Here it is, ladies and gentlemen: the Citizen Kane of gaming. For an extended period, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was once the undisputed champion of gaming. Lists of the greatest games of all time felt obligated to list Ocarina of Time at the prominent spot at the top. The lists that did not hold Ocarina of Time as their #1 game were shockingly blasphemous, or at least that’s what it felt like because it was seldom not crowned as the king of the medium. When I was a kid, Ocarina of Time was the one “old game” with a star-studded, respected reputation well over all other games released before I was born or before I started playing video games. Its high repute and unparalleled regard created a great sense of intrigue for me, for the N64 era was an alien period of the recent past, and the console was no longer in stock. Ocarina of Time still holds that same aura of intrigue as time moves forward, but now it is met with a sense of incredulity. Those who did not experience Ocarina of Time in its prime see this game and ask themselves: how can this wrinkled, blocky game hold any consideration as the greatest game of all time? With two decades of radical progress, it seems a little silly now to still revel over Ocarina of Time the same way we once did. We can no longer evaluate Ocarina of Time and earnestly pretend it’s up to snuff with the expansiveness of modern gaming. It’s similar to the recent reflection we’ve come to regarding Citizen Kane, the so-called “greatest film of all time.” A piece of art can only sustain itself for so long, especially when a medium is rapidly growing and changing. After decades of exceptional adulation, the public has reasonably knocked Ocarina of Time down a few notches, but there is, unfortunately, a new crop of people that have sprouted up to kick Ocarina of Time into the dirt. The overzealous critics that have risen over the past decade or so have attempted to use Ocarina of Time’s age to diminish its impact retroactively. While I think it's best that we’ve started to reflect upon Ocarina of Time’s legacy, it is still a magnificent game that has retained most of its magic.

We are now at the point where one has to explain why Ocarina of Time was revered for those who did not experience it first hand, similar to explaining the impact of The Beatles or the aforementioned 1941 film directed by Orson Welles. In an age where video game graphics are practically indistinguishable from a Hollywood film, it’s easy to forget that 3D graphics were once a daunting experiment. The video game industry confidently declared that 3D graphics were the new gaming mainstay with the fifth generation of consoles, even though they were simultaneously figuring out how to develop games in this newfangled dimension. In many ways, shifting the course of progress to 3D gaming was a regression from the prior 2D era. Developing on a 3D axis was an entirely different process, and developers needed to settle on this uncharted territory. Franchises that made a name for themselves in the pixelated 2D era had to be reworked to fit a 3D environment. Super Mario 64 may consist of recognizable properties from the 2D games, but the gameplay was different as night and day. Nintendo knew that Mario’s jump to 3D could not be an effective, literal translation of the 2D sidescroller gameplay. They had to rewrite the Mario formula entirely, and this drastic deviation in gameplay comfortably ushered in the 3D platformer genre for the new era. The Nintendo franchise whose jump to 3D was still on the trajectory of a clear evolution was Star Fox, only because the first game on the SNES was a quasi-3D game anyways and didn’t belong on the SNES. 3D gaming made developers wipe the slate clean and start anew with cruder controls and visuals than the refined pixel art on fourth-generation consoles. The novel idea of 3D graphics was impressive enough for gamers at the time, so they didn’t mind the cracks in the crude, primeval foundation. Ocarina of Time, however, was the exception that made it stand out above the rest. Unlike in the case of Super Mario 64, Nintendo did not tear up the proverbial floorboards with Zelda’s leap into 3D. Ocarina of Time managed to carry on what A Link to the Past established, and the 3D graphics did not make for a less refined Zelda adventure.

Nintendo did have to alter quite a bit of the standard Legend of Zelda design for the jump to 3D, and the most obvious of these changes are the 3D graphics. To summarize the full extent of 3D graphics in the early 3D era, they looked a little…unnatural. Physical features of characters and structures were depicted with the simplest components to the point of looking cartoonish, even with games intended to look gritty and realistic. For example, Mario in Super Mario 64 looked like a marionette doll made of modeling clay, and the foregrounds resembled the same kind of unrefined craft. The graphics in Ocarina of Time aren’t a drastic improvement that deviates from this general aesthetic, but a slight sense of refinement is noticeable. Link does not have a mustache to cover his mouth, nor does he have a fat, round head to give the developers an excuse not to buff out the scratches of early 3D visuals. Link’s more prominent facial features like his elfin ears, pointy nose, less touseled hairstyle, and lankier frame could not have been displayed in 3D with the same level of amateurish quality seen in the earliest of N64 titles like Super Mario 64. These features are on full display, and Link looks as refined as possible with these primitive graphics. The graphics of the familiar foreground of Hyrule are still reasonably blocky, but the developers make an effort to make the game look as refined as humanly possible. Prerendered backgrounds, a staple of early 3D visuals, are often used inside of buildings and for specific screens on the outside. Prerendered backgrounds lived and died in the early 3D era, so looking at them now makes the overall aesthetic of Ocarina of Time look dated. However, the prerendered backgrounds are used sparingly, coexisting well with the 64-bit graphics to create an artful, albeit archaic, aesthetic. The prerendered visuals like the view of the Temple of Time from the outside look like it could be a painting, and it does not distract from the game's general look. The 64-bit graphics on the system have been refined to the point where the blocky visuals are endearing. The developers have worked around the primitive nature of the system, making for one of the best-looking games of the early 3D era. The visuals are so charming that I almost want another Zelda game that looks like Ocarina of Time.

I couldn’t find clemency with the dated graphics if the controls were as stiff and unresponsive as Super Mario 64. Fortunately, The Legend of Zelda left behind any platforming traces with Zelda II, so Nintendo didn’t have to make Link a three-dimensional acrobat as they did for Mario. Link’s movement has always been relatively restrained compared to his fellow Nintendo associates, so translating his general movement into 3D proved to be a smoother transition. He moves like a human being instead of an android, attempting to replicate the motion of organic beings like a newly three-dimensional Mario. However, the top-down perspective of A Link to the Past was unbecoming of the new 3D generation, and the developers had to implement more frills for the new 3D viewpoint. The player still can’t make Link jump manually with a button on the controller, but Link still does plenty of jumping while traversing through Hyrule. Whenever Link comes to an edge, he will leap forward with the same trajectory and some aided momentum. The jump is automatic and is the same distance every time. A 3D environment naturally gives more leeway to jumping controls than 2D, but The Legend of Zelda was never intended to be a platformer. Instead, the A button triggers a roll move that propels Link forward, increasing his speed, or at least that’s what every player believes it does, considering everyone (including myself) constantly rolls on the field to make Link move quicker on the field. Unfortunately, the camera has pretty stiff controls, similar to Super Mario 64. However, Ocarina of Time finds a way around this by centering the camera directly behind Link at all times. This way, there is a consistent view for the player. This unorthodox system has the perfect compromise to hold the same amount of restraint and make the most of the primitive 3D environment without being marred by primitive 3D controls.

The combat controls are also somewhat fluid, but the quality varies depending on a few circumstances. Accuracy has always been relatively vital in the Zelda series, but this had never been so pertinent until Nintendo shifted the franchise into 3D. Link can no longer flail his sword at enemies haphazardly on the map, nor can the player shoot a beam of magic from Link’s sword for a broader range of an attack. Doing this will cause the player to hit their intended target rarely, thusly showing the cracks of the spatial awareness that comes with a 3D game. Fortunately, The Legend of Zelda has always been a series known for stark innovation. The new stride in gaming with its first 3D outing mitigates the accuracy problem entirely: the Z-targeting. Holding down the Z button on the N64 controller will target any enemy Link comes across, zeroing in on the target with a yellow indicator and squaring Link up against it with a windowed screen like a western duel. Blocking and sword swipes become much more precise, Link can strafe around enemies, and Link can even perform a lunge attack with his blade. Link can also use every projectile weapon from arrows, Deku nuts, the Hookshot, etc. The targeting system ensures a hit with almost pinpoint accuracy. The Z-target system is a godsend, and the game would practically be unplayable without it. My only wish is that the Z-targeting system was consistent. I understand that using it during the shooting gallery would make it too easy, but the imprecise natural controls feel far too stilted.

Of course, this fluid combat mechanic comes with the caveat of having to put up with Link’s floating, blue, miniature companion. Navi is a notorious thorn in the sides of even the most emphatic Ocarina of Time fanboys. Her barging into Link’s wooded home is the catalyst to adventure, and she sticks by Link’s side throughout the entire adventure by hovering over his shoulder. In some cases, Navi’s assistance is helpful as she is the one who allows Link to Z-target and gets information on the enemies. On the other end of the spectrum, Navi’s trademark “hey, listen!” catchphrase has been cattle prodded into the collective consciousness of gaming, with those who haven’t played Ocarina of Time still being aware of Navi’s negative reputation. Upon my first playthrough, I thought the irksome nature of Navi was exaggerated as she didn’t interrupt the game too frequently, and the player at least has the option to zone her out. While playing this game again for this review, I started to catch the anti-Navi bug that sickened so many players. I’ve come to realize that Navi is a hotbed of condescension. She aids in locking onto enemies but always insists on providing the same information about said enemy after countless times of locking onto them. She squawks her trademark phrase in Link’s ear while he’s in the field to give the same vague trajectory of what the player is supposed to be doing at the moment. Navi would be much less vilified if the player simply had the option to listen to her input of their own volition, but the pixie girl insists that she be heard even if it makes the player want to take her in Link’s slingshot and fling her into the sun.

Navi is overall indicative of a problem Ocarina of Time has compared to the previous 2D Zelda titles, and that problem is the game’s tendency of handholding. Like introducing a Lakitu as the cameraman in Super Mario 64, the developers assumed that these new polygons would be too scary for 2D gamers to comprehend, so they made the player take baby steps into the realm of the third dimension. Mario is already engineered to be accessible, but doing this for The Legend of Zelda is counterintuitive to the freedom each game exudes. Ocarina of Time is comparatively more linear than the 2D games. Navi and the bloviating owl constantly try to keep the player on the intended path, like overbearing parents that want their kid to become a doctor or a lawyer. The order of dungeons was numbered in A Link to the Past as a suggestion, but Ocarina of Time sternly maintains a direct path. There aren’t too many side quests, and the few presented here are either brief, or their reward and impact are far too minute in the grand scheme of the game like the Biggoron Sword quest. 3D was intimidating at the time, and the developers felt it would’ve been sadistic to make the player get hopelessly lost in it. Judging from how far open-world games have come since then, jaded players who are used to massive worlds with tons of side-quests tend to be laughably underwhelmed by the small scope of the open area presented here.

Not only is Hyrule no longer a challenge to traverse through (not that it ever was in the first place), but the iconic fantasy setting is vastly empty in its first 3D depiction. The hub of Hyrule is a barren, grassy field with practically nothing of importance. The hub can be circled in no time flat, minimizing that time on horseback to only one minute. Using Link’s horse companion Epona is optional, but saving her from Lon Lon Ranch comes highly recommended because of the sheer boredom of walking through the arid plain that quickly grates on the player. I almost welcome the constant onslaught of stalchildren that ambush Link at night because it gives Link something to do on the field. Hyrule is so sterile and lifeless here is not due to the developers holding back ambition because of the jump to 3D, but instead because Hyrule feels more divided. Familiar areas like Death Mountain and Lake Hylia seem like separated districts, with different races of creatures existing in homogeneous societies with the field separating each of them. The map in the menu accounts for all of these areas and makes them seem cohesive, but the player gets the impression that the districts are subareas that branch from the central area hub. In the 2D games, Hyrule was one big hub area, and the various dungeons acted as deviations from the hub world. I could argue that having these subareas adds an extra layer to the world that the series hadn’t seen before, but the vacant Hyrule Field that connects all of them is not an adequate nucleus that holds them together.

Fortunately, the subareas make up for the hub in spades. Each district of Hyrule is unique and maintains a geographical consistency with the rest of the world. Kokiri Forest is a woodland area that rests in the corner of Hyrule, blanketed by the dim lighting that seeps through the cracks of the trees. This area is Link’s homeland, whose design wonderfully serves as a small playground for players to understand the 3D control. The grounds of Hyrule Castle are lively and offer plenty of minigames and stores for the player. Kakariko Village feels much cozier in 3D, as does the looming Death Mountain due to the civilization of pudgy rock creatures known as the Gorons. Zora’s Domain is a capacious water cave with winding rocky paths and cascading waterfalls, exuding an immaculate atmosphere that is still awe-inspiring even with the dated graphics. More importantly than the level of variety, the subareas uphold the series key initiative to explore off the beaten path to uncover the land's secrets. Fairy fountains are hidden beneath cracked crevices and not only restore Link’s health as always but grant him upgrades like an enhanced magic meter and magic spells like the room-clearing inferno that is Din’s Fire. The fairies in this game also look like 64-bit hookers, but that’s neither here nor there. Heart containers seem more abundant in Ocarina of Time and can be obtained through a myriad of clever ways. The one method that sticks out to me the most is planting beans in soft soil holes that will sprout and be used as moving platforms to reach the heart containers once Link becomes an adult. The more substantial collectible in Ocarina of Time is the Golden Skulltulas that appear throughout these subareas and Hyrule dungeons. Defeating the noisy arachnids and collecting the tokens will help lift a heinous curse for the boys in a dark house located in Kakariko Village. They will give the player a reward for every ten Golden Skulltulas they destroy. Unless the player is a completionist, they will have less incentive to collect all of these as the game progresses. Bombarding the player with many enemies in closed spaces isn’t a prerogative to warrant collecting a ton of heart pieces, and the whopping 100 Golden Skulltula tokens aren’t worth the hassle once the player earns the biggest wallet around 30 Skulltulas defeated. The aspect of these collectibles that I admire is the developers' lengths to implement them. It must have been quite the challenge to scatter each of these various collectibles and put them in places that require the player to use their observational intuition to unveil despite the primitive foundation. Even in a primitive 3D environment, the developers can still encourage the player to explore the land and make doing so gratifying, like in the previous games.

The same level of rich design can be said about the dungeons in Ocarina of Time. An engaging hub world is important, but the dungeons are the cream of the crop for any Zelda title. The dungeon order is reminiscent of how they were composed in A Link to the Past. As Young Link, three dungeons house three differently colored amulets, now fashioned as “spiritual stones.” The player must survey these dungeons to defeat their boss and acquire the stone. A pivotal change after obtaining all three spiritual stones occurs, and the rest of the game's dungeons take place in another realm and can be beaten in a non-linear order. One would worry that the leap to 3D would have the developers compromise on the spectacularly intricate dungeon design seen in A Link to the Past, but that is fortunately not the case. In fact, I’d argue that the dungeons in Ocarina of Time are even more impressive than ones from any other Zelda game before it, both in aesthetic and design. While the dungeons in A Link to the Past all offered different enemies and obstacles, the towering palaces all had a fairly similar aesthetic. The discerning factor regarding each palace’s look was a simple color change or minor theme alteration. The rudimentary 3D graphics at least make each dungeon look unique. Locations for these dungeons offer various themes and layouts, including the inside of a colossal tree, a cavern, a tomb, a well, etc. While it isn’t my favorite dungeon, Inside Jabbu Jabbu’s Belly takes place in the fleshy, pink insides of a giant fish. It’s the most offbeat setting for a dungeon the series has seen, and I’m impressed that they thought to include it in the series' first 3D game.
The developers meticulously considered the 3D space when crafting these dungeons because they utilize the area to a great degree for puzzles and complex design. For example, falling to a lower floor was a common traversal method in A Link to the Past for most palaces. Large square-shaped holes appear throughout the palace floors and have noticeable patterns below that let the player know it’s safe to fall through them and not plummet to oblivion. This dungeon trope translates marvelously in Ocarina of Time as the very first dungeon puzzle in the game uses this to a much less obvious degree. At the Great Deku Tree entrance, a hole in the center is sealed by a giant spider’s web. Walking across the web will make it wobble, giving the player the impression that this is malleable. With these minor hints and a literal leap of faith, the player will have Link hurtle from the top floor of the tree, fracturing the web on impact and unlocking the rest of the dungeon. Right away, the first puzzle of this game astounds me. It illustrates the potential of what could be accomplished with the new 3D environment with a familiar puzzle that can now be employed to its fullest degree. Mentioning the infamous Water Temple will send a pang of disgust through the bodies of most Zelda fans, but I am a fervent defender of it. The one tower in the center of this dungeon is the support column that serves as the footing for all branching paths between three floors. Raising the water level between the three floors is the essential key to traversing through this dungeon, and so is using the iron boots and Zora’s tunic to travel through the underwater sections. Admittedly, I did get stuck on this dungeon as everyone else did, but I commend the dungeon for it. The dungeon has a complex but competent means of traversal that could not have in any of the 2D games, which is why the Water Temple is a standout dungeon in this game instead of a deterrent. Unfortunately, this measure of engagement isn’t consistent throughout each dungeon in the game. I like the Shadow Temple for its ghastly, macabre atmosphere, but its underwhelmingly narrow, linear progression is indicative of what people feared from translating Zelda into 3D.

Besides the trademark sword and shield usually found in Link’s hands, many recognizable items were also transferred into the 3D space. Series staples such as bombs, arrows, the Hookshot, the boomerang, etc., are again essential tools in Link’s inventory to expose hidden areas in both the overworld and the dungeons and to use as alternatives for his sword. New items like the Megaton Hammer and Lens of Truth provide the same utility as the old ones, but their implementation still makes them fresh. Truly, the apex of the new items presented in Ocarina of Time can only be the game's namesake: the ocarina. Link receives an ocarina from his friend Saria after leaving Kokiri Forest for the first time and stumbles upon the fabled ocarina of time after the pivotal moment that divides the game’s narrative. Playing specific songs on the ocarina that Link learns from various sources results in different outcomes. Performing “Zelda’s Lullaby,” for instance, does a smattering of things that require a suspension of disbelief from the player, like moving water and accelerating a grim-looking boat in the Shadow Temple. “Sun’s Song” and “Song of Storms” alter the weather and the time of day, and the “Song of Time” can both manipulate blue time blocks and warp Link back to the Temple of Time. Several other songs function like the flute of the previous games that warp Link to a specific destination on the map. Using a musical instrument in a Zelda game is not a radical point of innovation for the series, but rather it is the way the instrument is played. With the usage of the A and action buttons and the left and right triggers, the player has control over what is essentially a fully playable ocarina (my crowning achievement in this game is figuring out how to play “Smoke on the Water” with the ocarina like everyone does when they are learning a new instrument). The select songs required to progress through the game are simple and easy earworms for memorization. Still, the outlying range of possibilities the developers give the player with this item is an astonishing, unparalleled level of innovation.

The ocarina itself is a stark realization of how musical the Zelda series has become over time. The flute from the 2D games was a tool with a simple melody and even simpler function, but the uses of music in Ocarina of Time have made it a crux of the series’ identity. However, this is not a simple case of using a musical instrument as a weapon or solving puzzles like the other tools in Link’s arsenal. The music usage in Ocarina of Time is deeply woven into the game's narrative and is the structure of the subtle depth that it bestows. On the surface, Ocarina of Time is another story of Link saving the world from Ganon’s malevolent clutches, but the cinematic flair of 3D has allowed the developers to present something more profound with the typical Zelda tale.

Ocarina of Time is the typical Zelda arc of defeating Ganon with a coming-of-age story involving Link’s growing into a man. It’s similar to what was explored in Earthbound with the Magicant section, minus the obtuse psychedelic elements. Link starts the game as an impressionable yet determined young lad. He has never left his cozy wooded home of Kokiri Forest or associated with anyone other than his neighbors here. Navi calls him to adventure as the chosen one to save the land from darkness, and while he does perform heroic feats, the game makes it seem like he is merely cosplaying as the fabled hero, like a boy dressing up as Superman for Halloween. The NPCs never take Young Link seriously as he is just a boy, telling him that he’ll grow into himself when he gets older and becomes an adult. In a way, their patronizing attitude is somewhat justified. Link’s arsenal at this point is made up of less volatile, makeshift weapons and items that resemble the Zelda staples like a slingshot with Deku seeds instead of using a bow and arrow. The Hylian Shield can be purchased as a child, but he uses it as a protective shell like a turtle because he is incapable of holding it. Instead, he uses the vastly inferior Kokiri Shield made of a cruder material that disintegrates with any sort of contact with heat. Link’s “Goonies” items give the impression of a young boy playing adventure rather than the quest of a capable hero. The game is also more facile in the beginning section, fitting for someone so young. Keys are omitted from the first three dungeons to make for easier traversal, and the familiar bosses like Gohma and Dodongo are painfully obvious to defeat for any Zelda veteran.

This ease of difficulty all changes during a pivotal movement that divides the two sections of the game. After requiring the three spiritual stones, Link encounters the dark lord Ganondorf, a human version of Ganon that exists before the events of A Link to the Past in the evermore convoluted Zelda timeline, as he chases after Zelda on horseback. Link unsheathes the Master Sword from the Temple of Time and travels seven years into the future. He is a young man who is physically capable of fulfilling his destiny, but he must do a few things first. The future section begins the various temples with elemental themes (fire, water, shadow, etc.), and it’s when the difficulty curve is kicked up a notch. The first of these dungeons is the Forest Temple, a dizzying, surreal grove located in the depths of the Lost Woods. This dungeon features enemies that both inflict and absorb more damage, keys that make the dungeon harder to navigate, a bevy of more complicated puzzles, and a boss battle with Phantom Ganon that demands a hefty standard of accuracy to defeat. I heavily critiqued the Dark World from A Link to the Past because of the heightened difficulty curve, but the narrative of Ocarina of Time supports the game getting harder once the second section begins. Link is an adult now, so more is expected of him and what he is capable of accomplishing. Other dungeons follow suit with the difficulty curve and act almost as “grown-up” versions of Young Link’s dungeons, like the Fire Temple with Dodongo’s Cavern and the Shadow Temple with the Bottom of the Well. Dead Hand, the nightmare fuel of a boss in the Bottom of the Well dungeon, is relegated to a mini-boss in the Shadow Temple to show the scope between Young and Adult Link. The Spirit Temple further shows this dichotomy by splitting the dungeon between the two Links, with the Young Link section acting as a remedial sampler of what to expect as an adult.

Music plays an essential element in this division between both Links to convey the powerful feeling of nostalgia. Hyrule had seen better days in the seven years between Link’s accelerated path to manhood. Ganondorf has usurped the throne of Hyrule Castle and erected a foreboding, intimidating tower in his image that reigns over the land. Once the player steps out into the familiar world, Ganondorf’s negative influence is felt throughout Hyrule. The happy Hyrule market in which people used to dance and be merry now looks like it is experiencing the fallout of nuclear winter, with Redeads being the only sentient things in the wreckage. Lake Hylia has been drained, Zora’s Domain is frozen over, and Lon Lon Ranch is now under the ownership of that jerkwad Ingo. The once bountiful kingdom of Hyrule now has a permeating sense of dread and melancholy that can be felt everywhere. The process of Link’s physical growth may have taken only a few seconds, but the stark contrast between Hyrule in the past and Hyrule in the future makes the player feel the heavy weight of time. Music plays a role in this dichotomy because Link's songs on the ocarina recall a happier time. “Zelda’s Lullaby” is so effective at moving so many elements and structures across the land because it was formulated in a time when the royal family was so prosperous. Epona acts quickly at the sound of “Epona’s Song” because it recalls sweet memories of her past at the ranch. All of the minuets Shiek teaches Link have a refrain that relates to the passing of time and the growth that comes with it. The seven-year transition is also an alarming realization Ocarina of Time explores becoming an adult. As a kid, your potential is limited. You feel as if you are treated as a second-class citizen, but becoming an adult makes one appreciate the fleeting moments of childhood as they find that adulthood is a terrifying challenge. Indulging nostalgia is comforting, but one must stick with the present to improve the future.

Link’s acting on this sentiment culminates into Ocarina of Time’s grand finale. Once Link rescues all six sages, he returns to the Temple of Time as Shiek, who everyone, including the player perceived as a male Sheika, reveals “himself” as an adult Princess Zelda. Over the past seven years, Zelda, under the guidance of the Sheika sage Impa, made herself a new identity to hide from Ganondorf (a would-be shocking spoiler for me had I not been introduced to the character by playing Super Smash Bros Melee as a kid). Her revelation exposes herself to Ganondorf, who whisks her away and holds her captive in his castle. The six sages erect a bridge to Ganon’s settlement for Link to rescue Zelda and defeat the dark lord at the apex of it. Ganon’s castle is a meandering dungeon with six non-linear paths that vaguely correlate with the elements of each sage. The puzzles in each section are some of the most shrewd puzzles the game offers, even making clever use of the awful bombchu item. After completing each section, Ganondorf’s shielding cloak dissipates, and Link climbs a winding staircase to the top of Ganondorf’s chamber. The first phase of Ganondorf’s final boss encounter plays exactly like the fight against Phantom Ganon, only with the added element of light arrows thrown into the mix. This phase is a tad underwhelming, but the sheer spectacle of the second phase is incredible. Ganon’s tower starts to crumble, and Link must escape with Zelda intact in a brief amount of time. On the yard of Ganon’s once-proud estate, he reveals his proper Ganon form we’ve all come to know and traps Link in a fiery arena without his trusty Master Sword. After stalling him with light arrows, Link plunges his sword into Ganon’s cranium and defeats the evil beast with a jaw-dropping final blow. Peace has been restored across Hyrule, and everybody celebrates. However, there is still a conundrum that must be solved. Zelda feels responsible for what has happened to Hyrule and her burden on Link. She grants Link all the vital years he accelerated through by sending him back in time in a bittersweet conclusion that gave me a lump in my throat.

At this point, there isn’t much about Ocarina of Time that any gamer hasn’t already said over two decades. It was the juggernaut title in a series that already had plenty of generation-defining juggernaut titles under its belt. The fact that it could reach yet another feat of excellence in a period when developers were buffing out the cracks of early 3D development is staggeringly impressive. Unlike Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time was not a 3D beta test to see what worked and didn’t work for a familiar Nintendo franchise making the leap into the third dimension. Ocarina of Time managed to carry on what had been established in A Link to the Past without reverting to more simplistic design and mechanics. Ocarina of Time was not the novel idea of putting The Legend of Zelda in 3D: it was the direct evolution of all of the ideas the franchise had accumulated with the base of 3D as an added perk. Is it perfect? No, and even something considered “the greatest of all time” across any medium should never be expected to uphold that unrealistic standard. Even with the wrinkles of time protruding through its primitive foundation, Ocarina of Time still has a hidden depth in many facets that have retained its initial quality. If one still insists on framing Ocarina of Time with more technical aspects, I ask them to consider the game's impact. If you like 3D gaming, you certainly have The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to thank for ascending the novelty aspect 3D gaming once had when the medium was still expanding and growing, thus making it the industry norm indefinitely.

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

By 2005, the 3D platformer had been a popular staple in gaming for almost a decade.
The 3D platformer genre was a staple of the early 3D era, giving us countless landmark titles that shaped the mold of what these newfangled extra dimensions could do for gaming. Trends relating to genres usually only last for the duration of a single console generation. Still, the era of the 3D platformer was prolonged into the sixth generation with new IPs that took the foundation of those earlier games and created some of the best 3D platformers of all time (Ratchet & Clank, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, etc.). 2005 marked the launch of the Xbox 360, and there was no way that this streak of relevance for the 3D platformer would extend to another generation. The games that defined the seventh generation were so far removed from the 3D platformers that I grew up playing that these games would be damned if they even included a jump button. As much as I clamor about the era of the 3D platformers and critique the games of the following generation, it was time to hang up the old hat and explore new horizons. Fortunately, the 3D platformer genre did not stagnate in quality, even in its twilight years. To avoid the eventual oversaturation of the genre, it needed one last hurrah to end its legacy, and that game was Psychonauts. In my eyes, Psychonauts was the game that served as both the creative peak and the bittersweet swansong of the initial 3D platformer era.

It’s too bad the general public did not realize this upon the release year of Psychonauts. The game was developed by Double Fine, a studio created by Tim Schaffer in the wake of leaving LucasArts. If you’re not familiar with this man by name, he’s the one responsible for the likes of the quirky point and clicks/graphic adventure titles such as Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango. The eccentric, kooky nature of Tim Schaffer’s titles tend to garner high critical acclaim but do not have the commercial marketability to sell well. Tim Schaffer is a video game auteur with an uncompromising direction, giving all of his titles a sense of character and foundation not typically seen by other developers. This consistent formula has, however, doomed every single Tim Schaffer property to cult status, and Psychonauts was no exception. Not even developing a game in the widely accessible 3D platformer genre could net poor Tim any financial success. As par for the course with Tim’s games, the public attention Psychonauts deserved came a little too late. This attention wasn’t too long after the game’s release, but another console generation had been born, and trends in gaming were changing. The impact of Psychonauts had always been, in retrospect, a shining example from a distant era, further cementing its status as a coda for the 3D platformer era instead of ushering in a new wave of them. There were likely plenty of 3D platformers released shortly after Psychonauts, so why have I bestowed the honor of being the genre’s crowning achievement on this game? Because Psychonauts proved that 3D platformers could still be fresh and invigorating after a decade. One might assume that gamers would have grown tired of jumping onto platforms and collecting a smattering of trinkets, but Psychonauts proved otherwise.

The premise of Psychonauts certainly hadn’t been done in any previous 3D platformer. A “psychonaut” is a supernatural agent of justice who uses its psychic powers on missions of great importance on an international scale. The plural form of the word refers to their agency as these missions require more than one powerful mind to accomplish. Before one becomes a psychonaut, the process happens as early as preadolescence at Whispering Rock: the cerebral, summer-camp cousin to Hogwarts. Judging from the attention-deficit wandering eyes and whimpering hysterics from the campers, none of these kids are cut out to be Psychonauts. That is until an eager boy with goggles named Raz infiltrates the campground by falling from the sky. Raz, in an ironic twist of fate, has run away from the circus to follow his dream of being a psychonaut but does not have permission to be here as the other campers. He impresses the psychonaut counselors with his passionate recitation of the camp pamphlet, but the bureaucratic rules still state that Raz must leave accordingly. The sole reason why he stays is that his parents live too far away to pick him up immediately. Until then, Raz must make the most of his short time at Whispering Rock and further prove himself worthy of becoming a psychonaut.

Psychonauts wasn’t fresh because it rewrote the rulebook on the standard 3D platformer. Rather, its freshness stems from the clever way it uses the genre's tropes. The levels of Psychonauts take place in the subconscious minds of the people around Whispering Rock, accessed through an Aldous Huxley-inspired door-shaped portal that attaches to their heads. 3D platformers tend to run the gamut of varied levels. A grass world, beach world, ice world, desert world, fire world, etc. are the staple combinations of a geographically inconsistent world meant to provide variety for the player. While the variety is present, this collective of levels tends to feel inorganic. Imagination is a realm of limitless possibilities, so Psychonauts can provide a myriad of different-level themes and designs without breaking any sense of topographical rationale. The range of creative levels is juxtaposed with the woodland area of Whispering Rock, the hub world of the game. Whispering Rock is a spacious, hilly forest area that feels quaint and cozy, an orthodox depiction of a kid’s summer camp. Its rustic atmosphere and warm coziness act perfectly as a hub world, despite the occasional psychic cougar and bear encounters and being difficult to navigate. The hub world has its own merits, but its effectiveness is in juxtaposition with the wild nature of the levels. A hub world should be a source of respite by design, and Psychonauts conveys this perfectly. Going back to the hub world after adventuring through someone’s mind for a while feels like waking up from a dream.

Common tropes regarding Raz’s abilities as a 3D platformer character are also translated into the narrative. Being that he’s a rogue circus performer, Raz is as acrobatic as a flying squirrel. More appropriately, he’s as agile as Mario or any other 3D platformer protagonist. Whenever Raz jumps on tightropes or swings from bars, it’s easy to see the influences from other 3D platformers. The factor that keeps Psychonauts from seeming derivative is the sharp writing that masks these tropes as new ideas. Raz can’t swim either, a handicap that has plagued many 3D platformer characters. Whenever he comes close to a body of water, a horrific, translucent hand pops up and pulls Raz into the drink. Raz explains that long ago, psychics cursed every member of his family to a watery death, which has passed on for generations. All gamers will know that having water as a hazard has been done to death, but Psychonauts manages to weave it into something more substantial.

Psychonauts is also a tried and true collection, a popular faction of the 3D platformer. Like with Raz’s platforming abilities, the developers have cleverly integrated the trope of collectibles with the narrative identity of the game. The collectibles inside the minds of everyone are taken right from popular psychological constructs and theories. Figments of their imagination are the most common collectible in each level; wispy, paper-thin fabrications floating around in a plethora of shapes and colors. Collecting these figments will progressively increase Raz’s level, and there is plenty to collect per level. Five different types of sobbing pieces of luggage represent someone’s emotional baggage (har har), and Raz has to find the correct tag for each of them. Finding all five in each will unlock concept art for the level. Mental cobwebs are strewn about in the harder-to-reach corners of each level. Their pink, sparkly hue makes them easy to spot, but Raz can’t collect them until he buys a cobweb duster from the camp store. My favorite collectible that doesn’t have a real psychological theory behind it is a vault. Hitting this quadrupedal safe will unlock the person's memories, which can be viewed like the slides of a Viewfinder. These charming illustrations always give the player much-needed insight into the history of the person’s mind they are adventuring through. Sometimes, they even explain any kind of cognitive dissonance the person might have. Collectables in most 3D platformers are mainly used to prolong the player’s time in a level. Still, every single collectible here directly involves the main objective of clearing the mental space of one’s mind.

To defend himself in the untethered psyches of his fellow man, Raz’s mind comes with an arsenal of every psychic power that any magician or psychotic lunatic has ever professed to have. These psychic powers are unlocked through earning merit badges as per the camp setting of Whispering Rock. Whether or not earning the merit badge means a camper has learned the move or is now allowed to use it whenever they please isn’t clear, but Raz will have to use them often for offense, defense, traversal, and solving puzzles. Marksmanship is the first badge that acts as a projectile weapon and is the most useful means of offense. Pyrokinesis sets enemy and wooden objects ablaze, and telekinesis allows Raz to form a giant hand in his mind to pick up and throw both enemies and objects. Psychic powers like the shield are used for defense, while powers like invisibility and clairvoyance are mostly used for puzzles The confusion power is lobbed at enemies like a smoke grenade to discombobulate them for a brief period. My favorite mental power is levitation in which Raz rides on a glowing ball of energy that boosts his speed and jumping ability. This move is always convenient and makes traversal all the more comfortable. Raz can also use a “psi-punch” move that doesn’t require a badge or ammo. I’m no expert on parapsychological phenomena, but I’m fairly certain that Raz’s eclectic array of powers covers all the bases.

All of these clever uses of platforming tropes relating to psychological theories and phenomena, unfortunately, cannot mask the fact that the gameplay of Psychonauts feels very unrefined. The hiccups of this game make it apparent that Tim Schaffer and his team were amateurs in developing for the 3D platformer genre. Raz’s movements while walking are relatively fluid, but the cracks are visibly shown whenever Raz has to do something more complicated than that. Raz often has to execute a pole swinging move for traversal, leaping from poles or tree branches near camp. Gaining momentum feels natural enough, but the time it takes to gain that momentum is a little too long for something intended to be quick. This platforming mechanic is taken right from Jak and Daxter, and pole swinging in that game is much smoother due to simply needing to time the jumps correctly with a consistent momentum. Vine swinging is also present in Psychonauts, and where Raz lands after jumping off a vine tends to be infuriatingly inaccurate. Grind rails from Sonic Adventure 2 appear in some of the mind levels, and Raz’s jumping transitions are about as smooth as a glass enema. The grind rails work in Sonic Adventure 2 due to speed being the primary focus, something that Double Fine failed to realize. Ledge grabbing only works sometimes, and any sort of precision jumping is difficult to execute. All of this is probably due to the less-than-stellar frame rate that limits the potential of movement.

Combat in Psychonauts also feels just as awkward. 3D platformers often have various enemies running around the levels to make the locations natural and provide some challenges. Double Fine probably felt obligated to implement common enemies because of this. The censors are a group of abstract concepts that work to expunge the mind of any “improper thoughts”, namely the invading Raz. They are personified as suited men with glasses and business haircuts. Their weapons of choice are clipboards and giant stamps with a negative mark on them, appropriate tools for the humorless cranial bureaucrats. They come in a few different forms, with some using their stamp as a projectile and beefy censors who deal considerable damage and are defensive powerhouses. Other than the censors, the only other recurring common enemy is walking bombs with vague, cat-like appearances that explode in Raz’s face at close range. The censors may come in a few varieties, but this doesn’t mean they don’t overstay their welcome. They appear from portals that never disappear, so expect a constant onslaught of them in certain areas. I’ve also found that the only clear means of offense against the censors is using the marksmanship badge, which can ricochet off every censor to clear the area. Using any other offensive merit badge like pyrokinesis or telekinesis is either too slow or hurts Raz. Raz can always use the psi-punch move, but each punch takes too long to wind in succession. Compare Raz’s punch to something like Sly Cooper’s swift cane swings, and the difference in performance is easy to see. Also, compare the number of effective weapons in Ratchet and Clank to the number of effective merit badges in Psychonauts. I’d love to mix and match Raz’s offensive powers, but the game doesn’t give the player any leeway to do this.

Psychonauts’ creativity and sharp writing compensate for their faulty gameplay. The world of Psychonauts is filled with quirky, oddball characters that uphold the Tim Schaffer standard of wackiness. The levelheaded (relatively speaking) center of this crazy world is Raz, our plucky pre-teen protagonist. I get the feeling everyone knows a kid like Raz to some extent. He’s the polite, type-A personality who does exceptionally well in school and is leagues more mature than most kids his age. The scout-like psychic camp of Whispering Rock is a perfect place to indulge his passions because Raz exemplifies the loyal, disciplined boy scout to a T. He’s an eager beaver who treats all of the bizarre things around him as curious discoveries. His determination and will make him a charismatic protagonist. In saying that, he’s probably the kid who reminds the teacher to collect the homework at the end of the day. He doesn’t exactly win over his fellow campers with his social skills.

Aiding Raz are the peculiar supporting characters that surround him at camp. Agents Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello are the two psychonaut elites with two contrasting personalities. They also might be an item, as a vault reel suggests. They are the two people Raz has to prove himself to so he can stay at Whispering Rock. They see a great deal of potential in him but still can’t permit him to stay without permission. Coach Oleander is the other psychonaut on the premise who walks human thumb with a serious Napoleon complex. Ford Cruller is the groundskeeper whose mind is so out of whack that he can’t remember who he is unless he’s in his underground hideout. Do not be misled by his geriatric quirks; he’s a highly respected psychonaut with one of the most powerful minds in the agency. He acts as the Yoda to Raz’s Luke by training his mind and offering help on the field via the smell of a bacon strip.
The other faction of supporting characters at Whispering Rock is Raz’s fellow campers. Lili is Raz’s no-nonsense love interest whose secret crush on Raz is hilariously revealed to the player because Raz is psychic and can read minds. Their playful boy-girl dynamic is adorable, and their relationship reveals more boyish tendencies from Raz. Dogen is Raz’s timid bunkmate with psychic powers so turbulent and unhinged that he must wear an aluminum hat to keep them under control. Bobby Zilch is the typical obnoxious camp bully with an even more typical little crony named Benny. These are the only campers who get some limelight in the story, as the others are relegated to the background. The only way that the player will get an insight into the rest of the campers is to explore the camp, and I highly recommend doing this. The player will get a glimpse of life at camp surrounding the activities of the rest of the kids. Raz gets to experience the strained friendship of Chops, and J.T. due to J.T.'s toxic relationship with Elka listens to the slow, incoherent ramblings from Vernon, and eavesdrops on a disturbing suicide pact between the enthusiastic duo of Clem and Crystal. The mundane activities of the campers may seem superfluous in the grand scheme of things, but it’s essential to get to know all of these kids due to the rising action of the plot.

Psychonauts should give the player enough time to know every camper a little more organically, but the bizarre pacing of the first third of the game doesn’t allow them to. The “camp section” of the game is a series of three tutorial levels in the minds of Coach Oleander, Sasha, and Milla. Oleander’s war ground obstacle course teaches the player basic 3D platformer skills and has to be completed before they can look around the camp. The next day will have Raz darting to Sasha Nein’s lab for a tutorial on combat inside of Sasha’s methodically organized cube mind to reflect his stoic Germanness. Milla’s mind is a linear, gaudy disco-dance party straight out of the music video for Deee-Lite’s “Groove is in the Heart”, made to teach Raz the levitation move. Were all of these tutorial levels necessary? Each of them is at least different and gives the player some interesting insight into the machinations of these characters’ minds, but having three straight tutorial missions with no stake in the story gives the first third of the game a glacial pace. They should have supplemented this with a level that lets Raz interact with the rest of the campers, but the player has to unknowingly make an effort to do this on their own in the middle of Sasha and Milla’s levels.

Why is getting to know the campers so important? Because after these three levels, all of them are gone. The rising action occurs inside Raz’s subconscious, where he sees a mad doctor extract Dogen’s brain from the top of a tall tower that Raz cannot reach. Suddenly, all of the camper’s brains are missing, and Raz finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy. A sizable portion of the game involves Raz retrieving every child’s brain back to their respective bodies, and Raz will comment on who the brain belongs to upon finding it. If the player doesn’t take the time to get to know them, the impact of saving their brain is lost. It’s quickly revealed that Oleander is behind this and is collaborating with the creepy Dr. Loboto to extract the children’s brains to power tanks to take over the world. Lili is intact until the fabled monster of the lake takes her into the water. After Raz dukes it out with the lungfish, Raz enters its mind into a place called “Lungfishopolis,” where Raz is a giant, city-destroying monster in an ironic twist to show that the lungfish is just as afraid of Raz as Raz is of it. Raz learns that the Lungfish is a reasonable creature under Oleander’s spell to do his bidding. The first psychic venture into a mind without a hand-holding tutorial finally shifts the game into gear. Who doesn’t like to destroy buildings as a giant? More importantly, it’s the first level that delves into a poignant theme that Psychonauts delivers: the theme of empathizing with the mentally ill or understanding those who are different from you.

This theme persists for every remaining level of the game. The rising-action revolving around the Lungfish and the conspiracy was just a boost of momentum, but the asylum levels are when the game starts to show its stride. The lungfish takes Raz to an offshore island where a lofty, dilapidated asylum resides. Even though the asylum is in ruins, four patients roam the grounds. The minds of each of these patients serve as the levels of the asylum, and they all relate to different mental illnesses. Boyd, the security guard is an obsessive-compulsive, anxious, paranoid wreck whose mind is rife with conspiracy involving the elusive milkman. Gloria is a former stage starlet with bipolar disorder, and the duality of her moods is cleverly depicted by the comedy and tragedy masks from a theater at her level. Fred Bonaparte is a descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the short emperor is the other voice of his multiple-personality disorder. Lastly, Edgar, the painter, is suffering from a serious creative block due to his depression from a traumatic event in his high school days. Raz must clear the minds of these lost souls with a therapeutic excavation of their psyche, acting as half Professor X and half Sigmund Freud. Helping these people will help him access the top of the tower guarded by the hostile inmate Crispin.

These four levels are the reason why I hold Psychonauts in such high regard. Double Fine may have been inexperienced in developing for the 3D platformer genre, but their esteemed pedigree in designing graphic adventure games shows here. The levels in Tim Schaffer’s previous games in the graphic adventure genre were designed with one main objective that was slowly unraveled through completing several smaller objectives, mainly relating to puzzles. For example, the main objective of “The Milkman Conspiracy” is to find the milkman somewhere on the level. Doing so requires many steps involving collecting a series of signs and objects that will unlock more of the area. The Dragnet-Esque secret agents will perceive Raz as something depending on what he’s holding, which will access an area (and result in some hilariously deadpan dialogue). The main objective of Gloria’s level is to get up to the rafters and fight Gloria’s inner critic. To do so, Raz has to match the right play with a series of potentially correct scenes. Fred’s level involves Raz helping him win against Napoleon in a board game based on the battle of Waterloo. Raz must perform a series of tasks to gain the support of more board pieces and then move the pieces to the enemy’s fortress. Edgar’s level is the most visually striking and the least fluid of the four. It would be the most linear as well if there wasn’t a giant bull constantly stampeding down the main pathway. Nevertheless, the main objective is to collect cards for Edgar to stack, all the while avoiding the charging bull. Each of these levels is unique in its own right, but they all maintain the same course of objectives that give them all a solid foundation. The open-level design in a game like Jak and Daxter would simply involve the player retrieving the main collectible in an unrestricted order. Psychonauts slightly confine the player comparatively, but progressively unraveling the layers of the level to the main objective is a sharper approach to this type of level design. The brilliant intricacy of the level design here was unparalleled to any other 3D platformer I’ve played.

I wish this degree of quality was maintained for the final act of the game. Raz climbs the asylum tower to find Lili in captivity. He also finds that Dr. Loboto is here with the brains of both Sasha and Milla in his lab. With the help of a gender-swapped Igor and her trusty turtle companion, they all break free and have a showdown with Oleander. Raz then has to dispose of Oleander’s final form, which is one of the tanks that he put his brain into. Through a cleverly executed trap involving brain sneezing powder, Raz’s brain mixes with Oleander’s and forms “The Meat Circus,”; the crossbreed of both psyches into one level. Many fans of the game are not particularly fond of this level, and I am one of them. They say that “The Meat Circus” is difficult, but I think the more appropriate word for it is irritating. Oleander’s psyche has manifested a traumatic childhood moment involving his butcher dad slaughtering a bunny, so the Oleander in the level is a child version of him. If I didn’t know any better, I would have guessed that Oleander’s childhood trauma stemmed from being constantly bullied or people telling him to shut his fucking piehole because that’s what I wanted to do to the annoying little squirt. I, unfortunately, couldn’t do this due to having to escort little Oleander through the circus. Escort missions are aggravating enough, but this mission is a race against the clock before the malformed bunny creatures kill Oleander. On the way to his location, little Oleander will be attacked constantly by these things, and every hit makes him eek out another line with the most shrill, maddening voice I’ve ever heard from a child character. Raz’s half of this abominable mix of psyches is his negative perception of the circus, so guess what this level is full of? Rope swings, beams, and other trapeze tricks galore, and the player has to do this to a great extent during this portion. The player also has to do these during the second half with the psychological manifestation of Raz’s dad. Still, the irritation I experienced during that section was nothing compared to the first half with child Oleander. This all culminates in Raz fighting a hybrid version of his dad and Oleander’s and reuniting with the real version of his dad, who is more understanding than Raz led him to be. Raz’s brain is restored, and Oleander somehow gets off scot-free. Sasha and Milla promote Raz to the role of a junior psychonaut as they are called on another important mission. The story here wraps up a little too nicely, and it’s made even worse that the climactic point of it was a level that included a bevy of the game’s worst aspects and none of what made the previous levels great.

Ironically, the game that I am heralding as the peak of the 3D platformer era isn’t up to par with the performance of many of its contemporaries. The second-wave 3D platformers of the sixth generation refined the formula to the point of near perfection, and Psychonauts falls too short of the standards set by the other games. Movement can be imprecise, the framerate is dodgy, and combat can be so awkward that it’s a wonder as to why they bothered putting enemies in the levels at all. Some of the levels in Psychonauts are some of the best I’ve ever played, but they are presented with strange pacing in a story that is shaky at best. The less said about “The Meat Circus,” the better. Normally I wouldn’t lavish a game with so many flaws with this amount of praise, but Psychonauts has too much substance to prattle on about its rough edges. The humor, creativity, characters, and depth that Psychonauts offers in its level design are extraordinary and make up for any shortcomings. Even the more lackluster levels (except for “The Meat Circus”) have a unique flair that I haven’t seen in any other 3D platformer. No game is perfect, and I’d gladly take Psychonauts any day over an uninspired collectathon with smoother gameplay. Psychonauts unlocked an unseen potential in the 3D platformer genre, an impressive feat considering the long-winded history of the genre by 2005. As it turned out, it did not prolong the genre’s relevance, but at least it was treated to a rich, tasty dessert before it was put to bed.

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

I failed to mention this in my review of the first Mega Man but when I first played the blue bomber’s debut title, I didn’t like it. I am a child of the 2000s, which means I grew up accustomed to the frills that came with 3D gaming such as save features and reasonable difficulty curves. My earliest gaming experiences were the cumulative product of burgeoning change that made gaming smoother and more accessible for everyone, and this rate of progress has only become even more apparent since then. It’s not a cardinal rule that the parameters of one’s gaming repertoire should start at the base of when they started gaming to the current day, so why does playing games before one’s debut generation not come recommended by many? I’ve fervently argued that art and entertainment of yesteryears should be at least considered or at least respected by those whose existence came after the piece’s release date, for it can still retain its essentials that stand the test of time. However, my experience with the first Mega Man as a child tested my laurels and made me skeptical about the overall quality of “retro games.” That allurement of Mega Man’s that I alluded to struck me while reading about his classic titles in an issue of Nintendo Power sometime in the 2000s. The NES Mega Man titles still grabbed me with their promise of high-octane shooting action and tight platforming despite their primitiveness. What I didn’t anticipate was the game throttling me around like a rag doll, leaving me bruised and battered. Each of the Robot Master’s stages was uniquely punishing, and finally learning a comfortable sequential order to defeat them didn’t matter when I faced the sun-colored brick wall known as The Yellow Devil. Instead of throwing in a tear-soaked towel, something curious caught my eye about its sequel, Mega Man 2. Ironically, the optimal title in the classic Mega Man series for optimistic beginners is not the first title, as Mega Man 2 is considered by most to be the grand champion of the series. In just one following entry, the rudimentary snags that made the first Mega Man so excruciating were remedied to an exceptional degree.

On the surface, Mega Man 2 doesn’t improve on its rough template too much with considerable deviation. Our charismatic robot boy sees himself on another valiant quest to defeat the deranged Dr. Wily and his league of themed Robot Masters and save his futuristic world from total chaos. The key difference this time in relation to the first game is that Dr. Wily has cooked up this new batch of Robot Masters himself and there are eight of them instead of six. Once again, the player has the choice of routing Mega Man on a course of destroying the robotic menaces, while briskly being directed towards a sensible trajectory depending on the elemental powers Mega Man absorbs from them. Mega Man 2 is not a reboot disguised as a sequel like the Evil Deads of the world, but it is an indication that Mega Man has solidified a formula that will persist with each entry. The problem with the first Mega Man was obviously not a case of an ill-conceived idea falling apart at the seams. Mega Man needed some significant sanding down and refurbishing in order to bloom as the exemplary 2D platformer series on the NES. The effort to polish Mega Man was not a painstaking overhaul, but the slight improvements made a world of difference.

Unlike the three Super Mario games on the NES, the Mega Man series did not receive a new coat of pixelated paint with each new title. At first glance, Mega Man 2 is a carbon copy of the first game from an aesthetic standpoint. However, one can discern a substantial amount of detail by squinting at the graphical intricacies in the fine mineral textures in the pixels. This level of refinement is displayed as early as the game’s pre-menu introduction which sees a sprawling, futuristic metropolis in evening shade, with the deep color palette perfectly capturing the tone of the scene. Scrolling up the skyscraper sees Mega Man standing on its roof sans his helmet, and the wind of the high altitudes ruffles his black hair. It’s the most indelible image of the game and quite possibly the whole series, and it sets a precedent for how the game has improved upon Mega Man’s visuals. For one, Mega Man himself has been treated to a subtle hint of refinement that many might not catch. Mega Man’s pixelated outline is no longer as pronounced as an unplucked eyebrow, as it has been shaved down with an 8-bit thin razor. Along with the blue bomber, the foregrounds, and backgrounds of each stage look like they’ve been on the operating table in the year between Mega Man 1 and 2. They’ve been transformed to more appropriately fit the theme set around the specific Robot Master. Metal Man’s stage has a crop of rotating gears to set the scene of an industrial factory. Wood Man’s stage is an auburn color with a wavy, timbered texture to simulate venturing through the insides of an immensely-sized tree in the forest. The background of Flash Man’s stage is bright and glitzy, aptly enough for the Robot Master who resides in it, and the sweltering atmosphere of Heat Man’s stage radiates strongly off the red brick walls enough to make Mega Man sweat, (if he had those glands, anyways) as opposed to the stage of the warmth-themed Robot Master from the previous game. Stages in Mega Man 2 feel much more immersive thanks to the great strides in detail compared to the empty blue and black backgrounds and globular foregrounds of the stages in the foreground in the first game. Mega Man looking less like he has a thick layer of filth around him is also a bonus perk.

The overall level design in Mega Man 2 is as intricate as the visuals. In the first game, most of the levels were focused on precision platforming, whether they be trying to keep Mega Man’s footing over a pit of perilous spikes or falling into the abyss. While that’s still a prevalent aspect of Mega Man’s level structure here, the focal point of each stage in Mega Man 2 is also better centered around the theme of each Robot Master. Accompanying the clockwise rotation of the gears in Metal Man’s stage are conveyor belt platforms, a reasonable trope of factory settings that either accelerate or slacken Mega Man’s movement in the undesired direction. The urgency of Quick Man’s stage is highlighted by an infamous section involving a series of energy beams that jet out of every corner of the screen, disintegrating Mega Man on impact if they catch him. Many abhor this section because of the unpredictability of where the beams will appear and how rapidly they zoom out to blast Mega Man in the face from potentially anywhere. While I can understand their grievances, the tense reaction time needed to avoid the beams evokes the thrill of being chased. Once Mega Man plunges into the lake below the gorgeously roaring waterfall of Bubble Man’s stage, we learn that Dr. Light was insightful enough to equip Mega Man with a resistance to water. Even though his robotic pride and joy can withstand being submerged in the drink, Mega Man’s buoyancy is tested by the physics of his standard jump being manipulated. Acclimating to the rate of movement underwater and adjusting it to avoid the stinging, deadly-as-spikes sea urchins takes some time to master. Keeping afloat in Air Man’s stage is reminiscent of platforming challenges where Mega Man falls to oblivion in Mega Man 1, but the course of the cloud platforms and the drill barriers of the strange tiki heads is consistent and easier to learn. Reappearing block sections make their return in Heat Man’s stage, and their patterns are much less unhinged and demanding compared to the asymmetrical, almost avant-garde patterns seen in Ice Man’s stage. Inhibitors while climbing ladders in Crash Man’s stage don’t knock Mega Man down to the previous screen, and enemy placements can be detected far in advance before they pounce. Returning attributes to Mega Man’s stages have been made much more manageable, and the variety of the new attributes offer a fair challenge without seeming like irritating gimmicks.

If one couldn’t tell from their names or descriptions of their levels, the eight new Robot Masters are another ragtag crew with an eclectic range of physical differences. While these differences are apparent, the player must once again surmise a logical matching of their powers to inflict on one another like a more puzzling game of rock, paper, and scissors. The reasonable path in the first Mega Man game was based on elemental tropes like earth, wind, fire, and ice, but the characteristics of the Robot Masters in Mega Man 2 are less conspicuous. No, the rhyme scheme between Flash Man and Crash Man does not correlate with their weaknesses. The path to Dr. Wily that defeating all eight Robot Masters leads to involves more clever consideration. Examples include using Air Man’s multiple cyclones on Crash Man because turbulence can cause a crash, clogging up Air Man with Wood Man’s leaves like a jet turbine, and Flash Man stopping time to halt Quick Man’s speedy maneuvers. Or, you can do what everyone does and seek out Metal Man first, for his Metal Blade weapon is a force to be reckoned with. The projectile saw blade can be tossed in eight different directions, deals twice the damage of the standard blaster, and barely expends any amount of energy. Imposing it on most of the Robot Masters also tends to make the health bars plummet like the 1929 stock market. You know the old adage not to bring a knife to a gunfight? I have a new saying: do not bring any weapon against the Metal Blade, for you will be smote by its power. For those who do not revel in the almighty awesomeness of the Metal Blade, they tend to argue that the pervasive use of this item compromises on the utility of each weapon, but I was feeling too righteous and badass while using it to care. Besides, the other weapons have their own uses as well, whether it’s a matter of the game forcing it on the player or not.

Mega Man 2’s considerable leap in quality may boil down to the developers making the experience easier, which may draw some contempt from NES purists who might contest the game’s legacy and mock players like myself who couldn’t handle the consistent onslaught of torment the first game bestowed. Considering how abundant the amount of energy/health items and extra lives are on the field of Mega Man 2, their arguments aren’t baseless. However, I don’t think Mega Man 2 is a breezy cakewalk to Dr. Wily’s domain. I’ve already expressed that the challenges leading up to him in the Robot Master’s levels involve considerable skill to surpass. The developers have made a substantial effort to balance Mega Man’s difficulty by aiding the player through the rudimentary regulations of the NES era. A password system is instated instead of expecting the player to finish the game in one sitting, the most primitive form of saving progress that did not persist past the pixelated eras. Password systems at least put one’s progress into consideration, but writing down a jumble of codes on paper is not my idea of being accommodating. Because losing one’s progress is still a harsh reality in Mega Man 2, the developers offer a smattering of aid trinkets to keep the player in the fray. Among the excess of automatic replenishing items, Mega Man 2 sees the birth of the series staple Energy Tank, with no relation to the item of the same name from Metroid. Mega Man pops these cerulean cans as Popeye does to spinach, and they revitalize his health to its maximum capacity. Mega Man can carry up to a total of four at a time, and the precarious placements these tanks are placed in offer a risk-reward incentive. The awkward implementation of the “optional” Magnet Beam from the first game has been reconfigured into three support weapons, and each of them serves to mitigate the hazardous and or tedious sections of the game far more comfortably than their prototype. Dr. Light also rewards Mega Man with one of these support weapons after a certain number of slain Robot Masters, cementing their importance and assuring that Mega Man won’t be hopelessly stuck ahem. Mega Man’s developers aren’t rewriting the NES rulebook, but I appreciate that they’re willing to bend it a bit to express concern for the player’s well-being.

Unfortunately, good intentions ultimately fall flat when those performing those noble deeds don’t think things through. Once again, a Mega Man game eventually accelerates headfirst into an impervious wall. Actually, in this context, Mega Man 2’s impenetrable force is more like falling down a one-hundred-foot well. Also, this impediment occurs at Dr. Wily’s Castle, but at least it isn’t as early as the first section while crossing the fortress’s lawn. Up until the fourth section, Dr. Wily’s castle seems to have reduced its security measures. The first section greatly utilizes the three support items, and the dark arena with the sparse, airborne grounding in which Mega Man fights the dragon is tense enough that one slip will signal Mega Man’s doom. When the arena itself is the boss of the second section, it makes the player use the Metal Blade more shrewdly, and the third section allows the player to practice more underwater jumping. Then, the fourth section comes along to ruin everything. The boss that awaits Mega Man in the final stretch of the fourth section is not another cybernetic behemoth, but a series of five electrical domes situated along the walls parallel to the arena. These domes are impervious to everything in Mega Man’s arsenal except for the Crash Bomber, and nothing before this would’ve warranted using this weapon. Even if Mega Man’s Crash Bomber meter is full, his attempt to blow out all of these domes will most likely result in failure. The Crash Bomber can only be fired seven times, and four of the five domes are protected by Crash Bomber walls. Eight shots exceed the total energy capacity of the Crash Bomber, so the player must consider a more analytical strategy when destroying the domes, almost like a puzzle. However, it’s unlikely that the player will anticipate something this cerebral in an action-intensive 2D platformer, and considering an approach to this bizarre boss fight while the domes are also firing energy balls at Mega Man is disorienting. After the player is unprepared for this demanding duel, depleting all of the Crash Bomber’s energy gauge will result in a stalemate. Leaving Mega Man without any further recourse will ultimately force the player to restart the entire game, making all the progress up to this point all for naught. Regarding the fiddly circumstance surrounding the Magnet Beam, at least the player can die and come back fully prepared. Here, the player is left crestfallen in a void of defeat that takes drastic measures to escape. I don’t think the developers deliberately designed this boss to hornswoggle the player, for I can use the dozens of aids they implemented that were intended to help the player survive as evidence of their altruism. All this boss needed was some serious beta testing, and the fact that this remained overlooked is egregiously inexcusable.

The Dome boss dilemma could’ve been solved via the Energy Tanks replenishing both health and energy. In fact, this would’ve been a convenience at other points in the game, namely in the section that follows if the player managed to surpass the seemingly unsurpassable. Similarly to the first game, Mega Man will have to face a gauntlet of the eight Robot Masters, only the player somewhat has a choice of the order to tackle them in. The Crash Bomber isn’t necessary during this battle royale, as the designated Robot master Quick Man is the most vulnerable to the traditional blaster out of the eight. Even if the Dome boss taught the player a lesson in conservation, the Wily Boss that follows will make that a moot point. The energy of every weapon doesn’t replenish after completing a level, and guess which of Mega Man’s weapons Wily’s floating ship is weak to? The fucking Crash Bomber. Even though other weapons will deal damage to Dr. Wily’s aircraft, the barrage of undodgeable orbs from the airship's cannons make this a match of conflicting damage output that should ideally end sooner than later with the Crash Bomber. The final fight against Wily’s alien form which turns out to be an Oz routine is made into a facile joke with Bubble Man’s weapon, but what if the player expunged all of the weapon’s juice while fighting Heat Man? Not every weapon has the sustainability of the Metal Blade, you know. If the game isn’t going to grant the player a refuel item for the energy meter, then it should at least fully restock every weapon after the level is completed. Sounds reasonable, right?

It hurts how close Mega Man is to 2D platforming perfection. Forget for a second about the incredible strides the game makes to dwarf its predecessor in every conceivable fashion. Mega Man 2 is almost the golden standard of the NES library, ascending over its contemporaries by crafting a smoother, more accessible product that still provided a steep challenge that wouldn’t alienate the masochistic NES audience that took pride in playing games equivalent to eating a bowl of nails. To everyone’s dismay, that damned NES-era abrasiveness made another unceremonious appearance in Wily’s Castle, and a betrayal hasn’t cut as deep since Fredo fucked over Michael . Even the most seasoned NES enthusiasts find that particular section to be harsh. While Mega Man 2, unfortunately, exudes undesirable qualities that show the series needs more time baking in the kiln, I can still forgive the notorious point of no return that was inflicted upon me. You see, everything leading up to that point finally met my expectations for Mega Man that were almost dashed by the consistent punishment that the first game dealt. Mega Man 2’s well-ordered execution of the prevalent 2D platformer genre erased all narrow preconceptions I had for games released before my time. For that, I am eternally grateful.

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

I did not grow up with the Mario & Luigi series. Actually, it feels as if the series was adjacent to my early development years as a gamer, but I had yet to play any of them prior to this review. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, the first game in the series, was receiving tons of critical acclaim the same year I was thoroughly exposed to the world of gaming, so I was well aware of its impact. My best friend growing up heralded Superstar Saga as the “quintessential Mario experience,” or at least that’s the same sentiment expressed more eloquently than as the seven/eight-year-old he was at the time. Being an ecstatic enthusiast of the Paper Mario games as a child naturally should’ve correlated to an interest in playing the Mario & Luigi games but somehow, the opportunity slipped through the cracks. Why was I relatively indifferent to Mario & Luigi? It’s not as if I selectively chose to only play the Paper Mario games as an act of silly reverence, as many fans even tend to umbrella both series as the collective of Mario RPG spinoffs. I suppose my surprising indifference to Mario & Luigi was due to the fact that the games were exclusively on handheld hardware. My optimal way of playing a video game was to sit in front of the television with a controller and bask in its comparatively more enveloping glow, and that’s still the case to this day as an adult. I owned a Game Boy Advance growing up (the SP model to be precise) and mainly used it as a Pokemon machine because Pokemon Silver was the only game I had for the Game Boy Color. Whether it was due to some undiagnosed trauma (or autism) that impeded me from playing Superstar Saga at its prime, I’m happy to report that I’ve made up for lost time. I had high expectations for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga after what is now decades of hype, and the game has delivered on them splendidly.

Still, I can’t help but compare Mario & Luigi to Paper Mario. Both series are spiritual successors to Super Mario RPG on the SNES, sharing the same JRPG genetic code that separates it from the mainline series of platformers. Also, each Mario RPG, regardless of the specific series, uses the narrative-intensive genre as a vehicle to expand the world and characters of the Mario universe. The direction to achieve this sense of amplification tends to verge into the subversive territory. The first Paper Mario game was only slightly off-beat, as it told the traditional Mario story of Mario saving a kidnapped Peach from Bowser once again with more dialogue, exposition, and other patches of irregular elements that the developers couldn’t possibly squeeze into a mainline Mario game. The Paper Mario series would become more irreverent as the series progressed, but Mario & Luigi came out of the gate swinging a toolkit of monkey wrenches at Super Mario’s foundation. To increase their allegiance to the Mushroom Kingdom, the neighboring BeanBean Kingdom sends esteemed ambassadors to Peach’s Castle to offer her a generous token. However, that generous gesture is actually a cloud of noxious smoke, as the meeting has been intercepted by the devious BeanBean witch Cackletta, disguised with her right-hand crony Fawful. One would expect the gas to knock Peach out so these fiends can easily carry her off to whatever vessel they arrived in and fly off with her in their captivity, but that would be too orthodox for a Mario conflict premise. Instead, the booby trap kidnaps Peach’s voice, rendering her deprived manner of speech to take the form of jagged characters that drop out of the text bubble and literally explode like bombs. Bowser, in his regular routine of capturing Peach, finds her unstable communication to be a hefty inconvenience, so he joins the Mario Bros. on their quest to retrieve the voice and return it to its rightful owner. From the beginning of their valiant adventure, Fawful attacks them on an airship, and the fallout of his ambush leaves Bowser separated from Mario and Luigi. So much for that solid truce between Mario and his usual arch-nemesis. Still, the fact that this cooperative pact was made at all is rather extraordinary. Cackletta’s goal in using Peach’s voice is to activate the “Beanstar,” a mythical artifact in the BeanBean Kingdom that is said to grant the wishes of someone pure, hence why Peach’s voice is needed. One might point out that the Beanstar is the same as the Star Rod from Paper Mario, but this kind of magical with an all-powerful allure has been used as a standard Macguffin for a number of Nintendo’s IPs (the Star Rod from Kirby, the Triforce, etc.). As I’ve said before regarding Paper Mario’s pension for slight irreverence, the low bar that the mainline series sets make the smallest sort of deviation a fresh change of pace. In Superstar Saga, the rule book for a Mario story almost gets tossed out of the window entirely, which is a wonderful sign of things to come to keep one’s interest piqued. Also, the start of the adventure is spurred by the player as Toad rushes to Mario and Luigi’s house to warn them that the princess is in danger, and Toad gets an unsavory glimpse at Mario’s Italian sausage while he’s in the shower. C’mon, any Mario game where the player can control Toad, the most notable NPC in gaming, for a brief period has got to have some wild tricks up its sleeves.

Up until the Gamecube era, setting a Mario title outside the confines of the Mushroom Kingdom was considered a revolutionary prospect. Super Mario Sunshine marked the first mainline Mario game that dared to plant Mario past the parameters of Peach’s royal country, but the vacation premise sort of implied that this setting was merely a temporary digression. Paper Mario would revel in placing Mario in settings beyond the realm of franchise normalcy, but his first outing as a quirky, two-dimensional arts and crafts project kept him secured in the Mushroom Kingdom’s domain in order to use the JRPG format to expand on the typical Mario story. In the case of the BeanBean Kingdom where the brothers find themselves in Superstar Saga, it’s difficult to say whether or not this protein-rich province is all that different from their normal stomping grounds. BeanBean Kingdom shares many parallels to the fungal neighbors of an unknown directional point of reference. The land where the musical fruit roams has a topographical eclecticism that seems to rival the Mushroom Kingdom’s imperialistic endeavors. BeanBean’s land elevations range from the waterfall-filled apexes of Hoo-Hoo Mountain, the wildly ungroomed wilderness of Chucklehuck Woods, to the sandy shores of the beaches located around the kingdom’s eastern coastline.

While the BeanBean Kingdom can compete with the Mushroom Kingdom’s varied array of destination spots, BeanBean Kingdom decided to take a divergent route for its infrastructure. Nowhere on BeanBean’s map is there a hub for our heroes to relax and briefly wind down in, taking off their leather boots to scrape the blood and guts of every Goomba and Koopa Troopa they’ve stomped on. BeanBean’s capital located in the center of the realm is the hotspot for purchasing items and overalls that are somehow stocked abundantly for both Mario and Luigi’s convenience. BeanBean’s capital even features a cafe where Mario and Luigi can make a smattering of exotic coffee blends made from the various beans littered beneath the grounds of the kingdom, and these earthy concoctions are tested by the eccentric scientist E. Gadd from Luigi’s Mansion back when Nintendo attempted to keep this character relevant. Alas, the capital does not exude the same atmosphere of a hub like Toad Town, the coziest of hubs located outside the grounds of Peach’s Castle in Paper Mario. Firstly, Mario and Luigi only become acquainted with the capital area after fully exploring two other areas. Secondly, the fact that the capital looks as bombed out as the aftermath of intercontinental Europe following WWII does not make the player feel safe and sound. In fact, the state of BeanBean’s capital becomes more shell-shocked as the game progresses. Lastly, the brothers do not return here after every mini-climactic point on their quest like Mario did upon returning from Toad Town’s branching pathways. It took me longer to realize this than I’m willing to admit, but the developers were not trying to replicate Toad Town on a handheld device. Rather, BeanBean Kingdom shares a striking resemblance to Hyrule, specifically the rendition of Zelda’s kingdom from A Link to the Past. BeanBean’s capital is located at the core of the nation like Zelda’s castle estate, signifying that it’s comparable to a nucleus in both stature and its literal position. The field area outside of the castle’s perimeter can be construed as an “overworld” due to its relatively neutral terrain with a plethora of secrets to be found that will net the brothers some upgrades and goodies if they search diligently. All the while, the areas of interest like dungeon-esque HooHoo University and the Yoshi Theater, whose patrons are all the colorful, gluttonous dinosaurs, never feel as if they are removed from the rest of the map. Returning from an area outside the grassy BeanBean plain doesn’t emit a wash of sentimentalism like it usually does with the less coalesced districts that stem from Toad Town. Zelda’s world design influence works wonders for Superstar Saga because it's a top-down game, an inherent commonality with A Link to the Past as opposed to any other Mario RPG. Overall, the design decisions are fluid and aid in differentiating Superstar Saga from the other Mario RPG series.

I suppose another reason why Superstar Saga’s world feels more topsy-turvy is that its pacing is so erratic. Comparing Superstar Saga to Paper Mario at this point makes me sound like a broken record, but the way both Mario RPGs structure their narratives is the prime contrasting factor between these two franchises. Paper Mario organizes its narratives by dividing its subsections into chapters that focus on a singular area with its own sub-narrative that comes back around to the overarching plot after solving the conflict of the subplot and obtaining the game’s primary MacGuffin. Superstar Saga, on the other hand, will have the brothers running ragged with how jumbled their quest trajectory is. Fortunately, the location of the objective is clearly displayed on the game’s map in the pause menu with a soaring red flag marker. Thank the lord for this because I’d be totally lost without it. Once they reach the objective point, which usually leads to traversing around an area outside of the BeanBean overworld, the path from point A to B is fairly clear. All the brothers have to contend with along their way is a series of puzzles that impede their progress. Before then, Mario and Luigi will zigzag around BeanBean’s overworld like a couple flies hovering around a dead body.

Though I prefer the more episodic story structure seen in Paper Mario, I think the more spontaneously assigned objectives in Superstar Saga greatly complement the game’s humor. Paper Mario may have its chuckle-worthy moments, but Superstar Saga revels in wackiness. I’ve often compared Mario to silent screen legend Charlie Chaplin, and their famous mustaches are only a mere fraction of that comparison. Both Nintendo’s mascot and the tramp share a certain blue-collar charm to them, a loveable scamp portraying someone of a low common denominator status that is more than the sum of their parts (ie. a chubby plumber and a homeless man respectively). That, and tumbling down a series of platforms in Super Mario 64 and Sunshine is vaguely reminiscent of the slapstick comedy that Chaplin helped popularize in film, which in the Mario context is as funny as it is frustrating. Superstar Saga’s inherent RPG mechanics negate the possibility of dooming Mario with slipping into oblivion, so the Chaplin-esque influence stems from his other comedic attributes. Charles Martinet’s voice he provides for Mario (and less notably Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi as well) is one of the most recognizable voice roles in gaming. Still, it’s not like the recording studios at Nintendo have ever challenged Martinet with any Mario monologue similar to channeling Daniel Day-Lewis. Mario is a simple character that works perfectly with catchphrases, yelping, and vaguely Italian gibberish. However, all of the instances where all of these vocalizations are uttered mostly coincide with specific controls like jumping and being hit. In Superstar Saga, Mario's (and Luigi’s) utterances carry them through the events of the game as they react to the dialogue from the other characters as the most physically expressive they’ve ever been, fully encapsulating that silent comedy influence they’ve always had. The brothers are always gaping their mouths in shock in times of peril, clumsily running into walls, and looking dazed after being impacted with something blunt. Who says pixels can’t render emotions as well as 3D can?

Mario and Luigi aren’t the only Mushroom Kingdom mainstays joining them on their quest through the BeanBean Kingdom. Bowser and Peach are requisite for any Mario adventure in some capacity, and the way that they are integrated into Superstar Saga is indicative of the game’s level of subversiveness. Using the game’s introduction as evidence, Bowser is no longer held up in his palace waiting for Mario to beat him into submission. From the smidge of dialogue Bowser spouts, this game’s depiction of the Koopa King is the lovably buffoonish one we know from Paper Mario. However, Bowser mostly spends his time in Superstar Saga being the brunt of physical abuse and emasculation. After his airship crashes, his unfortunate luck leads him to fall into a cannon that conveniently fits his bulky, hard-shelled frame as he gets blasted to no man’s land. Upon seeing him again, Bowser is donning a blue mask as the neutered bitch sidekick of a BeanBean thief named Popple (his Luigi, if you will). While the introduction will have the player believe that Peach’s voice is a captured surrogate for her body, the game presents a twist to the player that reveals Peach is entirely unharmed. Supposedly, Peach’s guards knew of Cackletta’s duplicity beforehand, so they swapped her with a fake Peach to thwart their plans. This fraud is revealed to be Birdo, the Mushroom Kingdom’s favorite flirty, bow-wearing bisexual who is rarely integrated into any mainline Mario titles. Peach is actually available in some sections of the game, even if a big chunk of her screen time involves escorting her through the desert in the most infuriating part of the game. Bowser’s bastard Koopalings returns after a decade-long hiatus, and the brothers fight each of them individually. If dusting off older characters and putting them in the limelight again is a part of Superstar Saga’s subversiveness, it’s a welcome change of pace from the mainline series.

Of course, the fact that Superstar Saga is set in an unexplored kingdom means that there is a whole new cast of characters to get acquainted with, and they’re all delightful. Among the slew of green, Toad-like NPCs around the BeanBean Kingdom are the monarchs that they serve, and they’ll be cooperating with Mario to stop Cackletta from potentially taking over the world with the Beanstar’s power. We are introduced to BeanBean’s queen as a hostile boss battle, but this is only due to a parasite that the brothers then have to eradicate from her stomach with the digestive powers of a special kind of Chuckola Cola. After that, the Rubenesque ruler and her assistant aid Mario in directing him on the right path. Her son, Prince Peasley, decides to butt into the brothers' business on the field, waving his poncey blonde hair with a cocky smirk expected of someone who was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Even in a game where Mario and Luigi are constantly fumbling over each other, Peasley is still the comic relief. Superstar Saga’s recurring villains are especially exemplary because they exude so much personality. Cackletta is aptly named because her defining feature is that witchy laugh of hers, usually at the expense of Mario and Luigi’s or something/someone else good and moral. However, I find her diabolical nature to be a bit cliche in the supreme antagonist role she fulfills. The true highlight villain in Superstar Saga is Fawful, Cackletta’s right-hand man in her evil operations. He doesn’t subvert too much from the henchman trope seen across all media, but this beady little bean has one quirk that makes everyone adore him. Whenever Fawful speaks, his speech is rife with so many grammatical errors and malapropisms that it's reminiscent of the dialogue from Zero Wing. How lines like “I HAVE FURY,” “at last, my entrance, with drama!” and his insult “fink-rat” haven’t been immortalized in the pop culture lexicon unlike “all your base are belong to us” is a mystery. Every warped line uttered by Fawful is pure gold.

But really, the best aspect of Superstar Saga’s lively character roster is the inclusion of Luigi. Luigi has always served a secondary role to Mario since his inception but somewhere along the line, Nintendo started to completely blow him to the wayside. Luigi hadn’t made as much as a cameo for the first two 3D mainline Mario titles, skipping two whole generations that would’ve been vital to his character. Luigi is only Mario’s housemate in Paper Mario, an NPC who stays home airing his grievances that he wasn't invited out to play. No wonder everyone thought Luigi’s Mansion was trifling material as Luigi’s first proper 3D introduction. Mario had gone solo, forgetting completely that his roots stemmed from sharing his billing with his brother. I jest at Luigi’s expense from time to time, but his frank omission from Mario’s mainline adventures on the N64 and GCN makes me sympathetic to him. Fortunately, for those Luigi fans who felt slighted at his absence, Superstar Saga makes certain that Mario doesn’t bogart the spotlight to the point where Luigi is shadowed in complete darkness. On top of actually having a consistent presence in the game, Superstar Saga marks a considerable point of evolution for Luigi. While Luigi was playable in Super Mario Bros. 1-3 and World, his design boiled down to “Green Mario” thanks to the primitive graphics. Seeing him side-by-side with his brother here shows a great distinction between them, as Luigi is clearly taller, slimmer, and has a thinner mustache. I also believe that this is the first time when Martinet gives Luigi a distinct vocal inflection, which is more nasal and pitched lower than Mario’s voice. More importantly than anything physical, Superstar Saga continues the timid persona Luidi exuded in Luigi’s Mansion as his prime characteristic. Mario is now the straight man to Luigi’s blubbering and pitiable demeanor, the Costello to his Abbot. It’s a strong dynamic between the two that has never been so pronounced in any previous Mario game. The game also seems to be aware of how prevalent ignoring Luigi is in the Mario universe, with characters not knowing his name and the fact that Luigi was originally going to stay behind as always in the beginning. All of us Luigi fans forgive you (for now), Nintendo.

Mario and Luigi’s discernable traits in terms of their personality and design is all fine and good, but the essential factor in this dynamic that defines the Mario & Luigi series is how they act on the field. Mario and Luigi are magnetized to each other throughout the game, switching between who is leading in front with the press of a button. When traversing through BeanBean’s overworld or one of its attractions, each brother has a distinctive set of skills that complement each other on a relatively equal pairing. Luigi leaps onto Mario’s back to propel both of them above high reaches, while Mario positions himself on Luigi’s shoulders like a totem pole to whirl across platforms for a brief period. Hammers, a Mario weapon that only seems to be compulsory for his RPG excursions, are given to both brothers to smash large, intrusive rocks on the field. The more interesting part is the brothers using the hammers on each other, with Luigi flattening Mario like a pancake to eke through small crevices and Mario returning the favor to Luigi by bonking him beneath the ground to creep under gates and such. Mario can also drink a copious amount of water to the point where he becomes engorged like Spongebob, and Luigi expunges all the excess water weight by making Mario spit it out with his hammer. An island oasis society off the coast teaches Luigi the power of electricity and Mario the power of fire without the usual flower attached to power orbs and light candles. Like with the hammers, the brothers can use their respective elemental powers on each other, with Luigi sticking Mario to him with static and Mario literally lighting a fire under Luigi’s ass. The brothers also use their field dynamic in a series of mini-games that range in both fun and challenge, with the most demanding being the barrel one conducted by what appears to be the skeletal remains of Donkey Kong (who can somehow talk). Luigi never feels secondary to Mario at any point.

The dynamic between Mario and Luigi also translates onto the battlefield. Superstar Saga’s initial approach to the battles borrows from Earthbound, with enemies on the field that can get an advantage over the player if they run at them from behind, or a counter advantage if Mario or Luigi attacks them first. Once a fight is engaged, Mario and Luigi run parallel to the enemy, with Mario always situated in the top left corner and Luigi at the bottom left. The brother’s selection of attacks mirrors that of Paper Mario’s, as a wheel presents the options to jump on an enemy or use the hammer to attack, with a timed pressing of their designated button to deal more damage. Badge points are still present, but here they take the form of “Bros. Attacks” that involve using both brothers in unison for an especially powerful maneuver. Executing one of these takes practice as the button timing requires steep precision. Speaking of steep precision, the true marvel of the RPG combat in the Mario & Luigi series is the defense mechanic. In every RPG, there is an inherent rule that the player will take some amount of damage from the opposing side, as little as it sometimes might be. In Superstar Saga, every attack from the opposition can be avoided by jumping over them and their projectiles or countered with the hammer. As revolutionary as this might seem, Mario and Luigi’s abilities to circumvent any hazards do not make Superstar Saga facile. Extreme practice and familiarity with enemies are needed to fully utilize this feature, and that is what makes the combat in Superstar Saga so invigorating. A JRPG that fosters a high-skill ceiling that doesn’t require grinding? The next thing you’ll tell me is that the US is going to elect the first openly gay president next year. Paper Mario made the typical RPG combat more fun and interactive, but Superstar Saga rockets that idea into the stratosphere. Unfortunately, constantly mitigating damage with dodging allows some boss battles to overstay their welcome at times.

Even if the player has the reflexes of a drunk sloth, the game doesn’t punish the player too harshly in combat. The difficulty curve in Superstar Saga is incredibly consistent, and the only time it wasn’t was upon encountering the goomba-tanooki crossbreeds in the field away from the objective. I’d like to say this is because the game is impeccably balanced, but I’m afraid this isn’t the case. Besides the frequent bombings on their capital, the BeanBean Kingdom is doing just fine and dandy considering their profusion of resources. Healing items such as mushrooms, nuts, syrups, and status-ailing herbs are so commonplace that my inventory was stocked in multiples of hundreds at some point. Failing to hop over an enemy’s attack in battle ultimately didn’t matter because I could always take a turn to heal and have the other brother work on the offensive. Even at a point where my items were thinning, BeanBean’s evidently booming economy allowed me to replenish all the items I expunged during battle without breaking the bank. I can’t criticize a Mario game too harshly for being too easy considering the overall accessible appeal of the franchise. Still, with the defense mechanics at hand, I wish the player could raise the stakes of error during battle.

Near the end, I guess my wish for Superstar Saga to become more challenging came true, even if it was unexpected. Upon seeing an unconscious Bowser, the spirit of a defeated Cackletta possesses Bowser and forms an unholy fusion of the two villains called Bowletta. Superstar Saga capitalized on what Bowser would look like with tits far before Bowsette but without ANY of the sex appeal. Somehow, fusing with Bowser’s body gives Cackletta control over Bowser’s castle, which is floating over BeanBean with Peach in captivity (of fucking course). Like most other Mario games, Bowser’s castle is the climactic end to the plumber's adventure. In Superstar Saga’s case, Bowser’s fiery domain also presents a difficulty spike as sharp as the ones on Bowser’s backside. Enemy attacks become heavily unpredictable to the point where avoiding them can be based entirely on luck alone, and the steroid versions of the Hammer Bros. hit like a tank with Magikoopas healing their already stocky health pools. I had not died up until this point in the game, and now I was carrying a defeated Mario or Luigi on the back of the conscious brother who was hanging on by a thread. Facing Cackletta in Bowser’s throne room was the most taxing boss fight in the game by a stark hundred miles. Her first form is a quick bout of damage output that will end quickly but once she dupes the brothers with a bomb and vacuums them into her stomach, the real final fight against her soul begins. I implore everyone reading this to time their fight against this giant phantom because I guarantee it will take more than fifteen minutes to defeat. Her attacks become fairly predictable through constant use, but the long process of revealing her weak point just for her to heal and obscure it from view approximately seven or more times makes for an endurance test guaranteed to make the player exhausted. I understand that the climax of any game should offer its pinnacle challenge, but the game pushes the player into the deep end after they’ve been doggy paddling in the shallow end all this time.

After playing Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for the first time in the two decades I’ve observed it from a distance, my slight curiosity has blossomed into pure admiration. By using Paper Mario and a healthy dose of the top-down Zelda games as its inspiration, Superstar Saga crafts another exceptional Mario RPG that is as subversive as the other contemporary Mario subseries. Still, I still prefer Paper Mario, and that’s probably nostalgia blinding my perceptions. Now, I don’t know if I can earnestly compare the two because Superstar Saga deviates heavily enough to warrant completely different comparisons, almost like Superstar Saga isn’t just handheld Paper Mario after all. Superstar Saga is a wackier JRPG depiction of a Mario quest with the most engaging fight mechanics I've played in a JRPG. It's unfortunate that its genius level of innovation eventually blew up on the player in the end. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is a whole different beast in itself, and that's what makes it so refreshing. Luigi finally gets his time to shine.

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

With a name like Ori and the Blind Forest, one can infer that the game is filled with a grand sense of whimsy and adventure. It’s a title for an unpublished C.S. Lewis book or the album title of a progressive rock band. It alludes to the promise of an epic journey that can only exist in the realm of a fantasy world. Austrian indie developer Moon Studios thought it wise to design their fanciful creation in the Metroidvania genre, a prevalent trend among many indie titles in the mid to late 2010s. Typically, games in this niche sub-sector of 2D platformers are fairly confined to claustrophobic spaces consisting of walls that hinder the player’s freedom to progress as they please. At least, this is the design philosophy Nintendo spurred for their immortal Metroid series, the undisputed godfather of the Metroidvania subgenre. The “blind forest” part of the game’s title may connote a blinding darkness that could appropriately convey the same sense of tension and dread similar to Metroid. However, the developers of Ori and the Blind Forest wanted to present a sprawling untapped landscape for the player to marvel at. While one could argue that Metroid achieves this through its wearisome “stranger in a strange land” initiative, that doesn’t seem to be the direction Ori’s developers wished to take with their approach to the Metroidvania game. Given that the genre’s gameplay tropes are rooted in Metroid’s oppressive weight, aren’t all Metroidvania games inherently limited to the scope that Metroid laid out? Wouldn’t Ori and the Blind Forest be more suitable for the open-world genre with more liberal boundaries? By 2015, the Metroidvania genre hit a conceptual peak, and the genre’s evolution transcended the cramped atmosphere associated with its inception. As early as Symphony of the Night, Metroidvania games proved to be expansive as an open-world game, even with the choice parameters these kinds of games uphold. In fact, Ori and the Blind Forest is a Metroidvania game that challenges the preconceived limitations of the Metroidvania genre. Ori and the Blind Forest presents a world that demands to be explored thoroughly, and the Metroidvania genre is the perfect venue for the developers to implore the player to absorb the full extent of the game’s artistic achievements.

As par for the course, the narrative of a fantasy tale needs to be opulent to accommodate the realm. The eponymous Ori is a luminescent, simian/feline forest nymph adopted by the fuzzy, rotund Naru, who resembles a bear if a bear had an unnaturally friendly demeanor and wore a mask. A booming omniscient narrator details these two's simple, happy life in a montage consisting of picking berries, cuddly cat naps, and Naru flinging Ori up and down like an infant child. The opening sequence of the game is reminiscent of the beginning of the acclaimed Pixar film Up, a highlight reel that condenses the storied relationship between two people over a lengthy period. Also, like Up, the sequence ends in tragedy as Ori returns from her daily berry retrieval to find that her wooly guardian has died. Naru’s death was a premature occurrence as the forest they reside in is in a destitute state of decay and it's the dearth of natural resources had caused it to die of starvation. The feeble Ori is alone and helpless, passing out from exhaustion. Even though things look grim, Ori is resuscitated by the fabled Spirit Tree and is set on a quest to restore the prosperous state of the forest by collecting the three elements located on opposite corners of the land. Ori’s introduction wonderfully sets the scene by juxtaposing the humdrum happiness of life before the disastrous event and the severity of the situation Ori is left with afterward. If the opening was paced a little more languidly, the scene could’ve been as devastating to the player as the infamous opening sequence to the Pixar film that was previously mentioned.

Immediately, the player can easily see that Ori and the Blind Forest is a gorgeous game. No matter where Ori is on the map, the individual districts that makeup Nibel Forest are as immaculate as an impressionistic painting. Ori’s forest is a lush, splendorous wooded world whose beauty can be attributed to the meticulous effort of visual fidelity and detail from the developers. Each shot from every angle displays a lavish background that shows the scope of the setting, supporting its overwhelming magnificence. Even in more cramped spaces like caves where the outside world is obscured by walls of earth, the looping area is spacious enough to still retain that resplendent scope. Foreground settings are so intricate that the player can ascertain every wrinkle in the wood, every crag on a cliffside, and every buoyant bubble in the various bodies of water. Color and lighting choices are consistently lurid and never clash with Ori’s bright, white presence, so the player never has trouble seeing her. Impressive as the visuals might be superficial, what interests me more is how the game uses its presentation to convey mood. As early as the menu screen, The Spirit Tree, the zenith point of the entire forest, is used as a visual refrain throughout the game, a point of reference for scoping out the breadth of the forest and the land’s state of being. The game’s menu presents the widened scope of the mystical tree with the looming mountain tops in the background supported by the aura of a tangerine-colored sunset, a scene suitable for the subject of a work from Degas. Once the player pushes start, the shift of tranquil end of the day turns to a frightening, blustery night that illustrates Naru’s adoption of little Ori as a valiant rescue mission. The joyous comradery between Ori and Naru during their time together is illustrated by a clear, sunny afternoon atmosphere. Naru’s death scene is blanketed by a sheet of blue melancholy. The opening sequence exudes a strong enough impression with its color choices that, for the rest of the game, any scene or environment that faintly shares the same shade triggers a particular emotion in the player.

The game’s eye-catching visuals are enough to entice the player to explore every crevice of the map. Still, the inherent design of a Metroidvania game will foster this anyways, especially if it's a selling point for fans of the genre. Ori’s world is separated into various districts like most Metroidvania titles, and each of these areas has a myriad of distinguishable topographical features. The starting point of the Sunken Glades is a depleted mire that I would describe as dismal if not for the striking purple aura surrounding it. Ascending from the Glades to the grand peak where the Spirit Tree lies is the Spirit Caverns, and a change in elevation marked by steeper terrain and brighter sunlight signals a steady rate of progression. The Moon Grotto is beautifully illuminated by the sparse sunlight that seeps through its sheet of thick foliage, and the Thornfelt Swamp houses a voluminous pool of water so clear that the player would be tempted to drink it (I still wouldn’t). The pea-soup fog surrounding the Misty Woods is thick enough to obscure it on the map, leaving the player to their own devices to navigate this oddity of an area. Forlorn Ruins in the icy mountains is a marriage of the primitive and the futuristic, with anti-gravity platforms serving as a unique gimmick. The two previously mentioned districts show the player that they offer more than video game eye candy. The extended optional areas of Black Root Burrows and Lost Grove are highlights due to their particular inclusion. The Burrows can be accessed even before Ori stands before the Spirit Tree, but the absolute jet-black darkness of the area should give the player the impression that they should be visited at a later date, a tried and true mark of Metroidvania-level progression. Once the player is ready to blindly lead Ori into the darkness, the challenge of liminal sight pays off with the breathtaking beach shore of the Lost Grove at a dead end. The progression of this optional area reminds me of the connection path of The Great Hollow leading into Ash Lake from the first Dark Souls. Their inclusion wasn’t entirely necessary, but the additional venture paid off wonderfully with what seemed like an astounding secret. Nibel Forest is as eclectic as it is attractive, so much so that the developers decided it would be practical to have the player stand in awe of its full glory when they zoom out on the map screen. I think seeing the entirety of the map would be more practical, considering how vast the world is.

As captivating as Nibel Forest is, it’s still the grounds of a hostile wilderness. After the opening cutscene, the primary source of initial conflict is how poor little Ori will survive the uncaring forest elements without Naru's burly, loving arms to protect her. Fortunately for Ori, the game conveniently provides Sein as her new guardian to accompany her on her quest. Sein is a sentient light spirit assigned by the Spirit Tree who is so microscopic that its only discernible feature is its glow like someone is poorly aiming a laser pointer over Ori’s shoulders for the entire game. Sein is the minimal guide and the voice for the mute protagonist. By this description, everyone who played Ocarina of Time and still suffers from Navi PTSD just clicked off this review in a rush. Fear not, for unlike Navi, Sein is a functional tool imperative to Ori’s gameplay. Sein acts as the game’s combat mechanic by spurting blasts of spirit energy at enemies. These bursts can either be administered in rapid-fire spurts or by holding down the ball of energy to engorge Sein and release it as a stronger, loud blast.



One would think that Ori would be doomed as a tasty snack without Sein, but the cute, cherubic creature is capable of more than someone would initially think. Ori’s prime strength is her nimble dexterity. Platformer characters' controls should feel polished, given the accuracy needed to perform acts such as jumping onto platforms, and Ori is so smooth that it seems like her glow is due to being slathered in butter. Most of her full potential is subdued at first because of the cumulative nature of the Metroidvania title, but plenty of her growing pains still show promise. Before climbing up surfaces and other inclines, she can scale up them simply by jumping at a rhythmic pace, which achieves the same effect. She can jump a total of three times at her maximum level, but the single jump ability at the start is breezy enough for a fair range with effortless accuracy. Abilities such as the bash can launch the projectiles from enemies back at them for severe damage, and the ground pound shakes off enemies' defenses and shatters vulnerable openings. Ori still probably can’t fend for herself entirely without Sein, but at least her own offensive moves do enough to diversify the combat. Ori’s extra abilities are unlocked via Ancestral Trees: glowing miniature trees located across the map that grant Ori a different ability with a stream of cleansing water and light. Experience points are earned by defeating enemies and collecting orbs, and the player uses these points to upgrade Ori’s abilities in three separate chains. Unlike Dark Souls, the player doesn’t have to commit to one category as they’ll most likely earn enough experience throughout the game to maximize Ori’s well-roundedness. The game does its duty as a Metroidvania title by making Ori feel impervious by the end of the game, and it’s relieving that Ori is already competent enough at the start.

However, competency isn’t enough to overcome the obstacles presented in Nibel Forest. Even for a Metroidvania title, Ori and the Blind Forest has a strange difficulty curve. Checkpoints earned through achievement in any other game are manually used by the player at any time as long as they have enough energy and are in a spot without any danger in their direct vicinity. The checkpoint is represented by the Spirit Flame, a fiery blue figment that serves as a reference point. Checkpoint wells where the player can warp are also present, but most likely, the player will use the Spirit Flame more often because of its convenience. However, the player always has to remind themselves to save often because one deadly mistake can reverse the player’s progress back to god knows how long. Multiple collectibles have been lost due to not keeping track of saving, which isn’t a concern in most other games. Puzzles in the game are relatively straightforward, but the true tests in proficiency revolve around the player’s skill with Ori’s abilities. Prickly vegetation is an obstacle seen as a dangerous obstacle that depletes Ori’s health, appropriate for a woodland setting. More artificial inhibitors, like the influx of lasers seen around the map, will kill Ori on contact, and both are implemented everywhere. The game also seems to enjoy implementing sections where the player has to endure a series of gymnastics without the privilege of saving at every step as the climax for each element is obtained. Not only do they present blasts of energy and thorns galore, but there is always a special aspect of strain that Ori must race over, like the rising water in the Ginso Tree and the erosion of the Sorrow’s Pass. During these sections, the player must use a combination of the bash, dash, and Kuro’s feather with split precision to escape with Ori intact. For a game where the player can save whenever they please, it still forces the player to prove their might.

The environment will most likely be the only substantial hurdle in the game because the enemies can be brushed off. Usually, the most disconcerting aspect of being in the woods is a frightful encounter with the untamed wildlife, but the creatures that reside in Nibel Forest barely have a vicious bone in their bodies. Creatures like the sluggish (no pun intended) crawlers remind me of similar enemies from Metroid, docile cannon fodder usually engaged with for repleting ammo. Hoppers and Darkwings will attack Ori dead-on, but their jumping trajectory is too obvious, leaving themselves vulnerable for too long. Dealing with Spitters is a matter of bashing their constant spit streams, and the other projectile-spewing enemies like Mortar Worms and Arachne feel more like a part of a platforming section rather than a standard enemy. In fact, the only instances where the enemies in the game are a pain to deal with is if they are placed inconveniently in a tight platforming section. Also, the game is lacking in area-specific creatures that fit a specific climate. Does it make sense that Hoppers can live in both the Forlorn Ruins' frigid peaks and the humid Thornfelt Swamp? I think the lackluster roster of enemies is the reason why Ori and the Blind Forest don’t have any boss battles. However, Kuro the Bird is almost imposing enough in the scheme of the narrative to compensate. Kuro is a colossal owl (or perhaps colossal on the small scale of the forest) whose shadowy, deep indigo coloring and giant stature make her utterly terrifying. On top of that, she’s also got malicious intent behind those unnaturally white-hot eyes as she stalks Ori with a vengeance, as her perusal is the subject of many frantic escape sequences. Sein believes that Koru is just a blind, malevolent force, but we learn that her true motive for hunting Ori is because the Spirit Tree killed three out of four of her children during the process of finding Ori in the introduction. Once we learn this, Koru’s intentions are understood, and we give her some leeway with her will to keep the last remaining of her eggs out of harm's way. The sympathetic villain trope is prevalent in Ori and the Blind Forest, as the same can be applied to the gangly, mischievous Gumo, who inconveniences Ori with his tomfoolery because he’s profoundly lonely due to his entire kind being wiped out.

As much as I can appreciate the angle at which the game approaches its villains, I still wanted just one boss fight to satiate my gaming needs. Unfortunately, even in the climax, the game still leaves me unsatisfied. After retrieving the three elements, Ori ascends past the peak of Hollow Grove to Mount Horu. This volcanic ruin screams “final level” from its harrowing summit, with safe ground sparsely placed amongst lava constantly spurting like an everflowing stream. Individual rooms of the ruins offer some of the steepest, puzzling challenges that put all of Ori’s skills to work with only marginal room for error. After draining the lava and reaching the apex point, Koru confronts Ori again, and it’s yet another chase sequence. It’s certainly the tensest and longest of these various sections, but I wish Ori had fought back and made Sein create a wrecking ball-sized orb of energy and blasted it in Kuro's face. As it is, Ori evades the dark bird’s clutches and restores the sacred elements to the Spirit Tree, restoring balance to Nibel Forest and disintegrating Koru with a revitalizing supernova of light. The defeat of the game’s main antagonist is always a satisfactory wrapping point for any fantasy narrative. Still, Ori and the Blind Forest decide to cap off Ori’s grand adventure with a cop-out. Apparently, the restorative energy released by the Spirit Tree resurrected Naru, and Naru, Gumo, and Ori will raise Kuro’s surviving egg as their own. As sweet as some might find this ending to be, it compromises on the emotional weight that served as an effective catalyst when the game began. As a result, the impact of Naru’s death is negated entirely. Ori caring for the creature incubating in the egg herself would’ve been a better resolution. Doing so would’ve illustrated her growth throughout the journey, for once she needed to be protected, and now she’s fulfilling the parental role. For a title whose gameplay emphasizes aggregate character growth, the ending sullies it with a stark regression.

Ori and the Blind Forest is a game that sufficiently exudes all of the awe-inspiring wonders one would associate with its title. Every frame of the game’s arboreal world could be framed and displayed in the Louvre. The exploration initiative found in the Metroidvania genre incentivizes the player to uncover every beautiful inch of it. All the while, the picturesque setting houses a splendidly diverse and challenging environment with one of the most agile and precious video game protagonists to ever hop across a series of platforms. While Ori and the Blind Forest succeeds in offering a solid Metroidvania experience with flying colors, some aspects of the game feel as if the developers were a bit hesitant. I can’t say if they dialed back the combat and narrative weight to appeal to a younger, more impressionable demographic or if the lighthearted fantasy world they created didn’t foster bleak tones or bloody battles. I wholeheartedly disagree if it’s the latter, as they would’ve enhanced the player’s immersion, or at least they would’ve enhanced mine.

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

I'm very thankful to have grown up in the PS2/Gamecube era of gaming. It took the early, primitive foundations of 3D gaming and vastly improved them with just one console generation. During that transition, the 3D platformer was still in full force and already established modern classics in the video game medium like Super Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie/Tooie, Crash Bandicoot, etc. I of course, did not grow up with any of these games because I was way too young at the time, but I constantly heard glowing reviews of them from people who were a little older than me. I went back and played all of these games eventually, and I have a certain sense of respect and admiration for them for laying the foundation for some of my favorite childhood games. I still think the games that I grew up with are objectively better, however, regardless of how many people will say otherwise. I don't think it's a matter of not taking off my perpetual rose-tinted glasses when discussing these second-generation 3D platformers. I could argue the same for those who fondly discuss the 3D platformers of the previous generation that influenced the games I grew up with. I still believe that the second generation of 3D platformers is better. The game that cements this claim for me is Jak And Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. This was an early title for the PS2 and the first of the "PS2 mascot series" to be released. Some criticisms I've heard about his game I grew up with is that it's highly derivative, some even harshly deriding it as a "Banjo-Kazooie clone." After playing the 3D platformers of the previous generation, I can't ignore that Jak And Daxter borrowed several elements from these games. If Jak And Daxter did anything, they took all of these elements from games like Banjo Kazooie and practically perfected them.

The world of Jak And Daxter is a fascinating one. The world's lore is established immediately from the first cutscene. The world has no specific name, but it has a particular premise. An old, gruff voice tells the player about the precursors, the gods of this world who created this world and have left their essence in the form of eco. The voice tells of a great prophecy involving a teenage boy named Jak, destined to align all of the universe's great essences and bring balance to the universe. At the start of the game, Jak and his obnoxious buck-toothed friend Daxter venture off to a forbidden island. They witness a suspicious meeting and are accosted by one of the bone-clad soldiers when Daxter falls into a dark eco pool. He is turned into a small, orange animal called an ottsel, a cross between a weasel and an otter, a fictional animal devised by Naughty Dog. They return to the home of Samos the Sage, the narrator in the opening cutscene. He claims that the only way to turn Daxter back to his normal self is to venture far to the north and speak to Gol, the dark eco sage.

Samos claims that the duo is too young and inexperienced for their journey, so he has the train on a nearby sunny island Geyser Rock. This tutorial level gives you a great feel of how the game plays. As you jump on the ledges and platforms in Geyser Rock, you'll notice that Jak is one of the most fluid characters to play as in any 3D platformer. He can double jump, roll, jump higher when crouching, and execute a rolling jump when timed correctly. This move is guaranteed to be used as the roll in Legend of Zelda for traversal. He can do a punch that propels his whole body, a spin kick that can also double as a means to go further after a jump, a slam down on the ground, and he can perform an uppercut while crouching. Jak has the most versatile moves out of any platforming character I've played, considering all these moves only require his body.

Jak can also use four different types of eco that all have unique uses. Green eco restores your health. Your health is displayed in a heart with four green chambers, and you can get hit a maximum of four times before dying. Green eco is abundant on every level, usually stored in breakable boxes, but the problem is that each eco pellet is only worth one out of fifty to restore a chamber of your total health. Bigger pellets of green eco restore a full chamber, but they are found much less frequently. Thankfully, dying in this game is practically inconsequential. Blue eco helps you run faster, access some precursor doors and other devices, and can be used to activate jump panels. This eco is just as plentiful as the green eco and is arguably the most vital for traversing the levels. Red eco makes you hit harder and is fairly rare, but it's not very useful. Yellow eco makes you shoot fireballs for a brief period. Using it normally is always pretty cool, but anytime you have to use it for an objective, you have to aim accurately using the goggles. It kind of ruins the fun of being able to shoot fireballs, you know? Dark eco is everywhere, but it's used as a stage hazard instead of a limited power source. If you fall into a pool of it, it does not turn you into an ottsel, strangely enough.

The orange rodent, on the other hand, perches himself on Jak's shoulder throughout the whole game and doesn't do anything of real worth. I almost forget that the plot of this game revolves around him. Daxter is only used as the comic relief of this game, bantering with Samos, Keira, and every NPC you come across. I suppose Daxter had to compensate for Jak being an archetypal mute protagonist by being ostentatious. He'll scream obvious tips in your ear when you come across a more puzzle-based section, and he'll frequently roast you when you die. What a great friend he is! It makes you want to wring his yappy little orange neck. Besides the NPCs you'll encounter throughout the game, Samos and Keira are the other two main characters in the game besides the titular duo. Samos is Jak's stern guardian who is also the master of green eco. In terms of archetypal adventure story characters, he definitely fills the role of the wise old aid like a glove. He mostly badgers you to keep on your toes and do the various objectives the game has to offer. Keira is Samos's daughter and is a perky tech-wiz who is also a vague love interest for Jak. Also, she's only fifteen, you degenerates. She is also the curator of the Zoomer, the primary vehicle in this game that you will use for a couple of objectives and traveling across the four main hub worlds. The NPCs you'll encounter don't have the same weight as the main four, but they all serve the game well with their unique quirks.

The fluid movement of Jak is due to the phenomenal presentation of this game. Platformers of the previous generations had dodgy framerate and rudimentary 3D animation. 3D graphics were still in the early stages of development, so those games can be excused, but it's incredible how much more advanced Jak And Daxter looks and feels compared to those games. If every 3D platformer is relative to how long it came out after Super Mario 64, it's unbelievable that Jak and Daxter came out only five years after. It's hard to believe that Jak And Daxter came out in 2001. It must have been the most graphically advanced game at the time, and it still looks great today. This is thanks to the animated graphical style the developers decided to use. Every PS2 game with a more cartoony aesthetic aged much better than the games that didn't. Every character is incredibly expressive and backed by a full-fledged voice-acting cast that did a terrific job with each character (except for Jak, of course. Having a silent protagonist is probably easier to budget). PS1 3D platformers may have had voice acting and charming animated graphics, but the presentation here could be pitched as an animated movie or a cartoon series. It's that impressive.

The aspect that is even more impressive to me is the world of this game. Until I was exposed to the middle ages inspired world of Lordran, this was my favorite video game world. I guess I have a penchant for seamless, non-linear worlds in gaming. The game's world is divided into three hub areas with a couple of branching areas that act as their own levels and objectives. The branching areas are designed very similarly to the levels in Banjo-Kazooie. They are big open spaces without one clear objective but rather a several objectives that can be cleared in any order. The levels in Banjo-Kazooie seemed kind of closed off. Each level felt spacious and rich with detail, but it always felt like there were boundaries that made each level feel restricted. Not only are the levels in Jak And Daxter rich with detail, but the seamless nature of the entire world also erases those superficial boundaries. Every single part of Jak And Daxter's world is so geographically sound that I could map out every single speck of land in this game. To make the seamless nature of this world feel more organic, Naughty Dog opted out of loading screens in place of long elevators and cutscenes to take you to some of the individual levels. I, for one, easily favor this instead of loading screens and can't think of anyone who wouldn't.

It helps that the seamlessly crafted world of Jak And Daxter is so interesting. With the cryptic nature of the lore, the ancient precursors as an ambiguous force that encapsulates this land. The aspect of the precursors that is even more interesting than the eco is the bevy of ancient precursor technology scattered about. It gives Jak And Daxter a contrasting style between fantasy and science-fiction. It's not quite a steampunk world, but it has a quaint, old-world technology aesthetic. The contrast between these can be illustrated by the two vehicles you use in this game. One is the Zoomer, a hoverbike with a propeller, and a Flut-Flut, a fictional bird-horse animal that you hatch from an egg in an early level of the game. It can fly for a short period, break metal crates with its head, and it is as smooth to control as Jak is. I sometimes wish it would eat Daxter, and the Flut-Flut can be my animal companion like Epona from The Legend of Zelda.

The layout of the levels gives the player the impression that the precursors were intelligent beings and purveyors of radical ideas and burgeoning technology. The Forbidden Jungle has an ancient precursor citadel in the center of it that holds a hidden energy source. The Lost Precursor City is a technological wonderment submerged underwater. Almost every room showcases a different system of precursor innovations and is probably my all-time favorite water level in gaming. Gol and Maia's Citadel is the apex of precursor architecture, a precursor skyscraper so gigantic that you can see it at any point in the game. It's like the scope of the precursor technology and architecture tells the lore without using the narrative of the main story. Considering the sub-levels of most 3D platformers in the previous generation had simple themes for level variation, this comprehensive way of world-building was incredibly advanced.

As the game progresses, it doesn't really get any more difficult. The game maintains a consistent difficulty throughout. As I mentioned, dying is practically inconsequential because checkpoints are littered at every point, and health is very easy to find, albeit taxing to collect. The enemies are creatures called Lurkers. I don't know why they are the enemies of this world from a lore standpoint, but every character in the game speaks of them with disgust. At one point, a group of them attempt to blow up a large mountain area, so I guess they are intelligent and malicious enough to rationally dislike. The standard Lurkers are furry purple beasts that are proportional to something of a gorilla, but apparently, every single enemy in this game is a variation of the purple monsters. Some of them are blue and have bone armor, and some look like hopping ice crystals, but apparently, even the fish, frogs, and spiders in Spider Cave are Lurkers. The only distinctive feature they all have that defines them is their big, creamsicle-colored eyes. No matter what variation they are, they all die with one hit. Even the few bosses are an underwhelming exercise in waiting for an exposed weak spot three different times like we've seen in dozens of platformers before. I then realized that the progression in the game is not supposed to be in its difficulty but rather the way the world becomes expanded and less familiar at the start of the game.

Sandover Village is the starting place of this game: a cozy, unadorned place with Samos's hut and a couple of townsfolk. The branching paths are only slightly off the beaten path in a few directions. Sentinel Beach hardly even feels detached from Sandover, and Forbidden Jungle could potentially be a hiking trail if you forget about the giant snakes. The exception to the relative familiarity of Sandover Village is Misty Island, the spooky area from the first cutscene of the game. You fully explore with just a short boat ride, and you can still see Sandover from the shore. The areas between the hub-worlds are passages you navigate through with the Zoomer. The distance between the hub-worlds through these passages can't be determined, but each passage gets longer after each series of levels, and they all direct you north. Rock Village is a dreary place in the perpetual storm, and it's also on fire due to being under attack by meteors. The Lost Precursor City can expand as much as it wants because its underwater nature isn't relative to the rest of the world. Boggy Swamp is much more miserable than the sunny Forbidden Jungle, and the Precursor Basin is large enough where it's strictly a Zoomer level. The third hub world is inside a volcanic crater. It's a neutral zone without any enemies like the last two, but only an eccentric like an eco sage would dare to reside here. The levels that branch off this hub are so big that the developers could only fit two sub-levels here because of restrictions.

The progressively bigger spaces make Jak And Daxter more difficult because this game is a tried and true collectathon, a staple of the 3D platformer genre. Fortunately, the game doesn't get too ambitious and restrains itself to only three collectibles. The main collectibles are power cells and glowing metallic orbs that look like golden atoms. These are the collectibles you gain to further the story, a MacGuffin in the scope of video games, but used as a power source for the Zoomer to withstand heat levels in the lava-filled passages and power a machine to lift a boulder. Every time you collect one of these, a short cutscene occurs with Jak and Daxter celebrating by doing the robot or alley-ooping it into Jak's backpack, accompanied by a victory jingle. Some say this gets old after a while, but I don't feel the same. Another collectible is the scout flies, drone-like devices made by Keira to search for power cells kept in boxes. Good job, Keira. They'll find lots of power cells confined that way. There are seven of them in each level, including all of the passage levels, and collecting them per level will reward you with a power cell. Fortunately, these little buggers make a lot of noise, so they aren't that hard to find. The collectible that acts like currency is the precursor orbs. These can be used to trade for power cells from the NPCs in the hub areas and by the mystical, Dr. Claw-sounding precursor oracles. There are so many scattered about in the game that you needn't worry about finding them to trade for power cells, but I don't recommend collecting all of them if you're a completionist. There will always be one missing precursor orb, and it will always be in a huge area like Snowy Mountain. Trying to find all of them will drive you insane.

Another MacGuffin the game implements is the warp gates between the three hub-worlds. In the language of video game tropes, these are teleportation devices making it easier to traverse through the game after a certain point of progression. In the language of the game's story, Samos claims that the other sages haven't turned on their warp gates in months, and it's not because they seem like an invasion of one's privacy. You discover that the sages have been captured by the two ominous figures from the first cutscene who intend to use their collective power to open the dark eco pillars to adulterate the entire world with dark eco. One of these characters is Gol, the sage of dark eco and the man who was supposed to bring Daxter back to his human form. Instead, he's been corrupted by dark eco along with his partner (wife? sister?) Maia. Of course, Jak and Daxter have to stop them instead of changing Daxter back. It's a good twist, but the game becomes another "save the world" type of story. This is par for the course, considering how many typical fantasy elements are in this game. By the time you get to the citadel, Samos has been captured, and Gol and Maia's mission to bring darkness to the world is almost complete. The last level is their citadel which acts kind of like Ganon's Castle in Ocarina of Time. It's a gauntlet that tests all the skills and eco powers you've been using to the fullest extent. Once you free all of the sages, they use their collective power as a shield, and you have to battle a precursor robot on the citadel's roof. Unlike the other bosses, this is an epic fight that proves to be a fair challenge. At the final stage of the boss, the sage's collective powers form a mythical substance called light eco. This is apparently the substance that could turn Daxter back into a human, but he opts for saving the world instead. It's the most admirable thing he does throughout the whole game. Jak uses the light eco to blast the precursor bot as Gol and Maia are sealed in the dark eco pillars forever. The heroes celebrate their victory on top of the citadel, and Jak and Keira almost kiss, but Daxter deliberately cock-blocks him mid-kiss. I swear to god, Daxter, I'm going to rip you off my shoulder and fling you into the mouth of a fucking Lurker Shark.

Saving the world is not the true ending of Jak & Daxter. If the player collects all the power cells, you can open a door on top of the citadel. Once you open it, it shines with a bright white light and apparently something so sublime that the characters can't even describe it. This ending is not worth the effort considering how ambiguous it is, but this is the true ending to the game considering the beginning of its sequel. Whether they initially had this in mind as a cliffhanger, I'm not sure, but that's how it turned out to be. The real ending to me is reloading the game at the start menu, which will automatically take you to the top of the citadel, but this time there's sunlight and no boss battle. From the top looking south, you can look at all the places you've been to. You can make out the citadel in Forbidden Jungle, the blimp in Boggy Swamp, and the mountains of Snowy Mountain and take in the scope of your journey. Jak and Daxter look at how far they've come with a sense of pride while the wind from the high elevation blows on them. The music is both triumphant and bittersweet. The spectacle of this view had me awe-struck when I was a kid. This right here is one of the most beautiful moments in video gaming. It's the perfect way to cap off this adventure.

Jak And Daxter is a product of years of refining and tweaking 3D platformer tropes. However, just because it's not the most original video game doesn't mean it isn't ideal. Jak & Daxter was a magnificent advancement for the genre and one of the first stellar entries that capped off the PS2 era of gaming. Every single element from titles like Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie had been improved significantly from the seamless world design, the impressive presentation, and the elevating scope of the 3D platformer. It might just be the peak of the 3D platformer genre with the advancements it made and its influence on all of the 3D platformer games that followed it.

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

R.I.P. Nintendo Power. Nintendo’s once glorious publication served as prime reading material to supplement time spent away from playing Nintendo’s systems. The monthly magazine was a haven of everything Nintendo: including reviews, lists, fan art, and features on upcoming games as detailed and thorough as Playboy’s “playmate of the month.” Nintendo Power also included walkthrough/cheat code sections to aid players through the esoteric and brutally challenging games of Nintendo’s pixelated era. I have fond memories of the publication from when I was a kid, even though the so-called “golden age” of the magazine spoken of in that one AVGN episode tributing it predates my existence by a few years. I subscribed to it between the years 2003-2008, losing interest in Nintendo Power once they were bought out by a corporate conglomerate that sucked the personality out of the publication. I shed a bittersweet tear when Nintendo Power closed its doors in late 2012, and apparently, the brand name continues in a podcast format. Why am I sharing a sentimental moment from my youth here? Because Chibi-Robo! is the select game I discovered through a feature in the March 2006 issue of Nintendo Power, and it probably would’ve gone unnoticed without it. It would’ve been a shame because Chibi-Robo is one of the Gamecube’s finest hidden gems.

Chibi-Robo’s presence on the front cover of issue 201 of Nintendo Power was fairly minimal. The titular hero and his assistant Telly Vision were present on the cover, but at unflattering, unimportant angles on a stark black background. The prime focus of the cover was the words “Gonzo Gaming!” an ambiguous buzz term fitting for something from a 1950’s billboard advertisement. While Chibi-Robo was offered a prestigious role as the front cover feature of Nintendo’s prime publication, the cover’s lack of pizzazz might have subtly suggested that the game was nothing extraordinary and there were no other games to display that month. However, the insignificantly-sized blurb at the bottom of the obnoxious title showed that those at Nintendo Power knew the extent of Chibi-Robo’s genius. It stated that Chibi-Robo was Nintendo’s “domestic hero” and that he was “leading a revolution in radical game design.” Although that “revolution” never quite came to fruition, Chibi-Robo proved incredibly innovative. If games like Earthbound domesticated the JRPG genre, then the domesticity that Nintendo Power was alluding to with Chibi-Robo was the shifting of tropes from the 3D platformer and the action-adventure genres into something more habitual.

Chibi, the pocket-sized robot of the title’s namesake, is introduced to the Sanderson family during the daughter Jenny’s eighth birthday celebration. Her father has pulled a Homer Simpson and has purchased Chibi as a birthday present, knowing full well that he is the one interested in microscopic mechanical marvels instead of his daughter. Chibi and his even dinkier, fluttering manager Telly Vision introduce themselves cordially and display Chibi’s potential by picking up a flower in a vase and handing it over to Jenny. Despite both the outstanding display of Chibi’s capabilities and the kind gesture, Mrs. Sanderson is still appalled at her husband’s selfishness, and reasonably so. It also doesn’t help matters that Chibi-Robo was an expensive purchase, digging the hole of debt the Sandersons are in a bit deeper. What was expected to be Chibi’s warm, hearty welcome to the Sanderson household is instead met with a embittered Mrs. Sanderson giving her husband the cold shoulder for the duration of the game. Because of the unceremonious circumstances, Chibi now has to prove his worth to the Sandersons, both economically and personally.

So how does Chibi make himself useful to the Sandersons? By making them happy, of course. Chibi-Robo’s main objective is to accumulate “happy points,” a currency earned by performing various good-natured household tasks. Common tasks that net Chibi-Robo happy points usually involve cleaning, scrubbing stains with an old toothbrush, and disposing of garbage such as wrappers, soda cans, etc. The Sandersons and their dog Tao are evidently taking advantage of Chibi’s services because the house gets mucked up with the same amount of filth and detritus each night. As irritating as the family’s audacity to compromise your hard work is, at least it offers a consistent opportunity to rake in a small number of happy points. Completing more roundabout tasks for progressing the main story and side quests will earn Chibi a more inordinate amount of happy points, ranging from single digits like cleaning to profound happiness in the hundreds. Funny enough, the player cannot perform acts that will deduct happy points, which could potentially be a hilarious litany of mischievous deeds. A flexible morality compass would’ve been too complex for a game like Chibi-Robo, although it would’ve been interesting, to say the least. At the end of the day, Chibi-Robo retreats back into his crockpot-shaped house in the living room, and Telly Vision adds up his cumulative total. Chibi’s goal with collecting happy points is to eventually become the number 1 Chibi model in the world, which is cataloged in a Chibi leaderboard based on the total number of happy points they’ve earned. Considering that Chibi ranks up in the hundreds of thousands above several others with a measly happy point total at the start, many other Chibis are total duds, so the competition isn’t stiff. Chibi also earns “moolah,” a more well-defined financial currency that is given alongside happy points and can also be found around the house. Other people’s happiness is all fine and dandy, but Chibi ostensibly isn’t the Sanderson family’s indentured servant and needs to be compensated for his hard work. Do the Chibis have their own union? With the combination of the two abstract and the concrete currencies, Chibi-Robo offers more than enough incentive to do menial labor.

“Why would anyone want to play a game where all you do is clean?” was a frequent decry from some gaming journalism outlets (not Nintendo Power) on Chibi-Robo. This rhetorical question is a gross oversimplification from someone who saw this game on a superficial level. Still, I’d be lying if I said cleaning wasn’t a large aspect of Chibi-Robo. What was Nintendo’s fascination with centering games around cleaning in the Gamecube era (Animal Crossing, Super Mario Sunshine, etc.)? The dissenting critics weren’t entirely wrong about the content, but they failed to recognize the scope of the objective. The entirety of Chibi-Robo’s map takes place in the confines of the Sanderson home, and it’s not as restrictive or bottled as it may seem. Keep in mind that Chibi is roughly the size of someone’s hand, so the Sanderson’s home seems like a sprawling playground in his perspective. Common household objects like lamps, chairs, and stairs are herculean hikes for someone of Chibi’s stature. While Chibi’s main prerogative is to clean, the lengths he has to traverse are grand enough to match Link’s climb up Death Mountain. The heights in the rooms that a normal human could reach with their arms are daunting for little Chibi, making them daunting for the player by proxy. Using the Chibi ladder tool as assistance in ascending the staircase in the foyer to access the upstairs portion of the house felt as gratifying as getting to the destination point of any other adventurous trek. The Sanderson’s home is not mapped out extraordinarily. It’s a two-bedroom home with typical rooms like the living room, kitchen, basement, and a fenced-in backyard. The Japanese developers evidently were inspired by the Brady Bunch when mapping out the home because the Sandersons do not have a bathroom. Did they figure there wouldn’t be enough happy points or moolah in the world for Chibi to clean up the Sanderson's bathroom, considering the amount of mess they leave everywhere else? Yeesh. However, the scope of Chibi-Robo’s world makes the mundane setting of a two-story home into something extraordinary.

Chibi must make sure not to exert himself too much while making people happy, or else he’ll literally collapse. The caveat to adventuring around the Sanderson’s home is that the player must always keep cautious of Chibi’s battery in the bottom right corner of the screen. The consistent movement will cause a steady depletion, and standing motionless will still drain the battery, albeit at a snail’s pace. Fall damage is the most harrowing threat to Chibi’s life force. Depending on how high Chibi has dropped, the battery will plummet into multiples of a hundred. Because of this, it’s wise to always use Chibi’s copter mod when scaling high places, so he floats down gracefully, only using a small fraction of energy. If Chibi’s battery reaches zero, he’ll pass out, and Telly will escort him back to the Chibi house, losing a bit of moolah. Fortunately, multiple outlets are situated in every room (except the backyard) of the Sanderson household for Chibi to completely replenish his energy and for the player to save the game. Some may see Chibi’s finite battery as an irritating burden, but I think it helps elevate the scope of the adventure. The adventure wouldn't feel as imposing if Chibi could climb around without concerns. Plus, the reward for ascending the Chibi ranks increases Chibi’s battery power by a few multiples of ten, which scales wonderfully with the expanded range of the house Chibi can explore. Chibi’s battery life keeps players on their toes and makes them consider their actions more carefully.

Chibi needs to recharge periodically because the Sandersons have him working around the clock. The days in Chibi-Robo are divided in half by two day and night cycles. These cycles start at a mere five minutes, but the brief period is fitting for Chibi’s minuscule battery power at the beginning of the game. Soon enough, the player can extend the cycles to ten or fifteen minutes. I recommend keeping the clock on fifteen because, after a certain point, the number of quests will stack up, keeping you busier than anticipated. The player should also give themselves enough time in either cycle because both offer different opportunities. During the day, the Sanderson family (including the dog, Tao) are up and about, and the house feels zestful and bright. Dusk engulfs the residence at night with a moody shade of blue, creating a calm atmosphere. The night is also when Chibi-Robo’s Toy Story influence is more apparent as the Sanderson’s toys spring to life as they galavant about the house. Some toys will act lively during the day, but only in sections where none of the family is around. The lack of human presence at night allows each toy to command its domain. I love games whose progression feels free-flowing and gives the illusion of total freedom. After unlocking the entire house in Chibi-Robo, I can fill his schedule with whatever I please. The fifteen minutes may not seem enough time, but the limit makes the player act on their feet. While I cherish the free-form progression, I wish it was a little more organized. A Bombers Notebook from Majora’s Mask would’ve helped track the available days for each character because their interactivity is not as simple as thinking that humans are only available during the day and the toys at night. For example, The Great Peekoe, the money-grubbing scam peddler, is all over the map. He normally resides in the basement but will sometimes be in the kitchen and in the backyard. I would never interact with him except that he possesses an item needed for another character’s quest, and showing interest in buying this item to him on the backyard swing is only there at a very specific time. The soldiers can’t train at night in the foyer sometimes, and Sunshine is often with Jenny at all times of the day. A Persona-like schedule in a menu would’ve cleared things up, but perhaps that would’ve been too complex. Still, it’s disheartening taking precious time to meet a character and find that they aren’t available.

Even if the premise and content of Chibi-Robo don’t suit your fancy, one can’t deny the beaming charm the game has. Chibi is an adorable protagonist, and the Sanderson household's microcosmic world is just as endearing, albeit a bit gaudy. Chibi-Robo is a game whose aesthetic exudes a cutesy, childish vibrancy. The look of the characters, environments and the overall atmosphere is pleasing, like the general innocence of something catered towards children. Something unexpected from Chibi-Robo, but nevertheless just as vital that supports this peppy tone, is that the game is quite sonorous. Musical cues resonate from seemingly every pore of Chibi-Robo. For example, many of Chibi’s gadgets, like the toothbrush, will create a pleasant acoustic guitar track whose length coincides with the rate of continual motion Chibi makes while cleaning. It’s just too bad that it depletes so much of his energy. The broken piano jingle that plays when Chibi attempts to dig at a solid patch of ground is so alluring that it attracts a strange creature called Mr. Prongs to the living room. Each one of Chibi’s footsteps is heard like Spongebob’s, and picking up his chord and carrying it over his head will speed up Chibi’s movement, and the background track will move faster as well. Many characters have their own theme that plays when Chibi interacts with them, and the stylistic gibberish they all speak in sounds more natural than in any other game that uses this method of dialogue. I’ve never seen a game use music like Chibi-Robo does, and it’s used brilliantly.

Another element of Chibi-Robo that elevates its charisma is its extensive cast of characters. Chibi’s design is wonderful, but he is yet another silent avatar protagonist in gaming. Despite his kind nature and darling wardrobe of costumes (the pajamas being the most precious), his uninvolved “yes” or “no” signs of communication make him like a non-threatening version of Hector Salamanca. Telly usually does most of the talking for Chibi, and he serves as a straight man spectator to all the oddities in the house with a jittery, timid disposition. The game's lifeblood is the supporting characters, namely the family and the toys. With the family, my impression that the developers watched a smattering of 20th-century sitcoms to craft their interpretation of the typical American nuclear family rings louder. Mr. Sanderson is a chubby, oafish slob like many sitcom dads who lazily sits around the house due to being unemployed. He’s a stilted manchild who performs a Super Saiyan stance when he gets excited. His wife is the spitting image of the naggy, frustrated housewife who looks like a 1960s pin-up model. At first, she has contempt for Chibi because of how expensive his purchase was but grows to like Chibi as he works around the house. They even have tea time together as Mrs. Sanderson subtly flirts with Chibi, to everyone's discomfort. How many happy points Chibi would get if she used him as a vibrator is uncertain, but I bet he’d be off the charts in the Chibi rankings. Their daughter Jenny’s quirk is that she wears a frog hat and only talks in ribbits with some words mixed in. She is mostly seen drawing in the living room. Tao, the family dog, is the most hostile towards Chibi and is mostly the subject of one particular side quest.

The family unit is all interesting in its own right, but the real stars of Chibi-Robo are the toys. Some toys will mark their territory and never leave their spots, while others travel around the bounds of the house in several different places. Drake Redcrest, an intergalactic space warrior who totally isn’t Buzz Lightyear, stomps around the living room on his patrol for justice with the same mix of righteousness and lack of self-awareness as the Pixar character who serves as his clear inspiration. Sophie is lurking around the close vicinity of Drake, who moonlights as a hopeless romantic for Drake after being Tao’s chew toy all day. The hard-boiled Sarge and his army of egglings use the spacious foyer for combat training while the gruff, wooden pirate Plankbeard traipses around the basement drinking rum. The master bedroom is the dance stage for Funky Phil, who is Disco Stu as a toy flower with kinetic arms. As Phil dances the night away, his not-so-secret admirer: the rootin'-tootin', frog-chewin’ Dinah, watches him from across the room in awe. Jenny’s room is the realm of the maudlin Mort, who lays in his coffin under the bed, and the beautiful Princess Pitts, who sits high in her oblique castle. Sunshine, my favorite of the toys, mainly resides here, and is why I was interested in buying Chibi-Robo. His Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-like nature brought upon by his debilitating addiction to nectar makes him violent and unpredictable like a fuzzy bowtie-wearing Danny Bonaduce.

The main trajectory of the story will only include some of these toys on occasions, so I implore anyone who hasn’t played Chibi-Robo to invest time and effort in each character’s side quest. Not only will completing them earn Chibi a whopping amount of happy points, but the side quests are some of the best content the game offers. Once Chibi impresses the egg soldiers by bypassing their line of fire on his way to the basement, they enlist him on a mission to kill the family dog to recover a soldier who was abducted by Tao. Plankbeard is confined to the dank grounds of the basement, and Chibi must recover his lost ship along with a fresh pirate crew so he can plunder for booty once more. Sophie drops the poetic love letters meant for her crush, Drake Redcrest, but coyly uses Chibi as a medium for communication between them even though she’s only a few feet from him at all times. Dinah goes above and beyond for Funky Phil as his biggest fan, aiding his offspring in desperate times. The standout sidequest is helping Mort with his seemingly futile affections for the beautiful Princess Pitts The climatic point of this sidequest when Sunshine is having an “episode” and Mort “defeats” him after socking Drake Redcreast in the mouth is my favorite moment in the entire game. As for the Sunshine sidequest, the resolution to it is so outrageous that I dare not spoil it. For a bunch of inanimate objects, these toys are more lively than most NPCs in gaming. Interacting with these characters made me feel invested in their troubles, unexpectedly empathizing with them. Most of the tasks Chibi must do run the gamut of fetch quests, but the superb writing of the characters and their stories makes up for the tedium.

The sidequests expose a surprising level of depth Chibi-Robo has that one would not expect. While Chibi-Robo’s presentation and characters are zany, the game is not afraid to shine a light on some weighty themes beneath its light-heartedness. Chibi-Robo is the story of a dysfunctional family at their breaking point, and Chibi has been unfairly tasked with mending the foundation before it cracks. In a pivotal moment, Chibi finks on Mr. Sanderson by showing his wife a receipt for yet another expensive toy. In frustration, she locks herself in her bedroom away from her family and decides that this instance is her boiling point. She writes the family a letter expressing her desire for a divorce, which lights a fire under Mr. Sanderson’s ass as he starts to pitch in with housework. Mr. Sanderson obviously didn’t consider signing his prenuptial. The character we empathize with most is Jenny, for the aura of dysfunction caused by her bickering parents has had a damning psychological effect on her. She is seen in the foyer on some nights, either crying or looking distraught. Her regression with the frog head is most likely due to severe psychological problems, inability to cope with what is happening around her, and retreating to a realm of escapism. She only expresses her true feelings about the situation by communicating through Sunshine or when Chibi is wearing the frog suit.

The other aspect of the main story also delves into the aura of gloominess surrounding the Sanderson house. During Chibi’s first visit to the basement, he finds a conspicuous giant robot lying motionless in the corner. By plugging his cord into the robot’s outlet, he inherits the memories of the robot’s history with the Sandersons and the toys. With some exposition from Plankbeard, we learn that this metallic hunk-of-junk is Giga Robo, a hulking prototype of Chibi that used to be a companion of the Sandersons. He also brought the toys to life as a wish he was granted by aliens he saved from a fatal collision to Earth. Eventually, the Sanderson’s unpaid bills became too staggering, and they had to stop financially supporting Giga Robo’s battery, leaving him as a husk to rot in their basement. Chibi’s main goal in the story is to revive Giga Robo, using moolah to charge his battery and find his missing leg. Chibi focuses on replenishing Giga Robo’s life force because he’s emblematic of the Sanderson’s happiness. They were happy when he was present in their lives, and their financial problems were relatively stable. He’s a symbol of the candy-coated past full of opportunity and prosperity, juxtaposed with the malaise of the present that Chibi is only familiar with.

In real life, Giga Robo’s absence would be a lesson in the absolute nature of grief and the process of coping with loss. However, Chibi-Robo is a video game, and extraordinary things happen in them, but not without complications. The extent of Chibi’s formidable mission has him using the alien’s time-traveling technology to retrieve the code to a case where Giga Robo’s leg is locked up. Up until now, the Spydorz enemies that have been sporadically showing up to antagonize Chibi Robo have been a piddly excuse for Chibi to use his blaster. As insignificant as they may seem, these little bastards enact a full-scale invasion of the house by using the case as a Trojan Horse. In this distressing event, the entire family bands together with Chibi and Mr. Sanderson, proving he’s not some dumb schmuck. He reveals that he wasn’t laid off from his job of programming the spydorz but quit out of passion when his company decided to make them turn on the Chibis. With a new schematic, Mr. Sanderson does some impressive metalwork to improve Chibi’s blaster to defeat the spydorz and their queen. The queen boss fight feels rather awkward, but the resolution where the family unit is restored is greatly satisfying. This climax, along with Giga Robo walking up the stairs, to everyone’s surprise, ends the story of Chibi-Robo beautifully. Chibi ascends to the apex of the rankings and becomes “Super Chibi Robo,” and all it took was repairing a tattered marriage by bending time and space. The aliens grant Chibi and Giga Robo an infinite battery that never declines, which the player can use indefinitely. However, I believe this sweet conclusion should’ve been the last moment of the game. For some reason, some of the side quests can’t be finished until Giga Robo is revived, which sullies the impact of the ending. That, and using Chibi with reckless abandon now that he’s immortal compromises too much on what made the gameplay invigorating and makes it mundane.

Chibi-Robo is more than meets the eye. The kooky nature of the game’s presentation was enough to sucker me into buying it after its splendor was displayed in an issue of Nintendo Power when I was a kid, and its offbeat nature fulfilled my initial expectations. However, one can’t truly know the extent of Chibi-Robo unless they probe deeper into its hidden level of substance that lies beneath its eccentricities. A game lambasted for simulating menial labor was merely a surface-level critique that failed to capture how it was a pertinent mechanic in reinventing the tropes in the 3D platformer and action-adventure genres. The characters that coexist with one another in this domicile are outlandish, yet they are more fleshed-out and sympathetic than most human characters in gaming. Some critics even claim that the dour themes presented in Chibi-Robo are too jarring for something so cute and inviting. Still, I argue that it’s impressive that the developers combined the quirkiness and the sombreness of the game without it feeling asymmetrical. Chibi-Robo is a unique, impressive experience, and I thank Nintendo Power for introducing me to this criminally underrated game.

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