seeing which they decide to focus on. Tetris is a arcade-y puzzle game with no story, yet elegantly designed gameplay. Baba is You is the same, where there is no overarching narrative connecting the puzzles. These games are able to achieve good puzzles by not worrying about telling a narrative at all and just focusing on mechanics. Then you have games like the Portal series where the gimmicks behind the puzzles are fun to interact with, but the puzzles are kinda shit. However, I think these games are great (in particular Portal 1) because they use the premise of solving puzzles to create an interesting story. It also helps the pacing of the story, since the player isn’t very likely to get stuck on a hard puzzle (the puzzles are really easy). This approach is easy to see in playtime as well. The Portal games can easily be beaten in one sitting (I did so with both on my first playthroughs), yet the harder puzzle games might require hours for a single puzzle.
Now to be clear, I don’t think it is a fault of any of the mentioned games. They focus on only one of the two aspects mentioned and I like both approaches. I mainly bring this up to highlight that Void Stranger is able to do both. It's not that Void Stranger has a good story with a good puzzle game slapped on, or vice versa, but that they aid each other to elevate the whole experience.
It's here where I would like to interject with another spoiler warning, but with a bit more explanation as to why you should go play, as opposed to just saying go play. If you like hard puzzle games, you will probably like Void Stranger. If you like games with good stories, and are willing to put up with difficult puzzles, you will probably like Void Stranger. But most important to the discussion of spoilers, if you like what I would call “Mechanical Learning” games (some people call these Metroid-Branias) such as Outer Wilds, TUNIC, or Her Story, you will probably like Void Stranger. If you’ve played any of those titles, then I think you can begin to understand why the community surrounding this game is so careful with its spoilers.
It's this last element of design that allows for the game to intertwin gameplay and narrative so elegantly. This is because of how these “Mechanical Learning” games work. They operate in the design space that we might call ‘Meta’ gaming. Where part of the game is designed to interact with the player to a certain extent. Puzzles for the sake of puzzles can be boring, and yet, a game with a really good story that is constantly interrupted by tons of gameplay might also be considered to have bad pacing. It’s through this interactive part of the game that players that are attracted to both types of puzzle games can become more easily invested. When done correctly, meta stuff is often among the best stories games have to offer, mostly because of how unique it is to the medium of video games. Likewise, by incorporating these story elements into the game (as opposed to more and more cutscenes, exposition dumps, and item descriptions that modern games love to use) you actually get the benefit of having your story be directly tied to gameplay.
Void Stranger is a game where your understanding of it will be reshaped over and over as you continue to progress through the game. When you start the game for the first time, following a settings screen, you’ll be presented the opportunity to draw your own brand. This, along with the “inscription” you can inspect in the first room of the game, seem very obtuse and archaic by design. If you’re like me, these are the kinds of details that will stick out in your mind as you progress, wondering what purpose they serve, and why the devs so intentionally stuck them at the very beginning. It's this sort of prodding at your imagination that Void Stranger excels at. It's a game that rewards your observation with progress on larger mysteries found in the void. If these details elude you however, it will become immediately apparent that not everything is what it seems down here upon your first death. For most this will happen early on, so I don’t feel it's too big a spoiler, but essentially the game directly asks you to make a choice regarding how to proceed. This choice does have significance, but realization of what that significance is won’t happen until much later.
It's the process of learning new ways to interact with your environment that I love in these games. Learning new tricks by testing hypotheses is such a cool way to reward player curiosity. There isn’t much more to say about the meta elements without fully discussing spoilers. For me at least, they were really fun to interact with, and I had many “Holy Shit”, jaw on the floor moments. At least 5, which might be the most any individual game has had me in that mindset. I LOVED Void Stranger during these moments. Trying to piece together progression on a larger scale than individual puzzle rooms was just plain fun. I cannot praise this aspect of the game enough.
If you’ll allow a hard segway, the puzzles can be really difficult. Especially the “post-credit” content I found to be really hard when I “fully engaged” with it. This is the one reason why I’m hesitant to recommend Void Stranger to everyone. I’m really grateful I did all the hardest puzzles, as there is a good pay off at the end of all the content, and I really felt a sense of accomplishment by overcoming it. I think there was only one puzzle that I found to be unfair in the entire game, and that was the only time I had to consult a guide. I would consider that a success. It's very hard to talk about a puzzle game’s puzzles without visual cues, and without giving away the ‘a-ha’ moments where you begin to understand how to interact with simple mechanics, so all I can say was that I enjoyed it thoroughly.
The story, although simple, I found to be really compelling. It gets better the more you put into it, so I would highly recommend trying to find all narrative content. There was one scene in particular that had me nearly well up, and I think it was well earned. The Mother-Daughter dynamic feels fully fleshed out, although I can’t really dive too far in without more spoilers. As someone who doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with their parents, I found myself re-evaluating my own relationships thanks to this game. I don’t think I can give much more praise to a story than saying that it has affected me outside of my playtime, so I will leave it there for my thoughts on the game.
Miscellaneous thoughts that didn’t fit into the script:
The sound track is phenomenal. Like seriously, not just good, great.
I love the atmosphere in the game. I think it's easiest to feel when you walk into a ‘tree room’, but I love how it adapts as you find more secrets. Coming to an understanding of where you actually are, and what that place is, is hinted at far before you reach an actual explanation which I found to be really cool.
I loved all the little moments with NPC’s. This game doesn’t have sprawling prose or flashy use of figurative language, but I thought that all the writing was fitting for all the characters. That’s really all you need to be successful, and I’m glad that it was so focused. Not everything can be a Disco Elysium or a Planescape: Torment, and to be honest, not everything should be.
If you read this, thank you. Play Void Stranger.
2023
This review contains spoilers
As someone who has long loved the Pikmin Series, it kills me to say that Pikmin 4 is the worst in the series. Every other game in the series does some aspect of Pikmin 4 better than Pikmin 4, with the exception of graphics and quantity of content. Neither of those are of much importance to me, but still Pikmin 4 is not a bad game. It’s just not the one that I had wanted.
Now, before I start, I would like to clarify my background with the series. I have played Pikmin 1, Pikmin 2, and Pikmin 3 Deluxe (hardest difficulty) all to 100% completion. I also played Pikmin 4 to 100% completion, including Olimar’s story to 100% completion. I am very familiar with these games, and would consider myself a fan of the series. I am in no way trying to shit on Pikmin 4, but I feel like Nintendo has forgotten the appeal of these games, hence this long-winded review.
In this review, I won’t really be praising this game very much. Most of the things I can praise P4 for, I could just as easily praise the other games for, which is why P4 was so disappointing to me. The easiest way to put it is that before P4 came out, my dream Pikmin game would be something that combined the best parts of P1, P2, and P3 into something that felt fresh and exciting. After playing through all of Pikmin 4, that hasn’t changed.
Now to start off, my first major complaint with Pikmin 4 is the core gameplay. For those unaware, Pikmin 4 is Nintendo’s take on the RTS genre. With each game in the series, Nintendo allowed the player more control over the gameplay. Pikmin 2 added another captain, meaning that the player can now multitask, swapping command back and forth to accomplish more in a day than you could with just Olimar. Pikmin 3 added another captain and features to allow the player to capitalize on non-controlled captains, such as “Go Here” and allowing captains to pluck Pikmin when not in use. These design choices allowed the games to become more competent as each installment released. Pikmin 4 however, seems to regress in its core gameplay. The reason that multitasking with multiple captains worked in other games was because all the captains could perform the same work. In P4, Oatchie is so vital to have with the captain at all times whether for combat or for navigating the environment, that you can rarely split up.
The auto-lock on with the aiming was so frustrating to use when there is more than one object next to each other. There is a cap on how many Pikmin you can throw on an object at once, before it makes you wait an obnoxious amount of time to throw more on, speeding up the carrying speed of the object.
You now have a hard cap of 3 types of Pikmin in the field at once, which I do think is an interesting idea, but it doesn’t seem like the devs capitalized on this limitation. Not to mention that there is a recommended Pikmin option which dumbs down the decision making required before leaving camp or entering a cave.
Charging is still a worse version of the line-up whistle, not to mention that you cannot charge while riding Oachie, so you have to do this awkward dance when picking up objects of: Jumping off of Oachie, charging with your Pikmin, and then usually hopping back onto Oachie because of the convenience of either a) having your Pikmin move at the same speed. b) being able to move through water with all of your Pikmin. c) jumping. Or d) using Oachie’s charge to attack enemies.
The lack of a pointer control variant really hurts Pikmin 4 (really all of the games were improved with pointer controls). This is because, in order to move your cursor towards something, you must also move the player towards it as well. Are you trying to recall Pikmin in a hazard? Well, you are now running straight into the hazard to get your cursor over there. Are you trying to save your Pikmin from an enemy attack? Well now you all might get hit by the attack. I, personally, find the pointer controls to be taxing (my arm often hurts after playing if it is hanging in the air), but the benefits in gameplay are more than enough that I would always choose to use them. Ideally, Nintendo starts porting their games to PC (an unrelated issue), and then we could use K&M, but that will never happen.
All of these little annoyances really add up, and since they are a constant part of the gameplay, it really drags the game out, and breaks the fluidity that older Pikmin games have.
Lastly, I wasn’t sure where to fit this complaint, so I’ll mention it here. Where is multiplayer??? You can control Oachie and your captain, and the game shows it was capable of running split screen in the Dandori Battles, why isn’t it available to like, idk play with other people??? A really weird decision on Nintendo’s part…
My second major issue with Pikmin 4 was the content that broke my immersion (I cannot think of a better way to phrase it). Here is a short list of things that I felt would have made the game better by simply not existing. I wouldn’t even care if they decided not to add in content to replace this stuff, the game would have been more enjoyable to me if it just didn’t exist. The best way I can show this is by looking at Olimar’s sidestory and how much better the pacing and atmosphere was.
First off is the hub area. I don’t know why we had to have a hub area with dozens of people just vibing in a Pikmin game, games linked to major themes of survival and isolation. The hub area doesn’t have enough interesting ideas, memorable NPCs, or narrative reasons to warrant it existing, not to mention how much it detracts from the actual game.
While we are on the topic of the hub, why are there quests in Pikmin 4? I get having a journal for the major quests, but why do we have Ubisoft filler quests like “Grow the Pikmin Population by X amount,” “Collect X amount of Treasures,” and “Bloom X amount of Pikmin”???? It feels so weird to go collect currency from NPC’s in a Pikmin game because I played the game. Let me repeat that. I GOT REWARDS FOR PLAYING THE GAME. What the fuck Nintendo. In the words of former President of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, “If its not fun, why bother?” If you make the game fun, you don’t need to add any extra shit in there. NPC bullshit conversations are not as fun as, I don’t know… PLAYING THE GAME??? This was by far the worst part of the game for me, I actually don’t know if I’m a psycho, or if this bullshit upset anyone else.
I still have a few grips while we are talking about the hub, but they are separate from sidequests. I don’t know why Night missions are started on separate days from day missions. This divide felt really weird, I don’t know if it erk’d anyone else..
Speaking of Night Missions, I have to say that I was not a fan. It feels so separate from the rest of the game, that it borders on being a minigame. I only found it enjoyable on the last missions when it became somewhat difficult, but as mentioned, I really think the game would be more cohesive without them. (Say goodbye to your precious Glow Pikmin MWAHAHAHAHA)
Having Dandori Battles and Dandori Challenges is a welcome inclusion. I always liked Bingo Battle as a kid, and don’t mind seeing it alongside a new Challenge variant. BUT WHY THE HELL IS IT IN THE MAIN GAME?!?! I actually was baffled that you go down into a cave and have some smug-ass generic leaf-NPC command you to ‘test your dandori’ skills. I know how ironic it is to say, but it feels so weird to have a timer in a cave. Maybe it’s because the timer is arbitrarily decided, or the leaf dude chanting you on, but it feels so… artificial??? I know that these are games, but nothing like this existed in the prior ones, and I can’t help but feel like these don’t add to the experience, but distract from the lonely feeling of wandering a hostile, alien planet.
The last thing that I wanted to touch on is the HUD. This is a very minor grievance in comparison to the other stuff mentioned, but I wish I could toggle off some of the more ‘gamey’ stuff, like the Sparklium and Raw Material.
This complaint about the “immersion breaking” content was what really cemented my distaste for P4 compared to the other games. I do genuinely believe the game would be better empty, than with all of this junk in it. I can’t help but wonder what Pikmin 4 would be like if the development time was spent towards making more enemies, polishing areas, more small things like animations and balancing, new bosses, more new music, other stuff that I can’t think of right now typing this at 3:00 AM.
I don’t know if I have any other “major complaints”, but I would like to mention a few more things.
9 Pikmin types is too many. If this wasn’t obvious enough from the fact that one of them is isolated from the entire rest of the game, I don’t know what is. Imagine how much clunk would be added if you could have all the Pikmin types at once. Not to mention that all of the types feel less utilized in Pikmin 4 than ever before, mostly because designing spaces specifically for one type of Pikmin, when most of them are very similar is a nigh impossible task.
The music was a little underwhelming. The most memorable tracks were from other games, except I really liked the disco boss’s theme, and the credits music. Almost made me tear up goddamn it was really pretty.
Pikmin 4 (luckily) didn’t lose the magic of Pikmin (at least for me). This is why I still rated it pretty high, and I still look forward to any Pikmin games because of it.
The noon day change that happens on Serene Shore was really cool. I would like to see how other areas can be recontextualized in the future via drastic changes halfway through the day.
Breadbug is back baybeeeeeeee
Ice Pikmin seemed really overpowered. Being able to freeze something, then continuously wail on it seemed broken in the same way that the Purple spray did in Pikmin 2.
I really enjoyed Olimar’s sidequest. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was better than the main game, mostly because the placement of items felt arbitrary and it felt recycled, but I did enjoy the brevity it had. Take notes Nintendo
We finally got to go inside a house. This is something fans, including myself, used to think was a really cool idea. And… they pulled it off. They had some really unique ways to make if feel three dimensional while making the environment make logical sense.
I really liked the idea of the Flarlic. This is a cool way of scaling the amount of Pikmin you can have, and was something that I always wanted to find.
I think that the way upgrades were handled in P2 was way cooler and more concise. Not to mention the elation of finally finishing a boss fight at the bottom of the cave to get a random reward was a really unique feeling that I feel can’t be replicated.
Thank you if you read all of this. I really enjoyed go in depth on P4, and, despite everything mentioned here, did enjoy P4. I just wish it were better lol. I most certainly didn’t cover everything about the game, tell me your thoughts. :) bye
Edit: If you have any tips on how to make this more legible via formatting tricks, I would love advice. This is my first long review of a game, so I'm not sure how to make it look better than just paragraph after paragraph.
Now, before I start, I would like to clarify my background with the series. I have played Pikmin 1, Pikmin 2, and Pikmin 3 Deluxe (hardest difficulty) all to 100% completion. I also played Pikmin 4 to 100% completion, including Olimar’s story to 100% completion. I am very familiar with these games, and would consider myself a fan of the series. I am in no way trying to shit on Pikmin 4, but I feel like Nintendo has forgotten the appeal of these games, hence this long-winded review.
In this review, I won’t really be praising this game very much. Most of the things I can praise P4 for, I could just as easily praise the other games for, which is why P4 was so disappointing to me. The easiest way to put it is that before P4 came out, my dream Pikmin game would be something that combined the best parts of P1, P2, and P3 into something that felt fresh and exciting. After playing through all of Pikmin 4, that hasn’t changed.
Now to start off, my first major complaint with Pikmin 4 is the core gameplay. For those unaware, Pikmin 4 is Nintendo’s take on the RTS genre. With each game in the series, Nintendo allowed the player more control over the gameplay. Pikmin 2 added another captain, meaning that the player can now multitask, swapping command back and forth to accomplish more in a day than you could with just Olimar. Pikmin 3 added another captain and features to allow the player to capitalize on non-controlled captains, such as “Go Here” and allowing captains to pluck Pikmin when not in use. These design choices allowed the games to become more competent as each installment released. Pikmin 4 however, seems to regress in its core gameplay. The reason that multitasking with multiple captains worked in other games was because all the captains could perform the same work. In P4, Oatchie is so vital to have with the captain at all times whether for combat or for navigating the environment, that you can rarely split up.
The auto-lock on with the aiming was so frustrating to use when there is more than one object next to each other. There is a cap on how many Pikmin you can throw on an object at once, before it makes you wait an obnoxious amount of time to throw more on, speeding up the carrying speed of the object.
You now have a hard cap of 3 types of Pikmin in the field at once, which I do think is an interesting idea, but it doesn’t seem like the devs capitalized on this limitation. Not to mention that there is a recommended Pikmin option which dumbs down the decision making required before leaving camp or entering a cave.
Charging is still a worse version of the line-up whistle, not to mention that you cannot charge while riding Oachie, so you have to do this awkward dance when picking up objects of: Jumping off of Oachie, charging with your Pikmin, and then usually hopping back onto Oachie because of the convenience of either a) having your Pikmin move at the same speed. b) being able to move through water with all of your Pikmin. c) jumping. Or d) using Oachie’s charge to attack enemies.
The lack of a pointer control variant really hurts Pikmin 4 (really all of the games were improved with pointer controls). This is because, in order to move your cursor towards something, you must also move the player towards it as well. Are you trying to recall Pikmin in a hazard? Well, you are now running straight into the hazard to get your cursor over there. Are you trying to save your Pikmin from an enemy attack? Well now you all might get hit by the attack. I, personally, find the pointer controls to be taxing (my arm often hurts after playing if it is hanging in the air), but the benefits in gameplay are more than enough that I would always choose to use them. Ideally, Nintendo starts porting their games to PC (an unrelated issue), and then we could use K&M, but that will never happen.
All of these little annoyances really add up, and since they are a constant part of the gameplay, it really drags the game out, and breaks the fluidity that older Pikmin games have.
Lastly, I wasn’t sure where to fit this complaint, so I’ll mention it here. Where is multiplayer??? You can control Oachie and your captain, and the game shows it was capable of running split screen in the Dandori Battles, why isn’t it available to like, idk play with other people??? A really weird decision on Nintendo’s part…
My second major issue with Pikmin 4 was the content that broke my immersion (I cannot think of a better way to phrase it). Here is a short list of things that I felt would have made the game better by simply not existing. I wouldn’t even care if they decided not to add in content to replace this stuff, the game would have been more enjoyable to me if it just didn’t exist. The best way I can show this is by looking at Olimar’s sidestory and how much better the pacing and atmosphere was.
First off is the hub area. I don’t know why we had to have a hub area with dozens of people just vibing in a Pikmin game, games linked to major themes of survival and isolation. The hub area doesn’t have enough interesting ideas, memorable NPCs, or narrative reasons to warrant it existing, not to mention how much it detracts from the actual game.
While we are on the topic of the hub, why are there quests in Pikmin 4? I get having a journal for the major quests, but why do we have Ubisoft filler quests like “Grow the Pikmin Population by X amount,” “Collect X amount of Treasures,” and “Bloom X amount of Pikmin”???? It feels so weird to go collect currency from NPC’s in a Pikmin game because I played the game. Let me repeat that. I GOT REWARDS FOR PLAYING THE GAME. What the fuck Nintendo. In the words of former President of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, “If its not fun, why bother?” If you make the game fun, you don’t need to add any extra shit in there. NPC bullshit conversations are not as fun as, I don’t know… PLAYING THE GAME??? This was by far the worst part of the game for me, I actually don’t know if I’m a psycho, or if this bullshit upset anyone else.
I still have a few grips while we are talking about the hub, but they are separate from sidequests. I don’t know why Night missions are started on separate days from day missions. This divide felt really weird, I don’t know if it erk’d anyone else..
Speaking of Night Missions, I have to say that I was not a fan. It feels so separate from the rest of the game, that it borders on being a minigame. I only found it enjoyable on the last missions when it became somewhat difficult, but as mentioned, I really think the game would be more cohesive without them. (Say goodbye to your precious Glow Pikmin MWAHAHAHAHA)
Having Dandori Battles and Dandori Challenges is a welcome inclusion. I always liked Bingo Battle as a kid, and don’t mind seeing it alongside a new Challenge variant. BUT WHY THE HELL IS IT IN THE MAIN GAME?!?! I actually was baffled that you go down into a cave and have some smug-ass generic leaf-NPC command you to ‘test your dandori’ skills. I know how ironic it is to say, but it feels so weird to have a timer in a cave. Maybe it’s because the timer is arbitrarily decided, or the leaf dude chanting you on, but it feels so… artificial??? I know that these are games, but nothing like this existed in the prior ones, and I can’t help but feel like these don’t add to the experience, but distract from the lonely feeling of wandering a hostile, alien planet.
The last thing that I wanted to touch on is the HUD. This is a very minor grievance in comparison to the other stuff mentioned, but I wish I could toggle off some of the more ‘gamey’ stuff, like the Sparklium and Raw Material.
This complaint about the “immersion breaking” content was what really cemented my distaste for P4 compared to the other games. I do genuinely believe the game would be better empty, than with all of this junk in it. I can’t help but wonder what Pikmin 4 would be like if the development time was spent towards making more enemies, polishing areas, more small things like animations and balancing, new bosses, more new music, other stuff that I can’t think of right now typing this at 3:00 AM.
I don’t know if I have any other “major complaints”, but I would like to mention a few more things.
9 Pikmin types is too many. If this wasn’t obvious enough from the fact that one of them is isolated from the entire rest of the game, I don’t know what is. Imagine how much clunk would be added if you could have all the Pikmin types at once. Not to mention that all of the types feel less utilized in Pikmin 4 than ever before, mostly because designing spaces specifically for one type of Pikmin, when most of them are very similar is a nigh impossible task.
The music was a little underwhelming. The most memorable tracks were from other games, except I really liked the disco boss’s theme, and the credits music. Almost made me tear up goddamn it was really pretty.
Pikmin 4 (luckily) didn’t lose the magic of Pikmin (at least for me). This is why I still rated it pretty high, and I still look forward to any Pikmin games because of it.
The noon day change that happens on Serene Shore was really cool. I would like to see how other areas can be recontextualized in the future via drastic changes halfway through the day.
Breadbug is back baybeeeeeeee
Ice Pikmin seemed really overpowered. Being able to freeze something, then continuously wail on it seemed broken in the same way that the Purple spray did in Pikmin 2.
I really enjoyed Olimar’s sidequest. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was better than the main game, mostly because the placement of items felt arbitrary and it felt recycled, but I did enjoy the brevity it had. Take notes Nintendo
We finally got to go inside a house. This is something fans, including myself, used to think was a really cool idea. And… they pulled it off. They had some really unique ways to make if feel three dimensional while making the environment make logical sense.
I really liked the idea of the Flarlic. This is a cool way of scaling the amount of Pikmin you can have, and was something that I always wanted to find.
I think that the way upgrades were handled in P2 was way cooler and more concise. Not to mention the elation of finally finishing a boss fight at the bottom of the cave to get a random reward was a really unique feeling that I feel can’t be replicated.
Thank you if you read all of this. I really enjoyed go in depth on P4, and, despite everything mentioned here, did enjoy P4. I just wish it were better lol. I most certainly didn’t cover everything about the game, tell me your thoughts. :) bye
Edit: If you have any tips on how to make this more legible via formatting tricks, I would love advice. This is my first long review of a game, so I'm not sure how to make it look better than just paragraph after paragraph.
I really hope that one day the broader gaming industry (I'm talking to you AAA developers) return to making games like this. Short, passionate, focused, and unique titles that try something new. Games that don't worry about mass appeal or traditional gameplay systems. Games where financial gain is secondary to artistic vision.
I guess this is why boomers say, "They don't make 'em like they used to." Yeah, a lot of my favorite games are indies from the past 10 years, but I can't remember the last time I picked up a AAA game and walked away awe-struck. I can't remember the last big budget game where my expectations were not only surpassed, but it felt like I was playing something original.
It's something that was on my mind the whole time I was playing Shadow of the Colossus for some reason. I couldn't help but feel bittersweet; On one hand, I was blown away and astounded by this game. And on the other, I couldn't help but feel like this era of gaming has passed by, and we might never get it back. It wouldn't be a stretch to call this one of my favorite games of all time, and I wonder when the next time a AAA developer will make something that touches me the same way that SotC did. Looking at the current landscape, it seems I will have to wait quite a while.
As for the game itself, I don't think I have anything too original to say, so I won't. Maybe down the road, I will attempt to put my thoughts and feelings to words, but for now, I'll simply take a que from Shadow of the Colossus, and let the game speak for itself.
I guess this is why boomers say, "They don't make 'em like they used to." Yeah, a lot of my favorite games are indies from the past 10 years, but I can't remember the last time I picked up a AAA game and walked away awe-struck. I can't remember the last big budget game where my expectations were not only surpassed, but it felt like I was playing something original.
It's something that was on my mind the whole time I was playing Shadow of the Colossus for some reason. I couldn't help but feel bittersweet; On one hand, I was blown away and astounded by this game. And on the other, I couldn't help but feel like this era of gaming has passed by, and we might never get it back. It wouldn't be a stretch to call this one of my favorite games of all time, and I wonder when the next time a AAA developer will make something that touches me the same way that SotC did. Looking at the current landscape, it seems I will have to wait quite a while.
As for the game itself, I don't think I have anything too original to say, so I won't. Maybe down the road, I will attempt to put my thoughts and feelings to words, but for now, I'll simply take a que from Shadow of the Colossus, and let the game speak for itself.
2003
This review contains spoilers
Character Action games are similar to roguelikes in the sense that their design facilitates many playthroughs of the game. However, the difference is that in a roguelike, multiple playthroughs are needed in order to master the gameplay systems to the point where you can beat the game for the first time. In character action games however, replayability is necessary in order to master its systems, but there is no extrinsic motivation. Why I am putting all of this genre discussion at the beginning of a Viewtiful Joe review, is to say that, I haven't played through VJ more than once. I think that I would enjoy this game's combat much more if I really dug into it on harder difficulties and tried to V rank all the stages. That being said, I think I would also grow to dislike the game more because Viewtiful Joe is a game with many flaws. And it seems all of my biggest problems revolve around this component of the game, the replayability. Some of the flaws, I suspect, would be completely removed if I sunk more time into the game, but others would only get worse. For that reason I feel hesitant to go back to Viewtiful Joe before writing this review. I know I would have a deeper understanding of the game, but to be quite frank, I don’t want to go back. So I am left with evaluating Viewtiful Joe off of one playthrough, and only making educated guesses on how I would feel on replay.
If we are viewing VJ as a one playthrough game, then I think that its biggest problem is that for the majority of its run time, the player is learning how to play the game. Maybe this was just the case for me, but I felt like I was playing wrong for the first 6 chapters. This was when I hit a brick wall at Fire Leo, where I died many, many times. This wasn’t uncommon for me, Viewtiful Joe is a very hard game, but this time I wasn’t making any leeway and/or improving. After about 1 hour of bashing my head against a wall, and once again feeling like I was playing the game wrong, I fled to the internet to discover that I indeed was playing wrong.
Now before I get into how I was playing wrong I want to address the notion that people can play games wrong. In most cases, I would firmly reject the idea; Games are interactive, and however you choose to interact with said game is just that: your choice. With all that being said, there is a difference in play style and effectiveness of play style. If you decide to play Hollow Knight without using spells, more power to you. If you don’t engage with the movement tech in Celeste, that is perfectly fine. The problem arises when one specific way to play the game is unviable. In my previous examples, you can engage with the game in those ways, and still be satisfied with the results, overcome the game's challenges, and have a relatively good time. In Viewtiful Joe however, this is not the case.
You see, the problem I had run into was that I hadn’t figured out one very specific way of dealing damage, that being Punch + Slow + Zoom. Without using this, I was dealing about 25% of the damage I would otherwise be dealing if I were using this. That is not an insignificant gap, especially taking into account the relatively high difficulty of VJ. Viewtiful Joe is a game with a lot of different combat combinations, so it seems weird to me that one combination does a vast amount of damage more than others. For the remainder of my play-time, I found myself hardly struggling because I now had a way to deal damage that felt adequate. Instead of slowly shaving health away, I was now fighting back, which removed much of the monotony of the combat that I had been experiencing up until this point.
I liked Viewtiful Joe’s combat from the start, it was engaging to learn an enemies moveset, figure out the best times to attack, and then execute as best as possible. My problem that I had prior to this discovery, was that it was boring to execute the same solution over and over again, until the enemy finally died. This made the game a slog to get through, and I found myself very bored of what would otherwise be a very fun game. But now I’m at a crossroads, because while I did enjoy the combat moving forward using the Punch + Slow + Zoom combination, it was such a very specific thing to figure out, that I’m not sure if I would have done so without consulting the internet. So now I feel my choices are between:
1. Being okay with a combat system that is really repetitive.
2. Forgiving a game that put me through hell, because there is a solution to that hell, it's just one very specific combo.
And to be honest, I don’t really feel satisfied when over half the game wasn’t fun to play. This is something that would be resolved on replaying the game, but for my first playthrough, I’m unsatisfied.
“But why don’t you just replay it then?” I hear you asking. It would (I suspect) fix this aspect of the game for me, but as previously mentioned, I have more problems with the game. The first being reused content and enemy variety. These go hand in hand, so I will cover them together.
To put it bluntly, the amount of reused content in this game is baffling. This is mostly enemies, but it extends beyond that to the bosses. For the vast majority of the game, you will be fighting the same basic enemy types, and all of the bosses (with the exception of 2) are reused at some point). To go on a semi-brief tangent, I would like to compare Dark Souls and Viewtiful Joe. With both Viewtiful Joe and Dark Souls being action games, I find this to be an interesting comparison. If we look at the player character, Viewtiful Joe has many more actions that they can perform. I think that this is a clear improvement from Dark Souls, where the player is mostly trapped into one button, but I found myself enjoying Dark Souls combat more. Why? Well it’s because Dark Souls combat never bored me, since I always had to engage with it mentally. There are so many enemies that you have to constantly learn: which attacks they have, the best way to avoid those attacks, how those attacks will overlap with other enemies when facing more than one enemy, the best windows to attack said enemies, etc. You do this in Viewtiful Joe as well, but the problem becomes that after the initial learning portion (which I want to stress I did enjoy) it becomes less about engaging mentally with the opponent and more about executing correctly in combat. Dark Souls has this problem to, hell most games do, but Dark Souls avoids this issue by having a vast array of enemies.
Over the course of any game, it needs to increase the challenge in order to keep the player engaged. If the player is doing the same easy actions over and over again, I think it’s clear to see how much more engaging a game would be if you designed it to challenge the player. That being said, there are very few ways to make execution harder for a player. The first option is to make a task more complex, so that responding to said task and correctly executing has more possible variables. This is a mechanical change, and while harder to implement, I think it is a vast improvement over the next option, because complexity adds depth to interaction. The other option is a numerical change. We can make a challenge harder for a player if they have to execute the same action multiple times successfully, or if we punish them harder when they fail. This usually leads to tedium among other problems, and is the route you have to go down when you reuse content. An easy example would be to imagine a game where you have to shoot a target without missing. Assuming that’s all there is to the game, in order to increase challenge we could just ramp up the numbers. Shoot 10 targets, 100, 1000, etc. I think the point becomes clear that eventually length doesn’t make a challenge fun, even if shooting 1000 targets without missing is harder than 100.
To return to Viewtiful Joe, it becomes either boring or frustrating when it reuses content. When it spams the same enemy types over and over again, it gets extremely boring. When it reuses its bosses in a ‘boss rush’, it becomes frustrating if you die. Its frustrating because the increase in challenge was not to make the bosses harder, it was to force the player to show their mastery over the bosses by beating them back to back. On paper, this makes sense, but in practice it means repeating the same bosses over and over if you Game Over. You have already shown mastery over these bosses by beating them, but the game insists on lengthening the punishment because by definition, it is harder. But replaying a boss doesn’t show mastery of the boss that you died to, so I think it is easy to see that there is a disconnect between developer intentions and how a player will approach that.
This issue of repetition, while not super abhorrent you’re first time through, would become exponentially worse on repeat playthroughs. This is why I am so hesitant to return to Viewtiful Joe, because I don’t know if mastering the combat is worth the monotony.
Before I finished, there were things I liked about Viewtiful Joe, so I figured I would backload this ‘review’ with what I enjoyed.
I love the visuals of this game. The artstyle is one of the best I’ve seen. It consistently impressed me how good it looks, which is especially impressive considering its 20 years old. All the colors pop, the character designs are fantastic, it really all feels cohesive in this department. The animations are so well designed, focusing on key poses to accentuate the fighting, and then seamlessly flowing between more poses. The way the camera functions in conjunction with the Zoom ability to highlight Joe’s actions really gives the ability its own unique flair, and the game is full of more little touches like this that go a long way. Viewtiful Joe is a visual feast all around, and might be the aspect of the game I enjoyed the most.
I really liked the presentation of Viewtiful Joe. The cheesy story, characters and writing were all cheesy in a good way, which is something that I don’t find often. The voice acting was really good, especially paired with some of the animations. When Joe sticks his tongue out and cackles, or decides to go full anime protagonist and poses, it really builds his character. He’s just a goofy guy that watches too much media, and the game leans into it. This extends to other characters of course, but this review is already getting long, so I’ll cut it there.
I do like the grading system a lot. It’s not needlessly complicated, the three core aspects are essentially fight well, don’t take damage, and do it fast. A lot of games I find obscure this information, so I enjoyed seeing it be so transparent, especially considering how core it is to the design of this game.
That about concludes my thoughts on VIewtiful Joe. It was a game that I definitely had a lot to say about, which at least means it made an impression on me. I don’t have nearly as much to say, positively or negatively, about most AAA games nowadays, and for that I found it refreshing. It's a game with its own identity, as a cartoon mashup of beat 'em up and character action games, and for the most part, I think it succeeds. I do wish it wasn’t so frustrating in some aspects, and I don’t know how much it will hold up on replay, and yet I think it won me over by the end.
If we are viewing VJ as a one playthrough game, then I think that its biggest problem is that for the majority of its run time, the player is learning how to play the game. Maybe this was just the case for me, but I felt like I was playing wrong for the first 6 chapters. This was when I hit a brick wall at Fire Leo, where I died many, many times. This wasn’t uncommon for me, Viewtiful Joe is a very hard game, but this time I wasn’t making any leeway and/or improving. After about 1 hour of bashing my head against a wall, and once again feeling like I was playing the game wrong, I fled to the internet to discover that I indeed was playing wrong.
Now before I get into how I was playing wrong I want to address the notion that people can play games wrong. In most cases, I would firmly reject the idea; Games are interactive, and however you choose to interact with said game is just that: your choice. With all that being said, there is a difference in play style and effectiveness of play style. If you decide to play Hollow Knight without using spells, more power to you. If you don’t engage with the movement tech in Celeste, that is perfectly fine. The problem arises when one specific way to play the game is unviable. In my previous examples, you can engage with the game in those ways, and still be satisfied with the results, overcome the game's challenges, and have a relatively good time. In Viewtiful Joe however, this is not the case.
You see, the problem I had run into was that I hadn’t figured out one very specific way of dealing damage, that being Punch + Slow + Zoom. Without using this, I was dealing about 25% of the damage I would otherwise be dealing if I were using this. That is not an insignificant gap, especially taking into account the relatively high difficulty of VJ. Viewtiful Joe is a game with a lot of different combat combinations, so it seems weird to me that one combination does a vast amount of damage more than others. For the remainder of my play-time, I found myself hardly struggling because I now had a way to deal damage that felt adequate. Instead of slowly shaving health away, I was now fighting back, which removed much of the monotony of the combat that I had been experiencing up until this point.
I liked Viewtiful Joe’s combat from the start, it was engaging to learn an enemies moveset, figure out the best times to attack, and then execute as best as possible. My problem that I had prior to this discovery, was that it was boring to execute the same solution over and over again, until the enemy finally died. This made the game a slog to get through, and I found myself very bored of what would otherwise be a very fun game. But now I’m at a crossroads, because while I did enjoy the combat moving forward using the Punch + Slow + Zoom combination, it was such a very specific thing to figure out, that I’m not sure if I would have done so without consulting the internet. So now I feel my choices are between:
1. Being okay with a combat system that is really repetitive.
2. Forgiving a game that put me through hell, because there is a solution to that hell, it's just one very specific combo.
And to be honest, I don’t really feel satisfied when over half the game wasn’t fun to play. This is something that would be resolved on replaying the game, but for my first playthrough, I’m unsatisfied.
“But why don’t you just replay it then?” I hear you asking. It would (I suspect) fix this aspect of the game for me, but as previously mentioned, I have more problems with the game. The first being reused content and enemy variety. These go hand in hand, so I will cover them together.
To put it bluntly, the amount of reused content in this game is baffling. This is mostly enemies, but it extends beyond that to the bosses. For the vast majority of the game, you will be fighting the same basic enemy types, and all of the bosses (with the exception of 2) are reused at some point). To go on a semi-brief tangent, I would like to compare Dark Souls and Viewtiful Joe. With both Viewtiful Joe and Dark Souls being action games, I find this to be an interesting comparison. If we look at the player character, Viewtiful Joe has many more actions that they can perform. I think that this is a clear improvement from Dark Souls, where the player is mostly trapped into one button, but I found myself enjoying Dark Souls combat more. Why? Well it’s because Dark Souls combat never bored me, since I always had to engage with it mentally. There are so many enemies that you have to constantly learn: which attacks they have, the best way to avoid those attacks, how those attacks will overlap with other enemies when facing more than one enemy, the best windows to attack said enemies, etc. You do this in Viewtiful Joe as well, but the problem becomes that after the initial learning portion (which I want to stress I did enjoy) it becomes less about engaging mentally with the opponent and more about executing correctly in combat. Dark Souls has this problem to, hell most games do, but Dark Souls avoids this issue by having a vast array of enemies.
Over the course of any game, it needs to increase the challenge in order to keep the player engaged. If the player is doing the same easy actions over and over again, I think it’s clear to see how much more engaging a game would be if you designed it to challenge the player. That being said, there are very few ways to make execution harder for a player. The first option is to make a task more complex, so that responding to said task and correctly executing has more possible variables. This is a mechanical change, and while harder to implement, I think it is a vast improvement over the next option, because complexity adds depth to interaction. The other option is a numerical change. We can make a challenge harder for a player if they have to execute the same action multiple times successfully, or if we punish them harder when they fail. This usually leads to tedium among other problems, and is the route you have to go down when you reuse content. An easy example would be to imagine a game where you have to shoot a target without missing. Assuming that’s all there is to the game, in order to increase challenge we could just ramp up the numbers. Shoot 10 targets, 100, 1000, etc. I think the point becomes clear that eventually length doesn’t make a challenge fun, even if shooting 1000 targets without missing is harder than 100.
To return to Viewtiful Joe, it becomes either boring or frustrating when it reuses content. When it spams the same enemy types over and over again, it gets extremely boring. When it reuses its bosses in a ‘boss rush’, it becomes frustrating if you die. Its frustrating because the increase in challenge was not to make the bosses harder, it was to force the player to show their mastery over the bosses by beating them back to back. On paper, this makes sense, but in practice it means repeating the same bosses over and over if you Game Over. You have already shown mastery over these bosses by beating them, but the game insists on lengthening the punishment because by definition, it is harder. But replaying a boss doesn’t show mastery of the boss that you died to, so I think it is easy to see that there is a disconnect between developer intentions and how a player will approach that.
This issue of repetition, while not super abhorrent you’re first time through, would become exponentially worse on repeat playthroughs. This is why I am so hesitant to return to Viewtiful Joe, because I don’t know if mastering the combat is worth the monotony.
Before I finished, there were things I liked about Viewtiful Joe, so I figured I would backload this ‘review’ with what I enjoyed.
I love the visuals of this game. The artstyle is one of the best I’ve seen. It consistently impressed me how good it looks, which is especially impressive considering its 20 years old. All the colors pop, the character designs are fantastic, it really all feels cohesive in this department. The animations are so well designed, focusing on key poses to accentuate the fighting, and then seamlessly flowing between more poses. The way the camera functions in conjunction with the Zoom ability to highlight Joe’s actions really gives the ability its own unique flair, and the game is full of more little touches like this that go a long way. Viewtiful Joe is a visual feast all around, and might be the aspect of the game I enjoyed the most.
I really liked the presentation of Viewtiful Joe. The cheesy story, characters and writing were all cheesy in a good way, which is something that I don’t find often. The voice acting was really good, especially paired with some of the animations. When Joe sticks his tongue out and cackles, or decides to go full anime protagonist and poses, it really builds his character. He’s just a goofy guy that watches too much media, and the game leans into it. This extends to other characters of course, but this review is already getting long, so I’ll cut it there.
I do like the grading system a lot. It’s not needlessly complicated, the three core aspects are essentially fight well, don’t take damage, and do it fast. A lot of games I find obscure this information, so I enjoyed seeing it be so transparent, especially considering how core it is to the design of this game.
That about concludes my thoughts on VIewtiful Joe. It was a game that I definitely had a lot to say about, which at least means it made an impression on me. I don’t have nearly as much to say, positively or negatively, about most AAA games nowadays, and for that I found it refreshing. It's a game with its own identity, as a cartoon mashup of beat 'em up and character action games, and for the most part, I think it succeeds. I do wish it wasn’t so frustrating in some aspects, and I don’t know how much it will hold up on replay, and yet I think it won me over by the end.
2016
I don’t think enough credit is given to games that attempt to simulate an aspect of real life. This is not to say that the game itself tries to emulate reality, but that there is one key aspect of the game design that parallels some ‘truth’ of our existence. A great example of this would be a game like Rain World, and how it captures the spirit of survival and being at the bottom of the food chain. I feel that The Last Guardian does something similar in how it captures the relationships that creatures develop in order to survive, via the relationship (both narratively and mechanically) that Trico and The Boy embody.
In the African Savannah, there exists two species, the Black Rhino and the Oxpecker, that have developed a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with one another. The Oxpecker will eat insects, parasites, and ticks that aggravate the rhino and alarm the rhino when danger is near. So essentially the Oxpeckers get a free meal, and the Black Rhinos get rid of potentially harmful parasites, and also receive visual aid to see predators approaching. This relationship has been bread out of a necessity to survive, and is exactly the kind of relationship that The Last Guardian hones in on with The Boy and Trico.
The game could be categorized as a puzzle platformer, but that would miss the intent behind the design. This gameplay facilitates that the player cooperates with Trico in order to progress, seeing how Trico and The Boy have complementary skills. The narrative focuses on this relationship between man and beast, and how they come together for the benefit of each other. Learning how to cooperate and communicate with each other is that exact ‘experience’ I mentioned at the start. We as humans in the modern day are rarely in these life or death situations. Survival (for most) isn’t at the forefront of thought, at least not in that ancient primal way. The Last Guardian offers an insight into what that process might be like, to form those symbiotic relationships, through the vessel of a game. For that, I think it deserves more praise.
In the African Savannah, there exists two species, the Black Rhino and the Oxpecker, that have developed a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with one another. The Oxpecker will eat insects, parasites, and ticks that aggravate the rhino and alarm the rhino when danger is near. So essentially the Oxpeckers get a free meal, and the Black Rhinos get rid of potentially harmful parasites, and also receive visual aid to see predators approaching. This relationship has been bread out of a necessity to survive, and is exactly the kind of relationship that The Last Guardian hones in on with The Boy and Trico.
The game could be categorized as a puzzle platformer, but that would miss the intent behind the design. This gameplay facilitates that the player cooperates with Trico in order to progress, seeing how Trico and The Boy have complementary skills. The narrative focuses on this relationship between man and beast, and how they come together for the benefit of each other. Learning how to cooperate and communicate with each other is that exact ‘experience’ I mentioned at the start. We as humans in the modern day are rarely in these life or death situations. Survival (for most) isn’t at the forefront of thought, at least not in that ancient primal way. The Last Guardian offers an insight into what that process might be like, to form those symbiotic relationships, through the vessel of a game. For that, I think it deserves more praise.
2018
Black Bird isn’t a substantial game by any metric, but that doesn’t mean it's not worth your time. There are a lot of games with smaller scope that don’t get a lot of attention because they aren’t the “next big thing.” Most people’s favorite game isn’t a short 30 minute indie game, and I’m not here to say it should be otherwise. But I do think that games with a scope as large as Black Bird’s do get overlooked in favor of something more substantial.
Black Bird is charming to an extent that few games are. I would almost put it up there with games like Earthbound and Katamari Damacy in how charming it is. The pixel art is gorgeous, the color palettes are subdued in a way that makes such vastly different environments feel cohesive to one project. The character designs are as charming as ever, most of Onion Games stuff has a distinct look to it, and it's not absent here. The music is great too, ranging from old classical music, to new tracks in the same vein. It acts as a nice background since so many goofy and wacky sound effects layer over the music.
The gameplay isn’t noteworthy, but it doesn’t have to be. I heard someone recently talking about how Shmups have almost become synonymous with Bullet-Hells, and it really struck me how few Shmups are slower paced. It's refreshing to see something that isn’t as intense in the same genre. It allows the player to focus on the presentation more and fits better with the tone of the game.
I think Black Bird understands that it's not a monolithic title, and it's all the better for it. Onion Games really honed in on what their vision for the game was, and it turned out great.
Black Bird is charming to an extent that few games are. I would almost put it up there with games like Earthbound and Katamari Damacy in how charming it is. The pixel art is gorgeous, the color palettes are subdued in a way that makes such vastly different environments feel cohesive to one project. The character designs are as charming as ever, most of Onion Games stuff has a distinct look to it, and it's not absent here. The music is great too, ranging from old classical music, to new tracks in the same vein. It acts as a nice background since so many goofy and wacky sound effects layer over the music.
The gameplay isn’t noteworthy, but it doesn’t have to be. I heard someone recently talking about how Shmups have almost become synonymous with Bullet-Hells, and it really struck me how few Shmups are slower paced. It's refreshing to see something that isn’t as intense in the same genre. It allows the player to focus on the presentation more and fits better with the tone of the game.
I think Black Bird understands that it's not a monolithic title, and it's all the better for it. Onion Games really honed in on what their vision for the game was, and it turned out great.
2004
I don't even really know what to write about this game. To be honest, I went in entirely blind, and what a joy this game was to play. It's really everything I could want out of a game. Unique mechanics, out-standing soundtrack, cohesive art-style, and so, so much charm.
The pacing on this game is astounding, for what would appear to be such a simple task, it always builds to something. it's a weird thing to talk about level design in regards to pacing, but I think this would be an excellent case study. The way areas are recontextualized when you return with a bigger katamari, how seamlessly objects turn from obstacles into just more mass to roll up, and the sense of scale you gain by the end of a level are all things that are unique to this experience.
One thing that I really loved about this game is just how confident it is in its vision. It doesn't take the time to explain any of the weird character designs. The control scheme is so bizarre, but it works so incredibly well. It doesn't lull the player into the bizarre nature of the game, the best example of it being the introductory movie. It knows that this shit slaps, and it wears it on its sleeve.
And then the ending man, I don't know why it made me so emotional, especially considering how chaotic the last level was, but it just really felt genuine. I think the world would be a better place if everyone played Katamari Damacy, I really do.
The pacing on this game is astounding, for what would appear to be such a simple task, it always builds to something. it's a weird thing to talk about level design in regards to pacing, but I think this would be an excellent case study. The way areas are recontextualized when you return with a bigger katamari, how seamlessly objects turn from obstacles into just more mass to roll up, and the sense of scale you gain by the end of a level are all things that are unique to this experience.
One thing that I really loved about this game is just how confident it is in its vision. It doesn't take the time to explain any of the weird character designs. The control scheme is so bizarre, but it works so incredibly well. It doesn't lull the player into the bizarre nature of the game, the best example of it being the introductory movie. It knows that this shit slaps, and it wears it on its sleeve.
And then the ending man, I don't know why it made me so emotional, especially considering how chaotic the last level was, but it just really felt genuine. I think the world would be a better place if everyone played Katamari Damacy, I really do.
In my mind there are two types of indie games. Firstly, there are those that try to emulate their AAA counterparts, to varying degrees of success. Think Hollow Knight or Disco Elysium and how they are fairly standard attempts of an already existing genre, Metroidvania and CRPG respectively. Then there is the “weird idea” indies, that can vary from unique, one-mechanic experiences to small budget amalgamations from a small team. Think Downwell with its three button arcadey action, or Rain World with just how unique this “survival” game headed by a small handful of people is.
Both of these types of indie games can be successful, although they have different weaknesses in my mind. The first often doesn't have the budget or time to develop something with the scale of AAA releases. This is why they often emulate older, more niche genres. Hollow Knight isn’t competing with Red Dead Redemption, it's competing with Super Metroid (a game with less than 20 developers). This allows them to side step the pitfalls of being a small team, and why there are very few open-world indie games.
The second’s problem is that they often don't get fully fleshed out. Think QWOP or Flappy Bird, where the gameplay is unique, but it doesn’t go anywhere with the idea. This isn’t a given, I mentioned Downwell and it fits well into this category, but has enough unique content to warrant it being a full release. It’s short, it’s arcadey, and both of those factors help it to thrive under that very small development.
I say all of this to bring up that Chicory lies somewhere in between, and I think it’s the most interesting thing to talk about with it. It’s intriguing to think about an alternate timeline where Chicory leaned into either of these two indie archetypes. Chicory could very easily have just been a digital coloring book, nothing more than a collection of screenshots to color in just for the fun of it. Alternatively, Chicory could have leaned much harder into the puzzle and Metroidvania elements hiding beneath its surface, putting a higher emphasis on boss battles, scattering enemies all around the world, and slapping on a traditional combat system.
Chicory adopts the strengths of both game types in order to make something wholly unique, that still has all the substance of traditional titles. This isn’t to say that Chicory is flawless or above criticism, but solely that Chicory accomplishes something that very few others do. I think this is the indie dream: making something that can only come from the creativity and passion of a smaller team, but still making it a fully fledged release.
Chicory stars [insert food name here] and their journey of becoming the ‘Wielder,’ an individual tasked with bringing color to the world. For me at least, their name was Pizza. Pizza’s journey sprawls the providence of Picnic, a land filled with jungle, city, ocean, and mountain. As you progress, your main focus is to rid the land of a botanic plague, trees that stem from the previous Wielder. This core relationship, between your predecessor, Chicory, and you, is used to communicate a story about art, insecurity, and the creative process.
As you progress through the game, you continuously ‘level up’ your relationship with The Brush. This is manifested through new abilities that contribute to the aforementioned Metroidvania elements. This was the coolest part of the game in my opinion, and I was consistently surprised by both how unique the upgrades were, and how much they changed traversal throughout Picnic. Take the paint swimming for example. There are small passageways that Pizza can now fit through via swimming. This is the “lock & key” aspect synonymous with the genre. However, Chicory understands that abilities should have more impact on the game than just being that traditional “lock & key.” It adds additional utility to swimming, by allowing the player to move faster while swimming.
I know it sounds dumb to praise something as simple as a movement speed buff while swimming, but it goes beyond that. This acts as an incentive to paint in the world around you (something that matches well with the narrative) as well as rewarding players for going the extra step to color in the ground, with quicker movement. Metroidvanias are notorious for backtracking, and quicker backtracking cuts down on a lot of the tedium.
This extends to other abilities as well. The jump acts as a way to cross gaps that were previously uncrossable (“lock and key”). It also allows you to now jump off of cliff faces, meaning that you don’t have to redo cliff-swimming puzzles when moving backwards through an area. Swimming in water now allows you to cross bodies of water to access new areas (“lock and key”). However, most early areas are segmented by water, and this allows you to use rivers as shortcuts, once again cutting down on backtracking when you get this ability late in the game.
This was by far my favorite part of the game, seeing how well thought out each ability was, how many new routes were opened by each, and just how well they paired with the excellent level design.
The coloring aspect of the game is obviously the main selling point. Aside from knowing Lena Raine composed the soundtrack (they killed it), this was the only other thing I knew before heading into Chicory. In many ways, I don’t think they could improve on the coloring aspect of the game. So much effort went into this aspect of the game, and I would like to list a few that stood out to me.
1. Restricting the player to a set of 4 colors allows for three distinct outcomes. The first is that it allows the player to not get distracted choosing colors. Limitations breed creativity, at least that’s how the saying goes. The second is that by changing the color palette between zones, it allows for the areas to have distinct visual identities. This is an especially notable feat for a game that is all black and white outside of player input. The third is tied into the second, and how being given different colors for each zone affects how you approach coloring the landscape. Essentially, you avoid the monotony of coloring every repeat asset the same color across the whole game and you force the player to get creative with the given colors. Trying to choose what color to use for each object, while keeping consistent for an area, can be challenging while keeping visually appealing coloring.
2. Great lengths were taken to make the coloring easy for players. Not everyone is good at drawing (heaven knows I’m not) but they have given options to not just allow for unskilled artists to draw efficiently, but give freedom to talented artists. For example, you can hold down to fill an area. This looks nice, fills it to the edge, and fills large spaces quickly. Another example would be the quickly adjustable size of your brush. If you are solely focused on solving puzzles, you might equip the largest brush. If you are wanting to add lots of detail so that each object is more than just one color, you might have the smallest brush equipped along with the zoom in. If you want a comfortable middle ground, use the medium. It’s the small touches like this that allow for drawing to be as simple or complex as one might want.
3. There are additional unlocks that add complexity if the player wants it. Want to break the 4 color restriction? You can now customize a permanent (and optional!) selection of 8 chosen RGB values. Want to add detail quickly? There are brush textures that you can use to make surfaces striped, or polka dotted, or a mix of the two. Want to be given a straight-edge tool? There’s a brush for that. Want to change the otherwise static environment? Drop furniture you’ve found.
All of this is to say that the drawing in this game is made exceptionally well, especially with how it ties into gameplay elements. Most of the puzzles are crafted around drawing and simple platformers. The ‘bosses’ take damage via your scribbles. The drawing isn’t a gimmick, it's a core feature that Chicory wouldn’t be the same without.
However, it's the drawing that holds my one true gripe with the game. That of course is the decision to color in screens or not. These both come with downsides that I haven’t found a way to reconcile. Either the pacing is killed by coloring in each screen cleanly, taking great care to make it look good, or your game looks shitty, with blobs of ink cast awkwardly over the screen and most of the environment left in their original black and white state. Neither of these are very good options and I found myself flopping between them throughout the game's runtime.
In some areas, such as Banquet Rainforest and Dinners, I went to great lengths to color in the whole environment, sticking with a consistent coloring scheme for the whole area. I am really satisfied with how they look, and it adds a lot to the atmosphere of both areas to have a consistent visual identity. However, it took me a long time to color these in, especially with the Banquet Rainforest, an area that takes up a large portion of the overall gameworld and is filled with lots of little objects.
However, in some areas, such as Brunch Canyon and Spoons Island, I just rushed through without coloring much more than what was needed to solve puzzles. These areas were where I had the most fun, engaging with the puzzles in rapid succession. However, looking at the overworld map and just how blank it all looks left a hollow feeling that I didn’t experience with the other areas. Pizza is The Wielder after all, shouldn't they be coloring everything? It’s also worth mentioning how much I enjoyed returning to the areas I put effort into, because they looked so good! Alternatively, the areas that I mostly skipped, I ran through with guilt on repeat ventures.
This dual natured interaction with the coloring was something I struggled with for the whole game, and never found myself fully satisfied with either way. Maybe I was just really slow at coloring, and it’s more of an issue with me than the game, but I never found myself able to color quickly at a level that I found visually appealing.
My other big complaint was with the writing. Most games don’t have great, or really even good writing. Chicory falls into the trap where in an effort to keep interactions brief they skimp out on depth of characters. The other type of writing that I found to be annoying was the ‘quirky’ characters. Many writers, especially in games, fail to land non-conventional characters, and Chicory is no exception. By no means is the writing terrible in Chicory, but in comparison with the visuals and music, it definitely leaves a lot to be desired.
I liked the message of Chicory quite a lot. As someone who struggles to be motivated in their creative passions, it hit home pretty hard. Art is something that I place a high value on, maybe even the thing that I place the highest. Chicory not only reminded me that the people in our lives are what really matter, but also that I’m not worthless because of my lack of creative output. Thank you everyone who worked on the game, it’s something that my low self-esteem always needs to hear.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Chicory. I have a feeling that it will stick in my mind for a long time to come. It's the kind of game you wish you would've made, leaving that jealousy that others can be so talented and make such good art. The message of the game is pretty contrary to that feeling, but I'm only human. It's too relatable in a sense to see all the failure and struggle that artists go through. There's beauty everywhere, no matter how small. Even the janitor can create art, so why shouldn't I?
Both of these types of indie games can be successful, although they have different weaknesses in my mind. The first often doesn't have the budget or time to develop something with the scale of AAA releases. This is why they often emulate older, more niche genres. Hollow Knight isn’t competing with Red Dead Redemption, it's competing with Super Metroid (a game with less than 20 developers). This allows them to side step the pitfalls of being a small team, and why there are very few open-world indie games.
The second’s problem is that they often don't get fully fleshed out. Think QWOP or Flappy Bird, where the gameplay is unique, but it doesn’t go anywhere with the idea. This isn’t a given, I mentioned Downwell and it fits well into this category, but has enough unique content to warrant it being a full release. It’s short, it’s arcadey, and both of those factors help it to thrive under that very small development.
I say all of this to bring up that Chicory lies somewhere in between, and I think it’s the most interesting thing to talk about with it. It’s intriguing to think about an alternate timeline where Chicory leaned into either of these two indie archetypes. Chicory could very easily have just been a digital coloring book, nothing more than a collection of screenshots to color in just for the fun of it. Alternatively, Chicory could have leaned much harder into the puzzle and Metroidvania elements hiding beneath its surface, putting a higher emphasis on boss battles, scattering enemies all around the world, and slapping on a traditional combat system.
Chicory adopts the strengths of both game types in order to make something wholly unique, that still has all the substance of traditional titles. This isn’t to say that Chicory is flawless or above criticism, but solely that Chicory accomplishes something that very few others do. I think this is the indie dream: making something that can only come from the creativity and passion of a smaller team, but still making it a fully fledged release.
Chicory stars [insert food name here] and their journey of becoming the ‘Wielder,’ an individual tasked with bringing color to the world. For me at least, their name was Pizza. Pizza’s journey sprawls the providence of Picnic, a land filled with jungle, city, ocean, and mountain. As you progress, your main focus is to rid the land of a botanic plague, trees that stem from the previous Wielder. This core relationship, between your predecessor, Chicory, and you, is used to communicate a story about art, insecurity, and the creative process.
As you progress through the game, you continuously ‘level up’ your relationship with The Brush. This is manifested through new abilities that contribute to the aforementioned Metroidvania elements. This was the coolest part of the game in my opinion, and I was consistently surprised by both how unique the upgrades were, and how much they changed traversal throughout Picnic. Take the paint swimming for example. There are small passageways that Pizza can now fit through via swimming. This is the “lock & key” aspect synonymous with the genre. However, Chicory understands that abilities should have more impact on the game than just being that traditional “lock & key.” It adds additional utility to swimming, by allowing the player to move faster while swimming.
I know it sounds dumb to praise something as simple as a movement speed buff while swimming, but it goes beyond that. This acts as an incentive to paint in the world around you (something that matches well with the narrative) as well as rewarding players for going the extra step to color in the ground, with quicker movement. Metroidvanias are notorious for backtracking, and quicker backtracking cuts down on a lot of the tedium.
This extends to other abilities as well. The jump acts as a way to cross gaps that were previously uncrossable (“lock and key”). It also allows you to now jump off of cliff faces, meaning that you don’t have to redo cliff-swimming puzzles when moving backwards through an area. Swimming in water now allows you to cross bodies of water to access new areas (“lock and key”). However, most early areas are segmented by water, and this allows you to use rivers as shortcuts, once again cutting down on backtracking when you get this ability late in the game.
This was by far my favorite part of the game, seeing how well thought out each ability was, how many new routes were opened by each, and just how well they paired with the excellent level design.
The coloring aspect of the game is obviously the main selling point. Aside from knowing Lena Raine composed the soundtrack (they killed it), this was the only other thing I knew before heading into Chicory. In many ways, I don’t think they could improve on the coloring aspect of the game. So much effort went into this aspect of the game, and I would like to list a few that stood out to me.
1. Restricting the player to a set of 4 colors allows for three distinct outcomes. The first is that it allows the player to not get distracted choosing colors. Limitations breed creativity, at least that’s how the saying goes. The second is that by changing the color palette between zones, it allows for the areas to have distinct visual identities. This is an especially notable feat for a game that is all black and white outside of player input. The third is tied into the second, and how being given different colors for each zone affects how you approach coloring the landscape. Essentially, you avoid the monotony of coloring every repeat asset the same color across the whole game and you force the player to get creative with the given colors. Trying to choose what color to use for each object, while keeping consistent for an area, can be challenging while keeping visually appealing coloring.
2. Great lengths were taken to make the coloring easy for players. Not everyone is good at drawing (heaven knows I’m not) but they have given options to not just allow for unskilled artists to draw efficiently, but give freedom to talented artists. For example, you can hold down to fill an area. This looks nice, fills it to the edge, and fills large spaces quickly. Another example would be the quickly adjustable size of your brush. If you are solely focused on solving puzzles, you might equip the largest brush. If you are wanting to add lots of detail so that each object is more than just one color, you might have the smallest brush equipped along with the zoom in. If you want a comfortable middle ground, use the medium. It’s the small touches like this that allow for drawing to be as simple or complex as one might want.
3. There are additional unlocks that add complexity if the player wants it. Want to break the 4 color restriction? You can now customize a permanent (and optional!) selection of 8 chosen RGB values. Want to add detail quickly? There are brush textures that you can use to make surfaces striped, or polka dotted, or a mix of the two. Want to be given a straight-edge tool? There’s a brush for that. Want to change the otherwise static environment? Drop furniture you’ve found.
All of this is to say that the drawing in this game is made exceptionally well, especially with how it ties into gameplay elements. Most of the puzzles are crafted around drawing and simple platformers. The ‘bosses’ take damage via your scribbles. The drawing isn’t a gimmick, it's a core feature that Chicory wouldn’t be the same without.
However, it's the drawing that holds my one true gripe with the game. That of course is the decision to color in screens or not. These both come with downsides that I haven’t found a way to reconcile. Either the pacing is killed by coloring in each screen cleanly, taking great care to make it look good, or your game looks shitty, with blobs of ink cast awkwardly over the screen and most of the environment left in their original black and white state. Neither of these are very good options and I found myself flopping between them throughout the game's runtime.
In some areas, such as Banquet Rainforest and Dinners, I went to great lengths to color in the whole environment, sticking with a consistent coloring scheme for the whole area. I am really satisfied with how they look, and it adds a lot to the atmosphere of both areas to have a consistent visual identity. However, it took me a long time to color these in, especially with the Banquet Rainforest, an area that takes up a large portion of the overall gameworld and is filled with lots of little objects.
However, in some areas, such as Brunch Canyon and Spoons Island, I just rushed through without coloring much more than what was needed to solve puzzles. These areas were where I had the most fun, engaging with the puzzles in rapid succession. However, looking at the overworld map and just how blank it all looks left a hollow feeling that I didn’t experience with the other areas. Pizza is The Wielder after all, shouldn't they be coloring everything? It’s also worth mentioning how much I enjoyed returning to the areas I put effort into, because they looked so good! Alternatively, the areas that I mostly skipped, I ran through with guilt on repeat ventures.
This dual natured interaction with the coloring was something I struggled with for the whole game, and never found myself fully satisfied with either way. Maybe I was just really slow at coloring, and it’s more of an issue with me than the game, but I never found myself able to color quickly at a level that I found visually appealing.
My other big complaint was with the writing. Most games don’t have great, or really even good writing. Chicory falls into the trap where in an effort to keep interactions brief they skimp out on depth of characters. The other type of writing that I found to be annoying was the ‘quirky’ characters. Many writers, especially in games, fail to land non-conventional characters, and Chicory is no exception. By no means is the writing terrible in Chicory, but in comparison with the visuals and music, it definitely leaves a lot to be desired.
I liked the message of Chicory quite a lot. As someone who struggles to be motivated in their creative passions, it hit home pretty hard. Art is something that I place a high value on, maybe even the thing that I place the highest. Chicory not only reminded me that the people in our lives are what really matter, but also that I’m not worthless because of my lack of creative output. Thank you everyone who worked on the game, it’s something that my low self-esteem always needs to hear.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Chicory. I have a feeling that it will stick in my mind for a long time to come. It's the kind of game you wish you would've made, leaving that jealousy that others can be so talented and make such good art. The message of the game is pretty contrary to that feeling, but I'm only human. It's too relatable in a sense to see all the failure and struggle that artists go through. There's beauty everywhere, no matter how small. Even the janitor can create art, so why shouldn't I?
In many ways, I think comparison is a disservice. Although it often serves as an easy point of reference, it can carry unintended consequences. ESA could be classified as a Metroidvania. Hell, I would even classify it as a Metroidvania. The problem with that comparison is that ESA offers an experience that differs greatly from its contemporaries. Yes, that experience is adjacent to Super Metroid, Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Symphony of the Night, etc. but to hone in on their similarities would undermine that uniqueness that each of those games (ESA included) brings to the table.
Maybe a better comparison would be to a game like TUNIC, where the most interesting part of the game can’t be gleaned from a simple genre-based comparison. Both of these have layers upon layers of secrets and puzzles lying in plain sight. Both of them have expansive post-games that require the player to engage with them in non-conventional ways. Both of these games appear to be iterations of their respective genres (for TUNIC, just look at the protagonists' design as proof of this alone), and they both use this to exceed the players expectations. This was the part of ESA that I loved the most, and it’s the part that most won’t worry to talk about due to the favorability of taking a direct comparison to Super Metroid.
It's this aspect that allows ESA to stand among the giants of the genre, not as a direct competitor for the spotlight, but as an equally worthy experience that is content in a supporting role.
Maybe a better comparison would be to a game like TUNIC, where the most interesting part of the game can’t be gleaned from a simple genre-based comparison. Both of these have layers upon layers of secrets and puzzles lying in plain sight. Both of them have expansive post-games that require the player to engage with them in non-conventional ways. Both of these games appear to be iterations of their respective genres (for TUNIC, just look at the protagonists' design as proof of this alone), and they both use this to exceed the players expectations. This was the part of ESA that I loved the most, and it’s the part that most won’t worry to talk about due to the favorability of taking a direct comparison to Super Metroid.
It's this aspect that allows ESA to stand among the giants of the genre, not as a direct competitor for the spotlight, but as an equally worthy experience that is content in a supporting role.
2024
The two things people tend to care about when talking about great games are innovation and execution. I tend to lean towards execution being more important to the quality of a game, but Nine Sols for most will reaffirm why innovation is important too. If you can get past the opening hours, Nine Sols has a lot to appreciate (in particular some great boss fights and consistently stellar presentation), but it never feels like it's pushing the ideas of its predecessors to new ground. I don’t even think that’s a strike against the game, but for those with unfettered expectations, you’ll be leaving disappointed. For anyone seeking a game who’s quality of content can match the likes of its contemporaries, Nine Sols does in fact achieve that lofty standard, albeit with less focus on open-ended design than I would like.
Quickfire Notes (minor spoilers):
Swift Runner should be unlocked by default.
Lady Ethereal's Soulscape is the best area.
Eigong is the best boss fight.
Unbounded Counters make me feel like a god every time I land one.
The story was surprisingly good on a thematic level. The writing is inconsistent and I wouldn’t say it's worth all the time spent on side stories, but it was good regardless. Seeing how the Sol Signs were directly connected to the Sols personalities was a neat touch that wrapped each story up in a neat bow.
I wish there was more non-linearity. Unless there were some sequence breaks that I didn’t see, it seems fairly linear. Funnily enough, it seems very easy to soft-lock yourself in an early area, which is unfortunate that it wasn’t accounted for.
The stealth drone thingy felt very tacked on. Not sure why they added it in.
Quickfire Notes (minor spoilers):
Swift Runner should be unlocked by default.
Lady Ethereal's Soulscape is the best area.
Eigong is the best boss fight.
Unbounded Counters make me feel like a god every time I land one.
The story was surprisingly good on a thematic level. The writing is inconsistent and I wouldn’t say it's worth all the time spent on side stories, but it was good regardless. Seeing how the Sol Signs were directly connected to the Sols personalities was a neat touch that wrapped each story up in a neat bow.
I wish there was more non-linearity. Unless there were some sequence breaks that I didn’t see, it seems fairly linear. Funnily enough, it seems very easy to soft-lock yourself in an early area, which is unfortunate that it wasn’t accounted for.
The stealth drone thingy felt very tacked on. Not sure why they added it in.
My only issue that I think most can agree on is difficulty. When I beat the hardest level on my 2nd try, I think its safe to say that the game needs a little re-balancing. I get its a kids game, but there are more ways to make the game easier for yourself than ever, so I don't understand why the game is so incredibly easy at the base difficulty from start to finish.
As for my biggest issue, it felt very safe, for lack of a better word. Its weird to me that people criticized 3D Zelda so much for feeling formulaic before Breath of the Wild, yet Wonder just feels like more of the same, but with excellent presentation and a few new ideas. I don't really know how to feel about this one, but maybe that's why I'm giving it a middling score. It didn't leave an impression on me, which makes it very easy to forget.
Maybe this is just me, but it feels like the constant franchising of gaming is leading to games that don't really try anything new. If you think that the Wonder gimmick is enough to differentiate it from the rest, than I'm more than happy to disagree. I can't help but wonder (no pun intended) what this game could be if it didn't have to stick to tried and true design conventions, and could really go all in with some of the more unique ideas in the game.
As for my biggest issue, it felt very safe, for lack of a better word. Its weird to me that people criticized 3D Zelda so much for feeling formulaic before Breath of the Wild, yet Wonder just feels like more of the same, but with excellent presentation and a few new ideas. I don't really know how to feel about this one, but maybe that's why I'm giving it a middling score. It didn't leave an impression on me, which makes it very easy to forget.
Maybe this is just me, but it feels like the constant franchising of gaming is leading to games that don't really try anything new. If you think that the Wonder gimmick is enough to differentiate it from the rest, than I'm more than happy to disagree. I can't help but wonder (no pun intended) what this game could be if it didn't have to stick to tried and true design conventions, and could really go all in with some of the more unique ideas in the game.
1998
It's a weird experience to play something that you've heard so much about for the first time. Especially when you have no expectations, only the knowledge of how influential it is. It's not a perfect game, but it does feel transcendent to the medium of video games. Kojima has famously gone on record about how much he loves film, and this really does feel like the first time that a game was able to emulate the qualities that make movies so great. It's flashy, it's goofy, it's over the top, it's dramatic, it's iconic. It's Metal Gear Solid.
I loved my time with it. It does some weird meta stuff (which I'm sure was mind blowing at the time), but it doesn't really hit me hard. It has a wacky story, told via SO MUCH exposition. It really makes me appreciate games that try to tell their story through their gameplay. The gameplay is well crafted, but it's hindered by it's control scheme and weird boss designs. You can find all sorts of stuff to nit-pick if you really try. None of this really effected how I felt by the end though, so I won't hamper on about it.
MGS is a game that's more than the sum of its parts. I loved it, and I don't have much to say beyond that. At least not much to say that hasn't already been said.
I loved my time with it. It does some weird meta stuff (which I'm sure was mind blowing at the time), but it doesn't really hit me hard. It has a wacky story, told via SO MUCH exposition. It really makes me appreciate games that try to tell their story through their gameplay. The gameplay is well crafted, but it's hindered by it's control scheme and weird boss designs. You can find all sorts of stuff to nit-pick if you really try. None of this really effected how I felt by the end though, so I won't hamper on about it.
MGS is a game that's more than the sum of its parts. I loved it, and I don't have much to say beyond that. At least not much to say that hasn't already been said.
“Analyzed in a vacuum, The Minish Cap could be considered a great game.”
This was the core sentiment that stuck in my mind for the entire duration of the game. Divorced from the series that it takes so many cues from, I think that The Minish Cap could be captivating. That’s not to say it would be perfect, even removed from my biggest criticism it's not a perfect game. However, when reflecting on my time with The Minish Cap, I couldn’t see past the game’s identity crisis. So many cues are taken from other titles, that it doesn’t feel like iteration, it feels like plagiarism. This was constantly at the forefront of my consciousness as I played the game, and I suspect that the unoriginality is even worse than I could pick up on (I haven’t played every title in the series, most notably Four Swords).
This isn’t to say that The Minish Cap is a bad title, but that most of its quality is undermined with the knowledge of how much it copies from other entries in the series. I certainly am not an expert in the Zelda series, but my whole playthrough was constantly bogged down by the knowledge that I was retreading series staples.
Before continuing and giving just some of the examples that stood out to me, I would like to clarify that not all copying is bad. There is a larger discussion to be had about whether anything EVER is original (although I tend to disagree with this), but my point is that almost all art is built upon the backs of that which came before. There are very few examples of that which is entirely original in any medium, and that isn’t an entirely bad thing. This is especially notable in the Zelda series (it might be my biggest problem with Zelda as a whole) but usually Zelda games have an identity of their own. Taking prior concepts and using them in interesting ways can be a great way to further explore old ideas. Likewise, combining two ideas to make something entirely original is a great way to build upon what came before. This can be seen all across the entire Zelda series, but in the interest of brevity I’ll only be talking about how The Minish Cap fails to do this.
An easy example would be the music. So much is taken from other games and in uninteresting ways. A lot of games use leitmotif to great effect, but most of the songs in Minish Cap are direct copies, not references. Even specific sound effects seem to have been reused, but compressed to fit on the GBA.
In terms of visual identity, it takes cues from WindWaker. NPC’s, cutscene visuals, character and enemy designs, color palette etc. the list goes on. This isn’t my biggest gripe with the game, but of all the titles I’ve played, it certainly feels the most derivative in visuals.
The game is structured very similarly to A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening. This is in large part because of the 2D DNA that they share, but it still is hard to not notice just how similarly the games unfold. Granted, almost all of Zelda has the same structure (especially the 2D games) but I don’t feel inclined to let MC off the hook when there are 7 prior topdown Zeldas. The first ones don’t have this issue, because they established a formula, but by 7 it has already ran its course.
The areas are more of the same. The dungeons are more of the same. The story is more of the same. Aside from the Minish themselves, and Ezlo, I would say that the Minish Cap has next to no identity of its own. There are other minor gripes I had with the game, but nothing came close to just how mind numbing of a journey it was. I understand loving Zelda, and the Minish Cap by no means is bad; That being said, it makes no sense to me why praise wouldn’t be showered on the unique entries as opposed to this.
This was the core sentiment that stuck in my mind for the entire duration of the game. Divorced from the series that it takes so many cues from, I think that The Minish Cap could be captivating. That’s not to say it would be perfect, even removed from my biggest criticism it's not a perfect game. However, when reflecting on my time with The Minish Cap, I couldn’t see past the game’s identity crisis. So many cues are taken from other titles, that it doesn’t feel like iteration, it feels like plagiarism. This was constantly at the forefront of my consciousness as I played the game, and I suspect that the unoriginality is even worse than I could pick up on (I haven’t played every title in the series, most notably Four Swords).
This isn’t to say that The Minish Cap is a bad title, but that most of its quality is undermined with the knowledge of how much it copies from other entries in the series. I certainly am not an expert in the Zelda series, but my whole playthrough was constantly bogged down by the knowledge that I was retreading series staples.
Before continuing and giving just some of the examples that stood out to me, I would like to clarify that not all copying is bad. There is a larger discussion to be had about whether anything EVER is original (although I tend to disagree with this), but my point is that almost all art is built upon the backs of that which came before. There are very few examples of that which is entirely original in any medium, and that isn’t an entirely bad thing. This is especially notable in the Zelda series (it might be my biggest problem with Zelda as a whole) but usually Zelda games have an identity of their own. Taking prior concepts and using them in interesting ways can be a great way to further explore old ideas. Likewise, combining two ideas to make something entirely original is a great way to build upon what came before. This can be seen all across the entire Zelda series, but in the interest of brevity I’ll only be talking about how The Minish Cap fails to do this.
An easy example would be the music. So much is taken from other games and in uninteresting ways. A lot of games use leitmotif to great effect, but most of the songs in Minish Cap are direct copies, not references. Even specific sound effects seem to have been reused, but compressed to fit on the GBA.
In terms of visual identity, it takes cues from WindWaker. NPC’s, cutscene visuals, character and enemy designs, color palette etc. the list goes on. This isn’t my biggest gripe with the game, but of all the titles I’ve played, it certainly feels the most derivative in visuals.
The game is structured very similarly to A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening. This is in large part because of the 2D DNA that they share, but it still is hard to not notice just how similarly the games unfold. Granted, almost all of Zelda has the same structure (especially the 2D games) but I don’t feel inclined to let MC off the hook when there are 7 prior topdown Zeldas. The first ones don’t have this issue, because they established a formula, but by 7 it has already ran its course.
The areas are more of the same. The dungeons are more of the same. The story is more of the same. Aside from the Minish themselves, and Ezlo, I would say that the Minish Cap has next to no identity of its own. There are other minor gripes I had with the game, but nothing came close to just how mind numbing of a journey it was. I understand loving Zelda, and the Minish Cap by no means is bad; That being said, it makes no sense to me why praise wouldn’t be showered on the unique entries as opposed to this.
2018
This review contains spoilers
I honestly don’t know why I despised this game so much. I have a few theories (we’ll get to them) but they don’t really account for how negatively I feel towards this game. Maybe I’m just not the target audience, or maybe I just didn’t “get it.” Either way, I’d like to talk about it.
For those who don’t know, The Messenger has a twist about half way through, and people have varying reactions to it. I am strongly in the negative camp. My main problem is how the world is designed. It wants so badly to be a “Metroidvania,” but it already built its levels around the old school, action platformer design that the first half of the game was going for. What this means is that you have a very linear world, and to build the Metroidvania around it, you have to branch out of that initial world. This doesn’t work well, because you have to retread so much ground, over and over again, but never in interesting ways. Each screen is designed to be cleared in one way, so you just have to play the same sections repeatedly until you stumble upon a secret. For me at least, it was exhausting to just be running through the same levels looking for any clue of where to go next. Then when I thought I had an idea of where I was supposed to go, I would travel there, only for it to be a dead end. Maybe this was a fault of mine, but it really sucked to have to go backwards through the same exact screens I just already went through, because I guessed wrong.
Other games in the genre sidestep this issue via two solutions: non-linear level design, and shortcuts that cut back on backtracking. The Messenger has several links in between levels, but this doesn’t solve the issue of going down a linear branch off of the main route, and then having to go back. The only way to keep this design and alleviate the tedium is to teleport out. The only problem here is that places on the overworld to teleport to are too far spread out. Other games avoid this problem by always having somewhere close by where you can go if you get stuck.
Metroidvanias are all about having these large maps where progression is gated by upgrades. The best ones understand the value of multiple different progression paths. I don’t want to directly compare to other games (because I’m HEAVILY biased), but it is very unfortunate that in those moments where I did find a dead end, it was a progression path, I was just missing an upgrade. I think I got more unlucky than most, but I did find almost every pathway, and nearly cleared the whole map before I got a key upgrade that allowed me to access those next “gated areas.”
Combat is pretty dull imo. The movement system, and one button combat hinders both player expression, and how far the devs are able to push the boss design. I understand that it was designed to call back to retro titles, but I don’t understand why we couldn’t improve on the base those games gave us. Game design has evolved to give us better solutions to common design problems. For example, the devs got rid of a limited life system, because that creates a lot of tedium. If they are willing to compromise here, I don’t understand why they can’t try to improve on basic gameplay. The retro aesthetic, animation, and level design already call back to those games, is that not enough?
I don’t know if anyone else was nearly as bothered by the writing in this game as I was, but it was incredibly annoying to say the least. I get the more meta, aware approach to writing can be fun, but they don’t expand upon that premise. It’s always little quips about archetypes and tropes. Its relentless, and maybe my least favorite part of the whole game. Maybe it’s just not my type of “comedy,” but I found it very amateur.
Some of the music was just as bothersome. Don’t get me wrong, I love chiptune music, but a few of the tracks became really grating. I don’t think I’ve played another game where I was constantly thinking about how bad the music was, which is a shame. Some of the tracks were pretty good, but the rotten few spoil my overall perception of the soundtrack.
I have some other minor nitpicks, such as the tacked on upgrade system, but I’ll save that for another time. It really sucks that The Messenger doesn’t capitalize on its premise more, because I think it's a really interesting one. I’m just glad that these guys were successful, because Sea of Stars looks fantastic, and I look forward to playing that (the demo was great).
For those who don’t know, The Messenger has a twist about half way through, and people have varying reactions to it. I am strongly in the negative camp. My main problem is how the world is designed. It wants so badly to be a “Metroidvania,” but it already built its levels around the old school, action platformer design that the first half of the game was going for. What this means is that you have a very linear world, and to build the Metroidvania around it, you have to branch out of that initial world. This doesn’t work well, because you have to retread so much ground, over and over again, but never in interesting ways. Each screen is designed to be cleared in one way, so you just have to play the same sections repeatedly until you stumble upon a secret. For me at least, it was exhausting to just be running through the same levels looking for any clue of where to go next. Then when I thought I had an idea of where I was supposed to go, I would travel there, only for it to be a dead end. Maybe this was a fault of mine, but it really sucked to have to go backwards through the same exact screens I just already went through, because I guessed wrong.
Other games in the genre sidestep this issue via two solutions: non-linear level design, and shortcuts that cut back on backtracking. The Messenger has several links in between levels, but this doesn’t solve the issue of going down a linear branch off of the main route, and then having to go back. The only way to keep this design and alleviate the tedium is to teleport out. The only problem here is that places on the overworld to teleport to are too far spread out. Other games avoid this problem by always having somewhere close by where you can go if you get stuck.
Metroidvanias are all about having these large maps where progression is gated by upgrades. The best ones understand the value of multiple different progression paths. I don’t want to directly compare to other games (because I’m HEAVILY biased), but it is very unfortunate that in those moments where I did find a dead end, it was a progression path, I was just missing an upgrade. I think I got more unlucky than most, but I did find almost every pathway, and nearly cleared the whole map before I got a key upgrade that allowed me to access those next “gated areas.”
Combat is pretty dull imo. The movement system, and one button combat hinders both player expression, and how far the devs are able to push the boss design. I understand that it was designed to call back to retro titles, but I don’t understand why we couldn’t improve on the base those games gave us. Game design has evolved to give us better solutions to common design problems. For example, the devs got rid of a limited life system, because that creates a lot of tedium. If they are willing to compromise here, I don’t understand why they can’t try to improve on basic gameplay. The retro aesthetic, animation, and level design already call back to those games, is that not enough?
I don’t know if anyone else was nearly as bothered by the writing in this game as I was, but it was incredibly annoying to say the least. I get the more meta, aware approach to writing can be fun, but they don’t expand upon that premise. It’s always little quips about archetypes and tropes. Its relentless, and maybe my least favorite part of the whole game. Maybe it’s just not my type of “comedy,” but I found it very amateur.
Some of the music was just as bothersome. Don’t get me wrong, I love chiptune music, but a few of the tracks became really grating. I don’t think I’ve played another game where I was constantly thinking about how bad the music was, which is a shame. Some of the tracks were pretty good, but the rotten few spoil my overall perception of the soundtrack.
I have some other minor nitpicks, such as the tacked on upgrade system, but I’ll save that for another time. It really sucks that The Messenger doesn’t capitalize on its premise more, because I think it's a really interesting one. I’m just glad that these guys were successful, because Sea of Stars looks fantastic, and I look forward to playing that (the demo was great).
2015
It's a short game, so I'll keep my thoughts short.
Downwell is a game that does a lot with very little. It only has 3 colors in all of it's art, it only has 3 buttons to control Welltaro for the entire game. These are just the clearest examples, but it really is a simple game. Yet it reminds me of games like Celeste that are able to use all aspects of their design in interesting and elegant ways. Everything in Downwell revolves around the premise that you are falling down a well. The game play is structured around this gameplay, but its not just how your character controls, but how everything else is built to challenge that premise.
For example, enemies can either be shot with your boots, or stomped on. The game then introduces enemies that can't be stomped on, so the player then has to prioritize shooting them, and stomping others. There are also these large 'skull' enemies that become more hostile after being shot, so the player is incentivized to stomp on them so that they don't enter that aggressive state.
This elegant design can also be seen with how the boots function. Your boots are controlled with your jump button when you are airborne, and they give you a way to suspend yourself while in the air. This act of using you boots not just for shooting, but also for movement is crucial in entering that 'flow state' that gameplay oriented games try to get you in. Its about reading the layout of the room, and then figuring out the best path to kill all enemies, grab all loot, and avoid damage. This movement with the boots becomes especially important when you reach the 4th area, but I won't spoil why.
The only "problem" with Downwell is that it doesn't go beyond the initial premise. Downwell is nearly perfect at what it does all things considered, it just hasn't stuck with me due to its brevity.
Downwell is a game that does a lot with very little. It only has 3 colors in all of it's art, it only has 3 buttons to control Welltaro for the entire game. These are just the clearest examples, but it really is a simple game. Yet it reminds me of games like Celeste that are able to use all aspects of their design in interesting and elegant ways. Everything in Downwell revolves around the premise that you are falling down a well. The game play is structured around this gameplay, but its not just how your character controls, but how everything else is built to challenge that premise.
For example, enemies can either be shot with your boots, or stomped on. The game then introduces enemies that can't be stomped on, so the player then has to prioritize shooting them, and stomping others. There are also these large 'skull' enemies that become more hostile after being shot, so the player is incentivized to stomp on them so that they don't enter that aggressive state.
This elegant design can also be seen with how the boots function. Your boots are controlled with your jump button when you are airborne, and they give you a way to suspend yourself while in the air. This act of using you boots not just for shooting, but also for movement is crucial in entering that 'flow state' that gameplay oriented games try to get you in. Its about reading the layout of the room, and then figuring out the best path to kill all enemies, grab all loot, and avoid damage. This movement with the boots becomes especially important when you reach the 4th area, but I won't spoil why.
The only "problem" with Downwell is that it doesn't go beyond the initial premise. Downwell is nearly perfect at what it does all things considered, it just hasn't stuck with me due to its brevity.