Penny's Big Breakaway is a game I had been excited for since its announcement. Sonic Mania veterans Christian Whitehead, Tee Lopes, and others have created something wholly unique, and while a Mania sequel would've been great, I really love that they went on to do something as creative as this.

PBB to me feels like a mix of more classic level design, with each level containing a somewhat linear progression, mixed in with momentum based movement of more recent 3D platformers. PBB definitely takes inspiration from Super Mario Odyssey with Penny's moveset allowing you to stay in the air and use her yo-yo to attack and reach new heights, very similarly to Cappy from Odyssey. Within the first few levels I was immediately enamored by Penny's moveset, which felt easy to learn but hard to master. Everytime I fell off a platform, I felt like I could learn what mistakes in my "moveset planning" led me there. I love platformers that take an unconventional and new approach to movement, and PBB is no exception. Much of the level design is based around speed, and the game rewards you with new areas if you're capable enough to surpass a daunting obstacle. Many times there will be a ramp that you need to roll off of with enough speed to reach a collectible, for example. Throughout PPB's runtime, I felt like Penny's moveset was adequately used, with some exceptions.

The presentation of this game, graphics wise, is spectacular. The game has this bright, dreamy presentation that really catches your eye, and many times just starting a level the camera is panned out, allowing you to take in the gorgeous visuals before you enter. I've seen some people note a few glitches, like clipping into objects, which I've encountered but only 2 times through my runtime. Which is a shame. Hopefully there is a patch soon that fixes some of the rough edges, but overall I think the presentation is very well done for a studio's first game.

This game also tends to prioritize speed and a point based system, which I find really interesting for a modern 3D platformer. At the end of a level, you have the opportunity to score some extra coins/points by going through a quicktime event called a "busker bonus". Honestly, I didn't really care about how many points I accumulated by the end, so I think these events were more annoying than anything, and I think the reason I didn't care much about points is because there is hardly a reward for getting a high score. What I did enjoy, were the 6 "collectibles" throughout the levels, though. I ended up getting all of them, and some of them were tough to pin down at times. But I felt like they were perfectly challenging. Not too easy, but also not too hard.

Another point of the gameplay I really didn't care for were the penguins. I get why they are here, they motivate you to keep going through the level as fast as you can, but when I'm looking for collectables or trying to look for more health, I found them more annoying than anything. They weren't a huge issue, but just a small annoyance.

I think if a sequel were to be made for this game, I'd love for there to be even more cool yo-yo movement options. I think what they have here is great, but I can see a lot of potential for the future. Also, the wall jump was rarely used, which I found a bit confusing. Wall jumps are fun and I wish the level design allowed for its use. There's like one bonus level that centers around it and it uses it well, so to me it felt like a conscious decision to keep it away from the main game, which felt odd.

Also, really didn't care for the story, partially because I think the cutscenes felt like an after thought. I think the story pacing was just a tad weird, though I enjoyed the characters and their designs.

I really enjoyed PBB. While it doesn't completely realize its ideas, what is here is remarkably creative and very fun to play.

I know it doesn’t seem very novel anymore, but the game that created action commands in rpgs deserves a little bit of praise! This remake revitalizes and refreshes the original, being nearly the same but with some extra post game content that satisfied my itch for a harder adventure. The music in this game is absolutely amazing, and the 3d cutscenes were an awesome addition. It feels like the artepiazza team truly understands what made the original game so satisfying, and keeping a lot of the sound effects and special moves in tact from the original really added to the gameplay feel. Keeping a lot of the dialogue the same but retranslating some enemy names and such felt like the team really cared about the details.

I don’t think this game (the original) really gets enough credit for introducing such a simple but satisfying mechanic for an rpg, that being the action commands. Since then multiple Mario games have implimented it, but I think teaching young kids to time their button presses with an action right at impact actually unintentionally allows them to get better at action games (or even platformers). It also allows kids to mostly be able to enjoy an rpg without a lot of strategy involved. Having a lot of ur damage output be relied upon by ur ability to press a button at an exact window allows the actual item use and strategy take a backseat, which is normally a difficult aspect of rpgs of that time.

Another kind of overlooked aspect of this game is the story. Smithy and his band of weapon based enemies coming out of a factory after having plunged into the earth through a giant sword is very charming and I almost get a vibe that square was trying to tell children about how war (nuclear weapons, historical conflict, what have you) or technology, can be dangerous if we aren’t able to keep it at bay. Idk, maybe I’m just trying to read too much into a kids game and the whole weapon aspect is leftover from medieval-esque final fantasy rpg settings. Nevertheless, loved this adventure and the new place it took mario at the time.

Believe the hype— Animal Well is a metroidvania that will most likely become a cult favorite in the genre and remain amongst some of the best games to come out this year.

Animal Well on its surface looks like a simple, indie platformer with pretty, pixelated graphics, but it is so much more complex than one might consider. From the bat, this game entrances you with it's engrossing sound design, one that is a mix of old school sound effects and atmospheric foley noises. The dark, moody color scheme and atmospheric lighting all help to create a foreboding, ominous atmosphere, one which might not feel too far from a game like Super Metroid. But what truly sets this game apart is its map and puzzle designs combined with environmental storytelling.

The items in this game are paced extremely well, with each new item not feeling too soon or too far from the next in succession. Each item you get can be used in tandem to traverse, get past enemies, or solve a particular puzzle, and it really makes you feel like a genius when you're able to use them to the best of your abilities. The puzzles in this game are so impressive that I am amazed this was mostly made by one person. The heart of the gameplay is simple, you only have one jump, one speed, and no combat. Matter of fact, most of this game is spent running away from creatures who are out to eat you. This choice to forgo combat and focus mostly on puzzles reminded me a lot of Adventure on Atari, so much so that I feel this might've been influenced. Nevertheless, I loved this choice narratively and conceptually. I've noticed that more popular indie games have the need to feel more "ambitious" or more "triple A", so it feels nice to play something that chooses not to have any sort of combat, especially in a metroidvania.

Speaking of narrative, there is no dialogue in this game. Not a single line of text. And even without this, I could still understand and piece together what is going on. The items you find are mostly kids toys, and no humans are found in the entire game. I assume that this game takes place deep in the Earth, maybe once nature has reclaimed its place after humans have left? Even without all of the context, the game's setting enthralls me. Supernatural beings are out to get you, parts of the map look more like factories, and animals are locked up in cages. Not to mention the post-game secret ending stuff (trust me, I won't spoil).

Without saying too much, this game is full of ARG type secrets and Easter eggs (literally) to find. Even after rolling the credits, I wanted to do more to find everything I could. The map has a numerous amount of secret walkways and cubbies to explore, which will keep you busy well after beating the game.

Speaking of the map, on a first playthrough, it is so incredibly easy to find your way around. For the first few hours I really didn't need it; the level design naturally guides you to find where you need to go. Backtracking almost never felt like a chore, and the moment the map might become too big, the game offers you a nifty way to fast travel. On the map screen you are provided stamps for ease of use, and eventually you can find a pencil that allows you to draw whatever you want on the map, which is much welcomed in a genre that heavily relies on maps.

Animal Well is a game that surprised me. It surprised me in how well it functions as a metroidvania and as a piece of art. If this game has been on your radar, don't hesitate to try it out! At only 7 hours of playtime to the credits, you will be impressed with how much content game dev Billy Basso was able to fit into such a small package.

Wow this is a hell no from me. Did they playtest this before sending it out? The level design seems very unfair (especially with the towers) and it seems like they didn’t know how to make a level designed around Sonic’s fast moveset. The main game didn’t have this problem, so the design of the towers and even some of the sub levels seems really out of place. This dlc is very artificially difficult, and sometimes even too easy, with how much you can cheese sections with tails and knuckles, not to mention knuckles having an infinite jump glitch. I’m impressed by the amount of content they packed in for free, and I’m happy with the new characters (some weird moveset quirks aside), but the content here is just not up to par with the campaign.

EDIT: I’m gonna try to push through on it, only because I’ve heard the final boss scene is cool.

EDIT 2: I’ve gotten a fair way through the dlc, and the one thing I’ve noticed that is more evident in the dlc is that the level design doesn’t nudge you in the right direction. Many times I’ll be headed towards a beacon/marker, and I’ll find myself puzzled as to get to the location, as the location is 1000 feet in the sky, and because of the horrible pop-in, I’m unable to see where it is and where I need to go in order to get up there. The pop-in was a problem with the main game, but it is only really called into attention through the vertical level design they implemented in the DLC.

Cutscenes also feel very weird sometimes, a lot of which show one of our heroes just making a face with no voice acting, which makes me question why there was even a cutscene in the first place.

The map is, like the main game, completely blank until you go around to map puzzles. These puzzle were fairly easy in the main game, but some of these puzzles are made extremely difficult, and even seemingly requiring different characters, which isn’t made clear by the moment you start one. Not having. The map immediately available was an, at most, questionable decision, but the DLC makes this problem feel even worse.

Majora's mask is weird. For Nintendo to follow up their success of OOT with a weird, otherworldly, unconventional game such as this, I respect it a lot. In many ways this game is bolder than OOT, immediately noticable with its premise. I'm not going to repeat the story exactly here, as this game has been talked about to death, but the fact that ganon isn't here, we aren't in hyrule, we're only playing as young link, there is no Zelda in this game (minus one small flashback), I mean this game takes a lot of risks with its plot. Aesthetically this game stands out the most compared to other zelda games. There is a really dark art style here, but one that is at the same time, colorful. It's playful but at the same time a little rugged and creepy. The giants, for example, feel alien compared to giants you would normally see in medieval high fantasy settings. This also extends to the NPCs (who are overall borrowed from OOT), wherein you can feel a very old japanese influence. Other than the visuals, the atmosphere is also created with its haunting music. The song of healing is one of the most harrowing pieces of music I've heard in a game; it feels anxious at the beginning of the song, but once it hits the bridge, it starts to feel a little hopeful. What a perfect song to encapsulate the main gameplay motivator: the time limit (counting down to the crashing of the moon onto termina).

The time limit is not something that is used as a cheap gimmick to make you feel stressed. Most NPCs in termina are working on the clock. They have set schedules, many of which are required for you to recognize if you want to grab any extra items, or for many main story events throughout the game. This mechanic (plus lots of unique time-specific dialogue from NPCs) help make the world feel much more alive than OOT was.

Masks in this game are also very different in this game, most of them amounting to just using them for one instance, but a lot of them act a lot like gameplay buffs like the blast mask and the bunny hood. The main 3 though, add a lot gameplay-wise and allow you to kind of choose exactly what you want your playstyle to be during combat. It's neat to see a simple, early attempt at creating more variety in traversal, in this way. It really makes the puzzles that more interesting to try and solve, where you not only have the unique item that you found within a dungeon to use, but you also have these masks at your disposal.

The main 4 dungeons are extremely fun and very rewarding. Minus some cryptic game design in a few spots, I thought these dungeons aged very well. For some more confusing gameplay moments, you can still understand what the developers were intending for the player to do. One example is the "Dexihand" enemy, which normally is supposed to grab you and throw you off course, being used in the Stone Temple dungeon to throw you onto a ledge you wouldn't have normally been able to get to. This is a fun, clever use of existing game mechanics, but wasn't as obvious to me that I could do this. I can recognize that this was a clever puzzle but I also recognize that the game didn't push me towards that conclusion. Which is fine. With a lot of older titles in the 3d era, I can look past puzzles like these only because they were still figuring shit out.

Most of the uniqueness of this game compared to other zelda titles comes from its weirdness. Majora's boss fight is very fun yet very strange. Majora starts fucking moonwalking and doing a Cossack Dance? I didn't know he was chill like that.

The weirdness of this entire game aesthetically I think adds a foreign, otherworldly aspect to the world, which I believe is intentional. It feels like if I just walked onto an alien planet. Things are familiar, there is an order to this world that is here, but I don't know the full picture yet. It's a lot like star wars in that way lmfao

Majora's mask becomes a living, breathing game as a result of all this. No other zelda game really comes close in atmosphere honestly

Wanted to refresh my thoughts on this game a few months after it released, and since Aonuma’s new thoughts on fan’s desires for a return to more linear Zelda.

This game is amazing. On a surface level, the abilities in this game are the thing that changes the gameplay up the most. Using Ultrahand, Fuse, and Recall to basically build whatever you want depending on the resources you have is extremely fun. These abilities also have multiple uses for the most part, such as ultra hand basically being a magnesis clone minus the “having to be metal” part. Ascend was such an amazing ability for traversal, and fusing weapons was so, so much fun looking back on it. Recall also allows for some really fun experimentation and allowed the team to create some interesting puzzles. I particularly loved when recall was used to get into the sky through the fallen blocks.

These gameplay additions alone help differentiate it from breath of the wild, but the addition of the sky and the depths, plus tons of new shrines make it feel fresh too. But the depths, other than being very, very atmospheric and the darkness legitimately making exploration more enjoyable imo, doesn’t really offer a ton other than loot. I enjoyed the Yiga Clan bases and the boss rematches, but a lot of it was roaming around until you found another cosmetic. A little disappointing, considering I found the depths to be very surprising since it wasn’t really talked about in the marketing for the game. The sky was kind of similar. I loved the shrines, but the sky was very limited. It was mostly loot and wasn’t nearly as big as I thought it would be. Regardless, I thought the addition of verticality to breath of the wild’s hyrule was much appreciated. Much of the feel of the game can be attributed to these two additions. I just expected there to be some settlements or villages in the sky much like skyloft from skyward sword.

Some of my problems with the game lie with the fact that we are in the same hyrule from before. There isn’t really much of a mystery or sense of exploration that I absolutely loved after booting up breath of the wild for the first time. My first 30 or so hours consisted of staying in the depths, as I found a brand new map much more interesting to explore than one we have already seen (or I have seen, for like 200 hours at this point). I’m not sure if the feeling of exploration and pure wonder I had when playing Breath of the Wild back in 2017 was because it was a new direction for Zelda, or if it was because I was just having a moment that really opened my eyes to what open world adventure games could do. I’m thinking the former. But regardless, I didn’t have the same feeling with Tears of the Kingdom.

Tears of the Kingdom still manages to be super fun though, despite my qualms. Looking back on it after a few months made me realize how much fun I actually had. The main story of the game still kinda sucks, writing wise, but that wasn’t the focus. It works for what they were going for, but in the next few games I would love for there to be an interesting story that isn’t just told loosely disconnected from gameplay.

The dungeons this time around are way better than Breath of the Wild’s main dungeons. Breath of the Wild’s felt to me like they could be “cheated”. There were several moments where I solved a puzzle by cheesing the game, which was probably on purpose. But I don’t necessarily enjoy that. I loved the shrines in this game where you had to get from point A to point B by building a raft or some sort of vehicle, but the game let you decide what to create to get to the end. The dungeons in BOTW just felt half baked, in comparison. Luckily, the dungeons in TOTK are a vast improvement; albeit still with some problems. You can still cheese them in a sense, since the dungeons still feel more open. But what I loved about the more linear 3D zelda dungeons was the sense that you had to figure out exactly where the devs wanted you to go and in what order you had to do something. Small keys, being locked in a room, something more akin to an escape room, is what I loved about older Zelda dungeons. Lots of Zelda dungeons in the past relied on one mechanic (or item) created for that dungeon, and all puzzle solving relied on that mechanic. TOTK and BOTW allow you to use your abilities and whatever weapons and items you have brought with you to your espousal which I think creates a bit of confusion. I don’t get the same satisfaction of having figured out a puzzle as I did with past Zelda’s. With so many options to complete a puzzle/dungeon, you just come out of it feeling like, “I guess I completed it correctly?” It’s like if I were playing a jeopardy game and the trivia question had multiple answers that I wasn’t aware of. It isn’t as satisfying to win when you know you could’ve won any other way. It doesn’t make me feel smart. I dunno, maybe I’m in the minority with this feeling, but I think that’s why I’m not so much a fan of the dungeons in this game. Linear dungeons allow for me to feel more satisfied by the end, and allows for the devs to create puzzles that are more complex and harder to figure out!

I think when people want “classic linear Zelda” back, the dungeons is what they want. Everything outside of the main dungeons in other 3d Zelda’s felt half baked (for the most part). I never had as much fun exploring hyrule in OOT or doing side quests than I did playing through the main story dungeons. I think if the next game wants to satisfy fans, it should keep the older dungeon design philosophy while also keeping what made BOTW’s world so rich and fun to explore.

Rant aside, tears of the kingdom fundamentally feels like a step up from breath of the wild. Something with the story I haven’t heard much of anyone talk about is the sense of mystery involving what happened to each of the locations you knew so well from BOTW. I loved talking to NPCs and trying to figure out what has happened since BOTW to make the world different. But re-using the same world will inevitably make the game feel less new.

Some side notes:
- Weapon fusing is gonna be sorely missed in the next game if that doesn’t come back imo. (Maybe just make it something you can do in a menu?)

- The Ui at times is an improvement and also a major flaw? I was shocked with how bad the “picking a material to throw or fuse to an arrow” menu was. It’s just a straight line that takes forever to scroll through.

- I can already sense a bit of fatigue around the only big rewarding thing from exploration being shrines.

- caves were a sick addition

- voice acting was better

- I really would enjoy an art style change for the next game (toon link??)