Thank fucking God that there wasn’t a Metroid game on the N64. It might sound cruel and imperceptive to belittle the chronic anguish that Metroid fans felt during the franchise's eight-year hiatus after Super Metroid was released, for I don’t have a firsthand account of this period because I was born during the span of time. For those of you older than I who waited with a growing, uncomfortable anticipation just to be stood up by Nintendo, I sympathize with your grief. I must’ve felt like hell knowing that the ecstatic kid from that viral N64 video booted up Super Smash Bros. that Christmas Day and readily recognized every character in the starting roster from their individual N64 titles except for our beloved space-age heroine, and you couldn’t fault his ignorance. Despite the Metroid franchise taking a lap generation during such a crucial time in gaming history, I still defend my position that the near decade of inactivity proved to be for its benefit. Metroid’s gameplay is more difficult to translate to a 3D environment compared to Nintendo’s other properties. Castlevania defined Metroid’s idiosyncrasies with Symphony of the Night, giving credence to Metroid’s core design philosophy which is staunchly two-dimensional. Many transitions to 3D from franchises born in the pixelated era had to sacrifice a certain amount of detail in the environments in order to render the 3D competently. Compare the varied terrain and elaborate setpieces in A Link to the Past’s Hyrule Field to the echoey vacant one in Ocarina of Time. While subtracting the number of attributes in the foreground can still fundamentally work in Zelda, doing the same for Metroid would exponentially compromise its rich, intricate design to the point of total obliviation. If I had to guess, a 3D Metroid would be similar to the two 3D Castlevania games on the N64: 3D renderings that completely botched its 2D source material with awkward combat and a camera so wonky that it makes Super Mario 64’s Lakitu look like he has the cinematography prowess of an esteemed Hollywood director. To be fair, translating the Metroidvania genre in 3D is a tough task even in this day and age, with only a select few 3D games borrowing only a few assets without emulating the 2D genre to its full extent. Nintendo knew that Metroid was going to need a longer bout of consideration before they planted Samus in a 3D environment, and the eventual revelation came to fruition one generation later with the glorious Metroid Prime on the Gamecube.

Of course, we all know that Nintendo’s four-ported lunchbox was where all the 3D dreams went to die, or at least it was for all of those who were formally introduced to the dimension in the N64 era. After half a decade of buffing out the cracks of the three-dimensional realm, Nintendo decided to innovate even further in the second 3D generation with radical ideas that upset those who were used to the loyal 3D reimaginings of Nintendo’s staple series seen on the N64. Metroid’s major offense on the Gamecube was immediately absolved upon its release unlike the cases of The Wind Waker’s graphics or Super Mario Sunshine’s setting, but it did make many fans weary when it was announced. Nintendo’s heavily premeditated plan to efficiently translate Metroid into a 3D game was to develop it as a first-person shooter, something completely unorthodox that caught everyone off guard. Not only that but the game would be outsourced to an American developer called Retro Studios as their debut project. Considering the circumstances, the fans all figured that Nintendo should’ve released a shovel with Metroid Prime to bury Samus’s corpse alongside every fan’s collective hopes and wishes for their idealized first 3D Metroid experience. Such a grand responsibility in the hands of amateurs with an untested mechanic at the helm spelled emanate disaster for the Metroid franchise. Even though things looked bleak and uncertain, the finished product assuaged the skeptical fears of the masses. The modest group at Retro Studios executed Nintendo’s baffling ambitions for Metroid’s 3D debut extraordinarily without compromising on the traditional Metroid experience.

As I said before, my earliest gaming memories can only recall the successful impact that Metroid Prime had after it was released, and the recollections during the period of despair I only know from popular sentiments that have been chronicled for reference. As someone who wasn’t busy hyperventilating at the thought of Nintendo dooming the Metroid franchise at the time, I can express that Nintendo shipping the responsibility of developing Metroid Prime off to an American studio was always a brilliant idea. Think about it: every single notable first-person shooter before Metroid Prime’s creation (and to this very day) was developed and produced in the western world. For some reason, the immensely popular genre never made an impact on the industry titan that is Japan, making the first-person shooter as American as apple pie (with some examples from Europe as well). Truthfully, any renowned Japanese studio would’ve been as inexperienced in developing for the first-person shooter genre as Retro Studios was, so why not assign the duty to a group of Americans in which their second-amendment rights allow lead and gunpowder to flow through their bloodstreams? Perhaps people assumed that an American studio would bastardize Metroid by formulating the series as a crude, hyper-violent bloodbath where Samus wears nothing but a skimpy bikini, which I’m not sure is an unfair indictment of the FPS genre or American media as a whole. Fortunately, the game showcases the utmost respect the developers had for the source material and how they masterfully coalesced a 2D character into a 3D environment with FPS mechanics.

While Samus infiltrates the Space Pirate-operated Frigate Orpheon orbiting over the planet of Tallon IV, a series of force fields impede Samus from progressing any further past the outer gates of the facility. Four red buttons located on each corner of the force field’s boundaries imply that interacting with them will most likely manipulate the activeness of the shield, so shooting them with Samus’s distinctive blaster will switch them off. The ones at face level can be shot with a simple tap of the A button, while the two situated above Samus require more consideration from the player. By holding down the R trigger, the player can aim the blaster manually in a myriad of directions, and they’ll use this often to clear out overhead enemies that Samus will encounter throughout the game. However, it’s more likely that the player will embrace the option given to them on the opposing L trigger, which locks onto enemies and objects to ensure more accurate aiming. Holding down the L trigger will automatically lock onto anything significant in Samus’s peripheral range, which varies from enemies, objects, switches, and other points of interest. Deeper into the Frigate, the lock-on system is tested in combat with the defense turrets, a common enemy type in Metroid Prime whose stationary status makes for ideal practice fodder early on. The Parasite Queen, the game’s first boss, is the pinnacle of Metroid Prime’s test run with the combat as the player will shoot at the slimy beast through an exposed crevice as it’s suspended upward in its cylindrical chamber. Like Ocarina of Time before it, the lock-on mechanic is a helpful aid to ease the player into the transition between the familiar 2D combat and the radical shift of 3D.

For more robust enemies with legs and wings, the player will gain more perspective on Metroid Prime’s combat as soon as the surviving Space Pirates rear their ugly heads out of the shady corners of the station. Combat in Metroid Prime is ultimately more defense-oriented as the enemies are quick on their feet, and their rapid-fire projectiles will penetrate through Samus’s armor quickly until her energy tanks deplete and she screams in bloody terror upon dying, with her visor flashing off like an old television. Using the lock-on feature ensures that each shot from Samus’s blaster has an almost certain likelihood of hitting the enemies, so the player’s objective during combat is to dodge their array of firepower with the dash move. While locked on, the player can strafe from left to right with the swiftness of an intergalactic ninja, evading the barrage of energy bullets. Samus is more agile than the average FPS protagonist, compensating for the fact that the environment of a Metroid game doesn’t have as many foreground pieces to duck and cover behind. More so, Samus’s shrewd mobility can be attributed to the developers loyally translating Samus’s platforming origins in the FPS genre, as platformer characters tend to be more sprightly than the more action-oriented FPS protagonists, who usually only need to occasionally scale a more structured staircase while blowing away their enemies with shotgun blasts. Platforms are situated all around Tallon IV, with most of them fitting appropriately as an area’s rational architecture while others levitate over the ground with much less of a solid constructional bearing. Even when a certain section is littered with these types of platforms for convenient ascension, they never overstay their welcome and ruin the consistent overlay of the area. Overall, I’m glad that Tallon IV offers plenty of structures for Samus to jump onto because it’s a humbling reminder of the Metroid franchise's roots as a platformer. That shan’t be forgotten when translating Metroid’s gameplay despite the FPS frontier, and both elements complement each other superbly. The unlikely marriage of both here makes for something nuanced, efficiently streamlined, and as smooth as Samus’s legs right before she docks herself in her bulky space suit for the lengthy duration of a mission.

The FPS format does not forsake Samus’s gravity-defying jumping ability, but what about other aspects pertaining to Metroid’s identity? One of the core elements of Metroid often credited to its effectiveness is the franchise's atmosphere, the feeling of total isolation in a hostile habitat weighing down on the player to the point of palpable dread. As blazing fast as the pacing of many FPS games tends to be, the genre is not alien to titles with a more methodical direction that fosters something similar to Metroid’s oppressive ambiance. Half-Life and System Shock, the noteworthy FPS exceptions, probably owe their cold, pensive auras to the classic Metroids, and Metroid Prime dips back into this sphere of influence by borrowing the FPS mechanics of those games. It’s a wonder why the FPS genre isn’t characterized by deep immersion more often because the unique perspective it offers is incredibly intimate. Since its inception, gaming has made great strides in increasing its immersive elements, with several outlets such as character customizability and naming the protagonist as a few examples. Samus is already an established character with a canon name and backstory, so Metroid Prime cannot reduce her to a retrograde, faceless avatar to enhance the player’s immersion in this regard. The FPS vantage point rather allows us to better understand Samus’s surroundings by seeing them directly through the consciousness of the space-age bounty hunter.

As one would figure, Samus is a human being whose lungs cannot subsist off the oxygen-deprived extraterrestrial ecosystems she excavates, so her trusty space helmet provides both the protection and sustenance she needs. Thanks to the first-person view, we now see the game through Samus’s visor along with its various components. In each corner of the computerized interior details notable features such as Samus’s total health and number of energy tanks, the alternate visors in the bottom left corner, the various beams in the bottom right corner, the number of missiles at her disposal, a radar that signals if there are enemies in the vicinity, a danger meter, and a rudimentary outline of the location. Using Samus’s visor as an onscreen menu is a clever transitional aspect to the FPS genre that seems all too natural. In addition to the detail in the interior visor, the developers went the extra mile to showcase how external factors affect Samus’s visor as well. After the Frigate Orpheon in the introduction is demolished and crashes on the nearby planet of Tallon IV like a crude meteorite, Samus decides to follow suit, albeit with a more dignified entrance using her ship. She parks her vessel on a wetland area colloquially known as the “overworld” that shares the planet’s namesake. The constant rainfall endemic to this watery quagmire naturally cascades onto Samus, as not even the acuteness of the strafe move is swift enough to dodge the rain. The area’s ceaseless precipitation plinks and plops onto Samus’s visor like a car windshield and immerses the player in the scope of the environment. In Magmoor Caverns, burning steam jets out of the molten crust of the area, achieving the same effect as the Overworld’s rain even if its orange texture is reminiscent of Cheeto dust. Gunk spewed out from certain enemies will splatter on the visor, and the biting frost of Phendrana Drifts will obscure Samus’s vision like she’s been ensnared in a block of solid ice. The most impressive visual detail relating to the visor is that whenever the player shoots a burst of energy from Samus’s blaster at a wall, the reflecting light of the shot shows a flash of Samus’s baby-blue eyes from inside of the visor. The developers do their best to envelope the player as Samus and achieve this sensation with meticulous attention to detail.

Traditionally, the intended atmosphere conveyed in a Metroid game is exuded through the areas, either on their individual merits or as a collective. The feeling of discomforting dread is achieved through the game’s progression in that as the player digs deeper into the crevices of uncharted territory, curiosity will proverbially start to kill the cat that is Samus. Or, at least it will gradually dawn on her that her surroundings have become overwhelmingly perilous the further she strays away from her parked ship. In Super Metroid, scrolling down the two-dimensional map of Zebes from the zenith point of the ship almost simulates a literal descent into a harrowing rabbit hole with tinier swathes of respite as Samus continues to burrow. Progress in Metroid Prime couldn’t have been emulated the same way, as tunneling downward consistently in a 3D space would’ve oversimplified the area’s designs. Yet, Metroid Prime attempts to recreate something similar to Super Metroid’s sense of progression all the same, almost to an uncanny extent. Several parallels can be made between Crateria and the Tallon IV Overworld, as they’re both rainy groves marked as “safe zones'' due to their naturalistic environment and calming rate of enemy activity. The main difference is that the Overworld here is expanded to the scale of a fully-fledged area such as Brinstar or Maridia as opposed to the foyer with several branching staircases that was Crateria. Comparisons to Super Metroid’s levels are even clearer when Samus can access the flooded remains of the Frigate Orpheon, located conveniently along the path of the Overworld like the Wrecked Ship was in Crateria. I’m convinced that Magmoor Caverns exists to fill the lava pool level requisite in lieu of Norfair’s absence. Metroid Prime unintentionally flirts with 3D reboot territory by repeating a number of classic level tropes and broadening them to an admirable degree, but it might, unfortunately, indicate that Metroid might be a one-trick pony in how its areas are structured. However, the developers proved this to not be the case by integrating new areas with the traditional ones to still progress the game in a familiar manner.

Chozo Ruins is a sensible next step to the base of the Overworld because the increase in hostility is minuscule. Similarly to the Overworld, the Chozo Ruins are relatively sparse in enemy presence, but I wouldn’t describe the area as tranquil like the Overworld. The aura of stillness in the Chozo Ruins stems from the arid dearth of life in the sandy remnants of the once proud Chozo people. Overgrown, brambly vegetation covers the sublime architecture as scavengers roam the dunes looking for what little nourishment there still is. Chozo Ruins is the graveyard of a formally prosperous civilization and while the eeriness of the site might instill a sense of consternation, the dangers involved are appropriately tepid. Magmoor Caverns and Phendrana Drifts, the two following areas, showcase a particular relationship with each other relating to their elemental themes. As I expressed before, Magmoor Caverns is Tallon IV’s Norfair, only more linear and with a more literal sense of claustrophobia with its cramped corridors. The nearest elevator from the Chozo Ruins exit will take Samus to Phendrana, and the snow-covered winter wonderland seems like a stark contrast to the hellish cesspit of Magmoor where one misstep in the gushing flow of lava could fry Samus in seconds. At first glance, Phendrana seems as blissful as the Overworld, but the 3D space allows an area to district more distinct tropes into an area than seen in Super Metroid. The escalating sense of danger in Metroid Prime seems to be intertwined with the presence of the Space Pirates. Eventually, scrounging around Phendrana will lead Samus to the frigid laboratory where Metroids are housed for experimentation. The awe-inspiring atmosphere from outside drops like a rock as Samus plunges into a chilling facility swarming with Space Pirates. One could argue that the dread of this particular sector of Phendrana might stem from the pitch-black darkness of the second half, but I’d have to disagree using the last area of the game as evidence.

The Phazon Mines are the last area of Tallon IV that Samus encounters, and it’s the point of the game where the consistent difficulty curve rockets off to the moon. The challenge imbalance might be why this area feels so unnerving and if this is so, it’s because the Mines are the base of the Space Pirate’s operation and Samus has found herself in the heart of the hive. Every breed of Space Pirate is here to bushwhack Samus at every waking step, and the infamous trek from the crane site to the Power Bomb room is the epitome of an endurance test. Besides the rich Phazon material radiating in this area’s crust, the Mines are nothing but a barren crater. It’s unsettling how there is no organic life here, only the prevalent corruption of the Space Pirates. The Phazon Mines serve as the pinnacle of Samus’s journey to despair with the same creepy subtitles seen in Super Metroid.

Perhaps the most challenging task in orchestrating the intended progression is rendering the Metroidvania elements in this 3D environment. It’s hard to believe that there aren’t more translations of the traditional 2D Metroidvania tropes in more 3D games because Retro Studios makes the process look effortless. As layered and multifaceted as a Metroidvania’s design might seem, the specific crux of Metroid that cultivates the distinctive progression is simple: Samus gradually regains her misplaced powers. The introduction sequence teases the player with a select few of these powers before stripping them away when Samus is blown back by an explosion. Because the game gives the player a sample taste of Samus’s full capacity, retrieving the upgrades also serves as a great incentive to play through the game. Starting out on the field of Tallon IV, Samus’s arsenal is limited to her standard blaster and piddly single jump, so she is heavily restricted to a very finite range of ground. As par for the Metroidvania course, the few paths Samus can explore are illustrated clearly by the game, so the player shouldn’t find themselves hopelessly lost and confused. They can even use the 3D polygonal map of each area as a helpful reference. One complaint I often see regarding Metroid Prime’s treatment of the Metroidvania progression is that the game makes the objective too obvious by pinpointing it on the map. During the exploration process, a signal will beam onto Samus’s visor with a brief description of the objective and marking the area of interest with a question mark. While doing this might hold the player’s hand to some extent, I’ll excuse it because it ultimately doesn’t force the player to drop their freedom to explore and follow that particular path.

Once the player traverses through the mapped trajectory the game lays out for them, several returning items are translated to Metroid Prime for Samus’s further use in the new 3D environment. Missiles are now designated to their own button on the Gamecube’s controller and still serve as the best complimentary weapon to Samus’s blaster. The implementation of the other familiar power-ups seen in Metroid Prime are quite surprising in that the developers managed to implement them considering that they could’ve compromised on the FPS foundation. Samus’s inhuman flexibility returns with the Morph Ball and when Samus scrunches down to her supernatural fetal position, it’s the only instance where the player sees the game in third-person. Given that a first-person view of Samus rolling around would’ve made everyone bilious, the shift in perspective is reasonable and it manages to work harmoniously in contrast to the normal first-person viewpoint due to the limited array of Morph Ball functions. Morph Ball bombs and Power Bombs are still laid like chicken eggs to blow open cracked crevices, and the Grapple Beam is made possible via the trusty lock-on feature. Sadly, series staples like the Screwattack and the skill-based wall jump had to be scrapped, most likely because their utilization crossed the line of practicality that the others didn’t. Fortunately, the developers realized that Metroid’s 3D space allowed for newfound ingenuity with Samus’s abilities. Regarding the Morph Ball, it seems to be the upgrade most tinkered with for new methods of traversal. Jumping in Morph Ball mode with the spring is no longer an option, but the Morph Ball can boost with built-up inertia, which is mainly used in skill-intensive half-pipe sections to ascend Samus to heights incapable to reach even with the second rocket boot jump. The Spider Ball upgrade magnetizes Samus to a striped rail grid when she’s in the Morph Ball, which carries Samus along its track. Whether using these new upgrades in traversing the map or for retrieving health and missile expansions in obscure crevices, their implementations make for the most circuitous and engaging platform/puzzle sequences.

In previous Metroid titles, every subsequent beam upgrade Samus finds is intended to make the previous one obsolete. In Metroid Prime, the developers decided to incorporate every beam upgrade into a comprehensive arsenal of elements that Samus can alternate with the C-stick. Samus’s neutral Power Beam she begins her adventure with is not perceived as a puny little pea-shooter; rather, its quick release of energy bullet rounds is essential in dealing with groups of smaller enemies throughout the duration of the game. The energized Wave Beam stuns enemies and provides power to deprived energy circuits with a single blast. The fan-favorite Ice Beam returns as the optimal Metroid vanquisher, and the Plasma Beam disintegrates anything Samus shoots. Each beam, except for the Ice Beam, also has its distinctive Super Missile combination. The traditional one is used alongside the Power Beam while the Wavebuster operates as a destructive taser, and the Flamethrower power with the Plasma beam is pretty self-explanatory. The variety of the beams is also integrated into the Metroidvania progression with doors coinciding with a specific beam to shoot and enter. It adds a nifty layer of inhibiting progress, but I wish the door would revert to the standard blue color after being shot with the correlating beam once so I wouldn’t have to shuffle the beams constantly. Samus’s visors are also a vital aspect of Samus’s inventory as she acquires the heat-vision Thermal Visor that spots enemies in the dark and spotting terminals as well as the X-Ray Visor that unveils invisible platforms. The only upgrade that still stacks are the Power suits, as scrolling through multiple of these would be unnecessary. The question pertaining to Samus’s eclecticism here is if it’s an artistic direction from the developers or if 3D now allows for Samus’s tools to coexist. Either way, if the Metroid series insists on shuffling, it’s much less of a hassle here than in Super Metroid.

One alternate visor I glossed over has a particular use outside of traversal and or combat, and that’s the Scan Visor. On the left side of the D-Pad, a widescreen lens will come into view, and the scannable objects are represented by an orange indicator. Using this visor will list a bevy of information about whatever is scanned, which can include practically everything under Tallon IV’s sun. Samus can trace information about enemy properties, items, surfaces, etc. and compile encyclopedias worth of knowledge. The beauty of the Scan Visor is that besides the occasional elevator activation, using it to gather and store information is optional. This includes the nuggets of Chozo lore etched onto the walls of Tallon IV written in some sort of Sumerian-esque hieroglyphics that the Scan Visor automatically interprets upon scanning. The reason why learning about the world of Tallon IV and its history through the player’s wilful volition is that it allows the world-building through exploration to take center stage as it did in Super Metroid. 3D gaming allowed for more cinematic potential, but bloviating on the world’s context in Metroid Prime would’ve nauseatingly swelled the experience.

If one must know the central story of Metroid Prime that the game doesn’t overtly expound on, the Space Pirates have been adulterating the natural ecosystem of Tallon IV with their presence after the events of the first Metroid game. Yes, it appears that not only is Metroid Prime canon to the 2D games, but the series has also caught the timeline bug from The Legend of Zelda, so it’s even more relieving that the player isn’t forced to get caught up in the delirium with pointless exposition. They’ve been farming for a radioactive element called Phazon and using it to conduct madcap mutations on the wildlife of Tallon IV like a gang of Josef Mengeles, namely on the Metroids they fear. The Space Pirates' final goal is to unlock the eponymous Metroid Prime, the source of the toxic Phazon whose impact annihilated the Chozo people. However, it is locked behind twelve artifact keys located throughout Tallon IV, and Samus must retrieve them to destroy Metroid Prime before the Space Pirates get their grubby, maniacal mitts on it.

I’ll use this opportunity to segway into most people's biggest point of contention with Metroid Prime: constantly backtracking through the five areas of Tallon IV. Naturally, a genre that incentivizes exploration and unlocking paths that were once sealed up will involve a heavy roulette of revisitation, and it’s one of the many appeals of the Metroidvania genre. I don’t inherently find backtracking to be tedious but in the case of Metroid Prime’s final fetch quest, it exposes the design flaws of the game’s world. By this point in the game, Samus has acquired every upgrade possible, so she is free to traverse through any nook and cranny in Tallon IV. Ideally, having the ability to access anywhere on the map without complications should allow the player to breeze through sections with shortcuts, but this is seldom the case. It makes the player realize that Tallon IV is designed competently, but not conveniently. Artifacts are equally distributed in every area, including the far-off Phendrana Drifts. From a design standpoint, it makes sense to position this wintery cliff at the apex of the map. Still, the only connecting area on two stretches of the area is Magmoor Caverns, which seems to be the great median of Tallon IV due to having elevators to the three of four branching areas. The revelation that the hot, overlong hallway is a disappointing area started to dawn on me as well, as I intentionally walked through the lava out of impatience upon successive visitations. Also, revisiting Chozo Ruins is made infuriating by the constant goddamn ghost ambushes, so I recommend trekking through Chozo first to save yourself the migraine of their shrill shrieking. Overall, there are still silver linings to this last quest. The player can still sweep up any last expansions along the way. Compared to the appalling fetch quest from Wind Waker released the same year on the Gamecube which had zero redeeming qualities, the one presented here in Metroid Prime seems fine and dandy.

Besides the collecting of expansions throughout the game, the player should be well prepared to fight the title’s namesake at the core of the Impact Crater because the previous bosses have set a significant precedent. Bosses in Metroid Prime remind me less of the ones from Super Metroid and more from The Legend of Zelda because of the way they are dispatched like puzzles as opposed to inflicting rampant firepower on them. Samus’s eclectic arsenal somewhat mirrors Link’s inventory of items in that the intended method of destroying the titanic foes coincides with a specific upgrade that the player will have to solve and dig through their options to defeat the boss. Similarly to Zelda, the solution mostly relates to the recently obtained upgrades. Flaahgra, the direct source of the toxicity of the ruins, needs a combination of the Charge Shot and Morph Ball to defeat while multiple visors are needed for the rock monster Thardus and the burly Omega Pirate. After Ridley stalls Samus by flaunting his new metallic coat of armor, Samus finds herself at the Impact Crater, which strangely resembles the insides of a mouth from a creature so surreal that it’s indescribable. At the core of the crater lies Metroid Prime, and the two-phased boss fight will have Samus shuffling through her weapons and visors like a Las Vegas blackjack dealer. Unlike the Mother Brain fight in Super Metroid, there is no cinematics to bail out the player, as only a proficient understanding of the FPS mechanics and Samus’s arsenal will lead the player to victory. Once Samus conquers the beast’s vulnerable core, another point of innovation commences. Three possible endings will show, and they will depend on the player’s percentage rate of completion. Unfortunately, multiple endings do not work in a series with an overarching plot and protagonist. At least the game got the homage to the timed escape sequence out of the way at the beginning and decided not to use it again at the end, for it would become a tired cliche.

The initial anxieties revolving around Metroid’s launch into the third dimension were unfairly aggrandized to the point of cataclysmic hyperbole, even if some of Nintendo’s ambitions did sound outlandish. The funny thing is that the aspects of innovation planned for Metroid Prime were rightfully outlandish, yet Retro Studios managed to meet Nintendo’s standards and crafted something incredible. For the other 3D debuts in Nintendo’s library, certain restrictions were placed due to a lack of experience developing games in the realm of 3D to make the transitions feasible. Metroid Prime made no compromises and still delivered something beyond any 3D debut’s expectations. One would think there would understandably be cracks to fill for a first 3D outing, but the foundation of Metroid Prime is as solid as a steel skyscraper. Perhaps it’s a testament to the quality of the Gamecube compared to the N64. Still, the fact that Retro Studios crafted something of this caliber only using Super Metroid as a reference AND formulating it into an FPS game is bewildering. All the while, Retro Studios showcased an immense amount of respect for the series which translated into making the game feel as Metroidy as the previous titles. Retro Studios should be uttered in the breath as Orson Welles and Francis Ford Coppola, as they are examples of the rare, Haley's Comet occurrences of making a masterpiece on their first go-around.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

I’ve never been a huge fan of Kirby. Nintendo’s spherical, sentient wad of Bubble Yum has always fulfilled the role of the 2D platformer series that one could regress to if Super Mario was giving them a hard time. Admittedly, the Super Mario games on the NES had some instances that caused players to throw frustrated tantrums and shout expletives at the TV. Still, these were few and far between compared to the stinging roulette of torment that most NES games provided. Beyond the days of the NES, Mario softened its difficulty, but there were still some occasional hefty challenges. On the other hand, Kirby has remained consistently easy throughout the years. The series is facile to a fault. As much as I might groan and grit my teeth when I’m faced with arduous obstacles, the challenge is one of the most appealing facets of the gaming medium. Without at least a reasonably substantial challenge, a fraction of one’s prerogative to play video games is compromised. Kirby’s titles often feel pointless due to most players breezing through the levels with the ease of a Sunday morning drive, or at least that’s how I see it as someone who plays video games consistently. Kirby’s Adventure is a special title in the franchise, and it’s not because it’s his console debut. Kirby’s more lenient approach to difficulty compared to its contemporaries bestows a unique placement in the NES library.

I sometimes forget that Kirby’s Adventure is a sequel to the pink puffball’s inception on the Gameboy only a year prior. That is, I know from years of hindsight and countless examples that Kirby is pink because the original Gameboy only offered black-and-white visuals. Kirby’s Adventure affirms Kirby’s canon color by being developed for the NES, and the 8-bit system always featured a broad color palette akin to a pixelated rainbow for its games. In color, Kirby’s world looks delightful. A rejuvenated Dreamland looks so delectable that one could sink their teeth into it, and I mean that literally. Kirby’s world shares a startling resemblance to The Land of Chocolate from The Simpsons, a joyous, edible wonderworld reflecting the gluttonous, childish fantasies of Homer Simpson. In all fairness to Homer, any average adult would probably revel in The Land of Chocolate’s sweet ecstasy, which is why Kirby’s Adventure’s aesthetic is widely appealing. Land masses have more of a likeness to assorted colors and textures of birthday cake than earthly ground, water sparkles like soda, and the platforms run the gamut of hundreds of flavors of taffy. Visually, Dreamland is the video game equivalent of a candy store. The marvel of it is a splendor for the senses, associating pleasant tastes and smells with the spectacle of it. Considering the seven worlds have direct food references, the connection was an overt effort on the part of the developers. We can at least be thankful that Kirby’s adventure provides something similar to the yummy aesthetic of Mr. Gimmick, for the latter did not emerge on American soil.

Kirby is not a complicated character in terms of gameplay. The guy is but a pudgy circle with eyes, a mouth, flappy little arms, and two bulbous feet fitting snugly in some clown shoes (are they shoes?). The game’s intro further illustrates (no pun intended) how simple Kirby is in a brief step-by-step drawing that details each previously mentioned body part. As a video game character, Kirby couldn’t do much of anything past platforming. He certainly can’t hold a gun with those thumbless nubs he calls arms. For as unrefined as Kirby’s character design is, he possesses a few special gimmicks that separate him from his fellow 2D platforming contemporaries. Firstly, he can inflate himself like a pufferfish by inhaling oxygen, which allows him to ascend upwards. Kirby’s flight is essentially limitless as the only vertical parameter is the wall the developers draw, and the horizontal trajectory is boundless until the natural point of reaching the level’s end goal. Only careening into enemies or their aimed projectiles can interrupt Kirby’s ascent, sometimes causing Kirby to crash like a falling rock. Platforms in a Kirby game almost seem like safety nets for the few moments when this occurs because Kirby certainly doesn’t need them to climb the terrain or circumvent death like other platformer characters. Kirby’s ability allows him to bypass almost everything, and he’ll get away with it, too, because the enemy fire is more lethargic than a children’s little league team. The firefight to effectively bring Kirby down would have to be equal to the blitzkrieg of D-Day, but that would compromise on the intentionally brisk difficulty level. In times when Kirby must land because the level progression leads to a grounded doorway, the interior space with tighter parameters still doesn’t confine him to the physical regulations of the typical platformer. What is stopping Kirby from hugging the wall here as tightly as he does out in the open? Not much, even though Kirby doesn’t have as much legroom to stray away from enemies in these more cramped boundaries. Kirby’s innate set of skills is something that players in the NES era would implement as cheat codes for more grueling and demanding games, and nothing presented in Kirby’s Adventure would warrant using a cheat code to surpass.

The fun aspect of Kirby’s gameplay, whether or not you are a seasoned gaming veteran or not is the ability to copy an enemy's ability, a distinctive talent of Kirby’s that debuted in Kirby’s Adventure. Kirby’s ability to use his gullet as a vacuum to suck up the denizens of Dreamland and spit them back out as star-shaped projectiles were present in the previous Kirby game on the Gameboy, but digesting them by pressing down on the D-Pad allows Kirby to emulate their primary offensive attributes. Dreamland’s ecosystem consists of a diverse array of cartoonish creatures who have seemingly adapted to the ethereal land differently. Elemental powers of ice, fire, and electricity (spark) are granted to Kirby from their respective hosts, changing the properties of Kirby’s breath or creating a field of energy. More melee-intensive enemies will have their weapons stolen by Kirby, which mostly includes some variant of a blade that Kirby either swings with the elegance of a matador or crudely chucks like a boomerang. Kirby can turn into a wheel that speeds through levels, puff up a mound of spikes to compliment his puffiness, and the laser is the closest a Kirby game will come to having him use a gun. Kirby shouting into a microphone (Corpsegrinder death growls rendered in 8-bit audio, most likely) is powerful enough to briefly stop time and clear the screen of enemies. Swallowing “normal” enemies like Waddle Dees and Poppy Bros. will not net Kirby any extra abilities, but they are equally integrated with the eclectic range of “special” enemies to the point where there will be plenty of opportunities to use these abilities. Some may gripe at the fact that Kirby will lose the ability upon being hit. Still, I think it’s a fair trade off considering the ability will materialize into a star that Kirby can easily retrieve. I just wish there was a trigger to manually remove a power instead of tanking damage to experiment with another one.

While I enjoy the gameplay diversity the copy ability adds, I still have to question whether or not it’s merely a gimmick. Without swallowing enemies, Kirby can still damage enemies just as effectively by exhaling onto enemies while flying, which also doesn’t halt his airborne momentum. All common enemies perish in one hit regardless of what attribute Kirby is currently gallivanting around with, including his base ability. Often, I’d forsake altering Kirby’s genetic makeup with the creatures in his environment. Flying while blowing onto the occasional airborne enemy kept up a certain rhythm to Kirby’s gameplay that felt smooth and natural. Humoring the suck mechanic only occurred as a lark rather than implementing a strategy to succeed through the course of a level. Bosses are the only enemy types where the copy abilities are helpful, and they shred the tissue paper through their health bars no matter the ability Kirby holds. Is their shaky defense against the abilities a reward for maintaining them up to a certain point? Either or, fighting these bosses without the abilities still accommodates the player with stars they generate to use as offensive measures against them, almost like visual cues of vulnerability. It’s the only consistent example of Kirby’s Adventure providing a substantial challenge. The sole boss that forces the player to use a specific power is Meta Knight, Kirby’s rogue rival who dons a cape and silver mask. After so many fruitless attempts to stop Kirby by sicing his impotent gang of medieval minions on him to no avail, Meta Knight implores Kirby to pick up a sword and duel with him honorably like the mysterious gentleman he is.

On top of every other factor in Kirby’s Adventure that makes the game a walk in the park, the game is loaded with accommodating features and extras. For one, the game includes a save battery that lets the player continue at any given point after taking a break, a rare perk seldom seen across games on the NES. The median length of Kirby’s Adventure arguably warrants a save feature, but the difficulty does not. Continues are limitless in Kirby’s Adventure, and Kirby’s maximum six hit points will guarantee that his lives will not be quickly expunged. Extra lives are given out like pamphlets at an airport in Kirby’s Adventure. Ample opportunities will be found on the field, the ending mini-game with the trampoline, and the minigames located in the hub of each level. Even though I find all of this to be unnecessary, the minigames in the hub are fun little breaks in the gameplay regardless of the rewards they grant. The western dueling minigame is actually tense, and the minigame where Kirby mustn't eat a bomb among the flood of eggs requires sufficient reaction time.

Surprisingly, Kirby’s Adventure possesses a veneer of depth that comes to fruition near the end of the game. I haven’t touched on the story of Kirby’s Adventure, for it’s merely the jejune plot of Kirby recovering the sacred Star Rod Macguffin from King Dedede and his droogs so the capacity to dream can be restored to the land of Dreamland. In order to unlock the true culprit, Nightmare, as the final boss, the player must find a series of large buttons strewn across the levels. I fought Nightmare at the end after King Dedede without seeking these buttons knowingly, so I guess the search needn’t be too thorough. Still, it’s impressive that an undemanding game like Kirby’s Adventure offers something like a true ending, and the shadowy Nightmare is defeated across three phases in which the player will need a standard of dodging accuracy and aim with the Star Rod to conquer. Fighting Nightmare should be required not only for the slight story but as a final test to see that the player wasn’t skating along through the course of the game too smoothly.

Concerning the candy store analogy, I guess my main issue with Kirby is that the series is too sweet for my liking. The visuals are spectacular, but the aspect of Kirby’s sugariness that becomes sickening is how it mollifies the NES-era 2D sidescroller to a juvenile degree. A cherubic tone is one thing, but constantly carrying the player through the game with too many perks in a game with a protagonist whose abilities fracture the foundation of the 2D platformer is borderline patronizing. I realize this is the point of Kirby, and perhaps I’m not the target demographic. Kirby’s elementary direction has persisted throughout his time as one of Nintendo’s prime IPs, solidifying that alienating an experienced gamer like myself has always been the intention. I give Kirby’s Adventure more clemency and respect because the NES library needed something carefree and effortless among a library of notorious ballbusters. After spending too much time at the Salty Spitoon (Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, fucking goddamn Battletoads), sometimes it’s a relief to visit Super Weeny Hut Jrs. for a while. Kirby's Adventure is still a joyful experience.

Super Mario is regular Weenie Hut Jrs. in the metaphor if you were wondering.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

I feel as if Capcom and Konami have this unspoken rivalry with each other. Both are arguably gaming’s most prominent third-party developers that have been active since the early days of console gaming. Both of their notable slew of franchises are some of the most popular and critically lauded in gaming history, supporting the range of systems both companies have been featured on. There are distinctive parallels between their franchises that might hint at some friendly competition. Where Capcom has Ghost n’ Goblins, Konami has Castlevania. Where Capcom has Breath of Fire, Konami has Suikoden. In the late ’90s, however, Capcom was sitting pretty on the throne of the survival horror genre with their breakout hit Resident Evil. Capcom sat on their royal seat with their legs crossed, held up in their mighty fortress with the smuggest of grins on their faces. From the top of their perch, they taunted Konami saying that Solid Snake was a hamster and Richter Belmont smelled of elderberries. Okay, that isn’t exactly what happened, but the success of Resident Evil inspired Konami to conjure up their own survival horror game to compete with Capcom. A lightbulb appeared over the director of Konami's head as he gathered a pack of misfits from the Konami offices, a talented but contentious bunch with a taste for the esoteric and the macabre. They were the cool kids' table that even Hideo Kojima wasn't allowed to sit with. This team of developers at Konami was known as “Team Silent”, a codename relating to the team’s final product: Silent Hill. With Silent Hill, Konami did more than just offer an experience that competed with Resident Evil. Silent Hill was heralded with the status of the scariest game of all time. Playing Resident Evil might have caused some people to get startled whenever they heard a bump at night, but playing Silent Hill kept people from sleeping, rocking back and forth in the fetal position with the lights on. Several generations later, with many sequels under its belt, the first Silent Hill somehow maintains its landmark status as the king of interactive terror.

Whenever I discuss a game from the early 3D generation, I feel inclined to talk about how well it’s aged. I don’t feel like contesting the preserved qualities from other past generations, but it always makes a point to mention this for this particular generation. Perhaps this is because this generation has always seemed antiquated to me. After all, I grew up with the generation that succeeded it, which greatly refined primitive 3D graphics. There wasn’t a grace period where games from this era looked cutting edge as they’ve always looked awkward and rudimentary to me. Silent Hill is no exception, as the game has aged like cheese. The graphics are unrefined and pixelated, the character models are stiffer than cardboard, and the voice acting is some of the most endearingly bad voice work from an era synonymous with terrible voice acting. I cracked on Hideo Kojima, but Team Silent could’ve used some of the presentational prowess he used in Metal Gear Solid. However, Silent Hill is a rare case in which these dated aspects are not a glaring detriment marred by the progress of the medium of gaming. Somehow, these aspects preserve the effectiveness of the fear factor Silent Hill is renowned for, making it just as effective as it once was decades ago.

As with Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill’s graphics and voicework are not necessarily synonymous with its overall presentation. Metal Gear Solid did a wonderful job depicting an artful espionage story despite the limitations of the PS1. Over time, the stronger qualities of the game still retain their effectiveness. Silent Hill is intended to be a spine-chilling, psychological horror story meant to explore the dark recesses of the human psyche. Silent Hill does not achieve this through the presentation but through masterful pacing that feels like a nightmarish progression. This is achieved as early as the infamous opening scene of the game. Harry Mason, the poor sap in for a wild ride, to say the least, wrecks his car in the middle of the night, trying to swerve away from what appears to be an adolescent girl in the middle of the road. Once he recuperates from the accident, his seven-year-old daughter Cheryl goes missing. He follows what appears to be his daughter as she disappears.

The blinding fog is a suitable base to set up the ominous setting, but this scene gets much worse. Harry follows Cheryl into a narrow alleyway, where he spots the bloody remains of an unidentifiable creature. This odd, ghastly encounter gets progressively weirder and more hair-raising as Harry continues to trek down the alleyway. Suddenly, the alleyway gets calamitously dark, and Harry finds himself in a blood-splattered maze formed from rusty, metallic fences. At the center of this maze is a decaying corpse that looks like it was crucified on the barbed wire of the fence. Little creatures with knives appear to kill Harry, and he has no means of defending himself from them. The gate he entered won’t budge, so he also has no means of escape. Once the creatures kill him, Harry wakes up in a cafe feeling incredulous about whether or not the experience he just had was merely a dream. The players just experienced the most harrowing beginning of any game up to this point. The progression of this sequence is exactly what a nightmare feels like. It starts with a base level of discomfort as the scene gets more perilous to a climactic point of sheer terror. The player feels as shocked and disoriented as Harry when he wakes up in a cold sweat. This unparalleled opening sequence isn’t even the pinnacle of the horror of Silent Hill. Believe it or not, it gets much scarier after this.

Objectively, Silent Hill’s age conspicuously shows through every facet of its presentation. It’s endemic to the primitive blemishes of the PS1 era without much of it aging gracefully two decades later. This is the case for most PS1 games, so this doesn’t come as a surprise. However, what does come as a surprise is that not only do the dated aspects not deter the experience, but they aid it. A key element to a lot of effective horrors is ambiguity. Resident Evil’s enemies were all recognizable creatures that reflected people's fears in real life, either in an exaggerated size or scale. As hair-raising as facing a giant, man-eating snake or the living dead in eerily lit corridors, the fear factor on the player only extends to their discrepancies with these creatures. Silent Hill is much more psychological and knows that the key to horror lies in the fear of the unknown. Team Silent’s creativity flourishes in the nightmarish creature designs seen throughout the game. Every first encounter with these creatures will most likely warrant the player screaming, “what the fuck is that?!” with wide-eyed bewilderment. All of the creatures in Silent Hill are tormented-looking figments of this town, with some even having uncanny recognizability. Many creatures also have a percentage range of skin on their bodies, a disturbing aspect of their designs. Some of the monsters look like unfortunate burn victims, and others, like the dogs and the flying creatures in the overworld, have no skin. The skinless creatures in the overworld resemble dogs and what appears to be something of a pterodactyl, covering all ground in the town, so the player never feels safe. The enemies inside the various barren buildings in Silent Hill are even creepier. Most of them resemble humanoid beings like the small creatures in the school or the nurses/doctors in the hospital, but they are anything but human. These enemies are abominations from the creatively dark minds of the Team Silent offices. These enemies are hostile toward the player, but they aren’t vicious and bloodthirsty. Their demeanor seems tormented and as if they lack mental faculties. They act as if they wish to be put out of their misery. When the player hits them in defense, they make an anguished cry and writhe on the floor once they are beaten down. The player is relieved that the threat is down, but they are still uneasy about what they just encountered. The bosses resemble bugs, but even the most knowledgeable entomologist couldn’t decipher what species they are. The dated graphics aid the uneasiness because it’s difficult to discern what any of the enemies are. This was most likely intentional because their designs are so ghastly. If the graphics were clearer, the effectiveness of the enemy encounters would falter as a result. It’s unnerving that players can’t decipher what’s coming at them, especially after decades of graphical progress.

The effectiveness of the dated graphics also extends to the foregrounds as well. Even if someone hasn’t played Silent Hill, they are still aware of the dense, blinding fog that has become synonymous with the series. The fog is meant to accentuate the creepy atmosphere with a wintry mix accompanying it for a better effect. It’s not only used to create a mood with an aesthetic. When Harry is moving around in the town, the player might notice that the fog is so thick that they cannot see more than ten feet in front of them. This is because the developers could only program so much in the overworld with the graphical limitations that they implemented the fog to compensate. The developers only rendered what they felt was necessary for the player to see directly in front of them, resulting in the player constantly having a restricted range of sight when traversing the town. One can assume that if the developers weren’t so constricted, the player would be able to have somewhat of a lucent view of the town of Silent Hill. Traversing through the overworld of the town is leagues more hectic with the fog, obviously because not being able to discern what dangers surround the town gives the player more anxiety. It’s also much more likely to get lost due to being unable to see around. Without these technical limitations, Silent Hill may not have even had the pea soup fog the series upholds.

Inside buildings and structures, Silent Hill compensates for the technical limitations with complete darkness. This is not the candle-lit, luminescent eeriness that lights the night in Resident Evil. Silent Hill is where even the moon is too afraid to shine, which greatly affects the strained atmosphere of any nighttime setting in the game. Once Harry wakes up in the cafe, he finds a flashlight on the counter. The player won’t find the flashlight useful sprinting across town but will never want to turn it off once they scurry through one of the town’s abandoned buildings. It even surprised me that the player can turn off the flashlight, considering there is never any respite from the complete darkness in these buildings. Even more surprising is that the game is spookier once the player turns off the flashlight in these areas. The developers render more of the foreground for the player than in the overworld, but the player only sees what is directly in front of the minute lighting provided by the flashlight. Anything the player would see with the flashlight on is the stuff of nightmares, alarming them while they are forced to see them progress onward. Turning the flashlight off is somewhat relaxing comparatively, despite the complete darkness. Horror games are not intended to be set in broad daylight, but most horror games before Silent Hill at least established a spooky mood with some gothic lighting. Calling Silent Hill spooky would be a laughable understatement. The darkness here is a void of despair, demanding that the player navigates through lengthy swathes of the game with minimal lighting. Because the fog was implemented due to limitations, I can only assume that the darkness here was also due to this.

The dated controls also factor into the effectiveness of Silent Hill’s horror just as much as the dated graphics. Rigid movement controls in early 3D games were so common that they were dubbed “tank controls” by gamers, and these were especially common in early horror games like Resident Evil. Though they felt uncomfortable and unnatural compared to real movement, they enhance the horror factor of these games because they make the player feel more vulnerable. However, moving like this as the super-soldiers of Resident Evil didn’t make sense because all the characters seemed capable of physical prowess. Harry, on the other hand, is a mere writer and a poor schmuck who is a victim of circumstance. He’s an average joe with a non-physically intensive career path (I would know), so the tank controls appropriately fit him. His run is only slightly quicker than his walking speed, he flinches when he bumps into a wall, and he swings his weapons like he’s never even picked up a baseball bat once in his life. Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine were assigned to deal with the horrors of Resident Evil because they could deal with the challenges. Harry Mason, on the other hand, is put in a situation far beyond his element, which is a testament to true survival horror.

The only dated aspect of Silent Hill that is a detriment to the overall experience is the voice acting. Bad PS1-era voice acting can be endearing, like in the case of the first Resident Evil, because the game exudes a campy tone anyways. The same cannot be said for the dark, spine-chilling experience that is Silent Hill. Harry Mason is intended to be a joe-schmoe, everyman character, so his voice is intended to be plain. Considering the situation and what he’s up against, one would think he’d be a tad more emphatic. Instead, his lines are delivered as blandly as humanly possible no matter the situation. Harry experiences the most blood-churning, visceral horrors in gaming history, and all he can utter are inquisitive musings like “what is that?” Meanwhile, the player is even afraid to process what they just experienced. Perhaps the lack of vocal energy is supposed to emphasize Harry’s every-man status, but I find fault with this. As a fellow everyman myself, my skin would be blanched at the horrors of Silent Hill. I guffawed a couple of times Harry opened his mouth to ask himself what was going on, an unintentional source of levity, I’m sure. Other characters like police officer Cybill and Dr. Kaufmann express their lines with the same monotone, deadpan delivery. I could argue that this dissociation between the characters and the player is due to a hint of surrealism, but I just don’t buy it. The bad voice acting is similar to many other games from this era.

As a survival horror game, Silent Hill borrows many of the fundamentals from Resident Evil. The common tank controls have already been established, but Silent Hill also borrows the same sense of survival strategy from Resident Evil. The main thing to consider in any survival horror game is scarce resources. While Silent Hill doesn’t implement the same cramped inventory system as Resident Evil, ammo is even more deficient, and there are no juggernaut weapons like the revolver and grenade launchers. Harry’s arsenal includes standard firearms, such as a pistol, shotgun, and hunting rifle. The last weapon isn’t even available to the player until more than halfway into the game. Harry also has a selection of melee weapons, such as a lead pipe and a large red hammer. The melee weapons are used to conserve ammo but vary in effectiveness against enemies. The player’s health is also indicated with the exact three color schemes as Resident Evil. Health items, on the other hand, are simplified as there is no botanical mixing involved. Health drinks restore a small portion of health, medkits a medium portion, and ampoules restore a large portion of health. The health items are also as scarce as ammo is. The player will stumble upon all these items organically, but I felt the need to explore the overworld and find items to prepare for the challenges ahead. This is something I never felt necessary for Resident Evil. A unique aspect that wasn’t in Resident Evil was the addition of a radio. The game mitigates the total darkness in various sections by giving Harry a radio that signals that monsters are nearby. The device ensures that although the player might not see the danger, at least it cautions them that it’s close. The sound the radio makes is just as harrowing as the marginal light from the flashlight as its ring pierces the eardrums of every Silent Hill veteran. The player also has the option of turning the radio off like the flashlight, and I’m not sure why anyone in their right mind would turn that off either.

Silent Hill isn’t just Resident Evil with a psychological tinge. Silent Hill was obviously built from the survival horror template that Resident Evil established, but Silent Hill is its own beast. Team Silent is obviously a group of people with a smattering of eclectic influences, all of which are incorporated artfully into this game. Some notable influences are obviously horror films, but specifically horror films that dabble in surrealism. The design of the “otherworld” resembles the hellish illusions from Adrian Lyne’s film Jacob’s Ladder. The premise of a quaint town with a dark, surrealistic underbelly is reminiscent of Twin Peaks. The game also takes aesthetic inspiration from the works of Junji Ito and Francis Bacon. Arcane elements from various religions are also implemented into the game, mostly as references and parts of the puzzles. To flaunt their artistic knowledge even further, the streets of Silent Hill are named after famous science fiction authors, the three keys found in the overworld are named after characters from The Wizard of Oz, and the three teachers at the elementary school are named after members of Sonic Youth (a reference that made me giddy when I first saw it like the complete dork I am). These demented Japanese hipsters wanted to express their influences to make something of a highbrow horror experience. Konami tasked them to compete with Resident Evil and didn’t underestimate the collective literate acumen of these people to take this survival horror template and run away with it.

In terms of gameplay, Silent Hill might also take inspiration from games outside of the survival horror sphere like The Legend of Zelda and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Silent Hill’s Zelda influence seems apparent in the way the town is designed and the progression that takes place throughout the game. I’ve been referring to the town of Silent Hill as the game's overworld because it’s very similar to something like Hyrule Field from Ocarina of Time. It’s a hub with interconnected paths with a few minor stops in between. Nothing in the hub is too consequential to the progress of the game, but rather a space between all of the landmark areas and a means to travel between them. It’s a relative space to revel in the potential of early three-dimensional design. The only difference between Hyrule Field and Silent Hill is that instead of a spacious field with a small number of enemies and many obvious routes, Silent Hill is a hectic, dingy hellhole where enemies run rampant and where there are zero obvious routes. Many of the paths in Silent Hill that seem obvious are blocked off and impenetrable. The factor of Silent Hill’s world and progression that reminds me even more of Zelda is that the landmarks Harry visits trying to find his daughter remind me of the dungeons from the Zelda series. I’ve even caught myself referring to the school and the hospital as “Silent Hill dungeons” because their Zelda influence is obvious to me. Once Harry enters these places from a path in the overworld, navigating them becomes a large precedent in progressing the game’s story. Each building comes with a separate map different from the one in the overworld that exclusively gives the player a layout of the entire building. A good number of the doors in each building will be either locked without any hope of opening or opened with a key from another room. This gives the player the incentive to explore as many rooms as possible while keeping a mental note of what is in every significant room. Progressions through the buildings are done by finding keys to the locked doors and solving puzzles. Any Zelda fan will recognize these aspects because they are the makeup of every Zelda dungeon. One difference is that the puzzles Silent Hill presents can be a tad perplexing. The puzzles usually offer hints in the corner of the room, but the clues are presented in the least straightforward ways possible. There is no reason to overthink these puzzles as they are simpler than they seem, but I still feel that Team Silent made the puzzles a little esoteric to further flaunt their credentials.

The Symphony of the Night influence might be more of a stretch, but it still seems applicable here. For those who are unaware, the second half of Symphony of the Night has the player exploring the same castle, this time with the map literally flipped on its head with new challenges. In Silent Hill, the same is done through the “otherworld”, a horrifying, uncanny nether realm that represents the darkest regions of the human psyche. Navigating through the dark, abandoned Midwich Elementary was scary enough, but it’s Candyland compared to the otherworld. Harry enters the otherworld for the first time through a clock tower in the courtyard of the elementary school. It suddenly starts to rain, and an arcane symbol appears in the middle of the courtyard to signal that something has changed. In the hospital, every room seems impenetrable until Harry enters the elevator. At first glance, there are only three floors, but more glances will add a fourth floor, another entrance to the other world. This moment is so subtle, but it’s one of the scariest moments in the game. The otherworld has a few harrowing idiosyncrasies no matter what area it’s mirroring. It’s a jet-black, industrial hellscape painted with rust and blood. Hanging, massacred corpses of unknown origin drape over the otherworld like ornate decorations. The only foundation keeping Harry between his life and plummeting to dark oblivion are metallic cages and rusty, industrial steel. The otherworld is a surrealistic nightmare made to make the player uncomfortable and fuck with their heads.

Unexplainable phenomena like Cheryl calling Harry on a disconnected phone and a disturbing sequence showing Cheryl’s visage on a series of televisions is an onslaught on the player’s senses. Once the player enters the otherworld for the first time, they’ll get a dreadful sense of deja-vu as they realize this is the makeup of the nightmare sequence in the beginning. Silent Hill’s masterful pacing and progression into the rabbit hole of a nightmare has occurred once again, but this time Harry can’t just jolt himself awake. The player has to work with the nightmare, navigating through it, uncovering the exit, and earning respite from it, and that’s a distressing affair. One particular dungeon at the end of the game called “Nowhere” is a dungeon that takes place entirely in the otherworld. It has the same ghoulish features as anywhere else in the other world, but it’s the longest otherworld section in the game with nowhere to turn back and no map to aid the player. The absolute darkness, surreal design, and the industrial clings and clangs and dentist drills of the soundscape were enough for me to utter “...make...it...stop...” whispered under my breath with sheer discomfort. Never has any section in any video game made me this unnerved and uncomfortable. “Nowhere” itself is an achievement in horror gaming.

It also helps that Silent Hill’s plot is one of the most horrifying premises in horror media. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that the premise of this game didn’t meet any controversy and censorship upon its release. As Harry searches for Cheryl, he starts to uncover the dark history of this town, and it’s quite graphic, to say the least. He meets a frazzled older woman named Dahlia Gillespie, who gives him an artifact known as the Flauros to protect him from the monstrosities that plague the town. He then meets Dr. Kaufmann, a doctor specializing in exorcisms, and Lisa, a nurse who strangely lives in the otherworld section of the hospital. Harry then starts chasing a girl who looks like his daughter Cheryl but is actually an adolescent girl named Alessa, Dahlia’s daughter. She is a dead ringer for Cheryl, and that’s because Cheryl is the reincarnation of Alessa. Alessa’s body was immolated in a ritual conducted by the evil cult based in Silent Hill that Dahlia is a member of. The ritual was intended for young Alessa to give birth to Samael, an arcane demon that the cult worships that will bring forth an age of darkness upon the world. Complications occurred, causing the ritual to fail, and part of Alessa became Cheryl, Harry’s adopted daughter. However, Alessa’s spirit remained in the town and manifested in the otherworld. All of the terrifying things in the otherworld are symbols that mirror Alessa’s anguished cognition, such as the mean kids in school and her distaste for bugs. Even the nurse Lisa is a ghostly apparition manifested as a memory of the nurse who cared for Alessa in the hospital. This plot takes elements from The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby and manages to be as shocking as both. That is one messed up little girl.



Silent Hill’s story has multiple endings like other horror games before it. Once Harry completes the “nowhere” dungeon, Dahlia and Alessa are found in the center of a spacious, dark room, ready to execute the ritual again and birth Samael. Depending on a few circumstances that have to be met, Cybil and Dr. Kaufmann are here as well. The “bad ending” has Harry defeat an incubator, and Cheryl is dead for good, leaving Harry crestfallen. The “good ending” involves Harry fighting the rebirthed Samael, a bug-like version of the dark angel Baphomet. He’s also an incredibly cheap boss with a lightning bolt attack that I’m convinced is undodgeable. I tanked this boss with my health items, but it was still an aggravating fight. The game even gives the player some leeway, and Samael dies if the player enters the fight with no ammo. Once Samael is defeated, either way, Alessa has reincarnated again, and Harry leaves with Cybil to raise another version of a rebirthed Alessa. Given the sequels of this game in retrospect, the good ending is the canon ending, but I found that the bad ending was a more appropriate gut punch to such a visceral experience.

Konami knew they had something special with Silent Hill. They let the creative juices of their most eccentric employees roam free, conjuring up something that made Capcom scurry away from their horror throne, squealing like a little girl and hiking up its skirt while it was running away. Silent Hill isn’t just a horror game; it’s an experience that has left an impression on every gamer. It’s an experience that highlighted our collective fears of the dark and presented new terrors to give a fresh meaning to them with creativity and artful surrealism. It’s an experience that tickles at our almond-shaped amygdalas and gives us a horrific sensation that people in 1999 didn’t know was possible. Like many early 3D titles on the PS1, it’s showing its age like the liver spots on an old man’s head, but somehow the meat of the experience transcends the looming inevitability of passing time. Only a true masterpiece can accomplish this, and I can confidently give the first Silent Hill that prestigious title.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

Indie and triple-A video games seem to be coexisting splendidly. Both types of studios in modern gaming are released as frequently throughout the year, both can be purchased on the same number of multiple modern platforms, and the critical accolades between the two budgetary factions seem to be dispersed evenly for those who are deserved, without any bias from any media outlets preferring one to the other. The video game landscape we live in is a flourishing melting pot where any gaming preference can be satiated thanks to the variety we now have at our disposal. Gaming has finally reached the same level of prosperity as the music and film industry, increasing the number of yearly releases from all over the globe as a result. With all of this in mind, however peachy the notion of gaming’s ubiquity is, it’s a wonder that the triple-A titans aren’t more concerned with how indie releases are creeping up on them. The kings of the medium such as Nintendo in the east and EA in the west have earned their thrones due to their significant influence and longevity, a factor that the indie kids can’t compete with due to their comparatively newer presence in the gaming landscape. Also, their more recognizable brands through building their immanence brick by brick over time allows these triple-A developers to spend a more extravagant budget with their release, arguably the most synonymous factor in what defines a triple-A game these days. Still, indie games are quickly moving in on their territory, but they don’t seem a bit perturbed. I guess the triple-A studios can confidently surmise that no matter how popular and acclaimed indie titles tend to be, a developer with a paltry budget can never compete with the length, spectacle, and bevy of content they can produce for one title. Therefore, the triple-A fat cats can rest comfortably knowing that they’ll always have the public in their pockets. However, one grandstanding indie game should have them sleeping with one eye open, and that game is Hollow Knight.

On the surface, Hollow Knight doesn’t seem like the ideal indie title to strike fear in the hearts of big business. Australian developer Team Cherry took their endearing flash game “Hungry Knight” and formulated it into a Metroidvania title upon its fully-fledged final release, along with changing the descriptive H word in the title to the more mystifying “hollow.” What would most likely make the legion of triple-A developers make an obnoxious chorus of pshaws upon hearing this description is that Metroidvania games are cheap and simple from a production standpoint. Despite the critical acclaim the genre has received, most Metroidvania titles seemed to have been relegated to the inferior hardware of the portable consoles that merely supplemented their console contemporaries, as the more modest capabilities of these handhelds felt more appropriately designed for the inherently 2D Metroidvania genre. It wasn’t until the eighth generation of gaming in the mid-2010s that the Metroidvania genre had a reinvigoration in the gaming landscape with indie titles like Axiom Verge and Ori and the Blind Forest. Suddenly, games in a genre associated with the limited perspective of yore were sharing the limelight with the grand 3D spectacles.

There are plenty of admirable entries in the new wave of Metroidvania games, but Hollow Knight possesses a specific attribute that these more traditional Metroidvania titles didn’t. What is this killer app that Hollow Knight weaves into the fabric of its gameplay? Dark Souls: the triple-A series that I’ve been touting as the gaming messiah for the 2010’s decade. Even though Dark Souls is produced by a triple-A company with the mechanical and graphical prowess of a game fitting the modern gaming standard, Dark Souls’ influences stem from the then unfashionable Metroidvanias, RPGs, and action-adventure titles of gaming’s yesteryears. This range of influences is most likely why Dark Souls was a crisp breath of fresh air in the triple-A climate that was injecting cinematics into the gameplay like botox fillers. One can infer that Dark Souls’ success contributed to at least a fraction of the revitalized spark of interest for the Metroidvania genre, as it was a triple-A game that infiltrated the mechanically milquetoast triple-A climate with a mix of a Metroidvania design philosophy and its own brand of idiosyncrasies. Because Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania that incorporates a hefty heaping of Dark Souls in its mechanics and world design, the game has a clear advantage over its peers. However, I must disclose that Hollow Knight was not the first title of the Metroidvania Renaissance to feature Soulslike characteristics, for I can hear Salt and Sanctuary clearing its throat to call attention to itself. Unlike Salt and Sanctuary, Hollow Knight isn’t merely a derivative Dark Souls clone with a regressive perspective shift. Hollow Knight’s deeper understanding of what makes Dark Souls an effective, gratifying experience is really what elevates its quality on equal standing with its primary influence.

While Hollow Knight may not feature graphics that rival James Cameron’s Avatar like the standards of modern triple-A titles, only someone who is legally blind wouldn’t describe Hollow Knight’s aesthetic as visually splendorous. Like fellow 2017 indie title Cuphead, Hollow Knight’s art direction is crafted with hand-drawn animation. If you thought illustrating a cartoon frame by frame was an absurdly cumbersome endeavor, imagine doing the same process with layers of overlapping binary code to contend with. For that integration alone, Team Cherry earns my sincerest sense of admiration. In saying that, Hollow Knight’s visuals still ascend past the novelty of simply showcasing this kind of uniquely painstaking artistic achievement. If I had to assign a specific style of Hollow Knight’s overall aesthetic, “twee goth” would be an accurate summation. A dour, defeated sense of melancholy permeates throughout the land of Hollownest. Still, the lurid, light-hearted animation on display sort of negates the garish and brooding aspects of a goth aesthetic while retaining that heightened sense of romanticism. Colors running the gamut of the rainbow are consistently portrayed in deeper hues to uphold that sensation of doom and gloom. This aspect of the visuals is certainly impressive considering the eclectic range of biomes that compose the country of Hollownest. Whether it be the twinkling twilight of the Howling Cliffs, the lush verdure of Greenpath and the Queen’s Gardens, to the ornate architecture of the City of Tears, a sublime beauty encapsulates the setting and leaves the player awe-stricken. Even the rank shithole of the Royal Waterways or the creepy, dark catacombs of Deepnest still exude a sense of wonderment. It could also be that light filter that gives each area an ethereal quality, but I think Hollow Knight’s visual achievements can be attributed to more than this simple implementation. More impressive is the acute attention to detail on display in Hollow Knight’s world. Backgrounds present a widespread scope of what looks like miles of its inhabitable stretches. Crystal Peak is situated between a massive geode of valuable pink gems that protrude from this high-elevation area of Hollownest. The Hive displays a valley of sweet honeycomb glimmering brightly in the distance. Both backgrounds are still illustrations that could fit appropriately in the finest of animated features like the stunning Disney’s Fantasia. In the foregrounds, not one speck of visual detail is compromised. Soil has never looked so rich and loamy in gaming, and one can even marvel at the fine craftsmanship of the manmade decor that comprises the City of Tears. Benches in real life can’t even compete with the detailed design quality of those in Hollow Knight. A less talented developer would’ve meshed the gradience between the foregrounds and backgrounds, but Team Cherry consistently balances the two to create an incredibly decadent, mystical world. Gorgeous doesn’t even begin to describe the graphics that Hollow Knight bestows.

The titular knight in Hollow Knight is also fitting for the charming and whimsical world he resides in. I can imagine the individual design for Hollow Knight’s protagonist being a particularly sensitive matter. In a game whose universe consists of a smattering of insect types, placing the wrong kind of creepy crawly at center stage for the duration of the game could’ve unsettled most players. The Knight, who I can assume is his official title since he does not have a canon name, is a perfect compromise that will not trigger any bug-related phobias. The scrappy little guy’s bug phenotype would confuse even the most experienced of entomologists, and that ambiguity is precisely what makes The Knight so appealing. The Knight’s character design is more akin to an amorphous ghost crudely attempting to take the form of an insect rather than one that exists in the natural world. That diminutive stature, the curved, white horns sticking out of his skeletal cranium, and the vacuous craters intended to be The Knight’s eyes encapsulate its state as a husk creature perfectly. Yet, all of these physical characteristics are also what make The Knight adorably charismatic, like a puppy who stumbles around while it walks. Memorable video game protagonists before the 2000s used to have something of a “mascot potential,” and I could imagine The Knight from Hollow Knight appearing on cereal boxes and as the model for gaming figurines and plushies alongside Mario and Sonic.

More important than his fun-sized stature and pale complexion is how The knight controls. Fortunately, The Knight wonderfully excels in this department. Combat in Hollow Knight is the simple slashing of The Knight’s “nail,” which The Knight unsheathes from his sidearm in a quick flash. Many Souls enthusiasts might decry the fact that The Knight is limited to this insectoid sword substitute as opposed to the bevy of blades at the player’s disposal in that series. Still, I can assure you that this shiny, sharp tool is more than enough for the duration of the game. The player will consistently assess every enemy encounter by the speed and distance of the nail and dodge accordingly until the enemy is dead. Once the dash move is learned, defense maneuvers during combat are made easier. Swiftly juggling attacking and dodging as The Knight is always a smooth process that makes the player feel like a masterful warrior. On top of slashing the nail horizontally, The Knight can also strike upwards and downwards to cover all necessary offensive angles. Performing the downward nail slash mid-air is also a common traversal tactic in tense platforming challenges in which the momentum is difficult to maintain. Perilous sections such as these are littered all over the foregrounds of Hollownest, and the player must use a combination of the dash ability, the adze-like Mantis Claw, and the extra lift of the Monarch Wings to dart through some of the tensest platforming segments seen in the Metroidvania genre. Fortunately, Hollow Knight is on the same scale of fluidity as the precision platformers these sections borrow from, as every mistake can honestly be chalked up to the player’s lack of tact rather than the game's technical incompetence. Roaming around the land and laying waste to its denizens feels so liberating because The Knight is such an acrobatic force of nature.

There are indeed simpler parallels between Hollow Knight and Dark Souls that don’t require extensive, borderline pretentious analysis to connect. Hollow Knight’s most applicable commonality with Dark Souls is its stiff penalty for dying. Checkpoints across Hollow Knight’s dense and diverse world are in the form of benches, the equivalent to the bonfires from Dark Souls where the player can contemplatively rest while their health is restored to its maximum capacity. Also like the bonfires, their position as checkpoints is strictly enforced when it comes to the player’s likely numerous deaths. Even if the player has trekked from one point of the map’s prime meridian to the other, if they weren’t observant enough to seek out a new bench or neglected to consider the ramifications of not resting at one, the game will automatically catapult the player back to the last bench miles away from where they were vanquished. Needless to say, it’s a real bitch to retread all that ground to restore one’s lost progress. To make dying seem more like starting from square one, another borrowed aspect from Dark Souls is that the player’s collective experience points materialize as a lost item at the player’s last dying spot to incentivize them to revisit their place of failure. In Hollow Knight, The Knight’s progress takes the form of a floating black spirit with an eerie musical cue indicating its presence. The shadowy effigy will even slash at The Knight like an unruly git, making the player feel especially pathetic when struck by it. Hollow Knight emulates the penalty system from Dark Souls competently, but it doesn’t have the same high stakes. Hollow Knight forgoes the RPG-leveling system from Dark Souls, so the player will retrieve their cumulative amount of Geo, Hollownest’s currency, when they defeat their floating phantom. Considering how vital experience points always are in Dark Souls to surviving the game’s brutal challenges, recovering the Geo needed mostly to purchase a few items in the early sections of the game doesn’t garner the same sense of urgency.

However, the state of being “hollow” in Hollow Knight after being torn asunder from their spirit essence feels like more of a handicap than it is in Dark Souls because the healing potential is halved. Hollow Knight’s healing mechanic is Team Cherry’s own creation, and it is one of the game’s standout mechanical attributes. In the top left corner of the screen situated alongside The Knight’s units of health like a bass clef on a sheet of music is the healing gauge. As The Knight strikes any type of enemy, a modest amount of a milky liquid I’ll just refer to as “bug juice” is stored in the gauge. It’s as if a factor of The Knight’s askew mortal coil gives him vampiric powers that allow him to literally drain the life force of his enemies. After accumulating enough of the translucent substance, The Knight expends the juice in the gauge, restoring a single unit of health by one-third of the gauge’s maximum. Dying will shatter the gauge in half and also make the stored gratuity of the three bonus reserves useless. Comparisons to the Estus Flasks from Dark Souls arise when observing how the healing system is practical in combat. Holding down the heal button in Hollow Knight requires a meditative state of brief stillness that leaves The Knight vulnerable to more damage, interrupting the flow of combat as abruptly, if not even more so, as taking a swig of estus in Dark Souls. Finding an opportunity to heal during a hectic boss encounter is one of the most harrowing occasions in Hollow Knight, and seeking out that narrow window factors into a boss battle as much as the chance to deal damage to it. Having the player’s potion amount coincide with their attack output is brilliant, as performing well in battle will consistently be rewarded with compensation. The underlying trick, however, is when to reap the benefits.

Being confined to one weapon doesn’t mean that there is no gameplay variation in Hollow Knight. The customizable aspect of Hollow Knight’s gameplay takes the form of charms, badges with their own special attributes. Charms are found across Hollownest with the same shimmering glow as any other item, and they can also be purchased from various merchants for a fee, namely from the flamboyant blob Salubra in the eastern corner of the Forgotten Crossroads. Charms can be equipped at any bench, and the player’s selection of charms coincides with the amount of “charm notches'' relating to an arbitrary cost. Increasing the total amount of charm notches can also be done by searching in hidden corners on the map as well as purchasing them from Salubra. However, Salubra will only deem The Knight worthy of possessing more charm notches if the player has a varied mix of them in their arsenal. It makes sense considering that only someone who uses these charms would warrant an addition to their capacity. I don’t know why someone wouldn’t bother with the charms because their aid makes a world of difference. The player can stack a selection of charms to make their nail as long as a rapier or increase The Knight’s rapidity to the point where they’re running circles around foes. One charm build will turn The Knight into a glass cannon, while another build will conversely assure that The Knight will never sustain even a scratch of damage. Mixing and matching the charms is the closest that Hollow Knight gets to a role-playing mechanic, something that certainly made the gameplay of Dark Souls invigorating. Like the myriad of builds correlating with the attributes in Dark Souls, not one combination is inferior to another as long as the player can use them to pave their path to success.

Using charms also comes recommended because Hollow Knight is quite a difficult experience. Comparing Hollow Knight to Dark Souls in every paragraph should have already implied this revelation, so be prepared to grit your teeth and schedule a confession time during Sunday mass to come clean about all of the unholy curses you’ll shout in the struggle. Tense combat combined with sparse checkpoints is one thing, but the third ingredient in the mix that really elicits dread is the intentional blindspots on the map. The crucial aid in excavating the sprawling lands of Hollownest is not something that is automatically generated. Once The Knight stumbles upon (literally) uncharted territory, they must find the map maker Cornifer who will sell The Knight his map of the area at a meager price. Where Cornifer is located in the area is anyone’s guess, which is why digging deeper into a new area without a reference can be daunting. Sometimes, he’s hanging out near an area’s soonest entry point. Still, because each area has so many intersecting pathways, the player will inadvertently unlock the entire map layout before encountering Cornifer. In times when the latter scenario occurred, I’d scramble frantically down every corridor in an attempt to find Cornifer, even if I found a bench that cemented my place here beforehand. Every time I discovered a trail of discarded papers that lead me to hearing Cornifer’s jaunty hum, I was relieved beyond words. Some may argue that forcing the player to roam around in the proverbial dark like this is unfair, but I find the process of finding the map and filling in the blanks after some organic exploration to be invigorating.

On top of scrounging about an individual area, there is still the overarching progression of Hollow Knight that comes with discovering every new area. Again, I must draw comparisons to Dark Souls because of the overlap in their approach to progression. Then again, Dark Souls shows clear inspiration from the Metroidvania genre in this regard, as one could make parallels between the quest to ring the bells and Metroid’s descent down a hellish rabbit hole. Dirtmouth, the tranquil hub of Hollownest, resides at the world’s peak as most areas of interest are located south like the docking grove of Crateria. Forgotten Crossroads and Greenpath are both appropriately more hostile than the respite place that they stem from, yet not enough to distract the player from delving into the game’s doleful tone. One could even compare Greenpath to the Undead Parish for how deceptively pleasant the area seems despite the challenges it poses. It is after defeating the central boss of Greenpath that the player is faced with a trifling dilemma with their intended trajectory. It’s more likely that the player will come across the jellyfish-filled Fog Canyon before the untamed wilds of Fungal Wastes as intended since it borders Greenpath. This area is not meant to be explored this early in the game, but the game judges that the player will come to this moment of clarity without overtly spelling it out for them like when Samus’s health disintegrates in Norfair or being bombarded by skeletons at the graveyard adjacent to the Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls. What tipped me off was the fact that Cornifer was locked behind an impenetrable black border and that the jellyfish cores dealt twice the damage upon exploding. I adore it when Metroidvania games present situations like these because they are indicative of the genre’s nuanced design that flirts with liberal progression confines.

City of Tears is the metropolitan capital of Hollownest The Knight finds next, and I can only assume it got that name from how morose the area looks with perpetual storm clouds constantly showering the area in rainwater. Any cityscape area in a Soulslike game would normally garner parallels to Anor Londo, but the City of Tears is not the pinnacle of The Knight’s first major quest. The City of Tears is easily the largest area of Hollownest, so the developers decided to have the player revisit a whole other district of the capital at any given point in a clever way to still establish that the city is an essential destination point. One could compare the City of Tears to Irithyll of the Boreal Valley because of its contrasting relationship with the Royal Waterways to the latter’s dungeon area, illustrating a dichotomy between fancifulness and filth in close quarters. The claustrophobic dankness of the Royal Waterways along with its neighboring webbed labyrinth of Deepnest definitely showcases that The Knight has profoundly plunged into the bowels of Hollownest. Soon after descending even further, The Knight must leap all the way back up past even the point of Dirtmouth to acquire an ability from Crystal Peak to finish his first quest. Sound familiar? Thank God for the determined stag beetles that The Knight can use as his transit system. They are the true heroes of Hollow Knight. Oh, and the more industrialized tramway that leads to the Resting Grounds where the second main quest is given is useful too, but that's a sensitive topic for the Stags

Once The Knight has sunk to the ground floor of Hollownest, they don’t find grandeur like arriving at Anor Londo. The deepest depths of Hollownest lead The Knight to the Ancient Basin, a sterile place that feels like The Knight has accomplished their arduous journey only because of how still everything is compared to the progressive hostility for every previous area. Beating the Broken Vessel here, an infected knight cut from the same cloth as the protagonist, is the middle point that starts the second half of the game along with arriving at the Resting Grounds. As anticipated, the overlapping quest in Hollow Knight’s second half almost mirrors the second half of Dark Souls. Using a sacred tool called “the dream nail,” The Knight must seek out three significant figures called “the dreamers” who have been locked behind a seal in their eternal cryogenic chambers and penetrate their subconsciousness. These three are located all across creation in Hollownest and can be approached in a non-linear order like the Lord Souls, signifying that the game has become significantly less restricted due to the progress made during the first half. The content of the second quest screams the first Dark Souls, but the resulting action reminds me of the midway point of Bloodborne when the moon takes a dip in a lake of blood. Lore and story are as superfluous to the overall Hollow Knight experience as it is in any FromSoft title, as the setting and atmosphere do enough leg work to immerse the player adequately. Any occurrence and how it pertains to the lore is only given context by the player’s own incentive to delve deeper. Still, it’s hard to ignore the terrible new condition of the Forgotten Crossroads in the second half of the game. The looming force of despair that has rendered Hollownest to its apocalyptic downfall is something called “the infection,” which takes the form of an overwhelming mass of pulpy, bulbous orange matter seen previously in the Broken Vessel fight. No longer is Dirtmouth’s first underground level a moody turnpike but the ghastly sight of a tumorous, tangy breeding ground of disease. The basic thugs and winged grunts that reside here are now more formidable and feral, combusting after being defeated to signify their unnatural state of existence. Thankfully, this infection is contained to Forgotten Crossroads and not the other areas as it would be tiring dodging the explosive impact of every downed enemy. As it is, the disastrous condition of the Forgotten Crossroads effectively illustrates how severe this infection is, making the player concerned for the wellbeing of Hollownest and what is going on behind the veil of vagueness.

Referencing Dark Souls for the umpteenth time, why should the player care if Hollownest succumbs to the debilitating scourge? Isn’t a heavy sense of nihilism supposed to be conveyed in its lugubrious atmosphere like Dark Souls? Despite the lingering sorrow expressed in Hollow Knight’s atmosphere, it does not stem from a place of futility. Unlike the sullen land of Lordran, we sympathize with Hollownest’s plague instead of treating the matter with contempt as if the land somewhat deserves it. This sympathy stems from Hollow Knight’s cast of NPCs that The Knight encounters on his journey. I’ve already expressed my fondness for the scribe Cornifer, and I’ll express the same for his weary wife Iselda that mans their shop in Deepnest. Sly is another merchant in Dirtmouth who is quite adept in nail combat. The other nail masters are the passionate sort, with the nailsmith requesting that The Knight slay him with the ultimate nail he receives from upgrading it to its fullest potential to feel the effects of the perfect weapon he's waited his whole life to forge. God damn, now that’s passion! The Grubmaster in the northern corner of the Forgotten Crossroads is very grateful for rescuing his cute little grub cubs, who are the game’s long-standing collectible. What he does with them all after The Knight collects them all I dare not spoil, for it’s as hilarious as it is shocking. Other NPCs are more nomadic like the overly eager warrior-wannabe Cloth and the masked pill bug Quirrel. These NPCs will aid The Knight sporadically for one boss fight, so their relationship with The Knight stems from a sense of respect. Then there are the NPCs whose side quest lines revolve around coming to their rescue, specifically the pathetic and ironically named “Zote the Mighty.” He obviously doesn’t see the irony in his name considering how brazenly arrogant the snot-nosed shrimp is. Saving him twice from the dangers of Hollownest only results in him scolding you for “interrupting his triumphant victory.” Batting around this whelp like a ping-pong ball in the Colosseum is pure catharsis. The only person who buys into his ego-fueled drivel is a timid bug girl named Bretta who The Knight saves from the southernmost corner of Fungal Wastes. Still, even the irksome NPCs are brimming with personality and charm. They’re much less cynical and caustic than the NPCs of Dark Souls, and even the exception of Solaire contracted the madness by the end of the game. Every NPC in Hollow Knight is precious and is the reason why Hollownest is worth saving.

Of course, I was going to go the distance to uncover the true source of the infection anyways because, like any solid Soulslike game, I wanted to experience every boss the game offered. Hollow Knight’s selection of bosses is an outstanding approximate of at least thirty. The most significant duel pertaining to the progression of the game’s story is against Hornet in Greenpath as you follow her through the green bramble patches. Hornet is Hollow Knight’s half-sister who is determined to protect the sanctity of Hollownest and test The Knight’s worth in aiding her on her mission. The dreamers themselves aren’t boss battles, but fights like the tanky Watcher Knight guards and the thick and gooey jellyfish Uummuu provide a challenge before the main quest objective can be accomplished. The mimic Nosk in the hidden crevices of Deepnest is downright creepy, and the Soul Master’s fake out leading to a second phase of his fight genuinely caught me off guard. The player’s adrenaline will be pumping during the God Tamer fight as it’s the pinnacle challenge of the exhausting final colosseum enemy gauntlet, and the gank boss dynamic between the man and his beast is as effective as Ornstein and Smough. My personal favorite fights in the game are the Mantis Lords and the Dung Defender for different reasons. The Mantis Lords are arguably the first true “brick wall” challenge of the game as the boss becomes progressively tenser as you memorize the patterns of three formidable mantises attacking you at once. Upon defeating them, you feel as if the newfound respect the mantis colony of the Fungal Wastes gives you for conquering their masters is entirely deserved. As for the Dung Defender, I can’t help but fall in love with the man’s jovial demeanor. I can’t judge him too harshly for his dirty hobby because of the pure, unbridled enthusiasm he expresses for it. In fact, he’s so damn charismatic that he’ll make you want to take a dip with him in the feces for a fun time. I feel remiss for the bosses I had to gloss over, for there isn’t a single dud in the bunch (except for Zote as a joke boss).

If the staggering number of bosses is too overwhelming for you, you’ll be relieved to know that most of them are optional. Now that I think about it, it’s amazing how much of Hollow Knight’s content isn’t consequential to finishing the game. Hollow Knight has the most liberal progression of any Metroidvania game I’ve played, taking the genre’s already loose parameters and making the main game seem bare bones without all those meaty additional objectives. Entire areas such as the Kingdom’s Edge and Queen’s Gardens can be totally omitted, along with tons of boss battles and side quests. I implore everyone to play Hollow Knight to its full extent because the game will not feel satisfyingly finished without it. The cumulative total of Hollow Knight’s full efforts will result in unlocking the game’s final boss and the source of the world’s contagion: The Radiance. If The Knight heads directly to the Temple of the Black Egg after murdering the dreamers in their ethereal headspace, they’ll fight the titular hollow knight. Although he’s important to the lore as a martyr for sealing away the infection, he’s a strangely easy final boss which might perplex some players. Only by fully filling the dream nail with essence and taking it down past the Ancient Basin to The Knight’s otherworldly birthplace known as “The Abyss” will The Knight don the Void Heart key to unveil the Radiance. The true final fight will occur if The Knight uses the dream nail on The Hollow Knight when pinned down by Hornet, and this avian demigod is as formidable as she seems. After absorbing the Radiance essence, the saddest of the multiple endings will occur as Hornet looks back on The Knight’s severed head laying cracked wide open on the ground. In Dark Souls, either ending puts the protagonist in a position of power no matter the outcome. Here, the death of the protagonist is the ultimate sacrifice that needed to occur in order to truly save Hollownest, something that the Pale King failed to realize in his attempts to merely shut the Hollow Knight in with the source. The other endings where The Knight either takes his brother’s place or joins him in his crucifixion-esque chains compound the cyclical nature of the problem instead of solving it. Where in Dark Souls there is no solution, the fact that Hollow Knight offers one at a great price shows the game’s sentimental, optimistic core as opposed to being trapped to endure endless despondency.

It might be irritating to some that I’ve spent every paragraph of this review comparing Hollow Knight to Dark Souls but hey, the writing is written clearly on the wall with graffiti. Despite how much Dark Souls makes up the foundation of Hollow Knight, the game is anything but a flavorless pastiche of Fromsoft’s series. Hollow Knight saw the building blocks made from the giant towers made from both Dark Souls and the Metroidvania games and built the Burj Khalifa out of them. Does this analogy connote that Hollow Knight eclipses its influences, making it the grandest example of its genre? Arguably, yes. Hollow Knight is a pristine experience without the same blemishes that marred its inspirations in every single aspect. Gameplay as rich as cheesecake is implemented in a breathtakingly bountiful world that beguiled me into going the distance to save it from utter destruction, and that world is filled with a bunch of bugs for Christ's sake! The fact that this masterpiece was developed by only a trio of people with a shoestring budget shows that there are gods among us, and they’re held up in a game studio in Australia. Hollow Knight doesn’t competently emulate its influences made by major developers: it blows them out of the water with an atomic bomb. Because of this, Hollow Knight is the Macbeth of indie gaming that could kill the kings of the triple-A industry.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

With BioShock being a smashing success in gaming’s most seminal year of 2007, the prospect of a sequel was inevitable. However, from an artistic standpoint, it was argued that there was no stone unturned in Andrew Ryan’s idyllic, decayed dystopia of Rapture after the events of the first game. Via the perspective of Jack, the player scrounged about the drowned metropolis and uncovered the full extent of its biblical downfall and the context of Jack’s personal placement in the lore of its ghastly history. A substantial factor in the effectiveness of the sublime underwater setting was the sense of mystique that unraveled once the player progressed through its withered, neon-lit corridors. Jack was forced through the most circuitous means of exiting Rapture, hence why the player most likely should’ve gained a learned experience of the Rapture during the ordeal. Since we’ve already been given the grand tour of Rapture (albeit in the least welcoming way imaginable), why would 2K feel the need to grace us with yet another excursion around the city? Money: the short answer is money. Like any other acclaimed release, 2K wanted to take advantage of BioShock’s overwhelming commendation while the iron was still hot, even if releasing a sequel conflicted with the core of why everyone was commending the game. “BioShock is a work of art”, a summation of the game’s exceptional quality written so frequently that putting the conclusive blurb in quotes is meant to highlight its enigmatic ubiquity. While BioShock was not the first video game that featured plot twists and notable philosophical constructs interwoven in the fabric of its world and narrative ethos, it benefited greatly from being designed as a first-person shooter during the genesis point of the genre’s time in the commercial limelight. To the masses, BioShock was something of a high-brow FPS game, even if immersive sim veterans that played System Shock knew that the game was lacking in the gameplay depth department compared to its PC predecessor. Still, BioShock’s accolades were deserved on the merit of its world-building, lore, and storytelling, three aspects that a sequel usually fails to retain its impact because it uses all of the strengths of the first game as an easy crutch. The only way that BioShock 2 could prove its worth as a sequel is by offering an experience that was radically original, and it certainly didn’t do that.

Firstly, BioShock 2 fails to inspire any new sense of awe and intrigue because its setting is still Rapture. The sunken society already went through the rigor mortis process before Jack arrived, and his frenzied adventure through this corpse of a city abused its dilapidated foundation to the point where it’s unrecognizable. BioShock 2 revisits this dead metropolis with a similar sense of shamelessness as a necrophiliac, defiling all notions of a once marvelous spectacle for the sake of familiarity. However, the developers have pulled what Team Silent did for subsequent visitations to Silent Hill in that franchise's sequels to keep the freshness in using the same setting. BioShock 2 features a whole new slew of levels conveniently districted off from each area from the first game. We thought the ones from the first game provided a detailed crash course history into the lore of Rapture, but each area of BioShock 2 attempts to expound on the underwater civilization’s history even more. “Siren Alley” is Rapture’s red-light district and considering all the women of the night here are gnarly, gangly Splicers with most of their teeth and skin missing, it erases any arousal associated with its implications. The outer area of the Persephone district is a high-security prison to hold Rapture’s criminally insane and their political malcontents, while the exterior of the area is a hospital designated for those prisoners. “Fontaine Futuristics” is the heart of the first game’s main antagonist lucrative plasmid operation, and “Ryan Amusements” is a propagandist amusement park meant to deter Rapture’s children from the “horrifying” surface world while they take part in carnival merriment. In reality, this level I mentioned sounds more interesting on paper than it really is in execution. These new districts of Rapture comprise areas that have intriguing premises, but they lack the gravitas of those from the first game. Compare “Dionysus Park” to “Fort Frolic,” two areas with a similar connection to Rapture’s artistic endeavors, and the former falter on all fronts. Sander Cohen’s theatrical monument of his madness was a distinctive destination that encapsulated me and most others with its majestic, yet unnerving spectacle. Even for the other areas that weren’t as explicitly dominated by one of Rapture’s forsaken figures, their presence was still a driving force in the area they occupied. This area’s significance is explained by Sofia Lamb or Sinclair signaling in exposition to the player, which is the same for every other area in BioShock 2. The game’s progression is as tied down to further the story as a titanium anchor, and the fact that a one-way transit system is a vehicle to travel to these places without ever returning to the previous area. BioShock 2 doesn’t let the player breathe and let the oppressive atmosphere of Rapture weigh on them like the pressure of roaming around the ocean floor should feel. It’s a shame considering all of these new levels had the potential to be delved into more thoroughly.

BioShock 2 may take place years after the events of the first game, but the plot conflict the story is centered around was catalyzed a few years before Jack’s eventful plunge. BioShock 2’s protagonist is a Big Daddy, but not one of the lumbering, moaning tanks seen in the first game. “Delta” is a prototype Big Daddy that is taller and more limber than his bulkier counterparts, and his claim to fame is being the first of his kind to form a bond with a Little Sister as her violent protector. On New Year's Eve 1958, Delta is forced to provoke his wrath on a group of Splicers who thirst for the delectable ADAM that his Little Sister houses. During the scuffle, a stern-looking bespectacled lady somehow possesses the will to force this scuba-geared brute to submit to kill himself by shooting himself in the head with a pistol, with his Little Sister looking on in complete shock and horror. Nine years later, Delta reawakens from his decade-spanning coma from the power of another Little Sister, and his mission is to reunite with his original Little Sister by turning over every nook and cranny in Rapture.

The introduction sets the scene for the whole game effectively enough, but there is a Big Daddy-sized elephant in the room pertaining to the source of the game’s conflict. Sofia Lamb, BioShock 2’s main antagonist, is not simply Eleanor’s jilted mother saving her daughter from the twisted Little Sister system that besets so many of Rapture’s female youths. She’s as crucial a figure in Rapture’s history as Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine, or at least the game would have you believe she is. In fact, she’s been appointed the leader of Rapture after Jack bludgeoned its founder with a golf club and also ousted the competitor that led him to do so , so one can infer that she’s been lurking around Rapture’s flooded corners for quite some time. The game will have us convinced that Sofia Lamb didn’t need to make her presence in the first game due to her being irrelevant to the power struggle between Ryan and Fontaine, even if she managed to plant herself on the throne at her utmost convenience smoothly. However, in a game whose setting is given context through the lore journals of the figures that built and broke Rapture, one would think that a person among the essential elder statesmen would at least be mentioned once in the first game. Hell, the southern Sinclair and esteemed scientist Gil Alexander, two prominent characters in BioShock 2, are spoken of in the first game’s audio logs if one pays close attention. The developers obviously shoehorned in the game’s primary villain that they conjured up on the spot when a sequel was announced. Any character even whispered as a footnote in the first game could’ve been a suitable main antagonist, elucidating more on Rapture’s history that could have center-stage prominence in a sequel. As an antagonist regardless of her sudden appearance, Sofia Lamb in the position of the city’s ruler doesn’t evoke the same sense of omniscient dread as Andrew Ryan did. I guess a city formulated by philosophies of utilitarianism doesn’t spell out the same harrowing potential of Ryan’s objectivism.

Either that or BioShock’s atmosphere doesn’t exude the same feeling of overwhelming dread because playing as a Big Daddy compromises on that “stranger in a strange land” perspective that marked Jack’s adventure. Using Resident Evil as a prime example, controlling someone of a stronger disposition than the average Joe tends to reduce all of the horrors into cannon fodder for their eclectic arsenal. However, the player will find that playing as Delta isn’t too dissimilar to playing as Jack. The additional weight of a Big Daddy’s suit is not a gameplay detriment, and that fish-eye lens of the scuba helmet that clogged the player’s peripheral vision in that climactic section of the first game is only visible in the corners. The player has the option to remove any trace of the helmet from their view in the game’s menu. Many of the same weapons that Jack used to defend himself from the ADAM-addled Splicers return for Delta, but seemingly only the high-octane ones that blaze through enemies in seconds. The machine gun, the shotgun, and the explosive launcher cement their roles as the most effective tools of destruction. The crossbow has been refashioned as a spear gun with its own alternate ammo, and Big Daddy’s trademark industrial-strength arm drill has replaced the piddly wrench as the melee weapon. The only new and unique addition to the armed, steampunk collective is the Rivet Gun, which functions as a nail gun with the power to kill a gorilla if being shot at by the Rosy variant of Big Daddys from the first game didn’t already make that clear enough. If the surprisingly swift movement of playing as a Big Daddy doesn’t immerse the player into the role, the reduction of all the “wuss weapons” that Jack carried around, along with the redundant Chemical Thrower, will make the player feel practically impervious. My only wish is that the developers could’ve brainstormed some new plasmids to diversify the methods of Splicer murder. Adding only the Drill and Rivet Gun to the selection of weapons may seem sparse, but the developers didn’t even bother to implement new ones into the mix, and only omitted the handy “Sonic Boom” plasmid. The only smidge of difference is combining the “Enrage” and “Hypnotize Big Daddy” plasmids for a minute quality of life enhancement. Still, I surely thought that a Big Daddy would possess some unique plasmid types to use.

BioShock also brings many other quality-of-life improvements to the table that makes the gameplay much smoother and more accessible. If the game insists on wearing the first game’s identity like a heated space blanket, then the developers should at least improve on the first game’s nitpicks with the advantage of hindsight that comes with a direct sequel. While a Big Daddy does not have a varied range of new plasmids at his disposal, one thing he can do beyond Jack’s capabilities is dual-wield the plasmids and firearms in combat. Gone are the days of alternating between both arms, using the elemental forces as supplementary means of support to blasting enemies with a barrage of bullets and explosives. Charging up “Electro-Bolt '' or “Incinerate” to deal with a chain reaction like Delta is The Emperor from Star Wars or a fire-breathing dragon is satisfyingly deadly. Hacking the water-damaged machines scattered around Rapture only requires a reaction-time intensive mini-game, and accurately timing the compass needle on the blue and green bars will generously reward the player with free items along with the manual discount. Delta’s toolkit also comes with a remote hacking weapon that shoots a dart from a distance to trigger the hacking mini-game, which of course is convenient for dealing with security cameras and turrets. As someone who didn’t mind connecting the pipes in the first game, I still can’t deny that the simpler, streamlined approach that doesn’t completely halt the game’s pacing is objectively better. The research camera that took informative polaroids of enemies has been upgraded to the 20th century with a film camera that directs the targeted enemy for a short time and grades the player on their methods of disposal. Film in this camera also can’t be exhausted, so the player is no longer required to buy film at a dispensary. Quality of life improvements are indisputably the quintessential perk of BioShock 2, yet the developers still forgot to add any consequence to dying. The Vita-Chambers will continue to resurrect the player without even requiring a small fee for their troubles. The enemy that knocked the player to the ground will now have a small amount of their health replenished, but this can be easily reduced.

If you couldn’t infer from BioShock 2’s plot premise, the Little Sister and Big Daddy dynamic that the player had the option to entertain in the first game is front and center in the narrative. Despite his role as a Big Daddy, Delta is still faced with the same opportunities to free the young girls from the clutches of his peers or reduce them to nothing but their coveted cores similar to Jack. One core difference this optional mechanic presents as opposed to Jack is that Delta can adopt a Little Sister before exercising them and dropping them off at the pipelines in the walls, or at least if they are inclined not to harvest them. The Little Sister will adorably ride on Delta’s shoulder like a little girl would do with an adult parental figure, and it’s adorable. Still, I wish they would refer to me as “Mr. B” like all the other Big Daddys instead of “Daddy” because of the eerily kinky implications. Porn has done a number on my brain, I tell ya. More so than a prop or trophy, carrying around a Little Sister gives Delta the opportunity to gather more ADAM from a select number of corpses strewn across the map. The process mirrors that of the climactic point of the first game when Jack posed as a Big Daddy, with Splicers ambushing the poor girl and killing her on sight. However, this is much more manageable because the player can prepare before setting the Little sister down to go to work on the body. I consider this voluntary excursion to be another quality-of-life improvement because the game doesn’t punish me for my moral decision to save the Little Sisters, and the much-needed high quantity of ADAM for tonics and plasmids can be supplemented through this action.

The types of Splicers, along with the weapons, have been somewhat reduced. Apparently, this district of Rapture encompasses the territory of the Leadhead and Houdini Splicers, with the new addition of the hulked-out Brute Splicer to charge at Delta and throw debris at him. Alpha Series Big Daddys will appear later in the game as hostile enemy types without the accompaniment of a Little Sister, and they’re much less resilient than the advanced models we are used to fighting. Each of these enemies still invades the dank halls of Rapture’s remnants, but the variation is a little lacking. The one standout new enemy type that strikes fear in the hearts of the player as the Big Daddies do is the Big Sisters: the gender-swapped, lankier version of the Big Daddy. One of these deep-sea ladies kidnaps the Little Sister that resurrected Delta at the beginning, and confronting her is not a facile duel. In fact, I’d say that the Big Sisters are much more formidable foes than their male counterparts due to their lightning-fast agility along with hitting Delta like a Mack truck. After the first encounter with one, they’ll keep appearing after Delta saves every Little Sister in an area, signaled by a shriek so shrill that it blurs the screen. I don’t understand why the Big Sisters insist on attacking me after I liberate the Little Sisters from their possessed state of being, considering that they are adult versions of Little Sisters themselves. I never chose to harvest a single Little Sister in my playthrough, so perhaps they attack Delta whether or not he exhibits strong moral fiber. Maybe the Big Sister can’t help but be hysterical (that’s the game being sexist, not me).

Speaking of adult Little Sisters, the game’s plot really begins to unfold as soon as Eleanor makes her first contact with Delta after their ten-year-long hiatus. We learn of Delta’s origin as he was forced to become a Big Daddy when Andrew Ryan intercepted the suspicion that he was a spy from the surface world. The tip-off came from a Rapture lothario named Stanley Poole, who the player has the choice of killing or sparing out of forgiveness upon learning this revelation. It’s important to keep choices like these in mind because they directly affect the outcome of the six possible endings. Once Delta finally makes his way to Eleanor’s chamber, Sofia Lamb severs their bond by smothering Eleanor with a pillow, thus rendering Delta unconscious as a result. Eleanor sends another Little Sister to Delta’s rescue once again and after he regains consciousness. The duo reunites with Eleanor now donning the age-appropriate Big Sister outfit, and Delta can sic her on Splicers and the Alpha series Daddies with one of the only new plasmids that the game offers. Sinclair, the man who has been directing Delta towards the course of freedom, is transformed into a Big Daddy by Sofia Lamb and must be disposed of to stop Delta and Eleanor from using his escape pod. A tenacious Sofia Lamb floods the area and leaves Delta mortally wounded as a result. This final resolution in the narrative can ignite a myriad of different possibilities. As mentioned before, not only will saving the Little Sisters coincide with how the game resolves, but there are also three notable figures involved. Naturally, the bad ending in which a spurned Eleanor leaves with your powers out of spite occurs when you do nothing but harvest the Little Sisters. The good ending involves Eleanor preserving Delta’s consciousness for a lifelong bond between them, and the neutral ending is a more complicated mix of leaving Delta behind as he dies. The choices to spare the lives of Grace, Stanley, and Gil factor in whether or not Eleanor kills a drowning Sofia. The multitude of different outcomes depending on the player’s actions are far more intricate than the narrow few offered in the first game, so the stodgy critics no longer have to worry about dying of ludonarrative dysentery.

Ultimately, the substance of the plot in a BioShock game stands on pointing out the hypocrisy of the Rapture’s current leader as a scathing critique of a real-world philosophy. Sofia Lamb’s ideologies may not be as insane as Ryan’s, but she’s anything but benevolent. Her stern, schoolmarm iciness makes Nurse Ratched seem like a barrel of laughs. It’s the way that she conducts her means of utilitarianism that makes her a hypocrite. Actually, her views fall under the umbrella of a more severe ideology known as collectivism. Her whole prerogative for severing the ties between Eleanor and Delta was so she could keep Eleanor in close reach to use her as a machine for something referred to as “Utopia.” She finds nothing wrong with torturing Gil Alexander or Sinclair, or potentially killing her own daughter under the guise of her actions being for the good of the general population. It’s incredibly transparent that all she’s doing is for herself. Giving the Little Sisters their freedom as Delta infuriates her, for it exceeds her comprehension of a Big Daddy having his own free will to choose and allow the girls to escape the ADAM-driven hive mind that she desperately wishes to control. Even the antithesis of Ryan’s laissez-faire approach is shown to be the opposite side of the same coin, with one individual dominating over everyone else.

BioShock did not need a sequel, or at least it didn't from an artistic standpoint. BioShock 2 still sold like hotcakes because that is what the developers set out to do with their hot FPS trailblazer. I should lambaste BioShock 2 for merely existing as a product of capitalist opportunity, but I can’t criticize a game too harshly for its intentions. After all, every sequel is an inherent means to reap the benefits of popularity while they still can. BioShock 2’s problem is that the developers did an insultingly little amount to discern it from the first game. I’ve seen identical twins with more genetic variation than in BioShock 1 and 2. One could make the argument that Bioshock 2 is a better game from a mechanical standpoint, and I might be inclined to agree based on the number of admirable quality-of-life improvements. Still, I also can’t commend BioShock 2 for including these as its point of substance, for it’s all minuscule in the grand scheme of things. BioShock 2 couldn’t surpass the aesthetic and atmosphere, nor the gripping story of the first game, and that’s what made its predecessor a gigantic hit. Unfortunately, BioShock 2 cannot blossom under the shadow of the first BioShock, but it seems like it always wanted to be shadowed by it in the first place.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

Jak II was most likely a difficult transition for Naughty Dog. After practically perfecting the 3D collectathon platformer with the first Jak And Daxter, the franchise immediately risked peaking at just the first game. How does one surpass something that is arguably the most exemplary piece of media in its respective field? Does one just try to replicate it by trying the same thing and hope for the same results? No, and that’s definitely not what Naughty Dog did. Naughty Dog took two years of development to rebuild the series from the ground up, going in a radically new direction. Naughty Dog set out for the sequel to Jak And Daxter to be bolder, more ambitious, and much more mature than its predecessor. Naughty Dog succeeded with flying colors as this game was praised by every outlet at the time. Most critics lauded this game for its story, presentation, and smooth gameplay calling it one of the most impressive games on the PS2 at the time. However, the contrarians to this praise were just as vocal and consistent with their discrepancies with this game. These critics wrote off Jak II as a “Grand Theft Auto clone”, cynically alluding to the open-world direction the developers took as opposed to the collectathon 3D platformer style of the first game. While the GTA influence in Jak II is very noticeable, the game is anything but derivative. The critics that wrote these shallow claims failed to see the nuance of Jak II. It’s a sequel that is much more inspired than just copying a template. It’s a sequel that manages to offer something different without straying too far from its platformer roots.

The opening cutscene starts us off in the familiar Sandover Village with another voice-over from Samos introducing us to another adventure. Immediately as the characters from the first game are in view, you’ll notice that the character animations have improved significantly. The jagged edges present in the graphics of the first game have literally been smoothed out. Subtitles can also be turned on for every cutscene, giving them much more impressive, cinematic quality. Remember what I said about the first game looking like it could be a cartoon series? The presentation in Jak II could practically be an animated feature film. That’s the caliber of what Jak II immediately has to offer.

The opening cutscene might be confusing to those who didn’t get the true ending of the first game. If you collect every power cell, you open a gate at the top of Gol and Maia’s Citadel with all of them, and the characters are awe-stricken by a blinding white light emanating from it. Somehow, they managed to drag this gate down the entire map of the first game to Samos’s hut. It must be the heavy lifting Daxter refers to in the opening cutscene. The characters from the first game are ready to go through the gate with a machine that Keira built when the sky turns an ominous purple, and a giant, hideous beast appears from it, threatening Jak. Once the machine blows up during the warping process, Jak and Daxter are separated from Samos and Keira and are spat out into an urban area with a giant tower and flying zoomers everywhere. A group of armored goons knocks out Jak with the butt of a gun. Daxter escapes, promising Jak that he’ll come and rescue him. Two years later, Jak is tortured in a murky, dark prison by two menacing characters. Before Jak is disposed of, Daxter finally comes to his rescue. They escape from the prison to find themselves in Haven City, an industrial cesspool of a city led by the ruthless Baron Praxis, one of the menacing figures torturing Jak from before. Throughout the game, Jak becomes the acting figure force in a group referred to as “the underground”, a group of rebels whose mission is to overthrow Baron Praxis and put the rightful leader of Haven City in his place. Jak’s motivations for working for them are more like a revenge story ala Oldboy, getting back at The Baron for experimenting on him for two excruciating years.

As you can probably tell, things are a little different in Jak II. Once you retrieve the banner from Deadtown after the first real mission of the game, our heroes do the victory dance from the first game with the familiar jingle. The structure under them collapses into the mud, and their victory becomes a perilous escape, swiftly reminding them that they’re not in Kansas anymore. Jak II’s setting, tone, and overall direction are a far cry from the first game's inviting, fantastic world. Haven City is essentially the video game equivalent of North Korea (although North Korea is shockingly even worse). The city comprises many unique areas like the docks, the bazaar, the slums, etc., but all of them look like they are drowning in a depressing sea of famine and pestilence with a total lack of morale. This contrasts with the Baron’s tower, a behemoth of a building that eclipses every part of Haven City like the moon in Majora’s Mask, with just as much of a foreboding presence. The Baron’s tower signifies an absolute imbalance of class, resources, and stability. Haven City is destitute, and it’s hanging by a thread. There were more hostile areas of the first Jak And Daxter, but none of them felt as depleted as Haven City as a whole. There is a monumental depression throughout the entire city.

In terms of the new gameplay mechanics, several of them do warrant the Grand Theft Auto comparisons. The primary way of traversing Haven City is via zoomer, but it’s not the same as the first game. Zoomers have become the commercialized car model of the future; whether it be because Keira was a technological innovator or they are now cheap motor vehicles for the impoverished citizens of Haven City is unclear. Some are light and fast, and some are more durable and compact. I much prefer the durable ones because they can take more damage. Considering how many obstacles there are in Haven City to run into, picking a lighter one will normally result in the thing exploding and damaging you. Eventually, Jak will get a jet-board to ride around on, but doing this greatly increases the chance of hitting someone with it and altering the Krimson Guards. The vehicles are the only practical option. The vehicles aren’t the aspect that reminds me of GTA, however. It’s the fact that the only way to get into one is to steal it. Jak leaps from the ground to snatch a bystander’s zoomer like a frog’s tongue to a fly. Vehicles are lying around many of the popular mission spots, but these zoomers are probably parked there by someone else, which doesn’t help Jak’s case. Fortunately, the real owner of the car always complies with Jak, jumping out of the vehicle even if it’s over a body of water. If they didn’t, Jak might have to boost this game’s rating with his new arsenal of toys.

If the carjackings in this game don’t remind you of GTA, the guns certainly will. After the first few missions, Jak will receive a gun from the underground mob boss, Krew. Jak starts with one weapon but acquires new mods for it as the game progresses. Each gun mod is different, and utilizing all of them in certain scenarios is the optimal way to succeed in the hefty, combat-based missions of this game. Jak starts with the scattergun, a weapon that acts as a shotgun that is great for killing enemies at short range, killing a large number of smaller enemies, or pushing an enemy off of a cliff with sheer force. Soon after, Jak gets the blaster, which is pretty self-explanatory. It’s a long-range rifle great for shooting at enemies from far away. It can also be combined with Jak’s punch, and spin kick moves for some effective combos. The jumping spin kick move seems a popular way to dispose of many enemies as blaster bullets will fly from five different directions. It’s effective most of the time, but I wouldn’t use it as a crutch. The Vulcan Cannon disperses a large number of bullets at a breakneck speed and is probably the most useful weapon in the game for a large number of enemies and for the sturdier enemies. Last but certainly not least, the Peacemaker is a high-powered missile launcher that blasts big balls of energy at enemies. It’s the most powerful weapon in Jak’s arsenal, but it, unfortunately, appears very late in the game and the ammo for it is always very sparse. Personally, I think the guns in Jak II are much too fictitious to be comparable to the authentic models of firearms in Grand Theft Auto. Come to think of it, so are the flying cars. Grand Theft Auto’s graphic nature comes with its sense of fair realism, whereas Jak II is still too fantasy-based to be comparable. I guess anything with guns and a moral grey is the pinnacle of mature content in gaming.

Jak also has an internal weapon. Because Baron Praxis experimented on Jak with dark eco for two years, Jak sometimes transforms into what is known as “Dark Jak.” After collecting a certain amount of dark eco from crates and enemies, the L2 button will trigger Dark Jak. His hair gets bigger, he erects giant claws from his hands like Wolverine, and he radiates a dark purple color that clings to him like static. Dark Jak is a tougher, faster, temporary boost to Jak’s primary moveset. He moves much more erratically and takes less damage when he gets hit. Once you turn back to normal, the Dark Jak gauge completely resets, and you’ll have to collect enough dark eco to trigger Dark Jak again, which can take a while. I recommend using Dark Jak conservatively, only using it in tight sections with many enemies. There is a place in the Water Slums housing an oracle from the first game that can upgrade Dark Jak and give him a few new moves like the Dark Jak bomb and the Dark Jak wave. Both are super moves that wipe out every enemy in the vicinity and drain your entire gauge, so using them in a pinch is the right way to utilize them. As cool as Dark Jak is, I never found myself using it. This isn’t because the gauge has to charge up after using it, but because the guns are useful enough to deal with anything in the game. Dark Jak is more of an aspect of Jak’s character arc than a useful tool for combat.

It’s very helpful that the game gives you all of these tools at your disposal because one thing Jak II is remembered for is its notorious difficulty. A slight criticism I made about the first game was that it was a tad easy, but this is definitely not the case for Jak II. Jak II will do its best to bombard you with enemies, give green eco health cubes parsimoniously, and sometimes forget to implement checkpoints during missions. Jak II’s difficulty curb feels like having a chronic illness. Sometimes, the difficulty is merciful and manageable. Other times, it hits you like a punch to the kidneys. This inconsistent range of difficulty is present throughout the game. One of the hardest missions is as early as just the fourth mission in the game. Jak runs through a factory getting chased by a tank, but the player’s perspective during this mission is the green visor, the first-person perspective of the tank. It’s constantly targeting Jak while it tries to mow him down, and there are other laser-guided turrets on all sides. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few people quit this game this early on because of this mission. This is even before Jak gets his first gun. Contrastly, one of the last missions in the game is a simple route on the jet board to get on a large crate to crush some metalhead eggs in the strip mine. Debating on the hardest mission in the game is not a uniform choice for those who have played this game. It could be the sewer escort mission with Haven City’s Three Stooges gawking the whole time. It could be racing Erol through the entire city and hitting every accelerator ring along the way, or any of the other racing missions, really. It could be any mission with the clunky titan suit that controls as stiffly as a paralyzed cat. In my opinion, the pinnacle of difficulty is the water slum mission in the middle of the game. Jak has to retrieve an artifact from the water slums and carry it out in one piece. Jak only has a little way to get out of the slums, so it should be easy, right? Wrong. Every Krimson Guard the city has on-call ambushes Jak with everything they’ve got. Hordes jump out of their ships to shoot you from all directions. Jak can’t get past them because the ships are guaranteed to shoot you. Jak can’t use the jet-board in the water because a bot will kill you on sight. This is the only mission in the game that requires a concrete strategy to get past. It also might catch you off guard because the mission doesn’t have a beginning cutscene to give you an idea of what you’ll be up against. If you don’t have enough ammo before this mission, you’ll need to pray to get past it.

Even with all of these radical changes from the first Jak And Daxter, labeling this game as “adolescent Grand Theft Auto” still doesn’t ring true to me. This game still balances plenty of elements from the first game to keep it in the realm of the 3D platformer. As Jak escapes the prison, Daxter reminds him of his old moves. Jak can still punch, spin, kick, double jump, roll, and uppercut like he could in the previous game. In my experience, the characters in open-world games, especially around the PS2 era, were not as acrobatic. Jak still plays like a platformer character. Does the gritty world of Haven City accommodate the old platformer moves from the first game? In the hub of the city, it’s debatable. The old platformer mechanics shine in the sub-levels of Haven City. Most of the missions take place in areas that branch off of the main Haven City hub. It’s in these places that Jak II embraces its platforming roots. The aforementioned Deadtown is a crumbling ruin of a previous Haven City settlement, now infested with metal heads. The eroding platforms here will test your jumping abilities. The dig site is a volcanic cave where you have to climb and swing your way to a piece of an artifact. The Pumping Station requires using the pumps to jump to higher areas. I don’t think I’ve seen any of this in a Grand Theft Auto game, but this is certainly reminiscent of what you do in the first Jak And Daxter. My favorite sub-level in Haven City is the Mountain Temple/Forest area because they both feel like an area from the first game. This level feels far removed from the grit and grime of the rest of Haven City. Precursor architecture makes up the foreground of these green hills, making it seem like this area hasn’t been adulterated by the corruption of the time. If not for the camouflaged metal heads, this place would seem like a great place to have a picnic. It will also test your jumping abilities, namely the falling rock part.

The obligatory platformer collectibles also make a return in Jak II. Like the first game, it restrains itself to only a few collectibles, but none of them are really worth much. Whenever you kill a metal head, an incandescent egg pops out of its head. This is a skull gem that is used to upgrade Dark Jak and give him new moves. Considering I seldom used Dark Jak, the skull gems become worthless after the first few upgrades. It doesn’t help that you can’t farm for the skull gems because they don’t reset, and the oracle requires a substantial amount of them for the later upgrades. Precursor orbs make a return, but not as a form of currency. Precursor orbs unlock fun extras like “big head mode” and “unlimited Dark Jak”. It’s a good thing that precursor orbs are made trivial in this game because collecting all of them is even more taxing than it is in the first game. Instead of 50-200 scattered about across a level, they hide in the crevices of the sub-levels, and there is no way to know how many are left. The completionist scavenger hunt is definitely not worth the trouble.

The hybrid nature of Jak II’s gameplay, combining platforming and an open-world shooter, gives it a unique style that hadn't been seen in too many other games of the time. The game balances both styles of gameplay fluidly with spectacular presentation accentuating it. I still don’t buy the argument that Naughty Dog implemented all of these features out of left-field because of the impact of GTA III. Open-world gameplay was the logical evolution from the first Jak And Daxter. If you consider the world of the first game, the seamless nature of it is practically an open world as it is. One could pinpoint every area of the first Jak And Daxter without any geographical blindspots. One could argue that there were barriers between the levels, but the same could be said about the areas of some of the most popular open-world games. Is San Andreas not an open-world game because you can’t go to San Francisco immediately, or Mexico in Red Dead Redemption? Jak II also has these barriers as you need a colored clearance to access many areas of Haven City. It’s all a matter of how the world in the game is organized and presented. The aspect of Jak II that furthers its identity in the open-world genre is the missions.

The open-world direction also comes with many aspects usually lacking in the 3D platformer genre. Open-world games tend to be story-driven and feature an eclectic cast of characters more fleshed out than the frequent figures you meet in a 3D platformer. The ensemble cast of characters in Jak II is one of my favorites in gaming. Each character, old or new, good or evil, human or animal, is appealing in its own unique ways. The new characters in this game wouldn’t have found a place in the first game, and the old characters have matured gracefully.

Jak is obviously the character from the first game that has had the most radical transformation (literally). The 3D platformer is often a silent protagonist as a simple character to envelope the player into being a relatively faceless avatar. This does not work in the open-world game because of the cinematic nature of the genre. Jak II gives Jak a voice and a relatively brooding one to compliment his confident, aggressive demeanor. Jak is motivated by anger and seeks retribution for the two years of torture he had to undergo in the Baron’s prison. To do this, he’s willing to wade through the muck of Haven City by doing difficult odd jobs for the underground and making deals with the seedy mob boss, Krew. He’s no longer the clean, hopeful prodigal being that Samos made him out to be. He’s a man now with his own agenda, which can verge on the morally grey side at times. I wouldn’t label Jak as an anti-hero because everything he does is for a greater cause, whether his intentions to do so are or not. He also still cares deeply for his friends and the world he lives in. Fleshing out Jak’s role as the protagonist to deviate from the 3D platformer avatar made him so much more interesting.

Daxter may have been cut from the title, but his presence is just as constant as in the first game. Daxter was a bit hard to stomach in the first game, but he’s my favorite character in the sequel. The developers took the time to refine his role as the comic-relief sidekick. He’s much less shrill in this game than he used to be, and his comedic prowess is more well-tuned. His role as the comic-relief character is elevated because of the contrast between the dark world of this game and the serious characters. He banters well with every character, including Jak, but my favorite scenes with him are when he’s bantering with Krew. Daxter turns into Jeff Ross whenever he’s in Krew’s saloon. Daxter certainly has plenty of material to work with, considering Krew is a disgusting blob who has to breathe heavily every five seconds after he speaks. The first game didn’t need Daxter because the foreground was bright and hopeful. In the sequel, the game probably would’ve been too drab without him. Samos and Keira are launched in different directions from Jak And Daxter, so both characters are separated from the two. Samos is the same stern, patriarchal figure he is in the first game. His role in this game is an origin story that explains how he became the green sage and how he became Jak’s guardian. Keira is still the vivacious wiz-kid she was, but she’s a little more cynical because of the setting she’s been placed in. She’s veiled behind a curtain as a racing mechanic for most of the game and doesn’t recognize Jak because he can talk now. How Daxter refrained from flirting with her is an uncharacteristic move on his part, but she eventually reveals herself after she realizes it’s Jak And Daxter. She’s a bit perturbed about Jak’s transformation and dealings with Krew, so her role as Jak’s love interest is challenged, making her place in the series more interesting.

From the perspective of Jak and the player, meeting the new characters in Jak II can be an anxious affair. They are much different from the folksy characters from the first game. The armor-clad, gruff-speaking, tattooed, determined characters can be intimidating at first, but they become endearing as the game progresses. Every character’s quirks and personality are the sum of the charming whole of the game. Torn is the first character Jak meets after breaking out of prison. He’s the prime tactician for the underground movement, motivated by the atrocities he witnessed while serving the Baron as a Krimson Guard. He looks, sounds, and probably smells like a walking cigarette. This is probably because he conducts his plans out of a dingy bunker in the slums, where the lighting is dim, and the pipes give him sludge instead of water. He’s a no-nonsense guy, and the fact that he’s still motivated while living under these conditions shows his strength as a character. He gives you most of your first jobs and progressively grows to admire Jak. Assisting Torn in the movement is a whole cast of great characters. Kor is an experienced old man who looks after a kid, supposedly the real heir to Haven City. Vin is the technician assigned to keep an omniscient watch over the metalheads and keep track of the city’s shield walls. His anxious energy and elevated paranoia are always a joy to experience. Tess is an underground spy who takes up a bartending position at Krew’s saloon. She’s a flirty girl who takes up a bizarre love interest for Daxter. Is it Daxter’s confidence that won her over?

Playing both sides on the field is Ashelin, the Baron’s daughter, who has a different sense of diplomacy than her father. If this game wasn’t rated T because of the guns and the swearing, Ashelin is the teenage boy’s masturbatory fantasy that makes it so. She’s also strong-willed and as passionate about changing things as Torn is. Other characters such as Onin, the blind soothsayer, and her Spanish parrot-monkey hybrid assistant Pecker come into play to give Jak guidance in finding the secrets of Haven City. Pecker is hilarious, and so are his fights with Daxter, a contested rivalry between two obnoxious animal sidekicks. My favorite new character is Sig, a wastelander who finds treasures and artifacts for Krew outside of the city walls. He’s intimidating at first, but he proves to be a softy on the inside, and I love that he uses different fruits as terms of endearment for his comrades.

The foreground of the open-world game naturally fleshes out each character. This is definitely the same for the villains of this game. Gol and Maia were villains with cliched motives and weren’t so fleshed out because the game’s simplicity didn’t call for it. The villains in Jak II are cruel, cold-blooded sociopaths that mirror the worst characteristics of real-life people. The Baron is one of the greatest villains in video game history because of how mighty his presence is in Haven City. It’s also because of how despicable he is. He’s a compassionless ego-maniac who is always on a rampage to bolster it, always at the cost of the people he rules. He took a young Jak off the streets by force to torture him for two years under his “dark eco-program”, an idea to create a powerful warrior by experimenting on civilians. The fact that he took a kid by force to torture is bad enough, but the more unnerving picture is that Jak probably wasn’t the first person he abducted for this project, and the ones that succumbed to being injected with dark eco and dying just proved to be an annoyance for him. He also makes clandestine deals with the opposing side of the war to have the metal heads attack the city, giving his rule a fabricated reason to continue. He’s a dictator without the charismatic facade. He rules with an iron fist that will crush anyone who opposes him. When he dies during the third act of this game, he doesn’t atone for his mistakes with his final breath. He rather tells Jak that he’s proud of himself because he thinks he gave Jak the potential to stop the metal heads with his experiments. He thinks that if Jak succeeds, he will be credited for his ingenuity. His unscrupulous attitude right up to the end is why he’s a fantastic villain. The game makes you hate The Baron as much as Jak does. The Baron’s right-hand man Erol is a sadistic lunatic with an ego that rivals his leader. He’s the one who ambushes Jak and takes him to jail by force which is a huge part of Jak’s dark transformation. He’s not conducting experiments with the Baron to make a weapon but because he gets pleasure in torturing others. He forms a symbiotic rivalry with Jak once Jak becomes a beacon of hope for the people of Haven City. He salivates at the opportunity to defeat Jak while Jak’s at his peak of popularity, not just to dash the hopes of the city. He wants to crush his relationship with Keira, his pride, and his confidence as a hero and then flick him away like a crippled ant. He’s as twisted as they come.

Backing both of these monsters are the Krimson Guards, the police of Haven City, and the force of the Baron’s reign. These guards are everywhere in Haven City and will dispose of Jak at the drop of a dime if you cause any problems in the city. Unfortunately, doing so is pretty easy because they are hard to avoid while driving or using the jet-board. The drive to every mission will likely accompany the intense Krimson Guard chase theme. They will ambush Jak with sheer numbers, blasting him with their guns and shocking him with their short-ranged electric beams. They come in red and yellow armor, which is appropriate considering the Krimson Guards act like wasps. They come in large numbers, they are aggressive, and they will stop at nothing to protect their territory with force. In some missions, the Krimson Guards will make small talk with each other about trivial things like sports games and complain about meetings like they’re having water-cooler conversations. It almost humanizes the enemy's forces and makes you wonder about the morality of these men, like the Nazis serving Hitler.

The other enemy faction is the metal heads. They are vicious creatures that look like komodo dragons, attack like tigers, and come in various forms like the lurkers from the first game. To give you a scope of how dangerous these things are, the lurkers are now low-class slave labor in Haven City, making the enemies from the first game pitiable compared to the beasts in this game (the Krimson Guards included). Haven City is at war with them, which has apparently been the case for eons, as the war in the middle east. The metal heads are so beastly and formidable that the Krimson Guards are afraid of them. If the Krimson Guards are like wasps, the metal heads are like termites. They are an invasive species that tear apart the infrastructure of a city like clockwork, cementing themselves as the imminent nightmare of every citizen of Haven City.

Lastly, the open-world foreground gives way to a more fleshed-out, richer story than in the first game. While the story is more interesting, it’s also much more convoluted and confusing. The story of Jak II is divided into three acts that focus on a slightly different narrative per act. The first act is Jak’s introduction to Haven City, doing odd jobs for Krew and Torn to climb the ladder to his revenge. There is also a figure known as “The Shadow”, leading the underground movement. The odd jobs Jak does will prove his worth to The Shadow so he can converse with him. A mission in Deadtown at the end of the first act leads to an alarming surprise for Jak and Daxter; the place radiating energy is none other than Samos’s hut from the first game! They realize that the warp gate took them far into the future, and the oppressive, industrial Haven City is their world. It also turns out that “The Shadow” is a younger Samos in his radical revolution days. His younger self is the master of another green plant here if you know what I mean.

The second act is about uncovering the secrets of Haven City, namely a fabled precursor stone in the Tomb of Mar, the founder of Haven City, and this game’s biggest source of lore. Mar apparently was a driving force in the fight against the metal heads long ago but died before he could use his weapon against it: a cannon with an unbelievably powerful source. Now, that power source is hidden in his tomb, and Jak retrieves all of the artifacts to conquer the challenges of Mar’s Tomb. Before he gets the precursor stone, Praxis ambushes him and takes the stone, giving the underground’s mission a grim outlook.

The third act is Jak saving Haven City. The underground uncovers that Praxis is dealing with a power that he cannot comprehend. He plans to use the precursor stone as a weapon to blow a hole in the metal head nest, but he plans to crack the stone open to reveal its hidden power first. Doing so would cause a supernova of energy that would destroy everything. Meanwhile, Krew makes his own superweapon that blows a hole in the city’s walls. This causes metal heads to run rampant through the city, and the Krimson Guard forces fight to keep them back. Everything is in disarray on both sides except for one character, a “person” who has been playing for every faction in this game and whose own plan is falling into place. Kor, the old man working for the underground, reveals himself to be the metal head leader. To achieve his plan of ushering in the age of metal heads, he needs the precursor stone to unlock the last precursor inside and devour it. He kills Praxis to get the stone, but Praxis has hidden it in a bomb beneath the ground. Jak and Daxter take the stone to operate Mar’s cannon, blowing a hole in the metal head nest. They see the metal head leader with the heir of Mar, the mute kid he’s been seen with throughout the game. He reveals that this child is Jak and that Jak was hidden in the past by Samos to gain the skills to face him. Kid Jak is also the key to unlocking the precursor inside the stone, and adult Jak can’t open it because he’s been corrupted by dark eco. Jak defeats Kor, and the precursor is saved. Younger Samos uses the rift rider Keira built to take Jak to the past, thus starting the events of the first game. Haven City is saved, the characters celebrate, and Jak is again cock-blocked by Daxter, although this time it’s an accident. Time travel in fiction is already confusing, but there is a list of questions and continuity errors that come with this story: Didn’t Jak have an uncle in the first game? How could he be Jak’s uncle if Jak was born in the future? Was Keira born in the past? A younger Keira didn’t go through the warp gate, so I guess she was, but how much younger is she than Jak? Did Samos prepare the rift at the beginning of the game, knowing what would happen? If the metal heads were always this world’s enemies, then why weren’t they in the first game? Regardless, I love the high energy of this story. It’s paced incredibly well, and the way the story concludes feels magnificent and even a little bittersweet.

The convoluted story trying to weave back to the first game doesn’t make a good case for Naughty Dog. It shows that Jak II’s direction was obviously not premeditated. They saw the success of GTA III during Jak II’s development and decided to paint over their franchise with a fresh coat. The elements and story of the first game bubble up to make a case that Naughty Dog did this naturally, but the story reveals the cracks. After all, the 3D platformer was getting stagnant, and making the same game twice wouldn’t have had the same positive results. Everything from the gameplay, presentation, characters, and the overall pacing of the story makes up for it in spades. Still, I cannot deny Naughty Dog’s impetus for this radical shift. Is this just GTA for teenagers? It could be, but there is something to that. Through all of the events of this game, I realize that Jak’s character arc is an allegory for adolescence. In the first game, Jak is a promising child with a glimmer in his eye. He’s hopeful about the world he lives in, and the “bad guys” he faces aren’t very nuanced. They are just typical villains in a black-and-white moral world that a child lives in. Years later, Jak goes through changes because of dark eco, a metaphor for hormones. He becomes irritable, cynical, and rebels against the world that he feels undermines him. Now he’s in a world with real villains motivated by ego and malice. His younger self can only open the precursor stone because adult Jak has been corrupted, a loss of innocence that comes with growing up. The boy that used to do what his guardian told him to do for his own good is now doing things with a morally grey spectrum for his own self-interest. Jak went from an E to a T rating, just like we all do at some point. Yes, this game wears its influences on its sleeves just like the last one but is it so much more than a watered-down rip-off for a younger audience. It’s a game with so many incredible factors like the presentation, graphics, story, and characters that make it substantial and make it one of the best games on the PS2.

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

Ico is one of the first examples I think of when someone notions the concept of an “artistic video game.” Several gamers, including myself, would argue that all video games are inherently art, as it is the golden rule of artistic classification not to compartmentalize a medium for the sake of integral cohesiveness. However, we have to make this distinction between the “regular” video games and the more artistically-inclined ones because there is still a large portion of cultural philistines that still oppose gaming’s deserved ranks of respect with film, music, literature, etc. As of a few years ago, video games started outselling the film industry, so how does that grab you? Ahem...anyways, despite how prevalent video games have become as a source of entertainment in the pop culture zeitgeist over the past few decades or so, there is still a vocal pushback against the medium reaching its well-deserved place of recognition. One might blame Roger Ebert for his notorious op-ed decrying that video games could never be art, but he was simply someone with a credible platform echoing the status quo. Because video games are still met with an air of prejudice from the arbiters of high art, some game developers craft their work with heavy deliberation to prove them wrong. To be classified in the canon of artistic video games, one has to subvert the presentational, mechanical, and narrative tropes commonly found across most video games. In the modern gaming landscape, the medium has progressed to the point where subversiveness has to be implemented for the sake of standing out among the saturated marketplace, and the stark creativity makes a game inherently artistic by proxy. I suppose Ico is the first example that comes to many people’s minds regarding this topic because it was one of the first notable games that dared to challenge the medium’s conventions for the sake of making a work of art.

To fully comprehend the intended artistic scope of Ico, perhaps it would be wise to draw parallels between it and the arthouse film world. Since the early years of the medium, several directors saw great potential in using film as a means of expression beyond commercial means. These films are challenging, oftentimes surreal experimentations with narrative, characters, and several other typical film attributes. Most of these films are produced outside of the sphere of Hollywood in the foreign lands of Europe and Asia, and the American filmmakers that fit the arthouse denomination usually produce their films independently. They’re the filmmakers who make every college film professor get an emphatic hard-on just by mentioning their name. Robert Bresson, anyone? Like the aforementioned French arthouse director, Ico’s direction is minimalist to a fault, an ascetic choice to discern its heightened artistic merits from the accessible exhilaration found in most video games.

A lack of context for the game’s plot premise is one of the many artful elements not found in typical video game narratives, or at least not in the 3D era. A group of men on horseback ride through a shimmering, serene forest with a young, horned boy straddled as a passenger. Once they reach a dead end at the cliff’s edge facing an absolutely immaculate landscape, the men decide to tread through the river below by boat to transport the boy to the castle that resides on the other side. Through a series of elevators and unlocking a few obstructive gates that divide in two in the presence of a sword that emits magic, their destination point in this vacant fortress is a spacious chamber with wall-to-wall stone pods symmetrically aligned like library bookshelves. The men place the boy in one of the pods and leave him with the parting words “do not be angry with us. This is for the good of the village.” With a stroke of pure luck, the boy manages to escape his state of entombment when the castle shakes and he falls out of his pod when it collapses onto the floor. The boy climbs the spiral staircase to the upper reaches of the chamber and finds a poor girl curiously imprisoned in a giant birdcage dangling from the ceiling. The boy feels inclined to share his relieving feeling of freedom, so he smashes the cage with the force of his body and liberates the girl from her comically-sized and probably symbolic prison cell. From there on out, the two are an inseparable duo working together to escape the fortress’s oppressive boundaries.

I don’t mean to pick on Zelda but considering Nintendo’s glorious IP is arguably the gaming series most synonymous with the fantasy theming, I have to use it as an example to compare and contrast the way Ico establishes its mythical setting. Many Zelda titles introduce the player to the world, setting, and characters with an illustrated slideshow of yore, giving as much exposition as the opening credits in Star Wars. Thanks to the loglines of exposition, we are immediately privy to the epic scale of the game’s narrative and Link’s elevated role as Hyrule’s chosen protector. While providing an extensive backstory of Hyrule’s lore and current state of affairs is never a detriment in unfolding the narrative, one could still argue that the intended epic scale would be more effective if the game only showed the player the stakes of Link’s adventure rather than telling us from the get-go. We’re supposed to give this small, prepubescent boy the benefit of the doubt that he’s the valiant hero destined to slay the imposing, malevolent forces of the world when he can’t even grow pit hair yet. The boy in Ico, on the other hand, is introduced with zero information about his background or any inkling of what his intended arc is as the game’s protagonist. Is he also a pint-sized prince of peace like Link facing a moment of persecution here from an unjust society, or do his former acquaintances have every right to condemn him to a stationary state of solitude for the rest of his natural-born life? What exactly is the boy’s crime that justifies this cruel fate? Murder? Theft? Was he framed? We have no idea. We also have no clue about the status of the anemic, consumptive-looking girl he freed either. With a prevalent sense of ambiguity, it adds a level of rich mystique to the story. The player should ideally be eager to piece together their own conclusions with context clues, heightening the interactivity of an already interactive medium.

Ico commits to the minimalist direction for every facet of the game’s identity. On top of delivering story exposition in the sparsest manner possible, Ico’s presentation is the video equivalent of a Steven Reich composition. One might not even notice when the opening sequence of cutscenes is over because the game makes no clear indication that it’s the player’s time to help the boy get the hell out of dodge. A signifier that usually would tip the player off is a hud appearing on the screen, displaying important references like health, equipment, stamina, etc. When the player presses the pause menu, the only options are to adjust the volume/display picture and to quit the game. There is no inventory screen or status details, and there certainly isn’t a page dedicated to collectibles. There isn’t even any music that accompanies the gameplay minus a select few cues for a few situations. All Ico presents the player with is the horned boy in an uncaring world with the wind blustering over the high-elevation cliffside, with total uncertainty hanging in the balance. Somehow, Ico omitting gaming’s primary referential tools does not handicap the player with an unnecessary blindspot as one would expect. Health is superfluous in Ico (except in the case of falling off of tall ledges) and the boy can only hold one blunt object, seen clearly in his right hand at all times. These common visual aids are rendered redundant and gratuitous for what Ico delivers, and insisting on implementing them would distract from one of Ico’s biggest appeals: its atmosphere. Without the videogamey white noise of a hud or level music, the player can fully immerse themselves in their surroundings. Whilst breathing in the fumes of Ico’s atmosphere like a fine wine, I detect a myriad of refined scents like melancholy, dread, isolation, helplessness, and a pinch of desperation. Even though all of these are negative descriptors, the sheer beauty of Ico’s cliffside setting makes the negativity permeate an aura of dark romanticism like an album from The Cure.

“Subtracting design” was the specific ethos that Ico director Fumito Ueda hammered in for Ico’s direction. Essentially, it’s the idea that less is more. Already through its narrative and presentation, Ico proves that this is a feasible philosophy not rife with contradictions. Still, the most effective aspect of showcasing Ueda’s radical ideas pertains to Ico’s gameplay. The closest video game genre one can pigeonhole Ico into is the puzzle platformer genre, involving executing feats of platforming to solve puzzles. No, I don’t think a fragment of Ueda’s ethos was to craft a cerebral, arthouse version of Q*Bert or Wario Land. Given that the game is confined to one setting, the more methodical puzzle platformer genre is a more appropriate fit to accommodate its slow-burn pacing. To achieve Ueda’s vision, nothing in Ico is conspicuous. The series of suspended platforms most platformer characters would ascend on to reach their goals is too unnatural and would compromise Ico’s deep immersion. The dilapidated fortress resembles an environment akin to something from reality, connoting that it does not offer any obvious avenues to success like a series of floating platforms would. The player is forced to humor any sort of protruding ledge as a viable means of traversal, shimmying across perilous gaps and executing awesome feats of parkour. Decor centerpieces such as ladders, boxes, and chain link ropes are strewn around the vicinity for clearer interactions. Still, the player has to use all of them as individual fractions of solving a platforming puzzle instead of acting as smooth solutions. There are also the select moments where the boy must ignite his torch to light fixtures and the fuses of bombs, but these instances aren’t as explosive as one might think.

So how does stripping down the elements of a platformer to its pure essence prove to be enticing for the player? Well, it comes down to warping the perspective. Because everything at the player’s disposal for platforming is humdrum and unobtrusive, suddenly, the most minute resources in solving puzzles become a point of potential interest. There is no wasted space in the foreground, or at least the player will be forced to figure out what its valuable assets are by tinkering with everything. Some argue that this makes the puzzles in Ico rather obtuse, but I think it's a brilliant way to make the player engage with their surroundings. The environmental cohesion also aids the game’s immersion by heightening that prevailing sense of realism. Puzzles in Ico are almost designed with how a real person would execute them, only if they had the nimbleness of a youthful kid and an impressive resilience to fall damage. They are also met with a realistic sternness beyond the little samples of gratification most games deliver. Unlike in Zelda, surpassing obstacles in Ico will not warrant a jaunty little jingle to signify a job well done.

The caveat to solving Ico’s puzzles is to not only consider how the boy will progress, but how to make the path traversable for the girl as well. Given the game’s premise of a boy rescuing a girl from captivity, one could infer from this that Ico is an elongated escort mission, and it might make many gamers avoid this game like the plague. Unfortunately, this aspect of Ico is where the game falters. Naturally, the girl does not possess the same physical prowess as the boy, so she cannot climb the chain links, push the boxes, or scale the walls. In fact, the girl looked so frail and waifish that I was always concerned that the boy would pull her arm right out of its socket as he was dragging her around. The puzzles actually seem like the boy is constantly providing support for this girl to reach him at eye level, and this process can be insufferably wonky at times. AI during the early sixth generation of gaming wasn’t exactly sharp as a tack but dear God, the girl’s AI is downright aloof. She responds to the boy’s calling command quickly enough but she doesn’t seem to grasp why her presence is needed. She’s a horse that obliges when being led to the water but doesn’t know how to drink it. Of course, drinking it is the primary objective at hand and when she struggles with the analogous task of taking the boy's hand to climb or missing the ladder she’s being led towards while the boy is screaming at her from above. It could be due to the language barrier considering the boy’s subtitles are in plain English and hers are in hieroglyphics. If she didn’t open the occasional gate that impedes progress, I’d suggest that the boy should consider an “every man for himself” approach and shed the dead weight. The boy can lie down horizontally on the save station couches if the game is that peculiar about the amount of space that needs to be filled.

The hypothetical scenario of leaving the girl behind would also relieve the boy of the burden of having to protect her from the barrage of spirits that are trying to reclaim her. These shadowy ghouls that resemble the balls of ash from Spirited Away forming together to somewhat emulate a physical substratum will emerge from portals in the ground to snatch up the girl and carry her back to the abyss where she’ll be hopelessly sunken into oblivion. If this happens, a shockwave will encompass the entire area and eternally render the boy as a stone statue. To prevent this harrowing curse from occurring, the boy will bat them off with his trusty wooden pole, upgraded to a full-fledged sword after a certain point that naturally deals more damage. While the scourge will withdraw after a few meager hits, their pension for acting as a mob will sometimes overwhelm the player. Knocking the boy on his ass after a swift uppercut usually gives them ample opportunity to yoink the girl off her feet, so always watchful. Their ambushes will be a chronic occurrence throughout the game, but a vigilant one will seize the girl whenever the boy leaves her alone for too long. One might think this could only happen to the careless sort, but the game places puzzle sections where the boy is forced to be absent from the girl for a lengthy stretch of time. A particular section involving a slow shimmying session over a ramp with streaming water and cutting the hinges off of bridges will always result in a nail-biting race to save the girl from plunging into darkness even if the boy is as quick as a golden eagle. Despite the fact I previously implied that anything involving the sooty spirits is a cumbersome dirge, I quite like the looming threat overhead as a consequence of dilly-dallying during one of these sections. The alarming tension is an unexpected way to spruce up a game with such a serene tone.

So, what does it all mean at the end? Certainly, I can’t gloss over my interpretation of Ueda’s intent when Ico’s narrative is so open-ended. A piece of exposition I’ve been hiding thus far is that the boy was ostracized from his society because he was born with horns, which is considered a bad omen by societal superstition. The girl’s name is actually Yorda, a name that you give to your daughter if you hate her. Or, in Yorda’s case, if your mom sees you as a disposable source of youth whose sacrifice will stagnate the aging process. Her mother is the main antagonist of the game, scoffing at the boy’s efforts to rip away her toxic connection to her as she sees them as utterly futile. As imposing as she seems to be as the dominant regal power of the fortress, the black spirits are surprisingly not acting on her command. Right before the climactic final fight against Yorda’s mother, the boy returns to the chamber where it all started and fights a crowd of spirits who now cower under the might of his new energy sword. Once I realized that the spirits were retreating to the pods once they were defeated, I finally uncovered Ico’s narrative depth. The black spirits are the damned souls of previous horned boys who have succumbed to their untimely fates. Maybe not all of them died from suffocation and or starvation being trapped in their pods. Perhaps the reason why they stubbornly try to retrieve Yorda is because all of these horned boys have attempted to save her when they were still flesh and blood, and they’ve all failed miserably somewhere along the line. These horned boys are labeled as genetic pariahs as soon as they’re born, destined to bring nothing but pain and suffering for all of the common non-horned folk. Saving Yorda not only proves their usefulness but proves that they are capable of performing acts of kindness as well. Meanwhile, Yorda is ultimately doomed to never escape the fortress because her rescuers seemed fated to fail. This current boy in the long line of sorry saviors most likely exceeds every other one before him, slaying Yorda’s mom by impaling her with the energy sword. Before he can celebrate his unprecedented victory, he is blown back by a sweeping power force, severing his horns from his head as a bloody signifier of his death. A resurrected Yorda treats her knight in shining rags and sandals to a respectable Viking funeral as a sign of her gratitude. After the credits roll, the boy wakes up from what was merely a slumber on the beach shore and sees a happy Yorda smiling at him. Seems like a happy ending that breaks the vicious cycle, right? Well, we don’t know for sure if what we are witnessing is reality. It could be the pleasant final dream of this boy before his consciousness passes on into the eternal ether. After all, the main theme of Ico’s narrative seems to be that the oppressed can never overcome the crushing higher powers that undermine and subjugate them no matter how hard they try. It may be bleak, but interpreting Ico’s ending this way feels more substantive.

Ico is a game that I respect more than anything, which is a statement I usually reserve for the industry pioneers of the pixelated eras that predate Ico by at least two generations prior. I guess that when I take off my rose-tinted glasses for the gaming generation I grew up with, I realize that there was still plenty of radical innovation for gaming that needed some time to mold, and Ico is the epitome of this. Yorda’s partner AI is mostly the aspect of Ico that desperately needed reworking, as the girl’s inattentiveness in most scenarios drove me up a wall. Also, the boy’s controls could be smoother as well. There’s nothing deep about wonky movement and finicky response triggers. In saying this, there is no way that Ico could ever aspire to be a perfect game. What I respect about Ico is all of its efforts in its experimentation, to dial back the elements of gaming for the sake of achieving something never before executed in the medium. For all of its objective faults, Ico was still more interesting and resonating than whatever flavor-of-the-week game that had better controls and a peppier tone at the time. Truly effective art has a habit of making a colossal splash regardless of how abstruse it is and considering all of the games released after Ico that derive inspiration from it, it is a testament to that phenomenon.
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Burn the North American cover for this game with the fire of a thousand suns because it's the ugliest thing I've ever seen. It makes the North American Mega Man covers on the NES look like bonafide Steve Ditko illustrations. No wonder Ico didn't sell well over here.

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