Metroid’s debut on the NES possessed plenty of unique and admirable elements, hence why it has influenced countless subsequent video games since its release. However, I grant the first Metroid game much less clemency than its fellow Nintendo icons during their freshmen years because navigating through the hostile hedge maze of an alien planet was too absurdly rigorous a task while being rendered in 8-bit graphics. It’s a brilliant idea whose execution in this vestigial era of gaming couldn’t possibly have been feasible, which is probably what inspired so many imitators to replicate its design philosophy when the gaming hardware could emulate it effectively. Because I’m already adamantly critical of a Metroid game on the NES, you can imagine why I’ve avoided its sequel on the original Gameboy like the plague. If Metroid on the NES is aggravatingly primitive as is, imagine how it would be downscaled on a handheld. It’s something I’ve shuttered to comprehend for some time now. However, Metroid II: Return of Samus on the original Gameboy is still an essential piece of the franchise’s evolutionary history, so I feel obligated not to eschew it from my gaming repertoire. Upon playing a game akin to eating my Brussels sprouts, I was surprised to find more positive aspects of Metroid II than I initially anticipated. Do these additions and rearrangements make Metroid II more pleasant than its console predecessor? Uh…

As detailed in the game’s manual, Metroid II is a direct sequel to the original Metroid in that its narrative follows the events of the first game when Samus defeated Mother Brain on Zebes. Now, the Galactic Federation is taking the fight to the metroid’s home planet of SR388 to exterminate the intergalactic parasites, ensuring that the dastardly Space Pirates will never harness their deadly biological properties ever again. However, upon storming the hive, an entire fleet of Federation mercenaries goes missing. Evidently, not even a gang of men can be relied on to do a woman’s job, so the Federation assigns Samus the intrepid mission of causing the metroid’s abrupt extinction. Future Metroid games would utilize the premise of invading an enemy hive as a climactic point, but Metroid II revels in the thrill of infiltration for the duration of the game. Because entering the heart of the threat is more of an intimate attack, Metroid II immediately raises the stakes of the narrative compared to the previous game.

The first Metroid certainly portrayed the dim nothingness of space effectively with its blank, black backgrounds setting the scene, whether it was an intentional artistic display from the developers or an inadvertent advantage of the NES’s primitiveness. At least the unseeable abyss of the backgrounds was contrasted with a pleasantly diverse color palette that gave the foregrounds their discernibility. Little known fact about the original Gameboy model, the handheld was so rudimentary that it could not support colors, so every game was rendered in stark black and white like the golden age of Hollywood. While the lack of colorization wouldn’t necessarily impact a Mario or Zelda game on the go, Metroid suffers completely. Contrasting a completely black background with white amongst grainy shades of more black turns any game into a graphical slurry thick as pea soup. Some later versions of Metroid II provide color where the foreground of SR388 is a cool blue, with Samus sporting her trademark red power suit with tinges of yellow. Still, the improved color scheme is only marginally less monochromatic than its original in black and white or the other version where it is shaded in a blanched, greenish-brown. To compensate for the lack of graphical discernibility, Metroid II’s camera perspective for the player is zoomed in to the point where it feels as if Samus’s body takes up half of the screen. I appreciate the consideration that Samus wouldn’t be sighted as easily from afar in black and white, but it’s a tad too close for my comfort threshold.

Considering that Metroid II couldn’t possibly stand up as a bonafide sequel to the NES Metroid with graphical enhancements, the developers sure did attempt to amend the awkward regression of hardware with several quality-of-life enhancements. Then again, the first Metroid was in desperate need of these enhancements anyway, so they were ultimately still a necessity even if Metroid’s sequel was on the same system. Firstly, the ability to aim Samus’s blaster in more directions than horizontally and vertically is a blessing. With a flexible dexterity that allows Samus to aim downward in the air, Samus is much less vulnerable and will take less unfair damage because the blind spot has been rectified. Acquiring energy tanks and missile upgrades will no longer involve borderline sequence breaking, although the paths to a number of them will sometimes be behind illusory walls like a number of upgrades throughout the games of this era. Most importantly, save stations are strewn aplenty as well as places to replenish health and missile ammunition, mitigating the need for an excruciating grinding session shooting at enemies to stave off dying and reverting all the way back to the beginning (which is now defined as where Samus parks her ship). If the Gameboy could implement a functional save feature, what’s the excuse for the NES rarely offering one? Outside of my general delight that all of these features heightened Metroid II’s accessibility, what surprised me was how many of Metroid’s power-ups made their debut here. The Spider Ball climbs up the coarse terrain of the metroid’s home planet as smoothly as seen in other Metroid iterations, and the same goes for the Spring Ball that jumpstarts Samus in ball form as sprightly as a reflex test. I had no idea that something as dangerous and erratic as the Screwattack could be implemented onto something as fragile and unsophisticated as the Gameboy but nevertheless, Samus is able to spin herself airborne with deadly energy to her heart’s content. The new spazer and plasma beams accompany the returning ice and wave beams, but Metroid II continues the problem from the previous game in that these beams cannot be alternated in an inventory of sorts.

You know what other feature Metroid II continues to omit? In all their wisdom and experience, Nintendo still did not find a map to be an indispensable facet of their exploration-intensive IP with cramped corridors galore and a smattering of secret upgrades. If I were on the decision board, I’d heavily protest. The visually muted depiction of this (literally) uncharted planet is really an insult to injury. Also, to compound how egregious this glaring oversight is, SR388’s world here is at least three times larger than Zebes. Have fun trying not to struggle at every waking moment trying to find your position in relation to where you’re intended to go. While the exclusion of a map is still just as unacceptable, at least SR388 is constructed a bit more prudently than the series of stairs and hallways that was Zebes. SB388 is organized incrementally, meaning that the entirety of one section has to be completed in order to proceed to the next one. Once everything is cleared out, the game gives them an indication to move onward: shaking the map like an earthquake, signifying that another section has been unearthed. Still, not providing a map for this instance renders this neat progression point moot because it’s incredibly unclear where the next area is.

Constantly scrambling to find the next area notwithstanding, how does one progress through the catacombs of the metroid’s home planet? When I stated that Samus’s mission was to eradicate all Metroids from the galaxy, this isn’t merely a narrative catalyst. Forty metroids have hatched from their cocoons like caterpillars and the overarching quest of Metroid II is to eliminate all of them. However, these are not the same jelly-headed brain suckers seen in the first game (and the ones we’ve become familiar with through subsequent titles). The homebound metroid resembles something of an intergalactic hornet, also buzzing around with the aggression of one once they encounter Samus. As Samus continually blasts them to bits, the genome of the metroid species is going to adapt to Samus’s opposition, scrolling down the letters of the Greek alphabet for categorization. The Zeta and Omega metroids that Samus will eventually be forced to contend with will look gnarlier, uncategorizable space monsters. However, their formidability will only prove to be an aesthetic evolution as a few missiles will still be the tried and true formula for this “superior” genetic line of metroids as it was for the Alpha and Gamma ones. Defeating them will always be a facile undertaking, but I cannot proclaim relief for the challenge of finding all of these bastards without a map. I can’t even begin to count how many times I’d scour the map frantically if I missed one. Anytime I eventually found the untouched metroid, I always felt my efforts were due to dumb luck.

It isn’t until the final boss against the Metroid Queen that Metroid II offers something on this planet that Samus won’t be able to gun down in a matter of seconds. This monstrous matriarch isn’t the overwhelming endurance test that Mother Brain proved to be, but its retractable head and screen-spanning spike balls it regurgitates is bound to graze many unknowing players. Instead of a spontaneous self-destruct sequence occurring as a falling action, Samus looks behind the remains of the final boss to find an egg on the verge of hatching. Suddenly, a little metroid hatchling in the classic model appears, but it does not approach Samus with the same hostility as the adult ones Samus has been laying waste to. Samus takes the little guy back to her ship at a leisurely pace, and the process of walking this unexpectedly cute and docile baby metroid like a pet is quite gleeful. It almost gives some perspective on how dangerous the metroids really are despite what the narrative has been feeding us. A nature versus nurture argument, or maybe it turns into a monster when its innocence is inevitably lost somehow.

Was it really necessary to put the sequel to Metroid on the Gameboy? Nintendo’s first console overstayed its welcome far past its commercial peak of the late 1980s well into the next generation, so why couldn’t Metroid II have joined its predecessor on the same system? Metroid II would have benefited greatly from being developed on a more reliable and stable piece of hardware because it should by all means be unequivocally better than the first game with all of its successful advancements. However, the opaque, black-and-white graphics, uncomfortable angle of sight, and no map to reference for progression yet again make Metroid II nauseating. At least some of these issues could've been remedied on a home console. The next game in the Metroid series was when the series definitively joined the primetime of gaming royalty, but it’s a shame to think that it potentially could’ve happened three years sooner if a mechanically inferior Nintendo product didn’t mar Metroid II.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

One popular topic of conversation usually reserved for a focus group or a conversational ice breaker is which of our artistic achievements we’d present to visiting or invading extraterrestrials if the opportunity arises. For this hypothetical scenario, we are the arbiters of refined culture, disregarding the adulation of works with several accolades under their belts and peerless acclaim that would objectively serve as representation. So really, the choices ultimately boil down to one’s own personal favorites. A small, but fervid, selection of one’s objective taste regarding this question is quite distressing if one ponders the implications of such a task, for the alien species might not perceive the works with the same level of enthusiasm and see an individual's preferences as indicative of the entirety of humankind. Or, they could just be unfeeling philistines ready to annihilate or enslave us at the pull of a laser gun trigger regardless of what we’ve accomplished in the realm of art and entertainment. For us gamers, the scope of this hypothetical scenario has to be scaled down, for we already have trouble convincing other human beings that video games are a legitimate art form as is. When Roger Ebert, arguably the most famed and respected critic across all mediums much less his signature forte of film, was still alive and active, gamers attempted to sway the dean of critique to a more favorable viewpoint on whether video games were a bonafide form of artistic expression by suggesting that he play Shadow of the Colossus. Of course, being an obstinate old man at the time, he refused to humor any inkling of expending any of his valuable time and energy on such a “trite” and “pedestrian” form of entertainment. In my perspective, I think Roger Ebert was afraid of being proven wrong and losing an iota of his credibility upon his eventual reflection. Not only would I suggest that the haughty figures of older generations seek out Shadow of the Colossus to change their viewpoint, but I’d confidently bestow the game to any race of hostile aliens as a surefire way to prompt them to lionize us as masters of the universe. You’ll be thanking me if this ever becomes a reality. Shadow of the Colossus is one of the essential artistic pillars in the timeline of gaming’s history, equivalent to James Joyce’s novel Ulysses or Francois Truffaut’s film The 400 Blows. All arguments debating the place of video games in the esteemed echelons of fine art alongside its fellow entertainment mediums should be thrown completely out of the window, for Shadow of the Colossus proves the elevated potential of the interactive medium more effectively than any other game before it.

Revealing that the developers behind Shadow of the Colossus are Team Ico might garner an initial understanding of how the game achieves its magnificent artistry. Using their debut project Ico as a reference, the mission of this maverick Japanese studio is to trim the fat of the typical video game to an almost monastic degree, a “subtraction design” philosophy as specifically coined by director Fumito Ueda. Admittedly, video games commonly feature HUDs that aid the player’s understanding of the game’s scrupulous details and character status through a perpetual visual reference. While the necessity of such implements is warranted for most games, they do arguably diminish the immersive elements of gaming with a layer of artificiality. Using the Legend of Zelda series as a primary influence, Team Ico sought to strip the action-adventure base of the series and thematic fantasy tropes down to the marrow. Without the display of a health bar, maps, or an arsenal of items in the menu, Ico acted as an emaciated version of Nintendo’s iconic franchise for every single contextual aspect of the game. Still, I’ll be damned if Ueda’s minimalist design ethos didn’t effectively render something engaging, ironically accentuating all of the puzzle and platforming attributes we know and love from a series such as The Legend of Zelda by diluting their apparentness. Like the project of Team Ico’s namesake, Shadow of the Colossus also strives to evoke an aura of epicness through a meticulous waning of gaming’s excessive elements. However, Shadow of the Colossus did not compromise on that bombastic video game flair as Ico did in some aspects. Somehow, despite its continued ascetic efforts, Shadow of the Colossus is one of the most epically awe-striking video games that I’ve ever played.

What better way to ignite the player’s intrigue initially than to present yet another opening sequence with implied high stakes shrouded in a veil of ambiguity? I would comment that this type of introduction is a standby method for Team Ico to engage the player by piquing their curiosity just like Ico, but the context behind Shadow of the Colossus’s plot is admittedly a smidge clearer. Between the immaculate cliffs of a nameless, naturalistic landscape, a young man, who we dub as “Wander,” rides a charcoal-black horse with a fierce sense of determination. Upon entering an ancient temple fit for a pharaoh's tomb, the young man dismounts his horse and unloads his cargo onto the main chamber’s altar. Unraveling the cloak reveals a girl whose lifeless mien and ghostly skin complexion signify that she is freshly deceased. After unsheathing a glowing sword to fend off the bothersome black spirits that strongly resemble those from Ico, a discarnate voice perks up and informs the boy that resurrecting the girl may be possible via the usage of his reflective blade. With the transportation aid of his loyal steed, Agro, Wander must scour the outer limits of the land to find sixteen Colossi and slay them all as a chivalrous knight does to a dragon. Only by undergoing this daunting escapade will Wander allegedly restore consciousness to whom he presumably loves dearly. How am I privy to all of this exposition you may ask? Because the introduction duly provides it. After Wander places the girl on the altar, a disembodied mask tells us that the setting is a sacred realm foretold to revive the dead, explaining Wander’s impassioned efforts to travel to this remote, abandoned sanctuary. Perhaps the developers couldn’t let the player rely on their likely preconceived notions that this effete guy wearing a hairband is far more sinister than he seems and is going to great lengths to dispose of the body of a girl he has murdered. Some players would find the whole premise too heinous to continue onward. Either or, Shadow of the Colossus promptly exposes its context compared to what little was provided for the beginning of Ico. Hell, the introduction here features more dialogue than the entirety of Ico. This might give the impression that Shadow of the Colossus isn’t as narratively obtuse as Ico, an unfortunate sign that the developers got cold feet and decided to appease the commercial masses. Still, the absurdly lofty overarching objective at hand here for a seemingly unfeasible reward that Wander accepts without expressing a hint of skepticism presents an air of disconnect between the player and the narrative’s intentions. In the grand scheme of things, the player is still kept in the dark about what is really occurring. Also, surely the premise of rescuing a princess who is already dead subverts the hero and damsel in distress roles more cleverly than Ico did. Ladies, get yourself a little Romeo like Wander, who will trudge through death-defying odds like conquering over a dozen different beasts as big as Beverly Hills mansions for you with no questions asked even if you cease to exist (actually, don’t; for I cannot live up to those standards).

If Ico served as a prolonged, squalid depiction of a typical Zelda dungeon, Shadow of the Colossus extends the radius of Zelda’s breadth to the franchise’s open-world aspects. Naturally, because Shadow of the Colossus is a 3D game whose setting consists of the same topography as Hyrule’s first polygonal rendering, I must compare this game’s world to Ocarina of Time as I tend to do with all obvious successors that use it as a template. Discussing similarities between Shadow of the Colossus’s forbidden realm and Hyrule Field is more apt than the usual comparisons, for the few Shadow of the Colossus detractors gripe that its world is far too “empty and stiff” to hold their interest. What amuses me is that this criticism is exactly what I’ve always applied to Hyrule Field from Ocarina of Time, even though I always consider some semblance of clemency for its pioneering primitiveness. While I can understand why these negative descriptors could be assigned to the world of Shadow of the Colossus, they fail to recognize the intended scope of this barren wasteland. You see, the forbidden lands and Hyrule Field present a contrast between empty and “empty,” and you’ll just have to follow along to grasp my point. If we use the example of Hyrule from A Link to the Past, the kingdom’s overworld should be a sprawling environment with diverse terrain and a point of interest around every corner whether it be in plain sight or “a secret to us all.” All that Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time amounts to is a mossy vestibule stretched out to the appropriately spacious diameter of a hub. I stated that Ocarina of Time didn’t sacrifice much in translating all of its refined 2D elements, but the Hyrule overworld is the most apparent compromise Zelda had to make during the complicated transition to the third dimension. When the technology has progressed where rendering an empty hub world is an endeavor fueled by artistic vision as seen in Shadow of the Colossus, the minimalist imperative can produce something spectacular. Outside of the towering temple where Wander begins his quest, the surrounding perimeter is a green grassy knoll surrounded by a blockade of canyons and chasms. Finding a route around the inconvenient environment in opposite cardinal directions will lead Wander to rocky cliff sides that resemble the shores of Dover or a fallow desert area parched by the comparative lack of moisture. Lying between the two radically different environments are sections with lakes, ravines, groves, and dimly lit forested areas where traces of sunlight only peek through to the floor. While the overworld here certainly checks off more ecological boxes than the flat field in the center of Hyrule, the entire landscape is so bereft of any activity that the silence is disconcerting. Besides the clip-clopping of Agro’s hooves, only the wind is an instrument in this close to absolute zero decibel soundscape. The atmosphere is so desolate that it's as if Wander is the very first lifeform, much less a human being, to set foot on this untouched, pristine landscape like Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. Wander’s surroundings are so removed from all traces of civilization that it’s almost as if he’s fabricating them in a dream all to himself. It would explain the perpetually ominous clouds overhead that never crescendo into precipitating, something sublime that accentuates the breathtaking view. The meditative undercurrent of this uncanny world is quite refreshing considering that several other Hyrule Field followers congest their hub settings with a little TOO much hustle and bustle.

If you’re the jittery type who cannot stand to bask in the beguiling ambiance for longer than necessary, you should be relieved to know that Shadow of the Colossus will always present a set goal of finding one of the Colossi somewhere in the overworld. One would think the sheer size of these mobile mammoths or the thunderous echos of their footsteps in the still silence of the setting would make the process of sussing out their locations easier than finding VD on a dive bar’s toilet seat but never will Wander spot one of these beasts from his peripheral. To direct Wander towards the locale of the current colossus assigned by the detached voice that speaks backward from the temple’s sunroof, he must raise his sacred sword skyward and reflect the sun’s rays like a solar-powered compass. If the radiation resembles a straightforward beam as opposed to a scattered burst, then that indicates that the colossus can be found in that general direction. This adjunct appliance to the sword seems like it completely mitigates the searching section of the hunt, but this beacon is no GPS. The narrow, singular reflective ray does not account for the aforementioned arduously conspicuous and unwavering geomorphology. Circumnavigating around the terrain in an attempt to close in on a colossus will always prove to be a meandering charade. Good luck finding the equivalent of the sword’s “reception” if the route to a colossus includes traversing through a forest or a narrow section of a canyon. However, as diverse as the terrain is throughout this world, one convenient aspect of the map is that it is relatively compact. Traveling to either opposite of the ecological spectrum, whether or not Wander will find himself smack dab in a colossus’s domain, will never take more than approximately a few minutes. The player should be relieved considering that Wander will automatically be teleported back to the temple because the voice above has apparently declared it as the omphalos of the operation. The game’s progression is constructed as a rinse-and-repeat process, but at least the restrained spread of the forbidden lands has made arriving back to the general vicinity of the next colossus less tedious. Unfortunately, reflecting light off of Wander’s sword won’t double in aiding the search for the crystal-tailed salamanders and the hearty yellow fruit hanging from the trees, shooting them with Wander’s pink bow with a limitless supply of arrows and consuming them to increase his maximum stamina and health respectively. However, Wander is already compensated with these stat boosts for slaying a colossus, so the grueling trouble of finding these infinitesimal things across the map should be discouraged to even the most devout completionists.

While the aura of traversing through the world of Shadow of the Colossus is drenched in layers of lethargy and interminable tension, the path of conquest is always exciting because of what lies at the end of every route. Besides the notion of successfully maneuvering over the world’s formidable terrain, simply encountering any of the colossi in their earthly domicile is its own reward. Upon encroaching on the territory of a colossus, a cutscene will trigger that showcases the magnificent marvel of extreme biology in its full glory. The “shadow” portion of the game’s title is not a minor allusion to enliven potential buyers with mystique: the colossi are gargantuan enough to eclipse the sun from Wander’s view and even chill him with the shade emanating from their…well, colossal immensity. When in the vicinity of a colossus, the serene tone of the overworld staggeringly catapults immediately into adrenaline-pumping action as if an alarm clock abruptly awakened Wander. While the stark commonality between these beasts is their physical enormity, their environmental conditions have granted them all distinguishable physical adaptations. The first colossi, Valus, features the anatomy of a minotaur creature, standing on two legs to support his massive, lumberjack frame. Sharing his relatively humanoid posture are the column-wielding Gaius, the geezer with a white, ZZ Top beard Barba, and the gravely serious-looking Argus. Still, they all approach the uninvited guest that is Wander differently during battle. Quadrupedal colossi include the wooly Quadratus, the crudely shaped equine creature of Phaedra, and the tortoise-esque Basaran. Other colossi’s characteristics are defined more by their environments. The laser-tusked Pelagia, giant gull Avion, and the electric eel Hydrus all reside along the area of a watery channel or basin, integrating themselves with their aquatic surroundings in varying degrees, but each of them obviously resemble radically dissimilar species. The same dichotomy of colossi types is also found in the desert area of the map, with Dirge burrowing beneath the sand while the sand snake Phalanx (my favorite of the bunch) gracefully soars above it high up in the sky. Surprisingly enough, there is even a trio of miniature colossi with Kuromori, Celosia, and Cenobia. Despite their relative dwarfism compared to their towering colossi brethren, these three are still scaled to the sizes of rhinoceroses with the same level of aggression. The Colossi are a wonderfully assorted bunch of imposing creatures, and whatever common ancestor they all share that has passed down their glowing eyes and arcane armor has formulated sixteen of the most imaginative monsters ever seen in the gaming medium.

Essentially, Shadow of the Colossus is a glorified boss gauntlet with intermittent travel sequences in between each colossus that allows the player to simmer in their latest onerous accomplishment. To divulge the rich gameplay mechanics involved in taking all of these colossi down, I’d have to reveal their puzzle-oriented secrets, and spoiling them would be a disservice to any prospective players and the colossi themselves by sullying their intimidating allure. All the input I can communicate is to not fear using the superior speed of Agro during a few fights and not to underestimate the smaller colossi. One encompassing aspect of defeating the colossi is that all of them will require scaling their mountainous bodies to subdue them. This intimate aspect of the fights is the game’s defining idiosyncrasy, and the prospect of climbing a colossus and riding its backside like a flea on a mangy dog is as exhilarating and unnerving as it sounds. Finding an entry point to scaling their ginormous forms is where the puzzle aspects of the gameplay are relevant, and this may involve taunting them with the bow and arrow or outsmarting them into fracturing their armor. Still, I cannot say which colossi these methods apply to. Once Wander manages to exploit their vulnerability to ascend upward onto the colossi, he must raise his sword as he would to find these beasts in the overworld to expose the tender points of their body signified by a glowing sigil. I guess this modestly-sized blade rivals the might of Excalibur because thrusting it in the designated exterior parts of the colossi will make them groan in agony and gush blood like a sieve. Wander’s only concern at this point is continuing to balance himself on the colossi as it thrashes around trying to knock him off, for they are intelligent enough to register that this puny man is trying to murder them and are rightfully upset. Even though it's illogical from a biological standpoint regarding some of the aquatic colossi, each of their bodies will at least have a clump of fur to cling onto to retain Wander's advantageous position.

Converging a level dungeon and its boss into one fully-fledged experience? Team Ico’s rumhamming of video game attributes is pure, masterful brilliance. Still, the turbulent interactions with the colossi remind me of one prevalent complaint some players share regarding the game’s controls and presentation. Truthfully, Shadow of the Colossus is rather sluggish, operating on a framerate that makes the character movement seem as if it's running in slow motion. This becomes an issue whenever a colossus knocks down Wander and will take what seems like an eternity to recuperate. Sometimes, select colossi will take advantage of Wander’s vulnerability and beat him down until he has been eradicated. The camera also tends to have a hard time holding onto the colossi as Wander does, which can also cause him to make a fatal mistake. These hiccups would normally devastate a game’s overall quality, but I trust that a fraction of Shadow of the Colossus’s imperfections is a deliberate effort from Team Ico. Because the framerate is glacial, it allows the player to feel the full, intended impact of the colossi. Whenever one of these brutes slams its feet into the earth, the shattering of the frame rate that occurs makes defeating them seem like an insurmountable undertaking. Flopping about by the hem of a colossus’s wooly coat in a languid frame of motion effectively highlights how removed from the ground Wander is up top of a colossus like the steep altitude is making his oxygen dwindle as quickly as his stamina gauge. While the presentation is technically unacceptable, one can’t deny that the linear qualities of shoddier mechanical performance make the gameplay resonate with the player.

The immediate falling action of shedding a colossi’s mortal coil with too many critically deep sword plunges should also resonate with the player. After the expedition of locating the colossus and the mental strain involved in finding a way to extinguish it, one might think that executing the seemingly inexecutable would inspire victorious feelings of joy. Alas, the scene of the colossi’s eyes turning blank and its body collapsing into the earth evokes a potent melancholy. Sure, we accomplished the task at hand, but at what cost? The archetypal story of man conquering beast stems back to at least the Middle Ages to Beowulf and Grendel, and it’s deemed as one of the most courageous feats that defines a man as a hero. Can we really assign Wander to the same celebrated category of men? Sure, this is technically his role if we apply what little context we’re given to the heroic tropes we’re all familiar with. Still, one cannot earnestly follow along with narrative tradition when these docile colossi have inflicted no harm on any other living being or the environment before being provoked by an invasive pest. And was the effort truly worth it when every short-term reward is Wander being knocked unconscious by ghastly tendrils that violently penetrate his body? The brilliant aspect of conveying this is that the game never overtly tells the player that Wander is the real monster in a game filled with them like a contrived plot twist. Through subtle clues, Shadow of the Colossus flips the classic hero versus monster story on its head where the concentrated blood flow gives the conflict some well-considered clarity. When these beautiful, majestic colossi cease to exist at our hands, we all wonder if real-life poachers who kill animals on earth have souls.

In reality, Wander is too insignificant to be the hero. From the beginning, he’s been nothing but the subservient tool to the temple’s undetectable landlord who has been praying on Wander’s desperation. His hinting at how to handle all of the colossi at idle moments during their encounters shows he has too much invested interest in seeing all of them fall, which cannot be a good sign considering the unclear correlation between riding the world of the colossi and the resurrection of Wander’s girlfriend. After finally facing the last colossi, a vertical behemoth named Malus whose head practically brushes up against the clouds, Wander does not travel back to the temple to celebrate his achievement with champagne and ice cream. An even more subtle detail in highlighting that Wander’s actions are injurious is that they are having a toxic effect on his well-being. By the fifteenth colossi, Wander will be covered by so many blue lesions, you’d think he was zombified. When the final colossi has been conquered, Wander is no more. He is a vessel for the ancient demon Dormin, the identity of the voice whose soul had been fractured into sixteen pieces and kept in the colossi as a drastic measure to stave off his return. For the past few cutscenes in between colossi, a group of villagers have been slowly approaching the temple and have managed to cross the bridge by the final cutscene. They are aghast to see that Wander has fulfilled the endeavor of reviving Dormin, chiding the boy for his foolishness. When Dormin fully encapsulates Wander, the player gets the chance to play as a colossus and smash the group of men into a paste. However, the men are wise and know exactly what must be done in the case of Dormin’s return. By throwing Wander’s sacred sword into a pool of water, it creates a ravaging vortex that pulls Wander in, ending Dormin’s reign of mayhem before it had a chance to begin. The men hightail out of the temple, with the bridge eroding from the vortex’s ferocity as a positive sign that entering it and interacting with Dormin will be harder to perform.

Somehow, despite Dormin’s deceptive promises, the girl who has been comatose throughout this whole ordeal awakens from her slumber and finds an infant in the pool who is implied to be a reborn Wander. I’m quite puzzled at how the girl has regained sentience when it seemed proven that she would never see the light of day again because all evidence was leading to Wander running a fool’s errand. The fact that he persists onward just to fail miserably at the end and die is what makes the game’s resolution beautifully tragic. Then again, he admittedly did bring all of this misfortune on himself, for not even Orpheus was this much of a zealous romantic. Like Ico, the fatal blow that befalls the protagonist is treated to a hopeful epilogue to keep the player’s spirits up. I can handle tragedy well enough, but I can admit that plodding further allows the player to consider their experience more after they turn the game off. Really, Agro returning to the temple on a limp leg was all the levity this ending needed. Her fall off of a crumbling bridge before the final colossi is genuinely the most devastating scene of the game, and seeing that she (or at least I’m assuming it's a she considering there is no visible, foot-long horse genitalia protruding from its crotch) survived made me cheer delightfully.

Speechless. Utterly speechless. This was my stunned reaction to witnessing the falling action of Shadow of the Colossus and its resolution. In all honesty, my mouth was agape through most of the duration of Shadow of the Colossus because the game is nothing short of extraordinary. Team Ico’s austerity is still on display here as it was in Ico, as seen in the game’s open world and the liberal loosening of the game’s narrative leaving the context up to the player’s interpretations. Still, dialing back the strict abnegation of gaming’s frills and thrills for Shadow of the Colossus resulted in a game far more compelling than Ico, while still retaining plenty of artistic triumphs that I admired about the developer’s previous title. Shadow of the Colossus is beautiful in every sense of the word: from the captivating climate of its uninhabited, windswept world, the titans to topple, to its poignant liner notes that make the player ask questions when the protagonist doesn't bother to. At the helm of this emotional rollercoaster is a unique gameplay mechanic that I don’t feel is hyperbolic to call it a visionary feat of innovation. If your character ever finds themselves gripping to the body of a herculean foe to skewer their weak spots, it means that Team Ico is collecting royalties. Does Shadow of the Colossus need more convincing that it should be an essential game to play for gamers and non-gamers alike? I don’t believe so.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

After Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance, Castlevania on the Gameboy Advance was starting to resemble a bald eagle riding the subway. Sure, this winged bird can technically travel to his destination via this man-made transportation construct, but why should he be relegated to the circuitous technological traveling methods of the flying impaired? Shouldn’t this bird of prey be soaring through the skies above the ground of their free will? Seeing this majestic creature stoop to something beneath its full capabilities is a sad sight to behold. Castlevania’s full capabilities in this analogy is Symphony of the Night, the series Metroidvania debut on the first PlayStation console that all of its Nintendo handheld successors failed to meet at eye level. At this point, Circle of the Moon tried deviating away from Symphony to produce a high-quality product, and Harmony of Dissonance attempted to emulate a bevy of Symphony’s elements when Circle of the Moon didn’t appeal to those looking for a Symphony-esque experience. When Harmony of Dissonance didn’t resonate with players either, it seemed as if the GBA’s modest hardware inherently could never hope to match Symphony and its grandiose glory. Symphony fans would have to lower their standards to get their Metroidvania Castlevania fix from here on out. It's reasonably depressing considering Symphony was the franchise's debut in the Metroidvania subgenre. That is, until the third Castlevania game released for the GBA system, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, managed a miracle. Somehow, despite the unfortunate pattern that the previous two games were setting, Konami produced a Castlevania title on the GBA that received glowing praise from fans and critics alike. In fact, Aria of Sorrow’s legacy is defined as not only the first worthy successor to Symphony, but some believe it to be the best game in the entire franchise. While pitting this game against Symphony for the crown of supreme Castlevania title is up to debate, Aria of Sorrow is certainly better than the two GBA Castlevania games that preceded it because it achieves something they desperately lacked: balance.

The refined quality that molds Aria of Sorrow as an exemplary Castlevania title would not be easily assumed by its introductory attributes, for its premise is absolutely bonkers. We’ve accelerated far past the generations of the Belmont clan and their imitators across the second AD millennium to the 21st century. As confounding as a Castlevania game set in modern 2003 where the protagonist has the original Ipod model strapped to his waist, plus the eventual reveal that George W. Bush is a cleverly disguised Dracula stampeding American troops into the Iraq War for a fresh slew of human pain and misery could potentially be, Aria of Sorrow zooms even further into the (not-so-distant year as of writing this) future year of 2035. And we thought Bloodlines being set during WW1 was an instance of the franchise flying too close to the sun of modernity for the series to uphold its gothic, fantasy atmosphere. A rustic, old-world tone is one of Castlevania’s integral idiosyncrasies, and a game in the series taking place well into the information age seems ludicrous. To compound the premise’s insanity, Dracula’s castle emerged after the occurrence of a solar eclipse over Japan of all places. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there are any vampires, much less Dracula, across the storied cultural mythos of Japan in the slightest. They say it's wise to build off what you know during the creative process (the developers are Japanese), but this is ridiculous. Despite how befuddling this premise sounds, I applaud Konami for subverting the series from the typical stomping grounds of Renaissance/Victorian-era Europe. It might have been a necessary shift considering the lengthy number of entries in the franchise at this point with that setting. Dracula has always been depicted as an omnipotent demon lord placed higher in the underworld hierarchy than Death himself in Castlevania, so placing his emblematic estate in the land of the rising sun beyond the eras of his lore extends the height of his imminence. However, for series purists who obdurately only play the classic 2D platformers, the drastic deviation in its time period and the setting is probably enough to make them turn as pale as Alucard (or Juste) and vomit profusely.

If Aria of Sorrow is set in the distant future where the Belmont clan’s relevancy has expired, who serves as the vehicle to uncover the strange phenomenon of Dracula’s castle appearing in the abrupt moonlight? Foreign tourist Soma Cruz is a Castlevania protagonist chosen by the circumstance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His surname might indicate that he’s a Spaniard, but his pale skin and towheaded hair probably indicate that he’s Argentinian. We don’t know for sure. He figured that a tour of the land of the rising sun accompanied by fellow student and Japanese native Mina Hakuba would be a life-affirming lark like any college student traveling abroad. Little did he anticipate, involuntarily teleporting to the vampiric lord’s domain will make his trip overseas more memorable than he ever expected. While he still resembles the androgynous, pretty-boy protagonist common among Castlevania’s main characters, Soma Cruz exudes the attitude and persona of a joe-schmoe who is facing something out of his element that he never asked for. His confusion and general aversion for his new surroundings is executed through the dialogue he parlays with the game’s secondary characters. Mr. Cruz stutters in the face of every stranger who talks to him, and the sentences he’s tentatively trying to utter are usually in the form of questions. I’ve heard a few Castlevania fans express that Soma Cruz isn’t up to par with the impassioned attitude of slaying Dracula expressed by the Belmonts before him. However, I think looking ghoulishly handsome with a glammed-out, David Bowie pomp is a textbook signifier of a Castlevania character. Soma Cruz feels more like an organic human being instead of a Van Helsing He-Man because the developers have managed to hone the narrative-intensive initiative they devised for every GBA Castlevania game. In fact, I can make discerning distinctions about individual characteristics regarding the rest of Aria of Sorrow’s limited cast, such as the virginal Mina, the devilish Graham, and the modest Hammer to name a few. Finally, the prerogative to enhance Castlevania’s narrative capabilities has reached a point of adequacy after two rough, lackluster attempts.

Because Soma Cruz never signed himself up for the onus of taking down The Count, his unpreparedness forces him to scrounge up any sharp or blunt object he can to defend himself from what resides in Dracula’s castle. In the greater context of what this means for the player, Aria of Sorrow reverts back to Symphony’s approach of equipping weapons uncovered by stumbling upon them around the castle grounds and in secret passageways as well as obtaining them from fallen enemies. Gone are the secondary weapons and the trusty “Vampire Killer” whip that persisted into the GBA titles, so the player cannot abuse the mighty cross boomerang. Instead, Soma Cruz is granted the privilege of swapping out a myriad of knives, broadswords, hammers, brass knuckles, a goddamn trident, and comically-sized greatswords to combat the creatures that wish him harm. Soma Cruz can even pop a cap in the monsters with a silver 9mm pistol, but this piece of 21st-century firepower isn’t as potent as one might think. Two camps could argue that implementing the array of equipable weapons as the primary method of combat is a digression. The developers have spent so much effort translating the classic peripheral tools from the traditional 2D platformers after Symphony omitted them entirely. I’m in the camp that it wouldn't make sense if Soma Cruz had the array of Belmont birthrights at his disposal, so mixing and matching a bevy of melee weapons is better suited for his character.

However, one might notice that the heart-shaped units of ammunition are still present whenever Soma Cruz whacks at the various candles strewn about the estate. Normally, they would replenish the usage of the holy water, ax, and cross roulette. In Aria of Sorrow, they restore the magic meter that coincides with the game’s bonafide point of innovation. Upon defeating an enemy, an orb of three different colors will sprout from their remains and rocket itself to Soma Cruz. Colliding with this eager, disembodied specter grants Soma Cruz the ability to use one of that enemy’s attributes. The “tactical soul” perk ranges from offensive abilities such as throwing boulders and skeleton bones, and stat increases, to the navigational abilities needed to traverse through the Metroidvania design impediments. Did the fairy from Pinocchio grant Kirby’s wish to become a real boy in the shape of an Argentinian guy more effeminate looking than the boy from Death in Venice with premature gray hair? An odd desire for sure, but what I’m ultimately alluding to is that harnessing an enemy’s properties and using them for yourselves mirrors the defining feature of Nintendo’s pink, stumpy blob from outer space. Aria of Sorrow’s mechanic also shares a similar sensation to swallowing powers as Kirby in that unlocking an enemy’s distinct ability is like putting a coin in a gashapon vendor. It’s anyone’s guess how Soma Cruz interprets these powers for himself, and the sheer abundance of enemies in the game ensures that the excitement of receiving a new power will not wane quickly. But these powers are not worn as an ephemeral skin that can be tossed aside or stripped away as a punitive measure for damage taken. The powers of Dracula’s children of the night are stored in Soma Cruz’s inventory, interwoven into the RPG mechanics as overtly as any of the armor or weapons he shuffles through regularly. Because there are an overwhelming amount of powers at hand with completely unique attributes, selecting a handful from the three categories to conquer other enemies and bosses functions almost like a puzzle. I’m slightly disappointed that there aren’t any Yokai roaming around the halls of Dracula’s spacious estate given the rich mythological folklore of the setting. Then again, I suppose it is more intriguing for fans of the series to grasp the powers of enemies that they’ve become so familiar with over the years, and utilizing their attributes is a more intimate way to engage with them. My only real issue regarding the enemy orbs is how disorganized they are in the menu. There is no clear distinction between optional moves and which abilities are needed to progress through the game, which is something even Circle of the Moon did neatly.

Despite the unorthodox real estate in a century beyond the rationale of a vampire’s presence, the interior design of Dracula’s iconic castle setting here is still a resplendent marvel of gothic, European architecture. From the first few steps into the foyer immediately after the winch that controls the gate welcomes the player, every veteran Castlevania player is sure to recognize the familiar aesthetic elements associated with The Count’s castle. The passing of several centuries hasn’t effaced the estate’s ornate splendor a bit, as it still upholds that aura of prestige. Some may argue that the dilapidated bits across the various sections of the castle diminish its spectacle a bit, but what do you expect from a place crowded with monsters galore? It wouldn’t emit as spooky of an atmosphere if the place was as pristine as the queen’s royal palace. More importantly, Aria of Sorrow’s most apparent balancing act is finding a graphical tone to render the cobweb-covered corridors of the manor, something that the previous two GBA games struggled with. The result of Aria of Sorrow’s visual refinement is that the nightside eclipse has shaded Dracula’s palace in a pleasant, dark blue nightshade. The glow reminds me of whenever a full moon illuminates the ground in a rural area unadulterated by artificial lighting. This deep, yet vibrant sheen is seen all over the map no matter where Soma Cruz finds himself. It's apparent from the opening vestibules, the courtyards constructed like warping through portals to escape a maze, to intramural areas such as the cascading caverns of the reservoir and the small, grizzly abattoir section in the Underground Cemetery. A hue of blue evoking the hour of the wolf is the most appropriate tone for a Castlevania game, wouldn’t you say? Also, fans of the franchise are more likely to find Aria of Sorrow’s moody tint to be perfectly agreeable as opposed to dampened visuals that made them squint at every step or the psychedelic onslaught that requires administering eye drops every half hour to withstand regarding both previous GBA Castlevania games respectively.

While Dracula’s castle is not situated in the dank pits surrounded by the crusty walls of the Earth like in Circle of the Moon, the towering architecture is rather compact in Aria of Sorrow. Immediately, most of the map is unveiled as soon as Soma Cruz steps foot into the castle, and the general layout should ring familiar to any veteran players when they open it and see the gray, unexplored areas. After initially glancing at the map, I was a bit concerned that the developers had trimmed the castle down a little too much to the point of reducing Dracula’s castle to a meager gothic-esque Tudor home. I assumed that surely the game’s length would be padded by offering an inverted parallel to the castle that comprised the game’s second half like Symphony. Alas, that theory went out the window as the completion percentage was nearing its maximum after exploring all of the original castle at hand. This review so far has been dedicated to comparing Aria of Sorrow to the previous two GBA games due to being developed on the same hardware. However, perhaps comparing Aria to Symphony should be considered, especially since Aria chooses not to extend itself to the length of Symphony by flipping the castle in some manner. While the second half on Symphony did satiate the lingering craving for more content I had, doubling the entire content proved to be an unnecessary overload. Admittedly, Aria of Sorrow is a bit short, but I respect the developer’s decision to only implement what was necessary. They didn’t trim the muscle of the map as I initially thought, but rather the fat of extensions. Aria of Sorrow practically exposes Symphony as being a bit bloated.

I suppose Aria of Sorrow’s length still felt satisfying because of its difficulty curve. Across the Metroidvania Castlevanias, this is the most divisive and erratic facet of the series, especially among the GBA titles which are situated on two opposite extremes of the spectrum. Arguably, what Aria of Sorrow achieves in this regard is the greatest contribution to balancing the series. Every effort to maintain a suitable difficulty curve in Aria of Sorrow is simply agreeable. From the reasonable number of enemies per room, the steady leveling system, to the placement of the save and teleportation rooms, I’d find it hard to believe that any fans of the franchise (or at least the Metroidvania games) would find fault with the general stability of everything intended to make a Metroidvania Castlevania manageable. Yet, all of the refined points of accessibility do not render the game as a brisk, lethargic excursion through Dracula’s castle as seen in Harmony of Dissonance. In most explorative scenarios, I never encountered anything steeped way beyond my element until I found myself face-to-face with a few of Aria of Sorrow’s bosses. Again, the swamp golem that spanned the vertical diameter of the room all the way to the roof and the chimera Manticore beast was met without much strain. I appreciated the limited weak points of the stocky Great Armor and the swift reaction time it takes to dodge his greatsword lunges, but the repeated process of hacking at his feet didn’t really upset my state of relative contentment. It wasn’t until I encountered this game’s version of Death that I was reminded of his noble worth and status as the grand inquisitor of all things mortal as I was in his first iteration far back on the NES. Death does not fuck around, as the case should naturally be for such an imposing mythical figure. After fighting the first major foe that caused me a considerable amount of strife, the consistency remained for the duration of the game. Another Legion fight requires monk-like patience, and the burly arms of a hulking troll named Balore were constantly shoving Soma Cruz aside like swatting a fly. His fight is even presented as a fake out, thinking that Soma Cruz would be facing another easy incarnation of the giant bat that was the series' first boss as he crushes the flying mammal into a bloody paste with his palms. While these fights are far tougher than anything presented in Harmony of Dissonance, they don’t quite match up to Circle of the Moon’s grueling duels. This is because Soma Cruz can use his gold currency to purchase potions and edible healing items at Hammer’s shop located in the hub at the entrance of the castle. There is also a warp gate close by, so returning to the gate at the start is fairly accessible in all reaches of the estate. My argument to combat the stance that this point of convenience makes the difficulty moot is that none of the bosses in Harmony required the use of a potion, and the paltry potion supply in Circle of the Moon meant that the player wouldn’t even have a healing item on them to aid them in the first place. I think the necessity for a potion in tandem with the sensible maximum number of them in the inventory is a perfect balancing act to deal with these bosses. The system ensures not to enable the player to depend on them like a crutch.

So does Dracula instill the same challenge as the other bosses of the later game as its final boss? Funny of you to assume this to be the case because the wildest revelation in Aria of Sorrow is that the vampiric lord that has haunted humanity throughout all eras of civilization is deceased. No, I am not bullshitting you and neither is the game. Julius Belmont, the current living descendant of the classic Castlevania protagonists, accomplished the unthinkable and surprisingly smote the Count permanently in 1999 at the turn of the millennium, lest he cause the harm of what Y2K was supposedly going to do, I guess. Dracula is finally dead in the ground rotting, but this doesn’t mean his influence is also atrophying. A prophecy states that an heir possessing Dracula’s immense power will take his throne once his castle reveals itself in the eclipse that shadowed it for so long. One wouldn’t think that hapless Soma Cruz could be Dracula’s successor by sheer circumstance, but a witch named Yoko claims that his soul-sucking aptitude is a vampiric inheritance indicating a dreadful correlation. However, Yoko states that even if Soma Cruz is destined to take Dracula’s throne, his destination ultimately depends on his conscious decisions which can still pave a path for good and righteousness. The real threat is Graham, another Dracula fanboy who is thrilled to unleash the full potential of Dracula’s power on the coincidental notion that he’s the heir apparent because he was born on the day that Dracula irrevocably bit the dust. Even though his enthusiasm implies that he’s confident his prophecy is correct, Soma Cruz’s ability to steal souls jabs at his insecurities. To his credit, Graham musters up some fairly impressive poser powers when Soma Cruz faces him. Once Soma Cruz sucks up Graham’s defeated soul, the Dracula within him starts bubbling up to the surface. The early signs of the transformation result in menacing red eyes and hair as frazzled as Meg Ryan’s after the diner scene in When Harry Met Sally. While things seem as if Dracula will be reincarnated, the true ending involves taking a combination of souls to the “chaotic realm,” a surreal section plastered in blindingly bright white light where time isn’t a relevant construct. At the core of this fractured place lies Soma Cruz’s spiritual core where he battles his literal inner demons infecting him with Dracula’s noxious influence, and it is indeed as difficult as the bosses that preceded him. Once he expunges the evil from his body, Soma Cruz returns to the land of the living with Mina, and they can continue sightseeing around Japan. The clear narrative construct of good versus evil portrayed in previous Castlevania games was always cut and dry, but Aria of Sorrow subverts everything pertaining to the concept. The debate of freedom versus fate based on one’s conditions was toyed with in Symphony relating to Alucard. Aria of Sorrow takes the concept into metaphysical territory, which is miles more ambitious than any Castlevania narrative before it. Dracula hardly even matters in the grand scheme of things, as Aria of Sorrow could simply serve as a character study of a humble, honest young man being corrupted by a monumental power as it perverts his moral compass. Considering Dracula is the sole recurring character across the whole series, scrapping him in favor of something far more ambitious and delivering it splendidly is exceptionally admirable.

Let’s pretend for a moment that Castlevania’s fans are Goldilocks from the classic fairy tale and the three Castlevania games developed for the GBA are the three bowls of porridge the bears left out on the counter. First, she slurps down Circle of the Moon and exclaims, “Ugh, this porridge is too grainy, flavorless, and hard to digest!” and pushes it aside. Next, she downs Harmony of Dissonance and revolts, “Yuck, this porridge’s texture is nauseating, and why is it so thick!?” while trying not to expel it from her body in disgust. Lastly, once she gets a taste of Aria of Sorrow, she breathes a sigh of relief. stating that it is “just right” while smacking her lips in pure satisfaction. Aria of Sorrow is a testament to the expression that the third time's the charm, and it achieves its success by finding a middle ground between the two radical interpretations of Symphony’s Metroidvania formula before it. With the fair difficulty curve, refined graphical lighting, perfect pacing, and a brilliant, fun new combat mechanic to play around with, it’s easy to see that Aria of Sorrow triumphs over the Castlevania titles on the same system. Really, Aria of Sorrow’s true competitor is Symphony of the Night and not the other GBA titles because Aria’s quality is exemplary to that extent. I still think Symphony can claim its title as the reigning champion of the franchise. Symphony is a higher-calorie meal, and it sometimes feels liberating to indulge in decadence even if it will give you a stomach ache. However, I admire Aria’s relatively restrained and intelligent approach to Symphony’s template, so I will not contest any opinions that favor it over the franchise's Metroidvania debut. Arguably, even debating that a handheld Castlevania game is on par with one on a console makes Aria of Sorrow the objective victor overall.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

I should’ve known that Atlus would release an expanded version of Catherine as they tend to do with each of the Persona titles. Still, an eight-year gap between Full Body and the original Catherine was a long enough duration for a sizable percentage of new players to experience Atlus’ most unconventional IP for the first time as opposed to veterans squeezing more juice out of the potential content to total satisfaction. While a whole gaming generation of time passing caused Catherine to become a fainter recollection in our memory banks, perhaps forgetting its finer details is a fortuitous circumstance for the developers to rework some of the game’s questionable decisions.

Naturally, to get the money’s worth for all returnees to Catherine, Atlus has compiled a plethora of additional content that wasn’t available in the original. Upon selecting Catherine’s story mode, the player has the option to choose “remix mode” which shuffles the placements of blocks in the levels as well as injecting some unseen blocks with new mechanics into the mix. Quality of life enhancements have been implemented to make the already nightmarishly (no pun intended) challenging levels less of a grueling excursion. Dying due to either falling or being slain by a pursuing machination of Vincent’s psyche will not result in a game over. Rather, the developers have shifted these fatal occurrences into the “undo” mechanic, reverting Vincent back to the previous spot to his last maneuver. The developers have also done away with the limited continues, so Vincent is free to fuck up as many times as necessary. Anything to alleviate the binding duress of Catherine’s strict difficulty is much appreciated. The “Babel” and “Colosseum” challenge modes are unlocked without any conditions, so you and a friend can tackle these steep, formidable climbs immediately.

Really, I think the focal point of Full Body is the addition of Rin as Catherine’s character that Atlus shoehorns into the story as another reason to justify rereleasing the same game at full price. Forgive my cynicism, but it’s not as if Marie was a highlight of Persona 4: Golden that made it radiate brighter than the original. Rin’s placement among the plot points is awkward for those who experienced the original game as expected, but she isn’t a waste of space. The game establishes her as early as the first cutscene even before Vincent goes to bed for the first time as she’s being pursued by a stalker the size of an ogre. After getting perhaps too acquainted with her, Vincent helps the frangible, pink-haired girl get back on her feet as she is debilitated by an amnesiac stupor. Vincent houses her in the apartment next door where she decorates her living space with frilly girl things like stuffed animals galore. Vincent also sets her up with a gig playing piano at the Stray Sheep. She isn’t exactly Arthur Rubenstein, but all of the bar patrons appreciate her efforts nonetheless. What is even stranger is that Rin’s job extends to Vincent's nightmares as she slackens the rate of erosion whenever she feels Vincent it could be gaining on him. This is a relief to everyone involved in the nightmare, especially the player, but Rin’s inclusion goes beyond a glorified quality of life enhancement. Seeing Vincent take care of Rin like an older brother makes him a more likable protagonist, giving him a responsibility that forces him to shed the usual pathetic worrywart persona that makes everyone pity him.

But a sibling relationship is not the type of bond Vincent is intended to have with Rin. Once it’s revealed that Rin’s full name is Qatherine, the absolute last consonant to fit as the beginning syllable sound for the name, we realize that she’s also another potential love interest. While a vocal handful of people complain that her presence disrupts the organized love triangle because a love square isn’t as contextually shapely, her inclusion might present another facet of what happens when a man is discontented with his love life: sexual experimentation. Vincent busts into Rin’s room after a disturbance finding her lying on the floor in nothing but a towel. After the towel falls off, let’s just say that now Vincent knows everything there is to know about the crying game. Yes, the big reveal behind her character is that Rin is a trans woman, or at least she’s a gender-fluid, femme-passing person with male anatomy (it’s complicated). Because Vincent is attracted to Rin in some capacity, this revelation makes him frantically question his sexuality as he lashes out at Rin out of complete shock. Of course, I did say that Rin is still a viable romance option so if the player feels inclined to pursue Rin even further, Vincent will have to apologize up and down to her for forgiveness. Once Vincent puts himself on the Rin route, more is revealed revolving around her origin as a supernatural being similar to the yandere blonde bimbo of the same name, hence why she can enter the nightmare to serenade the sheep with her piano playing. Vincent defeats her Archangel older brother as the game’s “final boss,” who then splits into a group of pink aliens that resemble those from Toy Story with a swapped color palette. Vincent marries Rin and becomes her music producer as they travel through space in her rightful saucer. As dumb as the good ending result is, it’s rather sweet of Vincent to pursue his true feelings for Rin regardless of her gender identity.

In reality, the more likely reason the game’s one additional story character is trans is to backpedal from the grievous mistake the original made with this topic. I omitted this detail from my review of the original game but once Toby loses his virginity to Erika, it’s revealed that Erika used to be a high school friend of Vincent and the others named Eric and has had a sex change. Toby is revulsed beyond belief at Erika’s “duplicity” and Erika is offended at his gall to dispute her gender identity. I glossed over this B-plot because it seemed quite trivial to the overarching story of Catherine and almost like a mean-spirited punchline to Toby. If he’s not old enough to suffer the block tower gauntlet in his dreams, he can still suffer in the real world with his crush having a penis. Yikes, Atlus. If this interaction drew a sizeable bit of ire from the LGBT+ community back in 2011, imagine what kind of backlash Full Body would’ve received in a post-#metoo world. I’m not certain Full Body remedies their mistakes with Erika’s gender identity, rather, makes it more vague when Toby tells Orlando that intercourse with Erika was “weird” instead of having a fit. There is also a scene where the gang discusses same-sex couples, and Erika brings Rin over to voice her opinion who is naturally receptive to the concept. Touche, Atlus, but this level of inclusivity is laughably elementary at best. Truthfully, I don’t think Japan as a culture is as progressive and enlightened on the rights and awareness of LGBT+ rights as the Western world even in modern times. They tried, but their attempts are too shallow to show they now have a profound understanding of the subject matter.

Besides adult sophistication, the “full body” wine parallel in the title alludes to a richer, bolder taste that signifies maturation and complexity. If the parallel means that Catherine has reached its potential, I can’t really agree. Sure, the gameplay is far more agreeable and makes for a smoother experience, but there are still several thematic holes in Catherine that are still leaking because the job to fill them has been half-assed. It’s tolerable at best. Still, I can’t argue that this is the definitive Catherine experience despite the glaring flaws that shine through the solid steel door like bullet holes.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance wasn’t any better received than Circle of the Moon was. The second entry in a series of Castlevania games on Nintendo’s horizontal handheld system was released only a mere year after Konami decided to showcase it with a title that would stamp the Metroidvania direction that Symphony of the Night established for the series in permanent ink. While this is technically the case, upon playing Circle of the Moon, could the game really be defined as either a sequel or a spiritual successor to one of the franchise's most celebrated and influential titles? Argue about its subjective quality all you want, but what I’m prodding at is that Circle of the Moon did not want to walk in Symphony’s shadow. It’s readily apparent by the grittier visuals, the return of the whip and secondary items, and the brutally uncompromising difficulty that Circle of the Moon sought to pave its own path while the trail was admittedly on the same Metroidvania ground that Symphony had cemented. Because Circle of the Moon was radically different from the game that was advertised, it did not sit well with the new audience that Symphony garnered. Personally, I thought the deviations from the Symphony were refreshing, but I understand why someone who was introduced to the series with a game that featured multiple weapons, grandiose graphics, and a more manageable difficulty curve would be turned off by Circle of the Moon’s repressive minimalism. Because the response from Circle of the Moon was generally lackluster, the next entry on the GBA served as an opportunity to rectify the failed experimentation and craft something more likened to Symphony of the Night. Despite their best efforts to appease Symphony of the Night enthusiasts, the oxymoronically-titled Harmony of Dissonance still didn’t satisfy them, and here is why.

We’ve reverted back to one previous century for Harmony of Dissonance when the Belmonts were still relevant, for yet another member of the iconic vampire killing clan is introduced as our protagonist: Juste Belmont. Juste’s childhood friend Lydie has been kidnapped and taken to a strange castle that has been erected on the grassy hills of whatever European village this is seemingly overnight. Upon exploring the foyer of this estate, good ol’ series staple Death confirms that the castle is indeed another one of Dracula’s new constructions (no shit). Juste splits the task of rescuing Lydie with his other lifelong best friend Maxim, who is suffering from amnesia and can’t remember what his objective was beforehand. Even though Juste has no canonical relation to Nathan Graves, apparently what binds them together as the protagonists of GBA Castlevania games is performing the grunt work of traversing through Dracula’s castle with a friend to save someone dear to them from Dracula’s clutches. Boy, I sure do hope Maxim isn’t seduced by the darkness of Dracula as easily as Hugh was (fingers crossed).

The predominant complaint that most people seem to have regarding Harmony of Dissonance is with its presentation. It proves to me that Circle of the Moon was artistically restrained as opposed to mechanically and that the GBA was capable of rendering striking visuals. Still, considering Harmony of Dissonance’s aim was to make a mobile Symphony of the Night, their futile efforts to transport its glorious, refined pixel art to a 2.9-inch screen was interesting, to say the least. Harmony of Dissonance displays the most striking visuals ever seen across any Castlevania title. Its graphics don’t simply pop out with buoyant flair: they scream at the player with the subtlety of a wild howler monkey. The word “lurid” doesn’t even quite cut it. In their attempt to emulate the splendor of Symphony on a mechanically inferior piece of hardware, Konami has managed to craft what playing Symphony on acid would be like. Not a single piece of the background or foreground isn’t psychedelic, exhibiting that fleshy GBA color palette seen in Metroid Fusion only amped up to eleven on the intensity scale. Some of the backgrounds across the castle are simply kaleidoscopic views made to simulate the apex of drug-addled freakouts. Still, the player will have to make a concerted effort to peek over at the backdrops because I don’t know how one can keep their eyes off of Juste’s cloak which is so crimson red that it’s practically bleeding. There’s bombast, and then there is a complete overload of visual flair to the point of being stomach-churning, which is how many of the detractors describe how the game’s visuals upset them. It doesn’t help that the sound design is irritatingly shrill as well, really honing in on the hallucinatory feeling. Personally, Harmony of Dissonance’s presentation is its strongest aspect. The mix of the dazzling and the macabre reminds me of Giallo, an Italian subgenre of horror films whose refusal to color in the lines is its defining idiosyncrasy. As for the piercing sound design, I don’t think that was intentional, so there’s one legitimate demerit I’m going to have to mark off Harmony of Dissonance for.

Another criticism of Harmony of Dissonance I have that doesn’t seem to be as widely discussed is its protagonist. Besides his stupid, awkward name that is hard to pronounce, Juste Belmont is an imposter. How can Konami peacefully sleep at night after such brazen lies trying to convince all of us that this man isn’t a vampire? His pale, bedsheet-white skin complexion makes Alucard look Sudanese by comparison, and Alucard has never been one to shy away from revealing his vampiric form. Alucard is so white that Aryans would worship him as their Messiah. I feel that if I stabbed Juste, a translucent green goo would spill from his insides instead of the warm, organic red blood that signifies a mortal, earthly creature. On top of looking like an undead creature of the night, Juste also moves like one as well. Whenever Juste jumps as par for the course in a platformer game, his brief ascent is strangely languid, as if he’s manipulating the gravity used to bounce himself upward like oh, I don’t know, a vampire would. See the playground scene from Let the Right One In where the vampire girl hops off the equipment for reference. Juste’s less grounded movement is also annoyingly imprecise, making the player correct for the unnatural physics of a character that is supposed to be human. He does perfect the dash maneuver that Alucard introduced in Symphony to expertise, darting around every room of the castle like he’s a poncy Sonic the Hedgehog. Still, I must impress that Juste beats Alucard, who is a fucking vampire, with his proficiency in executing this supernatural move. Sorry to say Simon, but someone has spiked your gene pool with the blood of your enemies. I don’t like Juste’s jerkoff name, I don’t like his jerkoff face, and I don’t like the jerkoff way he carries himself on the field.

The only Belmont signifier that Juste possesses that proves his kinship is using the family standard weapon of the whip along with the collective of secondary weapons that use ammunition we’ve been familiar with since the days of Simon on the NES. Even though Juste’s physicality is meant to ape Alucard, at least he retains the classic Castlevania in a Metroidvania environment like Circle of the Moon started to do. Harmony of Dissonance also repeats the use of deadly, screen-encompassing spells transferred over to the GBA from Rondo of Blood, which is always a neat way to quickly annihilate all enemies. While I appreciate how the essentials of Castlevania’s gameplay are preserved nicely, what innovations does Harmony of Dissonance contribute to the Castlevania formula to discern itself among the pack? Harmony of Dissonance seems to emphasize clothing and items as integral mechanics. Circle of the Moon didn’t skip using collectible wear coinciding with RPG attributes, but Harmony of Dissonance adds another layer of interactivity to them besides their offensive and defensive perks. All of the major collectibles needed to progress through the game in Harmony of Dissonance are intertwined with the items of clothing that Juste picks up around the corridors of Dracula’s castle. Alternate flails for the whip are also strewn about in the same obscured settings, and a few are necessary to use to bypass obstacles around the estate. Implementing the progression items into the slew of varied clothing is bound to confuse most veterans of the series, for it's unclear when they unlock what is needed to progress. Usually, an important item is obtained after defeating a boss, signifying a stepping stone in progress with a substantial accomplishment. The player can determine which item they should use by reading its description in the menu, but how are they to know which one has a special attribute among the mishmash of clothing items, which are also scrambled in the menu with no organization to speak of? Also, it’s incredibly inconvenient changing from a clothing item with better stats back to the less-than-deal one to use once in a blue moon to unlock a passageway.

What is ten times more messy and disorganized in Harmony of Dissonance is the game’s interpretation of Symphony’s second half. Once Juste finds himself on the opposite side of Dracula’s castle, Death’s second wave of exposition involves explaining to Juste that Maxim has unfortunately fallen to the entrancing gaze of Dracula. Apparently, the evil aura exuding from the force of all six of Dracula’s body parts has caused a schism in Maxim’s body and mind, and the anti-Maxim created from the rupturing is the one who captured Lydie in the first place. Another grand effect of Maxim toying with Dracula’s remains is that it has caused a mirrored version of the castle to materialize in another dimension, which is where Lydie is being held captive and Dracula’s assorted parts are still radiating pure malevolence. Already, the premise of how the game’s second half came to be is a head-scratcher, but wait until it’s time to enter the opposing realm and interact with it. Instead of teleporting Juste around the castle, the warp gates that are marked with a yellow square on the map will transport Juste to Maxim’s fabricated castle, which is referred to as “Castle B.” No, the castle is not twisted on its head (which would be especially nauseating in this game), but an uncanny version of the same castle with slightly tougher enemies. Actually, there really isn’t all that much difference in the design except for the most minute rearrangements that usually lead to pertinent points of progress. What “Castle B” mostly achieves is confusing the hell out of the player. Upon warping to “Castle B” for the first time, the western half of the castle is blocked off now because the shift has torn the entire castle asunder like Germany after WWII. Juste is confined to one fraction of the castle for quite a while, and there doesn’t seem to be a clear exit because this is also when all pathways to progress become hazy and circuitous. Basically, an impediment found in one dimension can possibly be dealt with in the other, which involves several back-and-forth treks to and from the warp gate. The slog of unclear progression in the fake castle is enough to give someone a headache.

I suppose the befuddling frustration I experienced upon entering Maxim’s “alternate” realm of existence was the only thing keeping me from breezing through Harmony of Dissonance. Fans of the classic Castlevania titles complained that Symphony of the Night was too easy, but only compared to the blisteringly painful difficulty curves found in the traditional 2D platformers that gave players an exhilarating rush of accomplishment. Harmony of Dissonance, on the other hand, is easy by the general standards across all video games. One could give it to a small child as an introductory peek into the series, and I doubt they’d have much trouble with it until the dimensional flip-flopping takes place. Potions of varying regenerative amounts will drop from enemies fairly often, and the roast found in the cracked corners of the walls has been shifted into turkey and turkey legs to itemize the healing properties of food in varying quantities. Overall enemy damage is tepid enough, but all of the game’s bosses are laughably pitiful when they keep insisting on repeating the same languid tactics that I already evaded seconds in advance. A healing orb drops after defeating each boss similar to the classic titles but unlike those grueling tests of skill, the damage these pathetic bosses dished out barely amounted to a scratch, the plethora of healing items withstanding. I’ve made positive claims for all previous Castlevania games that were deemed easy before, but Harmony of Dissonance’s borderline effortlessness is enough to make me resign from my defendant post.

The primary objective in “Castle B” is finishing what Maxim started by reobtaining all six pieces of Dracula scattered across the "Twilight Zone" of his castle. Doing so will unfasten a mechanical door situated below the floor leading to the underground chamber at the center of the gothic architecture where an unconscious Lydie is stashed. Because I played Symphony and know that this game is doing its damndest to ape it, I knew there would be additional requirements to fight Dracula that the game wasn’t going to inform me of. Upon performing extraneous research, the caveats to facing Dracula once again were to wear both rings representing the two friends of Juste upon entering the boss arena and arriving here from the alternate castle. Juste will first subdue his corrupted male friend before the dark lord erupts from Maxim into the shape of something so hideous and malformed that it would make David Cronenberg say, “What the fuck?” In the optimal ending, Juste escapes the crumbling manor with Maxim and Lydie. Lydie is fine, but it’s implied that the evil form of Maxim bit her on the neck, which would mean that this happy ending carries complications. However, even a Maxim possessed by Dracula was never a vampire, so all that might occur is him getting slapped with a sexual assault charge at most. Considering that I barely broke a sweat fighting Maxim and Dracula back to back and I don’t care for these characters, I don’t think it was worth the additional effort beforehand to ensure the best outcome.

What Circle of the Moon expertly avoided in translating Symphony’s Metroidvania design to a handheld system was distancing itself as a prospective “Symphony on the go”. I think it’s obvious that a system that primarily plays 2D games would serve as a perfect hub for the Metroidvania genre, but Symphony made such a colossal impact that it set such a high standard that the GBA couldn’t compete with. Harmony of Dissonance is the result of acceding to everyone who did not appreciate Circle of the Moon’s maverick decisions by coming as close to Symphony of the Night as feasibly possible, and apparently, only I had the foresight to know this wouldn’t work. It actually amends every problem across Circle of the Moon, but it’s when it tries to differentiate itself from Symphony while also tracing Symphony’s template where the game falls flat. Symphony’s graphics were exuberant, so Harmony’s attempt resulted in an acid-laced attack on the senses. Symphony’s difficulty was more manageable than any classic Castlevania title, so Harmony dumbed itself down even further to the point of being braindead. Symphony’s reversed castle section fundamentally worked to pad the game, so Harmony’s version of this without outright copying it amounted to a roundabout disaster. Any game that dips back into an idea from Simon’s Quest is desperate to discern itself from the pack, which is really what the developers should’ve focused on again instead of the fool’s errand that fueled Harmony’s development. Besides the eye-popping visuals, there isn’t much to recommend regarding Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

Love stinks, or so goes the popular sentiment. In reality, where the negativity for one of life’s most powerful emotions stems from is less rooted in general unpleasantness and more from the fact that it's frustratingly complicated. Animals don’t fall in love; they have base sexual relationships for the sake of procreating, and the relevant factors in who passes on the species’ genetics are purely based on physical characteristics. We humans are far more complex than that, using our superior intellect to analyze a person beneath the surface so we can commit to an ardent bond of wild passion meant to be everlasting. However, despite the efforts of our religious and governmental establishments, the vast percentage of romantic human relationships falter because people, similarly to animals, were not meant to be tied down to one person until the end of their days. In my personal, non-expert evaluation, sex is the one aspect of human nature that reminds us that we are closer to the primal and savage animal kingdom than we want to admit, which is why the drive to do it causes shame and embarrassment among a good handful of our kind. The fact that it's a cultural taboo in several earthly societies despite its necessary ubiquity in preserving the human race is the biggest fallacy we propagate-an oxymoronic idea even. Because we all try to make an earnest attempt to juggle society’s expectations of our sex lives with a healthy restraint, any time the animalistic ID that thirsts for more than what a relationship would allow breaks out of its cage, the consequences of breaking the sanctity of commitment tend to have catastrophic results. To celebrate Valentine’s Day (which is totally when I’m publishing this review and not a week or two later), a holiday that is synonymous with the dutiful, monogamous romance that society upholds, why not take a look at Catherine: a video game that delves into the scary, stressful, and ugly dimensions of romantic love?

From initial impressions, what genre of video game would one expect Catherine to fall under? Firstly, Catherine was developed by Atlus, who is widely associated with the JRPG genre thanks to their popular and acclaimed Shin Megami Tensei/Persona franchises. If Catherine doesn’t ape SMT’s turn-based formula, perhaps it expands Persona’s dating sim mechanics to the forefront of an entire game as opposed to a piece of alternative gameplay intertwined with the turn-based combat. I did allude that sex was an integral facet of Catherine, after all. However, if anyone made either of these logical conclusions and confidently made bets based on their deductions, they would be liable to lose a lot of money. Any rational person would probably never anticipate Catherine as a puzzle platformer in the vein of the falling block variety but alas, this is ultimately what Atlus envisioned for their new IP. After the opening credits, the game drops the player on an ascending grid of white blocks. They’ll figure it’s imperative not to stand around waiting for context to fill in the blanks of their abrupt objective because the lower blocks that comprise the grid are falling and the shirtless man they are controlling will die if he dawdles wondering what the hell is going on. By rearranging the blocks to make a staircase of sorts, a door materializes at the peak of the tower for the player to escape the eroding area. The player will perform the same task numerous times, albeit with differing layouts, because it’s the focal mechanic that defines Catherine’s gameplay. Again, who the hell could’ve expected this from Catherine?

Naturally, Catherine isn’t simply a bizarre Japanese interpretation of Q-Bert, even if the introduction would lead the player into believing anything at this point. Context is given to the player once they complete the first level, but elucidation doesn’t make the game any less strange. The terrified man whom the player just aided in preventing him from tumbling to his death is Vincent, a 32-year-old American man who is currently at a turning point in his life. He and his girlfriend Katherine have been going steady for half a decade now, and they’re at the point in their relationship where the elephant in the room of marriage and having children is rearing its bulbous head. Katherine isn’t getting any younger, so her ticking biological clock is a catalyst for where their relationship is going. All the while, the wrinkles of a long-standing relationship are starting to emerge. Katherine has become the nagging girlfriend who chides Vincent for any lifestyle choices and personality quirks she finds annoying and unsavory. Vincent seems fearful around her rather than exuding any excitable infatuation. Because their relationship has hit a rocky road bump that was imminent with all the contextual evidence, it’s time for Vincent to shit or get off the pot and bite the bullet for an admirable adult life. Or, he can start an affair with a blonde tart with pigtails at least a decade his junior who eerily has the same name as his long-term girlfriend. It’s admittedly a decision an embarrassingly sizable number of men make when backed against a wall in this scenario. In this case, I’d at least make a minor defensive case for Vincent’s infidelity, for he returns home from a bar every night so roaringly drunk that he has no recollection of even speaking to the girl much less seducing her. The other Catherine is possibly taking advantage of Vincent’s debilitated stupor in a predatory manner, but that’s an argument of double standards that I’m not touching with a ten-foot pole. Still, the taboo outlet for some side action does not distract Vincent from his relationship troubles; rather, it compounds them to the point where Vincent is liable to explode from all of the anxiety. While the conflict in Catherine is mundane, its over-the-top anime presentation heightens the story and expertly coincides with the palpable stress that envelops Vincent’s life.

As for explaining the introductory gameplay sequence, the odd puzzle-oriented sections are a series of similar, gamified nightmares that will always place Vincent in a frantic, do-or-die situation that forces him to manipulate the blocky, expressionistic ground as it crumbles around him to survive. Before engaging in this nightly escapade, the player is granted a conscious leisure period in a bar called the Stray Sheep. Vincent, his two high school friends Orlando and Johnny, and Johnny’s younger co-worker Toby congregate routinely in the same booth and discuss the latest gossip over pizza and beer. Usually, their topic of discussion is Vincent’s newfound promiscuity because of its intriguing scandal and relevance to the plot. These four dudes congregate at this dive so frequently that the on-staff waitress, Erika, feels emboldened enough to butt into their conversations as if she’s one of the guys. Apparently, the unmistakably Japanese studio of Atlus researched American life via television for their debut game that takes place across the pond and got the impression from Cheers that all thirty-something Americans are barflies wrought with trivial issues they try to drink away. After the cutscene where the boys (and Erika) provide their input on Vincent’s romantic dilemmas, the player is essentially given free reign over Vincent’s activity in the bar until they decide to leave and face the hectic climb during Vincent’s REM cycles. At the booth, Vincent can use his now oldfangled flip phone (or maybe cheaters have burner phones?) to check and reply to text messages, save the game, and replay a nightmare from the previous evening to achieve a better score. Vincent can also guzzle down a maximum of four different drinks per night, which include a selection of beer, sake, wine, and more of his rum and cola standby. From both fables and personal experience, I’ve learned that there are damnable consequences to heavy drinking, but Vincent illogically jumps like a fucking jackrabbit in his dreams when he’s blitzed. Getting up from the booth and roaming around the building allows Vincent to speak to other patrons at the bar and play Rapunzel, a minigame that mirrors the puzzle platformer gameplay from the nightmares in a minimal, arcade fashion. Vincent can also use its restroom for a more private session with his phone if he doesn’t trust Orlando not to peer into his business from his shoulder view. Anyone familiar with Atlus’s Persona franchise will recognize that the bar shares the same real-world and surreal world dichotomy that Persona exhibits as a prime idiosyncrasy of the series. However, where both worlds in any Persona game divide about an equal amount of screen time due to being stretched to the proportions of an epically long JRPG, Catherine’s shorter length forces it to prioritize the nightmare gameplay and leave the bar section as a lot to be desired in terms of content. Nothing in the Stray Sheep holds me to the lucid realm of reality for more than ten minutes tops.

The Stray Sheep is still a valuable point of respite in Catherine because the game’s interactive centerpiece is just as much of a nightmare for the player as it is for Vincent. The self-confidence in my puzzle platforming abilities I had cultivated through playing Portal and its sequel was immediately dashed upon playing Catherine. Stacking blocks to form a staircase sounds elementary on paper until one realizes that the player won’t be constructing Vincent’s vertical exit with blocks that materialize out of thin air: they’ll be repurposing the foundation that Vincent is already walking on. I’m no architect or construction worker, but I’m fairly confident in stating that renovating a foundation is a more considerable task than erecting one from scratch. The inherent challenge here is also magnified due to the flimsy and volatile nature of the foundation corroding into oblivion at every second. The margin of error involved in rearranging the blocks in Catherine is so razor thin that a supermodel could use it to permanently raze even their peach fuzz. I attribute Catherine’s stern difficulty curve to the fact that the blocks can be manipulated in a myriad of directions thanks to the multifaceted parameters of the third dimension. Pulling out blocks from their secure wedges will be the most common maneuver, but they won’t always be symmetrically aligned in a comfortable row that Vincent can conveniently climb one by one. Oftentimes, Vincent should also consider pushing blocks out of the foundation for easier access to more manageable blocks, creating a zigzagging staircase by lowering every incremental block back down to the base, pushing blocks to the side as a makeshift bridge to a sturdier array, etc. Some sections are arranged so obtusely that it’s like the player has been tasked with reorganizing an MC Escher painting. The third dimension might have diluted the difficulty of traditional platformer games, but it gives the puzzle genre an additional spatial layer for the player to work around. Vincent will always have to contend with alternate kinds of blocks that are more stubborn and precarious than the standard white ones. The golden brown blocks with red eyes and a glower, for instance, will always make their presence as totally immovable obstacles. As the game progresses, they will be accompanied by slippery ice blocks, booby trap blocks with spikes that practically liquify Vincent in a burst of all his blood, bomb blocks whose triggered fuse will decimate all white blocks in its blast radius, etc. Because the realm exists in a dream, Vincent can “edge” blocks that stick to parallel surfaces without being weighed down by the rules of gravity. While it's important to practice this often during the puzzles, I swear that the concrete laws of physics only apply only when it's inconvenient for Vincent. Keep in mind that Vincent is also a noodle-armed mamby-pamby, so he does not possess the upper body strength to climb more than one block at a time. Due to all of the gameplay stipulations, Catherine is a nerve-wracking experience. For beginners, becoming hopelessly stuck from a string of mismanaged mistakes is equivalent to stubbing one’s toe after every few inches of walking, so prepare to dive into the game and start drowning. However, after proverbially learning to swim, the eventual grace one exhibits when directing Vincent to victory will make you feel a swarm of confidence that not too many other games provide.

Fortunately, Catherine corrects for human error that will consistently impede the player from progression and provides plenty of remedies. Depending on the number of successive moves the player has made, they can undo these moves to repave their pathway to an effective solution. Having a few moves on hand also acts as life insurance for whenever Vincent falls or one of the many hazards on the stage subdues him. Items will be littered around the stage with individual perks such as the bell that rings in a grid of white blocks to supplement sections lined with unyielding ones, a bible whose verses will strike down the irritable enemies that halt Vincent’s ascent, and a soft drink that allows Vincent to jump on a stack of two blocks with its fizzy lifting properties. One of these items can also be purchased with the piles of gold found on the blocks that tend to be in rocky positions. In moments of considerable strife, of course, the player will feel inclined to use any item on hand. However, as tempting as they are, I don’t recommend indulging in them because these shortcuts will cheat the player out of firmly grasping Catherine’s puzzle mechanics.

The first eve of the nightmares was a sampler tutorial of what is involved when Vincent goes to sleep. For the duration of the game, every nightmare is going to be a three to four-act epic. In the final act, the nightmare climaxes with the closest example of what could be construed as a “boss” in a puzzle platformer game. Whatever the most severe form of stress is in Vincent’s life at the moment materializes as a beastly juggernaut that chases Vincent up the fourth act level’s foundation. For example, Katherine informing Vincent that she might be pregnant shakes him to his core, so the “boss” that night is a gigantic, monstrous baby that utters demonic-sounding goo-goo gaga noises while calling Vincent daddy. Because the anxiety of this situation persists, the baby returns two nights later as a Terminator cyborg with a chainsaw for a hand. Not since Eraserhead has the prospect of fatherhood been so harrowing. Other psychological machinations include a veiny arm that stabs Vincent with a fork, a crudely abstract depiction of the most intimate of female anatomy with a tongue the length of a fire hose, and Katherine in a wedding dress. Take a guess what was on Vincent’s mind that day. While the boss levels do not enhance Catherine’s already steep difficulty curve, they do enhance the horrific frenzy that naturally comes with a nightmare with their cosmically grotesque visages. The more sensitive types were probably alarmed that Catherine unexpectedly incorporated these horror elements.

Like a stage production with multiple acts, the nightmare offers an intermission so Vincent can take a breather. The save option situated on a music stand is the piece de resistance here but if the player doesn’t impatiently dart to the next level, they’ll see something rather peculiar happening on this suspended slab of land. While we see a compromising view of Vincent carrying a pillow in his underwear, his real physical appearance is still discernible. However, the other unwilling participants of this nightmare all see Vincent as a sheep and vice versa from Vincent’s perspective. Technically, and the game never corrects itself, but they’re all rams. I wouldn’t be so pedantic except for the fact that all of the characters on this island crag being male is a significant thematic detail of Catherine. If Vincent strikes up a conversation with any of these frightened lambs, they are all fretting over their love lives as frantically as Vincent is. Some of them are even stricken with guilt over their lack of fidelity in their relationships, which the deadly environment of the nightmare has forced them to come to terms with. The police officer, Morgan, is plagued with grief because of his wife’s murder, Daniel the wealthy heir with sunglasses feels guilty for abandoning his normal girlfriend for a rich heiress his parents arranged for him to marry, and the flashy golden-kitted Abul is a middle-eastern oil baron whose opulence alienates him from the rest of humanity. We even pry into the personal lives of Orlando and Johnny in their fluffy, astral forms, which shows the extent of the curse affecting seemingly every man in the game (except for Toby) and that every man deserves to be punished for all degrees of romantic misconduct. The atmosphere of the area is akin to that of being pinned down in a foxhole, a collectively masculine feeling of terror, dread, and the danger of the inevitable vulnerable period of stepping out into the action being their last.

The player might also notice that the aisle with symmetrical arrangement of pews in the intermittent sections of the nightmare resembles the interior design of a church. Instead of an altar as the centerpiece on stage, the confessional booth is situated directly in the front, and sitting down to purge Vincent’s innermost secrets is the only way to commence the next level. Actually, instead of Vincent spilling his guts via a monologue, the impish, condescending voice opposite to him will have Vincent conduct a poll with questions based on popular romantic quandaries such as the ethics of cheating or what characteristics they pursue in a partner. Pulling either of the two ropes depending on Vincent’s answer will cause a compass to appear and slightly slide towards either the order spectrum on the right or the freedom spectrum on the left. Sometimes, the array of questions feels like taking an EPI test, and the grand scope of information seems to fall on a spectrum of general lifestyle choices between bohemian to rigid and orderly. Really, wherever the compass needle is near the end of the game dictates whether Vincent solves his issues with Katherine or decides to abandon her completely and sincerely commit to his fling with the other Catherine full-time. Unlike the majority of people who submitted their answers in the online polls displayed in a pie chart revealed after the player gave their answer, I did my damndest to reply with utmost honesty. I guess the outcome will inadvertently reveal the circumstances of my own love life.

Whether or not the player does sway their answers toward their preferred (CK)atherine, they cannot circumvent the eventual outcome of Vincent’s two worlds colliding when Katherine catches Catherine in Vincent’s apartment at the wee hours of dawn. While Vincent is squirming so hard that his skin is bound to shed like a snake, old Katherine decides to approach the situation calmly over a spot of tea. However, new Catherine isn’t as sanguine and tries to kill her rival for Vincent’s affections with a kitchen knife before ultimately impaling herself on it by accident. Even though the threat to Katherine’s monogamous bond with Vincent has fortuitously been vanquished in the scuffle, she isn’t rid of the pest just yet. Katherine and Vincent then teleport to another level of the nightmare together where Vincent props his girlfriend along a puzzle path in the game’s one and (thankfully) only escort mission. All the while, a ghastly, scorned boss version of Catherine is hunting them down from below. One would think this experience would cause Katherine to be frozen in shock and confusion, but this ordeal is yet another fabrication of Vincent’s astral projection. In fact, when Katherine arrives to break up with Vincent after sussing out the clues of his infidelity with context, it astounds Vincent to know that Katherine never even saw a glimpse of the phantom femme-fatale in her peripheral vision. In fact, none of Vincent’s friends witnessed him attempt to sever ties with the lingerie-wearing bimbo at the Stray Sheep the day prior, and they’d probably kill to sneak and peek at her. The only person who seems to acknowledge Catherine’s presence directly is the older, debonair gentleman who owns the bar. Once Vincent comes to this realization, he confronts “Boss” who tells him that he’s a God who constructed Catherine as a mental machination of Vincent’s ideal sexual partner. Vincent is evidently not a man of sophisticated taste but to each their own. He did this to punish Vincent and every male patron over a certain age in the bar for either not committing to the long-term pact of marriage or the failure to launch a meaningful relationship with a woman and have children to maintain the human population. They are lambs being sent to the slaughter if you will. He’s a utilitarian if his views mirrored those of everyone’s nagging, baby-boomer parents who got married at 19. Vincent finds his punitive game cruel and unfairly judgemental so later that night, he makes a bet with the bar owner that if he climbs the zenith point of the tower, he’ll cease the charade indefinitely. Because Vincent is such an exemplary climber (you’re welcome), he has little trouble winning the bet despite the Bosses' efforts to quash him from the comfort of his flying recliner. The reveal that the culprit behind the otherworldly dimension is a God masquerading among the living is pure Persona. Still, the revelation is less contrived than it can be in Atlus’ other series because the mystery and intrigue still resonate in the air instead of acting as an elevated epilogue after the core mystery has already been solved.

Alas, despite Vincent’s efforts to liberate himself and his friends along with his discovery that his cheating was all a mirage, the falling action of Catherine’s narrative was Katherine sternly doubling down on her departure from Vincent. I guess this is what occurs when the compass needle barely diverts from its center as a neutral ending, and it’s actually the best possible outcome. I’m not going to disparage or berate Vincent, mostly because I pity him, but the man needs to get his shit together. He’s a nervous, stuttering wreck, he’s dead broke, and his current place of residence is practically a dorm room that is crawling with ants. Simply because he’s at an ideal age to settle down and procreate doesn’t mean it’s ideal for his circumstances. He clearly isn't mentally or financially ready to support someone else when he can hardly support himself. Catherine manages to convey a valuable and surprisingly uncommon life lesson for all young adults to bask in the glory of singlehood despite society and matriarchal and or patriarchal pressures that befall all young adults. Besides, it’s not as if Vincent has menopause as a future hindrance to tackle. Vincent has all the time in the world to cultivate confidence, financial gain, and other means of prosperity before he concerns himself with passing on his genetic material with a woman. That, and the other endings achieved on a staunch range of the spectrum are either dumb, anticlimactic or a mix of both. I can’t stomach the concept of “spiritual” cheating that Vincent admits to committing to wed Katherine at the Stray Sheep, and becoming a suave playboy demon in hell with Catherine is just ridiculous. The latter of the outcomes emphasizes a route of freedom if they side with Vincent’s goomar, but the truth is that being single releases the shackles of relationship responsibility completely.

To say that Catherine is a unique experience in the world of gaming is an understatement. Atlus can’t seem to quit implementing Jungian/Freudian psychology into their IPs and externalizing them as an otherworldly dimension that comprises half of the focal point of gameplay mechanics with a humdrum depiction of the real world. Besides Atlus’s Persona as a stark influence, Catherine evidently borrows aplenty from other sources such as Silent Hill, Q-Bert (honestly), and the philosophies of love and its gamut of pleasure and pain. Such a lofty conceptual mix is ideal for a lengthy JRPG such as what Atlus usually creates, but the fact that all of it congeals splendidly in a challenging puzzle platformer is nothing short of bewildering. It’s difficult to recommend Catherine due to its mind-boggling puzzle mechanics, instances of heart-attack-inducing horror, and often negative attitude toward values that the Western world holds as sacred. Still, I’d rather play something unorthodox and inspired than sink into a conceptual comfort zone. For those who aren’t of the faint of heart like I, Catherine is incredibly fresh and exciting.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

Why was Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive such an influential cultural force across all forms of art and entertainment last decade? The film was released in the early period of the decade in 2011, so there was plenty of time for its 1980s-reminiscent aesthetic to seep into the zeitgeist of the 2010s. However, what I’m wondering is why so many artists gravitated towards emulating Drive’s style. Admittedly, the elements that constitute its style are endearingly kitsch, and the way that the retro-chic artistic direction is layered over gritty, darkened overtones presents a unique contrast that surprisingly melds together superbly. Normally, highlighting the purplish pink neon hue of the 1980s is a signifier of the decade’s elated decadence, but Drive’s direction rather exposes the drug-addled dirt and sleaze underneath the surface. Its modus operandi wasn’t an homage to the next-to-last decade of the 20th century, but a scathing depiction of what was hidden in plain sight across the ten years. Drive resonated with the influx of vaporwave and hypnagogic pop artists whose music reckoned back to the antiquated production of 1980s synthpop, as well as films like Baby Driver and the long-awaited sequel Blade Runner 2049 that shared Drive’s signature aesthetic and brooding, yet high-octane action pacing. In the realm of video games, the closest another work of fiction ever came to truly capturing Drive’s aura to its full extent is Hotline Miami, an indie darling that effectively translated all of the components of Refn’s most notable film to an interactive medium. However, Hotline Miami achieves something beyond an interactive tribute.

To start, Hotline Miami is fucking putrid. Drive, of course, had its fair share of scenes that didn’t shy away from depicting graphic, stylized violence on the celluloid, but every waking moment of Hotline Miami is a torrent of blood splatter. The entirety of Hotline Miami is that elevator scene from Drive and plenty of fans of the film state they find that scene hard to stomach due to its unflinching brutality. I realize that Hotline Miami is not a literal video game adaptation of Drive but if anyone were to make the argument that the violence of any adapted work is heightened in the video game medium to gamify the content, Hotline Miami would be a testament to this claim. “Jacket,” the anonymous protagonist whose nickname stems from the same snazzy clothing item signifier that Ryan Gosling’s character from Drive possesses, paints the interior walls of Miami’s corporate buildings with the gushing, red bodily plasma of the Russian mafia. However, the game never romanticizes the carnage, depicting the frequent massacres that occur throughout the game with a dread-filled, dark tone that becomes apparent once the flies start buzzing around the fresh, stinking corpses in Jacket’s wake once he climbs back up to his vehicle. The vibrant 1980s backdrop and aesthetic choices are practically what save Hotline Miami from plunging into severely horrific territory because what is being presented is truly grim and vile. I’m astonished how Hotline Miami didn’t draw in a flood of lashback from the typical crowd of concerned parents and scapegoating politicians considering the breadth of its depravity. Really, it’s probably because the pixel art that renders the viscera looks so quaint that Hotline Miami’s graphic content doesn’t bat an eye in an era with gaming visuals that could be mistaken for cinematics. Still, IF Hotline Miami weren’t an indie title where the developers were working with the bare essentials of gaming presentation, the game would make Max Payne look like Kirby. Hell, it could maybe even surpass Manhunt’s level of nihilistic gore.

Even though I’ve already compared Hotline Miami to Drive ad Nauseam at this point, the general objective across each of the game’s levels is reminiscent of the climactic sequence of Taxi Driver. For each of Hotline Miami’s chapters, Jacket enters one of the southern tip of Florida’s various commercial buildings, whose location is given through a dossier transferred to him via a phone call. Like Travis Bickle in Sport’s New York brothel, his objective is to clear the building of everyone in it, and I don’t mean by executing a devious prank like pulling the fire alarm. Jacket must take no prisoners and murder everyone on sight. The player witnesses this mission from a top-down perspective, a view of the scene from an impersonal angle as if they are an accomplice to the carnage as opposed to acting as the prime perpetrator (or an homage to when the screen pans out at the end of Taxi Driver?) More than likely, the top-down mechanics are to complement the twin-stick shooter gameplay. The player will control Jacket’s movement with a close combination of keyboard keys while performing most of the actions by alternating the left and right buttons on the mousepad. For anyone playing the console ports of Hotline Miami, both analog sticks need to be used simultaneously for both Jacket’s movement and aiming controls. Jacket enters every building unarmed, but this surprisingly isn’t a horribly miscalculated judgment call on his part as the area is littered with guns and other blunt objects galore. Simply knock out a goon situated at the front of the building and steal his weapon and he’s good to go. Of course, Jacket will dispose of his first victim a little more thoroughly, so the game allows him to perform an “execution” move on the ground with whichever weapon he has or his bare hands to slip the unconscious foe into a state of eternal oblivion. Once Jacket makes a meticulous effort to search every corner, closet, and behind every potted plant to dispatch all of his targets, he retraces his steps back up to the Delorean-esque limousine back to his safe house.

The rinse-and-repeat kind of gameplay that Hotline Miami bestows should tire the player through the stacked number of levels the game provides. However, Hotline Miami’s strict, constant difficulty curve is what staves off the repetition from becoming grating. Hotline Miami’s main gimmick is that the player must mow down the army of Russian mobsters without sustaining even a smidge of damage. If Jacket so much as trips on a cockroach that is sure to scurry by in these scuzzy hallways, he’s completely done for. Not to mention, all of the enemies inside are acutely alert (probably due to copious cocaine consumption), and they’ll spring at the opportunity to beat Jacket down or shoot him on sight before he can register what just happened. Hotline Miami’s core idiosyncrasy is absolutely brilliant, as the swift penalty for one’s mistakes adds a plethora of rich layers to the gameplay. While the overarching goal is to expunge the area of any Russian mafia activity, succeeding is not a simple matter of readying, aiming, and firing at will. Hotline Miami is a quasi-stealth game in that the player must refrain from acting rashly and plan each step accordingly. The jig won’t be up if an enemy catches Jacket, but the player should ideally be treating the overwhelming odds at hand with patience and tact if they want to make a clean getaway. However, for as proficient as some players might be in the vein of traditional stealth games like Metal Gear Solid, Hotline Miami practically guarantees that they’ll never achieve victory on their first attempt. Hotline Miami is a game whose progression is marked by trial and error, memorizing every little increment of the field and the relative rotation of where the enemies are stationed or the trajectory of their pacing. Later levels also add vicious rottweiler dogs that pin down Jacket and tear his trachea right out of his throat as well as burly black bouncers who are immune to melee weapons to thwart any accumulative familiarity. However, the cardinal rules to abide by in Hotline Miami, such as that the abrasively loud gunshots will always attract attention and that not taking advantage of every abrupt door swing to subdue enemies, will always be in place to ensure a quicker victory. As the game progresses, Jacket will unlock a wide variety of crude animal masks with special attributes that could compensate for whichever blindspot keeps befalling them. A checkpoint will be placed once the player reaches another floor as well, so the game is more than accommodating to its regulations. Still, some may feel dejected constantly respawning at the entrance upon subsequent failures, but the eventual triumph over the league of bald, eastern European Don Johnson wannabes will invigorate the player with a sense of gratification. Plus, all of the failed attempts behind the success will fuel one impressively smooth go-around. Jacket will execute every last living, breathing being in the vicinity unscathed like Travis Bickle, but if Travis Bickle had the killing acuity of a ninja.

Hotline Miami’s substance is interwoven into the gameplay and presentation, but there is a subtly told story that is still being told between the levels. Since his girlfriend left him, Jacket’s life has plummeted into a downward spiral of personal atrophy. The negligent, destitute state of his apartment is emblematic of Jacket’s metaphorical inner soul and mental state. Jacket’s evident apathy for his life and the world around him has made him a prime candidate for a radical group referred to as the “Fifty Blessings,” whose mission to fracture America’s relationship with Russia by exterminating their mafia is a very Cold War-centric pursuit of nationalism. Only a reprobate with nothing to lose would sign themselves up for a dangerously self-destructive act, and Jacket undoubtedly fits the description. As he accustomed himself to the daily grind of mass murder, Jacket’s mental state deteriorates even further. Three men often visit him in a hazy, darkened stupor of crawling insects that are wearing the animal masks he uses on the job, his “three witches” who judge him on his actions instead of offering premonitions. Jacket’s mental fortitude seems like it could bounce back after igniting a new relationship with a new girl he saved from a sleazy executive producer during a mission and interacting with a friendly and seemingly omnipresent store clerk that charitably gives him a bevy of free shit for his troubles. Unfortunately, the clerk winds up dead and so does his prospective new love, and the killer of the latter minor character shoots Jacket. He survives and is taken to the hospital, which is where we discover that the events in the game leading up to Jacket’s recovery have been a comatose recollection of his life’s recent events. Once he escapes the hospital and infiltrates the Miami police station, he confronts the man who reduced him to a vegetable and decides to let him live (in the canonical timeline) to procure instead information on where to locate the Russian mafia’s district leader. He confronts the local don, plus his female and canine bodyguards to shield him during his boss encounter, and then kills himself because he’s a man of outstanding pride. Jacket has rid late 1980s Miami of the Russian scourge, and treats himself to a long toke off of a Marlboro red as he tosses a picture from his pocket off the balcony.

Sure, this is technically the current of events that occurs throughout Hotline Miami’s runtime. However, how the game presents its story is akin to a photo collage where the pictures are aligned in a row. The player still has to piece together the context and correlative bearings between scenes and even then, the glue holding these hazy frames together isn’t sticking and making the pictures slip. In fact, we aren’t even privy to who is behind the phone messages until “Biker,” a boss battle whose death was only a fabrication in Jacket’s fleeting consciousness, confronts the two men responsible in the game’s epilogue. This is why Hotline Miami’s greatest theme is dissociation, a prevalent topic among the morally questionable protagonists from the films that comprise the game’s major influences. While Jacket is yet another unhinged renegade bound to enact (several) killing sprees, how Hotline Miami takes advantage of the video game medium to present Jacket’s dissociation from reality is utterly genius. You see, video games can get away with having a fractured, surreal narrative because at least it’s supported by the gameplay elements to hold the foundation. In most character-driven films, the entire plot arc has to be linear and cogent to prevent it from collapsing. All the player has to understand from the gameplay is that Jacket is climbing up the proverbial ladder to reach the tip of the Russian mafia tower, and the ascent is going to become more hectic the higher they reach. The lack of context and frazzled construction of the plot makes the player as dissociated with reality as Jacket, a deeper, symbiotic connection with the character than simply engaging with them from afar as a viewer. Jacket’s motives for assigning himself the onus of assassinating the entire Russian mafia are unclear but then again, what is the player’s motives for directing him through all the blood he spills in the first place? Dissociation isn’t a one-way street for the protagonist for the cogent viewer to assess from a clearer perspective; they are as confused and mentally incongruous as Jacket is, equally dissociating from the damnable ethics of the heinous sprawl of bloodshed.

If Drive was the first stepping stone in establishing the “synthwave” aesthetic that was popular in the 2010s, Hotline Miami most likely launched it into primetime. It’s no wonder as to why it resonated with so many gamers considering the extent of how inspired the game feels. Hotline Miami’s influences are conspicuous, but it is anything but pastiche. Hotline Miami borrows the similar themes, characters, and grizzly tone found in films like Drive and Taxi Driver and re-blends them into the realm of gaming like a fine cocktail on ice. It understood that it could accomplish what those films feasibly couldn’t in another medium, with exceptionally engaging and unique mechanics that future indie developers will be emulating from now until the end of time. If Hotline Miami’s goal was to create an interactive Drive, the developers managed to supersede its initial source. If one doesn’t mind reaching down into the depths of depravity and enacting ambiguous acts of ultraviolence, Hotline Miami is a landmark for gameplay and narrative innovation for gaming.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

With a title like Ori and the Will of the Wisps, one can infer that Ori and the Blind Forest was greenlit for a sequel. All referential jokes to the introduction of my review of Ori’s first game aside, I’m quite pleased as punch for this opportunity to see the luminous forest nymph once again. Ori and the Blind Forest was an exemplary title in the new wave of indie Metroidvania games, presenting a captivating wooded world for the player to explore under the guise of the niche 2D platformer’s particular progression methods. The game was undeniably gorgeous, and the silky smooth controls made hopping around the several shades of wild foliage wonderfully accessible. However, many of the accessible aspects in Ori and the Blind Forest besides the remarkable mechanics rendered the game rather sparse compared to its Metroidvania peers. Opting for frantic chase sequences from natural disasters and apex predators as opposed to duking it out with them in epic boss fight fashion was an especially unorthodox decision. I understand that Ori is intended to be lighthearted and more whimsical than the existential sci-fi horror of Metroid and the bloody, gothic glory of Castlevania. Still, the general ease of Ori’s gameplay with the added factor of zero boss battles seemed like the developer’s directive was to create a Metroidvania experience for an extremely young demographic, easing them into the realm of gaming with a title that wouldn’t obtrude on their impressionably vulnerable sensibilities. I’m not one to judge the intentions of an artist as long as they’re honest, but diluting a few gameplay attributes ostensibly for the sake of making your game digestible for children undermined Ori and the Blind Forest’s full potential. This is why Ori and the Will of the Wisps are in an ideal position as a sequel: another opportunity for the Ori IP to fill in the blanks that the first game either omitted or regrettably came to the developers as staircase thoughts. The final product of Ori and the Will of the Wisps suggests that they ultimately wanted Ori to kick ass, but wait till you hear about the source of inspiration the developers took to enable this initiative.

I suppose the resolution of Ori and the assorted group of destitute misfits around the forest banding together to live in one space is open to expanding on. The developers didn’t slap a “happily ever after” on this tender ending like one would expect from something that resembles a fairy tale, so there can be plenty more strife in the lives of these adorable folk of the forest. For now, all they are concerned with is raising the sole surviving offspring of the dark indigo owl Sein who stalked Ori with impassioned ferocity in the previous game. Hence, the little owlet is the reason why the non-nuclear family unit was formed in the first place. Everything is as content and tranquil as the opening events of Blind Forest, except for the fact that Ku, the owlet, is pitifully failing in her attempts to fly when Ori and the others are teaching her due to having a lame wing. Considering the colossal size of her birth mother, Ori should be wary about inadvertently creating a monster down the line, but I suppose this could divert into a nature versus nurture debate. One day, Ku manages to soar a little TOO high using Kuro’s Feather, and a violent storm separates Ku from her glowing guardian Ori. Because Ku is frightened and fragile, Ori must scour the uncharted Niwen forest to find her lost little lamb. This premise establishes exactly what I had wished for Ori after the events of the first game. Ori’s growth after ascending past her role as a helpless critter through her perilous venture was reduced greatly when Naru rose from the dead completely unscathed to continue his role as her furry protector. Now, putting Ori in a position of daunting responsibility to save someone as weak as she was, if not even more at the beginning of her first adventure proves that her acute physical prowess is dynamic.

So what is the extent of Ori’s ability to combat what lies in the hostile wilderness? On top of the valuable experience gathered from hiking through Nibel, Ori’s tactical enhancements in the sequel are the prime differentiating factor of the game, and where its source of inspiration I alluded to in the opening paragraph is most apparent. Let’s just say that the title of “Ori and the Will of the Wisps'' is a mirage. An honest title to Ori’s sequel is “Ori and the Hollow Knight.” Between the release of the two Ori games in 2015 and 2020, a dinky cobble of a studio in Australia surprisingly cemented its 2017 title Hollow Knight as what is quite possibly the zenith point of its genre. If the indie Metroidvania boom could be comparable to the classical period of music, Hollow Knight is clearly Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, practically eclipsing the contributions of its equally worthy peers with sensational amounts of approbation, and (almost) rightfully so. I cannot cite whether or not Hollow Knight’s accolades had Moon Studios seething with palpable envy like Salieri, but Team Cherry’s gold-medal game evidently affected Will of the Wisps without question. Instead of using the projectile fireworks of the flickering light spirit Sein as a bodyguard, Ori will stumble upon the “spirit edge” for a more personal, manual method of offense. This sharp, glowing, icicle-like weapon is eerily similar to The Knight’s nail art, even if Ori flails this thing around with less rhythmic grace than Hollow Knight’s protagonist does with his weapon of choice. As the game progresses, Ori will acquire the familiar attributes that allowed her to unlock more of Nibel’s grounds by absorbing the light of the ancestral trees, and familiar moves like the spirit smash and the light burst are now selected through a weapon wheel and are assigned to a button. Even though the spirit edge is grouped in with the roulette of Ori’s secondary abilities, the combative dexterity and inherent inexhaustible energy as a melee weapon will guarantee that it will be used as routinely as the nail art. Sure, the similarities between the primary weapons of both games aren’t enough to decry acts of plagiarism. Still, other frequent elements in Will of the Wisps also conjured too many clear memories of Hollow Knight for comfort, so I insist that everyone keep the comparisons in mind. I even encourage a drinking game whenever close similarities arise throughout this review because I’m so confident of how commonplace they are (but drink responsibly).

This isn't to say that Will of the Wisps implemented all of its new features by peering over at Hollow Knight and taking notes. Plenty of elements newly introduced to Will of the Wisps are uniquely Ori, or at least they don’t readily remind me of something from another IP. For instance, the spirit smash move isn’t merely a rebranding of the downward bash from the previous game. Using this move in any other cardinal direction that isn’t south will see Ori fling what looks like a hefty mallet that inflicts a massive amount of damage to enemies. To hit a series of out-of-reach switches, Ori channels her inner Robin Hood and shoots a spirit arrow to activate them. The instances of using the spirit arrows for this purpose are surprisingly confined to one space, so the most utility of this tool will be used for those pesky airborne enemies. Ori can torpedo herself through and out of a body of water like a leaping dolphin with a “swim dash,” and the same practical move is extended to thick banks of sand with the “burrow” ability. Ori can coat herself in a traveling radius of light that protects her from being consumed by crushing darkness with “flash,” although how darkness can be so pitch black that it can kill someone is beyond me. Other skills can be purchased with the spirit light currency by the white-haired simian Opher, which include the “blaze” move that naturally engulfs enemies with flames and a sentry that serves as a surrogate attacker in Sein’s absence. The ability to breathe underwater is available to purchase here instead of gaining it through natural progression like in Blind Forest. I think this is an incorrect shift considering how essential it is to progress in some spots. Overall, the additions to Ori’s array of abilities are further proof that she’s no sitting duck anymore and that she’s got plenty of ways to protect herself.

On the surface, Niwen’s vast plains of untapped wilderness look to be about as formidable as Nibel’s forest. Will of the Wisps was developed through the same engine as Blind Forest, so the vivid, picturesque depiction of an arboreal setting fit for a prestigious gallery showcasing the finest of video game graphics is still retained here. To further instill a sense of perceived uncanniness, Niwen’s districts even reuse the level tropes seen in Blind Forest with such areas as the snowy mountain peak of Baur’s Reach mirroring the icy elevation of the Forlorn Ruins, and the blindingly dim catacombs of Mouldwood Depths practically serving as a deadlier version of the Black Root Burrows. One can argue that the Inkwater Marsh and Kwolok’s Hollow districts situated at the center of Niwen are appropriately moody and somewhat tranquil as starting areas. Still, I can’t help but be bothered by how similar they are to Nibel’s Sunken Glades and Hollow Grove in their geographical placement, tone, and general aesthetic. Because Ori’s areas are conceptually confined to natural, dendriform places, the developers discern the ones from their previous output with some clever new mechanics. For instance, Baur’s Reach doesn’t continue the anti-gravitational gimmick from the Forlorn Ruins, rather implementing an elemental contrast between frost and fire with the new properties of the light burst maneuver. Luma Pools expands upon the pristinely crisp waters of Thornfelt Swamp into an entire area, whose vibrant purplish-pink trees all around the perimeter resemble the Lorax’s wondrous landscape before it was corrupted by the Onceler’s capitalist endeavors. The aquatic land is so effervescent that bubbles consistently emerge from its sparkling waters, and Ori uses them as springy platforms to aid in her traversal of the area. Similarly, the grim, lugubrious Silent Woods looks as if it’s drowned a number of horses in its days (that’s a Neverending Story reference) in its murky, sludgy streams, and Ori will be another victim to their gripping depths if she doesn’t plant herself precisely on the buoyant bubbles that catapult her upward. Progression through these areas will automatically fill in step by step as the case was for Blind Forest, but the cardinal difference is how the entirety of the map is revealed before Ori explores 100% of it. Instead of stumbling upon a stone basin that vaguely resembles a save mechanism on the field, the missing patches of land that haven’t been cleared on the map yet are half-filled in by Ludo. This merry gentleman sells maps to Ori for a marginal price, and he’s found around the muddy corridors for every area of the game. Drink up, everyone, and if Ludo hummed a jaunty tune to signal his nearby presence, I’d make you all drink straight whiskey with no chaser.

The most unique of Niwen’s areas is the Wellspring Glades, a relaxed hub of sorts where the game’s NPCs reside to sell Ori their various wares. Dare I say, it’s similar to Dirtmouth from Hollow Knight (bottoms up)? Whether or not the comparisons are a fit once again, this treetop grove is an excellent respite area situated in a pocket of rare, glowing sunshine in Niwen. The temporary residents here in Wellspring Glades are all familiar faces seen all across Niwen’s spacious land. The nomadic Tokk leans on the bark of the area’s foundational support beam asking Ori to find esoteric areas of interest and lost items. The former cartographer would do it himself, but those days for the grizzled blue bird are behind him. The Final Fantasy mage-like Twillen is a purveyor of “shards,” enhancements to Ori’s skills with specific conditions that are assigned in the menu with a limited maximum (glug glug). A few NPCs use the fertile grounds of the glades to make Ori perform extraneous labor efforts. A common item called “gorlek ore” is given to a burly creature named Grom whose species shares the namesake of the material, and he uses it to build architectures around the hub to make it more hospitable. Turtle-bear hybrid creature Turley will plant seeds that Ori finds on the field to grow vegetation that makes higher reaches of the glades accessible. A nameless tribe of lemur-like Mokoi can also be spotted here, and they certainly make the hub friendlier because they’re so innocuous. Even though Niwen is a strange land that Ori is forced to excavate, this particular area makes this parallel forest homier thanks to the NPCs strewn about the locale.

Having a hub situated somewhere in Niwen is especially vital because Will of the Wisps is surprisingly more difficult than the previous games. I stated that one of the primary aspects of Blind Forest that made the overall experience somewhat lacking was the general ease of its difficulty, minus a few tense moments regarding platforming later in the game. While Will of the Wisps does not match the steep difficulty standard of that other Metroidvania game I keep comparing it to, stiff obstacles will occur more frequently throughout. Namely, the player might struggle a bit with this game’s bosses. Yes, another wish that Blind Forest didn’t quite deliver on has been fulfilled in its sequel, and the select few bosses across the game’s playtime are mighty foes with screen-spanning health bars. A giant wolf with the same shaded fur complexion as Kuro’s feathers will lull the player into the familiarity of a high-stakes chase until his health bar appears and Ori gets the chance to defend herself by smacking it in the face repeatedly. The giant Beetle Ori fights next starts without a misleading precedent, as Ori will jump over the ferocious armored bug to hit its vulnerable backside. Unlike Howl who was in a compromising position throughout his encounter, the varied attack patterns of the Beetle showcases that this game’s bosses need considerable patience and a slight awareness of each of their offensive actions against Ori (I guess that’s another shot). A methodical approach to defeating the bosses is especially crucial with Mora and Kwolok, two gigantic foes whose fights are the climactic peak of two of the game’s main quests. Mora’s status as a queen and mother spider should indicate her physical enormity, and the second phase of the poor possessed toad sage (who has the same voice as the narrator of both games, but supposedly isn’t) takes place underwater before Ori has the chance to purchase her gills from the merchant in the glades. I am not ashamed to admit that these bosses took me more than a minute to triumph over, as the developers have done such a fantastic job implementing their encounters that it’s hard to believe that this is the first time that these kinds of substantial duels have been factored into an Ori game.

However, they are only the requisite challenges that Will of the Wisps has implanted. Off the beaten paths of Niwen are optional challenges that Ori can humor for an extra amount of spirit light or another notch where an additional shard can be used. Earning more currency comes in the shape of spirit trials, where Ori races against a wispy doppelganger of herself to the basin where the trial was initially activated. Ori’s shadow has evidently practiced navigating through the tough terrain, so every victory against it sprinting to the goal will always come down to the wire. The other auxiliary challenge the game provides is the spirit shrines, which will lock Ori into defeating waves of assorted enemies in combat. Without Ori’s new ability to regenerate her health using energy (without placing a checkpoint like in the last game), these horde matches can amount to overwhelming tests of endurance. The game is practically compensating for Blind Forest’s breeziness at this point.

Even though the bosses in this game certainly stick out as memorable, threatening instances of improvement in Will of the Wisps, they ultimately stand aside as secondary pawns to the game’s primary antagonist Shriek. While Shriek is admittedly another dark purple bird of prey constantly looming over Ori, she is not a replica of Koru. We can immediately distinguish this from a design standpoint as Shriek’s body is supported by calcified exterior ligaments that Shriek uses to hoist herself into a walk position like a pair of stilts. She’s carried this strange affliction her entire life, which is what caused her to be shunned by the rest of the bird community she was born into. No wonder she’s now a menace that casts a blanket of tension overhead as she soars through Niwen’s skies. A section that highlights how harrowing Shriek is as a force of evil despite her handicap is a stealth section between the Silent Woods and the Windswept Wastes, annihilating Ori in a second if Ori is in her line of sight for too long. Shriek is a bird that has been scorned by her own kind, so it’s no wonder she harbors a grudge against all of Niwen’s denizens. It especially isn’t surprising that she literally stomps out Ku’s life (don’t worry, the screen fades to black as it’s happening) once she and Ori finally reconvene in the shady Silent Woods. An NPC laments that it’s unfair that the big and strong can prey on the meek and the pitiable, but the situation obviously stems from the storied history of dejection Shriek experienced as a young owl that looked exactly like Ku.

The titular wisps in the title refer to the main quest of retrieving three of them at Niwen’s different districts to restore the fractured Spirit Willow. Doing so will also erase the noxious decay that Niwen has been experiencing, which is so prevalent across the land that it’s affected even the prestigious sages. Mora was fortunate to have the effects of the decay smacked out her, but Kwolok wasn’t so lucky after the “stink spirit” wrapped him up in its infectious arms. The behemoth brown bear Baur who resides in the mountain range of his namesake was rather lucky, so the game resorts back to running away from Shriek as the pinnacle point of this section. Once the misplaced wisps are accounted for, Ori brings them to the cliffs of the Windswept Wastes to the entrance of the Willow’s End. The final section of Will of the Wisps resembles that of the erupting Mount Huro that finished off the first game. Ori is tasked with completing a series of platforming challenges that mainly involve a teleportation mechanic only utilized in the optional Midnight Burrows area to strike another stem of the whole pulpy, orange decay surrounding the core of the forest (chugalug). Seir, the spiritual embodiment of the great Willow’s lifeforce, is then snatched up by Shriek, finally giving Ori a chance to beat the blackened bird in a final boss that manages to be satisfyingly epic. To ensure that Ku is given another chance at life and that Niwen ceases atrophying, Ori has to merge with Seir to fully restore balance to this marvelous, beautiful land, meaning that her physical state as a nimble little nymph has to be sacrificed. Ultimately, she makes the right decision as Ku wakes up from her deep slumber to rejoin the custody of Gumo and Naru, as they make tributes to the new spirit willow that was once an integral member of their makeshift family. As tragic, intimidating, and fairly complex as Shriek is as the game’s antagonist, I’m not sure she’s really the focal point of the game’s story. Every point where she makes an appearance seems like a series of circumstantial conveniences made to complicate the plot, but the pervasiveness of the decay seems substantial enough of a conflict to carry the game’s narrative given the harrowing examples of its effects. Perhaps she could’ve been a stronger narrative force if her motives to specifically burden Ori were more defined like Kuro’s were.

It’s so thrilling to have your wishes granted. I wrote my review of Ori and the Blind Forest in early 2023 after its sequel had already been released, but it’s as if the developers read my review and decided to craft the next title in the series based on the critiques I gave. Ori and the Will of the Wisps is, by definition, a perfect sequel to Ori and the Blind Forest. Every single gripe I had feeling unfulfilled by Blind Forest’s pensions for subduing aspects of the Metroidvania gameplay for some odd, unclear reasons were totally amended here, regarding the titanic boss battles, Ori’s combat shrewdness, and competent evolution of the two game’s eponymous protagonist. However, what slightly deters me is that all of Ori’s improvements here is that a large quantity of them seem to be borrowed from Hollow Knight, a “if you can’t beat them, join them” type of scenario that makes me question Will of the Wisps true quality. In saying that, I now realize how much I compared the gameplay aspects of Hollow Knight to Dark Souls, and will emphasize this to humble Team Cherry’s magnum opus a bit. If I proposed a drinking game for every time something Soulsy came up in Hollow Knight, I'd be responsible for so many stomach pumpings. There is a classic quote from Picasso where he claims that good artists borrow and great artists steal, and if Hollow Knight’s attributes are what Ori and the Will of the Wisps needed to fill in the blanks to elevate it up to the high Metroidvania echelons, so be it.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

The concept of a “tearjerker” is usually not associated with the medium of video games. In the realm of films, literature, and music, the tag is assigned to works that fit the bill either as a point of interest for those who want to expunge their emotions or a disclaimer if someone wants to keep their cheeks dry and cheery. Music is in a class of its own as the sonic art form tends to delve into one’s emotions more intimately no matter what the artist’s intentions were, or at least to a broader extent of the medium’s potential. For the narrative-focused mediums of film and literature, the writers must make a meticulous effort to direct their audience into flooding their living spaces with salty saline through the events of the story and the context of the character’s interactions. Since a large number of video games include traditional narratives with personable, dynamic characters, why isn’t anyone excited and or worried that one will cause them to be impacted by vulnerable feelings of overwhelming sadness? Well, video games had to evolve to achieve this sensation, as the earliest few eras of gaming were far too primitive to intermingle the narrative weight that would induce crying with the gameplay. That, and the inherent feeling that comes with playing games should be of elatement. After all, that is the primary objective of playing a game of any sort whether they be digital or not. However, video games possess a deeper layer of interactive complexities that games like hopscotch, gin and rummy, and all sports do not. Video games are art, goddammit, and one effective trait of fine art is the ability to make its audience cry. Emotional instances are known to pop up across a select few video games, but one game, in particular, was foretold to destroy the spirits of everyone who played it: indie developer Freebird Studio’s 2011 title To the Moon.

Already, the plot premise of To the Moon should slightly moisten the player’s eyes. An old man named John Wyles is lying on his deathbed, and his last wish before he passes into the eternal ether mirrors the fantasies expressed in early 20th-century cinema: a trip to the moon. Even in the fictitious realm of video games, there is no Make-A-Wish foundation for privileged senior citizens to fulfill such fanciful dying desires that only a handful of people on Earth have ever experienced. However, an organization called Sigmund Corp. can work around the expenses and general feasibility of this grand request by planting artificial experiences into the patient’s brain as they lie there comatose. Two doctors appointed by Sigmund Corp named Neil Watts and Eva Rosaline are on call to execute the mission by visiting John’s mansion and applying an apparatus to him while he lies in bed. Integrating these fake memories into John’s fading consciousness is quite the ordeal, so Neil and Eva must brew some coffee for the all-nighter they are about to undergo. As we speak, there should be at least a few choked-up throats upon reading what To the Moon’s narrative has to offer. The concept of death is an uncomfortable, bittersweet topic that will constantly nag us with feelings of dread throughout our time on Earth. The concept of death and dying is arguably the most universal human fear that crosses all cultural boundaries, even if the scattered earth civilizations have their interpretations of the inevitable. Because death and its implications are such a prevalent force while we are living, we do not need any context as to who John was as a human being to empathize with his critical condition.

To the Moon’s premise hardly sounds like something a triple-A studio would produce, so expect the game’s presentation to display the minimalistic trappings of an indie studio. Specifically, To the Moon was developed with RPG Maker, a computer program downloadable by the general public to craft their own RPG games. To the Moon isn’t working with a modest sum of resources: it’s something any schmuck with Windows 7 could’ve conjured up in one afternoon. In all fairness, despite how cheap and unprofessional the base software of To the Moon’s development sounds, the final product could still ultimately prove substantial if the developers know how to work around the constraints of a pail bucket budget. Besides, I’ve always stated that any modern game rendered in the pixelated past of the medium always possesses an endearing quality, and To the Moon is no exception. With the pixelated format the game works with, To the Moon’s graphics strike a balance between cherubic and sublime. The chibi characters in the foreground contrast with the often picturesque displays of the backgrounds. Look at the sight of the nearby lighthouse peaking over the cliffside where John’s mansion is located and you’ll understand the visual dichotomy I’m attempting to illustrate. It’s beautiful but carries a sense of melancholy. Like most indie titles from the 21st century that use pixels as a driving force of their artistic direction, To the Moon still looks crisper and cleaner than what the big boys of the industry were working on in the later years of the previous century. It’s telling how far the medium has progressed when a program as accessible as this one outperforms anything made with an enormous budget only two decades prior.

Despite the name of the software that To the Moon was created in, the game is not an RPG of any sort. Our two protagonists fight a squirrel on the rocky road up to John’s house in a turn-based format, but this is a one-time snarky, ironic joke to throw off the expected precedent. No, the developers figured the tasteful way to gamify a story where an old man meets his timely demise is to render it into a point-and-click adventure title. With the conjoined Inception-esque apparatus, Neil and Eva can fully access every memory and experience from John’s storied life, or at least how John recalls them. Their objective is to redirect the course of John’s life through their minor alterations, simply by subtly or unsubtly passing the idea to visit the moon while he still had time. Neil and Eva know that timeliness is essential considering the host of the simulation could perish at any moment, so their first attempt is to grab him a few months before he’s bedridden to relay the idea. Unfortunately for them, John’s twilight years were rather occupied with other worries, such as aiding his dearly departed wife River when she was in hospice and how to feasibly move a grand piano up and down a flight of stairs. John is too long in the tooth to be considering the improbable goal of space travel, so Neil and Eva are forced to delve further into John’s past to find him at a more impressionable age. The rewinding process through John’s life is how the game implements the interactive point-and-click elements. To dig deeper into the strata of John’s life, Neil and Eva must find a memento whose resonance will serve as a portal to an earlier memory. Commonly used mementos include a bag that John carried around and a stuffed platypus plush owned by River. To activate the memento, Neil and Eva must find five pieces of contextual evidence behind the memento found in the same scene, usually after the conversational section between John and another person is finished. Oftentimes, the substance behind the gameplay in a point-and-click adventure is solving puzzles to progress, giving the player a hint of interactivity that will keep them engaged. To the Moon offers something in the same vein, but it's far too elementary. The five pieces of context needed for the memento are hidden in plain sight, and the area where they are all located is confined enough that finding all of them will most likely take a few minutes at most. When the five pieces are all assembled at the chosen memento, the player is transported to a puzzle section where they must align a picture by a 5X5 grid. This simple task will also prove to be quick and easy, as there is no time limit and no penalties for accidentally making the image less coherent. I always worry when narrative-focused video games sacrifice gameplay to fortify the story, and To the Moon is another example that will continue this concern.

Alright, so if To the Moon’s gameplay is effortless so as to not distract from the foreground of the narrative, certainly the game compensates with solid characters that drive the story’s intrigue. John, for example, has circled around the sun enough times to have experienced plenty of amazement and hardships, so traveling down the rabbit hole that is his entire life should ideally be interesting, right? Actually, John’s life is realistically mundane. In fact, the man led a pretty insular life with the same people. He married his high school girlfriend, proceeded to stay acquainted with his best friend Nick into adulthood, and has been kept company by his caretaker Lily, and her two children after his wife passed into old age. Upon exploring John’s past, it seems as if his wife, River, is the fascinating one by comparison as we learn about her diagnosis of Asperger's and how it correlates to why she obsessively makes origami bunnies that are strewn all over John’s basement. We never know what John’s former occupation was and how he could afford a countryside estate that overlooks a lighthouse. Whatever it was, I’m sure it was incredibly boring. It isn’t until Neil and Eva have to connect the bridge of John’s past to his early childhood that we discover that John’s existence hasn’t always been so spotless. For some reason, the time before John’s teenage years is obscured in a hazy shield of blankness, for his time-consuming beta blockers in the military (which is only explained through exposition and not experienced firsthand) have blocked it from view. After forcibly pushing past the impediment, we learn that John is suffering the trauma of losing his twin brother Joey in a pedestrian car accident when they were still in grade school. To retain some semblance of Joey’s presence on this earth, John subconsciously adopted all of his quirks such as his adoration for pickled olives. He also gained Joey’s fondness for the Animorphs books series, which means that this old geezer is a decrepit millennial, and the modern-day in this game is in the later decades of the 21st century. Thanks for making your target demographic (me) fret over their mortality, guys. Uncovering the pinnacle turning point in John’s life that shaped his present-day demeanor suddenly makes us invested in him and adds some spice to the humdrum future events we’ve already witnessed.

Where To the Moon has characters who have the personalities of a wet sock, the game also features those on the other end of the spectrum who are a bit much. Neil Watts, the male half of the Sigmund Corp duo, is…how do I put this nicely? He’s a real prick. He’s impatient, obnoxious, rude, and treats the job he’s doing with such callousness that it is practically offensive. In sensitive fields such as the one he specializes in, it’s understood that one has to harden their heart to deal with the heaviness of death. Still, Neil presents himself with such aloofness that he comes off as a clod. The game is somewhat aware of Neil’s flawed personality through his dynamic with Eva, the straight (wo)man on the job. She constantly reprimands Neil for his buffoonery not playfully as a couple with brewing sexual tension or as a younger brother, but as a colleague who is wearing her patience thin. She has no hang-ups about announcing that Neil cheated to gain the position he’s in or insulting him right to his face. Mulder and Scully, these two aint, only because the Mulder here is an absolute cretin. Is Neil intended to be the comic relief? He certainly isn’t the rock of the protagonist duo keeping things together, so I suppose the developers intended to be the sportive source in a game revolving around heavy subject matter. Still, there isn’t anything funny about constant pop culture references or acting like an immature child when prompted to perform the most menial of tasks. Neil strays too far with his clown persona that it creates tone issues for To the Moon.

I was fully ready to rant about how To the Moon did not deliver on its promise of an emotionally impactful experience all because of Neil’s shenanigans until the end when the game managed to save itself. Reaching back into John’s earliest memories at a carnival where he meets River for the first time as a little child. When River expresses curiosity about the stars and the moon when she’s gazing up at the night sky with John, an alarming realization hits our protagonists like a ton of bricks. The reason why they’ve been having difficulties directing John towards his dying wish is that it was never his wish to begin with: it was River’s final wish that he was fulfilling for her. When our protagonists finally understand John’s motive, a conflict in ethics arises in the decision to erase River from John’s memory. By some miracle, I found myself agreeing with Neil’s stance to let things be and leave the misguided man’s memories alone, while Eva continues to press that it should be done for the sake of the mission like a cold-hearted bureaucrat. I couldn’t believe I was siding with the fuckhead that had been pissing me off to no end for the past few hours, as I shared his devastation when River had vanished from John’s high school days in the blink of an eye. Because John never went on that first date with River, this leads him through a “George Constanza abstinence directive” where he focuses on his studies to become an astronaut now that the possibility of having sex is gone. Once he succeeds and NASA gives him a grand tour of their facility, another recruit named River is there to join him on their mission to tour the moon. Also, this time alteration saves his brother, Joey, somehow. In the ideal timeline that Eva created, he marries his true love after their time spent living their wildest dreams. However, the player does not witness their moon expedition firsthand, for John in the real world flat lines and fades to black. John is buried alongside River next to the lighthouse, and Neil and Eva are given another call for a new patient. By the skin of its teeth, To the Moon yanks out an ending that sincerely tugged at my heartstrings.

I’m not going to be okay for a while now, and To the Moon is to blame. For the longest time while playing To the Moon, I was skeptical of its potency to turn on the waterworks as I had anticipated. Sure, the inherent plot of the game was sad enough to support it initially, but the impact became muddled in too much quippy dialogue from a certain character who almost ruined it entirely. With great patience, I pulled through and experienced the game pulling a buzzer-beater of an ending that made me forget about all that annoyed me beforehand, climaxing the intricate story superbly in something effectively heartwarming. Are the game’s characters a lot to be desired? Without a doubt. Is the gameplay so simple that a chimpanzee could do it? Absolutely. Is everything wrapped up in a package that is perhaps a little too contrived and convenient? You betcha. Still, the gaming medium needs games like To the Moon to prove its narrative potential.
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While I'm at it, the story here is better than Inception. There's your hot take for the day.

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Attribution:// https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

Ever since the release of Super Mario Galaxy, I had always wondered how all of the successive 3D Mario titles would meet it at eye level. After all, what could possibly match the grandiose scope of freely flying throughout the infinite reaches of the universe? Logically speaking, absolutely nothing expands beyond it. While I tout Super Mario Galaxy as Mario’s finest outing across all of his mainline games, putting the plumber in a setting with an indescribably vast breadth where no one can possibly fathom its parameters peaks the franchise conceptually. My worry was that Nintendo had inadvertently squeezed the potential out of their most valuable asset, splurging all the remaining possibilities of a 3D Mario adventure into one intergalactic romp. I’m not considering the sequel to Super Mario Galaxy as proof that Mario hadn’t stagnated because Yoshi is not substantial enough of an addition. Actually, the fact that the green dinosaur was the only crumb of innovation they could implement to Galaxy’s formula is empirical evidence to my claim that it couldn’t be surpassed. The array of Mario games that followed Galaxy decided not to succeed it, but instead to ape the pre-3D classics with a polygonal coat of paint almost as a creatively bankrupt safety net. Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U, on the other hand, is technically not another 2D Mario game rendered with polygons instead of pixels. Still, considering the game features a grid-based world map and narrowly linear levels that all end by climbing a fucking flagpole, it’s a wonder how they could convince anyone that it wasn’t of the same ilk. When Super Mario Odyssey was released as the Mario representative to showcase the new Nintendo Switch console in 2017, I still remained skeptical despite hearing that it reverted back to the collectathon format and that it was receiving the same widespread acclaim not seen since Galaxy 2. It turns out that Super Mario Odyssey still doesn’t attempt to triumph over Galaxy’s magnificence, but that is actually what makes it all the more substantial.

Of course, Odyssey begins with the same general conflict premise as Galaxy. Then again, it just wouldn’t be Mario anymore if Bowser wasn’t swiping up the princess like clockwork, which means my Stockholm syndrome for Mario’s severely overused plot device is finally settling in. The unique context behind Odyssey’s princess-napping is that Bowser realizes like Beyonce that if he likes Peach, he should put a ring on her as a binding, inescapable bond of holy matrimony seen as a steadfast contractual obligation by the law. When Mario confronts Bowser on his decorated ship flying over Peach’s castle in what is the most abrupt introduction to any Mario game thus far, the boomerang swing of Bowser’s white, snappy wedding hat knocks the wind out of Mario and sends him zooming across the skies. He leaves his trusty red cap in the wake of his humbling defeat, which Bowser crushes with the force of his hefty reptilian foot as a finishing blow to Mario’s ego. However, losing one of Mario’s most personal items is more fortuitous than one would think. Mario manages to crashland on “Bonnetown” in the Cap Kingdom, a peculiar place so expressionistic with a whimsically eerie atmosphere that it’s a wonder that Tim Burton’s name didn’t appear in the opening credits. Cap Kingdom is also populated by a society of wispy, ghoulish caps that possibly could serve as substitutes for Mario’s misplaced clothing item. Cappy, the floating pale creature who has somehow retrieved the torn remnants of Mario’s old hat from Bowser’s ship, volunteers to be the new blocker of the sun’s rays to Mario’s dome because his younger sister, Tiara, has also been forcibly taken by Bowser to serve as Peach’s crown during their eventual wedding ceremony. By fusing his ethereal body with Mario’s old cap, Cappy and Mario are now a dynamic duo on a mission to save Peach and his sister from glorified legal enslavement. I suppose the call to adventure is glorious for Cappy but for Mario, it’s just another Tuesday.

While Mario isn’t roaming the cosmos once again, the “odyssey” portion of the title still alludes to a glorious journey nonetheless. Mario is limited to the land this time around and all of its oxygenated, gravitational barriers, but this does not mean that Super Mario Odyssey is a conceptual compromise. The key element from Galaxy retained here is that heightened sense of romanticism that comes with Mario setting off on an adventure. Somehow, for a franchise whose protagonist has soared through the infinite reaches of space twice over, Odyssey’s scale still seems wondrous while sticking to an earthly environment. There is something bourgeois about sailing the skies in a steam-powered vessel in the shape of a red top hat that is granted to you on a convenient whim, a fanciful privilege only rewarded to the king of video games. Mario is a modern-day Philleas Fogg, and the premise of flying around the circumference of the entire world that was once far-fetched when Around the World in Eighty Days was written still retains that sense of spectacle and majesty despite the technological advancements we’ve contributed to air travel. The same could be said for Mario’s personal experiences, finding exhilaration in this venture even after exploring the final frontier. Somehow, for a franchise where one title was vacation-themed, Odyssey exudes a greater atmosphere of laidback breeziness than when he set foot on Isle Delfino. 3D Mario still sustains the elation of traveling abroad, which means Mario is still shirking whatever responsibility he left in the Mushroom Kingdom two decades prior. Is Peach his mistress, or did living with Luigi become intolerable?

The world that Mario is circling via a mechanical, quasi-steampunk piece of formal wear on his quest to rescue Peach is actually the one where the Mushroom Kingdom resides. Unless someone has mapped out the location of Sarasaland or Isle Delfino and determined their geographical placements in relation to the Mushroom Kingdom, Odyssey marks the first time where the player can discern the distance between Peach’s fungal domain and the areas outside of its jurisdiction. Instead of shelling out gobs of money for their wedding like your average poor sap, Bowser uses his kingly persuasion and or strongarm tactics to steal the precious artifacts from the various kingdoms to use as trinkets during the ceremony (wedding cake, soiree bouquet, etc). In the interest of sticking it to Bowser and restoring balance to the upset kingdoms he’s impolitely pillaging, Mario acts as the NATO-esque ambassador from the Mushroom Kingdom and retrieves all of the stolen items rightfully belonging to their defenseless neighbors.

Since Odyssey’s progression involves skimming across the longitudinal plane of an entire planet, one can assume that the seventeen different areas of the game showcase an eclectic range of level themes and topographies. Before you also assume that this premise allows the developers to delve back into the typical fire, ice, desert, etc. world roulette that the Super Mario series created and every conceivable platformer followed, Odyssey seems slightly more clever than to pass by with the bare minimum. Sure, the kingdoms arguably resemble the base elemental motifs that ran the genre into the ground with exhausting overuse. However, a pinch of personality will perk up any and all overused tropes. For instance, the explorable district of the Sand Kingdom, “Tostarena,” borrows inspiration from Latin American culture instead of the ancient Egyptian standstill. A plaza of vibrant, colorful buildings resembling modern Mexican architecture is contrasted with an array of mythically ancient Aztec pyramids and pillars in a dry wasteland of baked red sand. “Shiveria” in the Snow Kingdom looks like a hostile bank of frigid tundra on the surface, but underneath the raging frost is a civilization of rotund, white furballs whose habitable society exudes warmth and comfort. I suppose the closest Odyssey comes to rendering a fire-themed level is the Luncheon Kingdom, with its boiling lake of Pepto Bismol serving as the scorching hazard that surrounds the area. Anyone who would find this gaudy, splotchy kingdom appetizing is either a cartoon alien or they're on some seriously potent dope. I don’t trust that this kingdom has a pleasant aroma of food from Cappy because he doesn’t even have a fucking nose! The highlight kingdom in my personal opinion is the swinging urban “New Donk City,” meant to resemble America’s city that never sleeps. Among the goofy and brainless Sims refugees that populate this city, its less disturbingly realistic mayor should tickle anyone who is knowledgeable about Mario’s history. Mario’s old squeeze Pauline all the way back from when he was coined as Jumpman has moved on from being snatched up by Donkey Kong to a position of prestigious political power. Seeing her after a quarter of a century is like bumping into an old girlfriend from high school, and whether or not her success is life-affirming or a source of envy is a matter of individual perspective, I guess. Overall, Odyssey’s crop of kingdoms is beaming with life and energy, but there are a few duds in the mix. Some are relegated to bounded boss arenas, and the aquatic theming of both the Lake Kingdom and the Seaside Kingdom is redundant. They could’ve been integrated with the elegant mermaid society of Lake Lamode hidden underneath the surface of the carbonated beachfront of Bubblaine like how the “Steam Gardens” of the forested Wooden Kingdom juxtaposed the shadowed core below the mechanized hiking trails above.

Mario’s recurring objective, whenever he docks his aircraft on the ground of any of these levels, is to gather an increasing abundance of fuel to further power his ship. Fuel for the aircraft is harnessed via obtaining power moons that are in the shape of multicolored crescents, a Mario celestial collectible that has also been split in half. A certain milestone of power moons collected also forms another fold of the sail that hoists the ton of top hat machinery up in the sky, suggesting that it can travel to greater lengths with every new addition. That quantity of power moons needed to expand Mario’s trajectory is the primary goal of each level, as the player will be locked onto the current level until the quotient is met. Another collectible also found scattered around the field beside the standard coins is a subsidiary purple currency that tends to be aligned in packs of three and is specifically shaped for each kingdom. Mario cannot convert the darkened currency into gasoline to feed his ship’s engine; rather, they are exchanged to purchase items at a gift shop featured in every kingdom. Mario can change his attire with a hat and torso clothing combo, plant a sticker with an artistic postcard design to decorate the exterior of his aircraft like the back of a laptop screen and spruce up the interior of it with assorted knickknacks. Filling the space of the inner chamber with each level’s memorabilia is a neat way of signaling progress in the game, and mixing and matching Mario’s outfits is just darling. For those few who campaigned against Mario’s sombrero and poncho combo calling it “cultural appropriation,” get a life.

Super Mario Odyssey cuts the approximate number of total levels featured in either of the two Super Mario Galaxy games in half. Despite how this seems on the surface, Odyssey is not a skeletal 3D Mario game compared to its predecessors because of its direction. The growing linearity that both Galaxy titles sought to pursue for 3D Mario’s evolution has been scrapped entirely for Odyssey. Instead, Odyssey adopts a free-flowing open design across all seventeen levels. It’s a fortunate circumstance for Mario that his eccentric vehicle’s fuel source is plentiful and commonplace across all of the kingdoms, so the lengths he must undergo to sustain geographical movability are not arduous in the slightest. In fact, Mario can simply walk a few meters from where he parks his aircraft and find at least a couple of power moons. Odyssey provides a myriad of assorted ways to obtain its main collectible, so many that I have to limit the examples for the sake of brevity. Red doors marked with a dapper, golden top hat symbol are entrances to enclosed, traditional platforming sections where a power moon will be rewarded to Mario at the end, with another often obscured to the side rewarded for diligent searching. Some of these doors are locked behind bouncers who won’t let Mario in until he’s wearing the appropriate outfit, so the clothes are also functional as well as fashionable. Sending Mario down the iconic green pipes will transport him to a section that restricts him to the 2D axis, resembling his spritely self during his early pixelated days. I particularly enjoy these brief swathes of 2D platforming as the pixel art rendered here is so crisp and clean. Mario ascends up the New Donk City equivalent to the Empire State Building entirely in his 8-bit form in a sparkling, 25-year tribute to the classic Donkey Kong game, and the game arguably peaks in quality with this section alone. Minigames, or at least sections that I would consider to be minigames, involve matching the paces of a circle and placing the correct pieces of anatomy on a drawing of an enemy or ally. While these feel like glorified sobriety tests, the fact that they are featured shows the extent of how the game diversifies the objective of finding the power moons, ensuring that it never risks getting stale. Do you want to know what the best part of the collection process is? The pesky boot-out system that plagued the non-linear playgrounds of Super Mario 64 has been omitted entirely, so Mario can collect past the required amount of power moons to his heart’s content. The main quest that each level presents involving the retrieval of stolen goods is merely a suggestion that can be glossed over in favor of other objectives. Finally, Odyssey realizes the potential of 64’s level design after all of its immediate successors practically abandoned it.

Odyssey’s main gimmick is also greatly utilized while Mario explores each level for power moons. Cappy isn’t merely a talking hat to help Mario navigate through uncharted territory with the occasional factoid and quip: he’s as integral to Odyssey’s gameplay as F.L.U.D.D. was in Sunshine. If there is one extraordinary aspect that the already splendorous Galaxy was lacking, it’s giving Mario the ability to possess all sentient beings that surround him. Odyssey gives credence to all the conspiratorial whack jobs wearing tinfoil hats because, without their odd, makeshift headwear, their autonomy is fully squelched by Mario after he flings his hat off of his head onto theirs, with an additional mustache to signify Mario’s presence in their minds. This marvelous addition to Mario’s gameplay isn’t only used a handful of times for a small selection of NPCs: it's necessary to gather the majority of power moons per level. Ever wondered what it would be like to control a number of Bowser’s henchmen? Well, Odyssey unveils that hypothetical possibility, by letting Mario fling frying pans furiously as a hammer bro, break open cages with the charged force of a Bullet Bill, and stack Goombas to attract a female one situated on a perch. Friendlier NPCs can also be controlled, such as a clueless dad in New Donk City who can’t drive an RC car to save his life and a winged lizard who can glide to the ledges of pillars in Tostarena and the isolated islands of the remote Lost Kingdom. Mario can man mobile weaponry such as tanks and slingshots, and force inanimate objects that are obscuring power moons out of his way. For a brief period, Mario can even take control of the enormous T. Rex sleeping in Cascade Kingdom and rampage through its prehistoric waterfalls destroying all of the rock formations that surround it. Must I list more examples after this one? The ability to do so was practically a selling point for the entire game, and I was completely sold on this unique piece of gameplay innovation.

While the massive range of individual objectives per level preserves the player’s intrigue in Odyssey’s gameplay, it ultimately trivializes the game’s difficulty. Thinking of ways to scatter the power moons and implement quirky methods of earning them was probably too ambitious for the developers, so their creative juices evidently ran dry as they started to half-ass the process. Mario can earn a power moon by sitting on a bench with some lonely SOB in New Donk City, twirling his hat on several glowing spikes, and one power moon is purchasable in the section of each kingdom’s gift shop that accepts regular coins. When earning the main collectible boils down to simply purchasing it for a paltry 100 coins, does it really feel like an achievement? Is this the best the developers could come up with to meet some kind of power moon quota? Only a handful of power moons are legitimate challenges that require a reasonable level of platforming skill to obtain. To compound on Odyssey’s ease, all Mario loses when he dies is a measly ten coins. I understand that perhaps a numbered life system wouldn’t work in this open environment, for there isn’t even a hub to eject Mario to upon exhausting all of them. Still, maybe I’d be more incentivized to act cautiously if the penalty of death was a bit steeper. The areas of each kingdom tend to be fairly spacious, so perhaps Mario should be teleported back to the ship as a reasonable punishment and wipe away the whole checkpoint system. I understand that Odyssey places a heavy emphasis on liberal exploration rather than narrow platforming tasks, but lifting the weight of challenges across the board to foster this direction made me disillusioned with the gameplay at times.

I can’t say the game’s various bosses provide too much of a challenge either, but at least they share the admirable levels of diversity and creativity that the high points of Odyssey bestow. Initiating a boss encounter is usually not done by stumbling upon them like a regular power moon. They tend to be integrated with the primary objective looming overhead, and the incentive for defeating is earning a three-piece power moon pack instead of a single one. A recurring encounter found floating menacingly over many kingdoms with their miniature, flying boat are the Broodals: a quartet of anthropomorphic rabbits hired by Bowser to coordinate a slew of things for his wedding. While all the thuggish bunnies exude a rough and tough, low-brow urbanity like they’re an unused gang from The Warriors, each individual Broodal fight couldn’t be any more different from the next. Mario even fights their equally trashy mother a couple of times, who walks around carrying a chain chomp on a leash as the Mario universe equivalent of a middle-aged housewife pampering a pit bull terrier. Other bosses are endemic to the particular world they reside in, such as the stone face of Knucklotec in the catacombs of Tostarena, Mechawiggler scaling the sides of the tall buildings of New Donk City, and Cookatiel flapping its wings over the Luncheon Kingdom’s Mount Volbono volcano. The Ruined Dragon of the forsaken Ruined Kingdom is so photorealistic and darkly intimidating that it’s as if Mario crossed the metaphysical video game boundaries into Dark Souls. While none of the bosses were perilous duels that tested Mario’s might, integrating the possession mechanic into most of these boss battles is an appreciated factor of their high engagement. I especially enjoy using Knucklotec’s own fists to sucker punch him, and shooting the balls off of Mechawiggler’s body with tank shells.

Lest we forget Bowser’s role as the primary Mario antagonist among the crowd of secondary bosses in Odyssey. Similarly to the Galaxy games, Bowser is fought a handful of times before the climactic moment that results in returning Peach to safety. Also like Galaxy, Bowser’s fights are basically the same as the first with additional variations to his attacks to throw Mario off the sense of familiarity. The first fight that Bowser engages with Mario is a detour into the small, secluded Cloud Kingdom, and we’re meant to believe that his final fight will take place at his feudal Japan-themed castle, which is the most inspired depiction of Bowser’s fiery fortress we’ve seen in ages. The true climax where Mario finally conquers Bowser is set in a cathedral erected on the edge of the moon. Talk about a destination wedding! After barging through the towering ivory doors to yell “I object!” like any maverick wedding crasher would, Mario kicks Bowser’s white tuxedo-wearing, neatly combed hair ass so hard for his latest attempt to secure Peach as his property that the cathedral starts to crumble around them. In order to survive the wreckage, Mario does the unthinkable and passes his cap onto Bowser. Yes, for the last segment of Odyssey’s story, the player controls King Koopa himself as the only reliable physical force available to break through the falling debris, and he’s as fun to play as one would expect. Odyssey’s ending may not form an emotional lump in my throat as Galaxy’s did, but the epic closure of racing to the other side as Bowser is satisfyingly epic. Plus, the “bro moment” between Mario and Bowser when Peach rejects both of them as potential lovers at the end is hilariously tender and unexpected.

Flying to the moon to halt Peach’s horrible fate as Bowser’s lawfully wedded wife wrapped up the story of Odyssey nicely, but the game itself is far from over. The first step of Mario’s epilogue is finally returning home to the Mushroom Kingdom after an extensive period away. However, Mario will be working overtime here as the modern rendering of Peach’s castle and the yard surrounding it serve as an entirely new area with power moons aplenty. In addition to the power moons earned through exploration, portals strewn throughout the castle grounds transport Mario to fight the game’s bosses again with a dash of extra challenge seasoned in. Green series staples such as Yoshi and Luigi can also be found roaming the area, and their brief inclusions are enough of a presence so Nintendo doesn’t think to legitimize Odyssey with a whole new sequel where they hog more of the spotlight. What really extends the length of Odyssey to overflowing proportions are the space cubes littered across every single kingdom in the game. Now, when Mario bats these mysterious multidimensional shapes with Cappy, they ignite into the sky and create new power moons that are integrated with those left over from the base game. Engaging with the cubes doubles the amount of power moons per level, meaning that Odyssey’s epilogue is extended to the length of the entire game that the player just finished. One may dismiss Odyssey’s post-game as a case of ludicrous padding. Yet, I genuinely still yearned to collect more power moons after I defeated Bowser, and the flood of supplementary power moons quenched my thirst for more content. Besides, I can choose to collect as many additional power moons as I please at my own pace, and I’m not a strict completionist. For those who are, Odyssey certainly has their work cut out for them.

After a lengthy period of lackluster releases unfitting for Mario’s golden reputation, the Italian pride of Nintendo finally fired on all cylinders with Super Mario Odyssey. By returning to form via the 3D platformer format that used to mark a gigantic release for the plumber, Mario reworks what was perceived as insurmountable by Galaxy’s high standard by tweaking the knobs of collectathon gameplay to something completely untested in the franchise. I’m almost ashamed to admit my short-sightedness in assessing how doomed the attempt of any subsequent 3D Mario game matching Galaxy would be, for basing the core design in a strictly non-linear playground where the player has the freedom to explore without any constraints seems like such an obvious solution. “The possession mechanic” that drives Odyssey’s appeal is so unconventional that no one could’ve anticipated its incorporation into the gameplay, but we’re all delighted by its inclusion. Odyssey is a tad too facile for my liking, even for a series as accessible as Mario. Because of this, I can clearly state that I prefer the format of the previous 3D Mario platformers where earning a main collectible felt more gratifying. Still, Odyssey is more than worthy enough of being uttered in the same respects as its predecessors, something that couldn’t be said about the immediate Mario titles before it.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com