A surprisingly solid game especially considering its troubled development history. Dambuster clearly understood the assignment they were left with following the two other studios that couldn't cut it. But that's it.

The gameplay is rather simple, kept from getting too boring by trickling out new variations of enemies throughout and some new mechanics. Said mechanics and enemies are still nothing earth shattering so combat never exceeds being dumb fun which is fine.

It's approach to world design is kind of dated since its zone based but frankly that's weirdly refreshing given how oversaturated the medium is with open worlds now. Its at its best when the zone is its own small open world with various buildings to explore and at its worst when a zone is more linear, really just meant for its specific story section which is fine but makes it repetitive to return to.

Main and side quest design is quite basic, go to point A to get or do thing x. Would have been nice for the main quest to have one or two bigger set pieces to at least give the appearance that it has more going for it. As it is the most interesting moments are the introductions of some stronger variants of zombies that at least try to make things more interesting with their presentation with their visual style and music. Its not as big as I'd hope but I appreciate how the devs chose to get the most out of things without increasing the games scope too much given the games history.

I feared the writing was going to be too goofy like the most extreme of Dead Rising based on trailers but while it is less serious then the first game its tone nails just the right level of goofiness with its satirical take on LA. The overarching story is unsatisfying though as it introduces some interesting twist but clearly holds back for an eventual sequel.

Graphics are actually pretty great and surprisingly for a game on PC in 2023 it actually runs well without stutter. Really the only complaint regarding the quality of the PC port is the inability to turn off film grain.

This game was made with a specific scope in mind and they follow through on that as well as possible but gameplay wise it's unambitious, never rising above being "just good" into great. I will at least be more interested in a Dead Island 3 now that Dambuster at least has a good foundation for a sequel with this.

Putting this on the shelf after 10 hours but very intriguing in this initial early access phase.

On normal difficulty the procedural murder cases I ran into ranged from very straight forward to having few obvious leads until understanding the systems outside the murder location that can give a better idea of who did it. The satisfaction of figuring out the murderer after so many dead ends is so good. Main criticism of these muders currently is there are some systems in the game that you are not told about but once you know they can trivialize cases due to how easy they are to access but this is something that hopefully the creators address.

As cool as this core system of procedural murder mysteries is, this game is in early access for a good reason. To start, the performance is super rough even with a recent gen i7 and a 3080. Aside from that I experienced some of the side jobs being unsolvable due to bugs like telling me to go to a building that doesn't seem to exist in my world or not recognizing a key item has been dropped off.

This has a huge amount of potential to be an amazing game as its further fleshed out and its more optimized and less buggy.

I won't pretend this game doesn't have flaws, namely in the back half's pacing. But two elements deserve exceptional respect: the sense of place, and the happy accidents.

The sense of place is hard to miss while playing, but it rewards intentional attention. The details are just stunning, especially considering this was before throwing complex geometry & high-res textures on things was "free" (insofar as performance is concerned). Whether it's the atmospheric soundtrack, the bite-sized sprinklings of worldbuilding the Scan Visor offers, or the way each interstitial hallway has varying depth and implied purpose, it's a lot to baste in. As a child, I would treat some game worlds more like sandboxes to play in rather than linear experiences, and Metroid Prime offered a lot to enjoy with that kind of in-the-moment play.

And the happy accidents. Whoo, boy. Being a Metroidvania, this is a game about acquiring things that change your relationship to your environment, recontextualize places you have been, and open up ways to progress. By design, it does this with items. By accident, it does this with knowledge. Yes, I'm going to discuss the glitches in this game - if talking about things that were neither intended by developers nor affect the average player's playthrough doesn't interest you, fine. I think art is worth evaluating for how it arrives, separate from intent - and the wealth of knowledge there is to plumb from this game is vast, deep, and rewarding. I've been learning this game's dark arts for about two years now (in conjunction with the excellent randomizer mod), and I'm still learning more every run.

I don't expect the average player to try any of that out, though. I expect most will play through it once, have a ball in the first half and gradually tire in the second. But with time and study, this game appreciates in value. If you've already played it, check out a commentated speedrun. Watch them fling themselves at incredible speeds, hop around obscure geometry, and maybe even turn into a math-breaking ball of light, and you'll have a glimpse of the strange beauty of this game's accidental depths.

Years ago, I learned of Xenoblade Chronicles through one of my favorite YouTubers at the time, Chuggaaconroy. Then when i got a New 3DS, that was my first time ever getting a chance to play this game. But that was 5 years ago, and I'm entirely a different person now. And since I recently played through the entirety of Xenosaga, I wanted to go back to Xenoblade, with a new perspective. And god, this game is really peak. I would say it's not as good as Xenosaga Episode III, but Xenoblade Chronicles is still undeniably peak.
Yet again with games like these, I don't want to say anything about the story. But much like the Xenosaga games, there's a lot of themes in the story that are explored really well. But I think these themes are so integral to it, I think it'd be a spoiler exactly mentioning them. Anyway, I also really love the character writing of the games, the main cast has such a great dynamic with eachother, and knowing that I've only really scratched the surface of total character interactions is really interesting. There's such a good found-family dynamic in this game, and I love those types of dynamics.
The combat of the game is really interesting. The earlier Xenosaga games were turn-based, so it's crazy how much of a drastic change there is here. It's hard to describe really, but it's such an interesting system. I love how you have to pay attention to so many things, no battle makes you feel like you're just going through the actions. If you aren't thinking about what your best move is, you could just easily fall in battle. And the customization with arts, skills, equipment and gems, I absolutely love it. Do I know the proper ins-and-outs of how they work? No, but I love trying to figure it out.
I have to really commend the voice acting here. So many of the voice actors have pure, unfiltered emotions in there lines, especially Adam Howden as Shulk. He puts his all into his lines, and you can just feel it.
I did have a couple hiccups while replaying the game. One boss was absolutely terrible, and late game grinding was a slog, but I absolutely loved my time going back through Xenoblade Chronicles. And I know I've still only scratched the surface of the game, and what you can actually do in it. Maybe one day I'll go back and try to see more of what the game offers, but even still, this is a genuine masterpiece.

I'm going to get shit on for liking this game a lot; but I don't really care, I genuinely like this game for what it is. Call it "another quirky earthbound inspired rpg with themes about depression" and shit but like.... damn, i'd be lying if I said this game didn't make me bawl like a little bitch in the end.
The only thing that sucks in this game is the part where you have to move through a diagonal path in a game where you can't move diagonal

Also the combat too and the grinding was kind of a hassle of having to press nothing but Z through the entire battle or running away because it isn't worth it.

Omori is a difficult game to describe without spoiling what makes the experience so special. I was initially a little underwhelmed with Omori, not realizing until I'd started the game that it was an RPG Maker game, but I was quickly swept into its unrelentingly charming world. All of the characters, no matter how big or small, ooze personality and the ovearching story that drives Omori is stunningly well-written. The actual battle system is a little simplistic, but lends itself well to a game of this style where the focus is more on the world, characters, and story. I'd come into this with fairly high expectations after all the buzz I'd heard, and Omori certainly lived up to those expectations and then some.

The second playthrough fell a bit flat, but the game remains great nontheless.
Triangle Strategy features an intricate story that can be played and enjoyed multiple times, as intended in the games' design. Decisions have consequences and shape the turn of events and players can see up to four different endings yada yada this has been done many times and what's actually setting this game apart: the story is pretty good on a subsequent try and if you enjoy political mysteries this game's gonna be a field trip. It's not the most complicated thing, but many twists can be foreseen just the right amount of time and a few will surprise you like red circles on a clickbait thumbnail.

Story-wise I cannot regret playing this again, but the gameplay elements were not balanced at all. So you really feel like the person responsible for common sense in game design did not show up for work at a certain point. Places visited before will not contain new items, and battles yield the same loot that they did beforehand. So you need high-tier materials and a lot of money and the game gives you three bananas. Leveling up in the second playthrough is more of a nuisance. There are plenty of characters to recruit and even more are playable in later playthroughs, but you cannot equip and pull up their stats fast enough and the game becomes a grind festivity. This is such an oversight in an overall well developed game.
As for positive elements of gameplay the developers outdid themselves on the flow of battles. Even though they can be long, it never feels boring to play them out. Difficulty can be changed anytime and whenever you lose a battle you don't lose the EXP gained by the characters. This is massive and I hope this will be the gold standard mechanic in all future games of this genre. Overall it was a nice experience.

The first time I played Morrowind was in 2018. I had finished Skyrim for the second time at that point and Oblivion once. I was a massive fan of the series and naturally wanted to move on to Morrowind. I hated it, I played for maybe an hour or so before just giving up. Everything about the game was clunky and unnerving. I felt claustrophobic trying to make my way to balmora without realising that I could take the silt strider but I also felt bare and weird, the same feeling you could get when going out of bounds in a game I just felt out of place. It was my first venture into a truly old and aged game such as this. about a year or so later just before the summer of 2019 I decided to try it again. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and really tried my best to just enjoy it and let it run its course. I got a few quality of life mods and watched the same beginner tips videos I always watch before stumbling into an RPG game and started. Of coure you saw the 5 stars that I'm giving it and can guess that I fell in love with this game. I remember the beginning of summer after finishing my first year in a new school around new people in a new house, waking up home alone with the bright sun pouring through my lazily draped curtains while I connected my phone to a bluetooth speaker and loaded up my save on Morrowind. Everything about the songs I would listen to and the quests I completed during that time which in retrospect was probably only over the course of a few weeks was pure magic. the summer of 2019 would go on to be a time that changed my life forever both for the good and very very bad. I got sucked in to a very bad online community and was starting to question my gender and was overall going through the teenage mental health struggle. I think the reason that short time of when I first properly played the game is so special in my head is because looking back it was the calm before the storm. It was me, an innocent care free young teenager playing her new favourite video game and talking to herself while wandering around the island of vvardenfell as if she were really there. Since that first playthrough I have had 2 other big playthroughs and have about 400 hours accumulated. I only play the game once every year and a half or so and I am due a replay soon enough. Those other 2 playthroughs also hold special places in my heart but I just wanted to talk about the first because it is the one that I believe captures the essence of Morrowind best. I was a young teenager who was suddenly cast into the deep end of life and I feel like Morrowind kind of does that to you aswell but in a more positive light. If you ignore the negative emotions surrounding all of that questioning and confusion growing up it is a journey that keeps you on your feet and never stops to amaze you. Everytime I play morrowind that sense of remarkable intrugue never leaves its side and I don't think it ever will.

Mario Kart 64 is a solid racing game that remains important to the franchise. While Super Mario Kart revolutionized the series, Mario Kart 64 gave birth to the modern Mario Kart we know today

The game has eight characters to choose from with newcomers such as Wario (replacing Koopa Troopa) and just plain Donkey Kong. The Grand Prix is split up into four cups with four tracks, adding up to a total of 16 different tracks with no multiple Mario Circuits in sight. Yeah, there are the Raceway courses themed around different characters using the same music, but nothing repetitive. The tracks are all 3D, but the characters are all 2D with flat images of 3D models, which I guess made the game run better without them, but I may be wrong about that. The graphics are outdated, but they have a certain charm to them, and the same can be said with most 3D games during this generation. The characters all have voice lines, some more iconic than others, and a few have changed over time like Yoshi's for example, but they still add to the charm of the game

All cups and 3 of the 4 engine class are unlocked from the start, and this leads me to one of my issues with the game; there isn't a ton to unlock. Getting first place and getting gold to unlock the different cups in Super Mario Kart is frustrating, but you had something you had working towards at least. This makes 64 the worst Mario Kart game single-player-wise, as I've seen many longplays of this game start at 150cc and don't bother with the rest. I played all the cups because I wanted to get a feel for the controls, but it kind of makes 50cc and 100cc kind of pointless if there's nothing much to unlock. The only thing that's unlockable is the last engine class, Extra Mode, which is essentially Mirror Mode and has become another staple for Mario Kart

All the items from Super Mario Kart have returned to Mario Kart 64 except for the coins and the feather. For the new items that also became staples, such as the triple shells, bananas (which are actually 5), Fake Item Block, Golden Mushroom, and the Blue Shell. Now the Blue Shell isn't as chaotic and punishable as the later Mario Kart entries get, but here, it's not that bad

Mario Kart 64 isn't the best control-wise, especially the drifting, but I did get used to it after a little while. Rubber-banding still exists for the CPUs, and yeah, they can be a bit of a pain in the ass, but they're tolerable to deal with. When you reach 5th - 8th place, the game lets you try again as many times as you want which I found to be pretty generous compared to the lives system in its predecessor

The track selection here is decent in my opinion. There are the standard Raceway tracks as I said earlier, but we got some iconic ones. Kalimari Desert is a track everyone thinks of when naming a desert-themed course, plus the train; Royal Raceway is the best raceway track because you can drive through Peach's Castle; I love the atmosphere and sinister tone of Bowser's Castle, even though the Thwomps can be a bit annoying; and lastly, Rainbow Road, the longest track in all of Mario Kart. Seriously, this track can take 6-7 minutes long, maybe shorter depending on if you did the massive shortcut as I did

Lastly, there is the Battle Mode, and it's really fun with friends, and in fact, everything is better multi-player-wise in Mario Kart 64. If you have 1-3 friends that will play with you, whether it's on an original N64 or the NSO + Expansion Pack, you're gonna have a great time

Mario Kart 64 is a bit frustrating single-player-wise, but a blast to play through multi-player-wise. Now that I fully experienced this game, I can say that it's dated in certain areas, and it's more of a vanilla Mario Kart compared to previous entries, but it's still loads of fun. I vastly prefer playing the modern games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but 64 is worth resisting from time to time whenever feeling like playing with friends. Even with all of its flaws, I appreciate how much this had an impact on the Mario Kart series as we do today

It’s easy to tell where this game draws its inspirations from… and sometimes that sort of thing can be distracting, or make you feel like you’d rather be playing the game it’s imitating. Singularity manages to stand tall on its own two feet and avoid those pitfalls.

I’ve seen a lot of comparisons on here to Time Shift, and while I think Singularity definitely drew influences from the mechanics of that game, this is ultimately a slicker and better developed experience. Granted, I’ve only played a little bit of Time Shift… but it was enough to make me want to discontinue.

Dead Space is one that came to mind most often for me. From the way you upgrade your weapon and abilities, to the presentation of its horror elements, and ultimately to its giant kaiju battle… it was easy to make those comparisons. Some how Singularity’s story and gameplay managed to fit in enough originality that I’d often forget how much DNA it borrowed.

A linear design was the right choice for this game, as it’s story was unique and interesting in its own right, and creating a looser, more open experience would have hindered the play-through a lot. Going back and forth in time, and altering events throughout the game was such a cool aspect of the story. I loved the variety in the enemy types. It’s always nice when a game like this breaks up supernatural enemies with human ones. Especially as organic as this one does.

It’s a hodgepodge of different games culminating together into one exciting experience. It has a solid story, some fun combat, and really good level design. The only aspect that felt really one note was the protagonist. Even Isaac from Dead Space had more layers than this guy. But ultimately Singularity is a game that could have been entirely one note, much like a lot of the first person shooters of it’s time… but it’s hard to deny the amount of effort poured into this little game.

As a school teacher, the distinction between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation is something I face on a day to day basis. You cannot teach a student to be intrinsically motivated, but you can force them to be extrinsically motivated. Grades, parental pressure, peer to peer comparisons, even compliments from the authority figure. These methods do not get students to suddenly become invested in learning about math, science, literature, etc. They do, however, get them to put effort into learning regardless of what little joy they find in it.
Such is the way of public education. A constant push and pull between individualized education for the diverse group of students in the world as well as ensuring their skills and knowledge is apt for the future of our society. The best thing a teacher can do then within said system is create an environment for the students to find a love of learning regardless of the exams, grades, and other negatives. If you think back to your favorite teachers in school there is likely something they did to instill a level of passion or joy for just coming into the classroom each day. If they matched really well with you perhaps they got you invested in a new topic or career path.

In many ways I find that the AAA game landscape is similar to public education in how its goal is to appeal to the masses. Public education serves everyone who does not have the opportunity to choose a private school or homeschooled education. Those situations end up being highly specialized areas where the expectations and results can be controlled due to the individual interests of the stakeholders being more considered. AAA games try to make experiences that are broadly appealing and interesting, niche appeals and interests can’t be catered to as to get the most people involved as possible. So like in public education they overcorrect the expectations for the player and try to implement rigid and clear methods of both punishment and reward with the ultimate goal of getting to the end.

Nintendo, the video game industry’s local House of Mouse, is a notable producer due to their seemingly massive amounts of Quality Control put into their top titles. They are a system built to get people from all backgrounds interested in games, as Disney is the same with animation. Though realistically most games they make are still reliant on very cheap extrinsic design. One does not have to look much further than this same year’s Super Mario Odyssey as a game whose core loop is based on an empty, extrinsic “grab all the moons” open world style. A game whose mechanics bore much discussion but there isn’t really much to say about the middling open world design of the game.

Breath of the Wild of course stands as a sharp difference to most AAA games on the market, even those created by the Japanese Michael Mouse itself. It is a game when discussed is about free flowing decision making as opposed to an accomplishment of objectives. For this review I will simply point to the current third most liked review of the game on the site by @JimTheSchoolGirl which will be my cheap short hand to show why many people love this game. The game itself is less focused on you, the player, beating it but instead giving you different opportunities to interact with systems and create your own creative solution to multiple problem solving situations. Jimminy was never told to do the things he listed here as a goal or a scripted sequence, this was meaningful because he decided to do this himself.
This is Intrinsic Motivation at work. This is something most game designers (and teachers) find nearly impossible to discover naturally but not only did this work for Jimminy, it has worked for hundreds of thousands of other people who salivate at the mere idea of this game. How in the world did they do it?

That’s not any easy question to dissect and give a short answer. It begins with things like the art style and music along with other aesthetic elements having that draw that appeals to many people. That part is the Disney effect so to speak. The game simply looks appealing and accessible without any fluff. That isn’t something to be said about most games especially for Immersive Sims which BOTW is often compared to.
That’s step one. Give people the invitation into the game. If we continue with the Public School Analogy this is the mandatory attendance, the part that gets butts in seats. Except for the fact that games are profit driven and not really meant to raise the next generation (oh dear god hopefully).

The next step is expressed easiest in the intro. You cannot begin a free form adventure in chaos. Most games that do not give you much advice in the beginning are doomed to not appeal to the masses. The developers solution to this was to have a restrictive tutorial with clear objectives before putting the foot on the gas. Much ado has been said about the tutorial island so I won’t dive too deeply into how it was designed, but I will say there are two pulling factors here that cause it to pull in everyone who has begun playing it.
One: A clear problem to solve. 4 shrines, 4 items, one area.
Two: Multifaceted solutions along with many smaller problems existing in the same area (temperature, guardians, weapon durability, etc.)
These combine together to form something similar to what is referred to as Problem Based Learning (PBL) in education. I am not an expert in this subject to be honest, but I will do my best to point out how these function in terms of building Intrinsic Motivation.

The first part is the clear meaningful problem to the participant. Oftentimes a PBL uses some local phenomena (forgive me if I use too many education terms lmao) to anchor itself in the minds of the student, similar to how the island creates a clear and immediate issue in the mind of the player. Secondly there’s many smaller issues in the way that the individual must consider in completing their final task. The game splits up the task into four shrines, each with their own smaller problems surrounding them, however often in Education it requires the students to go through an engineering process of design and redesign. The loop is similar enough to compare them since the player must constantly rebuild their knowledge base with each issue that comes up along the way from dealing with various enemies, climbing, dealing with cold weather, and interacting with natural objects like trees.
The goal of a PBL is that the student is self-sufficient. It stands in stark contrast to the sort of null hypothesis of Teacher Centered learning. Things like lectures and rote memorization as opposed to giving the students agency to investigate solutions on their own end and learn what they need to know at their own pace. This, as you can probably guess, is the line between Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation. Being able to give an individual their own agency to solve a given, relevant issue makes it far easier for someone to get invested in something. In education that is what is called Student Centered Learning, and in Breath of the Wild that is the interaction with many systems that is exemplified in the Tutorial Island.

The benefit of the player learning this other than a sense of pride, is that the designers are able to give them different complex problems within the same system and it is up to the player to engage and figure out solutions. This knowledge base can grow for new problems and new experiences, from riding horses, dealing with more complex enemies, the glider, and the dungeons in the game. A PBL exists to get students invested for the duration of the topic before the class starts again with something new to move on to. However the skills gained in the process are invaluable as the topics become more complex.

Of course on the other hand, many people fall off of Breath of the Wild. I know I stopped playing once I hit about 20 hours in and I have no intention to return. It isn’t really hard to see why either in this case. While it manages to draw in a massive amount of people to be naturally entranced to explore the world it creates that won’t ever work for everyone. In fact, to say that most gamers are intrinsically motivated to play games is foolish bait. I have many a person in my Twitter circle that will claim x game/genre is better because of what the player can invest themselves into, but that’s ultimately a very narrow view of the appeal of Video Games. Much of the appeal of gaming can be the rigidity of systems based in extrinsic motivation, hence why the mobile market is the most popular and successful. It is nice to have a simple goal with clear success and failure states (the discourse around Vampire Survivors has made this much more apparent lately).

One of the main issues of Breath of the Wild is that the developers and the game itself do not trust themselves. The core hook, while wonderful, will not keep everyone engaged to the very end. There is never much growth in how the game builds it’s problem solving. The comparison of a PBL often becomes tenuous particularly when it comes to time. A given PBL lesson will last typically around 4-7 hours spread throughout a week or so, this game lasts 30+ hours. There is no growth in these systems as they are introduced early on. There are very few new systems that are introduced as well, and often the ones that are introduced often only take a few moments to solve. There are many extrinsic rewards and objectives littering the game, however you do not do the shrines or divine beasts because they appeal to the feeling of beauty and exploration the game holds within. You do them because there are rewards or because the sensation of checking off an objective on a list is appealing. In so the game does not create objectives to enhance its core experience, but instead to attempt to distract from the flaws of its lack of dynamism.
After 20 hours you may not have seen everything the game has to offer but you certainly can feel like you have. That mileage depends on the person too. Some people will drop Twitter clips in the year of our lord 2022 showing crazy interactions in the game, others like myself will drop it to never pick it up again part way through. The truth is that the game does not build upon its core. It takes a very big “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach which, while respectable, did not entrance me in the way it did for many other players. Once I hit that 20 hour mark I said to myself “This game’s sequel will be straight up bussin’.” Jury’s out to see if that’s really true, but I would imagine the designers are more aware of what I discussed here than I am fr fr.

Breath of the Wild is a fascinating game that causes many regular people to fall in love with its world through Intrinsic Motivation. It fails often because outside of the core systems it does not provide any quality content for the players to engage in, things such as shrines and dungeons exist to fill time rather than improve the experience. I would certainly go so far as to call Breath of the Wild a classic, but it fails in so many ways I won’t gas it up like everyone else on the planet.
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Hey what's up gamers. I don’t really vibe with the author’s note but I will say this is the start of a “series” of sorts where I compare game design and Pedagogy since I think there’s more overlap than people readily consider. Really though this is my Copium of focusing on my career at the moment rather than trying to actually make a game haha. Eventually I will make that sweet game though and hopefully it’ll be good. Ideally it involves punching Dracula but we’ll see what happens.

Important thing to note is I’m a Master’s student in Education and have only taught for one year so far. I’m not really an expert, but I do have a lot of observations so please feel free to critique me and ask pedagogical questions. I’m always happy to tell people about how Teaching works haha.

Also shout outs to my homie @SimonDedalus for his review of Resident Evil 4 which certainly influenced my writing here in more ways than one.

Oh yeah, this is it. My favorite JRPG story ever. The concept is beautiful and complex. Rooted in Hinduism with a bunch of minor details being discovered for me to this day, anything I said about the last game is just done better here. The best sequel to a video game I've personally ever played. I cannot believe this game is a thing sometimes with how it's story is.. existing. I love the combat, the characters, the setting, dungeons are as good and better than the original. Seriously doing yourself a disservice not playing the duology.

Cyberpunk Existential Crisis

Few stories have touched my life in such a powerful way as Life is Strange. To say that this game has influenced me is an understatement, there is so much to like about that I could go on for days. Especially with the story, the twists, the characters, and the life-changing soundtrack.

But the thing I enjoy the most about Life is Strange has to be just the magic that it carries from beginning to end. The game is beautiful to look at, transporting you to an anemoic setting where you meet characters who are excellently written. This game truly feels dream-like. Such a unique experience.

The second half of Marth's story that never got released in the US, so I had to play a fan translation. Being similar to Shadow Dragon, another game I didn't enjoy very much, and coming off the heels of Path of Radiance, getting used to no Canto took time. Marth is still a sword locked foot locked Lord who can't reclass, but unlike my Shadow Dragon playthrough, I actually capped his level this time.

As a game, it does feel like New Mystery, like Shadow Dragon, hooks you up with the best units you can get early on, and while you get A LOT of units in this game, most aren't very good. It honestly feels like the game expects you to cannon fodder off some of these weakling units, especially with the number of weapons enemies drop on maps. These weapons do feel like they clutter up the convoy after a while, though.

Money, on the other hand, is pretty tight. Arenas aren't nearly as common this time to farm gold, along with the risk of losing units, the reward isn't too worth it. You don't even get the Silver Card until about halfway through the game, too, and most of your money will be spent on Silver weapons since they start giving them to you fairly early.

But let's address the elephant in the room, the New Mystery content, seeing as this is a remake of FE3. I had no real issues with the prologue chapters, barring the last one, which felt like an odd difficulty spike. The few extra chapters sprinkled in were...eh, I guess. They cut down your unit count to 5 or 7 in some cases, which was pretty bleh, but at the very least, there's more than one set of conditions to access them. It's also the only way to get Iote's Shield for one of your fliers, so good luck.

However, I now understand why people hate Corrin so much in Fates. Literally everyone sucks off Kris like they're some sort of second messiah, while Kris does the same to Marth. Keep in mind Marth's character is about the exact same as it was in Shadow Dragon, so Marth just kinda feels like a generic "good boy who does good" kind of character. At the very least, he didn't let his previous defeat of Medeus go to his head.

This game really ups the number of dragon enemies you fight, and with dragon slaying weapons not coming by too often, it did get a bit rough at times. Chapters 11-14 in particular weren't very fun due to the sheer damage output these dragons could put out. Please note I was playing on Classic, even though the option for Casual exists. At the same time, I was doing a no deaths run, so if any units died, including certain ones, I reset.

Speaking of which, mandatory units needed for the finale, one of which being a thief who doesn't reclass at all. That's just great. At the very least, Minerva and Sirius, who totally isn't Camus, are pretty usable. Characters just don't stay dead in this game, do they? Medeus comes back, Gharnef comes back, Camus isn't dead either.

Overall, my feelings about New Mystery are almost the same as with Shadow Dragon. It's alright, but there are better Fire Emblem games out there than this one. I do see a bit why this game never got released outside of Japan, though. Probably sales. Truly a shame we only got half of Marth's story in the US.

a fantastic example of a unique experience that can only be realized in a game and can't be successfully replicated in any other medium

funny writing, phenomenal acting - the immediately recognizable Stephen Merchant is brilliant, and so many details in the environments unsurprisingly results in countless memorable moments with charming characters

and at the core, the puzzles are delightful, super tight, and rewarding all the way, with new mechanics being added throughout with great pacing. however, i do feel like the high amount of mechanics resulted in the core portal usage to feel a tad restricted

with a more intricate and engaging plot, i was hooked throughout and ended up totally loving it

for sure one of the greats