The existence of A Hat In Time makes me feel old. It never occurred to me how long it’s been since 3D platformers have been relevant in the zeitgeist of gaming. After doing the math, I realize that it’s been long enough to where the existence of a revivalist 3D platformer game seems appropriate. The years have just slipped by. 3D platformers made up some of my favorite games as a kid while the genre was still relatively fresh. These games always offered solid control, a fair challenge, and the most varied level themes and layouts. Alas, a once shining star always has to burn out eventually, and the 3D platformer went the wayside to the new wave of first-person shooters and open-world sandbox games. Unlike the bright, effervescent graphics and comedic tones in the 3D platformer genre, these games opted for gritty realism and stone-faced seriousness. These games are also controlled much more rigidly than the consistently fluid 3D platformers. Needless to say, this changing of the guard left me feeling disenfranchised by gaming for quite a while. I always had the 3D platformers I grew up with to return to, creating a nostalgic comfort zone that I almost feel embarrassed by. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who blanketed themselves from the emanate lapse of time by immersing themselves in the era of 3D platformers. Otherwise, what would be the impetus for creating A Hat In Time?

As I’ve expressed, nostalgia is sweet and comfortable but cloudy and vapid. It’s nice to indulge one’s sweet tooth in the recesses of their past once in a while, but not to the extent where someone becomes close-minded and hopelessly stuck in the past. New ideas, deviating from old trends and expanding artistic capabilities sustain any medium. Vegetating in the bliss of nostalgia is never a practical means of progress. While A Hat In Time is a new release, it doesn’t seem like its existence of spells out an influx of 3D platformers ready to take back its throne from battle royales and open-world games. These revivalist games are passion projects of indie developers who create these games because triple-A developers have abandoned them out of catering to new, marketable trends. These indie developers may have the passion and the dedication to create something in the vein of a bygone era but might be limited by budgetary restrictions. These indie developers tend to be so destitute that they collect funds from online sources like Kickstarter, a source with a less-than-stellar reputation. It begs the question: why do we need these technologically inferior revival games when we already have the older triple-A titles that are still enjoyable? A game often compared to A Hat In Time is Yooka-Laylee, a revivalist 3D platformer game from an indie developer that came out the same year. Its mission was to act as a spiritual successor to the forsaken Banjo-Kazooie series. While the developers obviously understood the source material, Yooka-Laylee was too uninspired and marred by amateurish, indie developer hiccups to make any real impact. The game just makes you want to replay Banjo-Kazooie. While A Hat In Time wears its influences on its sleeves, it is not the same insipid, nostalgia-wankery that Yooka Laylee is. A Hat In Time uses its influences to create something considerably fresh.

In saying this, the games that have inspired A Hat In Time are the crux of its foundation. The most obvious influence is the 3D Mario games, especially Super Mario Sunshine. Like the Mario games, A Hat In Time’s levels is divided into “episodes” that showcase a different area with a different setting and theme, which are accessed in the game’s hub world. More specifically, to Super Mario Sunshine, the trajectory of each episode is confined to a specific objective. The background of the sub-chapter is presented with a series of overhead shots, having the player survey the scope of their objectives exactly like in Super Mario Sunshine. Instead of receiving stars or Shine Sprites after completing these objectives, the player receives timepieces, floating hourglasses that sparkle like diamond jewelry. They may emit a different glow than stars and Shine Sprites from Mario but act as the same platformer Macguffin object that furthers the game by collecting them.

The timepieces hold a specific power that holds some stake in the story. Hat Kid, the vague moniker of the protagonist, is an adorable, spunky little lass with a mysterious background. She seems to be a space traveler, warping through the hidden realms of the universe in a spaceship that is just as precious as she is. She seems to be doing all this under a severe lack of supervision, so is the protagonist really a little girl? My theory is that her true alien form is intangible to most beings, so she presents herself as a little girl in a corporeal form, reflecting her effervescent nature. If she is a little girl, she’s got quite a heavy responsibility: guarding the timepieces in a vault on her spaceship, which she also uses as a source of fuel for her ship. One day while parked over an unknown planet, someone from “The Mafia” knocks at the glass on her ship, badgering her to pay a fine for floating over their planet. This altercation turns perilous as the man punches the glass window, breaking it and creating a vacuum that sucks Hat Kid and all of the timepieces into the gravitational pull of the nearby world. Hat Kid arrives in Mafia Town, the base of operations for the man who accosted her and his uncanny cohorts. Hat Girl isn’t the only peculiar little girl here. Another little girl nicknamed “Mustache Girl” is seen here fighting The Mafia with more passionate vigor. Hat Girl and Mustache Girl work to defeat The Mafia’s boss in the fourth episode of Mafia Town and dismantle their establishment. We then learn about the powerful time-bending properties of the timepieces when Mustache Girl carelessly drops one, putting the importance of Hat Kid’s goal to collect them in perspective. Mustache Girl is spellbound by the opportunities these timepieces could have, mostly plans to vindictively stomp The Mafia even further into the dirt. Hat Kid rejects Mustache Girl’s proposal, and Mustache Girl leaves in a huff. They form a rivalry fueled by their desire to retrieve the remaining timepieces, and the rest of the game is a race between the two to gather them all up for their own prerogatives.

An essential aspect of any 3D platformer game is controlled. In a genre that requires a lot of precise jumping, the objective quality of a 3D platformer is marked by its fluidity in movement. Considering that A Hat In Time is a grassroots indie game funded by donations, the level of quality in the controls may be a legitimate concern. While I can’t say that the controls in A Hat In Time are refined, it compensates well with the range of Hat Kid’s movement. Hat Kid can double-jump just like any other 3D platformer character, but her trademark traversal method is a mid-air dive that can be followed up with a mid-air cancel to maintain momentum. The player’s skill with the mid-air dive move will directly affect traversing at any point in this game. Traversing the levels in the game will often make the player feel like they’re flying, mostly thanks to this mid-air dive move. It makes playing as Hat Kid feel less like Mario and more like Spider-Man. Hat Kid’s expansive range of movement is tested to its fullest potential in the time rift sections: isolated timepiece challenges that are obviously inspired by the FLUDD-less sections from Super Mario Sunshine. It’s pure platforming bliss, an emphasis on the bliss factor of these levels thanks to the ethereal design and peaceful music track. These levels are pure ecstasy.

Hat Kid’s weapon of choice to combat the denizens of this planet is an umbrella. It’s a weapon that fits her quirky personality, but not as effective one as you could probably imagine. The umbrella doesn’t have any range of attack, and the only way to use it well is to flail it recklessly when an enemy is coming right for Hat Kid. A more practical method of combat is a homing dive that acts like the homing attack from the 3D Sonic games. Once Hat Kid is airborne, an indicator button will pop up, guaranteeing that Hat Kid will home in on the enemy. It’s a move that compliments the fluidity of the game and one that doesn’t interrupt the pace of Hat Kid’s movement when platforming. Like most 3D platformers, the game isn’t very combat-oriented as the enemy placements are designed as sums of the level, scattered around the level to breathe more life into it. While the combat isn’t consistently enthralling, the boss fights certainly make up for that in spades. There are only a few bosses in the game, but each is multi-phased fights that are all surprisingly lengthy for 3D platformer bosses. Each boss is unpredictable, and they don’t falter by implementing the platformer trope of waiting for an obvious weak point. The more combat-focused fights here never interrupt the quick pace of Hat Kid’s fluid movement.

Assisting Hat Kid in both combat and level traversal are the different hats and badges acquired throughout the game. The material for the hats is scattered all over each level, and Hat Kid knits these hats after acquiring an arbitrary number of their raw essences. Each hat gives Hat Kid a different ability mostly used for traversal. Some of these different hats are required for certain parts of certain missions but can also be incorporated to change up Hat Kid’s array of movement. The Sprint Hat lets Hat Kid execute a lunge, the Brewing Hat cooks a short-ranged projectile, and the Ice Hat transforms Hat Kid into a solid block of ice that lets Hat Kid launch herself from different ice panels. The Dweller’s Mask materializes platforms and objects for a short period. All these hats are utilized greatly in the game except for the last hat, the Time Stop Hat. This one is acquired very late in the game and is only used for one mission. Hat Kid can also implement a smattering of badges and alternate abilities for Hat Kid separate from the hats. These badges are bought from a mysterious merchant with pons, the game’s form of currency. Most of these badges are for novelty, with some having negative effects like the inability to sustain a single hit. However, some prove to accentuate the fluidity of Hat Kid’s movement, such as the hover, Hookshot, and no bonk badge. This is my optimal combination of badges to make traversal the smoothest for Hat Kid. These different abilities are most likely taken from Psychonauts, another classic 3D platformer in which the protagonist has many gadgets and abilities. However, Psychonauts uses these a little more cleverly than A Hat In Time, as each ability and gadget is used for more than just traversal and simple novelty. The aspect of this that A Hat In Time has over Psychonauts is the customization options. Many different designs and color pallets are available for Hat Kid in a roulette accessed in the hub. I may be impatient and apathetic with character customizations in most games, but mixing and matching Hat Kid’s aesthetic is something I enjoy greatly.

Platforming and combat always feel smooth and give the player the sense that any mistake made while platforming is due to their performance and not the games. This factor in the gameplay is ideal for any 3D platformer. The same cannot be said for wall jumping, another staple in the 3D platformer genre present in the game. On such occasions that Hat Kid cannot make it up to a higher platform, she will run up the side of it in an attempt to save face. Often when a platform is still too high to run up it, there is usually another high wall parallel to it for wall jumping. This usually amounts to something I’ll call “wall scaling,” as most platformer characters will hop from wall to wall without running up it. These moments can be quite finicky at times, and Hat Kid might not jump in the intended direction after scaling the wall, resulting in a mismatched jump that punishes the player unfairly. Sometimes, the camera will move erratically during these segments, and accomplishing the intended trajectory of the jump will practically be based on chance. This doesn’t happen very often and isn’t a severe detriment to A Hat In Time’s gameplay. Still, the inconsistencies with the fluid control illustrate the cracks in the foundation one would expect from a Kickstarter-funded indie game.

I suppose that the Kickstarter level of quality bleeds into the graphics of A Hat In Time. The cel-shaded graphical style greatly compliments the bubbly tone of the game, but they lack a certain level of refinement. The character models are outlined rigidly, with their physical features looking very “drawn-on.” The graphical layout of each level also seems to follow the same amateurish level of quality. For a game that takes the most inspiration from second-generation 3D platformers, A Hat In Time bears the rudimentary qualities of an early platformer game. In an era when the genre was considered a radical advancement of video game potential, developers could get away with the platforms looking like blocks. The platformers of the second generation refined the graphics to make the platforms less obvious. Much of the terrain in A Hat In Time looks about as subtle as the blocky platforms from Super Mario 64. I also noticed many unrefined sections where some of the foregrounds look as if it was neglected to be enhanced by the developers. These sections tend to be hidden from plain sight but show inconsistencies in quality as a whole. A game that was made to usher in an extinct genre, revitalized for a modern gaming climate, is ironically many steps down from the games that are generations older than it. Then again, I guess I have to put the Kickstarter funding into consideration.

I suppose I can’t fault A Hat In Time, or Yooka-Laylee for that matter, for their lackluster execution. The indie circle of game developers cannot compete with the frills of triple-A gaming, even with the triple-A games of generations past. From a technical standpoint, these revivalist games cannot hold a leg to their influences. Yooka-Laylee is a Kirkland brand Banjo-Kazooie, not a worthy successor. Being a successor to something sort of entails a leap in quality, or at least something comparable. A Hat In Time is not technically on par with its influences, but it’s anything but pastiche. The winning factor of A Hat In Time that gives it its substance is its astounding level of heart and charm. Do you know that aged adage about how if you keep making a face, it’ll stick? If that were true, I’d hold a perpetual smile on my face thanks to A Hat In Time. It’s a game that seems self-aware of its shortcomings and compensates for them with buoyant creativity.

Hat Kid herself is the centerpiece of the overall bubbly tone of A Hat In Time. Her innocent and adorable persona is just too much to handle. She’s constantly touting a wide smile on her face, even when another face is scowling at her. Besides her variety of hats and color-pallets for her clothes, there are smaller touches to her character that add to her charm. She seldom utters a word but is not quite the typical mute protagonist. Anytime she does speak, it’s a darling pipsqueak voice that is irresistible. She has two reaction options on opposite sides of the d-pad. One blows a kiss, and the other blows a raspberry. Neither of these is useful, but that didn’t stop me from constantly alternating between reactions ad nauseam. Hat Kid’s ship, the hub-world of A Hat In Time, is Hat Kid’s kingdom of cuteness. The design and color scheme of it answer the seldom asked question: what if little girls had the opportunity to design the interior of their own spaceship, no holds barred? The answer is exactly the look of this hub world. The beige and pink color scheme signal an almost sickeningly sweet pallet that no one past 10 would find appealing. Hat Kid has a pool of pillows complete with a diving board in her room, and diving into it reveals a hidden fortress where she catalogs the game's events in a secret diary. A Roomba constantly vacuums the living space, and Hat Kid can even ride it like a dog (which looks incredibly painful for the Roomba). The central computer even has a fully interactive text-based adventure starring a Corgi. This might just be one of my favorite hubs in all of gaming, and I’ve never lived a day as a little girl in my entire life.

Every chapter in this game is also oozing with enchantment of the same degree. It’s difficult to summarize the overall charm easily because each chapter is so contained with its own characters, tone, and objectives. This level of charm and creativity also fluctuates through the course of all four chapters. Mafia Town presents a relatively open level situated on an island with palm trees, seagulls, and a towering lighthouse. It’s the chapter in this game that reminds me the most of Super Mario Sunshine, namely the Ricco Harbor level with its industrialized beachfront setting. According to a developer, this level is inspired by a town in Greece, which might explain the bald, olive-skinned Mafia members that have set up shop here. As imposing as one might expect the Mafia, A Hat In Time does a great job making them as endearing as everything else in the game. They all speak broken English through an accent ripped straight from The Soviet Union, which I never get tired of hearing. They might seem to be a formidable force, but Hat Kid plays them off with whimsy and humor like Bugs Bunny does with Elmer Fudd. Some of the background mafia members even squeak when you hit them. The members of the mafia might do some dastardly, albeit cartoonishly bad things like tie up Mustache Girl and strap her to a pyramid of explosive barrels. Still, their stronghold here is the least heinous front I could imagine the mafia doing: cooking for their prestigious seafood restaurant. Mafia members even wear aprons that say “kiss the cook” on them. I want to collectively kiss each mafia member on their bald heads.

While Mafia Town was certainly an enjoyable experience, the next chapter is the one that won me over. “Battle of the Birds” takes place in a film studio divided between two rival bird directors who viciously compete yearly to win at the bird studio equivalent of the Oscars. Hat Kid gets wrapped up in performing the lead role in both directors’ films, and both have completely different creative visions. The Conductor is an (owl?) who sports the most exaggerated Scottish accent since everyone’s impressions of Shrek. He specializes in thrilling steam train-oriented westerns involving a murder mystery and defusing a bomb on the train. DJ Grooves is a fat penguin donning an unabashedly garish disco suit with a big, puffy afro. His vision is in the vein of flashy dance films like La La Land. As the player progresses through the chapter, the meter between both directors will increase on either side. This signifies the winner of the film competition. What the game doesn't tell the player is that the score of the bird you dislike the most should be the higher one. The winning bird will be exposed as a cheater, and they'll be the chapter's final boss. They’re both wankers, so the decision shouldn’t be too difficult. I chose DJ Grooves because I am biased against guys who unironically wear disco outfits post-1979. . This was the chapter that solidified my praise for this game because of how creative it was. Regarding narrative, the developers borrowed more from the quirky, irreverent Paper Mario games than the 3D platformers. Yet, they still managed to execute something bold in narrative with the platformer elements still being used to the finest degree.

“Subcon Forest” is another impressive chapter that delves into the horror genre, definitely not expected from this game at first glance. The chapter takes place in an eerie land with a light-hearted, Halloweeny vibe and aesthetic. The prime force of this land is a being referred to as “The Snatcher '', a ghoul-like figure with a jovial presence and a wide, Jack-O-Lantern smile. He catches Hat Kid off guard and forces her to sell her soul to him in exchange for timepieces. These tasks involve many things, including fighting a possessed toilet and delivering mail to his minions. He tries to oust Hat Kid once all of his missions are complete, but Hat Kid overcomes his ghoulish grasp in a duel. Once he loses, The Snatcher becomes annoyed with Hat Kid and tells her to get lost. Hat Kid then starts making new contracts with him to be her best friend and play with her. At that moment, The Snatcher’s cold heart grew two times its size. Mine certainly did when this happened. While “Subcon Forest” is as subversive and substantial as the previous chapter, The Snatcher is not the reason why I hold it in high regard. One of The Snatcher’s missions, “Queen Vanessa’s Manor,” is an exemplary piece of horror in gaming. Hat Kid ventures off to a gothic mansion in the hidden, icy realms of Subcon Forest. The one denizen inside is Queen Vanessa, a forsaken queen marred by years of loneliness and jealousy that has reduced her to a horrific, indescribable form with one twinkling red eye. This mission is a stealth section accompanied by a storm, menacing music, and the creepy, ominous dialogue from Queen Vanessa. If her eye catches Hat Kid, the screen will get blurry as she’ll run at you like an angry hornet, hoisting Hat Kid up by her neck where she will meet her doom. This isn’t just a horror section in the vein of a cutesy platformer: it’s genuinely one of the most terrifying and hair-raising sections in all of gaming. Eat your heart out, Silent Hill.

Unfortunately, the last chapter in the game is where the quality of creativity and charm flatlines. “Alpine Skyline” is an open-world chapter in which Hat Kid swings past a series of cliffs with their own themes. One is a mountainous birdhouse, one is an active volcano, and my favorite of these is a moody, borderline psychedelic bell with waterfalls and strange architecture. Unlike the other chapters, there are no interesting characters or creative narratives. In any other platformer, this would have been an acceptable level. As I’ve explained, A Hat In Time’s strength is not its world-building or technical prowess. Without the elements from the other chapters, “Alpine Skyline” doesn’t deliver on the same impressive scale.

After a certain number of pieces, Hat Kid will unlock the attic of her ship to the final level. Since we’ve last seen her in Mafia Town, Mustache Girl has been liberally using the timepieces she’s found to set up an intimidating fortress where she sits on a throne, judging essentially every character in the game on their morals. If they don’t meet her criteria of “good” (which none of them do), she sentences them like a ruthless emperor. The run-up to Mustache Girl is obviously taken from the Mario games, as everything is reminiscent of Bowser’s castle. The fight with Mustache Girl has an epic scale, but the finale here feels undeserved. By the time we fight Mustache Girl, so much has happened in the game that is completely removed from the narrative of Mafia Town. I’d be surprised if some players forgot about Mustache Girl and her grievances with the mafia at this point. Nevertheless, it’s an epic final fight that effectively incorporates all of the familiar faces in this game (except that of the horrific Queen Vanessa) to aid Hat Kid in her battle against Mustache Girl. Hat Kid then gets to journey back home while all of her new friends beg her to stay.

It almost feels like the final level in A Hat In Time was just to wrap things up like any other 3D platformer. Each episode is so contained with its own unique properties that wrapping them all up with this fight seems inappropriate. The conflict between Mustache Girl and The Mafia is only one plot in the game, so it feels uneven to incorporate elements from the other chapters as a whole finale for this game. However, I realize that this is only from a point of progression in the sense of the game. Narratively, it ties the individual experiences of Hat Kid as a whole. The surprising depth of A Hat In Time comes with a lesson of forgiveness. As Mustache Girl climbs to the top, she becomes the villain over all these imposing forces; the mafia, deceitful, ego-driven directors, and even demonic spirits. She’s a giant hypocrite that turns into what we sought to destroy. Even though The Mafia might have wronged her in the past, her consuming anger lets her become more insidious than they ever were. Hat Kid, on the other hand, faces these imposing forces directly and tries to see the best in them despite their malevolent intentions. In turn, they end up supporting her when she needs it. It’s an old lesson from the dustiest of Aesop’s Fables, but having these themes in a video game gives A Hat In Time a surprising depth underneath the endearing presentation. Mario certainly never had any underlying themes like this.

Generations on, the 3D platformer genre that was a staple of my childhood is still deader than disco. Revivalist games made by indie studios make a valiant effort to recreate this forgotten era, but it comes off as a shameless nostalgia-fueled re-hash with inferior elements. A Hat In Time bears all the markings of games like Super Mario Sunshine and other games of that ilk, but the end product is not the slimy afterbirth of the Italian plumber. It was a unique experience that kept a stupid grin on my face the entire time. The game is often compared to Yooka-Laylee due to its similar, retro-inspired initiative, but the quality between these games is unequal. A Hat In Time proves that games like this needn’t be forgotten and treats us to the first great 3D platformer of the current generation. Hell, I liked this game even more than Super Mario Odyssey. Nintendo may have had all the branding and money to secure another good Mario game, but A Hat In Time beats it with its large, ever-beating, beguiling heart.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

The only truly lamentable thing about A Hat In Time is that it’s too short. I completely understand that Gears for Breakfast excreted enough of their blood, sweat, and tears into the four levels that were in the game, but the minuscule amount of content still left me unsatisfied. I soon forgot that we lived in the age of downloadable content, so there was a slight possibility that my hunger for more A Hat In Time would be satiated. Unfortunately, Gears for Breakfast unloaded the dessert wine from A Hat In Time’s main course onto the bourgeois PC gamers and left us console peasants out to dry. That is, until sometime within the past year when Gears for Breakfast finally graced console players with the A Hat In Time DLC. Seal the Deal, the first of the two DLC content packs, is a hybrid of the rhyming words in the title: seals and deals. With double the content that usually comes in a DLC package, one would assume Gears for Breakfast would be spoiling us. However, Seal the Deal is not the bountiful gift that properly extends A Hat In Time.

The first portion of this DLC is the “Deal” section. After defeating The Snatcher and acquiring a certain number of timepieces in the base game, he’ll make himself comfortable at the top of Hat Kid’s pool of pillows for the rest of the game. Of all of the colorful characters in A Hat In Time to make permanent residence in Hat Kid’s ship, The Snatcher might inspire feelings of anxiety. Once you speak to him, the player learns that he’s here rather than inspires feelings of frustration. The “Deal” portion is a roughly designed map integrating each of the game’s four main chapters with some vague sense of interconnectivity. The snatcher-colored blobs that cover this map are challenge missions, more difficult versions of missions from the base game. The challenge missions have more elements that can damage you, and the boss fights are more hectic and ferocious. Once you complete the challenge, more challenges will open on the connecting threads of the map. Completing these challenges will also net Hat Kid with a few new color pallets and costumes.

I’ve never really been enticed by challenge missions in video games, and “Seal the Deal” is no exception. I’ve always found instances where the player is forced to replay sections of the game with a caveat or handicap to feel artificially difficult. Getting out of bed in the morning is a simple, easy task that mostly everyone does every day of every week. If I had to hoist myself out of bed with only my pelvic muscles and still had to land on my feet once I got up, the task would be incredibly taxing. The challenges in “Seal the Deal” are familiar, simple tasks with incredibly tedious conditions. The base challenges are fine, but it’s the bonus requirements for each challenge that make “Seal the Deal” insufferable. The conditions of the bonuses are insanely harsh, with some of them requiring borderline exploitation of the game’s mechanics. One would assume that the bonuses for these challenges would be optional, but they must fill out the entire map. There is a “peace and tranquility” mode to soften things up, but enabling this will only count as a demerit. The difficulty of A Hat In Time never came up in my review because it was never a concern. The game had a perfect difficulty curve. “Seal the Deal” takes the base game and turns it into a frustrating nightmare, complete with constant taunting from The Snatcher to add insult to injury.

To be frank, I expected another full episode from A Hat In Time’s DLC content. That’s what the “Seal” part of the title alludes to, referring to the abundant amount of seals that work on a luxurious cruise liner manned by gruff walrus. Unfortunately, developers had the “Deal” part of this DLC pack eclipse the chapter section. There are only three chapters, and none of them really hold to the standard I’ve come to expect from A Hat In Time. The first chapter is a mere introduction to the cruise ship as a setting. Hat Kid collects timepiece shards around the ship for the player to become familiar with the different areas. The player will have to memorize each section of the ship for the next episode, the most difficult, non-challenge mode episode in the game. I don’t know if the person reading this has ever worked a short-staffed day in a restaurant or retail, but the second chapter here is exactly what it feels like to work in that hectic environment. Hat Kid has to deliver over 20 different items to the patrons of the ship under a short time limit. Apparently, Hat Kid is obligated to this because the cutesy seal staff that all talk like Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls is all incompetent. I usually don’t condone violence against animals, but this chapter makes me want to fashion Hat Kid’s umbrella into a club and slaughter all of them in frustration. This chapter conjures up too much real frustration I’ve experienced in real life. The last chapter is a Titanic-Esque iceberg shipwreck where Hat Kid has to save everyone on the ship from drowning in the frigid drink. Like the climax of the base game, this epic finale feels undeserved. This time, it’s because there are only a mere two chapters supporting it.

I waited many years to get my hands on more content from A Hat In Time. Judging from what I experienced in “Seal the Deal”, I should’ve been more careful about what I wished for. The base game of A Hat In Time wasn’t very challenging, but it didn’t have to hold my attention. In “Seal the Deal”, the difficulty is amplified to biblical proportions, and the entire game suffers as a result. I wish the developers would’ve taken the time to expand the “Seal” portion, and maybe the part that I hoped for wouldn't have been underwhelming.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

The first DLC pack extending the short length of A Hat In Time, “Seal the Deal,” was not exactly what I anticipated. The “Seal” part was underwhelming, and the “Deal” part was anything but enjoyable. If I wasn’t a console bumpkin and experienced “Seal the Deal” upon its initial release, it would’ve soured my overall experience of this lovely game. Fortunately, A Hat In Time graced us with another DLC pack, and I didn’t have to have a year of disappointment hovering over me like a perpetual raincloud. I didn’t even know there was another A Hat In Time DLC pack other than “Seal the Deal” when it was released for consoles. “Nyakuza Metro” is the DLC content from A Hat In Time that I yearned for to prolong the short experience.

“Nyakuza Metro” becomes available very late in the game, and it is hidden under a door near the laundry room, accessed through an underground door via ice hat power. The title card for the area is a wide shot of the metro, highlighting the scope of the DLC. “Nyakuza Metro” is a free-roam chapter similar to “Alpine Skyline” from the base game. I mentioned in my review of the base game that the only chapter I felt was underwhelming was “Alpine Skylines”. The free-roam direction didn’t exude the same character and charm as the more linear chapters. In the case of “Nyakuza Metro”, this DLC content makes up for the last chapter in the base game. There is something about the metro that makes it a grand spectacle. It’s a sprawling concrete playground covered with a myriad of beaming neon lights that cover the colors of the rainbow. If you couldn’t tell from the title, this chapter is heavily inspired by facets of Japanese culture. As far as I can tell from the Persona games, the metros of Japan must be the meccas of convenience and 21st-century commerce. These Japanese metros make the dingy subways of America look like Las Vegas. Not only does A Hat In Time replicate the resplendent qualities of the Japanese metro, but Nyakuza also has a certain “Miyazaki magic” to it. Roaming around the area as Hat Kid reminded me of Spirited Away, a child acting as a stranger in a strange land that offers both wonderment and danger. One could argue that this is conveyed through every chapter in A Hat In Time, but I felt this more strongly in Nyakuza Metro. Of course, it could be because of the Japanese influence and the enormous cat chariots pulling the subways.

The open-world design of “Nyakuza Metro” is much better executed than in “Alpine Skyline”. Alpine Skyline’s open world was a small hub with several branching paths that never connected with one another. Each path also had a different theme ranging from avoiding lava and climbing a gargantuan bird house to navigating a bell tower. These themes of all these different acts are so different from one another that it hardly feels “open-world”. Nyakuza Metro has a central hub with color-coordinated stations the player unlocks one by one. Each station consistently retains the metro setting while offering unique platforming challenges per section. The design of the metro is much more consistent with its setting than “Alpine Skyline” ever was. If there’s any more indication that Nyakuza Metro is a prime example of open-world design done correctly, I had to use the map offered in the center of the hub to navigate the metro.

I criticized “Alpine Skyline” for lacking the same quality in narrative and supporting characters compared to the other chapters in the base game. I now consider it an indirect cause of having an open-world chapter. Nyakuza Metro has a more involved narrative, but it’s so weak that it makes me wonder why they even bothered. In the metro hub, there is a jewelry store that sticks out like a sore thumb among the dazzling neon glow. This is the base of operations for “The Empress”, the mob boss of the metro. When Hat Kid collects a timepiece, her cat goons accost her and take it to The Empress. The Empress then compensates by giving you a large sum of cash, something completely useless to Hat Kid. Once you collect all of them, the final act involves Hat Kid breaking into The Empress’s backroom and taking all of them back. The Empress sees this and sics all her minions on Hat Kid, resulting in a chase throughout the metro. Once Hat Kid escapes them, she encounters The Empress in an elevator, where she makes idle threats to Hat Kid. There is no boss fight with The Empress afterward, making all of this feel anticlimactic. Perhaps having somewhat of a narrative was the only way to incorporate the Yakuza, something prominently Japanese, into this chapter. It ends up being a giant detriment to the chapter as a whole. I would’ve rather focused on getting lost in the marvelous setting, listening to the mundane conversations between the feline denizens of the metro as background noise.

Nyakuza Metro is the clear winner between the two DLC packs of A Hat In Time. Unlike the vexing affair that was “Seal the Deal”, “Nyakuza Metro” was, in contrast, consistently fun. The narrative may have flopped, but I was too busy basking in the radiant neon glow of the metro to care. “Nyakuza Metro” is exactly what I wanted to extend the playtime of A Hat In Time.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

I’ve spoken out about my personal feelings about the seventh generation of video games (roughly 2006-2013 ie. Xbox 360, Wii, PS3) plenty of times before. It was the generation that capitalized on the cinematic properties of the medium and was the start of gaming becoming an incredibly accessible commodity. Games like Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed, and Uncharted 2 were already being treated as modern classics, but I’ve always found certain discrepancies with these games. This was the generation in which gaming lost itself and got too caught up in trying to rival other mediums. Despite this, something else emerged completely different from the critically lauded triple-A titles. The landscape of triple-A games gave way to the indie game boom, simpler alternatives to the narrative-heavy triple-A titles. Nowadays, indie games practically dominate the marketplace, or at least they seem on par with triple-A titles in popularity and critical acclaim. Indie games from this generation like Braid, Super Meat Boy, and The Binding of Isaac have been greatly influential over the past decade. However, my favorite indie game from this generation is Castle Crashers, a beat-em-up from Newgrounds subsidiary developer The Behemoth, the creators of sixth-generation indie darling Alien Hominid. While being limited to the budget of an indie developer, Castle Crashers always felt more substantial to me than its triple-A contemporaries. Its focal point was sorely missed in the triple-A games of this time: the concept of fun, which it achieves through a myriad of aspects.

Of course, all video games are essentially supposed to be fun. Why else would anyone play them? What I’m trying to illustrate here is that Castle Crashers is the seventh generation game I had the most fun with when the seventh generation was the current one. Out of all of the video games from this generation that garnered praise for their narratives and technical achievements, this endearing indie tribute to beat-em-ups was the game that won me over. Simply put, Castle Crashers is a ton of fun. Castle Crashers is a subtle reminder about simpler, humbler eras of gaming’s past. While progress in any medium is essential to its survival, sometimes providing something that recalls a medium’s roots can be refreshing. Saying this, Castle Crashers isn’t an explicit retro throwback. Indie games from this period may borrow heavily from the past but uphold many modern sensibilities that elevate them to the standards of 21st-century gaming. Castle Crashers utilizes the best aspects of the beat-em-up genre with its modern sensibilities to create what I consider to be the best the genre has to offer.

Simplicity is the key to any of these indie games. It’s the contrasting direction from the triple-A games that gives credence to the production of low-budget indie games. Beat-em-ups are inherently uncomplicated action games with simple mechanics, fitting for an era where developers could only offer so much in terms of presentation and gameplay. Playing something inherently simple in a time in which game developers were trying to compete with the grandiose narratives of feature films seemed comparatively fresh. It’s not to say that Castle Crashers is minimalistic. It’s simply a game without any pretentious need to raise the bar for the potential of gaming as a medium. It’s a tried and true beat-em-up, and it doesn’t strive to be anything else. It’s also a game that doesn’t take itself very seriously. The crude sense of humor synonymous with the Newgrounds brand is readily featured throughout Castle Crashers. In a time where triple-A games verged into the realms of melodrama (Gears of War, The Last Of Us), it’s invigorating to play a game in which you ride a deer being propelled by its constant flow of liquid shit in an homage to the Turbo Tunnel from Battletoads.

The simplistic nature of the beat-em-up genre also does not warrant a magnificent story either. Four knights of different colors are busy dancing in their keep when a fellow knight bursts through the door and tumbles down the stairs to his death. The kingdom is being invaded by a dark wizard and an army of barbarian soldiers. The dark wizard steals a giant red gemstone of ambiguously grand power and four princesses. The four princesses are divided between four different constituents who arrange a forced marriage with each princess. The four knights (or 1-4 depending on how many people are playing) must venture across the land to liberate the princesses from unrequited matrimony and defeat the dark wizard. The story of Castle Crashers is essentially the most basic of stories, rooting back to tales from the middle ages. It’s like The Canterbury Tales with more scatological humor, presented in an interactive rough-hewn, flash cartoon. Judging from the medieval elements from Castle crashers such as the knights, kings, wizardry, etc. The Behemoth’s goal was to offer the basis of the most simple fantasy foreground and let the style and gameplay give this tired narrative its substance. Conversely, many triple-A games from this time would do the exact opposite.

The most readily apparent aspect of Castle Crashers is its aesthetic. The Behemoth’s signature style is derived from the flash animation look of Newgrounds. The chibi character's faces are expressive, and the animation looks endearingly unrefined. This amateurish style is less indicative of the lower budget of an indie developer and more of branding on the developer’s part. The Behemoth is a subsidiary of Newgrounds with the same animators on staff, so the graphics naturally look like a flash game from the website. Castle Crashers has the essence of a flash game but looks much more polished and well-attended than Alien Hominid. The 2003 Behemoth game Alien Hominid seemed more like an ambitious attempt to release a popular flash game into the big leagues of console stardom. Surprisingly, they succeeded, but the final product was still undercooked. The final product wasn’t exactly console material as it still upheld too many of the raw elements of a flash game. Castle Crashers, however, feels like a game worthy of primetime. Castle Crashers was never a flash game on Newgrounds before its 2008 release on the Xbox marketplace. It’s a creation from The Behemoth, only using Newgrounds as self-referential easter eggs and borrowing the website’s warped sense of humor. Castle Crashers even has an Alien Hominid-themed level, and the titular character is a playable character. It’s almost as if the impetus for releasing Alien Hominid on consoles was to finance The Behemoth’s first full project totally removed from Newgrounds, putting themselves on the frontlines of the gaming industry. Alien Hominid walked so Castle Crashers could run. The developers use flash animation graphics in Castle Crashers not as a means of having to fall back due to a cheap budget but to highlight their full potential of them. The animated graphics look amazing and were a breath of fresh air from the gritty, realistic graphics from triple-A games of the time.

The aesthetic of Castle Crashers isn’t the only aspect of improved refinement over Alien Hominid. My biggest discrepancy with Alien Hominid was the difficulty, and it’s what kept me from enjoying the game as a result. Selling a flash game on consoles with an arcade-style level of difficulty seemed inappropriate, especially in an era where this difficulty was unfashionable. Castle Crashers seems more aware of modern gaming sensibilities, making for a more accessible experience. Maybe this is due to beat-em-ups generally being less harsh on players than run-and-gun games, but Castle Crashers still uses less conventional tactics than most old-school beat-em-ups. Dan Paladin, the co-founder of The Behemoth, claims that the biggest influence on Castle Crashers is River City Ransom, a classic beat-em-up for the NES. He says the influence of River City Ransom went into the expressiveness of the characters in Castle Crashers, their bulging, wide-eyed expressions as they are hit. Another influence from River City Ransom that I can clearly see is the RPG elements. The player’s character will level up incrementally through combat. After returning to the world map for whatever reason, the player has a choice to scale their character in four different attributes: strength, magic, defense, and agility. The player can also use this system to make a balanced character like I usually do. Leveling up happens often enough where one doesn’t have to worry about one stat being neglected unless one chooses to put all of your eggs in one basket. This RPG scaling gives the difficulty curve a natural sense of progression. The game assumes that with each level, the player has gotten better at it and treats the difficulty of every subsequent level accordingly. That being said, the most difficult level in the game is “Full Moon.” It’s near the end of the game, but it’s much harder than the last few levels after, making it the only exception to this fairly consistent rule.

The consistent level of difficulty is aided by the fluidity of the combat. Beat-em-ups tend to have more rigid controls, but the combat in Castle Crashers is so graceful that it feels like ballet dancing. This is probably because the characters can fight their enemies while suspended in the air. If the player jumps and executes a stronger attack, they can hoist an enemy up in the air for a direct line of combos. Most old-school beat 'em-ups are restricted to an awkward range of movement, but playing Castle Crashers always feels buoyant and free-flowing. The controls are the best out of any beat-em-up I’ve played. Castle Crashers may offer an experience with great humor and charm, but these buttery smooth controls are objectively what gives it the advantage over every other beat-em-up.

The combat in most beat-em-ups also tends to get stale and repetitive, but Castle Crashers elongates the player’s attention by offering a slew of combat variations. The blacksmith’s hub is a menagerie of different swords the player can use, exhibited along the insides of his giant frog buddy. There are over 60 different swords/handheld weapons the player can use, with each of them having its own statistical perks. One of the attributes the player can increase in the stats menu is magic. Every playable character has magic, but the type of magic differs. The four main knights all have different elemental magic, for example. The green knight can poison people with a cloud of green gas, the red knight has electricity powers, the orange knight has fire, and the blue knight can freeze enemies with ice magic. Other playable characters share some of the same elemental magic as the four knights, but the standard magic for most characters is arrows and bombs. Upgrading magic will strengthen it and grant the player new abilities like projectile magic, practical in combat and as varied in movement as attacking with handheld weapons. Sandwiches are consumable items in which the player goes through a transformation like the Incredible Hulk. It gives the player a ten-second window of roid-rage to rip doors off their hinges, batter small enemies, and wrestle with larger enemies under the same effects. Animal buddies are another facet to combat. These small creatures will float over the player’s shoulders, offering support whenever needed. There are at least 30 of them, and they each come with their own unique abilities. Some animal buddies will aid you in traversal, some in combat, and some with finding secrets and retrieving health items. They’re also so goddamn adorable.

The world of Castle Crashers is wide and sprawling with a vast array of landscapes. The barbarian levels on the helm of the king’s castle are reminiscent of battles from Lord of the Rings. The industrial castle is a series of death traps where platforming becomes a means of survival. The journey on the high seas involves the player’s ship being ambushed by pirate ninjas, everyone’s favorite argument coming to a compromise. The desert leads to discovering a monumentally large sand castle ending in a game of volleyball for a prize. The ice level is a quaint village of Eskimos accompanied by the most captivating music track in the entire game. These aren’t the only levels in the game, but a select few examples highlight the variety each level has to keep the journey from getting stagnant. The enemies throughout the game are also varied, but usually only in terms of aesthetical design. Whether bears, Arabs, barbarians, or Eskimos, they are all based on the same model as the four knights. There are some deviations to this, like the quicksand bugs in the desert and the fish in the flooded temple area, but the sword-wielding enemies that look like different shades of your character will be the most common enemy type.

While the enemies aren’t exactly diverse, the bosses make up for this in spades. Castle Crashers offers an incredibly diverse range of bosses not only in terms of cosmetics but tactical means to defeat them. Many of these bosses also carry more depth in gameplay than the average beat-em-up. The catfish boss is a very durable foe, sustaining minimal damage with each sword hit. Whenever he coughs up a hairball, it’s supposed to drift into the king’s ship. A cannonball is fired at the catfish, putting him in a daze and making him more vulnerable. The game doesn’t outright explain that this is the proper way to defeat the boss, so the player has to find this out for themselves. The Painter will quickly paint on an empty canvas, and his crude drawing will come to life and chase you down. The drawings will dissipate in a cloud of Crayola-colored dust if the player comes in contact with them, but doing this will result in a heaping amount of damage. The player adapts around this gimmick and learns to use magic/arrows to defeat them. The bosses presented here are much more multifaceted than the standard beat-em-up bosses, in which blocking and attacking are the only means to defeat them.

While Castle Crashers is an enjoyable experience by oneself, this game was meant to be played with other people. Why would the game initially offer the player four different choices of playable characters if this wasn’t true? Playing Castle Crashers on co-op with my friends and my brother has resulted in some of my favorite gaming experiences with other people. Playing this game alone isn’t the same after you’ve shared the experience with one or more people. The co-op also fixes a few minor gameplay hiccups. For one, the potions automatically heal when the player’s health drops to zero instead of having to scroll through one’s inventory to find one before one’s health plummets. The co-op also adds a feature in which each player fights to the death for the princesses. Winning in these skirmishes does not net the player any gameplay advances. Still, it’s always entertaining to see how virulently each person will decapitate the friends they’ve been journeying with all this time to earn a princess's affection. The victor may have achieved some action, but has caused an awkward rift between his friends that will always permeate through the experience. Also, the reveal of the last princess isn’t the same unless one is playing with a friend who has no idea what will happen, especially if that’s the only princess they’ve earned. I always enjoy watching their expectations get dashed at the sound of that hilarious clown honk like the bastard I am.

After the dark wizard is defeated, one will realize that the sweet experience that was Castle Crashers was also a short one. Fortunately, Castle Crashers has a spectacular replay value. The game is a perfect length which is fantastic considering all of the unlockables one earns by completing the game numerous times. There are over 30 playable characters in Castle Crashers, most of which are unlocked through beating the game with another character. I’ve owned this game for twelve years, played through it with over 10 different characters, and still haven’t unlocked every playable fighter. I still have a lot left to go, and I’d be willing to play this game as many times as possible to complete the full character roster. There is also an insane mode, a more difficult version of the main campaign that is substantially more difficult than regular Castle Crashers. I’ve still yet to complete insane mode with any character.

Castle Crashers is a simple game that does not attempt anything ambitious in gameplay or narrative. Of course, the game proves that something doesn’t have to break boundaries to perform on an exceptional level. I can’t think of any qualms with Castle Crashers, even playing it over a decade later as an adult. A simple game should not warrant a perfect score from me, but I can’t think why it should not deserve one. All of the stylistic elements combined with the smooth gameplay, variation, and replay value make it the best beat-em-up I’ve ever played and give credence to my partially-biased opinion that it’s one of the best games from its era. I’d play this over Halo 3 or Uncharted 2 any day of the week.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

The character of Donkey Kong is not what makes a Donkey Kong Country game. I realize this might sound silly, considering his name is in the series title, but Donkey Kong isn't a playable character in both sequels to Donkey Kong Country for the SNES. Because of this, I had assumed that the sequels were lackluster affairs, so I had only played the first one for the longest time. In retrospect, avoiding the Donkey Kong Country sequels lacking the titular character was ridiculous. I still can’t think of a reason as to why Rare would omit Donkey Kong completely from two major entries in his own series. As it turned out, Rare’s baffling decision was not detrimental to the franchise. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest proved that Donkey Kong was not an essential ingredient to the franchise, despite maintaining his namesake. The sequel expanded on all of the elements of the first game and refined it to the point where Donkey Kong Country 2 is the quintessential DKC experience, and I also feel quite foolish for depriving myself for as long as I did. Donkey Kong Country 2 is considered the best game in the series, with a few naysayers favoring the first game. I fall into the former category, plus I consider Donkey Kong Country 2 to be one of the greatest 2D platformers of all time. All things considered, DKC2 isn’t a whole lot different from the first game, yet I don’t sing the same praises for DKC1. It would be easy to credit Rare for buffing out the cracks of the first game like any game developer is supposed to do for a sequel, but these improvements are very abstruse. I am not declaring DKC2 as the best game tentatively, as I’m confident in my opinion. DKC2 has all of the hallmarks that made the first game a standout title, but the subtle changes are what elevate it above the rest.

Rare’s focal point when developing Donkey Kong Country was to expand on the “country” part of the title instead of the “Donkey Kong” aspect. The world of the first game was a sprawling, rural landscape composed of humid jungles, musty caves, snowy peaks, and a smattering of other geographical environments. Donkey Kong hadn’t had much limelight since he first appeared in his eponymous arcade game in 1981. The developers at Rare figured that since Donkey Kong was an ape, placing him in a pastoral setting made sense. The choice in setting wasn’t just implemented to complement Donkey Kong’s animalistic persona. The developers went to great lengths to make every level sublime with gorgeous pre-rendered graphics, kinetic platforming, and a mesmerizing soundtrack. These elements are needed to craft a Donkey Kong Country game, not Donkey Kong himself.

Stating that Donkey Kong isn’t present throughout DKC2 isn’t entirely true. Rescuing Donkey Kong from King K. Rool’s slimy clutches is the main mission of DKC2. How anyone subdued a burly ape-like Donkey Kong to hold him hostage is beyond me, but I suppose the same was done to King Kong, another iconic ape figure that is a hundred times the size of Donkey Kong. Diddy Kong’s quest, or “kong quest” (I went through the entire game before I noticed the pun in the title), is to ascend the perilous peak of Crocodile Isle, the homefront of King K. Rool and the kremlings. Diddy, of course, can’t venture off on this daunting journey on his lonesome. He is joined by Dixie Kong, a female simian of vague relation to Diddy Kong. Are they cousins? Siblings? Romantic partners? There’s no carnal monkey love in this game, so their relationship is irrelevant. The only dynamic between them that does matter is how they work as a platforming duo. Considering Dixie Kong has ousted Donkey Kong from his own franchise, the stakes are high with Dixie Kong as a playable character.

I’m happy to say that Dixie Kong is my favorite character in the Donkey Kong Country series. This is due to one simple but incredibly useful mechanic: her gliding feature she can do with her blonde ponytail. It always feels comfortable using this technique to traverse the levels in this game, and it also covers a lot of ground. It’s difficult to say if replacing Donkey Kong with Dixie Kong is an overall improvement because both characters are totally different. This gives Dixie Kong a drastically different dynamic from Diddy Kong by proxy, and I’m not entirely sure if this new dynamic is better or worse than it was with Donkey Kong. In the first game, the dynamic was the contrasting sizes between the two characters. Donkey Kong was the strapping one with the ability to defeat bigger enemies, while Diddy was much more agile and could jump higher due to his smaller stature. Ponytail glide moves aside; Dixie Kong is the same size as Diddy Kong. I’ve been told that Diddy moves slightly quicker than Dixie, but this was never evident to me while playing. The polar opposite proportions between Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong gave the duel platforming of the first game its relative depth that Diddy and Dixie don’t have. However, DKC2 manages to compensate for this.

While the size differences between Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong are well implemented into the gameplay of the first game, sections in which not having a specific Kong would unfairly doom the player. The sections that require the unique talents of Dixie Kong are only to access bonus stages, and the same goes with the character-specific barrels. Playing as either Kong in DKC2 is completely even, so the player has a choice over which Kong to put in front to suit their playstyle. Their similar sizes also lend to the new throwing mechanic. The select Kong can hoist the other on their back to throw them upward to access new heights or across a gap. The more evenly matched dynamic between the characters gives the player more leeway in traversing the levels rather than the forced character implementation of the first game. In saying that, the only thing that’s keeping me from playing as Dixie Kong for the entire duration of the game is being hit and having to use Diddy Kong.

The Kongs aren’t the only playable characters with more precedence than the titular ape. The animal buddies are a returning feature much more enterprising than it used to be. In the first game, animal buddies were present on most levels as vehicles that would aid the Kongs in either move quicker through a level or jumping higher. The animal buddies were all fun to use once in a while, and they counted as helpful collateral when the Kongs were hit. They were also playable without the Kongs in many bonus levels for gaining extra lives. I’d argue that the animal buddies were underutilized in the first game due to their aid being a novelty instead of a necessity. They couldn’t really offer anything totally out of the Kong’s reach. The animal buddies in DKC2 are much more useful than they were and have a presence that makes them feel like secondary characters instead of tools.

Returning animal buddies like Rambi and Enguarde offer their backs to give the Kongs a lift but come with special attributes that give them way more utility. Rambi can make a rhino charge move to demolish a blocked-off entrance, and this move can also precariously catapult the player past a good chunk of the level, zooming past kremlings like a jungle autobahn. Squawks offered his talents as a flashlight in the first game, but now he’s passed that job off to an anglerfish named Glimmer onto bigger and better things. Squawks can now use their wings to soar past levels with various hazards, lifting the Kongs up with their talons. Rattly and Squitter are new animal buddies, and they are huge improvements to the animal buddies from the first game that did not return. Rattly is a rattlesnake gifted with a jumping ability uncharacteristic of any rattlesnake I’m familiar with. Nevertheless, he reaches heights higher than Winky ever did. Squitter is a tarantula with four pairs of bitchin’ sneakers on each of his eight legs. He has the most interesting utility of all the animal buddies in that he can shoot webs as projectiles and thicker webs to use as platforms. He can access heights with his webs reaching up so far as the edge of what graphical space the game will allow (I’d also like to point out that tarantulas shoot webs from their feet, not their mouths. Realistically, Squitter would just be filling his shoes with webs). All of these features prove the animal buddies to be incredibly useful in more ways than just bicycles composed of flesh and blood and being vehicles for corny bonus stages.

It’s fantastic that the animal buddies have such a large presence in this game because they are on the frontlines almost as much as both Kongs. Many levels are designated entirely for playing as one of the animal buddies. Some of these animal buddy levels are also some of the hardest levels in the entire game. Slime Climb is a level with Rattly that utilizes his super jump move to the best of his ability, having the player aim his jumps accordingly to avoid the ascending slime hazard. Web Woods is the Squitter level with swathes of bottomless hazards so tense that it’s enough to make any player’s sphincter clench. Squawks even gets his boss battle all to himself, spitting nuts at a giant zinger like a multi-directional shooter. Animal Antics, one of the bonus levels in the game, is a gauntlet of using every animal buddy to the best of their abilities. It’s also widely considered to be the most difficult level in the game, so the developers definitely wanted the animal buddies to be considered playable characters with their own stakes in the game. One might argue that the heavy presence of the animal buddies is too distracting from the core gameplay, but I think it broadens the overall scope of the series. The animal buddies are supposed to give the jungle background of DKC some depth with their presence, exotic animals that make up the foreground of a jungle setting. Their more substantial roles here do a wonderful job at expanding on the “country” aspect of the series, making it seem as if Donkey Kong is not the center of the series.

If Donkey Kong was a playable character, he’d still be a fish out of water. The setting is no longer DK Isle with its comforting familiarity. Every inch of the mountainous Crocodile Isle is riddled with the influence of King K. Rool and his reptilian underlings. The Kongs are infiltrating enemy territory instead of Kremling influence slowly adulterating DK Isle as was the case for the first game. The atmosphere of Crocodile Isle is consistently more hostile than the tropical sunsets accompanied by the sounds of frogs and other noisy wildlife found on DK Isle. Opting out of the jungle setting of DKC1 may be another instance of the franchise losing itself again, but this was just another part of the “country expansion” directive the developers strived for. The overall setting of DKC2 may not be as cohesive as the jungle setting of the first game, but the individual levels are far more consistent with a particular theme. Gangplank Galleon is a pirate-themed level in which the sublevels run from the bow to the stern of a ship or an epic ascent to the mast. The kremlings walk on wooden legs or wear bandanas to add to the pirate theme. It’s a theme that’s certainly warranted, considering King K. Rool’s fight in the last game took place on a pirate ship. Maybe the kremlings are legitimate pirates, and Crocodile Isle is like their Skull Keep. Crocodile Cauldron is a diamond mine surrounded by lava. Krem Quay is a dingy swamp, and Gloomy Gulch is an eerie place engulfed by fog and strong autumn winds. The most interesting place is Krazy Kremland, an amusement park built by the Kremlings on the territory of zinger hives. The more contained theming of each level DKC2 makes them feel more consistent in tone. The first game would introduce a random jungle environment whenever it felt like it, no matter the place in the game. The jungle setting may have felt more appropriate for Donkey Kong, but repeating this for the sequels would have fatigued the series. The only setting that is guilty of randomly being implemented here in DKC2 is the bramble areas. They occur every so often on every level starting from Krem Quay, and showcase the staple barrel mechanic in every game of the series. The accompanying track for these levels, “Stickerbrush Symphony,” is maybe the best in the entire series, but the barrel mechanic of these levels is nauseating.

Progressing through these themed places will give the player a sense of the game’s difficulty curve compared to the first game. There are no longer any steep pikes in difficulty like “Mine Cart Madness,” and there are no unfair blindspots to catch the player off guard. Extra lives are also more plentiful due to the carnival bell feature at the end of each level with a range of prizes. Despite this, DKC2 is the hardest game in the SNES trilogy. Some of the levels later in this game made me want to nuke Crocodile Isle out of pure spite, but that’s the thing. The game has an incredibly smooth difficulty curve that naturally increases as the player progresses. The challenge comes from stacking upon what the player has already experienced without any cheaply implemented tactics. Gangplank Galleon almost acts as a tutorial level, comfortably nestling the player into the experience and netting more experienced players with a bevy of extra lives. Crocodile Cauldron is slightly harder than the preceding level, just as Krem Quay is slightly harder than the level that preceded it. In my experience, the game starts to ratchet up the difficulty around Krazy Kremland. It’s a tough but fair difficulty curve throughout. Unlike the first game, saving and traveling to another level costs coins, so the player can’t use saving and traveling to easier levels to farm for lives as a crutch. Surviving the onslaught present in DKC becomes more imperative as a result.

The bosses were definitely the biggest detriment to the first Donkey Kong Country. Except for the final fight against King K. Rool, each boss at the end of every level was a laughably pitiful experience. It saddens me that the bosses in DKC 2 are only slightly improved from those of the first game. Their designs are more interesting this time, as are the means to defeat them. Some standouts are Kleever in Crocodile Cauldron and the giant zinger boss with Squawks. However, I am not amused by Kudgel’s predictable attack patterns nor the incorporeal, reskinned Kreepy Crow. These fights are mostly an improvement on the first game’s bosses, which isn’t setting the bar too high. King K. Rool is once again the only truly formidable foe. His outfit is more extravagant than his animalistic nakedness from the first game. He’s fully adopted the pirate persona, wearing a regal captain’s uniform and donning the typical black pirate hat with a skull and crossbones. His fight is a multi-phased affair of carefully dodging erratic patterns of cannonballs and colored gasses that warp the player’s controls. It’s a fight that will make the player’s brow sweat, and he doesn’t even try to execute another cheap fakeout (although the first cannonball he shoots back at the player might catch someone off guard).

Once Donkey Kong is rescued, the adventure is far from over. Our favorite geriatric primate Cranky Kong will again be disappointed in the Kong’s performance, just like any crotchety old man is with their kin. The extra features needed to satisfy Cranky Kong and fully complete the game aren’t just a matter of finding misplaced collectibles. The Kongs must brave the challenges of the “Lost World,” the inner sanctum of Crocodile Isle, acting as a secret bonus realm like “Star Road” from Super Mario World. To access this bonus world, the Kongs have to pay Kudgel at a toll marked by a crocodile icon on the map of each sublevel. The player has to pay a whopping 15 kremcoins achieved from bonus stages in the main levels to access each level in the Lost World. Having to do this is the pinnacle of a completionist-level slog and isn’t much fun. There is an option to fight Kudgel, but it will just result in him batting you off with his giant club. Considering the tedium of collecting each Kremcoin, I’d rather just whoop his ass five different times. Each level in the lost world is fairly challenging, with a steady difficulty build increasing as the player progresses, similarly to the base game. Once you’ve completed every level, it ends with a more demanding version of the final boss fight against King K. Rool in another location. It’s hard to tell whether or not Cranky Kong will truly be satisfied with the player once they’ve endured each level of Lost World, but the player should certainly feel more than accomplished (and incredibly exhausted).

Ironically, the best game in the Donkey Kong Country series doesn’t even have Donkey Kong in it (his unorthodox role as a damsel in distress withstanding). The first game was made to give Nintendo’s first breakout star another breath of relevancy after lying dormant for so long. In the process, the developers created this immaculate, rural world to support the ape appropriately. The developers made an odd decision to expand on the world instead of expanding on accompanying Donkey Kong with different aspects. The developers knew the core of Donkey Kong Country was the graphical style, the challenging gameplay, and the strength of the different settings. Maintaining this core with Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, and the animal buddies proved to be just as exceptional, improving on aspects lacking from the first game as a stellar sequel should. It’s also apt that I compare DKC2 with Super Mario World in the last paragraph to illustrate comparisons between two landmark SNES platformers. Declaring DKC2 as the best Donkey Kong Country game is not a controversial sentiment, but I consider Donkey Kong Country 2 to even surpass the ever-iconic Super Mario World in every aspect. Hell, Donkey Kong Country 2 might even be the greatest game on the SNES and the greatest 2D platformer of all time.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.com

The controversial reputation of Donkey Kong Country 3 is mostly undeserved. One could readily assume that it’s due to the natural occurrence of the third entry in a franchise showing signs of franchise fatigue, but you’d only be half right. DKC3 was released at an unfortunate time in late 1996, the launch year of the N64. Nintendo’s first landmark 3D console carried along an initiative that set a precedent for gaming for the foreseeable future. Nintendo insisted that 3D was the future wave and anything in 2D was inherently obsolete. Rare developed another Donkey Kong Country game for the SNES to round the franchise as a trilogy of games. Nintendo, however, moved on from anything having to do with SNES, and its 16-bit glory, leaving DKC3 in the dust. Wrinkly Kong is even seen playing an N64 console in this game, a not-so-subtle advertisement for the new system and a way to make players in late 1996 feel like out-of-touch squares. Nintendo’s callous attitude towards the last few games in the SNES library might have impacted the general consensus of the last game in the Donkey Kong Country trilogy. I consider it on par with the previous two entries, almost matching up to the quality of the first game. Naturally, DKC3 couldn’t have lived up to the standards of DKC2. The superb quality of DKC2 matched with its refinement of the Donkey Kong Country formula, cemented itself as the pinnacle of the franchise. Like most franchises, the second entry proved to be the peak of quality. This usually leaves the third entry meandering about trying to recreate the magic of the previous entry, commonly faltering as a result. The developers made the smart decision to not piggyback too much off of DKC2 with the following game. DKC3 is a sequel that tries to form its own identity with unique properties. However, those unique properties make DKC3 such a divisive entry in the franchise.

Most third entries in gaming franchises tend to be more accessible to new players. While I find DKC3 easier than the first two games, the traces of accessibility aren’t outright noticeable. The direction of DKC3 seems like the developers had a younger audience in mind. The first two DKC games are appropriate for all ages, but there’s something about DKC3 that makes it seem more...infantile? This isn’t because one of the playable characters of the Kong duo is an infant, but we’ll get to his role in this game later. The colors, sprites, and soundtrack in DKC3 have a much lighter tone. The elephant animal buddy that replaces Rambi looks like a ripped design off of a blanket for a toddler.

Furthermore, shall we compare the game over screens between all three DKC games? The first game shows Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong battered and bruised like they just returned from a street brawl. The second game shows Diddy and Dixie being locked up in a dark prison cell, appropriate considering they were infiltrating enemy territory. The game over screen of the third game is Kiddy Kong and Dixie pouting in a crib with “game over” is spelled out in colorful blocks. Kiddy Kong is obviously meant to be a young child, but is Dixie? Some claim that Diddy and Dixie are both children, but I always figured they were a smaller race of apes compared to Donkey Kong. It’s something I hadn’t considered until Rare incorporated all of these more puerile touches in the game. Ultimately, these new tones are not detractors of the game. This is still a true Donkey Kong Country game, just like the others.

There is one looming detractor in this game that puts people off of it. I’ve mentioned him before: the irksome Kiddy Kong. At this point, the playable characters of Donkey Kong Country revolve like a band that’s been around for way too long. Not having Donkey Kong as a playable character in DKC2 was odd enough, but Mach 3 of Donkey Kong Country doesn’t even have any original characters from the first game. Once Dixie arrives in the new setting at the beginning of the game, series regular Funky Kong passes off Kiddy Kong onto Dixie, promising her he won’t be a burden to her. This move here feels like Funky Kong just discovered he had an illegitimate son, and he’s passing him off to someone else, like leaving it on someone’s doorstep. Kiddy Kong is less of a burden to Dixie Kong than Funky Kong.

It turns out that Funky Kong was mostly right, and Kiddy Kong’s presence is not a detriment to the game, or at least in terms of maintaining the gameplay of Donkey Kong Country. The pairing of Dixie and Kiddy Kong is a strange fusion of the dynamics from the previous two games. Kiddy Kong is much heavier than Dixie Kong, giving a direct dichotomy of gameplay like Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong from the first game. This is also implemented once in a while as there are bigger enemies that can only be defeated by Kiddy Kong’s weight. The throwing mechanic from DKC2 also makes a return, and it’s a little awkward here. Since Kiddy Kong is heavier than Dixie, both characters cannot fling one another with the greatest of ease. Dixie Kong strains herself trying to launch Kiddy Kong, and I can’t say I blame her, but the developers have incorporated something to keep this mechanic without too much imbalance. Throwing Kiddy Kong will blow open cracked foundations to reveal bonus stages or coins. It gives enough credence to the weight shift between the two characters, but I prefer the equal sizes of Diddy and Dixie from the previous game. Kiddy Kong is an acceptable character in gameplay, but everything else about him is very unappealing. If we’re going by Pokemon logic, everything becomes less cute the bigger it is. I’m not surprised that people were put off by a disturbingly huge baby, wearing a onesie with concerningly hollow leg space as the cherry on top of an agitating sundae. The fact that Kiddy Kong replaced both Kongs from the first game probably didn’t help matters with fans either. In the modern Donkey Kong Country games, every character from the franchise makes their return and is totally playable like a band reunion. Kiddy Kong debuted in DKC3 and never appeared again, giving him a Cousin Oliver status.

The animal buddies also have the same involved presence as they did in the previous game. Squawks, Squitter, and Enguarde make their return and get plenty of action. There aren’t too many new animal buddies, but the few that are new make me miss the ones that didn’t make it into this entry. Ellie, the animal buddy I previously mentioned who looked like a cherubic cut out of a child’s blanket, is the prime new animal buddy with the most screen time. She’s not a direct replacement for Rambi, but it feels this way nevertheless. Rambi was the most brutish of all the animal buddies, running down kremlings like a mack truck. Ellie functions similarly to Rambi, but her smaller stature and cutesy design feel like a total downgrade from Rambi’s raw power. She does have a few unique abilities, however. She uses her trunk to suck up both barrels and water as projectiles. It’s certainly different from the rampaging beast that Rambi was, but these new mechanics tend to be a bit awkward and compromise the pace of gameplay. She also has this infuriating mechanic where she bolts in the opposite direction at the sight of a rat. She’s a walking elephant stereotype. The other new animal buddy is a colorful bird named Parry. His nickname, “the parallel bird” entails exactly what he does; he hovers over the Kongs at a parallel angle, destroying enemies and collecting coins he runs into. He’s useful, but his role is underwhelming compared to the other animal buddies. The same level of involvement from the animal buddies is just as present here. Some levels and bosses are strictly designated to the animal buddies, fleshing out the gameplay and world. The new animal buddies pale compared to the ones they’ve replaced, but at least the returning ones are the same as they always were.

The new setting of DKC3 draws inspiration from the world of the first game. Instead of offering a different, contained theme per level like in DKC3, DKC3 opts for a cohesive world with consistently themed elements throughout. The Kongs have trekked their way up to an area called the “Northern Kremisphere,” a sprawling place apparently inspired by the temperate climates of northern Europe and Canada. Instead of jungles, beaches, and ancient ruins, the Northern Kremisphere comprises lakefronts, sawmills, and forests with towering redwood trees. There is also the occasional industrial level to signify the presence of the kremlings. Overall, the different setting presented here has a nice level of consistency, and the presentation is up to the standard of Donkey Kong Country. The only problem is that the setting doesn’t make any sense. The jungle setting of the first Donkey Kong Country accommodated Donkey Kong because he’s an ape, an endemic species to that tropical setting. The more varied levels of DKC2 stray a bit from the jungle environments, but not enough where it feels completely removed from them. The only instance where one might see a monkey in northern Europe or Canada is if one escaped from a zoo or a testing facility. This setting doesn’t naturally fit the Kongs unless these monkeys are eclectic urban outdoorsmen. The presence of the kremlings in this setting is also unfitting, but I suppose they are invading this land just like the Kongs.

The peculiar thing about the enemies is that the zingers have been mechanized. There are green mechanical zingers that are easily defeated and red zingers that are practically impenetrable. These robotic zingers are the only indication of King K. Rool’s new identity as a mad scientist, like he’s Dr. Robotnik with scaly skin and bloodshot eyes. I guess King K. Rool’s identity as a pirate wasn’t as concrete as I thought. King K. Rool is an eccentric madman with an army to back him. Considering the northern European influence of the setting, they could’ve fashioned him and the rest of the kremlings as Vikings. After all, they are well-known pillagers like pirates, but they are more known for conducting their business in colder climates.

A unique feature of the Northern Kremisphere is that the world map is traversed seamlessly without directly selecting a level. More areas of the map are progressively unlocked through Funky Kong, expanding the potential of his floatation devices. The Kongs start with a simple raft that becomes a motor boat, a turbo ski, and then a fully-fledged helicopter. It’s certainly different, but I don’t think it’s necessary. The levels are found in different corners of the map, but the levels are still progressing linearly. I suppose it’s fitting because the difficulty in DKC3 is pretty inconsistent. There are difficulty spikes scattered throughout, but none of them reach the heights of “Mine Cart Madness” or “Poison Pond.” The erratic difficulty is due to the variety of gimmick-heavy levels throughout. The previous two games had level gimmicks, but DKC3 has so many of these that it’s obvious the developers implemented them to keep the third entry from seeming stale. The gimmicks of DKC2 were contained in each level. They were introduced in an early level section and grew in difficulty as the player progressed. Most gimmicks in DKC3, on the other hand, appear only once in a level, and the player doesn’t have enough opportunity to acclimate to them. Some of the harder examples of these gimmicks are the lightning strikes in “Lightning Lookout,” the anti-gravity in “Low-G Labyrinth,” the ravenous fish in “Floodlit Fish,” and the kremlings that push you off the ledges in “Koindozer Klamber.” While the gimmicky level design may irk me, I have to appreciate the level of creativity the developers put into each gimmick. It’s not that these gimmicks don’t make for fun-level variety. I would rather have had these gimmicks breathe a little more by incorporating them in more than one level, and maybe then they wouldn’t seem as gimmicky.

This level of creative variety works the best with the bosses, a facet of Donkey Kong Country that has never been its strong suit. The first game’s uninspired bosses were practically a respite from the difficulty of the levels. DKC2 improved on the bosses ever so slightly but was still guilty of implementing bosses that were far too easy and even incorporated a lazy reskinned boss. The bosses in DKC3 are my favorite bunch of baddies because none of them are like the other. Bosses like Belcha the Barrel are still easy, but the way the Kongs defeat him is unlike anything in the series. The Kongs have to feed him yellow bugs, propelling him further off the ledge with each giant belch per serving. Squirt is a boss fought entirely by Ellie the Elephant, and he looks like an HR Giger painting fused into the wall of a canyon. Bleak, my personal favorite boss is an evil snowman that is fought like a ball-toss game at a carnival. King K. Rool’s encounter in DKC3 is completely different from the first two games, and that’s not because of his new mad scientist getup. His fight in this game is much more methodically paced, having the player patiently determine the right moment to hit him with a barrel instead of waiting for a moment of respite after swiftly dodging his attacks. It’s the least memorable King K. Rool fight of the three games, but I still have to commend the developers for their different approaches. There is a part of me that wants to heavily criticize these bosses in tandem with DKC3’s emphasis on gimmicks, but the series was in dire need of variety in its bosses. This is the only aspect of DKC3 in which its faltering approach to variety gives it the edge over its predecessors.

With all of the factors that make up this game, one could assume that Donkey Kong Country 3 pales in comparison to the first two games in the franchise. While it does have many awkward elements like extremely gimmicky levels, a new setting that’s awkwardly implemented, and a protagonist whose presence makes people feel uncomfortable, this game is as exceptional as the other two. I appreciate the differences the developers implemented to make this game seem fresh, given that this was the third game in a franchise all on the same system. If freshness is what the developers sought to convey, then the high points of creativity and variety make this so. DKC3 feels like its unique entry, and that’s more than I can say for most third entries that attempt to copy the previous games to preserve their glory. It still has the winning formula of solid platforming and magnificent presentation that makes the Donkey Kong Country series stand out above its contemporaries.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

The Mother series has always been an elusive anomaly in Nintendo’s back catalog. The series comes highly revered by most who have played it, but that number is practically nothing compared to the number of people that have played their other franchises. It’s a series with one of the biggest cult statuses in gaming, aided by the fact that most of the games in the franchise are exclusive to Japan. The sole game in the franchise that was shipped out overseas to the Anglosphere was (until the first Mother game was released internationally in 2015 and the fan-translated version of Mother 3 was circulated through emulation) Mother 2, or Earthbound as we yanks know it as. My initial impression of Earthbound came with an incredulous range of thoughts. Earthbound is a subversive, unassumingly bizarre JRPG with a quirky, absurd sense of humor contrasted by its surprisingly macabre sensibilities. Yet, it’s charming and awe-inspiring all at the same time. This game came from Nintendo of all places, and it came out as early as 1994? Nintendo has been known to dabble in traces of psychedelia, with the Mario franchise being a clear example, but absurdism? That in itself is absurd. This unique concoction of elements presented in Earthbound makes it a gaming experience unparalleled by anything before or after it. To say that Earthbound was before its time is too easy. That statement connotes that the gaming industry has taken note of Earthbound and has expertly managed to emulate its properties to other comparable games. Earthbound is a gaming experience whose unique elements still give it an unparalleled intrigue, even decades onward. Every facet of Earthbound still offers something that makes it special, but some of these elements are also what makes Earthbound somewhat insufferable.

As an American, I must constantly be reminded that Earthbound is a sequel because of its standalone title and (legitimate) western availability. Nevertheless, the unique properties of Earthbound are more or less borrowed and built upon the unique elements of Mother 1. It’s a “domestic JRPG” set in modern times where a group of psychokinetic children ventures across the land to save the world from aliens. The battle system is minimal, and there are absurdist humoristic quirks. Nintendo isn’t exactly ambitious in terms of diversifying narratives in their properties, but this was mostly indicative of the SNES era. What are Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, and Super Metroid enhanced versions of their older NES counterparts? This distinction between Mother 1 and Earthbound is cut from the same cloth of general enhancements, but this is obviously less apparent to western audiences due to Mother 1 never seeing the light of day outside of Japan. The graphics, battle system, and overall presentation are augmented as an evolution to fit the Mother franchise in the 16-bit era. Judging from retroactively titling the first Mother game as “Earthbound Beginnings” or “Earthbound Zero”, we are supposed to think of Earthbound as more of a soft reboot rather than a next-generation sequel like the other franchises. The rudimentary elements of Mother 1 serve as a beta for Earthbound.

As par for the course with a soft reboot, Earthbound essentially shares the same narrative premise as Mother 1. The tweenaged protagonist is called to adventure when his rest is disturbed at night. In Earthbound, this disturbance is in the form of a meteor that crashlands on the peak of his hometown, causing the earth to quake. Already, the beginning premise is much better than having to beat up a sentient lamp in Mother 1, but this set-up is still all too familiar. Ness, the cannon name for the protagonist, investigates the meteor with some bratty neighbor brothers Pokey and Picky Minch. A fly named Buzz Buzz emerges from the fallen meteor revealing a prophecy to Ness about his integral role in saving the world from an evil entity named Giygas. Buzz Buzz is then obliterated by a single swipe from Ness’s mom, a humbling end to the game’s narrative catalyst. To defeat Giygas, Ness must travel around the world, discovering eight different guardian-protected sanctuaries and recording their essences as a collective force to access Giygas’s whereabouts. He must also recruit three other psychic kids around his age to aid him in his quest.

“The Domestic JRPG”, a term that is entirely my own creation, refers to several JRPGs that are set in a modern setting that mirrors the real world. The elements of a traditional JRPG, like classes and magic, aptly fit the high fantasy world of those games (Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Suikoden, etc). A domestic JRPG like Earthbound translates those elements into a mundane, modern setting, usually translating the more fantastical elements of a JRPG to fit the more grounded world. At the time, the Mother series was a trendsetter of the “domestic JRPG” style as setting a JRPG in a modern period with modern aspects. The world of Earthbound is meant to look as humdrum as possible. Places like Onett and Twoson are a degree away from having an uncanny resemblance to the town from Leave It To Beaver. The homes of Onett are guarded by white picket fences, the sun is shining as the birds chirp harmoniously, and the town is filled with working-class people operating bakeries and marketplaces. It’s a wonder that Ness’s mom doesn’t have a pie cooling off on the windowsill. It’s like the opening scene in Blue Velvet. In fact, Earthbound seems to share a lot of similarities to the works of David Lynch. There is dark surrealism that permeates through the squeaky-clean Americana setting. In the works of David Lynch-like Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, or even Mulholland Dr, the dark surrealism is meant to showcase a dichotomy between a seemingly pristine setting with realms of unholy perversities. The barriers between these two worlds are a thin veil as the dark surrealism starts to bubble up on the sugar-coated surface. This contrast is meant to expose the dank underbelly of a seemingly taintless society. While Earthbound’s sense of dark surrealism most likely isn’t meant to be as cynically charged, the dichotomy similar to a work of David Lynch is still readily apparent. Or, it could just be a means to complement the exceedingly bizarre tone the game consistently upholds.

Listing out all of the weird elements of Earthbound would be an enervating affair. Doing so would just result in me giving a long-winded synopsis that includes every moment in the game. Some of these moments cause utter bemusement while some tickle my absurdist funny bone, so I’ll just detail a few highlights. A small town east of Twoson called Peaceful Rest Valley is ruled over by what can only be described as the “Blue Klux Klan”. This cult’s mission is to paint the world blue, a goal marked with the imperative that blue is the one superior color. These cultists wear blue suits with blue hoods over their heads, arming themselves with paintbrushes that exclusively paint the color blue. A touring music group called the Runway Five will make frequent stops in the various towns the characters visit along their journey. The band’s look is inspired by The Blues Brothers, while their antics are inspired by The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night. These antics usually owe someone a hefty debt that Ness has to pay off at least twice. In return, the band performs free shows for our heroes, gives them rides in their tour bus, and they even aid in fighting a boss with Ness and his friends. The Saturns are a race of pint-sized creatures with whiskers, bulbous noses, and pink bows on a single strand of hair. Their civilization residing in Saturn Valley mirrors the function of towns like Onett and Twoson, but if every denizen spoke broken English (fun fact: the scribbled, borderline incomprehensible font the Saturns speak is taken from the handwriting of the five-year-old daughter of one of the developers). The Saturns are being enslaved by a sentient pile of vomit named Master Belch, who is forcing them to work in his factory making Fly Honey, his favorite treat and #1 weakness. The five guardian diggers of the Gold Mine will all insist that they are the third-ranked mole. After fighting the Kraken, the ship’s captain tries to save face by saying he aided in the fight by throwing his slippers at the beast. The zombies infesting the town of Threed are defeated by planting sticky “zombie paper” like they are common rats. After planting them, they are all stuck inside a once-possessed circus tent.

There are too many weirdly humorous moments left unmentioned, but I have to limit the examples for brevity. Earthbound does a fantastic job keeping the game interesting by maintaining an erratic sense of pacing through all of the different oddities. I was always enticed to keep going and see what wackiness the game had in store for me. It’s Earthbound’s greatest strength and what preserves its uniqueness. However, the consistent weirdness isn’t always to the game’s benefit. Like the films of Wes Anderson, Earthbound sometimes lays the wry quirkiness on a little too thick to the point where I can’t help but roll my eyes and groan. To access Saturn Valley, Ness has to stand behind a waterfall for three minutes in real-time. Thanks, Nintendo, but if I wanted to take a break to piss or jerk off, I would’ve paused the game. Moonside, the neon-illuminated bizarro realm of the city of Earthside, has an opposite gimmick where yes means no and vice versa. It’s not a huge deal as this is easy to learn, but accidentally picking the wrong option can aggravate depending on the situation.

Teleportation is a skill Ness acquires that allows him to warp to any town the player has discovered. This is a very convenient skill once Ness strays further from Onett and the game's world becomes larger. However, the way teleportation is executed couldn’t be any less convenient. To gain enough momentum to travel, Ness and his friends must rocket themselves in a straight path without obstructions. If Ness hits absolutely anything, the teleportation will fail. Unless Ness finds himself in a place with a straight road, attempting to teleport is an arduous task. The teleportation move becomes easier for the player, but they still need enough room to warp in a circular motion. Throughout the game, a bearded man wearing a suit and top hat will drop from the sky to take your picture. This happens at what practically feels like every waking moment of the game, so of course, it gets really irritating. When he takes your photo, he tells Ness to say “fuzzy pickles” as Ness smiles and gives a peace sign. If I were Ness, I’d flip him the bird, and maybe he’ll get the hint. Complaining about the less desirable quirks in Earthbound ultimately comes down to nitpicking. The more unbearable aspects of Earthbound come with the gameplay. Like the quirky, absurd presentation of this game, the combat and RPG elements are certainly unique. However, criticizing this facet of Earthbound does not boil down to appreciating its quirks with a few irksome moments. The gameplay of Earthbound can be so infuriating that you’ll want to take Ness’s baseball bat and beat him to death with it.

One factor of Earthbound’s gameplay that slightly deterred me from it upon the first impression is the minimalistic combat. In most JRPGs, even with Earthbound’s old-school contemporaries, every move during the turn-based fights was clearly shown. In Earthbound, one has to use a bit of imagination as to what is happening. The enemies are displayed as still images with the playable characters completely unseen during the fight. Perhaps the angle of view is a POV view in a first-person perspective. Each move during the fight is displayed in a textbox at the top center of the screen. Any attack the players or the enemies execute is not clearly seen on the screen, with the minor exception of the player’s magic attacks. The battles rely more on the element of sound to make the fights engaging. Every time an enemy is hit, the noises are always satisfying, especially on the rare occasion that one of the players lands a critical hit. I thought I’d quickly become disinterested in the game with this combat system, but it never got stale. I guess turn-based combat is still invigorating as long as it retains its fundamentals. All Earthbound needed was still images, vigorous sound effects, and a range of psychedelic backgrounds like looking through a kaleidoscope.

Earthbound also implements an interesting health system I haven’t seen in any other JRPG. Once health is either gained or depleted in battle or the overworld, the health of Ness and his friends will scroll up or down incrementally through slotted numbers. Suppose the enemy executes an attack dealing “mortal damage”, potentially killing a party member. In that case, this can be prevented by defeating the enemy before the mortally wounded party member’s health scrolls down to zero. This health system is the only means of dealing with enemies that self-destruct upon defeat, which includes an abundant amount of enemies in the game. It’s a unique display, but it’s not always consistently practical. Health scrolls at the same quick pace whether or not Ness and his friend have 10 HP or HP in the hundreds, so the system is only practical later in the game when the player has enough for the scrolling health to take longer to reach zero. Thank god most of the exploding enemies are near the end of the game. It’s still a relief to sometimes prevent potentially fatal damage with this system.

The playable characters of Earthbound are also quite varied in terms of combat. This is a tad ironic considering how minimalistic combat tends to be, but each partner has their own moves and statistics. Ness is the de facto leader of the group but does not hold higher precedence over the other party members. If Ness dies during combat and the battle is won, the player will just walk around as the next player in line. The player will naturally become the most familiar with Ness as the game begins with him and ends with him with a lot of time solely playing as Ness in between. Because all of the time Ness is adventuring solo, his stats are always naturally higher than his friends. His melee weapon of choice is a baseball bat, an item for a boy living in a podunk Americana town. He also has the widest range of psychokinetic abilities to aid in battle. His primary psychokinetic attack is a move that does a great deal of damage and targets multiple enemies. The name of it is PK, whatever the player named Ness’s favorite thing at the beginning of the game. My Ness super move was named PK Pussy, because what else could a growing boy be thinking about constantly? I also thought the fact of Ness’s horny adolescent thoughts generating his psychokinetic powers to be amusing (please tell me it’s amusing too, or else I just come off like a sophomoric misogynist).

Paula is the first party member to join Ness on his quest. She’s a seemingly frail little girl that is anything but in battle. Besides being armed with a frying pan, Paula is the team’s most valuable psychokinetic power user in terms of offense. She has the power of PK fire, freeze, and lightning at her disposal, and each element increases in power as the game progresses. Her psychokinetic moves prove to be much more useful than Ness’s because her moves can target specific enemies. This makes her more than essential in dealing with the sanctuary guardians. She also has a unique prayer feature that does various things to the party with some positives and negatives. Most times, the gamble isn’t worth it. Paula is an offensive powerhouse but is also the most brittle member of the team. It seems like most enemies will take advantage of this as they will target her, resulting in her quickly dying. It is imperative to keep Paula as healthy as possible because of how useful she is in combat.

Jeff is a boy who attends an all-boys school in the snowy northern town of Winters. He’s the son of the brilliant Dr. Andonuts, whose only musing about his son is that he sometimes wets the bed. As much as this embarrassing factoid might be true, the player will come to know Jeff as the technical wizard who specializes in fixing machines and using tools in combat. He’s the only playable character with zero psychokinetic abilities, so he has to compensate in other areas. A less experienced player would write Jeff off as a useless character. Not having any psychokinetic power among those with extraordinary abilities would make him seem underwhelming. His blasters are also the only weapons that do not make critical hits. The trick to maximizing Jeff’s utility is to make enough room in his inventory for bottle rockets, items that can do a serious amount of damage to one enemy. One has to make frequent trips to a bottle rocket dealer, or else Jeff pales in combat. I just wish I knew that when I was stuck with just him and Ness in Moonside.

Poo is the crown prince of the far-off nation of Dalaam, which looks like somewhere sandwiched between China and Nepal. The last part of his training before he joins Ness involves a disturbing ritual involving a spirit revoking all of Poo’s senses, rendering him practically dead. This test of selflessness and hardcore discipline is indicative of Poo’s character and his fighting style. He’s the only party member that does not brandish a weapon, nor does he require any type of armor. He instead fights with only his fists while wearing his robe. He shares the same psychokinetic powers with Ness and Paula but executes a little underwhelmingly comparatively because of how underdeveloped he is once he joins your team. Once he learns the psychokinetic juggernaut move “Starstorm”, he becomes the team’s wild card.

Ultimately, there are plenty of positive aspects to Earthbound’s gameplay. Its uniqueness complements the quirky nature of the game’s presentation and narrative. The bad aspects of Earthbound’s gameplay are so infuriating and tedious that it almost dilutes the positive aspects. I wouldn’t say that these aspects of Earthbound’s gameplay are faulty due to them being dated. I’m not sure if these were acceptable at the time anyways. As I’ve mentioned before, Ness does not have total precedence over all of the other party members in combat. This is not the same case once the player gets a game over. In this instance, Ness will return with full health, but the rest of the party members will still be dead, floating around Ness as incorporeal ghosts with halos on their heads. The only way to revive them for most of the game is to visit a hospital, but these are not conveniently placed everywhere. If the party dies in Dusty Dune Desert, for instance, Ness has to walk to either Threed or Foreside to revive his partners. He still has to rest at a hotel because restarting after a game will not replenish his PP. After all of this tedious backtracking, he can tackle the obstacles in the desert again. Eventually, Ness and Poo can revive party members with a psychic move, but the player will have to figure this out because the game doesn’t tell you what this move does when they acquire it.

This ordeal will happen several times throughout the game because the enemy encounters are merciless. For being still images in battle, they are ferociously sprightly in the field. The player cannot avoid enemies on the field no matter how hard they try to swiftly dodge them. The enemies move at practically twice the speed of the player, and trying to avoid them will only result in screwing the player over by giving the enemy the advantage in battle. Earthbound has an unfortunate mechanic in which the player can get an advantage in battle by sneaking up behind the enemy on the field. Conversely, the enemy can get the advantage by moving up behind Ness and his friends. Considering that the enemies are twice as fast as Ness and his friends, what do you think is the likely outcome of this on most occasions? The enemies move so quickly that they always have an advantage on the field, and no amount of skip sandwiches can change this. The game also won’t let the player run away from a battle, no matter how bruised and battered they are. In most RPGs, the game would let the player run away with no questions asked with only a few circumstances preventing this. In Earthbound, I’d say the success-failure ratio with running away is 70-30. Those aren’t exactly great odds. The areas with the sanctuary guardians are especially vexing because of this. By the time Ness and his friends encounter the guardian, they would’ve used up most of their PP and healing items dealing with the inescapable enemies. Every sanctuary guardian fight is especially tense because of this, but the reason for this is totally unfair. Once Ness becomes over-leveled, the enemy encounters are skipped entirely, and he still gets some experience. This is truly the only way to get past enemies. If this is the game’s clever method of forced grinding, I’m not amused.

The tedium of the game doesn’t stop with combat. Some of the more tedious aspects are in the overworld. To save the game, Ness has to call his dad on a phone residing in most hotels. If you haven’t played this game before, I will give you a disclaimer to only pick the fast text at the beginning of the game. This is not to skip on the game’s witty dialogue but to make the saving process quicker. Ness’s dad will ask the player if they want to save but then goes on a tangent about how Ness must stop working so diligently. Every. Single. Time. It’s even the same series of dialogue each time the player saves. Fortunately, Ness’s dad makes up for these mind-numbing interactions by providing Ness with a steady flow of cash he can access through an ATM. Because Ness’s dad is always working and the amount of money he sends, is he a stockbroker or something? The player will also have to make frequent calls to Ness’s mom because of an unfortunate mechanic in which Ness gets homesick and can’t fight. At least the conversations between Ness and his mom aren’t usually the same.

The inventory system in Earthbound is the epitome of tedium. I have never seen an inventory system so inexcusably faulty in my entire history of playing video games. Each party member gets twelve different slots in their inventory for twelve different items. The maximum load for each character doesn’t sound limited initially, but everything ranging from weapons, equipment, consumables, and key items takes up space in the same inventory. Throughout most of the game, I never had room in my inventory for any of the characters. Items are scattered all over the place, and even the enemies will often drop items after being defeated. There is never enough room for all of the items. Some key items will only be used once, but the player can’t sell them once they’re done. The player has to call a delivery service via the phone and call a guy to pick up a minuscule three items to store. Buying items and storing them were always a complete drag, and I feel as if this could’ve been a lot less taxing if the developers made a few minor improvements.

Between the quirky oddities and the tedium of Earthbound lies the game's substance: the themes of the wonderment of childhood and the eventual passage into adolescence and adulthood. While Earthbound was deemed for everyone by the ESRB, I think the substance of Earthbound’s themes can only be appreciated by someone who now has the hindsight of childhood in retrospect as an adult. It’s along the lines of the famous Oscar Wilde quote claiming that youth is wasted on the young. The story and presentation of Earthbound are wacky and full of whimsy. Still, we only describe the game with these adjectives because we have the adult capacities to fully articulate this. Earthbound is not specifically for kids, but it is written and presented as if it was written by a group of kids that are just playing as kids do. There is no sense of structured narrative when kids play. They just conjure up as much wacky shit as humanly possible because they think the scenarios are fun. The minimalist combat also provides further depth to playing as a child because none of what they do is literally displayed. One can’t help but figure that once Ness and his friends sprinkle a bag of Dragonite on their heads that they merely pretend to grow into a dinosaur and breathe fire instead of literally doing it. It’s all pure imagination, something definitely present in Earthbound’s erratic narrative. The game is a testament to the playful nostalgia of youth.

The game is also a testament to how impressionable children can be and how terrifying the world is because of it. Earthbound’s creative director Shigesato Itoi was infamously traumatized from walking into the wrong movie as a child and seeing a graphic murder scene on the big screen. This trauma inspired him to create Giygas, the main antagonist of Earthbound. This is where the dark surrealism of the game kicks in. Describing what Giygas is isn’t exactly feasible. He is essentially supposed to be an ambiguous force of evil and corruption. The Mani-Mani statue in the game is a tantalizing force of evil that corrupts individuals. It’s supposed to be a tangible representation of Giygas, but the statue's evil is not as powerful or concentrated as Giygas himself. After visiting all eight sanctuaries, Ness goes to an ethereal realm called Magicant, where all his childhood memories and desires reside. Like Poo’s final ritual, Ness must explore his collective childhood while wishing a bittersweet goodbye to it at the end to give him the strength to defeat Giygas. Magicant is like a psychedelic bar-mitzvah. It’s Ness’s rite of passage to adulthood that is necessary to defeat the evils of the world. His impressionable, childlike self has to be left behind to overcome the odds.

Once he does this, Ness and his friends have to travel to the future to defeat Giygas, putting their earthly bodies behind and journeying to the center of Giygas’s power in robot suits. Remember when I said the trek up to a boss was grueling? The run-up to Giygas is one of the most vexing excursions I’ve ever faced in a video game. Prepare wisely. Once Ness gets to Giygas, his neighbor Pokey is revealed to be a servant to him. This brat has always been on Ness’s tail for the whole game, trying to outdo Ness at every step. He was once a neighbor kid, then a multi-millionaire, and now he’s a step closer to becoming a transcendental being of pure evil. His journey is reminiscent of how adulthood can corrupt a misguided youth and turn it for the worse. The fight against Giygas is absolutely nerve-racking. His design is creepy, his presence is ominous, and his massive attack power. As the fight progresses, Giygas’s presence only becomes more hectic. Appropriately, the only way to defeat Giygas is to pray as Paula, collecting the wishes of everyone to incite a miracle, including a fourth-wall-breaking moment in which the player prays for them to succeed. It makes sense considering this is exactly what I was doing when fighting Giygas. It was an incredibly anxiety-inducing fight.

After overcoming the seemingly impossible odds by defeating Giygas, Ness and his friends return home in their bodies and go off in their separate ways. Ness returns home to his mother and is treated to his favorite meal (which you also get to choose. Yes, I went with the canon steak and not anything dirty). The ending is a relief and a bittersweet victory for the children. After the experience, something was at the back of my mind. What is the significance of the series titled Mother? As I see it, motherhood is deemed a symbol of purity and warmth. No matter how old you get, your mother will always see you as her baby. Ness might have shed the skin of childhood to tackle the presence of pure evil, but he returns home to his mother after a long journey as a place of comfort from the evils of the outside world from corrupt adults. It is the purest symbol, and it’s the base of all humankind no matter how far one strays from their roots with age or experience.

I fully understand the appeal of Earthbound and can absolutely see why the series has persisted over the years with a cult fanbase. I wanted to love the series as much as most people do, but I could not ignore all of the undesirable aspects of the game. While it was a consistently interesting experience full of whimsical mirth, the tedium grated on me so much that I frequently had to persist through the game instead of genuinely enjoying my time with it. The strengths of this game are so stark, and there are so many of them that it made the experience constantly invigorating. However, all of the bad aspects, like the lack of enemy leniency and congested item inventory, made me shake my head with irritation. Earthbound is a mixed bag, and maybe that’s what is retaining the point of its cult status. I will say that no matter how aggravating the game became, it was unlike any other game I’ve played. Nintendo still had something special.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

“Limbo is like the Joy Division of video games” - My summary blurb of Limbo upon first finishing it about six years ago.

If those of you on rateyourmusic are familiar with my ever-so-popular list comparing video games to albums, this comparison was the first one I made that ignited the list. What exactly does that mean, though? Is comparing Limbo to the music of the iconic post-punk band Joy Division a baseless comparison? Considering both are from entirely different artistic mediums, there is little creative leeway in comparing the two. As I’m sure most people are aware, Joy Division’s music is very dark and dreary. This seemed appropriate considering the mental state of frontman Ian Curtis, a tortured soul whose anguish seeped into the bleak spirit of Joy Division’s music. Even though their sound proved incredibly influential to the fellow post-punk bands that followed, none of them could truly match the atmosphere, nihilistic dreariness, and cathartic beauty of Joy Division. Their imitators sounded disingenuous by comparison, romanticizing the darkness a bit too much and coming off as goth in the process, and Joy Division was never goth. They focused much too heavily on the darker aspects of Joy Division’s music while missing a point of the brooding minimalism that was pertinent to Joy Division’s atmosphere. One can’t forget how effective the one-note, open-fretted bassline is to “I Remember Nothing” in evoking the dark atmosphere the band always tries to create. Limbo is an indie platformer that is dark and dreary and evokes an atmosphere similar to Joy Division’s music. Limbo is a game that I also feel is mislabeled as a horror game, just as Joy Division is mislabeled as goth. Limbo is a creepy game on the surface, but its progression, atmosphere, and esoteric elements bring forth a certain depth that I wouldn’t classify as horror. Its darkness is a little harder to classify, just like Joy Divisions.

Limbo is an indie game from Swedish developer Playdead, and this was the studio’s first-ever output. It was featured in Microsoft’s 2010 “Summer of Arcade”, an annual event that showcased the Xbox 360’s indie titles like Braid and Castle Crashers in years before. Given that most of the previous Xbox indie titles had minimalist tendencies and borrowed heavily from old-school genres, it would be expected of Limbo to feel like a game that was dusted off from the crevices of nostalgia. Limbo’s base genre in terms of gameplay is a 2D platformer, but you’d be hard-pressed to execute the same acrobatics as Mario. All the playable character in Limbo can do is walk and jump a few feet into the air with the occasional moving of a box or another object. Limbo falls more under the cinematic platformer genre. This style relishes restrained controls to either give higher precedence to a story or use the jumping as a means for something other than climbing onto platforms. Limbo’s gameplay is heavily based on puzzles. This is to the extent that every single section of the game is based around one puzzle, and the puzzles themselves are the chapters that divide this game. The range of puzzles is incredibly diverse, and it’s what makes the game consistently interesting. Some puzzles are a matter of finding a platform to reach another area, and some will force the player to take a more methodical approach to traversal. These more circuitous puzzles appear a lot later in the game and involve gimmicks like anti-gravity and being controlled by a slug that latches onto the character’s head. Some of the more precision-based puzzles are hair-raising because the precision usually has an ultimatum of death if the player does not execute them properly. This ranges from being electrocuted, shot, sawed in half, impaled by the leg of a giant spider, etc.

With all of these gruesome deaths in mind, I still do not consider Limbo to be a horror game. There are some hectic moments in the game, but the elements of Limbo combined with the consistent atmosphere do not strike me as something that appropriately fits into the horror genre. If this is a horror game, it’s certainly not a conventional one. The most readily noticeable attribute of Limbo is its aesthetics. The game is presented in a monochrome color scheme strictly consisting of black and white. It makes the foreground seem like it’s shrouded in a surrealistic fog. It’s an aesthetic choice that compliments the minimalistic gameplay superbly. The monochrome color immediately reminds me of Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1932 film Vampyr, a film with an incredibly similar aesthetic and an ethereal, surrealistic atmosphere. Vampyr is also a work miscategorized into the horror genre, or at least in the traditional sense. The horror presented in Vampyr is less about offering fictional terrors that frighten the audience due to their otherworldliness and setting a simultaneously discomforting and striking mood and atmosphere. Horror is a genre that has to be set on some grounds of reality for it to be scary, contrasting one’s comfortable reality with something disquieting. In both Limbo and Vampyr, the atmosphere and aesthetic are so consistent that the world it presents feels so alien to reality that all of its factors are commonplace. The spider chasing you down near the beginning of the game isn’t scary when the rest of the world is just as hostile. This isn’t a criticism of the game, however. The game does not need to have a heavy emphasis on building terror for the player.

Similar to Vampyr, Limbo’s progression and lack of narrative structure also do not tend well to the horror genre. I feel the horror genre needs a bit of context to make it horrifying. In Limbo, you play as a boy whose only distinctive physical feature is his glowing eyes. The rest of him is just as dark as the world he inhabits. He runs through the world of this game puzzle after puzzle, never really deviating from the linear route the game presents. There is no set objective or mission on this boy’s journey, only a vague initiative to keep going and never turn back. He ventures from wooded areas to dark, abandoned industrial landscapes that are so reminiscent of the backdrops from Eraserhead. These industrial settings then make a turn for the futuristic when the game implements the anti-gravity as mentioned earlier puzzles. Eventually, a gravity puzzle catapults the protagonist into an invisible glass casing that shatters in slow motion. He slowly hoists himself back up to find himself in the wooded area where he started. It’s here where the game seems cyclical, a punishment for the character to endure. However, he soon finds the silhouette of a girl, and then the game ends. “Limbo,” the title of the game, gives away exactly what the ambiguous narrative is supposed to convey: the concept of a state of purgatory. It’s a place between life and death that carries a great sense of directionless wandering. In Limbo’s case, this wandering is more literal as the protagonist is venturing through the void without any clear purpose or context. If this is a horror game, it’s an intrinsic horror that verges on nihilism. However nihilistic the game might present itself, there is an underlying beauty to it. There is a light that illuminates through the substantial darkness, something that I’ve always felt about Joy Division’s 1980 album Closer. It’s dismal in context, but it conveys a sense that there is a positive aspect to a weary topic like death. As for the ending, perhaps the girl is “a guide to come and take him by the hand” (that's a lyric to Joy Division’s “Disorder” if you didn’t know), a beautiful spirit to take him away from the hostile land and to the great beyond.

Limbo is a difficult game to pigeonhole. It’s easy to confuse the darkness the game presents on the surface to fit into the horror genre. However, all of the other elements would prove to be quite substantial. As a video game, the puzzles are all executed cleverly and gel well with minimalist controls. As a piece of art, the horrific, brooding, and grim aspects of Limbo are balanced by a light and challenging presentation that leaves an impact on the player’s minds more than just scaring them or making them feel afraid. Because of all of these nuances with a dark piece of work, the Joy Division comparisons I initially made when I first played this game still ring true to me.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

It’s hard to believe the concept of Katamari Damacy hasn’t been around for decades. Conversely, it’s also hard to believe that the game wasn’t an idea that emerged from the mobile gaming market in the late 2000s. The gameplay premise of Katamari Damacy is such a simple, attractive idea seemingly created for a wide demographic of gamers, putting into perspective the overall appeal of the series that has made it successful. Katamari Damacy just seems so ideal that it’s a wonder that someone didn't capitalize on it before 2004. The gameplay is also so simple and accessible that I’m certain every mobile game developer is collectively coveting the rights to this game, kicking themselves that they didn’t think of it first. Alas, the legacy of the Katamari franchise began in 2004 as an exclusive to the PS2 and became a massive hit. Given all of the elements that make this franchise appealing, how could it not have been?

While the gameplay of Katamari Damacy is simple enough, it’s ironically difficult to pinpoint exactly what genre the game falls under. The closest genre that fits appropriately is a rolling platformer, which involves the player rolling a ball in a contraption to get to a goal. It has puzzle elements but in an incredibly unorthodox fashion. The objective of Katamari Damacy is to roll around a colorful ball called a Katamari, collecting objects of relative size to it. Once the player collects enough objects, the Katamari will incrementally increase in size to roll up larger objects the player couldn’t roll up before. The objective is timed, and the player has to get the Katamari to a certain size, or they will fail the mission. This is the objective for every single mission in the game, but it never gets stale. The player starts off rolling up bread crumbs and candy wrappers, minuscule objects that could be picked up by the tiniest of human hands. As you pick these up, the Katamari expands to pick up mice and flowers. Bigger objects like televisions and even people are scattered around as you magnetize the remnants of their households scattered around their ankles. Seeing these larger obstacles makes the player yearn to roll them up but makes them wonder if they will ever be able to. As the game progresses, the small-scaled levels vacuum up people’s houses like a Roomba swallowing people, trees, buildings, Godzilla, and even the clouds in the sky. The credits sequence even has the player rolling up entire countries, leaving the Earth as an ocean planet. The progression of this simple game is incredibly cathartic, and it’s complemented quite well with the simplistic gameplay and objectives.

While this premise could work without any narrative context, Katamari Damacy is aided by an oxymoronically grand yet simple premise. The King of the Cosmos, a being that is most likely supposed to be God, has accidentally destroyed the universe’s celestial bodies in a drunken stupor. To clean up his mess, he enlists The Prince, the green playable protagonist that looks like a Japanese Mike & Ike, to roll up the physical beings of Earth with a Katamari to release them into the sky as celestial beings. This game takes the scientific notion of all life on earth being a product of the cosmos very literally. There is also a little girl on Earth that has the power to feel the presence of the cosmos, and the player gets a cutscene detailing her and her family while the cosmos is being rebuilt. It’s also quite a grim and horrific premise if you think about it. A god is sending all living things back to the universe, prematurely condemning Earth to its doom. Every single thing you collect on the Katamari is lifted to the sky by the King of the Cosmos as it explodes and becomes one with the universe. The inherent existential dread of the game’s premise is entirely cloaked by the snazzy, vivacious charm synonymous with the Katamari series. The game arguably didn’t need an attractive presentation given the simple and effective game mechanics, but the game benefits greatly from having one. Katamari Damacy is the epitome of kawaii Japanese weirdness and eccentricities. The game has an incredibly flamboyant color scheme, and the graphics are stylistically blocky to make everything the Prince rolls up look like a toy. The King of the Cosmos is so ostentatious looking that he could show up at a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, and he’d still look overdressed. Not to mention, he has a rainbow mouth power that can make things appear. The soundtrack is also incredibly effervescent and very Japanese. While the simple gameplay is alluring enough, the style here is most likely what grabbed so many people.

The King of the Cosmos also has a giant ego that matches his colossal stature. It’s selfish enough that he has his son clean up after him, but fixing the universe is also a task that must be done without haste. The challenge of each mission is making a big enough Katamari under a time constraint. As the game progresses, the time to make that Katamari increases, but the standard for the size of the Katamari also increases. If the Prince fails to make a big enough Katamari under that time limit, a terrifying game over screen occurs in which the King scolds him like he just came home with a failing grade on a test. Usually, the game gives the player enough time to complete these objectives, so failing never occurred to me. However, this lenient timespan might be implemented because the game incentivizes going beyond the time limit. The King of the Cosmos will be underwhelmed by the Prince performing at the bare minimum and bluntly express this feeling of disappointment. The King is a cunt, and is probably inspired by the collectively strict Asian fathers of all of the developers. I personally think exceeding the needed limit is a good thing. After all, why would you stop building your Katamari after it’s come so far?

I’m not a fan of some of the game’s controls regarding the Katamari. To make the Katamari seem sizable, the developers implemented tank controls to make rolling the intergalactic ball seem more kinetic and unattached to the Prince. In execution, I often found myself losing the pace of movement because of having to roll sideways at times, but this might just be chalked up to my questionable skill level. The Katamari will also roll awkwardly if the player manages to pick up an object like a bench or a fence that is too jagged to pick up once the player can. This causes rolling the Katamari to feel like pole vaulting and breaks the pace of the movement. The game expresses that picking up these kinds of objects should be avoided until they can be picked up smoothly, but they are everywhere and tend to be pretty sizable. I suppose picking these up is meant to be a tradeoff. I frequently also felt annoyed whenever I’d get the Katamari stuck between a rock and a hard place because many of the objects would fall off. Like picking up objects that cause the Katamari to move awkwardly, this happens fairly often due to most structured objects like buildings and such being heavily present but not small enough to pick up, leading to bashing the Katamari and losing some objects. Let’s call it the “adolescent phase” of the Katamari growth process: it’s not where everything can be picked up, but it’s too big to traverse through the playground easily, resulting in being battered at every move. It’s a bit awkward, and it occurs in most of the levels.

I’m also not a fan of the side missions Katamari Damacy presents. Besides restoring the moon and constellations, the King also has the prince roll up specific objects that are themed around astrology. The Prince rolls up crabs to make cancer, fish to make Pisces, etc. Levels like the one for Taurus will have players roll up enough objects to potentially roll up the biggest cow object they can find. What mostly occurs is the player will most likely roll up a smaller cow object by accident, resulting in the level ending and getting a lecture on laziness from the King. These sub-levels mainly underwhelmed me. They sort of break the pace of the climactic progression of the main missions of growing a Katamari in size, and the unfair missions like the Taurus ones royally pissed me off.

Katamari Damacy is a game that is utterly infectious in many ways. It’s unique, it’s charming, and its accessibility makes it ideal for any gamer. It was a gigantic hit in the mid-2000s for a reason. While I had a blast with this game and was smitten by its candy-colored absurdism, I felt like the hiccups presented in the gameplay were a deterring factor. They seem like nitpicks, but I found quite a few while playing this game again for this review. I also feel like the developers undermined the effective simplicity of the game. Katamari Damacy could’ve given me hundreds of levels doing the same thing, and I probably would’ve been satisfied. The developers probably felt that implementing side missions to break the pace of gameplay would’ve been refreshing, but they either ended up tedious or unfairly broken. Katamari Damacy had a golden idea that presented itself well, but I feel like it could’ve used some more refinement. Even the simplest games need time to breathe and buff out the cracks.
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Also, this game might be way too Japanese for its own good. The King tells the player that they roll up objects in different parts of the world like Poland, Spain, and Russia, but who in Spain plays Shogi? Why are Godzilla and Ultraman running around in Russia? It would’ve made enough sense for the game to be entirely located in Japan, progressively rolling up the entire country at the end of the game as the Katamari got bigger. Then, it would’ve made sense that it conquered the world as per the credits sequence. The Japanese elements present throughout the game are extremely unconvincing for levels that are supposed to be set in other cultures.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it is astonishing what a great leap in progress the sixth generation of gaming was from the previous generation in terms of graphical capabilities. The low rendered polygons that made up the aesthetic of the fifth generation were so vastly improved that the primitive look of 3D graphics is almost endemic to that generation. The sixth-generation overall showed that the industry was comfortable with 3D graphics, something that was only radically innovative only a few years prior. Because of this, the sixth generation unlocked a certain potential, ascending 3D graphics to a point of effectiveness we hadn’t seen before. This was the generation when 3D graphics became ideal instead of an experiment. The franchises that survived the 3D boom and the new franchises from the fifth generation evolved thusly with new games that trounced their previous outputs in terms of graphical output. Most franchises moved forward with these new advances, but what about the prospect of a remake? I usually don’t support remakes due to the industry getting too overzealous with rereleasing games to make an easy profit. However, remaking a game from the first 3D generation with a graphical rehaul has the potential to be effective. I can’t think of any better-reimagined upgrade from this era than the remake of the first Resident Evil. The series made a huge name for itself during the fifth generation of gaming, pioneering the survival horror genre. By the beginning of the sixth generation, there were three main installments in the series. The series was defined by establishing a spooky atmosphere, putting the player in claustrophobic spaces with legions of zombies and other creatures that inspire fright. The subsequent titles left the first entry of the series in the dust in terms of refining the base of the series. The first game seemed incredibly dated and corny by comparison. It wasn’t the groundbreaking title it used to be comparatively. The 2002 remake of the first Resident Evil on the Nintendo Gamecube was exactly what the first game needed. The enhanced graphics and the added hindsight of progress made the first Resident Evil effective again.

As one could probably tell, the remake of the first Resident Evil had to make some substantial changes to make the first game efficiently creepy. One aspect that remained faithful to the original was the story, as per the course for most remakes. A series of strange murders have occurred around the metro area of Raccoon City, and the members of the elite task force S.T.A.R.S. are sent to investigate. The members of S.T.A.R.S. become separated from one another and are forced to take refuge in a gargantuan gothic mansion with its own dangers and threats. The player gets a choice to play as two different members of S.T.A.R.S., Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. The member of your choice will scrounge around the spooky, decrepit estate and the grounds surrounding it, discovering its horrific secrets while trying to survive.

The most basic expectation of a remake is that its graphics will greatly surpass the originals. This is the most fundamental aspect of any video game remake and the simplest testament to a remake's general worth. Fortunately, the first Resident Evil on the PS1 didn’t set the bar too high for 3D graphics. In fact, the graphics in the first Resident Evil were some of the blockiest on the console. The first Resident Evil also implemented live-action cutscenes that were played before the main menu and during the opening and ending cutscenes of the game. It’s a painful reminder that full-motion video flops like the Sega CD were still in recent memory, and the industry hadn’t quite learned its lesson yet. The presentation of the first Resident Evil is the epitome of being dated. It’s laughable to think that the original game was intended to be scary with this cheesy, B-movie presentation with terrible voice acting to boot. It was hard to take this game seriously.

On the other hand, the remake of the first Resident Evil demands that the player takes it seriously. No longer would the first Resident Evil be remembered for “Jill sandwiches” and be memed to the high heavens. To complement this more serious tone, the graphics have been improved upon to the point where they invoke an entirely different atmosphere. It’s appropriate that the front cover of the HD port of the remake is the foyer of the mansion. It’s the crux of the foundation of the setting that both begin the game and lead to the final area of the game, a full circle after unlocking all the mansion has to offer. Looking at how ominous the cover is also indicative of the total improvement in atmosphere and tone the remake has over the original. Because of graphical limitations, the setting of the original Resident Evil was mostly well-lit to avoid having the intended darkness of the setting blend in too well and literally leave the player in the dark. The most effective lighting scheme the original could invoke was in some dimly lit corridors. In the remake, the spooky atmosphere is recreated masterfully. For example, the mansion's foyer is lit well enough so the player can see with candles and a hanging chandelier, but the room is still eerily dim. Most of the lighting in the game is either exactly like this or illuminated by moonlight and the spontaneous cracks of lightning from a distant storm. The updated visuals turn the Spencer Mansion and its grounds into what is arguably the most effective haunted house setting in gaming. The ghostly atmosphere presented here is palpable, aided greatly by tonal consistency and gorgeous pre-rendered backgrounds.

Just to clarify, the impetus for remaking the first Resident Evil game is not due to transforming a bad game into a good one with the help of technological advancements. The first Resident Evil was an exemplary title and a true pioneer of the survival horror genre. The game’s overall reputation is marred by its incredibly dated presentation, almost to the point where it’s embarrassing. The survival horror foundation of the gameplay in the original was quite tense and required a bit of survival strategy. The original game's presentation felt more appropriate for an action game with some horror elements. The mansion is also designed superbly from a gameplay perspective. I’m a sucker for Metroidvania-like level design in gaming, and I’m always especially impressed when game developers execute this in a 3D space. I wouldn’t categorize Resident Evil or the entire survival horror genre as 3D Metroidvania games. Still, the 3D graphics, along with the space and progression of a Metroidvania, makes the first Resident Evil feel like one. Progress in this game is defined by unlocking a series of keys that open up around the mansion.

Some of these keys are traditionally used to unlock common doors around the mansion, but some of these keys are differently shaped from other doors with more significance to the mansion. The keys are mostly unlocked with a series of puzzles that involve interacting with objects in a room. These puzzles are all fairly easy to solve, and even the ones that require extra steps have plenty of clues lying around for the player. Some involve color coordination, matching pictures, room arrangement, etc. Some new puzzles in the remake are anxiety-inducing, brief races against the clock like the armored figure with the spinning blade and the engine room meltdown with Neptune banging against the glass. These hectic new puzzles are a fantastic addition to the better-emphasized scare factor of the remake. I personally find them to be much scarier than walking around in the dark. Unlocking each room of the mansion one by one as you progress brings the same sense of satisfaction one gets from uncovering new ground in a Metroidvania game. It also makes the mansion setting feel more expansive, fitting for the setting of a giant gothic estate.

Not only are the updated graphics a stellar improvement on how the game looks, but they also complement the tension that became synonymous with the survival horror genre. Scarcity is the name of the game when it comes to survival horror, and the resources in the first Resident Evil must be expertly preserved. I can’t think of another game in the genre that has such a militant emphasis on being conservative with one’s materials. It’s so strict that the player can only save a finite amount of time using an ink ribbon for the typewriter. Ammo isn’t very plentiful, and the player usually has to scrounge around the narrow crevices of bookshelves, chests, and dark corners of the mansion to retrieve it. Of course, the game will force the player to use ammo occasionally, either for a boss or for tense moments in narrow corridors with more than a couple of zombies. Because of this, it’s good to strategize when to appropriately take down a zombie or how to navigate around them without being attacked. Most experienced players recommend darting past them after a single lunge to conserve ammo because there will be enemies that refuse to be ignored, and they have to be dealt with. Health items, on the other hand, feel much more plentiful. To nurse the wounds from the gnashes of the undead, three different plants are scattered around to use as health. Green heals the player, blue cures poison, and red has no properties other than to be mixed with green to make for a more effective healing item. Healing sprays are also commonly found and can be used to fully heal the player, and they are often found in first aid kits. I’m not sure why health items are more commonly found than ammo. It’s not a case of health items being strewn less inconspicuously either. Rooms and corridors will have multiple health items lying around. I suppose the developers expected the players to get hit more while conserving ammo? Either or, being frugal with all items is essential to survival.

Conserving your items in the game can be an unnerving affair when the player meets with horrifying creatures in narrow spaces. What’s even more unnerving in a totally different context is the inventory system, and by unnerving, I mean that it gets on my nerves. Jill can carry eight different items, and Chris can carry six. Both characters can store any of the items they pick up in spacious item boxes that are usually found in saferooms. The main complication with this system is that every single item, whether a key, weapon, ammo, health, etc., is counted in the same cramped inventory. The only items that stack on each other in this inventory system are ammo and ink ribbons, while everything else takes up an individual slot. As one could probably imagine, this results in having to backtrack to a room with an item box repeatedly throughout the game. This is also in tandem with how often the player will encounter multiple key items for a single puzzle and most likely won’t be able to carry all of the items simultaneously, which is confusing when the puzzle finally comes about. The player doesn’t have all of the pieces. Most of my time playing this game felt like backtracking between the few item boxes to reorganize the inventory. This process isn’t what I’d consider a highlight moment of the game. I understand that the minimal inventory is intended to coincide with the scarcity of the items, but the feeling of tedium hardly invokes fear and dread. It makes me groan and roll my eyes back into my head. The fact that’s even harder to believe is that the inventory system here is an improvement from the original PS1 game. There were fewer item boxes, so trekking back to one was even more slog. Preserving items depending on the situation is a part of the challenge, but nothing is challenging about backtracking.

The challenge of the game also depends on which character the player chooses. Story events progress the same way, but there are some specific circumstances between Jill and Chris. Playing as Jill is essentially playing this game on an easier difficulty. I’d say that Jill is the character for your little sister, but that statement would come off as sexist. In my defense, Capcom did make the game significantly easier for Jill, making them the sexists, no? As previously mentioned, Jill can carry two more items than Chris can which doesn’t sound like it makes a difference, but the added slots come greatly appreciated after being Chris. Jill is automatically granted a lockpick to open the first few doors of the mansion while Chris is left to his own devices. Jill can also skip some puzzles that are mandatory for Chris. Bosses are also much different for the two characters. During the Plant 42 encounter, Jill can make a chemical concoction to defeat the plant while Chris has to unload several rounds of ammo into it. The same brutish strategy with Chris applies to the final fight against Tyrant, where Jill will get a bazooka to finish him off while Chris has to stock up on every weapon and its ammo to defeat him. On the other side of the coin, Chris can take much more damage than Jill, plus he can dart past zombies much more swiftly. Both characters have a supporting member of S.T.A.R.S. aiding them to make up for their shortcomings. Barry provides Jill with firepower, and Rebecca provides Chris with healing items. The advantages between the two are supposed to balance each other out, but I found myself having an easier time with Jill than with Chris, even with playing as Jill on my first playthrough.

Even if the player is an experienced Resident Evil veteran, the developers of this made sure to signify that an old dog can learn new tricks with this remake (either referring to the old players or the game itself). Besides the graphical enhancements, this remake makes several additions to the gameplay and the story to make it more challenging or deviate further from the dated presentation of the original game. Some of these changes are practically referential to the original as some jump-scare parts are omitted, like the zombie dogs jumping through the window. After all, jump scares aren’t exactly scary if the player is aware of when they are coming. However, a new fear the developers added is something that plays right into the scarcity factor of survival horror. At an early point in the game, the player will find a crypt underneath the yard with four faces with masks that coincide with them. When the right mask is put on, a chain from the coffin suspended from the ceiling breaks loose, and the coffin spurts blood. The player gets the impression that whatever’s in that coffin will not be a relief to see once the puzzle is solved. Once every mask is in place, the coffin falls, and the new Crimson Head enemy appears and attacks the player. It’s a zombie with red skin and a much more vicious and hostile demeanor. Unlike the normal zombies that can just be passed by, Crimson Heads need to be dealt with, forcing the player to use their limited resources. Once the player returns to the mansion, they will suddenly find tons of Crimson Heads running around. I didn’t realize this initially, but Crimson Heads are reanimated zombies that I initially killed but did not destroy. To prevent a zombie from transforming into a Crimson Head, the player must blow their head off with a bullet. However, attempting to execute a headshot will result in many wasted bullets. The proper way to dispose of zombies is to light their remains on fire with kerosene stored in a canteen. Like anything else, the kerosene is also in limited supply, making the player think before killing the zombies. The addition of the Crimson Heads adds a new level of depth to the survival horror gameplay that wasn’t presented in the original game.

The improved presentation also leads to much better characterization. The voice acting in this game is no longer hilariously wretch-worthy as each character delivers their lines with stark seriousness fitting for the darker environment. Jill no longer exasperates with every sentence, and Wesker is the cold, stoic monster he’s supposed to be instead of coming off as a meddlesome oaf. The biggest characterization difference in the remake is definitely Barry, the S.T.A.R.S. member who assists Jill through her campaign. Rebecca may have the same little sister dynamic as Chris, but Barry adopts something more than being an uncle figure to Jill, or this turns out to be the case. In the original, Barry dies inexplicably, but the remake gives the player a choice as to whether he lives or dies. Barry is so over the top in the original that he’s very hard to take seriously. His lines are delivered so emphatically that he’s almost the comic relief character. Barry in the remake is much more subtle, almost to the point where he feels uncomfortable like he’s got something to hide. As it turns out, he is indeed hiding something from his peers. It is revealed that he’s been working as a double agent for Wesker because Wesker threatened to do something to Barry’s family if he didn’t comply. This leads Barry to lead Jill into traps, trying to dispose of her. Once Jill catches onto this, Jill confronts Barry by taking away his gun. If she keeps his gun, Barry dies, and the true ending can’t be unlocked. I did this without knowing that Barry is a canon character in the franchise, and I wouldn’t have done this if I knew this decision wasn’t going to keep me from experiencing the true ending. The remake does a great job at leading veteran players astray with this reveal and leaving them uneasy in trusting Barry.

Besides survival, the biggest theme of Resident Evil’s horror is facing one’s fears. An adage relating to this pops up when starting the game. Most of the enemies revel around a common fear that most people have. Zombies represent people’s fear of death, the decay of the flesh, and the uncertainty of one’s afterlife. Bosses like Yawn the snake, Neptune the shark, and Black Tiger are gigantic versions of common animals that people fear. One could even argue that most games play with people’s fear of darkness. While facing these creatures in dim crevices is fairly alarming, they pale in comparison to the scary creatures from Resident Evil’s survival horror successor series, namely Silent Hill. Everyone knows there would be no Silent Hill without Resident Evil to guide the way. However, the horror of Silent Hill proved to be much more discomforting. It showed that horror was more effective when it was more ambiguous, disturbing, and had a certain level of hidden depth. For the Resident Evil remake, Capcom seemed to have taken a page from the creature journal of Silent Hill and created Lisa Trevor as a result.

Once the player makes it outside the mansion to an abandoned cabin, they will be blindsided by Lisa and knocked out. Once they awaken, they encounter Lisa and will probably waste their valuable ammo trying to destroy her as I did. Scrounging around the dormitory, the player will uncover the hidden secrets behind Lisa. It’s revealed that Lisa and her mother, Jessica, were abducted by the Umbrella corporation and used in their experiments regarding the T-Virus. Jessica died during the experiments, but Lisa was greatly affected. She gained superhuman strength and invulnerability while her human form slowly deteriorated into a monstrous, indescribable force. During the last encounter with her, the player does not defeat Lisa with firepower but rather by opening the casket where her mother was buried. She cries “mother” with an inhumane shriek, takes her mother’s skull, and plummets down to the abyss with it in her final moments. The returning bosses from the original may show the great physical effects of the T-Virus, but the story of Lisa Trevor shows its emotional effects. Her physical form is terrifying, even more so once the player learns of her disturbing, heartbreaking backstory. She looks like a creature from Silent Hill, and the emotional weight of symbolism she carries is apt for Silent Hill as well. Putting a character like this in a Resident Evil game puts a shocking perspective on the Umbrella Corporation and its atrocities. It provides a great level of depth and insight that isn’t present in the original.

The notion of remaking any artistic property always makes me skeptical. If something is to be remade, it has to outdo the original in every way, or else it does not prove any merit of existing. The remake of the first Resident Evil for the PS1 is a remarkable example of this. The enhanced, next-generation graphics reignite the effective horror factor, but this remake is more than just a graphical upgrade. It enhances every facet of the presentation, like the voice acting and characterization, while improving upon the survival horror gameplay with new elements that weren’t featured in the original. It’s a remake that eclipses the original, offering something substantial for new players and those who experienced it. The first Resident Evil was in desperate need of some fine-tuning, especially compared to its successors in both its own series and other survival horror games. The remake doesn’t just compete with them comparably. It’s arguably the best Resident Evil game, the best survival horror game, and the best video game remake of all time.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

If the first Paper Mario was an RPG vehicle for fleshing out the Mario universe, then Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is meant to flesh out the Paper Mario universe. Having a sequel to the first Paper Mario meant it became its bonafide property separated from the mainline Mario series. Because of this, the Paper Mario franchise would have to expand upon the idiosyncrasies that make it removed from the standard Mario universe. The first Paper Mario was charming, and quirky, and its presentation exuded the warmth of a storybook. It gave the Mario universe a much-needed level of depth that could only be plausibly presented through the RPG genre. The first game was still confined to the familiar properties of the Mario franchise, almost to a fault. While the first game was flippant enough with the source material, it still somewhat carried many tired tropes from the mainline franchise. The personality the game gave to its characters, areas, and narrative was a splendid change of pace for the Mario series, but something felt somewhat limited. The margins set by the archetypal Mario universe somewhat undermined the series' full potential.

With the sequel Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the chains of the mainline franchise were severed, and the series was free to run wild with creativity. Like any other exemplary sequel, The Thousand-Year Door is a more well-oiled machine that buffs out the blemishes of the first game. It was also on a more advanced piece of gaming hardware, so the game naturally came with better graphics and a smoother framerate. The Thousand-Year Door also amplified the distinctive properties set forth by the first game. If slight irreverence was the key in the first game, The Thousand-Year Door revels in it. It is a Mario game that exceeds all expectations anyone has ever had for a Mario game. Because of this, The Thousand-Year Door holds a stellar reputation as not only the best Mario RPG but as the best Mario game, period. I’ve certainly been someone who has echoed this sentiment as The Thousand-Year Door enchanted me when I was a kid. It was the game that properly introduced me to the JRPG genre, and the charm, creativity, and humor were what won me over. Every other Mario game paled comparatively, including the first Paper Mario. For several years, I was a part of the gigantic hivemind of Thousand-Year Door enthusiasts that could not find fault with this game. This was the peak of the Paper Mario franchise, especially since the series started to falter with every subsequent release. The only comparable game is the first Paper Mario, and The Thousand-Year Door seemingly trumps its predecessor in every way. After replaying both of these games, I don't think that The Thousand-Year Door eclipses the first game. I’ve realized that maybe The Thousand-Year Door isn’t the flawless masterpiece we all thought it was.

Truth be told, it doesn’t take a creative genius to subvert the tropes of Super Mario Bros. It’s arguably the most iconic video game franchise of all time, so we’ve all come to know what to expect. A sense of familiarity is a strong aspect of the Super Mario brand. The first Paper Mario game expanded on these tropes to make them more interesting with added nuance. These tropes are expanded upon in The Thousand-Year Door, almost to the point where they tread new ground for the franchise. For one, the call to adventure begins with someone ELSE capturing Peach for a change. She retains her typical damsel in distress role, one of the most tiring aspects of the Super Mario series. It’s such an exhausting trope that having someone else besides Bowser kidnaps Peach is a refreshing change of pace. On vacation in a place called Rogueport, Peach discovers a mystical map that leads to an ancient treasure. Peach gets abducted by someone posing as a street merchant who is intrigued by the map that Peach has found. While getting abducted, Peach sends a letter to Mario inviting him to join her on the adventure to uncover whatever the treasure map leads to. Once arriving at Rogueport, Mario intervenes in a scuffle between a female Goomba named Goombella and a portly, uniformed man with his army of miniature minions with similar uniforms. Mario learns that Peach has been captured from Toadsworth, the most useless old knob in the Mushroom Kingdom who is supposed to be protecting Peach. The female Goomba looks at the treasure map Peach gave Mario, and they take it to Professor Frankly, Goombella’s sensei and history expert. Frankly informs them that the map leads to seven different Crystal Stars that need to be gathered in one place under the city of Rogueport to unlock a gigantic, ancient door in the ruins underneath the town of Rogueport. What Mario doesn’t know initially is that the group that kidnapped Peach is also looking for the Crystal Stars, so collecting them becomes a race between Mario and Peach’s mysterious captors.

I previously stated that the key to the Paper Mario franchise was irreverence, the method of separating it from the mainline Mario series while also making it substantial. There was some irreverence sprinkled into the mix of the first Paper Mario with the humor and subversion of Mario tropes. All of this was done subtly while preserving the typical Mario narrative of rescuing Peach from Bowser’s clutches. The Thousand-Year Door strays even further from the archetypal Mario formula, but it is somewhat inherently confined to the new tropes placed by the first Paper Mario game. The base of the narrative is essentially the same as in the first game: Mario must find seven stars scattered across the map, and the path to retrieving these stars is reserved for a chapter of the story. Once these stars are all brought to a specific place, they unlock a path that leads to the final chapter and where Peach is located. The narrative structure, partner characters, and the unique, accessible RPG combat system are the aspects that persist in this sequel. The Thousand-Year Door doubles as a sequel that deviates even further from the first game and the mainline series while also acting as a more nuanced improvement to what the first game established.

The first Paper Mario had to offer recognizable properties from the mainline Mario series to establish a close connection to it. It was a radical improvement that the notable, nameless characters like Goombas, Koopas, Boos, Bob-ombs, etc. could be domesticated through the RPG genre. While it was nice to talk to typical Mario enemies instead of Mario squishing them with his weight, most of them amounted to being uninspired NPCs. Most of the partner characters were rather bland, with most of them having one distinguishable feature like a color swap or an additional article of clothing. Any personality the partners had flown out of the window once they joined Mario’s posse, almost as if Mario would have backhanded them for trying to out-charisma him. Fortunately, the partners in The Thousand-Year Door have improved significantly in every aspect. For one, their roles in supporting Mario no longer undermine their characterization. Any of the partners add dialogue to whichever situation Mario and company find themselves in and incorporate it for said situation. Many of the new partners are very similar to the ones from the previous game on a surface level. The first partner Mario meets is another Goomba named Goombella. Like Goombario, she bonks enemies with her noggin, she can reveal enemy statistics by tattling on them, and she can provide insight on an NPC or setting in the overworld. However, she is not a simple, gender-swapped reskin of Goombario. Goombella is a well-educated, spunky lass that yearns for discovery and combats every situation with a blast of sass. She’s a way stronger character than the overly emphatic kid Goombario was.

Many of the other new partners also follow suit with a needed dash of extra characterization. Koops the Koopa is the next partner after Goombella, just like Kooper was after Goombario. Koops plays exactly like Kooper, except that he isn’t an absolute blank slate of a character. Koops is like if Kooper was that kid in school who ate their lunch under the stairwell and listened to Linkin Park. He’s a timid soul who couldn’t even ask Mario to aid him in his quest without stammering and having an anxiety attack. The reason why he wants to join is to defeat Hooktail and avenge the death of his father. He continues partnering with Mario to build his self-confidence for his girlfriend Koopie Koo. As much as building a character arc for a partner character is an improvement, I’m not sure Koops progressively becomes the chad he wishes to be. He’s still as apprehensive in the sixth chapter as in the first. I’m sorry to say, but Koopie Koo probably has sights on another man, and it’s probably Mario Just as a quick tangent, why does every female character in this game want to bone Mario? It’s very disconcerting. Bobbery is a Bob-omb-like Bombette that explodes at will but is o much more than just a differently colored Bob-omb. He’s an old, salty ex-sea captain who has a vague resemblance to Sean Connery in The Hunt For Red October. His navigating talents are needed when Mario must make his way to the island of Keelhaul Key, but Bobbery still feels traumatized by the passing of his wife the last time he was out at sea. The letter Mario finds from Bobbery’s wife is an incredibly touching moment and greatly enhances the intrigue of Bobbery as a character with this weighted backstory.

The Thousand-Year Door also incorporates partners that are less familiar to the ones from the first Paper Mario. The first game features a Yoshi civilization on a tropical island, but none of these Yoshi’s were playable characters. In the middle of the Glitzville chapter, Mario and his friends adopt a rambunctious Yoshi egg that hatches to an equally excitable Yoshi kid. The player can name him whatever they want as he has no canon name and can even dictate his color from a few timed circumstances. Regardless of his name and color, he’s an energetic little squirt who utilizes his instinctive, voracious appetite as a Yoshi on the battlefield. Ms. Mowz is a Squeak who has occasional run-ins with Mario. She’s given herself the title of being an “elusive badge thief” and can be unlocked as an optional partner who sniffs out rare items. She’s much more interesting as a recurring character than a partner. There are also party members that do not resemble any preexisting Mario races. I’ll give out a sum of money to anyone who can tell me what the hell Flurrie is supposed to be. I could take a wild guess, but I’m afraid whatever I say will be offensive. Ghostly Aretha Franklin? See, I just know that sounds bad. While she is one of the most useful partners in combat, her physical design is a little uncomfortable. She has nippleless breasts that bounce up and down when she moves, and Mario grabs one of them when she blows wind in the overworld. Everything about her screams irreverence to almost breaking any kind of moral sanctity the Mario franchise had. Vivian also has an unfamiliar design to anything else in the Mario universe, even though her veil ability is exactly like Bows.

Partner characters like Flurrie indicate The Thousand-Year Door’s directive to separate Paper Mario’s identity from its source material. Many of this game’s NPCs look unrecognizable to anything from the Mario universe. These unorthodox NPCs are scattered all over, but there are some clear examples. Twilight Town is filled with peasant-like denizens that look like dolls that have been sitting under dirt and debris after a nuclear fallout. The Punies are a race of grey insects with antennae on their heads that come in multiple colors. There are even some NPCs that look damn near human, such as the security guards in Glitzville and Flavio the pirate. While there are still plenty of recognizable Mario races, many of them are much livelier than in the first game. Toads, Goombas, Koopas, etc. will be wearing different costumes depending on the location, and there are far more distinctive NPCs per Mario universe race. Most of the Bob-ombs in the game is settled in a frigid outpost, wearing ushankas and saying “da” as an affirmative like they’re Russian. The Piantas run the west Rogueport crime syndicate, and they are portrayed as negative Italian stereotypes more so than Mario and Luigi ever were. It was radical enough that all of these enemies could talk in the first game, but all of this characterization for all of the NPCs makes the world of the first game seem bland by comparison.

I’ve mentioned before that having someone else besides Bowser kidnaps Peach is an outstanding change of pace. While I’m somewhat glib with my enthusiasm, it’s nice to see more villains getting the spotlight. These new villains are also unlike anything the franchise has seen. The X-Nauts are a mysterious bunch much more uniform than Bowser and his minions. The basic X-Nauts wear red uniforms with black X’s marked on them, veiling their faces with white hoods and goggles. While the X-Naut enemies come in a few more varieties, they all act like oafish droogs. The X-Naut battalion is led by Lord Crump, a doofus of the highest degree with surprising technological capabilities. Their commander is Sir Grodus, a much more sinister and stone-cold serious villain to balance out the buffoonery of his underlings. Similar enemies in the same faction as the X-Nauts are the Shadow Sirens, three ghostly sisters in league with Grodus to find the Crystal Stars. The three of them have different elemental abilities and distinctive personalities.

Beldam is the malevolent de facto leader with ice powers, Marilyn is the simple one (keeping it polite as possible) with electric abilities, and Vivian is the sweet, cute one with fire abilities. They have a Cinderella sisters dynamic in which Beldam and Marilyn, the homely sisters, are mean to the fairer younger sister and make her life a living hell also because she decides to join Mario after withstanding enough abuse from Beldam. In a way, it’s like a prince sweeping her off her feet. Doopliss, the name thief, replaces Vivian as the third Shadow Siren, but the dynamic is missing. Incorporating him with Beldam and Marilyn is only a means of keeping him in the game after chapter 4. The X-Nauts and Shadow Sirens also have a much more devious plan for Peach than Bowser. It’s revealed that the “treasure” that lies behind the thousand-year door is a hidden demon of immense power, and the X-Nauts plan on using Peach as a vessel for the demon and use her power to take over the world. The X-Naut armies may be bumbling idiots, but their plans are more diabolical than any Mario villain beforehand. This adds a whole level of urgency to Mario’s quest.

Peach’s role as the video game queen of getting captured isn’t subverted here. The X-Nauts quarantine her in a drab, closed-off room that at least has a bathroom equipped with a shower, something her bedroom in the first game didn’t have. Like the first game, Peach’s playable segments occur right after the player has completed a chapter. I didn’t mention these segments in my review of the first game because I felt they were pretty inconsequential to the story. To quickly summarize, Peach sneaks around her own castle, avoiding Bowser’s guards with the help of a star kid named Twink. While sneaking around, she gains information about the location of the star spirits by circumstance. These sections in the first game serve as flavorless breaks between the main game, and I never got excited to experience them. The Peach breaks in The Thousand Thousand-Year similarly, but they are far more interesting. After the first time Peach takes a shower, the right side door will mysteriously open. Peach walks down the hall to find the computer room, where she learns that the computer, TEC, has opened the door for her. Seeing Peach’s naked body while she showered sprouted an intense feeling of lust for the princess, and TEC became more and more curious about Peach and about human emotions. Each Peach break is TEC devising clever ways to either get closer to Peach or to see her naked again. His intentions are creepy and perverted, but TEC is framed as more of a pitiable character rather than a malicious one. Naturally, this affection for Peach is unrequited. Still, Peach cleverly uses TEC’s infatuation for her to gain information about the X-Naut’s plans and communicate them to Mario from her cell. The Peach breaks show Peach in a more capable light than just a damsel in distress, and her dynamic with TEC surprisingly makes for one of the most interesting subplots in the game.

Humor is also a sign of effective irreverence, and the Paper Mario series has this in spades. The first game had plenty of humorous moments, but The Thousand-Year Door is filled to the brim with hilarity. The dialogue is consistently sharp and emphatic, but Bowser is the king of comedy in this title (no pun intended). The first game already established a more irreverent direction in portraying Bowser as the main antagonist. The intimidating Koopa King is reduced to a sensitive buffoon who throws tantrums when he doesn’t get his way and writes about his feelings about Peach in a diary. This is all amusing enough, but Bowser is my favorite character in The Thousand-Year Door based on his comic-relief role. Just because Bowser isn’t the main villain in this game doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a major presence in it. After each Peach break follows a Bowser break where he and Kammy Koopa slowly plod through the game settings, trying to take the Crystal Stars for himself. He doesn’t have a plan for collecting them. It’s just to get them before Mario does for the point of bragging. Along the way, he has hilarious encounters with familiar NPCs and villains where he drops these juicy nuggets of dialogue:

“Pbbbthbtth! Am I Mario’s babysitter? I don’t care what he’s doing! Are you going to call me whenever that guy blows his nose, or what? Sheesh!”

“Great. Just Great. Now I look like the huge, mighty king of GUY WHO TALKS TO POSTERS!”

“You have got to be kidding me. You mean to tell me that LUIGI beat me here?”

I’d take Bowser as a lovable dullard in the Paper Mario games rather than the imposing main villain he usually is. Bowser’s attempts at kidnapping Peach have gotten pathetic over time, and his more irreverent role in these games shows a sense of self-aware satire on the part of the developers.

The chapters and settings of The Thousand-Year Door are as strong as the characters. A clear deviation in setting from the get-go is the hub of Rogueport. This place is certainly a far cry from the rustic quaintness of Toad Town. Mario and Peach are out of their jurisdiction of the Mushroom Kingdom here, and this questionable vacation spot exudes a great sense of feeling like a stranger in a strange land. Rogueport is a rank, crime-infested hellhole where trash is strewn everywhere, and graffiti marks every wall. The back alleys are filled with sketchy characters that are probably selling crack, and the west and east sides of town are the strongholds of two feuding crime syndicates. It’s a wonder Mario’s shoes aren’t missing every time the player presses pause in this hub. The centerpiece of the town square is a gallows pole, something so irreverent in the Mario series that it’s shocking.

Conversely, the ruins underneath Rogueport are quite the spectacle. It’s similar to the sewers under Toad Town in that their structure is a series of paths that act as a hub to warp previously visited areas outside of Toad Town. The difference is that while the sewers in the first game are murky and claustrophobic, the ruins beneath Rogueport are spacious, and the dilapidated architecture and design are awe-inspiring. The ruins are also meant to be much more intricate because they house much more than just warp pipes and a few collectibles. There are badge and item shops located in the plaza, and there’s the mystic’s house that will grant you a temporary curse effect. The ruins are also where the thousand-year door is located, so they play a much more integral role than the sewers of the first game. Yet, they still have the same division as the hub of Toad Town, only in reverse.

The settings of a few chapters aren’t as radically shifted as the hub world is. Once the player leaves Rogueport for the first time and starts the first chapter, the familiarity is bound to cause a sense of deja-vu in some players. Mario will run through a grassy field fighting Goombas and Koopas. Somewhere at the edge of this field is a quaint village mostly populated by Koopas. The second half takes place in a castle nearby. The fifth chapter takes place on a tropical island that Mario sails to from the docks of the hub area. The fourth chapter is in a spooky area filled with Boos like Forever Forest from the first game. These familiar settings don’t sound irreverent, but they make up for it with a better sense of inspiration than their similar predecessors. The castle in the first chapter is home to a menacing dragon named Hooktail, who has been terrorizing Petalburg Village for some time. Mario and Koops must vanquish Hooktail like the oldest of epic stories. There is a much better context behind Hooktail rather than the Koopa Bros., whose fortress just conveniently happened to be close by to the village. The fifth chapter frames sailing to the southern tropical island as a pirate adventure in which Mario makes allies with a gang of seadogs from Rogueport. They are led by the Rogueport Inn regular Flavio, who is as yellow on the inside as he is on the outside. They all get marooned on the island of Keelhaul Key after a shipwreck and cultivate a civilization on the island as a means of survival. The fourth chapter in the eerie Twilight Town reminds me of a chapter from the first game in design. Still, I appreciate the gothic, borderline cosmic horror inspiration.

While these chapters are still rich with characterization, the much more unorthodox chapters in this game are what elevate The Thousand-Year Door in terms of providing irreverent, engaging narratives. The second chapter takes Mario and his friends to the Boggly Woods, an ethereal realm that looks like a winter-themed diorama. At the edge of the woods lies The Great Boggly Tree, where the Punies reside. Mario then rescues the Punies held captive by the X-Nauts and uses them to navigate through the tree to retrieve the Crystal Star. Using the Punies sort of plays like a more streamlined version of Pikmin. The sixth chapter is a three-day train ride to an affluent area called Poshley Heights. Most of the chapter takes place on the train, where there is little to no combat. Instead, Marios bides his time-solving mysteries like he’s in an Agatha Christie novel. It sounds boring, but the humor and characterization of all the different passengers shine here. The most unorthodox chapter in the game and my personal favorite is chapter 3, “Of Glitz and Glory”. To receive the Crystal Star here, Mario must participate in a fighting league and rise to the top of the ranks. He must beat the Glitzville champion Rawkhawk, an arrogant douchebag who brandishes a Crystal Star around his belt as a sign of his might. Meanwhile, Mario must uncover the truth about a conspiracy involving missing fighters. This chapter is so robust and so well-contained that it could’ve been its own Mario title. This chapter is the peak of Paper Mario’s narrative potential.

If all of the stronger narrative elements weren’t enough, The Thousand-Year Door is also leagues better than the first game in the gameplay department. Of course, it has the advantage due to being on a more advanced piece of hardware, but this fact still persists. A more involved and somewhat humorous new portion of the gameplay is the paper abilities in the overworld. Once in a while, Mario will come across a talking black box that begs Mario to find the key and let him out. Once he does, the being inside shows his true, malevolent nature and “curses” Mario with a new paper ability. This happens four times in the game, and Mario treats these occurrences with hilariously deadpan apathy. These paper moves range from turning into a paper airplane to gliding, becoming paper-thin by turning sideways and rolling up into a paper tube to roll under crevices. The paper boat move replaces Sushie’s swimming ability, minus being able to submerge underwater. These moves are mostly used for puzzles and traversal in the overworld, adding an interesting paper mechanic in the gameplay rather than having it strictly be an aesthetic design for the series.

These new paper moves are a nice supplement to the overworld, but the core of Paper Mario’s gameplay lies in its unique, accessible RPG system. While The Thousand-Year Door maintains the base elements of what was introduced in the first game, a lot has been improved. The framerate in the first game was acceptable, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t sometimes hard to defend myself due to the difficult time frame to press A in battle. Due to the smoother framerate in The Thousand-Year Door, mitigating damage is much easier to pull off. The smoother framerate also lends itself to the new counter move Mario can execute. With more precise timing by pressing the B button, Mario can counter anything, amounting to one HP of damage to the enemy and leaving Mario unscathed. This counter move is about as easy to do as blocking in the first game, so experienced players will have no reason to ever simply reduce enemy damage with the A button. Star points return as the series leveling currency, and the player can once again upgrade health, FP, and BP by five. Most experienced players will upgrade their health and FP gingerly, but not because the game teases the player to upgrade their health. Badges stack onto one another in this game which can potentially allow the player to become the ultimate JRPG glass cannon. Admittedly, I am too sheepish to do this, but I’ve seen some players impressively dominate this game with the badges. The accessible RPG system the first game introduced is now balanced here with a surprisingly varied skill pool that gives players way more freedom. I’m also happy that the partners aren’t just better implemented in the game’s narrative. In battle, each partner character has an integral role as Mario does (except if Mario dies). They now have their own HP, they can switch placements in the battle to block damage from Mario, and they can use items. This simple improvement makes a world of difference in combat.

The Thousand-Year Door also increases the level of involvement with its unique battle system. Besides the new action commands, there are new attacks that coincide with the Crystal Stars. They act the same as the star spirit moves from the first game, except that these moves are now totally interactive. The effectiveness of each move also depends on the player’s performance. There is an earthquake move with carefully timed button presses, Art Attack has the player drawing a crudely shaped oval around the enemies, and there are two variations of flinging projectiles at a falling array of health and flower points, etc. The meter to refill these attacks recharges slowly, so these moves should be used sparingly. A quicker, more proactive way to refill the meter is to execute a “stylish move” and to “appeal” to the audience.
Yes, the audience: a perfect segway into discussing the less savory aspects of The Thousand-Year Door. With all of the praise I’ve given this game’s improvements, one would think that it’s a flawless sequel. I did say that I reconsidered my position on this game, and there are a few concrete reasons. During every battle in the game, an audience consisting of many different NPCs and enemies appears. The battle system in The Thousand-Year Door is framed like performing a play as a curtain opens to reveal Mario and his opponent. This is either a callback to the “world is a stage” premise from Super Mario Bros. 3 or because the battle system of the first game was already vaguely reminiscent of a stage. Either way, I don’t think it works in the frame of Paper Mario. Seeing the audience during each fight sort of ruined the immersion of the setting for each area. It only works in Glitzville because each fight would naturally have an audience, but I can’t say the same for more remote locations like Twilight Town or Keelhaul Key. This is a minor nitpick compared to what seriously irks me about this premise. The audience will frequently throw items at Mario and his partners. Some of these items are helpful, while others damage Mario if he doesn’t dispose of the rowdy audience member. Because of the nature of the more involved RPG system, the player has to constantly be on their toes with this. Even fucking Luigi tried to lob a rock at me once. This is still not the worst aspect of the audience feature. Often, stage hazards will spontaneously occur that can hurt Mario. The background might fall, a stage light might collapse, or a giant goddamn fork might fall from the sky. I’d suggest being constantly vigilant, but many of these happen so quickly that no one could possibly see them coming. The stage hazards also completely fucked me on my last playthrough. I was fighting the final boss, and she only had 3 HP left. Suddenly, the streamers on the front of the stage shot frost at me and froze me solid for two turns. This was enough for the final boss to inflict 35 damage to me without the ability to defend myself, and I died as a result. I was absolutely livid. If not for this, I might have omitted this rant about the stage gimmick, but it’s definitely a detriment to the combat.

It’s been well documented that the narrative in this game is solid. However, general progress in this game is artificially extended due to heavy amounts of backtracking. I’m usually more patient with backtracking than most, but here it’s quite vexing. The game will often have the player revisit familiar locations throughout. These places can be more easily accessed in the ruins underneath Rogueport, but it’s still a bit of a slog. The ruins are far too vast to be a convenient warp hub like the sewers in the first game. There also isn’t a pipe for every area in the game in the ruins, so god forbid if the player ever needs to take the blimp all the way to the floating island of Glitzville again. Some of this backtracking is even interwoven into the narratives of some of the chapters. Chapter 4 has the player make the trek from Twilight Town to the Creepy Steeple a total of five different times. Why couldn’t there be a warp pipe between these places? Do they not have a septic system in this dim hellhole? The most egregious example of backtracking that every player unanimously despises is in chapter 7.

Mario must use a cannon in Fahr Outpost to shoot himself to the moon. However, the cannon’s operator General White has gone AWOL, and the player has to scrounge around every place in the game looking for him. When I say every place in the game, I mean the developers force the player to revisit every single place in the game, even Glitzville, looking for this asshole. After the lead to his whereabouts seems inconclusive, Mario returns to Fahr Outpost to find that General White never left the snowy outpost. He’s been sleeping in one of the houses all this time, and Mario jumps on him several times to wake him from his slumber. In my opinion, Mario should’ve brained him with his hammer, or at least that’s what I felt like doing after this whole ordeal. The funny thing about this is the developers made this fetch quest intentionally grueling. He’s not in his sleeping quarters beforehand, so it doesn’t make any sense that he would be in any other location. They tortured the player on purpose. Do I sound amused, Intelligent Systems?

The last chapter in the game also feels comparatively less rewarding than the final chapter of the first game. Once Mario has all of the Crystal Stars, he heads to the thousand-year door to find that Grodus has already somehow managed to open it. Mario and friends dash inside the sublime, eerily lit, sprawling interior of the door to chase down Grodus before he enacts his final plan. Even after defeating him in battle, Grodus still manages to unsheathe the top of the primeval coffin and awakens the beast inside. However, he doesn’t get his wish of controlling the Shadow Queen and using her as a weapon as she decimates Grodus with a single bolt of energy. Beldam was the puppet master of the operation the whole time, falsely promising Grodus that the Shadow Queen would do his bidding if he resurrected her. It turns out that she is hellbent on destroying the world and signaling an era of darkness.

The Shadow Queen possesses Peach but returns to her true form after Mario does enough damage to her. The Shadow Queen seems unbeatable until the energy of the Crystal Stars all come together, fueled by the power of hope from the NPCs from the game. After defeating her, the world is saved, and Mario and Peach return to the Mushroom Kingdom, waving goodbye to all of their new friends. While the Shadow Queen is a much more formidable final boss than Bowser was in the first game, the ending has some problems. Receiving outside cheers from the NPCs to aid in the climax of the final battle is so overdone in the JRPG genre that it verges on cliche (ie. Earthbound, the Persona series, etc.). I think it’s almost ironic that a game as creative and subversive as The Thousand-Year Door implements something so overwrought. Also, I find the ending of the first game to be more impactful because there is no post-game. After returning home, Mario gets another invitation from Peach to come back to Rogueport. This is a means for the game to continue for those who did not complete all of the side content the game offers. The player can collect all of the badges, complete the tattle log, complete all of the recipes, and undergo the ultimate Paper Mario endurance challenge that is the Pit of 100 Trials. A part of me is glad that the game lets the player keep exploring Rogueport, but the fireworks ending screen of the first game is so impactful that this ending seems diminished by comparison.

I, like many other people, once saw Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door as the perfect Mario RPG. After all, there is enough evidence to lead anyone familiar with the series to this conclusion. The game vastly improves on so many aspects from the first game that one could make a substantial argument that The Thousand-Year Door is objectively better than the first game. However, after playing both games consecutively, I enjoyed the first game just as much as this one, something I never expected upon another playthrough of both titles. The proof is in the pudding: the game is smoother, funnier, more irreverent with Mario properties, and the narrative is far more interesting. I must admit that The Thousand-Year Door still has glaring flaws I never saw as a kid. The first game is rougher around the edges in terms of gameplay but provides a much more complete experience with the story. While the condensed chapters of The Thousand-Year Door are far more substantial, there seem to be cracks in its foundation as a whole. Both of these games combined would stand as my favorite RPG, but that’s not the case here. I can be glad that both classic Paper Mario’s stand as “flawed masterpieces” with equal impact. The Thousand-Year Door is still an awe-inspiring game on its own merit and was the peak of the franchise.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com