Erockthestrange
1998
Have you ever seen how video games are portrayed on television or in advertisements? They're practically portrayed as visual, interactive crack. Two kids will be sitting in front of a TV with their drooling mouths agape and their pupils sinking into the whites of their eyes to the point of non-existence. A cacophony of erratic button tapping will be performed by several pairs of thumbs moving so wildly it's as if they have their own wills. Their borderline hypnotized faces are brightly illuminated by the coruscating glow of the television, which is shaking violently in pain from not being able to withstand the unmitigated awesomeness of the game. Upon the climax of the players finishing, they will hoot like owls with megaphones, and the TV will ignite in a roaring flame. Sounds fucking radical, doesn't it? Alas, to my knowledge, this experience has never occurred a single time while someone has been playing video games. Companies exaggerate gaming thrills to make them more alluring to children, while television frames this scene as gaming being dangerous and addicting. Some may claim that this elated moment is meant to represent an internal feeling while playing video games, but the realistic level of stimuli while playing video games cannot match the exaggerated depiction. One video game that attempts to simulate the bodacious media-portrayed embellishment of gaming is F-Zero X, the N64 sequel to the futuristic racing launch title for the SNES. F-Zero X is the story of how an ambitious, albeit glaringly flawed, 16-bit racing game became the most thrilling video game of the 20th century.
Besides Star Fox, F-Zero was the one new Nintendo IP on the SNES that greatly benefited from the jump to 3D. F-Zero's ethos was beyond the capacities of pixelated arcade-style racing, and it's a shame that the confinements of the SNES could not support F-Zero accordingly. As bold as the first F-Zero was, a racing game of its caliber was impractical on a 16-bit console. "Mode-7" graphical capabilities were impressive enough, but they are superfluous when the gameplay feels so muddled. I'd state that Nintendo should've held off on developing F-Zero until they were ready to jump to the third dimension, but one always learns more and grows from their mistakes instead of their hindrances. In 3D, the potential that F-Zero had can be fully realized. As it is, 3D F-Zero seems to be fairly minimal. It's a good thing that F-Zero's pixelated visuals weren't a grand spectacle because they couldn't have been rendered efficiently in the early 3D era. Tracks mostly look a paved gray with only a smidge of color variation for split seconds in the passing view of the player. The machines all have a plethora of colors and designs, but they all have a shared, gauche look of a sanded-down soapbox derby car. Fortunately, F-Zero is not a series that needs spectacular visuals. The racing courses that would be drab in a typical racing game compensate greatly with impeccable design. Leaping to 3D now allows F-Zero to diversify the layout of its courses. Loops, pipes, rotating tunnels, and steep jumps caused by vacant pits in the tracks are gripping enough to ignore the lackluster aesthetic. Plus, encountering all of these attributes at the blazing speeds of F-Zero implores the player to learn each track's layout to master them, demanding more intrigue to make it through them unscathed. Also, the addition of an analog controller is a godsend, as well as the buttery-smooth framerate that supports the blisteringly-fast action of F-Zero. I can't think of another N64 title whose frame rate was this crisp and responsive, and the game probably would've been unplayable without it.
Before the player can press start at the opening menu, a thunderous guitar lick worthy of Bill and Ted's "excellent" air riffage sounds over the N64 console logo. The intro will jumpstart the hearts of any player, but it's merely a sampler of what they'll be hearing throughout the game. I normally don't talk about a game's soundtrack in my reviews because that aspect of a game can be discussed exclusively on its own merits. However, I must untangle the music in F-Zero X because it is a huge factor in what makes the game so exhilarating. Ripping guitar licks that fall somewhere on the spectrum of speed metal accompany the races of F-Zero X marvelously, something of the guitar work of a Joe Satriani or Jason Becker. The finger-snapping virtuosity synonymous with the genre is perfect for a lightning-fast racing game like F-Zero that requires as much proficiency to play as the music that accompanies it. Also, I'm pretty sure this game is the only Nintendo soundtrack to feature guttural vocals. Fucking wicked. My only complaint is that the music makes the game much harder due to melting the player's faces off.
F-Zero X also must be set a few years after the first F-Zero because enough time is needed to pass for the sport of futuristic, high-octane racing to catch on. The first F-Zero supplied a paltry four characters for the player to choose from, but F-Zero expands the roster of playable characters, totaling to an exuberant thirty. Captain Falcon is still the face of the franchise, and the other three F-Zero mainstays return, but they've all got a lot of competition to contend with now. F-Zero X's bountiful cast of characters runs the gamut of mutated animals similar to Pico like Billy the ape and Octoman the humanoid octopus, old timers like Silver Neelsen and Dr. Clash, women (gasp, it really is the future!) like Jody Summer and Kate Alen to characters like Baba and Beastman. They look like Captain Falcon with a wardrobe change. Also, is that Fox McCloud's dad driving the Little Wyvern machine, and why is he a human? His overall look is too uncanny to be a mere coincidence. Each character comes with their own machine and stats, giving the player ample chance to become familiar with one or more of these to fit a racing build that suits them. A wider roster is more exciting, but the minimalist qualities of the game sort of diminishing the potential of having a wide selection. Even though none of the characters speak and their visages are obscured by their vehicles, I want to know more about them and their histories. Character bios often seen in fighting games would've been interesting to peruse in another menu, but I guess the developers would then have to delve into James McCloud's messy and shameful sexual history with a fox.
Even though all 30 characters will be present in every race, the player only has a small fraction of the roster available. Without resorting to putting in the "unlock everything" cheat code (which I'm guilty of doing, give me a break here), the player will have to unlock the roster via the fair method by placing first in the game's grand-Prix mode. Three cups, with an extra two unlocked as the player progresses, are presented to the player with six races each, and each subsequent cup gets more challenging. It's here in this grand-Prix that I'm reminded that the goal of F-Zero is not to outspeed the competition but to survive them. As I've stated, all thirty racers are accelerating on these tracks simultaneously. A large number of machines are in close, narrow spaces trying to pass each other. F-Zero acted like a bout of high-octane bumper cars, but F-Zero X is similar to a mosh pit caught up in a tornado. All the while, all of these racing contenders have to navigate the hazardous pratfalls that each track possesses. Normally, a grand-Prix featuring six races would be more accommodating because it gives the player enough chances to not have a perfect run and still win. This leeway is still present in F-Zero X, but the strict margin of error when racing combined with how many opportunities the player has to make a slight but fatal mistake makes having to run six races consecutively feel like a test of endurance. Offering rewards like expanding the roster and unlocking new cups is at least an enticing incentive, but the arcade difficulty brought over from the first F-Zero still makes the experience vexing.
F-Zero is still hard as nails, but unlike the first game, F-Zero X gives the player more tools to use. While playing on regular difficulty, I was confused and slightly irritated because I could seemingly never get to the same speeds to pass the racers in the top tier. I thought I was missing something crucial, and pressing the B button answered my questions. In the first F-Zero, the player's machine would be given a slight boost after passing the first lap, and F-Zero X greatly expands on this by granting the player a manual boost feature that is ready for the player to use the rest of the race after the first lap. This option makes a difference as it is the only way to win any race in the game, but the player cannot use it excessively. Using the boost at inopportune times will most likely result in the player slamming their machine into a wall or careening off a ledge and losing a life. The player must know the best spot to use a boost when they are memorizing the layout of the track. Secondly, the boost rate is limited as it coincides with the machine's health bar, which can only be restored while driving on those colored patches. A mosh pit between thirty combatants going hundreds of miles per hour may sound extremely overwhelming, but there's always that one beefy guy in every pit who commands the space with his tenacity. F-Zero X's equivalent to the audacious spin kick is another spin move where a player's machine can be shifted into a projectile weapon, whirlwinding into the others, knocking them into walls or off the track completely. It takes a certain proficiency to execute, but it is vital to winning as the boost move. The game even points out a specific target by flashing "rival" over the fiercest competitor and rewards each execution with a gold star, accumulating to an extra life with five. Boy, howdy, is this game vicious!
F-Zero X also has other game modes like timed races and a mode exclusively featuring the attack move, but the one that bewilders me is the multiplayer option. I stated in my review of the first game that it would have benefited from one. I realize now that being able to play with multiple people would imply that someone would play this game casually with others, and F-Zero is the least casual racing series known to gamers. It's probably why F-Zero lies dormant in Nintendo's archives while Mario Kart can make the same high earnings by releasing the same game ad nauseam. F-Zero may have improved significantly with its first 3D title, but the relenting challenge it takes simply to be competent is enough to deter most gamers from playing it. I say to hell with those people and that Mario Kart is for pussies. F-Zero X took something that was essentially a tech demo to test a gimmick on the SNES and turned it into one of the most engaging racing games I've ever played. I might have chipped a few teeth in frustration when I lost all my lives in a grand Prix or wasn't able to swerve around the tracks at first. Still, overcoming the challenges the game presented eventually almost made me feel as elated as someone playing video games in a commercial feels. F-Zero X is gnarly, dude.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Besides Star Fox, F-Zero was the one new Nintendo IP on the SNES that greatly benefited from the jump to 3D. F-Zero's ethos was beyond the capacities of pixelated arcade-style racing, and it's a shame that the confinements of the SNES could not support F-Zero accordingly. As bold as the first F-Zero was, a racing game of its caliber was impractical on a 16-bit console. "Mode-7" graphical capabilities were impressive enough, but they are superfluous when the gameplay feels so muddled. I'd state that Nintendo should've held off on developing F-Zero until they were ready to jump to the third dimension, but one always learns more and grows from their mistakes instead of their hindrances. In 3D, the potential that F-Zero had can be fully realized. As it is, 3D F-Zero seems to be fairly minimal. It's a good thing that F-Zero's pixelated visuals weren't a grand spectacle because they couldn't have been rendered efficiently in the early 3D era. Tracks mostly look a paved gray with only a smidge of color variation for split seconds in the passing view of the player. The machines all have a plethora of colors and designs, but they all have a shared, gauche look of a sanded-down soapbox derby car. Fortunately, F-Zero is not a series that needs spectacular visuals. The racing courses that would be drab in a typical racing game compensate greatly with impeccable design. Leaping to 3D now allows F-Zero to diversify the layout of its courses. Loops, pipes, rotating tunnels, and steep jumps caused by vacant pits in the tracks are gripping enough to ignore the lackluster aesthetic. Plus, encountering all of these attributes at the blazing speeds of F-Zero implores the player to learn each track's layout to master them, demanding more intrigue to make it through them unscathed. Also, the addition of an analog controller is a godsend, as well as the buttery-smooth framerate that supports the blisteringly-fast action of F-Zero. I can't think of another N64 title whose frame rate was this crisp and responsive, and the game probably would've been unplayable without it.
Before the player can press start at the opening menu, a thunderous guitar lick worthy of Bill and Ted's "excellent" air riffage sounds over the N64 console logo. The intro will jumpstart the hearts of any player, but it's merely a sampler of what they'll be hearing throughout the game. I normally don't talk about a game's soundtrack in my reviews because that aspect of a game can be discussed exclusively on its own merits. However, I must untangle the music in F-Zero X because it is a huge factor in what makes the game so exhilarating. Ripping guitar licks that fall somewhere on the spectrum of speed metal accompany the races of F-Zero X marvelously, something of the guitar work of a Joe Satriani or Jason Becker. The finger-snapping virtuosity synonymous with the genre is perfect for a lightning-fast racing game like F-Zero that requires as much proficiency to play as the music that accompanies it. Also, I'm pretty sure this game is the only Nintendo soundtrack to feature guttural vocals. Fucking wicked. My only complaint is that the music makes the game much harder due to melting the player's faces off.
F-Zero X also must be set a few years after the first F-Zero because enough time is needed to pass for the sport of futuristic, high-octane racing to catch on. The first F-Zero supplied a paltry four characters for the player to choose from, but F-Zero expands the roster of playable characters, totaling to an exuberant thirty. Captain Falcon is still the face of the franchise, and the other three F-Zero mainstays return, but they've all got a lot of competition to contend with now. F-Zero X's bountiful cast of characters runs the gamut of mutated animals similar to Pico like Billy the ape and Octoman the humanoid octopus, old timers like Silver Neelsen and Dr. Clash, women (gasp, it really is the future!) like Jody Summer and Kate Alen to characters like Baba and Beastman. They look like Captain Falcon with a wardrobe change. Also, is that Fox McCloud's dad driving the Little Wyvern machine, and why is he a human? His overall look is too uncanny to be a mere coincidence. Each character comes with their own machine and stats, giving the player ample chance to become familiar with one or more of these to fit a racing build that suits them. A wider roster is more exciting, but the minimalist qualities of the game sort of diminishing the potential of having a wide selection. Even though none of the characters speak and their visages are obscured by their vehicles, I want to know more about them and their histories. Character bios often seen in fighting games would've been interesting to peruse in another menu, but I guess the developers would then have to delve into James McCloud's messy and shameful sexual history with a fox.
Even though all 30 characters will be present in every race, the player only has a small fraction of the roster available. Without resorting to putting in the "unlock everything" cheat code (which I'm guilty of doing, give me a break here), the player will have to unlock the roster via the fair method by placing first in the game's grand-Prix mode. Three cups, with an extra two unlocked as the player progresses, are presented to the player with six races each, and each subsequent cup gets more challenging. It's here in this grand-Prix that I'm reminded that the goal of F-Zero is not to outspeed the competition but to survive them. As I've stated, all thirty racers are accelerating on these tracks simultaneously. A large number of machines are in close, narrow spaces trying to pass each other. F-Zero acted like a bout of high-octane bumper cars, but F-Zero X is similar to a mosh pit caught up in a tornado. All the while, all of these racing contenders have to navigate the hazardous pratfalls that each track possesses. Normally, a grand-Prix featuring six races would be more accommodating because it gives the player enough chances to not have a perfect run and still win. This leeway is still present in F-Zero X, but the strict margin of error when racing combined with how many opportunities the player has to make a slight but fatal mistake makes having to run six races consecutively feel like a test of endurance. Offering rewards like expanding the roster and unlocking new cups is at least an enticing incentive, but the arcade difficulty brought over from the first F-Zero still makes the experience vexing.
F-Zero is still hard as nails, but unlike the first game, F-Zero X gives the player more tools to use. While playing on regular difficulty, I was confused and slightly irritated because I could seemingly never get to the same speeds to pass the racers in the top tier. I thought I was missing something crucial, and pressing the B button answered my questions. In the first F-Zero, the player's machine would be given a slight boost after passing the first lap, and F-Zero X greatly expands on this by granting the player a manual boost feature that is ready for the player to use the rest of the race after the first lap. This option makes a difference as it is the only way to win any race in the game, but the player cannot use it excessively. Using the boost at inopportune times will most likely result in the player slamming their machine into a wall or careening off a ledge and losing a life. The player must know the best spot to use a boost when they are memorizing the layout of the track. Secondly, the boost rate is limited as it coincides with the machine's health bar, which can only be restored while driving on those colored patches. A mosh pit between thirty combatants going hundreds of miles per hour may sound extremely overwhelming, but there's always that one beefy guy in every pit who commands the space with his tenacity. F-Zero X's equivalent to the audacious spin kick is another spin move where a player's machine can be shifted into a projectile weapon, whirlwinding into the others, knocking them into walls or off the track completely. It takes a certain proficiency to execute, but it is vital to winning as the boost move. The game even points out a specific target by flashing "rival" over the fiercest competitor and rewards each execution with a gold star, accumulating to an extra life with five. Boy, howdy, is this game vicious!
F-Zero X also has other game modes like timed races and a mode exclusively featuring the attack move, but the one that bewilders me is the multiplayer option. I stated in my review of the first game that it would have benefited from one. I realize now that being able to play with multiple people would imply that someone would play this game casually with others, and F-Zero is the least casual racing series known to gamers. It's probably why F-Zero lies dormant in Nintendo's archives while Mario Kart can make the same high earnings by releasing the same game ad nauseam. F-Zero may have improved significantly with its first 3D title, but the relenting challenge it takes simply to be competent is enough to deter most gamers from playing it. I say to hell with those people and that Mario Kart is for pussies. F-Zero X took something that was essentially a tech demo to test a gimmick on the SNES and turned it into one of the most engaging racing games I've ever played. I might have chipped a few teeth in frustration when I lost all my lives in a grand Prix or wasn't able to swerve around the tracks at first. Still, overcoming the challenges the game presented eventually almost made me feel as elated as someone playing video games in a commercial feels. F-Zero X is gnarly, dude.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
2002
This review contains spoilers
If the premise of a summer vacation-themed mainline Mario game sounds bizarre to you, you’re not alone. For some reason, the launch of the Gamecube marked a slight experimental age for Nintendo as they catapulted their mascots in unorthodox directions after keeping things relatively straightforward on the N64. Their bold decisions drew a sizable bit of ire from fans still enraptured after the significant splash Nintendo made in the first 3D era. They wanted more of what was offered on the N64 but with better graphics, and they threw up in their mouths when Nintendo refused to accede to their expectations. Nintendo’s flagship series usually only represent a console generation with one title. The company delivered its uncompromising creations to its fanbase with the same blunt directness of a disgruntled cafeteria worker serving food. The disappointed reactions to The Wind Waker are the more notable example, but fans weren’t pleased with Super Mario Sunshine. If Nintendo were willing to piss off Zelda fans with the warmer cel-shaded aesthetic of the Wind Waker, then their Italian gold-winning stallion was not immune from being put through the test chamber either. Fans eventually came to adore The Wind Waker after the initial upset dissipated in time, but Super Mario Sunshine has always been somewhat of an acquired taste. Besides being bewildered by its odd premise, most people see Super Mario Sunshine as a sophomore slump, a rough spot between Super Mario 64 and every subsequent 3D Mario game released afterward. I might be blinded by nostalgia, but I’m of the opinion that Super Mario Sunshine is not an awkward road bump in 3D Mario’s evolution but an integral game in improving the 3D Mario formula.
It's possible that what initially upset people most about Super Mario Sunshine is setting the game away from Mario’s regular stomping grounds. Super Mario is a franchise marked by familiarity, and deviating so far from the Mushroom Kingdom will naturally make some fans weary. Nintendo created a new tropical playground for Mario to galavant about in Super Mario World but then backpedaled by claiming that Yoshi’s Island was an island territory owned by the Mushroom Kingdom set off the mainland shore. Mario’s fans eagerly look forward to seeing how gaming’s legendary crown land improves with the graphical progress of every subsequent entry, especially since it looked so coarse and lumpy in Super Mario 64. Nintendo, however, felt it better to give Mario’s vast, hilly homeland a well-deserved break to explore new territory. Sunny Isle Delfino is not only a vacation destination for Mario and company but a vacation for the player after exhausting the typical Mushroom Kingdom setting. While this island is not the same Koopa-infested, quasi-psychedelic commonwealth with a plethora of geographical terrains, the vacation resort theme still captures the light-hearted vibrancy that makes Mario so alluring. People often venture out to these places on their vacations because the sun-drenched shores exude a sense of breezy frivolity, something just as applicable to the accessible Super Mario franchise. Super Mario has always felt like a ray of sunshine, and now the franchise offers a setting that overtly revels in nothing but jaunty warmth.
Of course, the game wouldn’t be enticing if it merely simulated Mario on his vacation. This isn’t Nintendo’s take on the abysmal, mind-numbing Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure with Mario at the helm. As carefree as Mario’s venture to Isle Delfino was intended, he is swiftly reminded that rest and relaxation are never on his itinerary. Mario is swiftly accosted by the Isle Delfino police force as soon as he sets foot on the island. Mario has been falsely accused of vandalizing the island by littering it with a sticky, iridescent goop that may or not be noxious to the island’s denizens or have a detrimental influence on the environment. Nevertheless, Mario wrongfully gets the book thrown at him and is sentenced to clean up his supposed mess with a high-powered AI water pack called F.L.U.D.D. Until Mario meets his community service quota, he will not be able to leave the island. The real perpetrator of the crime is “Shadow Mario”, an uncanny doppelganger colored in a translucent deep blue. Mario attempts to track him down to prove his innocence, but the phantom clone decides to pull an obligatory power Mario series power move and kidnap Princess Peach. As silly and forced as the initial source of conflict is, anything is preferable to the most tired of Mario plots that Super Mario Sunshine quickly devolves into. Not even the sheer will to modify Mario’s typical attributes in this entry could keep Nintendo from burrowing back into their coziest of comfort zones.
The opening cutscene also could argue that too much ambition might be Super Mario Sunshine’s downfall. Hearing every character's speaking dialogue in the opening cutscene is sure to grab everyone’s attention and raise some eyebrows. Voice acting is not new to the Super Mario series. Princess Peach had a few spoken lines of dialogue in Super Mario 64, and who could forget Charles Martinet’s expressive grunts, hoots, and slightly racist warbles as Mario? In Super Mario Sunshine, the extent of voice work is amplified to the point where every character in the opening cutscene utters a competent line of dialogue in a cinematic fashion. The level of voice work is probably more shocking in retrospect. More voice work was a logical step to 3D Mario’s evolution because Super Mario Sunshine presents a clear reason why it never progressed past this point. Text dialogue in mainline Mario games is simple to a fault. In a series that insists on exhausting the same plot in each entry, a few lines of straightforward text is all the game needs to at least set the scene. Super Mario Sunshine’s problem is that delivering this curt dialogue vocally sounds hilariously amateurish, as if the script was written by a fourth grader and delivered by a voice cast that sounds like children doing impressions of adults. The voice work is exclusive to cutscenes and would often be criticized for inconsistency, but I’m thankful that the rest of the game regresses back to text accompanied by some vocal sounds for the characters. The voice acting here is a testament to the fact that some video game series shouldn’t have spoken dialogue for the sake of progress for the medium.
Super Mario Sunshine also doesn’t seem very stimulating considering its premise. What was Nintendo smoking when they thought their next mainline Mario title should involve him doing high-stakes janitorial work? If I didn’t know any better, I’d probably be revulsed at first glance, but do not be misled by starting impressions. Super Mario Sunshine is cut from the same cloth of the 3D collectathon platformer ilk that Super Mario 64 established. Isle Delfino is separated into seven unique levels, with the hub of Delfino Plaza serving as a reposeful middle ground between them. Each level has eight objectives that will reward the player with the core collectible that must be heavily accumulated to progress through the game. To fit the tropical theme, the series star icon has been shifted into a sun-shaped “shine sprite,” which carries the same value. 3D platformer fans can rejoice that Super Mario Sunshine is another branch in the line of Super Mario 64’s offspring and that the sludge Mario must wash away only serves as an inconvenient obstacle to Mario completing his objectives. While Super Mario Sunshine might sound exactly like Super Mario 64 on a mechanical basis despite its quirks, the game deviates slightly in its direction. Instead of stumbling upon the main collectibles by exploring the stages, the titled shine sprites in Super Mario Sunshine are acquired in numerical order. Shine Sprite #1 of the level acts as the first “episode,” and every subsequent episode continues a loose narrative of how the area becomes cleaner due to Mario’s influence. Opening the level even gives the player a vague overview of what their objective is and where it is located. Bianco Hills is being terrorized by a giant, flamboyant, untethered, speedo-wearing Piranha Plant named Petey Piranha, who Mario fights twice to expunge him from the quaint village. The haunted hotel that overlooks Sirena Beach is open to Mario indefinitely after erecting it in the level’s first episode, and cleansing Noki Bay’s toxic waters is an ongoing arc in its respective level. One might argue that this linear approach to the levels is restrictive and streamlined, but the progression works with the game’s narrative. Each area gradually gets cleaner as the player collects the shine sprites, meaning Mario has completed his sentence-driven service. Completing a more proportioned task also better compliments the boot-out system, something jarring from Super Mario 64 that Super Mario Sunshine continues to employ.
I always marvel in disbelief that the Gamecube was only one console generation after the N64. 3D graphics evolved past the growing pains of endearing amateurishness to a standard of believability in a measly five years. The transition between the fifth and sixth console generations is the largest leap of graphical progress that gaming has and will ever see. Many fifth-generation franchises that continued into the sixth generation were noticeably more refined in their sequels, but none of them highlighted a contrast so starkly as Super Mario 64 and Sunshine. Super Mario 64 was primitive even compared to all of its 64-bit contemporaries, the oldest and ugliest out of the rest of the ugly ducklings. The revelatory transformation of this foul-looking fowl wasn’t a surprise, but how radically it happened and in the short amount of time it did. Rudimentary edges that made the foundational polygons visible in Super Mario 64 have been sanded off to silky, buttery smoothness. Everything in the background, from the tall bell towers in Delfino Plaza, the countryside homes of Bianco Hills, to the scalable palm trees of Pianta Village, is discernible even from the furthest points away. Objects in the foreground like various fruits or those manholes with shine sprites painted on them no longer require squinting and or the use of one’s imagination to effectively determine what they could be either. Crashing water from the beaches flows and ripples to simulate its movement in real life, and enemies seem more vigorous and imposing. Mario and his friends went from looking like a child who drew and modeled them to resembling a professional artist's rendition. Super Mario Sunshine is the first Mario game that resembles a fully realized rendition of what fans visualized Mario and his world for several years. It only took the second 3D generation to make it a reality. Isle Delfino is a gorgeous resort that uses the higher graphical fidelity to effectively convey not only that colorful, light-hearted atmosphere of being on vacation but what the Mario series exudes in general. The series has been this effervescent since Super Mario World 2 on the SNES.
It’s no secret that I was unsatisfied with how rigid and unresponsive Mario’s controls were in Super Mario 64. The game could look like a microwaved claymation Christmas special all it wants, but I draw the line at Mario controlling like a paralyzed 1960s android. Mario’s acrobatics in Super Mario 64 was ambitiously varied but using felt far too stilted with the primeval 3D controls. Only one generation later, Mario executes the same moveset with the grace of a ballerina. Mario can still soar to extraordinary heights upon three consecutively timed jumps, but with a better sense of trajectory to avoid missteps with overwhelming velocity. His super backflip can no longer be done by crouching, but leaping backward after building momentum feels second nature now. With an additional spin move in mid-air, the player can do by playing with the control stick. Wall jumping no longer requires pinpoint precision, and the game is more lenient with penalizing the player by bumping Mario’s dome on platforms. Punching and kicking are no longer a part of Mario’s offensive means, but the more natural jumping controls diminish the necessity to use them. Mario’s ground-pounding move makes its gilded return as Mario’s ass makes more violent shockwaves on the shores of Isle Delfino than it ever did in his homeland. A new trick Mario learned for his vacation was the slide move, something used similarly to the roll move in 3D Zelda games that the player will most likely use constantly to increase their momentum. Mario looks like a mental patient constantly leaping on his crotch, but doing so feels liberating. The shackles that Super Mario 64 put on Mario’s standard mobility were a shame considering Mario was the one who revolutionized video game controls. Super Mario Sunshine evolves the chubby plumber’s moveset established by Super Mario 64 so drastically that he’s never felt more comfortable and capable, not even in any of his 2D outings. The player will feel inclined to bounce around with Mario and feel as gleeful as he does.
Not only is F.L.U.D.D. Mario’s tool for power washing, the jet-powered backpack also complements Mario’s improved portability. The standard nozzle on the pack will shoot water upward with the player able to change its direction and trajectory to aim, but not its angle. When Mario needs to squirt something quickly with a little less accuracy, the player can lightly tap the button to eject water in lighter spurts, which is what the player will be doing to deal with most enemies and goop directly in front of them on the ground. The base nozzle is mainly used for cleaning and offensive purposes even though it can turn the field into a slip and slide, but F.L.U.D.D. is equipped with three other alternate nozzles to further highlight the capabilities of the device. The hover nozzle is available once Mario receives the water pack and is, in my opinion, the most useful of the secondary nozzles. Once Mario is airborne, the nozzle will propel Mario over in the air for a brief period by shooting two spouts of water at the ground, either to maintain height or cross over a gap. Not only does this nozzle grant Mario greater traversal distance, but it will also aid in course correcting the player if they make a mistake with platforming. The other two alternate nozzles eventually unlock by finding their respective boxes in the field. The rocket nozzle will build up water and shoot Mario upward to staggering heights upon climax. The turbo nozzle acts as a speed booster whose wicked propulsion will accelerate Mario across the water like a makeshift jetski or create a powerful enough force to break through blocked-off doorways. Unlike the hover nozzle, I only find the other two nozzles useful occasionally. After using the other two nozzles for the one situation, it would’ve been nice to have every nozzle ready in Mario’s arsenal after using them for the first time. Some may argue that juggling through four different nozzles via the X button would be a pain, but the inconvenience of finding a crate with the hover nozzle after using the others proves to be far more vexing. Besides that one grievance, F.L.U.D.D. and his wide utility are a welcome addition to the Mario franchise, for it greatly expands on the fun factor of Mario’s already aerodynamic range of movement. Plus, he limits his vocal input on the field to a minimum, unlike some of Link’s partners.
Super Mario Sunshine also gets a familiar visitor to the island that I think most fans will appreciate. Yoshi’s minimal presence in Super Mario 64 as a completionist easter egg is one of the most vocal complaints that even diehard fans of the game share, so Super Mario Sunshine rectified this by giving everyone’s favorite green sidekick in Mario (fuck Luigi, I guess) more screentime. After catching Shadow Mario with a Yoshi egg in the hub, the egg will hatch the spry, puffy-cheeked dinosaur. As per usual, Yoshi’s stomach is rumbling, and he must devour everything in sight like a hungry black hole. Besides grappling with enemies with his whip-like tongue, the Yoshi’s found in Super Mario Sunshine must subsist off of an appetite for fruits found on the island, lest he dies of scurvy or something. Pressing the button usually reserved for F.L.U.D.D. while riding on the Yoshi will make it spit a jetstream of juice as long and violent as blasting water with F.L.U.D.D. Yoshi’s juice comes in three different colors depending on the last fruit he consumed, but it all does the same thing. Like the F.L.U.D.D. nozzles, Yoshi is only useful in certain circumstances. Missions that include the adorable, multicolored beast usually involve vomiting juice on fish to transform them into platforms or dissolving a pulpy growth obscuring a passageway. Yoshi sure isn’t intended to accentuate Mario’s range of movement because his flutter kick feels uncomfortably restrained. It also doesn’t help that in a game surrounded by water, Yoshi will disintegrate when he comes in contact with it like he’s the Wicked Witch of the West. Most fans see the inclusion of Yoshi as a mark of an exceptional Mario title, but his presence in Super Mario Sunshine is more of a hassle than a perk. The sunny, tropical setting of Isle Delfino should fit Yoshi like a glove, but Yoshi’s awkwardness and haphazard utility makes him seem like a fish out of water here.
But what is Super Mario Sunshine if not an instance of a stranger in a strange land? As unfamiliar as Isle Delfino is to Mario and every franchise fan, the island’s more concise and concrete design makes this vacation destination more comfortable. Super Mario 64’s hub was set in the Mushroom Kingdom, but can we say that any of the various paintings acting as the levels were teleporting Mario to locations situated just around the corner? Most of Super Mario 64’s levels were playgrounds that had familiar attributes but were suspended in ethereal oblivion that obscured any surroundings. Isle Delfino, on the other hand, is mapped out accordingly, and I’m not referring to the crudely drawn map in the pause menu. Mario warps to each area via a passageway in the wonderfully detailed Delfino Plaza hub, but the player can at least marginally discern where the level is located about everywhere else on the island. The Ferris wheel in Pinna Park is seen clear as day from Bianco Hills, and the Serena Beach hotel is so close to Pinna Park that it seems feasible to swim over to it. Isle Delfino is much more of a realized world than any iteration of the Mushroom Kingdom. Isle Delfino would make for a fine open world if only it didn’t conflict with the episodic progression of each level. I was always impressed at how the developers constructed a smattering of different levels under a specific theme without making the game boring and formulaic. Repeating a beach level with both Gelato Beach and Serena Beach may point to exhausting the constraints of the theme, but both settings exude a different aura and offer completely different missions (and it helps that the focal point of Serena Beach is the hotel in the center for most of the missions). Missions, where Mario uncovers a secret passageway where he must do some linear platforming to get to a shine sprite at the end, may arguably ruin the consistency. Still, I choose to see them as portals to more surreal, incomprehensible dimensions like Homer in that one Treehouse of Horror episode. Isle Delfino is the first time Mario engrosses the player with the setting, a cohesive world that greatly achieves its intended atmosphere.
Ironically for a game whose setting presents itself as gleefully tranquil, Super Mario Sunshine is the most difficult 3D Mario game. Despite all of the refinement the developers made to Mario’s movement with the added crutch of F.L.U.D.D., it does not make for a smoother Mario experience. I commented that the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario 64 felt like it was greased up like a slip-and-slide, causing Mario to trip and tumble to his death numerous times. Now, I’m convinced that Mario needs to invest in more adhesive-friendly shoes. Mario is still clumsy, but it only matters in certain instances, like the secret area challenges or the sparsely-spaced giant mushrooms underneath Pianta Village. Water surrounds the resort and acts as a safety net whenever Mario missteps and careens to the bottom. This is why more platforming-centric levels like Ricco Harbor and Noki Bay involve ascending tall cliffs for a steep penalty. However, starting again from the drink is only a mere inconvenience. Instead of being subject to a constant barrage of slapstick deaths, Super Mario Sunshine is more calculating with its punishments. Some episodes across every level involve some of the hardest tasks Mario has ever had to accomplish. The bloopers Mario surfs on in the red coin mission of Ricco Harbor are perilously fast, and one tiny collision will kill Mario on impact even after he’s collected every red coin. In Gelato Beach, Mario must roll a mammoth-sized watermelon down a hill and across a beach full of ravenous Cataquacks who will pop the overgrown fruit like a balloon and make Mario retrieve the watermelon from its origin point. A secret-themed level in Pianta Village involves navigating the chasms in between the blocks of ground via being chucked by the burly dopey Pianta natives. Unless the player possesses pinpoint accuracy and a Ph.D. in physics, the dopey islanders will heave Mario to oblivion. Hidden shine sprites around Isle Delfino, like the poorly designed Pachinko machine and ruthless lilypad section, will disintegrate players' spirits as quickly as the leaf does in the toxic stream. Super Mario 64 was inherently unfair due to being unrefined, but the more deliberate difficulty seen in these episodes exposes the developers as cruel sadists.
Do you want to know what makes these levels especially sadistic? Most of them are required to finish the game. Super Mario Sunshine forsakes the cumulative total of main collectibles needed for progress. It forces the player to experience every area's episode up until the seventh episode involving chasing down Shadow Mario and spraying him like a shower in the county jail. One of the greatest reliefs of Super Mario 64, or most other 3D platformers, is that the player has a choice of which areas to explore while ignoring the less savory ones as long as their amount of that collectible meets a quota by the end. Super Mario Sunshine’s streamlined methods show conspicuous holes that raise many issues. What incentive do I have to play the secret levels or collect the blue coins if only certain sprites count towards unlocking the game’s final level? Why should I waste my time with the eighth episode of an area when completing the seventh episode was all I needed? Shouldn’t each of the same collectibles be of equal value? Until a certain point in the game, more of the game does unlock after certain milestones. Multiples of five shine sprites will unlock a new level until the player reaches ten sprites when a cannon becomes available to blast Mario to Pinna Park. The first episode reveals that Shadow Mario is Bowser’s son Bowser JR, the obvious favorite of the Koopa King’s children, considering he shares his father’s name, is being manipulated by Bowser to capture Peach under the guise that Peach is his mother. This interaction turns into a heated Jerry Springer moment where Peach merely ponders this revelation instead of denying it, and Mario gets so angry that he power sprays with F.L.U.D.D. her like the whore she is (only kidding about that last part). After this seminal scene, the game’s progression flatlines, and the player must find the remaining areas through curiosity, breaking the game’s overall pacing. Forced progression with this type of game contradicts the initiative of the collectathon platformer and is the main inferior aspect to Super Mario Sunshine compared to Super Mario 64.
It’s difficult to state whether or not Super Mario Sunshine improves on boss battles either. Raising the bar from Super Mario 64’s stale, repetitive bouts is not a hard task. Still, I’m not confident in calling most of Super Mario Sunshine’s duels “boss battles” by traditional definitions. Petey Piranha and King Boo provide the standard 3D platformer fight of waiting for a weak point to exploit three times, but the others are oddly executed. The electrifying Phantamanta that eclipses the hotel in Serena Beach divides into smaller, sprightly versions when sprayed, and the fight ends when every speck of the wispy ray scattered around the beach is hosed down. Gooper Blooper’s tentacles can be brutally severed by Mario, but only pulling on his mouth in the center to the point of snapping will defeat him, which proves to be an easier loophole in fighting him. Bowser’s robotic visage at Pinna Park has to be shot down with rockets while riding a rollercoaster, and the eel that causes Noki Bay to become sickly doesn’t attempt to eat Mario while he cleans his rotten teeth. The final fight against Bowser doesn’t involve physical contact like pulling his tail, but toppling over the giant, suspended bathtub he’s soaking himself in with rocket-boosted ass crashes at the four corners of its foundation. I appreciate the ingenuity of these encounters, but they are so unconventional that they lack the impact that a typical boss battle tends to have.
Summer vacation sucks, or that’s my clever tagline for Super Mario Sunshine. Surprisingly, a game involving Mario cleaning up sticky sullage on an unfamiliar island after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit doesn’t suck. As odd as Super Mario Sunshine appears, it still emanates the pervasive charm of the Super Mario series. Isle Delfino is as lively and captivating as the classic Mario setting we’re all familiar with and is the closest a Mario setting has come to coherent world-building, a vital step in progress for level design in a Mario game. Mario, as a character, literally makes leaps in progress by feeling as fluid as the water that jets out of his mechanical backpack buddy. He finally looks like we’ve all imagined him as a realistic human being. As much as Super Mario Sunshine attempts to separate itself from Super Mario 64, I can’t help but compare the two based on how radically the former builds on the latter’s foundation. 3D Mario’s footing that Super Mario 64 invented is reinvigorated to a point of not only competency but to a degree of excellency. Super Mario Sunshine’s creative ambition may have proved too big for its britches at certain points, but besides a few egregiously broken challenges, Super Mario Sunshine's differences preserve its intrigue. It’s funny to me that the irregular Super Mario Sunshine is a far more exemplary 3D Mario title than the game that translated all of Mario’s familiar hallmarks into 3D, but that’s the beauty of a sequel.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
It's possible that what initially upset people most about Super Mario Sunshine is setting the game away from Mario’s regular stomping grounds. Super Mario is a franchise marked by familiarity, and deviating so far from the Mushroom Kingdom will naturally make some fans weary. Nintendo created a new tropical playground for Mario to galavant about in Super Mario World but then backpedaled by claiming that Yoshi’s Island was an island territory owned by the Mushroom Kingdom set off the mainland shore. Mario’s fans eagerly look forward to seeing how gaming’s legendary crown land improves with the graphical progress of every subsequent entry, especially since it looked so coarse and lumpy in Super Mario 64. Nintendo, however, felt it better to give Mario’s vast, hilly homeland a well-deserved break to explore new territory. Sunny Isle Delfino is not only a vacation destination for Mario and company but a vacation for the player after exhausting the typical Mushroom Kingdom setting. While this island is not the same Koopa-infested, quasi-psychedelic commonwealth with a plethora of geographical terrains, the vacation resort theme still captures the light-hearted vibrancy that makes Mario so alluring. People often venture out to these places on their vacations because the sun-drenched shores exude a sense of breezy frivolity, something just as applicable to the accessible Super Mario franchise. Super Mario has always felt like a ray of sunshine, and now the franchise offers a setting that overtly revels in nothing but jaunty warmth.
Of course, the game wouldn’t be enticing if it merely simulated Mario on his vacation. This isn’t Nintendo’s take on the abysmal, mind-numbing Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure with Mario at the helm. As carefree as Mario’s venture to Isle Delfino was intended, he is swiftly reminded that rest and relaxation are never on his itinerary. Mario is swiftly accosted by the Isle Delfino police force as soon as he sets foot on the island. Mario has been falsely accused of vandalizing the island by littering it with a sticky, iridescent goop that may or not be noxious to the island’s denizens or have a detrimental influence on the environment. Nevertheless, Mario wrongfully gets the book thrown at him and is sentenced to clean up his supposed mess with a high-powered AI water pack called F.L.U.D.D. Until Mario meets his community service quota, he will not be able to leave the island. The real perpetrator of the crime is “Shadow Mario”, an uncanny doppelganger colored in a translucent deep blue. Mario attempts to track him down to prove his innocence, but the phantom clone decides to pull an obligatory power Mario series power move and kidnap Princess Peach. As silly and forced as the initial source of conflict is, anything is preferable to the most tired of Mario plots that Super Mario Sunshine quickly devolves into. Not even the sheer will to modify Mario’s typical attributes in this entry could keep Nintendo from burrowing back into their coziest of comfort zones.
The opening cutscene also could argue that too much ambition might be Super Mario Sunshine’s downfall. Hearing every character's speaking dialogue in the opening cutscene is sure to grab everyone’s attention and raise some eyebrows. Voice acting is not new to the Super Mario series. Princess Peach had a few spoken lines of dialogue in Super Mario 64, and who could forget Charles Martinet’s expressive grunts, hoots, and slightly racist warbles as Mario? In Super Mario Sunshine, the extent of voice work is amplified to the point where every character in the opening cutscene utters a competent line of dialogue in a cinematic fashion. The level of voice work is probably more shocking in retrospect. More voice work was a logical step to 3D Mario’s evolution because Super Mario Sunshine presents a clear reason why it never progressed past this point. Text dialogue in mainline Mario games is simple to a fault. In a series that insists on exhausting the same plot in each entry, a few lines of straightforward text is all the game needs to at least set the scene. Super Mario Sunshine’s problem is that delivering this curt dialogue vocally sounds hilariously amateurish, as if the script was written by a fourth grader and delivered by a voice cast that sounds like children doing impressions of adults. The voice work is exclusive to cutscenes and would often be criticized for inconsistency, but I’m thankful that the rest of the game regresses back to text accompanied by some vocal sounds for the characters. The voice acting here is a testament to the fact that some video game series shouldn’t have spoken dialogue for the sake of progress for the medium.
Super Mario Sunshine also doesn’t seem very stimulating considering its premise. What was Nintendo smoking when they thought their next mainline Mario title should involve him doing high-stakes janitorial work? If I didn’t know any better, I’d probably be revulsed at first glance, but do not be misled by starting impressions. Super Mario Sunshine is cut from the same cloth of the 3D collectathon platformer ilk that Super Mario 64 established. Isle Delfino is separated into seven unique levels, with the hub of Delfino Plaza serving as a reposeful middle ground between them. Each level has eight objectives that will reward the player with the core collectible that must be heavily accumulated to progress through the game. To fit the tropical theme, the series star icon has been shifted into a sun-shaped “shine sprite,” which carries the same value. 3D platformer fans can rejoice that Super Mario Sunshine is another branch in the line of Super Mario 64’s offspring and that the sludge Mario must wash away only serves as an inconvenient obstacle to Mario completing his objectives. While Super Mario Sunshine might sound exactly like Super Mario 64 on a mechanical basis despite its quirks, the game deviates slightly in its direction. Instead of stumbling upon the main collectibles by exploring the stages, the titled shine sprites in Super Mario Sunshine are acquired in numerical order. Shine Sprite #1 of the level acts as the first “episode,” and every subsequent episode continues a loose narrative of how the area becomes cleaner due to Mario’s influence. Opening the level even gives the player a vague overview of what their objective is and where it is located. Bianco Hills is being terrorized by a giant, flamboyant, untethered, speedo-wearing Piranha Plant named Petey Piranha, who Mario fights twice to expunge him from the quaint village. The haunted hotel that overlooks Sirena Beach is open to Mario indefinitely after erecting it in the level’s first episode, and cleansing Noki Bay’s toxic waters is an ongoing arc in its respective level. One might argue that this linear approach to the levels is restrictive and streamlined, but the progression works with the game’s narrative. Each area gradually gets cleaner as the player collects the shine sprites, meaning Mario has completed his sentence-driven service. Completing a more proportioned task also better compliments the boot-out system, something jarring from Super Mario 64 that Super Mario Sunshine continues to employ.
I always marvel in disbelief that the Gamecube was only one console generation after the N64. 3D graphics evolved past the growing pains of endearing amateurishness to a standard of believability in a measly five years. The transition between the fifth and sixth console generations is the largest leap of graphical progress that gaming has and will ever see. Many fifth-generation franchises that continued into the sixth generation were noticeably more refined in their sequels, but none of them highlighted a contrast so starkly as Super Mario 64 and Sunshine. Super Mario 64 was primitive even compared to all of its 64-bit contemporaries, the oldest and ugliest out of the rest of the ugly ducklings. The revelatory transformation of this foul-looking fowl wasn’t a surprise, but how radically it happened and in the short amount of time it did. Rudimentary edges that made the foundational polygons visible in Super Mario 64 have been sanded off to silky, buttery smoothness. Everything in the background, from the tall bell towers in Delfino Plaza, the countryside homes of Bianco Hills, to the scalable palm trees of Pianta Village, is discernible even from the furthest points away. Objects in the foreground like various fruits or those manholes with shine sprites painted on them no longer require squinting and or the use of one’s imagination to effectively determine what they could be either. Crashing water from the beaches flows and ripples to simulate its movement in real life, and enemies seem more vigorous and imposing. Mario and his friends went from looking like a child who drew and modeled them to resembling a professional artist's rendition. Super Mario Sunshine is the first Mario game that resembles a fully realized rendition of what fans visualized Mario and his world for several years. It only took the second 3D generation to make it a reality. Isle Delfino is a gorgeous resort that uses the higher graphical fidelity to effectively convey not only that colorful, light-hearted atmosphere of being on vacation but what the Mario series exudes in general. The series has been this effervescent since Super Mario World 2 on the SNES.
It’s no secret that I was unsatisfied with how rigid and unresponsive Mario’s controls were in Super Mario 64. The game could look like a microwaved claymation Christmas special all it wants, but I draw the line at Mario controlling like a paralyzed 1960s android. Mario’s acrobatics in Super Mario 64 was ambitiously varied but using felt far too stilted with the primeval 3D controls. Only one generation later, Mario executes the same moveset with the grace of a ballerina. Mario can still soar to extraordinary heights upon three consecutively timed jumps, but with a better sense of trajectory to avoid missteps with overwhelming velocity. His super backflip can no longer be done by crouching, but leaping backward after building momentum feels second nature now. With an additional spin move in mid-air, the player can do by playing with the control stick. Wall jumping no longer requires pinpoint precision, and the game is more lenient with penalizing the player by bumping Mario’s dome on platforms. Punching and kicking are no longer a part of Mario’s offensive means, but the more natural jumping controls diminish the necessity to use them. Mario’s ground-pounding move makes its gilded return as Mario’s ass makes more violent shockwaves on the shores of Isle Delfino than it ever did in his homeland. A new trick Mario learned for his vacation was the slide move, something used similarly to the roll move in 3D Zelda games that the player will most likely use constantly to increase their momentum. Mario looks like a mental patient constantly leaping on his crotch, but doing so feels liberating. The shackles that Super Mario 64 put on Mario’s standard mobility were a shame considering Mario was the one who revolutionized video game controls. Super Mario Sunshine evolves the chubby plumber’s moveset established by Super Mario 64 so drastically that he’s never felt more comfortable and capable, not even in any of his 2D outings. The player will feel inclined to bounce around with Mario and feel as gleeful as he does.
Not only is F.L.U.D.D. Mario’s tool for power washing, the jet-powered backpack also complements Mario’s improved portability. The standard nozzle on the pack will shoot water upward with the player able to change its direction and trajectory to aim, but not its angle. When Mario needs to squirt something quickly with a little less accuracy, the player can lightly tap the button to eject water in lighter spurts, which is what the player will be doing to deal with most enemies and goop directly in front of them on the ground. The base nozzle is mainly used for cleaning and offensive purposes even though it can turn the field into a slip and slide, but F.L.U.D.D. is equipped with three other alternate nozzles to further highlight the capabilities of the device. The hover nozzle is available once Mario receives the water pack and is, in my opinion, the most useful of the secondary nozzles. Once Mario is airborne, the nozzle will propel Mario over in the air for a brief period by shooting two spouts of water at the ground, either to maintain height or cross over a gap. Not only does this nozzle grant Mario greater traversal distance, but it will also aid in course correcting the player if they make a mistake with platforming. The other two alternate nozzles eventually unlock by finding their respective boxes in the field. The rocket nozzle will build up water and shoot Mario upward to staggering heights upon climax. The turbo nozzle acts as a speed booster whose wicked propulsion will accelerate Mario across the water like a makeshift jetski or create a powerful enough force to break through blocked-off doorways. Unlike the hover nozzle, I only find the other two nozzles useful occasionally. After using the other two nozzles for the one situation, it would’ve been nice to have every nozzle ready in Mario’s arsenal after using them for the first time. Some may argue that juggling through four different nozzles via the X button would be a pain, but the inconvenience of finding a crate with the hover nozzle after using the others proves to be far more vexing. Besides that one grievance, F.L.U.D.D. and his wide utility are a welcome addition to the Mario franchise, for it greatly expands on the fun factor of Mario’s already aerodynamic range of movement. Plus, he limits his vocal input on the field to a minimum, unlike some of Link’s partners.
Super Mario Sunshine also gets a familiar visitor to the island that I think most fans will appreciate. Yoshi’s minimal presence in Super Mario 64 as a completionist easter egg is one of the most vocal complaints that even diehard fans of the game share, so Super Mario Sunshine rectified this by giving everyone’s favorite green sidekick in Mario (fuck Luigi, I guess) more screentime. After catching Shadow Mario with a Yoshi egg in the hub, the egg will hatch the spry, puffy-cheeked dinosaur. As per usual, Yoshi’s stomach is rumbling, and he must devour everything in sight like a hungry black hole. Besides grappling with enemies with his whip-like tongue, the Yoshi’s found in Super Mario Sunshine must subsist off of an appetite for fruits found on the island, lest he dies of scurvy or something. Pressing the button usually reserved for F.L.U.D.D. while riding on the Yoshi will make it spit a jetstream of juice as long and violent as blasting water with F.L.U.D.D. Yoshi’s juice comes in three different colors depending on the last fruit he consumed, but it all does the same thing. Like the F.L.U.D.D. nozzles, Yoshi is only useful in certain circumstances. Missions that include the adorable, multicolored beast usually involve vomiting juice on fish to transform them into platforms or dissolving a pulpy growth obscuring a passageway. Yoshi sure isn’t intended to accentuate Mario’s range of movement because his flutter kick feels uncomfortably restrained. It also doesn’t help that in a game surrounded by water, Yoshi will disintegrate when he comes in contact with it like he’s the Wicked Witch of the West. Most fans see the inclusion of Yoshi as a mark of an exceptional Mario title, but his presence in Super Mario Sunshine is more of a hassle than a perk. The sunny, tropical setting of Isle Delfino should fit Yoshi like a glove, but Yoshi’s awkwardness and haphazard utility makes him seem like a fish out of water here.
But what is Super Mario Sunshine if not an instance of a stranger in a strange land? As unfamiliar as Isle Delfino is to Mario and every franchise fan, the island’s more concise and concrete design makes this vacation destination more comfortable. Super Mario 64’s hub was set in the Mushroom Kingdom, but can we say that any of the various paintings acting as the levels were teleporting Mario to locations situated just around the corner? Most of Super Mario 64’s levels were playgrounds that had familiar attributes but were suspended in ethereal oblivion that obscured any surroundings. Isle Delfino, on the other hand, is mapped out accordingly, and I’m not referring to the crudely drawn map in the pause menu. Mario warps to each area via a passageway in the wonderfully detailed Delfino Plaza hub, but the player can at least marginally discern where the level is located about everywhere else on the island. The Ferris wheel in Pinna Park is seen clear as day from Bianco Hills, and the Serena Beach hotel is so close to Pinna Park that it seems feasible to swim over to it. Isle Delfino is much more of a realized world than any iteration of the Mushroom Kingdom. Isle Delfino would make for a fine open world if only it didn’t conflict with the episodic progression of each level. I was always impressed at how the developers constructed a smattering of different levels under a specific theme without making the game boring and formulaic. Repeating a beach level with both Gelato Beach and Serena Beach may point to exhausting the constraints of the theme, but both settings exude a different aura and offer completely different missions (and it helps that the focal point of Serena Beach is the hotel in the center for most of the missions). Missions, where Mario uncovers a secret passageway where he must do some linear platforming to get to a shine sprite at the end, may arguably ruin the consistency. Still, I choose to see them as portals to more surreal, incomprehensible dimensions like Homer in that one Treehouse of Horror episode. Isle Delfino is the first time Mario engrosses the player with the setting, a cohesive world that greatly achieves its intended atmosphere.
Ironically for a game whose setting presents itself as gleefully tranquil, Super Mario Sunshine is the most difficult 3D Mario game. Despite all of the refinement the developers made to Mario’s movement with the added crutch of F.L.U.D.D., it does not make for a smoother Mario experience. I commented that the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario 64 felt like it was greased up like a slip-and-slide, causing Mario to trip and tumble to his death numerous times. Now, I’m convinced that Mario needs to invest in more adhesive-friendly shoes. Mario is still clumsy, but it only matters in certain instances, like the secret area challenges or the sparsely-spaced giant mushrooms underneath Pianta Village. Water surrounds the resort and acts as a safety net whenever Mario missteps and careens to the bottom. This is why more platforming-centric levels like Ricco Harbor and Noki Bay involve ascending tall cliffs for a steep penalty. However, starting again from the drink is only a mere inconvenience. Instead of being subject to a constant barrage of slapstick deaths, Super Mario Sunshine is more calculating with its punishments. Some episodes across every level involve some of the hardest tasks Mario has ever had to accomplish. The bloopers Mario surfs on in the red coin mission of Ricco Harbor are perilously fast, and one tiny collision will kill Mario on impact even after he’s collected every red coin. In Gelato Beach, Mario must roll a mammoth-sized watermelon down a hill and across a beach full of ravenous Cataquacks who will pop the overgrown fruit like a balloon and make Mario retrieve the watermelon from its origin point. A secret-themed level in Pianta Village involves navigating the chasms in between the blocks of ground via being chucked by the burly dopey Pianta natives. Unless the player possesses pinpoint accuracy and a Ph.D. in physics, the dopey islanders will heave Mario to oblivion. Hidden shine sprites around Isle Delfino, like the poorly designed Pachinko machine and ruthless lilypad section, will disintegrate players' spirits as quickly as the leaf does in the toxic stream. Super Mario 64 was inherently unfair due to being unrefined, but the more deliberate difficulty seen in these episodes exposes the developers as cruel sadists.
Do you want to know what makes these levels especially sadistic? Most of them are required to finish the game. Super Mario Sunshine forsakes the cumulative total of main collectibles needed for progress. It forces the player to experience every area's episode up until the seventh episode involving chasing down Shadow Mario and spraying him like a shower in the county jail. One of the greatest reliefs of Super Mario 64, or most other 3D platformers, is that the player has a choice of which areas to explore while ignoring the less savory ones as long as their amount of that collectible meets a quota by the end. Super Mario Sunshine’s streamlined methods show conspicuous holes that raise many issues. What incentive do I have to play the secret levels or collect the blue coins if only certain sprites count towards unlocking the game’s final level? Why should I waste my time with the eighth episode of an area when completing the seventh episode was all I needed? Shouldn’t each of the same collectibles be of equal value? Until a certain point in the game, more of the game does unlock after certain milestones. Multiples of five shine sprites will unlock a new level until the player reaches ten sprites when a cannon becomes available to blast Mario to Pinna Park. The first episode reveals that Shadow Mario is Bowser’s son Bowser JR, the obvious favorite of the Koopa King’s children, considering he shares his father’s name, is being manipulated by Bowser to capture Peach under the guise that Peach is his mother. This interaction turns into a heated Jerry Springer moment where Peach merely ponders this revelation instead of denying it, and Mario gets so angry that he power sprays with F.L.U.D.D. her like the whore she is (only kidding about that last part). After this seminal scene, the game’s progression flatlines, and the player must find the remaining areas through curiosity, breaking the game’s overall pacing. Forced progression with this type of game contradicts the initiative of the collectathon platformer and is the main inferior aspect to Super Mario Sunshine compared to Super Mario 64.
It’s difficult to state whether or not Super Mario Sunshine improves on boss battles either. Raising the bar from Super Mario 64’s stale, repetitive bouts is not a hard task. Still, I’m not confident in calling most of Super Mario Sunshine’s duels “boss battles” by traditional definitions. Petey Piranha and King Boo provide the standard 3D platformer fight of waiting for a weak point to exploit three times, but the others are oddly executed. The electrifying Phantamanta that eclipses the hotel in Serena Beach divides into smaller, sprightly versions when sprayed, and the fight ends when every speck of the wispy ray scattered around the beach is hosed down. Gooper Blooper’s tentacles can be brutally severed by Mario, but only pulling on his mouth in the center to the point of snapping will defeat him, which proves to be an easier loophole in fighting him. Bowser’s robotic visage at Pinna Park has to be shot down with rockets while riding a rollercoaster, and the eel that causes Noki Bay to become sickly doesn’t attempt to eat Mario while he cleans his rotten teeth. The final fight against Bowser doesn’t involve physical contact like pulling his tail, but toppling over the giant, suspended bathtub he’s soaking himself in with rocket-boosted ass crashes at the four corners of its foundation. I appreciate the ingenuity of these encounters, but they are so unconventional that they lack the impact that a typical boss battle tends to have.
Summer vacation sucks, or that’s my clever tagline for Super Mario Sunshine. Surprisingly, a game involving Mario cleaning up sticky sullage on an unfamiliar island after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit doesn’t suck. As odd as Super Mario Sunshine appears, it still emanates the pervasive charm of the Super Mario series. Isle Delfino is as lively and captivating as the classic Mario setting we’re all familiar with and is the closest a Mario setting has come to coherent world-building, a vital step in progress for level design in a Mario game. Mario, as a character, literally makes leaps in progress by feeling as fluid as the water that jets out of his mechanical backpack buddy. He finally looks like we’ve all imagined him as a realistic human being. As much as Super Mario Sunshine attempts to separate itself from Super Mario 64, I can’t help but compare the two based on how radically the former builds on the latter’s foundation. 3D Mario’s footing that Super Mario 64 invented is reinvigorated to a point of not only competency but to a degree of excellency. Super Mario Sunshine’s creative ambition may have proved too big for its britches at certain points, but besides a few egregiously broken challenges, Super Mario Sunshine's differences preserve its intrigue. It’s funny to me that the irregular Super Mario Sunshine is a far more exemplary 3D Mario title than the game that translated all of Mario’s familiar hallmarks into 3D, but that’s the beauty of a sequel.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
I was a little worried when a sequel to Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was released in the short period after the release of the first game. The first Curse of the Moon was created as a lark, an appetizer to whet the appetites of what Igarashi thought would be the delicious main course (Ritual of the Night). He seemed to have underestimated the loud stomach growls of the 2D platformer Castlevania fans because people seemed to salivate more at the prospects of a game that emulated classic Castlevania. Once Ritual of the Night was released a year later after Curse of the Moon, it seemed like Igarashi’s work was done, and Castlevania fans could breathe a sigh of relief that the new Bloodstained IP released two games that covered all bases of the Castlevania experience. While browsing the PSN store for sales, coming across Curse of the Moon 2 unexpectedly made me facepalm. The gaming industry never knows when to quit. A fun little tribute to one of gaming’s most illustrious series is now its own franchise that seemed to be on the same path of fizzling out, eventually being forsaken like its inspiration. With the first game practically perfecting the flaws of the NES Castlevanias, a sequel seemed totally unnecessary for anything else but to milk the Castlevania fans dry. Because I am one of those fans, I decided to see if Curse of the Moon 2 was worthy of prolonging this revival franchise.
Direct sequels were not a common practice in Castlevania’s initial run. The first Castlevania was the only sequel that continued the story of the first game before the developers explored the realms of prequels, remakes, etc. Curse of the Moon 2 continues the story of the previous game, which only Simon’s Quest has done throughout Castlevania’s entire run. Some may also recognize familiar characters from Ritual of the Night, but Curse of the Moon 2’s continuity lies entirely with the previous Curse of the Moon title. Dominique, a central character from Ritual of the Night, uncovers a harrowing castle being constructed by the demon legions. She sets Bloodstained’s overzealous hunter Zangetsu up to the task as he and his team prepare to endure another eight levels to vanquish the demon lord. Curse of the Moon 2 does not offer an intricate story, nor does it retain an ongoing arc presented by the first game. However, it further solidifies Zangetsu’s role as the franchise's resident demon killer by continuing something already established.
Despite all the comparisons I’ve made so far, we can thank the lord that Curse of the Moon 2 is nothing like Simon’s Quest. The experimentation made to make Simon’s Quest discernable from the first Castlevania failed miserably, and Konami learned never to make that same mistake. I’m happy to report that Curse of the Moon 2 does not have Zangetsu visiting cookie cutter towns, being subject to jarring day and night transitions, or humorously giving bosses the cold shoulder like a scorned girlfriend. It was clear from the quality of the first Curse of the Moon that Igarashi knew which Castlevania games to emulate, and Simon’s Quest was not one of them. Curse of the Moon 2 is more of the fast-paced 2D platforming action like the previous title, and this sounds promising in theory. However, Curse of the Moon 2 is practically indiscernible from the first game to the point where I forgot that there was two Curse of the Moon games, and I wasn’t playing DLC. In fact, if someone made me do the Curse of the Moon Pepsi challenge with both games side by side, I’d probably guess the wrong one. Every single graphical and mechanical property returns without any differentiation. Classic 2D Castlevania wasn’t confined to the NES as the formula surpassed the 8-bit era with many entries. Why couldn’t Curse of the Moon 2 the presentation of a 16-bit game like Super Castlevania IV or Bloodlines? Blasphemous achieved this revival style only a year before Curse of the Moon 2, borrowing some obvious presentational influences from Rondo of Blood. Was there a crunch time that forced Igarashi to release each Bloodstained game each year after the first Curse of the Moon? I’d be more eager to play something in the vein of an untouched Castlevania aesthetic, but the reusing of 8-bit graphics here already sets a sense of fatigue.
The gameplay also has not changed in the slightest from the first game. If you like 8-bit Castlevania and were enthralled by the updated sheen of modern gaming hardware presented in the first Curse of the Moon, then the sequel will gladly not subvert your expectations. Considering how Curse of the Moon 2 makes no effort to expand on the foundation of the first game, the same gameplay was to be expected. The one aspect Curse of the Moon 2 takes to at least deviate slightly from the first game is offering a whole new roster of characters for Zangetsu’s posse. Three new faces offer their services to our protagonist as the three previous characters did, but with an entirely different array of skills. Dominique jumps with less gravity than Miriam before her, but her choice of weapon with a long range of attack is a spear instead of a whip. The spear’s base movement feels more restrained than the whip. Still, it compensates for this by acting as a pogo stick that attacks enemies from above like Shovel Knight (or Duck Tales, the specific inspiration referenced in Shovel Knight). She also serves as the team healer with her special moves, giving an individual character a smidge of health or resurrecting them after they’ve died. Robert is an old gunslinger whose bullets do middling damage but compensate heavily with their high range. Lastly, everyone’s favorite new addition to the roster (me included) is Hachi, a corgi that pilots a burly mech suit. Besides the obvious reason this little scamp has dazzled every player, the mech suit can glide, has twice as much health, and its bulky nature makes it less susceptible to blowback coil upon taking damage. I’m impressed that the developers conjured up three more characters that fit a unique team dynamic like the ones in the first game, but it's far more unbalanced here. I never wanted to stop playing as Hachi because he became an overpowered crutch, which made the points where I couldn’t play as him more difficult than losing a character in the first game.
A nitpick I had with the first Curse of the Moon was that it wasn’t too difficult. I’ve aired my grievances about how relentless classic Castlevania is, but the difficulty is one of the most vital factors in recreating a genuine Castlevania experience. Refinement inherently makes the experience smoother, but separating the blowback mechanic from the regular difficulty settings will naturally entice even experienced players into making the game more facile. Curse of the Moon 2 finally makes an effort to evolve the first game by more accurately exuding the feeling of “NES hard”. The player no longer has the option of pussyfooting through “veteran” difficulty by omitting the blowback feature, as Curse of the Moon 2 makes it requisite for the normal difficulty. The levels also accommodate a sturdier challenge by offering more calamitous sections with more bottomless pits and crowded screens. Difficulty curves progress gradually, even though the fiery fifth level, “Chains of Fire,” feels leagues harder than the previous level. Some screens are so chaotic that they can extinguish all four characters in a flash if the player isn’t careful. Alternate paths are almost places of respite, but they are even harder to access because they all involve Dominique pogoing off a series of candles, which is always finicky. While I felt tenser and more frustrated with Curse of the Moon 2 than its predecessor, I rarely ever felt cheated by any inconvenient deaths or was too overwhelmed by what I was facing, unlike in Castlevania III. The game presents the player with plenty of support to make sure they stave off getting decimated. The asinine score from the first game has shifted into an extra life bar fueled by every source of points. Checkpoints are made clearer and are represented by taller candles that ignite upon contact, like the checkpoints in Shovel Knight. The only difference is that I’d never chance to break the checkpoints in Curse of the Moon 2 for extra rewards.
Curse of the Moon 2’s bosses is also more defined. Each boss in the first game’s health bar was obscured, causing the player to hack away at them in a frenzy. Visually apparent health bars accompany every boss in Curse of the Moon 2 so that the player will know how much health a boss has and how much damage they are doing to it. Thank God the developers decided to change this because they’ve amplified the overall difficulty of the bosses. Even if the player could go to town on these bosses with Zangetsu’s sword, the bosses do not present a copious window of time to do so as the player must wait for golden opportunities to attack. Every boss in Curse of the Moon 2 is guilty of this, whether it be the ghoulish tongue of the Drago-Symbiote or the fiery phallic point of the Gladiator Dozer. Still, the worst offender is Titankhamun, the ancient Egyptian-inspired boss of the sixth level. This colossal-sized sarcophagus cannot be reached unless the player jumps onto quickly moving platforms that emerge from the sand. Their position on these platforms will most likely be compromised by the onslaught of projectiles from every corner of the screen. As a frame of reference, Gremory, the final boss of the first game, offers his first phase again as a boss in this game, and the player will notice how easy defeating him is compared to the new bosses.
Curse of the Moon 2 is also meant to be replayed more than once, and it finally gives the player some incentive. The developers implored the player to finish the first Curse of the Moon multiple times, but playing through the same game to achieve middling rewards was not worth the effort. Finishing Curse of the Moon 2 once will unlock more “episodes” that involve different circumstances. Unlike the different outcomes of playing the first game, these episodes streamline the process of receiving a new ending. If the player collects the pieces of a mystical sword called the “Zanmatou” across corners of three levels, this will unlock something totally unexpected from this series or Castlevania for that matter. Zangetsu and company will prepare their launch to the moon via a space shooter sequence that feels as out of place as the one from No More Heroes. The final chapter involves a random roulette of every character across both games to face the real final boss. Curse of the Moon 2 offers much more than the first game, but the means to unlock all of it is ultimately the same tedious process. The player should be able to collect all of the Zanmatou parts during their first playthrough to unlock the full ending as an addendum, but the developers did not think this through.
I really don’t have much to say about Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 because it’s almost the same game as the first Curse of the Moon. My fears were affirmed as Curse of the Moon 2 does not make any progress from the first game. Doing so might have been a hard task considering the first game was already the pinnacle of Castlevania. Hence, the only way Curse of the Moon 2 would stand out was to borrow the aesthetics of a 16-bit Castlevania game or at least ground that hadn’t been tested yet. The developers, however, thought it would be better to churn out the same game and hope for the same impact, but it never works like this. The only discernible appeal that Curse of the Moon offers is a higher difficulty curve and new characters, but they aren’t enough to justify the game’s existence. The Bloodstained franchise reminds me more of Mega Man than Castlevania, a series of 8-bit 2D platformers on the NES that burned itself out by releasing too many formulaic titles. If the potential Curse of the Moon 3 ever exists and it looks exactly like the first two, I will be forever shaking my head in disappointment. If you liked the first Curse of the Moon, Curse of the Moon 2 offers the same quality Castlevania tribute, but I’m not as easily pleased.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Direct sequels were not a common practice in Castlevania’s initial run. The first Castlevania was the only sequel that continued the story of the first game before the developers explored the realms of prequels, remakes, etc. Curse of the Moon 2 continues the story of the previous game, which only Simon’s Quest has done throughout Castlevania’s entire run. Some may also recognize familiar characters from Ritual of the Night, but Curse of the Moon 2’s continuity lies entirely with the previous Curse of the Moon title. Dominique, a central character from Ritual of the Night, uncovers a harrowing castle being constructed by the demon legions. She sets Bloodstained’s overzealous hunter Zangetsu up to the task as he and his team prepare to endure another eight levels to vanquish the demon lord. Curse of the Moon 2 does not offer an intricate story, nor does it retain an ongoing arc presented by the first game. However, it further solidifies Zangetsu’s role as the franchise's resident demon killer by continuing something already established.
Despite all the comparisons I’ve made so far, we can thank the lord that Curse of the Moon 2 is nothing like Simon’s Quest. The experimentation made to make Simon’s Quest discernable from the first Castlevania failed miserably, and Konami learned never to make that same mistake. I’m happy to report that Curse of the Moon 2 does not have Zangetsu visiting cookie cutter towns, being subject to jarring day and night transitions, or humorously giving bosses the cold shoulder like a scorned girlfriend. It was clear from the quality of the first Curse of the Moon that Igarashi knew which Castlevania games to emulate, and Simon’s Quest was not one of them. Curse of the Moon 2 is more of the fast-paced 2D platforming action like the previous title, and this sounds promising in theory. However, Curse of the Moon 2 is practically indiscernible from the first game to the point where I forgot that there was two Curse of the Moon games, and I wasn’t playing DLC. In fact, if someone made me do the Curse of the Moon Pepsi challenge with both games side by side, I’d probably guess the wrong one. Every single graphical and mechanical property returns without any differentiation. Classic 2D Castlevania wasn’t confined to the NES as the formula surpassed the 8-bit era with many entries. Why couldn’t Curse of the Moon 2 the presentation of a 16-bit game like Super Castlevania IV or Bloodlines? Blasphemous achieved this revival style only a year before Curse of the Moon 2, borrowing some obvious presentational influences from Rondo of Blood. Was there a crunch time that forced Igarashi to release each Bloodstained game each year after the first Curse of the Moon? I’d be more eager to play something in the vein of an untouched Castlevania aesthetic, but the reusing of 8-bit graphics here already sets a sense of fatigue.
The gameplay also has not changed in the slightest from the first game. If you like 8-bit Castlevania and were enthralled by the updated sheen of modern gaming hardware presented in the first Curse of the Moon, then the sequel will gladly not subvert your expectations. Considering how Curse of the Moon 2 makes no effort to expand on the foundation of the first game, the same gameplay was to be expected. The one aspect Curse of the Moon 2 takes to at least deviate slightly from the first game is offering a whole new roster of characters for Zangetsu’s posse. Three new faces offer their services to our protagonist as the three previous characters did, but with an entirely different array of skills. Dominique jumps with less gravity than Miriam before her, but her choice of weapon with a long range of attack is a spear instead of a whip. The spear’s base movement feels more restrained than the whip. Still, it compensates for this by acting as a pogo stick that attacks enemies from above like Shovel Knight (or Duck Tales, the specific inspiration referenced in Shovel Knight). She also serves as the team healer with her special moves, giving an individual character a smidge of health or resurrecting them after they’ve died. Robert is an old gunslinger whose bullets do middling damage but compensate heavily with their high range. Lastly, everyone’s favorite new addition to the roster (me included) is Hachi, a corgi that pilots a burly mech suit. Besides the obvious reason this little scamp has dazzled every player, the mech suit can glide, has twice as much health, and its bulky nature makes it less susceptible to blowback coil upon taking damage. I’m impressed that the developers conjured up three more characters that fit a unique team dynamic like the ones in the first game, but it's far more unbalanced here. I never wanted to stop playing as Hachi because he became an overpowered crutch, which made the points where I couldn’t play as him more difficult than losing a character in the first game.
A nitpick I had with the first Curse of the Moon was that it wasn’t too difficult. I’ve aired my grievances about how relentless classic Castlevania is, but the difficulty is one of the most vital factors in recreating a genuine Castlevania experience. Refinement inherently makes the experience smoother, but separating the blowback mechanic from the regular difficulty settings will naturally entice even experienced players into making the game more facile. Curse of the Moon 2 finally makes an effort to evolve the first game by more accurately exuding the feeling of “NES hard”. The player no longer has the option of pussyfooting through “veteran” difficulty by omitting the blowback feature, as Curse of the Moon 2 makes it requisite for the normal difficulty. The levels also accommodate a sturdier challenge by offering more calamitous sections with more bottomless pits and crowded screens. Difficulty curves progress gradually, even though the fiery fifth level, “Chains of Fire,” feels leagues harder than the previous level. Some screens are so chaotic that they can extinguish all four characters in a flash if the player isn’t careful. Alternate paths are almost places of respite, but they are even harder to access because they all involve Dominique pogoing off a series of candles, which is always finicky. While I felt tenser and more frustrated with Curse of the Moon 2 than its predecessor, I rarely ever felt cheated by any inconvenient deaths or was too overwhelmed by what I was facing, unlike in Castlevania III. The game presents the player with plenty of support to make sure they stave off getting decimated. The asinine score from the first game has shifted into an extra life bar fueled by every source of points. Checkpoints are made clearer and are represented by taller candles that ignite upon contact, like the checkpoints in Shovel Knight. The only difference is that I’d never chance to break the checkpoints in Curse of the Moon 2 for extra rewards.
Curse of the Moon 2’s bosses is also more defined. Each boss in the first game’s health bar was obscured, causing the player to hack away at them in a frenzy. Visually apparent health bars accompany every boss in Curse of the Moon 2 so that the player will know how much health a boss has and how much damage they are doing to it. Thank God the developers decided to change this because they’ve amplified the overall difficulty of the bosses. Even if the player could go to town on these bosses with Zangetsu’s sword, the bosses do not present a copious window of time to do so as the player must wait for golden opportunities to attack. Every boss in Curse of the Moon 2 is guilty of this, whether it be the ghoulish tongue of the Drago-Symbiote or the fiery phallic point of the Gladiator Dozer. Still, the worst offender is Titankhamun, the ancient Egyptian-inspired boss of the sixth level. This colossal-sized sarcophagus cannot be reached unless the player jumps onto quickly moving platforms that emerge from the sand. Their position on these platforms will most likely be compromised by the onslaught of projectiles from every corner of the screen. As a frame of reference, Gremory, the final boss of the first game, offers his first phase again as a boss in this game, and the player will notice how easy defeating him is compared to the new bosses.
Curse of the Moon 2 is also meant to be replayed more than once, and it finally gives the player some incentive. The developers implored the player to finish the first Curse of the Moon multiple times, but playing through the same game to achieve middling rewards was not worth the effort. Finishing Curse of the Moon 2 once will unlock more “episodes” that involve different circumstances. Unlike the different outcomes of playing the first game, these episodes streamline the process of receiving a new ending. If the player collects the pieces of a mystical sword called the “Zanmatou” across corners of three levels, this will unlock something totally unexpected from this series or Castlevania for that matter. Zangetsu and company will prepare their launch to the moon via a space shooter sequence that feels as out of place as the one from No More Heroes. The final chapter involves a random roulette of every character across both games to face the real final boss. Curse of the Moon 2 offers much more than the first game, but the means to unlock all of it is ultimately the same tedious process. The player should be able to collect all of the Zanmatou parts during their first playthrough to unlock the full ending as an addendum, but the developers did not think this through.
I really don’t have much to say about Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 because it’s almost the same game as the first Curse of the Moon. My fears were affirmed as Curse of the Moon 2 does not make any progress from the first game. Doing so might have been a hard task considering the first game was already the pinnacle of Castlevania. Hence, the only way Curse of the Moon 2 would stand out was to borrow the aesthetics of a 16-bit Castlevania game or at least ground that hadn’t been tested yet. The developers, however, thought it would be better to churn out the same game and hope for the same impact, but it never works like this. The only discernible appeal that Curse of the Moon offers is a higher difficulty curve and new characters, but they aren’t enough to justify the game’s existence. The Bloodstained franchise reminds me more of Mega Man than Castlevania, a series of 8-bit 2D platformers on the NES that burned itself out by releasing too many formulaic titles. If the potential Curse of the Moon 3 ever exists and it looks exactly like the first two, I will be forever shaking my head in disappointment. If you liked the first Curse of the Moon, Curse of the Moon 2 offers the same quality Castlevania tribute, but I’m not as easily pleased.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
“Where has my dear Castlevania gone?” cried the fans of the once glorious gaming franchise that helped define the challenging 2D platformer during gaming’s formative years. At first, these were the teary-eyed yelps of old-school Castlevania fans who longed for another 2D Castlevania game after the Metroidvania and 3D action games eclipsed any need to recall the roots of the franchise with a more traditional title. Nowadays, the once smugly satisfied Castlevania fans who preferred the Metroidvania titles are left in the dark like the old-school fans before them. Castlevania has been forsaken by Konami since Order of Ecclesia on the DS in 2008, neglecting one of the most gilded franchises in gaming with a consistent output of exceptional games. The presence of glossy, high-budget triple-A games that defined the late 2000s might have deterred Konami from producing more Castlevania games. Still, the following generation appreciated the artistry of the minimal quirks in retro games, sparking a renaissance of retro revival titles in the indie circuit. Unfortunately, Konami still didn’t jump at the opportunity to reinvigorate its franchise as the company had shifted its priorities from making games, much to the chagrin of its fans. Hope was not lost, however, as Koji Igarashi, director of Symphony of the Night, stepped in as the savior for the deferred hopes and dreams of Castlevania fans. Igarashi’s revitalization project came in Bloodstained: the spiritual successor to Castlevania, with an initiative to spotlight the classic titles of the series. The first title released in Igarashi’s multi-phased plan to satiate the forlorn Castlevania fans with a new IP was Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, an 8-bit 2D sidescroller intended to emulate the earliest Castlevania games on the NES. Initially, Igarashi planned to first release Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a specific spiritual successor to his own project of Symphony of the Night, but the support for Curse of the Moon on its Kickstarter page was so overwhelmingly positive that Igarashi decided to prioritize the project over his original one. Curse of the Moon reminds us why the Castlevania series was so successful during the 8-bit era.
While other retro revival games like Shovel Knight borrow properties from many 8-bit era games, Curse of the Moon is a shameless Castlevania clone. In fact, Curse of the Moon looks like Castlevania has been relocated via the most half-assed witness protection agency that just changed their last name by one syllable and made their client wear a fake mustache, promising no one would know the difference. Igarashi knows what Castlevania fans have been bereft of for all this time and was evidently willing to provide it, even if his lack of legal rights to the Castlevania name would bring Konami’s cracked legal team to rain fury upon him. Indiscernibility in a spiritual successor of this magnitude has to rely on the changing of names to avoid accusations of plagiarism, and that’s ultimately what separates Castlevania from Bloodstained. For one, the main protagonist is not a blonde-haired, Eastern-European warrior wielding a whip but a swordsman named Zangetsu. Dracula is no longer the prime terror of the night, and neither is any other classic horror monster due to Castlevania already bogarting all of them for themselves. Instead, Zangetsu’s enemies are demons, a nebulous scourge of evil with loads of varied design potential. Whereas the Belmont family rids the land of Dracula’s presence out of obligation, Zangetsu is on a passionate mission to enact revenge against the demons who have cursed him, with the archdemon Gremory being the primary target at the end of the game.
One of the perks of modern gaming harkening back to simpler eras is the benefit of graphical progress. Someone might think this would be superfluous when crafting a game with 8-bit graphics, but they would fail to understand the benefits of hindsight. 8-bit graphics on the NES weren’t just primitive because their crude rigidity lacked a sense of realism. Still, they also tended to be murky and monocolored, making the individual pixels of characters, background and foregrounds indiscernible. The Castlevania games were exemplary titles that used color contrasts for graphical discernibility and to make the game more visually striking but still faltered with some unrefined spots in the foregrounds. Curse of the Moon amplifies the impressive graphical groundwork laid out by the NES Castlevania games to a staggering degree, greatly surpassing the limited capabilities of the NES. Sprite work in Curse of the Moon is so crisply detailed that it practically ascends 8-bit graphics (10-bit?). Color contrasts between the foregrounds and backgrounds are noticeable, but we’ve moved past the era where this was needed for the player’s sense of discernibility. The ice cave at the end of “Frigid Hell” is one deep, cold color of blue, but no pixel is undetectable by the naked eye. I’m so impressed by how the developers crafted the pixel art so expertly here that I feel there is a magical secret they’re keeping from us.
Zangetsu seemingly doesn’t play like a Belmont, but his gameplay echoes the same basic principles of an NES Castlevania game. Jumping is done singularly and has a stilted range of trajectory. Destroying the candles strewn across the land nets the player with additional weapons and ammunition for them. Hearts normally used as ammunition have shifted back to a logical sense of healing items. Ammo is restored with a blue elixir in a few different quantities. However, Curse of the Moon still carries the Castlevania tradition of breaking through walls for big health items, only they are larger hearts instead of roasts. Despite everything here being a clear translation, Zangetsu’s gameplay in combat is too dissimilar to Simon or Trevor. The signature Belmont whip is a fantastic tool for close-quarters combat because it provides players with enough range to keep themselves from harm. Zangetsu’s samurai sword does not require the wind-up that the whip does, but the piddly range for close-range combat puts the player at a greater risk of taking damage. His special weapons increase his range and attack power, but only to a certain extent. Zangetsu isn’t as ideal of a base character to introduce the player compared to Simon.
Luckily, if the player doesn’t care for Zangetsu’s restrained moveset, the game soon offers alternatives for the player. People often compare Curse of the Moon to Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, and the multiple character options are why. After defeating the first three bosses of the game, a character with their own unique movesets will accompany Zangetsu on his quest, even if the man is shockingly hostile towards them. Miriam will feel more familiar with the veteran Castlevania player because she brandishes a whip with the same pullback and trajectory. Her higher jump ability and strong, versatile range of special weapons make her my frontline character over Zangetsu immediately. Alfred is an old wizard who lacks the base attack range and defense of the other characters. However, he compensates for his frailty with staggering magic. I’d go so far as to state that his magic is borderline game-breaking like Syphas was. Lastly, Alucard Gebel is the supernatural wildcard with the ability to literally fly through levels by transforming into a bat. Grant from Castlevania III is the only character not to be imitated by a clone here, probably because his climbing mechanic was broken, and years of hindsight decided it wasn’t worth improving upon. I never found myself switching from character to character in Castlevania III because the shift was a pace-breaking slog, but all four characters transition beautifully at any given point. If the player prefers to stick with one character for better familiarity, Zangetsu can also kill the other characters and absorb their strengths, rectifying his deficient range.
The specific comparisons between Castlevania III and Curse of the Moon do not end at the characters. Castlevania III was advanced enough to where the player could take alternate forks in the road between the levels. This method of progression fostered plenty of replayability, but I think Curse of the Moon’s method of oscillating pathways is more nuanced. The level design in the NES Castlevanias tended to be relatively linear until a boss encounter, mostly due to hardware restrictions. In Curse of the Moon, multiple paths arrive at the same place, but the game rewards the player for making the extra effort to attempt the alternate way. Normally it would be impolite to point, but the skeletons lying on the ground use their bony fingers to direct the player towards the alternate path. If the player follows their directions, they can bypass the longer route with more enemies and other calamitous features. However, the challenge with directing towards that path isn’t missing the skeletons but not having the character that can go there. Alternate paths are usually locked by character-specific obstacles like high ledges and firey stone demons. If that character is unavailable, the player is forced to take the more treacherous route. This design philosophy makes the player consider the collective characters more as a unit than picking their favorite for the game's duration.
The team-like unit persists with Curse of the Moon’s difficulty. This factor does not draw comparisons to Castlevania III because Curse of the Moon is a cakewalk compared to the hardest NES Castlevania game. Difficulty options are available at the start of the game, and normal difficulty will suffice for even those who have never played a classic Castlevania title. It’s funny to me how the legendary knockback malady that makes Castlevania so difficult is a separate feature that is optional to the player, like putting hot sauce on your breakfast eggs for that extra kick. I’m no Castlevania noob, so I picked this feature to uphold my credentials. Yet, I never became frustrated with the knockback, unlike so many instances in the Castlevania games. Zangetsu and his team apparently have more resilience than the Belmont clan, which is both a blessing and a curse. The difficulty of Curse of the Moon is again based on the absence of one of the four characters. Each has its own life bar, so once they die, the other characters can take their place after the game sets them back. Losing all four characters will cost the player a life, and the checkpoint will bring them back even further. Depending on the situation, the player might be screwed if they need a certain character. I made my other character commit suicide to bring them all back. It costs a life, but the game is pretty generous with them. I clamored for an easier Castlevania game while driving myself insane playing them, but Curse of the Moon feels like a regrettable wish being fulfilled.
A factor of Curse of the Moon that is more character specific than traversing through the levels is the bosses. The monstrous enemies at the end of each level are personal highlights in my regard. While I appreciated the tributes to classic horror monsters that every boss in Castlevania represented, I realized that this inhibited the creativity of the boss designs. No boss is like the other, and they all range in scope and size. A few personal favorites are the golden Valefar from a design standpoint and the bipedal electric lizard Bathin for accompanying every character’s moves to win his fight. Bathin is somewhat of an exception, however, as most other bosses seem to be character specific. How the hell is Zangetsu supposed to reach the flying Andrealphus? If he’s your last character, suicide is the only option, and that shouldn’t be the case. Even the final boss, Gremory, seems to only favor Miriam without using a shit load of magic with the other characters. Bosses tend to eat up lives at an alarming rate because of this.
At the end of the first natural playthrough with all four characters, Zangetsu fulfills his character arc by sacrificing himself to save the rest of the characters. Upon meeting them, his hostility stemmed from their relations to the demon scourge he longed to rid. As the game progresses, he starts to feel companionship towards them and judges those by their character, not their background. It's a surprisingly deep ending for an 8-bit game, but Curse of the Moon is far from over. Completing the game once will unlock a different gameplay mode where the three characters save Zangetsu from Gremory’s influence, but it requires playing the game again. In fact, all other alternative playthroughs involve playing the game again with only slightly different parameters. One more playthrough may be nice, but the six it takes to unlock every ending gets grating after playing through the same game multiple times.
As someone who greatly appreciates the NES Castlevania games and their impact on gaming, Curse of the Moon is a delightful return to form. It checks off all the boxes I wished were present in those games, but I understood clearly why my grievances with those games couldn’t have been placated. Years of progress in the gaming medium now allow developers to fix those mistakes and add an extra layer of polish to make the end product more attractive than it ever could in the 1980s. My small spots of dissatisfaction with Curse of the Moon might just stem from being jaded. Curse of the Moon is the greatest NES-era Castlevania that is neither a Castlevania game nor an NES game. It’s the fully realized product that Castlevania III intended to be.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
While other retro revival games like Shovel Knight borrow properties from many 8-bit era games, Curse of the Moon is a shameless Castlevania clone. In fact, Curse of the Moon looks like Castlevania has been relocated via the most half-assed witness protection agency that just changed their last name by one syllable and made their client wear a fake mustache, promising no one would know the difference. Igarashi knows what Castlevania fans have been bereft of for all this time and was evidently willing to provide it, even if his lack of legal rights to the Castlevania name would bring Konami’s cracked legal team to rain fury upon him. Indiscernibility in a spiritual successor of this magnitude has to rely on the changing of names to avoid accusations of plagiarism, and that’s ultimately what separates Castlevania from Bloodstained. For one, the main protagonist is not a blonde-haired, Eastern-European warrior wielding a whip but a swordsman named Zangetsu. Dracula is no longer the prime terror of the night, and neither is any other classic horror monster due to Castlevania already bogarting all of them for themselves. Instead, Zangetsu’s enemies are demons, a nebulous scourge of evil with loads of varied design potential. Whereas the Belmont family rids the land of Dracula’s presence out of obligation, Zangetsu is on a passionate mission to enact revenge against the demons who have cursed him, with the archdemon Gremory being the primary target at the end of the game.
One of the perks of modern gaming harkening back to simpler eras is the benefit of graphical progress. Someone might think this would be superfluous when crafting a game with 8-bit graphics, but they would fail to understand the benefits of hindsight. 8-bit graphics on the NES weren’t just primitive because their crude rigidity lacked a sense of realism. Still, they also tended to be murky and monocolored, making the individual pixels of characters, background and foregrounds indiscernible. The Castlevania games were exemplary titles that used color contrasts for graphical discernibility and to make the game more visually striking but still faltered with some unrefined spots in the foregrounds. Curse of the Moon amplifies the impressive graphical groundwork laid out by the NES Castlevania games to a staggering degree, greatly surpassing the limited capabilities of the NES. Sprite work in Curse of the Moon is so crisply detailed that it practically ascends 8-bit graphics (10-bit?). Color contrasts between the foregrounds and backgrounds are noticeable, but we’ve moved past the era where this was needed for the player’s sense of discernibility. The ice cave at the end of “Frigid Hell” is one deep, cold color of blue, but no pixel is undetectable by the naked eye. I’m so impressed by how the developers crafted the pixel art so expertly here that I feel there is a magical secret they’re keeping from us.
Zangetsu seemingly doesn’t play like a Belmont, but his gameplay echoes the same basic principles of an NES Castlevania game. Jumping is done singularly and has a stilted range of trajectory. Destroying the candles strewn across the land nets the player with additional weapons and ammunition for them. Hearts normally used as ammunition have shifted back to a logical sense of healing items. Ammo is restored with a blue elixir in a few different quantities. However, Curse of the Moon still carries the Castlevania tradition of breaking through walls for big health items, only they are larger hearts instead of roasts. Despite everything here being a clear translation, Zangetsu’s gameplay in combat is too dissimilar to Simon or Trevor. The signature Belmont whip is a fantastic tool for close-quarters combat because it provides players with enough range to keep themselves from harm. Zangetsu’s samurai sword does not require the wind-up that the whip does, but the piddly range for close-range combat puts the player at a greater risk of taking damage. His special weapons increase his range and attack power, but only to a certain extent. Zangetsu isn’t as ideal of a base character to introduce the player compared to Simon.
Luckily, if the player doesn’t care for Zangetsu’s restrained moveset, the game soon offers alternatives for the player. People often compare Curse of the Moon to Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, and the multiple character options are why. After defeating the first three bosses of the game, a character with their own unique movesets will accompany Zangetsu on his quest, even if the man is shockingly hostile towards them. Miriam will feel more familiar with the veteran Castlevania player because she brandishes a whip with the same pullback and trajectory. Her higher jump ability and strong, versatile range of special weapons make her my frontline character over Zangetsu immediately. Alfred is an old wizard who lacks the base attack range and defense of the other characters. However, he compensates for his frailty with staggering magic. I’d go so far as to state that his magic is borderline game-breaking like Syphas was. Lastly, Alucard Gebel is the supernatural wildcard with the ability to literally fly through levels by transforming into a bat. Grant from Castlevania III is the only character not to be imitated by a clone here, probably because his climbing mechanic was broken, and years of hindsight decided it wasn’t worth improving upon. I never found myself switching from character to character in Castlevania III because the shift was a pace-breaking slog, but all four characters transition beautifully at any given point. If the player prefers to stick with one character for better familiarity, Zangetsu can also kill the other characters and absorb their strengths, rectifying his deficient range.
The specific comparisons between Castlevania III and Curse of the Moon do not end at the characters. Castlevania III was advanced enough to where the player could take alternate forks in the road between the levels. This method of progression fostered plenty of replayability, but I think Curse of the Moon’s method of oscillating pathways is more nuanced. The level design in the NES Castlevanias tended to be relatively linear until a boss encounter, mostly due to hardware restrictions. In Curse of the Moon, multiple paths arrive at the same place, but the game rewards the player for making the extra effort to attempt the alternate way. Normally it would be impolite to point, but the skeletons lying on the ground use their bony fingers to direct the player towards the alternate path. If the player follows their directions, they can bypass the longer route with more enemies and other calamitous features. However, the challenge with directing towards that path isn’t missing the skeletons but not having the character that can go there. Alternate paths are usually locked by character-specific obstacles like high ledges and firey stone demons. If that character is unavailable, the player is forced to take the more treacherous route. This design philosophy makes the player consider the collective characters more as a unit than picking their favorite for the game's duration.
The team-like unit persists with Curse of the Moon’s difficulty. This factor does not draw comparisons to Castlevania III because Curse of the Moon is a cakewalk compared to the hardest NES Castlevania game. Difficulty options are available at the start of the game, and normal difficulty will suffice for even those who have never played a classic Castlevania title. It’s funny to me how the legendary knockback malady that makes Castlevania so difficult is a separate feature that is optional to the player, like putting hot sauce on your breakfast eggs for that extra kick. I’m no Castlevania noob, so I picked this feature to uphold my credentials. Yet, I never became frustrated with the knockback, unlike so many instances in the Castlevania games. Zangetsu and his team apparently have more resilience than the Belmont clan, which is both a blessing and a curse. The difficulty of Curse of the Moon is again based on the absence of one of the four characters. Each has its own life bar, so once they die, the other characters can take their place after the game sets them back. Losing all four characters will cost the player a life, and the checkpoint will bring them back even further. Depending on the situation, the player might be screwed if they need a certain character. I made my other character commit suicide to bring them all back. It costs a life, but the game is pretty generous with them. I clamored for an easier Castlevania game while driving myself insane playing them, but Curse of the Moon feels like a regrettable wish being fulfilled.
A factor of Curse of the Moon that is more character specific than traversing through the levels is the bosses. The monstrous enemies at the end of each level are personal highlights in my regard. While I appreciated the tributes to classic horror monsters that every boss in Castlevania represented, I realized that this inhibited the creativity of the boss designs. No boss is like the other, and they all range in scope and size. A few personal favorites are the golden Valefar from a design standpoint and the bipedal electric lizard Bathin for accompanying every character’s moves to win his fight. Bathin is somewhat of an exception, however, as most other bosses seem to be character specific. How the hell is Zangetsu supposed to reach the flying Andrealphus? If he’s your last character, suicide is the only option, and that shouldn’t be the case. Even the final boss, Gremory, seems to only favor Miriam without using a shit load of magic with the other characters. Bosses tend to eat up lives at an alarming rate because of this.
At the end of the first natural playthrough with all four characters, Zangetsu fulfills his character arc by sacrificing himself to save the rest of the characters. Upon meeting them, his hostility stemmed from their relations to the demon scourge he longed to rid. As the game progresses, he starts to feel companionship towards them and judges those by their character, not their background. It's a surprisingly deep ending for an 8-bit game, but Curse of the Moon is far from over. Completing the game once will unlock a different gameplay mode where the three characters save Zangetsu from Gremory’s influence, but it requires playing the game again. In fact, all other alternative playthroughs involve playing the game again with only slightly different parameters. One more playthrough may be nice, but the six it takes to unlock every ending gets grating after playing through the same game multiple times.
As someone who greatly appreciates the NES Castlevania games and their impact on gaming, Curse of the Moon is a delightful return to form. It checks off all the boxes I wished were present in those games, but I understood clearly why my grievances with those games couldn’t have been placated. Years of progress in the gaming medium now allow developers to fix those mistakes and add an extra layer of polish to make the end product more attractive than it ever could in the 1980s. My small spots of dissatisfaction with Curse of the Moon might just stem from being jaded. Curse of the Moon is the greatest NES-era Castlevania that is neither a Castlevania game nor an NES game. It’s the fully realized product that Castlevania III intended to be.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
2021
This review contains spoilers
Back in 2012, seven years and one whole generation of gaming after the release of Psychonauts, my neighbor in high school had taken to Twitter to express a yearning for the eventual release of a sequel to this 3D platformer cult classic. Somehow, none other than the gaming auteur extraordinaire behind Psychonauts, Tim Schaffer, was looking through tweets relating to his brainchild that evening and replied to my neighbor's tweet, assuring him that all hope for a sequel was not lost. The attention from Tim was exciting enough, but receiving a glimmer of confidence that his wishes for a follow-up to one of his favorite games straight from the proverbial horse's mouth were a life-affirming experience. Upon seeing this conversation chain on Twitter, I was in awe that Tim Schaffer took the time to reply to my neighbor. Still, I was sure Tim was merely humoring him regarding Double Fine developing a long-awaited sequel to Psychonauts. Tim surely knows it’s a poor PR move to disappoint the faithful, albeit baseless and overly optimistic, wishes of his fans via social media interactions. However, by the 2010s, Double Fine seemed to have lost its luster in putting in its best creative efforts for every subsequent release. The impact of every game the company released over that decade amounted to nothing, like a tepid splash of tossing a pebble into a reservoir. Nine years after this moment and sixteen years after the release of Psychonauts, it turns out that my cynicism had gotten the best of me and Tim’s reply tweet was a genuine hint of what he and his team at Double Fine were developing for so many years. The long-awaited sequel to Double Fine’s magnum opus was finally released in 2021. It's the first continued property Tim Schaffer released throughout his entire career that allowed him to reap the benefits of his hard work. Fans of the first game were ecstatic, but I retained my skepticism. The first Psychonauts has a monumental significance to the 3D platformer genre, and its estranged sequel is needed to prove its worth.
Fortunately, the existence of Psychonauts 2 never felt shoehorned into the narrative like many other sequels do. The first game ended on a bit of a cliffhanger with Lily’s father, the leader of the Psychonauts, being captured by psychic terrorists, calling the rest of his squadron into action and giving Raz his first job as a certified Psychonaut. The opening sequence finds Raz in a cubicle, lulling the player into thinking that the precocious Razputin has trapped himself into a mind-numbing desk job after vying so passionately to enter the adult Psychonaut world. It is soon revealed that this is merely part of the psychological construct in the mind of Dr. Loboto, the twisted dental surgeon from the previous game. Raz, with the help of agents Nein and Vodello, are digging through the mind of the shower cap-wearing madman to find out who hired him to kidnap their leader and harvest his brain. The results of Loboto’s mind are inconclusive, but they do lead to shocking new intel about the resurrection of Maligula: a cataclysmic force of nature and the oldest enemy of the Psychonauts. Sasha keeps interrogating Loboto while the rest of the Psychonauts agency is on lockdown, for there is a mole in the agency working to undermine the Psychonauts with the resurrection of Maligula. Among all the strained circumstances, Raz has to hurdle over the next level of bureaucratic constraints that hinder his progress in becoming a Psychonaut agent: the Psychonauts intern program.
Psychonauts 2 may take place mere days after the events of the first game, but the presentation of the game is indicative of how long it’s really been since we’ve last seen Raz and the rest of the cerebral special forces. The first Psychonauts game was admittedly not the most appealing game of its era in terms of its visuals. Its graphics weren’t underdeveloped, but the rough-hewn, borderline expressionist approach to the animated aesthetic divided people into two sides, with one side adoring the visual quirks. At the same time, the other thought it was rather ugly. I’m in the former camp, and I worried that almost two decades of graphical progress would sterilize one of the most charming aspects of the first Psychonauts. Psychonaut 2’s graphics are miles sharper and cleaner as expected, but the impressive factor that Psychonauts 2 achieved was using years of graphical advancements to refine the first game’s idiosyncratic style rather than dilute it to a point of “ exceptional objective quality.” Psychonauts 2 looks almost exactly like its predecessor, but that high-definition visual sheen makes a world of difference. The misshapen, globular textures of both the character models and the foregrounds have been refined to a point of silky smoothness. The characters are far more animated than they ever were because the cinematics of Psychonauts 2 looks up to par with a computer-animated film. All the while, they still retain that claymation-esque charm that made the first game appealing. For the latter camp who were irked by Double Fine’s crude artistry, the fuzziness that might have marred the graphics in the first game has been polished to the point where there is no indiscernibility in the foregrounds. Psychonauts 2’s graphics have ascended past the acquired taste graphics of the first game into something that rivals any modern Hollywood animation studio.
Psychonauts' controls, however, were not an acquired taste that I found endearing. The stiff, finicky platforming and combat controls were always awkward and inadvertently exposed Double Fine’s inexperience in developing games for the 3D platformer genre. I forgave Double Fine’s modest efforts because the entire Psychonauts experience was substantial in every other department. In saying that, there is a solid reason as to why the platforming-intensive “Meat Circus” level from the first game is so maligned as it is. Using the first Psychonauts as a template for seventeen years of development, Double Fine has successfully refined the gameplay of Psychonauts to a point of competency. Raz still possesses the same aerodynamic abilities he did in the first game. His movement has been slightly refined to make executing his moves more accommodating for the player. His jumps are more responsive, and the swinging trajectory on ropes and poles is much less unhinged. Raz’s punching move is less confined to certain movement axes, something awkward from the first game that felt like the combat was conducted via the D-Pad. The enhanced controls regarding everything from the first game lead me to believe that Double Fine is a studio that never gets it right on its first attempt. The new wall-jumping feature has a troubling inconsistency of needing to jump more than once to activate it. While this move is new to the series, wall jumping is so commonplace in the genre that it verges on being a tired cliche. Double Fine can’t be faulted too much for their first try at implementing this, but one would think they would have plenty of notes to copy from several other games that have already perfected it. Raz’s marginally more polished controls in Psychonauts 2 still may not be as smooth as other 3D platformers, even the games that are decades older than it, but at least leaps of improvement were made over the stilted controls of the first game, making them acceptable by normal 3D platformer standards.
At this point, with Raz as a young cadet, he became the equivalent of a psychic eagle scout at the end of the first game. Raz has already become equipped with all of the requisite special psychic abilities, and the tutorial level of Psychonauts 2 serves to refresh the player on their functions. It may be surprising that Raz’s psychic education has been rendered obsolete because his badges have also been tweaked in the same fashion as his overall movement. Returning badges like the psi-blaster and pyrokinesis function the same as they always have, but Psychonauts 2 includes some new, unfamiliar quirks. The Psi-blaster, for instance, no longer requires ammo to use, but the badge needs a cooldown period after a certain number of consecutive shots. Pyrokinesis no longer needs to target one enemy with a thermometer signifying the ignition point; now, it engulfs a range of enemies in Raz’s vicinity in a fiery inferno. Other returning badges like telekinesis and levitation did not require considerable reconsideration, but the levitation move now limits how long Raz can glide in the air. Raz strips away his shield, invisibility, and confusion badges, and it’s the developer's method of trimming the fat from the first game. These powers seemed essential in providing an eclectic array of psychic abilities, but missing badges only proved useful for a couple of instances before they were tucked away indefinitely in Raz’s inventory. Instead of racking their brains trying to think of new ways to squeeze more juice out of the underutilized badges, the developers have swapped them with three new badges. While mental connection, time bubble, and projection are all used for traversal, they all have different uses, and the game constantly provides new obstacles to overcome once Raz earns them. Finding a need to mix and match all of Raz’s psychic powers instead of using only a few of them makes the psychic power system more vital to the gameplay, even if bringing up the badge menu more often becomes tiring.
Double Fine flaunts their efforts to improve upon Psychonauts' gameplay by making the sequel much more combat intensive. Censors and the few other enemies that made up the piddly number of combat obstacles only proved to be an annoyance rather than a formidable challenge. The stern, business-clad Censors make a return to expunge Raz from someone’s consciousness, and now they are strapped with an army of new defensive forces. Censors represent a vague construct of a mental immune system, but these new mental malcontents are inspired by a litany of negative cognitive constructs that clutter the mind and range in abstraction. Enemies found as commonly as Censors include Doubts: small, animated globs of sludgy goop and airborne, insect-like Regrets that drop anvils. Bad Ideas are animalistic, quadrupedal enemies that litter the stage with bombs. Sturdier enemies like the Judges and (implicit) drug-induced Panic Attacks act as mini-bosses among the more common foes. My favorite of the new enemies is the Enabler, a cheery little git whose laser-powered baton grants the other enemies invulnerability. I can’t help but laugh at the clever parallel this enemy represents, in that all medic enemies “enable” problematic foes to keep being antagonistic to the player. Enemy encounters are less randomly generated in Psychonauts 2 as it seems that they only ambush Raz on any platform that vaguely represents a makeshift arena. Dispatching enemies is entirely up to the player, but some enemies require specific psychic moves to eliminate. For example, clairvoyance can still be used for the novel reason of seeing wacky renditions of Raz through the eyes of the NPCs. Still, Psychonauts 2 implements it while fighting the Bad Mood enemy by playing armchair psychologist and alleviating the source of it. Ability-specific enemies may cause an awkward rift in combat pacing, but I also appreciate the greater emphasis on getting the most out of Raz’s psychic abilities. Overall, Psychonauts 2 finally makes what seemed like obligatory platformer combat into something engaging.
Raz has now graduated from the humble, forested grounds of Camp Whispering Rock into broader horizons to further his Psychonaut-related endeavors. Because of this, the Hogwarts of psychics no longer serves as the hub. Instead, the Motherlobe, the psychic’s Ministry of Magic, is Raz’s reality base that contrasts with the conscious realm. Psychonauts HQ is a bustling corporate facility that exudes the magnificent and remote scope of something like the Hall of Justice. The walls of the Motherlobe are clean without being sterile, and its unorthodox inner architecture screams, "workplace of the future". What’s even more futuristic about the Motherlobe is how ergonomic it seems, progressing the standard of a comfortable workspace for every employee. Including a bowling alley, barbershop, and hip noodle cafe indicates that morale in the Motherlobe is staggeringly high, or at least for a place where the HR department has to deal with co-workers exploding each other's heads on too many occasions. The Motherlobe might be on lockdown, but the hub of Psychonauts 2 is vaster than the confines of the corporate headquarters. The Motherlobe is settled in a lake surrounding a wooded area over the hills of Whispering Rock, and the hub extends far past the Psychonauts' base of operations. On the far end of the hub lies the “Questionable Area”, a parody of off-road side attractions with the kind of chintzy bullshit one would expect from these places. The area in between is a quarry, rich with glimmering purple minerals and the location of Otto Mentallis, the tech whiz of the original Psychonauts crew, and his stop-all shop for psychokinetic gadgets. As much as I lauded Whispering Rock as an exceptional hub, I vastly prefer the HQ and the surrounding areas. I realized I only liked Whispering Rock's contrast to the subconscious levels. It served as a fine juxtaposition between the fantasy of the mind and the eventual cooldown of reality. However, Whispering Rock was marred by traversing through the campgrounds resulting in an excruciatingly long loading screen between each section. Load times in Psychonauts 2 trudge along just as glacially, but at least each section of the hub is divided spatially with enough ground to cover before the player is subjected to a moving image of a wild animal with a plodding loading bar below it. Whispering Rock is the better hub in concept, but I favor the less constricted and compact hub in Psychonauts 2 for convenience.
Of course, the effectiveness of any game’s hub world is based on the quality of the levels that branch off it, especially in the case of Psychonauts. The myriad of minds that serve as levels are the crux of Psychonauts' identity, and the sequel presents us with roughly a dozen new minds to excavate through. The boundless parameters of the human psyche premise of the first Psychonauts made for some of the most unique and varied levels featured in a 3D platformer, and Psychonauts 2 follows suit with the same explosion of creative ideas. Agent Hollis’s newfound gambling habit has warped her subconsciousness into a flashy, extravagant casino level that reminds me of Sae Nijima’s palace in Persona 5, except with a hospital as the reality adjacent hybrid instead of a legal building. The beachy Bob’s Bottles exudes a languid seaside melancholy reminiscent of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Cassie’s Collection further highlights the influences of the sharp, expressionist illustrations always subtly present in Psychonauts’s design. The irregular, unmarked brain Raz plants inside Nick from the mailroom, revealed to be Psychonauts agent Helmut Fullbear, is an acid-laced odyssey straight from the playbook of Sgt. Pepper. The heavy use of surreal imagery and lurid psychedelic colors make this level aesthetic eye-candy and a standout among all the others.
Like any standard evolution of a gaming franchise, Psychonauts 2 is an easier game due to fixing the apparent mistakes of the first one. Psychonauts 2 omits the numbered life system, which ejects Raz from someone's mind upon losing all of them, acting as a fair game over penalty. Raz instead continues from a checkpoint after losing all of his health like most of the first game’s 3D platformer contemporaries on the PS2. Pink cobwebs that clogged brain activity are no longer present as collecting them proved no worth beyond a task for completionists. Psychonauts 2 offers new collectibles like two half brains that make for a whole extra unit of health and artifacts that automatically increase Raz’s level. Returning collectibles like vaults, emotional baggage, and figments are far more manageable to amass thanks to the baggage giving a louder sobbing indicator of their presence and figments being far less translucent and feathery.
Making collectibles easier to gather is a fine evolution, but I’m afraid that accessibility bleeds into every facet of Psychonauts 2 a little too much. Besides their imaginative themes and aesthetics, what made the mind levels in the first Psychonauts extraordinary was the developers implementing Tim Schaffer’s expertise in point-and-click adventure design. The slow, obtuse, puzzle-like progression in levels like “The Milkman Conspiracy” and “Waterloo World” transcended all of the sandbox or linear-designed 3D platformers I had played. Often, I’d rack my brain trying to figure out what the levels intended me to do or what the next sequence was, but I came to greatly appreciate their rich, multiple layers of design once I completed them. Linear levels like “Coach Oleander’s Basic Braining” and “Milla’s Dance Party” served as adequate introductory levels, but they were leagues inferior to the brilliance of the later levels that used Tim’s idiosyncratic design philosophy. Unfortunately, for accessibility, most of Psychonauts 2's levels are linear excursions like the more underwhelming levels in the first game. As visually arresting as the “PSI King’s Sensorium” is, each section of this level is a straightforward trek with simple platforming gimmicks. Other levels like “Bob’s Bottles” and “Cassie’s Collections” are linear pathways divided into a few sections branching from a hub. “Compton’s Cookoff” is one standout level that does not emulate a point-and-click adventure game, but it's the one level with a distinctive design theme that has never been used in either Psychonauts title. To illustrate the patriarchal Boole’s social anxiety, Raz must craft an artisan dish for three harshly critical goat puppets that strongly resemble his Psychonaut cohorts. Raz must become the Iron Chef and take the excitable ingredients in the audience to four workstations while racing against the clock. “Compton’s Cookoff” may be shorter than the others, but it was the only level in the game that offered something fresh and unorthodox. I thought it was the only level that also provided a steep challenge, but it turns out that the player doesn’t have to complete the task within the time limit. C’mon, Tim: people didn’t avoid purchasing the first game because it was too difficult.
Tim Schaffer’s fear of creating another box office bomb is evident in other facets than making the game simpler than the first. A sequel to a sought-after game from several years ago would be enough to triple the number of earnings compared to the previous title, but Tim Schaffer’s worries lay in what those people would make of Psychonauts 2 once they purchased it. The social culture landscape has shifted dramatically since Psychonauts was released in 2005. Psychonauts didn’t feature any objectionable content when it was released. Still, I’m sure Bobby Zilch’s bullying, the suicide pact between Clem and Crystal, and Raz groaning at the slow-talking of Vernon Tripe would irk someone these days. That, and I know that Tim has collaborated with a certain con artist in her campaign to dishonestly nitpick all of the “problematic” aspects of gaming in the name of social justice, probably as extra income he wasn’t earning through game sales. Psychonauts was one of the funniest games I’ve ever played, but I know through experience that what I think is funny derives contention with other people from my generation. Psychonauts 2 attempts to cater to the more socially-conscious sensibilities of the millennial/zoomer marketplace to a desperate degree. Immediately before the game even begins, a trigger warning alerts the player of the game’s content. Warnings involving themes of depression and anxiety are at least understandable, but dentistry? I don’t know anyone who likes going to the dentist, but never to the extent where depictions of teeth and operating tables trigger PTSD-like symptoms in someone. Raz uses “rats!” as an interjection and soon turns to apologize to a rat in the Motherlobe and how he should use his words more carefully. Oy vey; give me a break, Tim. Puns seem to be the primary source of humor, and puns are the lowest, safest form of comedy. Whenever I accidentally find myself using a pun when writing, there is a reason why I disclaim that the pun was unintentional. If you are one of those corny assclowns who like puns, you disgust me. But the most egregious thing that the opening disclaimer does is overtly stating that Psychonauts is a game of empathy and understanding. I got that impression during the first game without the message being crammed down my throat; thank you very much. Tim and his team aren’t just mollycoddling his audience with this disclaimer but patronizing them for good measures.
Many other campers weren’t as astute as Raz or as connected to the Psychonauts via family as Lili, so most of them do not make an appearance during Psychonauts 2’s next-level leap from training. Psychonauts 2 offers an entirely new team of young colleagues for Raz to associate with: the group of teenage psychics in the same intern program as Raz. While these adolescents are more driven than the children at Whispering Rock, they are much duller as a collective. I feel as if Double Fine attempted to make the band of six teenagers a medley of diverse character traits and backgrounds, like having a handicapped intern, a black intern, and probably a bisexual trans intern (I don’t know, Lizzie, maybe?) to appease their young demographic, but they all have the same spry, overly positive, hipster-esque personalities. Sam Boole has a few distinctive quirks, but she pales compared to her unhinged younger brother from the first game. These characters are only proven to be half-assed and supplementary, which is probably why Double Fine shifts their focus to the geriatric sextet that makes up the original Psychonauts. The older characters are much more fleshed out due to their subconsciousness serving as the basis of the mind levels, but the returning characters are a little more solemn than they were in the first game. My favorite new characters are Raz’s circus family, who have set up shop near the Questionable Area. Only Raz’s family unit offers a collective of bright characters with their own quirks.
However, just because the elements that makeup Psychonaut 2’s narrative are hard to stomach doesn’t mean the game isn’t substantial. Somehow, Psychonauts 2 offers a story that is better paced, more engaging, and more thought-provoking than the goofy, haphazardly executed story in the first Psychonauts. At first, this doesn’t seem to be the case. The looming threat of Maligula is introduced as early as the tutorial level inside Loboto’s mind. Still, the story seems to veer in another direction as soon as Raz arrives at the Motherlobe. The stern Agent Hollis, the director of the intern program, undermines Raz’s psychic abilities because he’s just a kid. As an act of defiance, he manipulates her cognition to shift her focus, an incredibly unethical move that Raz has to fix before Hollis loses herself. Themes of condescension towards children’s potential were already prevalent in the first game, and either Sasha or Milla could vouch for Raz as he proved his worth by saving them and his fellow campers. It doesn’t make sense to continue this as a theme, but it manages to sideline before popping up and becoming pertinent again as the game progresses.
Raz finds out that the only person who is capable of destroying Maligula is none other than the good ol’ omniscient bacon-enthusiast Ford Cruller. However, Ford’s senility has not mended itself from the past game, and the rest of the first half of Psychonauts 2 is dedicated to restoring his fractured mind in three mini-levels. Through this process, we learn that Ford’s power is not to vanquish Maligula but to control her. Ford’s memories reveal that Maligula was once the hidden seventh member of the original Psychonauts, Lucretia Mux. Ford also courted her once upon a time which is why when given the opportunity to vanquish her, he did something else to protect her. The big twist that marks the end of the first half is that Lucretia/Maligula is Raz’s aunt. She has been posing as Raz’s deceased grandmother since Ford used the Astrolathe to plant false memories in her, subduing her Maligula form. Raz is appalled at Ford’s actions which serve as a substantial arc with Raz as a character. His idolatry towards these Psychonaut legends wanes significantly after traversing through their minds and learning that they are all deeply flawed individuals. His experience in Psychonauts 2 reduces his ambitions but to a necessary healthier level.
The result of the second half provides an even bigger twist that blows off the hinges of the mystery. Like the second half of the first game, the main hub relocates to another area. Green Needle Gulch is the abandoned genesis point of the Psychonauts agency and the location of the Astrolathe. After receiving some aid from two original agents to clear off the Astrolathe, the OG Psychonauts reunite to subdue Lucretia’s Maligula form. Before the process is complete, Agent Zanotto, who shirks his brainless mirage here, tries to stop the process. Thinking this scene is a tad askew, Raz and Lili explore Truman's mind to discover that the brain inside is not his own. One character I forgot to mention is Nick, a pitiable little man whose name seemingly cannot be spoken without his mailroom title attached. Recovering Nick’s brain has been a branching quest for Raz since the first half, sidelined enough to forget about it. Nick from the mailroom is such a schmuck that Raz almost checks reuniting his brain off his to-do list by fostering Helmut Fullbear’s brain in his body, but this is a classic red herring tactic. Ironically, Nick is revealed to be a royal figure named Gristol Malik, the rightful heir to the Grulovian dynasty. Maligula was once an aid to Gristol’s fascist royal family, quelling protests with violent forces of water. Upon accidentally drowning her sister, Raz’s real grandmother, Maligula was repressed by the Psychonauts, ending Malik’s regime. Using Zonotto’s body, Nick plans to summon Maligula once again to restore power to his throne. His mind is a garish, narcissistic monument to the potential glory he covets in the style of the “It’s a Small World” teacup ride. He awakens Maligula, but she does not aid him in his return to power. Maligula washes away Green Needle Gulch, and Raz faces her in a fight that should’ve been more difficult. Through understanding Lucretia’s past and present, Raz helps his surrogate grandmother defeat her Maligula side and make peace with herself, eliminating the threat for good. The resolution may be a bit contrived, but the events leading up to it are as brilliant as anything from the first game.
Psychonauts 2 was not a cash grab to bank on the nostalgia of the first game. When Tim tweeted at my neighbor, hinting that his wish could potentially be fulfilled, my initial suspicions were corrected, and now I have no doubt that his team at Double Fine was hard at work developing this sequel. A decade-spanning development period was enough time to oil the rusty creases in the first game’s foundation, fixing all of the awkward controls that made Psychonauts inferior to its contemporaries and refining the chapped visuals enough to make them gorgeous. Any fan of the first game would be delighted in theory, but most things I admired about the first game aren’t present here. I had no idea that the first Psychonauts failed to capture a wider audience because its level of design and humor fit a niche demographic I clearly fall into. Psychonauts 2 surprisingly seems directed less at fans of the original but a second chance to capture that wide demographic for a bigger profit, even if the more accessible design and narrative content alienate older fans. I first lamented that Psychonauts 2 was a shallow Psychonauts game with a glossier sheen, but unraveling the story made me think otherwise. An emotional, contemplative Psychonauts became just as substantive as the first game. Well, I hope Tim can finally afford to pay his mortgage bills at least.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Fortunately, the existence of Psychonauts 2 never felt shoehorned into the narrative like many other sequels do. The first game ended on a bit of a cliffhanger with Lily’s father, the leader of the Psychonauts, being captured by psychic terrorists, calling the rest of his squadron into action and giving Raz his first job as a certified Psychonaut. The opening sequence finds Raz in a cubicle, lulling the player into thinking that the precocious Razputin has trapped himself into a mind-numbing desk job after vying so passionately to enter the adult Psychonaut world. It is soon revealed that this is merely part of the psychological construct in the mind of Dr. Loboto, the twisted dental surgeon from the previous game. Raz, with the help of agents Nein and Vodello, are digging through the mind of the shower cap-wearing madman to find out who hired him to kidnap their leader and harvest his brain. The results of Loboto’s mind are inconclusive, but they do lead to shocking new intel about the resurrection of Maligula: a cataclysmic force of nature and the oldest enemy of the Psychonauts. Sasha keeps interrogating Loboto while the rest of the Psychonauts agency is on lockdown, for there is a mole in the agency working to undermine the Psychonauts with the resurrection of Maligula. Among all the strained circumstances, Raz has to hurdle over the next level of bureaucratic constraints that hinder his progress in becoming a Psychonaut agent: the Psychonauts intern program.
Psychonauts 2 may take place mere days after the events of the first game, but the presentation of the game is indicative of how long it’s really been since we’ve last seen Raz and the rest of the cerebral special forces. The first Psychonauts game was admittedly not the most appealing game of its era in terms of its visuals. Its graphics weren’t underdeveloped, but the rough-hewn, borderline expressionist approach to the animated aesthetic divided people into two sides, with one side adoring the visual quirks. At the same time, the other thought it was rather ugly. I’m in the former camp, and I worried that almost two decades of graphical progress would sterilize one of the most charming aspects of the first Psychonauts. Psychonaut 2’s graphics are miles sharper and cleaner as expected, but the impressive factor that Psychonauts 2 achieved was using years of graphical advancements to refine the first game’s idiosyncratic style rather than dilute it to a point of “ exceptional objective quality.” Psychonauts 2 looks almost exactly like its predecessor, but that high-definition visual sheen makes a world of difference. The misshapen, globular textures of both the character models and the foregrounds have been refined to a point of silky smoothness. The characters are far more animated than they ever were because the cinematics of Psychonauts 2 looks up to par with a computer-animated film. All the while, they still retain that claymation-esque charm that made the first game appealing. For the latter camp who were irked by Double Fine’s crude artistry, the fuzziness that might have marred the graphics in the first game has been polished to the point where there is no indiscernibility in the foregrounds. Psychonauts 2’s graphics have ascended past the acquired taste graphics of the first game into something that rivals any modern Hollywood animation studio.
Psychonauts' controls, however, were not an acquired taste that I found endearing. The stiff, finicky platforming and combat controls were always awkward and inadvertently exposed Double Fine’s inexperience in developing games for the 3D platformer genre. I forgave Double Fine’s modest efforts because the entire Psychonauts experience was substantial in every other department. In saying that, there is a solid reason as to why the platforming-intensive “Meat Circus” level from the first game is so maligned as it is. Using the first Psychonauts as a template for seventeen years of development, Double Fine has successfully refined the gameplay of Psychonauts to a point of competency. Raz still possesses the same aerodynamic abilities he did in the first game. His movement has been slightly refined to make executing his moves more accommodating for the player. His jumps are more responsive, and the swinging trajectory on ropes and poles is much less unhinged. Raz’s punching move is less confined to certain movement axes, something awkward from the first game that felt like the combat was conducted via the D-Pad. The enhanced controls regarding everything from the first game lead me to believe that Double Fine is a studio that never gets it right on its first attempt. The new wall-jumping feature has a troubling inconsistency of needing to jump more than once to activate it. While this move is new to the series, wall jumping is so commonplace in the genre that it verges on being a tired cliche. Double Fine can’t be faulted too much for their first try at implementing this, but one would think they would have plenty of notes to copy from several other games that have already perfected it. Raz’s marginally more polished controls in Psychonauts 2 still may not be as smooth as other 3D platformers, even the games that are decades older than it, but at least leaps of improvement were made over the stilted controls of the first game, making them acceptable by normal 3D platformer standards.
At this point, with Raz as a young cadet, he became the equivalent of a psychic eagle scout at the end of the first game. Raz has already become equipped with all of the requisite special psychic abilities, and the tutorial level of Psychonauts 2 serves to refresh the player on their functions. It may be surprising that Raz’s psychic education has been rendered obsolete because his badges have also been tweaked in the same fashion as his overall movement. Returning badges like the psi-blaster and pyrokinesis function the same as they always have, but Psychonauts 2 includes some new, unfamiliar quirks. The Psi-blaster, for instance, no longer requires ammo to use, but the badge needs a cooldown period after a certain number of consecutive shots. Pyrokinesis no longer needs to target one enemy with a thermometer signifying the ignition point; now, it engulfs a range of enemies in Raz’s vicinity in a fiery inferno. Other returning badges like telekinesis and levitation did not require considerable reconsideration, but the levitation move now limits how long Raz can glide in the air. Raz strips away his shield, invisibility, and confusion badges, and it’s the developer's method of trimming the fat from the first game. These powers seemed essential in providing an eclectic array of psychic abilities, but missing badges only proved useful for a couple of instances before they were tucked away indefinitely in Raz’s inventory. Instead of racking their brains trying to think of new ways to squeeze more juice out of the underutilized badges, the developers have swapped them with three new badges. While mental connection, time bubble, and projection are all used for traversal, they all have different uses, and the game constantly provides new obstacles to overcome once Raz earns them. Finding a need to mix and match all of Raz’s psychic powers instead of using only a few of them makes the psychic power system more vital to the gameplay, even if bringing up the badge menu more often becomes tiring.
Double Fine flaunts their efforts to improve upon Psychonauts' gameplay by making the sequel much more combat intensive. Censors and the few other enemies that made up the piddly number of combat obstacles only proved to be an annoyance rather than a formidable challenge. The stern, business-clad Censors make a return to expunge Raz from someone’s consciousness, and now they are strapped with an army of new defensive forces. Censors represent a vague construct of a mental immune system, but these new mental malcontents are inspired by a litany of negative cognitive constructs that clutter the mind and range in abstraction. Enemies found as commonly as Censors include Doubts: small, animated globs of sludgy goop and airborne, insect-like Regrets that drop anvils. Bad Ideas are animalistic, quadrupedal enemies that litter the stage with bombs. Sturdier enemies like the Judges and (implicit) drug-induced Panic Attacks act as mini-bosses among the more common foes. My favorite of the new enemies is the Enabler, a cheery little git whose laser-powered baton grants the other enemies invulnerability. I can’t help but laugh at the clever parallel this enemy represents, in that all medic enemies “enable” problematic foes to keep being antagonistic to the player. Enemy encounters are less randomly generated in Psychonauts 2 as it seems that they only ambush Raz on any platform that vaguely represents a makeshift arena. Dispatching enemies is entirely up to the player, but some enemies require specific psychic moves to eliminate. For example, clairvoyance can still be used for the novel reason of seeing wacky renditions of Raz through the eyes of the NPCs. Still, Psychonauts 2 implements it while fighting the Bad Mood enemy by playing armchair psychologist and alleviating the source of it. Ability-specific enemies may cause an awkward rift in combat pacing, but I also appreciate the greater emphasis on getting the most out of Raz’s psychic abilities. Overall, Psychonauts 2 finally makes what seemed like obligatory platformer combat into something engaging.
Raz has now graduated from the humble, forested grounds of Camp Whispering Rock into broader horizons to further his Psychonaut-related endeavors. Because of this, the Hogwarts of psychics no longer serves as the hub. Instead, the Motherlobe, the psychic’s Ministry of Magic, is Raz’s reality base that contrasts with the conscious realm. Psychonauts HQ is a bustling corporate facility that exudes the magnificent and remote scope of something like the Hall of Justice. The walls of the Motherlobe are clean without being sterile, and its unorthodox inner architecture screams, "workplace of the future". What’s even more futuristic about the Motherlobe is how ergonomic it seems, progressing the standard of a comfortable workspace for every employee. Including a bowling alley, barbershop, and hip noodle cafe indicates that morale in the Motherlobe is staggeringly high, or at least for a place where the HR department has to deal with co-workers exploding each other's heads on too many occasions. The Motherlobe might be on lockdown, but the hub of Psychonauts 2 is vaster than the confines of the corporate headquarters. The Motherlobe is settled in a lake surrounding a wooded area over the hills of Whispering Rock, and the hub extends far past the Psychonauts' base of operations. On the far end of the hub lies the “Questionable Area”, a parody of off-road side attractions with the kind of chintzy bullshit one would expect from these places. The area in between is a quarry, rich with glimmering purple minerals and the location of Otto Mentallis, the tech whiz of the original Psychonauts crew, and his stop-all shop for psychokinetic gadgets. As much as I lauded Whispering Rock as an exceptional hub, I vastly prefer the HQ and the surrounding areas. I realized I only liked Whispering Rock's contrast to the subconscious levels. It served as a fine juxtaposition between the fantasy of the mind and the eventual cooldown of reality. However, Whispering Rock was marred by traversing through the campgrounds resulting in an excruciatingly long loading screen between each section. Load times in Psychonauts 2 trudge along just as glacially, but at least each section of the hub is divided spatially with enough ground to cover before the player is subjected to a moving image of a wild animal with a plodding loading bar below it. Whispering Rock is the better hub in concept, but I favor the less constricted and compact hub in Psychonauts 2 for convenience.
Of course, the effectiveness of any game’s hub world is based on the quality of the levels that branch off it, especially in the case of Psychonauts. The myriad of minds that serve as levels are the crux of Psychonauts' identity, and the sequel presents us with roughly a dozen new minds to excavate through. The boundless parameters of the human psyche premise of the first Psychonauts made for some of the most unique and varied levels featured in a 3D platformer, and Psychonauts 2 follows suit with the same explosion of creative ideas. Agent Hollis’s newfound gambling habit has warped her subconsciousness into a flashy, extravagant casino level that reminds me of Sae Nijima’s palace in Persona 5, except with a hospital as the reality adjacent hybrid instead of a legal building. The beachy Bob’s Bottles exudes a languid seaside melancholy reminiscent of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Cassie’s Collection further highlights the influences of the sharp, expressionist illustrations always subtly present in Psychonauts’s design. The irregular, unmarked brain Raz plants inside Nick from the mailroom, revealed to be Psychonauts agent Helmut Fullbear, is an acid-laced odyssey straight from the playbook of Sgt. Pepper. The heavy use of surreal imagery and lurid psychedelic colors make this level aesthetic eye-candy and a standout among all the others.
Like any standard evolution of a gaming franchise, Psychonauts 2 is an easier game due to fixing the apparent mistakes of the first one. Psychonauts 2 omits the numbered life system, which ejects Raz from someone's mind upon losing all of them, acting as a fair game over penalty. Raz instead continues from a checkpoint after losing all of his health like most of the first game’s 3D platformer contemporaries on the PS2. Pink cobwebs that clogged brain activity are no longer present as collecting them proved no worth beyond a task for completionists. Psychonauts 2 offers new collectibles like two half brains that make for a whole extra unit of health and artifacts that automatically increase Raz’s level. Returning collectibles like vaults, emotional baggage, and figments are far more manageable to amass thanks to the baggage giving a louder sobbing indicator of their presence and figments being far less translucent and feathery.
Making collectibles easier to gather is a fine evolution, but I’m afraid that accessibility bleeds into every facet of Psychonauts 2 a little too much. Besides their imaginative themes and aesthetics, what made the mind levels in the first Psychonauts extraordinary was the developers implementing Tim Schaffer’s expertise in point-and-click adventure design. The slow, obtuse, puzzle-like progression in levels like “The Milkman Conspiracy” and “Waterloo World” transcended all of the sandbox or linear-designed 3D platformers I had played. Often, I’d rack my brain trying to figure out what the levels intended me to do or what the next sequence was, but I came to greatly appreciate their rich, multiple layers of design once I completed them. Linear levels like “Coach Oleander’s Basic Braining” and “Milla’s Dance Party” served as adequate introductory levels, but they were leagues inferior to the brilliance of the later levels that used Tim’s idiosyncratic design philosophy. Unfortunately, for accessibility, most of Psychonauts 2's levels are linear excursions like the more underwhelming levels in the first game. As visually arresting as the “PSI King’s Sensorium” is, each section of this level is a straightforward trek with simple platforming gimmicks. Other levels like “Bob’s Bottles” and “Cassie’s Collections” are linear pathways divided into a few sections branching from a hub. “Compton’s Cookoff” is one standout level that does not emulate a point-and-click adventure game, but it's the one level with a distinctive design theme that has never been used in either Psychonauts title. To illustrate the patriarchal Boole’s social anxiety, Raz must craft an artisan dish for three harshly critical goat puppets that strongly resemble his Psychonaut cohorts. Raz must become the Iron Chef and take the excitable ingredients in the audience to four workstations while racing against the clock. “Compton’s Cookoff” may be shorter than the others, but it was the only level in the game that offered something fresh and unorthodox. I thought it was the only level that also provided a steep challenge, but it turns out that the player doesn’t have to complete the task within the time limit. C’mon, Tim: people didn’t avoid purchasing the first game because it was too difficult.
Tim Schaffer’s fear of creating another box office bomb is evident in other facets than making the game simpler than the first. A sequel to a sought-after game from several years ago would be enough to triple the number of earnings compared to the previous title, but Tim Schaffer’s worries lay in what those people would make of Psychonauts 2 once they purchased it. The social culture landscape has shifted dramatically since Psychonauts was released in 2005. Psychonauts didn’t feature any objectionable content when it was released. Still, I’m sure Bobby Zilch’s bullying, the suicide pact between Clem and Crystal, and Raz groaning at the slow-talking of Vernon Tripe would irk someone these days. That, and I know that Tim has collaborated with a certain con artist in her campaign to dishonestly nitpick all of the “problematic” aspects of gaming in the name of social justice, probably as extra income he wasn’t earning through game sales. Psychonauts was one of the funniest games I’ve ever played, but I know through experience that what I think is funny derives contention with other people from my generation. Psychonauts 2 attempts to cater to the more socially-conscious sensibilities of the millennial/zoomer marketplace to a desperate degree. Immediately before the game even begins, a trigger warning alerts the player of the game’s content. Warnings involving themes of depression and anxiety are at least understandable, but dentistry? I don’t know anyone who likes going to the dentist, but never to the extent where depictions of teeth and operating tables trigger PTSD-like symptoms in someone. Raz uses “rats!” as an interjection and soon turns to apologize to a rat in the Motherlobe and how he should use his words more carefully. Oy vey; give me a break, Tim. Puns seem to be the primary source of humor, and puns are the lowest, safest form of comedy. Whenever I accidentally find myself using a pun when writing, there is a reason why I disclaim that the pun was unintentional. If you are one of those corny assclowns who like puns, you disgust me. But the most egregious thing that the opening disclaimer does is overtly stating that Psychonauts is a game of empathy and understanding. I got that impression during the first game without the message being crammed down my throat; thank you very much. Tim and his team aren’t just mollycoddling his audience with this disclaimer but patronizing them for good measures.
Many other campers weren’t as astute as Raz or as connected to the Psychonauts via family as Lili, so most of them do not make an appearance during Psychonauts 2’s next-level leap from training. Psychonauts 2 offers an entirely new team of young colleagues for Raz to associate with: the group of teenage psychics in the same intern program as Raz. While these adolescents are more driven than the children at Whispering Rock, they are much duller as a collective. I feel as if Double Fine attempted to make the band of six teenagers a medley of diverse character traits and backgrounds, like having a handicapped intern, a black intern, and probably a bisexual trans intern (I don’t know, Lizzie, maybe?) to appease their young demographic, but they all have the same spry, overly positive, hipster-esque personalities. Sam Boole has a few distinctive quirks, but she pales compared to her unhinged younger brother from the first game. These characters are only proven to be half-assed and supplementary, which is probably why Double Fine shifts their focus to the geriatric sextet that makes up the original Psychonauts. The older characters are much more fleshed out due to their subconsciousness serving as the basis of the mind levels, but the returning characters are a little more solemn than they were in the first game. My favorite new characters are Raz’s circus family, who have set up shop near the Questionable Area. Only Raz’s family unit offers a collective of bright characters with their own quirks.
However, just because the elements that makeup Psychonaut 2’s narrative are hard to stomach doesn’t mean the game isn’t substantial. Somehow, Psychonauts 2 offers a story that is better paced, more engaging, and more thought-provoking than the goofy, haphazardly executed story in the first Psychonauts. At first, this doesn’t seem to be the case. The looming threat of Maligula is introduced as early as the tutorial level inside Loboto’s mind. Still, the story seems to veer in another direction as soon as Raz arrives at the Motherlobe. The stern Agent Hollis, the director of the intern program, undermines Raz’s psychic abilities because he’s just a kid. As an act of defiance, he manipulates her cognition to shift her focus, an incredibly unethical move that Raz has to fix before Hollis loses herself. Themes of condescension towards children’s potential were already prevalent in the first game, and either Sasha or Milla could vouch for Raz as he proved his worth by saving them and his fellow campers. It doesn’t make sense to continue this as a theme, but it manages to sideline before popping up and becoming pertinent again as the game progresses.
Raz finds out that the only person who is capable of destroying Maligula is none other than the good ol’ omniscient bacon-enthusiast Ford Cruller. However, Ford’s senility has not mended itself from the past game, and the rest of the first half of Psychonauts 2 is dedicated to restoring his fractured mind in three mini-levels. Through this process, we learn that Ford’s power is not to vanquish Maligula but to control her. Ford’s memories reveal that Maligula was once the hidden seventh member of the original Psychonauts, Lucretia Mux. Ford also courted her once upon a time which is why when given the opportunity to vanquish her, he did something else to protect her. The big twist that marks the end of the first half is that Lucretia/Maligula is Raz’s aunt. She has been posing as Raz’s deceased grandmother since Ford used the Astrolathe to plant false memories in her, subduing her Maligula form. Raz is appalled at Ford’s actions which serve as a substantial arc with Raz as a character. His idolatry towards these Psychonaut legends wanes significantly after traversing through their minds and learning that they are all deeply flawed individuals. His experience in Psychonauts 2 reduces his ambitions but to a necessary healthier level.
The result of the second half provides an even bigger twist that blows off the hinges of the mystery. Like the second half of the first game, the main hub relocates to another area. Green Needle Gulch is the abandoned genesis point of the Psychonauts agency and the location of the Astrolathe. After receiving some aid from two original agents to clear off the Astrolathe, the OG Psychonauts reunite to subdue Lucretia’s Maligula form. Before the process is complete, Agent Zanotto, who shirks his brainless mirage here, tries to stop the process. Thinking this scene is a tad askew, Raz and Lili explore Truman's mind to discover that the brain inside is not his own. One character I forgot to mention is Nick, a pitiable little man whose name seemingly cannot be spoken without his mailroom title attached. Recovering Nick’s brain has been a branching quest for Raz since the first half, sidelined enough to forget about it. Nick from the mailroom is such a schmuck that Raz almost checks reuniting his brain off his to-do list by fostering Helmut Fullbear’s brain in his body, but this is a classic red herring tactic. Ironically, Nick is revealed to be a royal figure named Gristol Malik, the rightful heir to the Grulovian dynasty. Maligula was once an aid to Gristol’s fascist royal family, quelling protests with violent forces of water. Upon accidentally drowning her sister, Raz’s real grandmother, Maligula was repressed by the Psychonauts, ending Malik’s regime. Using Zonotto’s body, Nick plans to summon Maligula once again to restore power to his throne. His mind is a garish, narcissistic monument to the potential glory he covets in the style of the “It’s a Small World” teacup ride. He awakens Maligula, but she does not aid him in his return to power. Maligula washes away Green Needle Gulch, and Raz faces her in a fight that should’ve been more difficult. Through understanding Lucretia’s past and present, Raz helps his surrogate grandmother defeat her Maligula side and make peace with herself, eliminating the threat for good. The resolution may be a bit contrived, but the events leading up to it are as brilliant as anything from the first game.
Psychonauts 2 was not a cash grab to bank on the nostalgia of the first game. When Tim tweeted at my neighbor, hinting that his wish could potentially be fulfilled, my initial suspicions were corrected, and now I have no doubt that his team at Double Fine was hard at work developing this sequel. A decade-spanning development period was enough time to oil the rusty creases in the first game’s foundation, fixing all of the awkward controls that made Psychonauts inferior to its contemporaries and refining the chapped visuals enough to make them gorgeous. Any fan of the first game would be delighted in theory, but most things I admired about the first game aren’t present here. I had no idea that the first Psychonauts failed to capture a wider audience because its level of design and humor fit a niche demographic I clearly fall into. Psychonauts 2 surprisingly seems directed less at fans of the original but a second chance to capture that wide demographic for a bigger profit, even if the more accessible design and narrative content alienate older fans. I first lamented that Psychonauts 2 was a shallow Psychonauts game with a glossier sheen, but unraveling the story made me think otherwise. An emotional, contemplative Psychonauts became just as substantive as the first game. Well, I hope Tim can finally afford to pay his mortgage bills at least.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
2007
This review contains spoilers
2007 was and still is the most important year for gaming. At this point, the medium had progressed from the vestigial, black and white bleeps and bloops of Pong and the crude pixels of Atari, and 3D graphics had filed off the blocky textures to a point of realistic refinement. Paving on uncharted territory in terms of gaming’s technological potential seemed to have reached a point of a confident resolution. However, 2007 remains the fulcrum point in the medium’s history. The impact made in this landmark 365-day period in the late 2000s has resonated strongly enough to the point where we still feel the effects of it fifteen years later. It was the year when video games reached a point of mainstream ubiquity and acceptance. Video games became as prevalent in the artistic and commercial realm as films instead of a niche hobby with a slight social stigma attached to them. Erasing this stigma can be credited to many games that emerged during this year that thoroughly convinced every separate faction of gaming skeptics. Wii Sports may have accompanied the Wii’s launch in 2006, but the ripple effect of making everyone’s grandparents stop faulting video games for all of the world’s foibles was felt the following year. Rock Band expanded the potential that Guitar Hero established by including three more instruments into the fray, blossoming the rhythm game craze into an accessible party experience. The appeal of playing games online on a console hit a breaking point with both Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, expanding the margin of young non-gamers who I suppose needed a more proper gateway genre. There was still one group that stuck their noses up at video games. This was the stodgy art critic crowd who saw the medium as nothing but sophomoric tripe for people suffering from serious cases of arrested development. This group was arguably the hardest to persuade, but the one seminal title from 2007 that made some heavy leeway in convincing them to reevaluate their views was BioShock.
To make things clear, I’m not saying that BioShock was the first “artistic” video game, nor am I stating that BioShock was the cutting edge of video game narrative or subversive mechanics compared to all other narratively and mechanically ambitious games that came before it. Gamers even felt more confident in cajoling renowned film critic Roger Ebert of gaming’s artistic merits with the slightly older Shadow of the Colossus. One also can’t forget that BioShock is a spinoff of the System Shock games, two immersive sim games that only mechanically-savvy PC gamers could proudly flaunt in the 1990s. BioShock was not the visionary revelation that some credited it for being, for its source material stems from another IP with a substantial following, and many artistically-driven games predate it. However, these points of contention do not diminish BioShock’s impact. BioShock had a Resident Evil 4-like explosion of popularity and praise upon its release, prematurely taking its stand on the highest podium alongside classics that shaped the medium. Many of the games mentioned above released the same year were exceptional in their own right, but BioShock took home the gold. People were profoundly awestruck after playing BioShock, including many of those who had never given the medium of gaming an honest chance. The seventh generation of gaming signaled a time when immersive sim games could be produced accessibly on consoles, and Bioshock was the game that brought mainstream attention to the niche genre.
The immersive sim genre is difficult to define. They exist somewhere on the spectrum between the FPS and RPG genres but are more subtly paced than the average FPS game and lack the character customizability of an RPG. Stealth and horror elements are also sprinkled into the mix even more deftly. Obviously, one of the core characteristics of the genre is immersion, but a game that is defined as immersive tends to be a subjective, case-by-case factor depending on the tastes and sensibilities of the player. Immersive sims are no compromises on the FPS and RPG genres, for they amplify the weight of every aspect present, making for a meatier experience than any typical game in either genre. BioShock isn’t considered a proper immersive sim compared to its System Shock predecessors, but it upholds the specific elements of the genre in principle.
Something common across all immersive sims is a striking setting that crushes the player with the monumental scope of its breadth and lore building. Given that BioShock was released after the golden age of the immersive sim game, it’s a wonder how the developers of these games hadn’t thought of something like Rapture when the genre was in its prime. After the catalyst moment of the plane crash, Jack, the sole survivor, swims over to a nearby lighthouse, the only source of solid land to hoist him up over the perilous, dark, open waters below. Jack’s curiosity leads him to a submarine that entertains him with an introduction slideshow accompanied by narration. Once the slideshow ends, the blinds of the submarine’s portholes open to reveal Rapture, a city submerged in the deep waters of an unknown ocean, created from Andrew Ryan’s untethered ambition. Revealing Rapture to the player through the dynamic opening narration is one of the most effective introductions to a video game that I’ve experienced. Not since Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent masterpiece Metropolis has there been a shot introducing a cityscape that was so breathtaking. Rapture’s sublime magnificence from this opening shot is mesmerizing enough to captivate the player for the entirety of the game, and its effectiveness never diminishes upon subsequent playthroughs.
Upon entering Rapture, the player soon learns that the interior isn’t as immaculate as the exterior. Rapture is in a state of decade-long detritus due to Ryan’s fanatical ideas being too unstable to be practical for those who have joined him on his underwater venture. ADAM, a genetic-altering substance extracted from sea slugs, has corroded the intramural walls of the city like a flesh-eating bacteria, both in a literal and figurative sense. The Rapture the player sees is the purgatory fallout period of Ryan’s once-great utopia, signifying that Andrew Ryan failed. The extent of Rapture’s decline is not detailed in the narrative, as it probably would’ve bloated the experience and bored the player through bloviating exposition. Events surrounding what caused the downfall of Rapture are detailed in numerous video diaries. This immersive sim trope is an optional method of elucidating BioShock’s lore if the player feels inclined. Video diaries are a fine source of information about Rapture’s past and the notable people responsible for its downfall, but BioShock tells Rapture’s story more effectively. The atmosphere is BioShock’s strongest element, and it’s also the most engaging means of giving the player insight into the sunken city. We assume that Rapture was once a flourishing beacon of radical progress that greatly expedited the information age before it even began, judging by its location and scope. The bedraggled insides not only give the impression that Rapture failed, but that failure stems from a sordid history of horrific events. Rapture’s upkeep is in a state of ruin, with hazardously sparking neon light fixtures being the only source of illumination and ocean water seeping through cracks in the fractured foundation. Blood of unknown origin smears the dimly lit vestibules of what used to be divinely bohemian architecture, and hundreds of corpses litter the grounds. The old-world quaintness exuded by the vending machines and vocal jazz music should be charming, but these relics of the past only serve as reminders of how long it’s been since Rapture was prosperous. Rapture’s sorry state is as melancholic as it is chilling, a haunting depiction of monumental atrophy like an abandoned amusement park or gothic mansion. All the while, the sub-sea level setting crushes the player with inescapable claustrophobia. Yet, the sheer magnitude of Rapture is too grand to make the player feel uncomfortable enough to want to leave it.
As vast and monolithic as Rapture is, the player cannot excavate every corner of the city at their leisure. Open-world exploration is not a trait of the immersive sim genre; rather, the game separates the world into levels that act as their own smaller, non-linear sandboxes. While Rapture seems engrossing enough to make the player yearn to liberally frolic through its walls, the restraint set by an immersive sim’s design benefits BioShock. Each level makes up a unique district of Rapture that details a specific faction of Rapture’s enterprises, such as science, medicine, agriculture, art, mechanical engineering, etc. Dividing Rapture like this themes each section of the city concisely, and the player gets to explore the area's past events and how they caused its calamitous present. Usually, a level will revolve around one notable figure of Rapture’s past and their specific machinations relating to their vocation, like Dr. Steinman, the plastic surgeon in the Medical Pavilion, or Sander Cohen the artist in Fort Frolic. Whether or not the figure is deceased or is still roaming the grounds, the player must either use that person’s research to aid them in traversal or become aware of how they operate to not become another victim of their madness. Each district of Rapture also has its own distinct layout while maintaining that drowned, ruinous aesthetic. The map may be difficult to follow because the branching paths are illustrated with arrows, but the areas are compact enough that the player will never get too lost. Unfortunately, BioShock’s levels conflict with the immersive sim's core design philosophy. The districts of Rapture are designed like sandboxes composed of connected subareas, but Bioshock does not offer the same level of explorative freedom compared to the levels of System Shock. It also doesn’t help that exploration in BioShock is cultivated through a lot of tedious fetch quests instead of organic, puzzle-intensive traversal.
Another means of expressing the loose parameters of an immersive sim that BioShock executes accurately is Jack’s arsenal. Every immersive sim offers a staggeringly large and varied arsenal that rivals the weaponry found in Ted Nugent’s garage. Jack will start modestly by whacking the player with a wrench that does middling damage to enemies but gradually increases the firepower to firearms such as a pistol and shotgun to explosive rounds and even a crossbow. Each weapon has its own type of special ammunition like armor-piercing rounds for the machine gun and shotgun shells with alternating fire and electrical damage. Every weapon persists throughout the game, so BioShock offers the player a weapon radial so they won’t have to juggle through their inventory trying to remember the chronological order they obtained each weapon. BioShock strides to make the abundant arsenal convenient in lieu of console owners not having a mouse and keyboard to select weapons in a typical immersive sim game on a PC, and a console bumpkin like me felt nicely accommodated. It, however, does not help the inconvenience that comes from having to reload every time the player wishes to change the ammunition for their gun, as it makes the player unnecessarily vulnerable. Alternate ammo isn’t any more sparse than the regular ammo for any given weapon. Hence, their “special” status that might come with their additional properties has no reason to be conserved. Reloading while trying to find a suitable weapon for a given scenario was the cause of so many unwarranted deaths in BioShock.
BioShock does offer alternative means of offense, and this isn’t to supplement the faulty weapon loading system. The secondary tools Jack uses to defend himself from the horrors of Rapture are plasmids, placed alternately on the left trigger opposite from the firearms on the right. Plasmids are serums made from ADAM that genetically modify those who inject the serum into their bloodstream, granting them superhuman abilities depending on the nature of a specific serum. Plasmids are also a highly addictive substance, and their excessive use of them is one of the core factors that contributed to the decline of Rapture. Even with the evident fallout surrounding him that these plasmids caused, Jack quickly gives into peer pressure and starts imbuing a syringe-like apparatus into his left wrist, plunging down the path of a plasmid junkie. Jack was already stacked on his dominant right hand, but the various plasmids assigned to his left were the piece de resistance of Jack’s arsenal. There are just as many different types of plasmids as firearms, and they also cover a wide range of uses. A group of plasmids runs the gamut of elemental powers such as electricity, fire, ice, and wind, and these are mainly used in specific situations regarding both combat and traversal. Other plasmids have properties used to manipulate physical matter, like the sonic boom and telekinesis, while others manipulate the enemies' minds. My favorite plasmid is the insect swarm, unleashing a plague of buzzing bees to distract enemies while stinging them to slowly dwindle their health. Plasmids are the expansive touch to BioShock’s combat that broadens it to the degree worthy of an immersive sim game. The range of firearms is already extensive, but only offering standard FPS weapons with a steampunk-flavored tinge would’ve made combat slightly stale. That being said, the player shouldn’t expect to use the plasmids as secondary weapons. Even when fully upgraded, most of the plasmids will not be powerful enough to dispose of enemies besides certain circumstances like frying enemies in water with the electroshock plasmid. Plasmids that are strong enough, like the upgraded sonic boom, quickly deplete Jack’s EVE, the “magic” stat below his health bar can be recharged with another injection only a finite amount of times before Jack has either buy or find more of them. The smart way to use plasmids is like debuffs that make combat scenarios more manageable.
BioShock makes for a more FPS-intensive game than the average immersive sim with the copious amount of splicers that stalk every corner of Rapture. These lanky figures are the commoners of Rapture, prime examples of ADAM’s negative effects, and the most unfortunate victims of Rapture’s cataclysmic civil war. Splicers are condemned to fester in the dank pits of the lost city with their minds as marred by ADAM as their bodies. Think of the Splicers like deranged crackheads one might spot down a dim inner city alleyway, but if that dark, narrow passage was the entire city. Usually, the game will prepare the player for a Splicer encounter with an audio cue of the incoming Splicer shouting something incoherent around the corner. Hence, the player has an opportunity to reload their weapons or refuel on plasmids. While Splicers are the generic enemy type in BioShock, they are anything but formulaic. Some Splicers like the Thuggish and LeadHead breeds use melee weapons and machine guns in combat, but others like the Houdini and Spider Splicers show off the extent of their plasmid-induced genetic adulteration. Splicers are naturally more dangerous in groups, but they become irritatingly sturdy by the end of the game. Other common non-Splicer enemies often found across Rapture are machines like turrets and flying security bots armed with bullets, the furthest extent of steampunk technology present in BioShock. Overall, it’s quite impressive that BioShock supplies a varied amount of enemies with consistent encounter rates without compromising on the atmosphere. Splicers may have a high pervasiveness in Rapture, but another enemy roams around Rapture in sparse numbers has a greater impact on the collective consciousness of those who have played BioShock. They’re even front and center on the fucking box art for the game. Like the shrieks of the Splicers, the thunderous stomping of the Big Daddy’s boots will indicate their bulky presence. Unlike Splicers, the Big Daddys only attack if the player makes the first strike which should probably be a relief considering their introduction involves liquifying a Splicer with their enormous arm drills. Rosies are another type of Big Daddy that is smaller in stature and wields a rivet gun, but the Bouncers are more notorious due to their striking similarities to fighting a steampunk bull. Either or, both types of Big Daddy will easily eviscerate the player in battle.
Given that Big Daddies are generally passive, why would anyone provoke these monstrosities? Because they protect the Little Sisters: little girls that house the purest essence of ADAM found in Rapture. ADAM can be used as a sort of currency at a special vending machine called “Gatherer’s Garden,” where the player uses the ADAM from the Little Sisters to purchase upgrades like tonics and power-ups make Jack stronger. Taking down the scuba gear-wearing beasts is a daunting task, but upon defeating a Big Daddy, the player also has to make another strenuous decision. Inside every little sister, there is one sea slug, the sea creature that produces ADAM. When the Little Sister is sobbing mournfully over the body of the recently deceased Big Daddy that was accompanying her, the player is given the option of harvesting or rescuing her. The former option involves Jack processing her to nothing but the slug inside of her, and the latter sees Jack performing a borderline sensual exorcism to return her to a normal little girl as she escapes in the shafts along the walls. Several video logs detail why prepubescent girls are the ideal hosts for these slimy, opulent creatures. Still, the real reason was that the developers wanted to test the player’s conflicted morals about killing children. Reducing these little girls to nothing but the slug housed in them will reward them with more ADAM, but Brigid Tenenbaum, the “mother” of all the Little Sisters, will brand the player as an unscrupulous monster. It seems like a clever means of implementing player choice, but there is little consequence to harvesting the Little Sisters. At the same time, the more paltry amount of ADAM received simply from rescuing them will prevent the player from affording all of the upgrades from the Gatherer’s Garden machines. I’d rather endure the scrutiny of one woman over the onslaught of enemies around Rapture.
Then again, that same onslaught of Splicers and steam-powered machines isn’t really all that formidable. BioShock’s glaring flaw that has kept me from echoing the vocal sentiments of its glory is that the game is too easy. Sure, enemy fire from any given enemy, especially the Big Daddies, will tear through the player like tissue paper, but all of that is mitigated by the Vita-Chambers. Upon dying, Jack will respawn in one of these futuristic tubes with half of his health. To restore Jack’s health to its full capacity, the player must either visit a health station that costs 16 dollars or use a medkit. Besides respawning with an easily replenished half-full health bar, there is no consequence to dying in BioShock. Being subdued by an enemy is merely an inconvenience as Vita-Chambers are placed generously around each level, and Jack will retain all of his supplies. Not only that, but the enemy that killed Jack will retain the same amount of health they had upon reencountering them. A Big Daddy may be as strapping as a rhinoceros, but the challenge one would assume they present is assuaged almost entirely because the respawn system makes me feel like an impervious, vengeful spirit. There isn’t even a monetary fee for dying like in many other FPS games. It’s already easy enough to stock up on health items, EVE, and ammunition to prevent the player from dying. The fee of the health machines and the price of items in the vending machines can also be reduced significantly by playing the pipe-connecting mini-game, whose repetitive nature is enough to acclimate the player to the point of expertise by the later levels. Being facile in the gameplay department is almost enough to turn the harrowing stakes of Rapture into a joke. Dying in BioShock is without any ramifications until the final boss in which the game strips the VitaChambers as a crutch. If the player dies, they have to start from the beginning at the first phase of four. I’m delighted that the game finally presents somewhat of a challenge, but not offering it until the last moment of the game sweeps the rug out from under the player and leaves them unprepared.
Fortunately, BioShock’s story is more than enough to offset the breezy difficulty set by the gameplay. This aspect seems to be the source of BioShock’s accolades which is ironic considering its simplicity. Obviously, Jack is merely visiting Rapture and does not want the city to be his watery tomb. To escape what seems inescapable, Jack heeds in the direction of Atlas, a Rapture iconoclast who spurred the rebellion against city founder Andrew Ryan during the city’s heyday. Atlas's first task for Jack is to save his family, who have been captured by Andrew Ryan, but a bomb kills all of them in a single blast upon spotting their location. Naturally, this makes Atlas upset and extend’s Jack’s mission to kill Andrew Ryan, who is located in his office at the core of the southern district of Hephestus. Once Jack makes his way to Andrew Ryan, Rapture’s founder doesn’t seem to be threatened as he speaks to him nonchalantly while playing putt-putt. Ryan sees Jack as nothing but a pitiable pawn, diminishing the scope of the protagonist’s heroic role like every other immersive sim game. To make a point relating to Jack’s submissive position, he gives Jack the putt-putt club with the illusion of the choice to either submit to Atlases will or quit while he’s ahead. Jack then bludgeons Ryan to death with the club, and this moment is the revelatory turning point that made the player’s jaws drop to the floor back in 2007. Atlas and his family were merely ruses devised by the presumably dead Frank Fontaine, another powerful magnate in Rapture who discovered the power of ADAM and cultivated its power into a business. He was also the main opposing figure in the power struggle against Ryan that caused Rapture’s downfall. In another attempt to usurp Ryan, he used his Atlas persona to control Jack's actions, using his trademark phrase, “would you kindly?” as a sort of Pavlovian trigger to make Jack do his bidding. Jack was merely a tool used in Fontaine’s takeover, but that’s not all. Jack’s memories have also been altered as he discovers that not only was he born in Rapture, but he’s the estranged child of Andrew Ryan. The rest of the game is dedicated to Jack breaking Fontaine’s control over him and stopping him from taking over Rapture. Although I’d argue that Jack’s backstory gives him more significance than the role of a mere pawn, it’s no surprise that this plot twist hooked so many people when BioShock was released.
BioShock’s plot is well-paced and fluid, but the true intrigue of the game lies in divulging its inspiration conveyed in its linear notes. BioShock’s apparent influence as the backbone of its plot, setting, and characters is Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged. Besides some characters like Andrew Ryan and Atlas being obvious references, Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy permeates the fabric of BioShock. Objectivism, in a simplified manner, is the belief that human knowledge and values are objective. In a context that relates to practical uses, objectivism states that a man’s work should not be subjugated by any political or religious power. A man should be entitled to the benefits of his optimal potential, neglecting the morals and sensibilities of others by proxy. It’s kind of like an unbounded version of libertarianism. Andrew Ryan expresses in the introduction reel that he became fed up with the socialist governments and organized religious groups above the surface, supporting the “underserved parasites” who suckled at the teat of his labor. He founded Rapture as a way to foster his own potential without the prying eyes of big government or religion and brought along with him the sharpest minds in their respective fields to do the same. Rapture’s grievous state upon seeing it implies that Rand’s philosophy is not a practical one. By setting himself as the unfettered leader in a blank-slate establishment, Andrew Ryan is quelling the potential of those under him as much, if not more than, the establishments in the surface world. The same goes for other elite members of Rapture, with Dr. Stienman taking subjects to violently experiment on without their consent or Sander Cohen taking his artistic pursuits to morbid extremes. BioShock is an interactive depiction of exposing the hypocrisy behind Rand’s ideology while simultaneously tributing Atlas Shrugged all the same.
How did the fuddy-duddy, non-gamer critics respond to something like BioShock? With nothing but accolades for the most part, there were some dissenters in the mix. One critic, a man who most likely consumes his own farts like after-dinner mints, coined the term “ludonarrative dissonance” to criticize the narrow results the ending gave. As pretentious as the term is, he may have a point to some extent. Once Jack makes his way to Fontaine’s lair, he fights Fontaine, who has been using all of Rapture’s ADAM to transform himself into a demigod-like Dr. Manhattan being. Upon stopping Fontaine, the ending cutscene will depend on how the player interacted with the Little Sisters. Unless the player saves every Little Sister they come across, the player will receive the “bad ending” where Steinman chides the player for their “brutality,” and an ADAM-corrupted Jack returns to the surface, killing four members of the coast guard. The “good ending” involves the saved Little Sisters forming a lifelong bond with Jack that extends to Jack’s final moments on his deathbed. Those are the only two outcomes. It’s evident that the idea of “ludonarrative dissonance” was coined by someone that doesn’t play video games because it shows a lack of understanding of the medium. Teabagging the corpses of Splicers or foolishly blasting the grenade launcher at Jack’s feet is admittedly counterintuitive to his hero narrative. Still, the interactive part of gaming fundamentally separates the narrative schematics of film from gaming. A game’s plot and the player’s specific gameplay choices to traverse through that plot should not be mutually exclusive because of gaming semantics. All that does is mitigate interactivity entirely. However, I wish BioShock had more endings to perhaps convince non-gamers that narrative in games can offer satisfying resolutions.
I am still somewhat unconvinced of BioShock’s status as one of the most exemplary titles in the video game medium. Upon further research regarding BioShock’s gameplay roots in the immersive sim genre, I’ve found that the “groundbreaking” elements that people credit BioShock for pioneering are nothing but watered-down tropes that were already presented in a myriad of games that predate BioShock by more than a few gaming generations. By diluting the elements of an immersive sim game like difficulty and level design, BioShock made the genre more accessible to the general public who were unaware of System Shock or any other immersive sim game. BioShock felt more weighty compared to the FPS games the public was used to. Despite being comparatively hollow compared to its predecessors, BioShock made a powerful boom in the gaming industry that no other immersive sim before it could ever fathom creating. One could chalk it up to be released at a pivotal era for the medium, but 2007 wouldn’t have been as impactful without BioShock. Mainstream shooters needed a title whose impeccable atmosphere, varied gameplay mechanics, compelling story, and intricate world-building elevated the genre above its usual meat-and-potatoes direction. I’m sure some PC gamer snobs give BioShock a Nirvana-like reputation as the title that exposed the games of the underground to an uninitiated crowd that didn’t know any better, but that doesn’t diminish BioShock's importance.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
To make things clear, I’m not saying that BioShock was the first “artistic” video game, nor am I stating that BioShock was the cutting edge of video game narrative or subversive mechanics compared to all other narratively and mechanically ambitious games that came before it. Gamers even felt more confident in cajoling renowned film critic Roger Ebert of gaming’s artistic merits with the slightly older Shadow of the Colossus. One also can’t forget that BioShock is a spinoff of the System Shock games, two immersive sim games that only mechanically-savvy PC gamers could proudly flaunt in the 1990s. BioShock was not the visionary revelation that some credited it for being, for its source material stems from another IP with a substantial following, and many artistically-driven games predate it. However, these points of contention do not diminish BioShock’s impact. BioShock had a Resident Evil 4-like explosion of popularity and praise upon its release, prematurely taking its stand on the highest podium alongside classics that shaped the medium. Many of the games mentioned above released the same year were exceptional in their own right, but BioShock took home the gold. People were profoundly awestruck after playing BioShock, including many of those who had never given the medium of gaming an honest chance. The seventh generation of gaming signaled a time when immersive sim games could be produced accessibly on consoles, and Bioshock was the game that brought mainstream attention to the niche genre.
The immersive sim genre is difficult to define. They exist somewhere on the spectrum between the FPS and RPG genres but are more subtly paced than the average FPS game and lack the character customizability of an RPG. Stealth and horror elements are also sprinkled into the mix even more deftly. Obviously, one of the core characteristics of the genre is immersion, but a game that is defined as immersive tends to be a subjective, case-by-case factor depending on the tastes and sensibilities of the player. Immersive sims are no compromises on the FPS and RPG genres, for they amplify the weight of every aspect present, making for a meatier experience than any typical game in either genre. BioShock isn’t considered a proper immersive sim compared to its System Shock predecessors, but it upholds the specific elements of the genre in principle.
Something common across all immersive sims is a striking setting that crushes the player with the monumental scope of its breadth and lore building. Given that BioShock was released after the golden age of the immersive sim game, it’s a wonder how the developers of these games hadn’t thought of something like Rapture when the genre was in its prime. After the catalyst moment of the plane crash, Jack, the sole survivor, swims over to a nearby lighthouse, the only source of solid land to hoist him up over the perilous, dark, open waters below. Jack’s curiosity leads him to a submarine that entertains him with an introduction slideshow accompanied by narration. Once the slideshow ends, the blinds of the submarine’s portholes open to reveal Rapture, a city submerged in the deep waters of an unknown ocean, created from Andrew Ryan’s untethered ambition. Revealing Rapture to the player through the dynamic opening narration is one of the most effective introductions to a video game that I’ve experienced. Not since Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent masterpiece Metropolis has there been a shot introducing a cityscape that was so breathtaking. Rapture’s sublime magnificence from this opening shot is mesmerizing enough to captivate the player for the entirety of the game, and its effectiveness never diminishes upon subsequent playthroughs.
Upon entering Rapture, the player soon learns that the interior isn’t as immaculate as the exterior. Rapture is in a state of decade-long detritus due to Ryan’s fanatical ideas being too unstable to be practical for those who have joined him on his underwater venture. ADAM, a genetic-altering substance extracted from sea slugs, has corroded the intramural walls of the city like a flesh-eating bacteria, both in a literal and figurative sense. The Rapture the player sees is the purgatory fallout period of Ryan’s once-great utopia, signifying that Andrew Ryan failed. The extent of Rapture’s decline is not detailed in the narrative, as it probably would’ve bloated the experience and bored the player through bloviating exposition. Events surrounding what caused the downfall of Rapture are detailed in numerous video diaries. This immersive sim trope is an optional method of elucidating BioShock’s lore if the player feels inclined. Video diaries are a fine source of information about Rapture’s past and the notable people responsible for its downfall, but BioShock tells Rapture’s story more effectively. The atmosphere is BioShock’s strongest element, and it’s also the most engaging means of giving the player insight into the sunken city. We assume that Rapture was once a flourishing beacon of radical progress that greatly expedited the information age before it even began, judging by its location and scope. The bedraggled insides not only give the impression that Rapture failed, but that failure stems from a sordid history of horrific events. Rapture’s upkeep is in a state of ruin, with hazardously sparking neon light fixtures being the only source of illumination and ocean water seeping through cracks in the fractured foundation. Blood of unknown origin smears the dimly lit vestibules of what used to be divinely bohemian architecture, and hundreds of corpses litter the grounds. The old-world quaintness exuded by the vending machines and vocal jazz music should be charming, but these relics of the past only serve as reminders of how long it’s been since Rapture was prosperous. Rapture’s sorry state is as melancholic as it is chilling, a haunting depiction of monumental atrophy like an abandoned amusement park or gothic mansion. All the while, the sub-sea level setting crushes the player with inescapable claustrophobia. Yet, the sheer magnitude of Rapture is too grand to make the player feel uncomfortable enough to want to leave it.
As vast and monolithic as Rapture is, the player cannot excavate every corner of the city at their leisure. Open-world exploration is not a trait of the immersive sim genre; rather, the game separates the world into levels that act as their own smaller, non-linear sandboxes. While Rapture seems engrossing enough to make the player yearn to liberally frolic through its walls, the restraint set by an immersive sim’s design benefits BioShock. Each level makes up a unique district of Rapture that details a specific faction of Rapture’s enterprises, such as science, medicine, agriculture, art, mechanical engineering, etc. Dividing Rapture like this themes each section of the city concisely, and the player gets to explore the area's past events and how they caused its calamitous present. Usually, a level will revolve around one notable figure of Rapture’s past and their specific machinations relating to their vocation, like Dr. Steinman, the plastic surgeon in the Medical Pavilion, or Sander Cohen the artist in Fort Frolic. Whether or not the figure is deceased or is still roaming the grounds, the player must either use that person’s research to aid them in traversal or become aware of how they operate to not become another victim of their madness. Each district of Rapture also has its own distinct layout while maintaining that drowned, ruinous aesthetic. The map may be difficult to follow because the branching paths are illustrated with arrows, but the areas are compact enough that the player will never get too lost. Unfortunately, BioShock’s levels conflict with the immersive sim's core design philosophy. The districts of Rapture are designed like sandboxes composed of connected subareas, but Bioshock does not offer the same level of explorative freedom compared to the levels of System Shock. It also doesn’t help that exploration in BioShock is cultivated through a lot of tedious fetch quests instead of organic, puzzle-intensive traversal.
Another means of expressing the loose parameters of an immersive sim that BioShock executes accurately is Jack’s arsenal. Every immersive sim offers a staggeringly large and varied arsenal that rivals the weaponry found in Ted Nugent’s garage. Jack will start modestly by whacking the player with a wrench that does middling damage to enemies but gradually increases the firepower to firearms such as a pistol and shotgun to explosive rounds and even a crossbow. Each weapon has its own type of special ammunition like armor-piercing rounds for the machine gun and shotgun shells with alternating fire and electrical damage. Every weapon persists throughout the game, so BioShock offers the player a weapon radial so they won’t have to juggle through their inventory trying to remember the chronological order they obtained each weapon. BioShock strides to make the abundant arsenal convenient in lieu of console owners not having a mouse and keyboard to select weapons in a typical immersive sim game on a PC, and a console bumpkin like me felt nicely accommodated. It, however, does not help the inconvenience that comes from having to reload every time the player wishes to change the ammunition for their gun, as it makes the player unnecessarily vulnerable. Alternate ammo isn’t any more sparse than the regular ammo for any given weapon. Hence, their “special” status that might come with their additional properties has no reason to be conserved. Reloading while trying to find a suitable weapon for a given scenario was the cause of so many unwarranted deaths in BioShock.
BioShock does offer alternative means of offense, and this isn’t to supplement the faulty weapon loading system. The secondary tools Jack uses to defend himself from the horrors of Rapture are plasmids, placed alternately on the left trigger opposite from the firearms on the right. Plasmids are serums made from ADAM that genetically modify those who inject the serum into their bloodstream, granting them superhuman abilities depending on the nature of a specific serum. Plasmids are also a highly addictive substance, and their excessive use of them is one of the core factors that contributed to the decline of Rapture. Even with the evident fallout surrounding him that these plasmids caused, Jack quickly gives into peer pressure and starts imbuing a syringe-like apparatus into his left wrist, plunging down the path of a plasmid junkie. Jack was already stacked on his dominant right hand, but the various plasmids assigned to his left were the piece de resistance of Jack’s arsenal. There are just as many different types of plasmids as firearms, and they also cover a wide range of uses. A group of plasmids runs the gamut of elemental powers such as electricity, fire, ice, and wind, and these are mainly used in specific situations regarding both combat and traversal. Other plasmids have properties used to manipulate physical matter, like the sonic boom and telekinesis, while others manipulate the enemies' minds. My favorite plasmid is the insect swarm, unleashing a plague of buzzing bees to distract enemies while stinging them to slowly dwindle their health. Plasmids are the expansive touch to BioShock’s combat that broadens it to the degree worthy of an immersive sim game. The range of firearms is already extensive, but only offering standard FPS weapons with a steampunk-flavored tinge would’ve made combat slightly stale. That being said, the player shouldn’t expect to use the plasmids as secondary weapons. Even when fully upgraded, most of the plasmids will not be powerful enough to dispose of enemies besides certain circumstances like frying enemies in water with the electroshock plasmid. Plasmids that are strong enough, like the upgraded sonic boom, quickly deplete Jack’s EVE, the “magic” stat below his health bar can be recharged with another injection only a finite amount of times before Jack has either buy or find more of them. The smart way to use plasmids is like debuffs that make combat scenarios more manageable.
BioShock makes for a more FPS-intensive game than the average immersive sim with the copious amount of splicers that stalk every corner of Rapture. These lanky figures are the commoners of Rapture, prime examples of ADAM’s negative effects, and the most unfortunate victims of Rapture’s cataclysmic civil war. Splicers are condemned to fester in the dank pits of the lost city with their minds as marred by ADAM as their bodies. Think of the Splicers like deranged crackheads one might spot down a dim inner city alleyway, but if that dark, narrow passage was the entire city. Usually, the game will prepare the player for a Splicer encounter with an audio cue of the incoming Splicer shouting something incoherent around the corner. Hence, the player has an opportunity to reload their weapons or refuel on plasmids. While Splicers are the generic enemy type in BioShock, they are anything but formulaic. Some Splicers like the Thuggish and LeadHead breeds use melee weapons and machine guns in combat, but others like the Houdini and Spider Splicers show off the extent of their plasmid-induced genetic adulteration. Splicers are naturally more dangerous in groups, but they become irritatingly sturdy by the end of the game. Other common non-Splicer enemies often found across Rapture are machines like turrets and flying security bots armed with bullets, the furthest extent of steampunk technology present in BioShock. Overall, it’s quite impressive that BioShock supplies a varied amount of enemies with consistent encounter rates without compromising on the atmosphere. Splicers may have a high pervasiveness in Rapture, but another enemy roams around Rapture in sparse numbers has a greater impact on the collective consciousness of those who have played BioShock. They’re even front and center on the fucking box art for the game. Like the shrieks of the Splicers, the thunderous stomping of the Big Daddy’s boots will indicate their bulky presence. Unlike Splicers, the Big Daddys only attack if the player makes the first strike which should probably be a relief considering their introduction involves liquifying a Splicer with their enormous arm drills. Rosies are another type of Big Daddy that is smaller in stature and wields a rivet gun, but the Bouncers are more notorious due to their striking similarities to fighting a steampunk bull. Either or, both types of Big Daddy will easily eviscerate the player in battle.
Given that Big Daddies are generally passive, why would anyone provoke these monstrosities? Because they protect the Little Sisters: little girls that house the purest essence of ADAM found in Rapture. ADAM can be used as a sort of currency at a special vending machine called “Gatherer’s Garden,” where the player uses the ADAM from the Little Sisters to purchase upgrades like tonics and power-ups make Jack stronger. Taking down the scuba gear-wearing beasts is a daunting task, but upon defeating a Big Daddy, the player also has to make another strenuous decision. Inside every little sister, there is one sea slug, the sea creature that produces ADAM. When the Little Sister is sobbing mournfully over the body of the recently deceased Big Daddy that was accompanying her, the player is given the option of harvesting or rescuing her. The former option involves Jack processing her to nothing but the slug inside of her, and the latter sees Jack performing a borderline sensual exorcism to return her to a normal little girl as she escapes in the shafts along the walls. Several video logs detail why prepubescent girls are the ideal hosts for these slimy, opulent creatures. Still, the real reason was that the developers wanted to test the player’s conflicted morals about killing children. Reducing these little girls to nothing but the slug housed in them will reward them with more ADAM, but Brigid Tenenbaum, the “mother” of all the Little Sisters, will brand the player as an unscrupulous monster. It seems like a clever means of implementing player choice, but there is little consequence to harvesting the Little Sisters. At the same time, the more paltry amount of ADAM received simply from rescuing them will prevent the player from affording all of the upgrades from the Gatherer’s Garden machines. I’d rather endure the scrutiny of one woman over the onslaught of enemies around Rapture.
Then again, that same onslaught of Splicers and steam-powered machines isn’t really all that formidable. BioShock’s glaring flaw that has kept me from echoing the vocal sentiments of its glory is that the game is too easy. Sure, enemy fire from any given enemy, especially the Big Daddies, will tear through the player like tissue paper, but all of that is mitigated by the Vita-Chambers. Upon dying, Jack will respawn in one of these futuristic tubes with half of his health. To restore Jack’s health to its full capacity, the player must either visit a health station that costs 16 dollars or use a medkit. Besides respawning with an easily replenished half-full health bar, there is no consequence to dying in BioShock. Being subdued by an enemy is merely an inconvenience as Vita-Chambers are placed generously around each level, and Jack will retain all of his supplies. Not only that, but the enemy that killed Jack will retain the same amount of health they had upon reencountering them. A Big Daddy may be as strapping as a rhinoceros, but the challenge one would assume they present is assuaged almost entirely because the respawn system makes me feel like an impervious, vengeful spirit. There isn’t even a monetary fee for dying like in many other FPS games. It’s already easy enough to stock up on health items, EVE, and ammunition to prevent the player from dying. The fee of the health machines and the price of items in the vending machines can also be reduced significantly by playing the pipe-connecting mini-game, whose repetitive nature is enough to acclimate the player to the point of expertise by the later levels. Being facile in the gameplay department is almost enough to turn the harrowing stakes of Rapture into a joke. Dying in BioShock is without any ramifications until the final boss in which the game strips the VitaChambers as a crutch. If the player dies, they have to start from the beginning at the first phase of four. I’m delighted that the game finally presents somewhat of a challenge, but not offering it until the last moment of the game sweeps the rug out from under the player and leaves them unprepared.
Fortunately, BioShock’s story is more than enough to offset the breezy difficulty set by the gameplay. This aspect seems to be the source of BioShock’s accolades which is ironic considering its simplicity. Obviously, Jack is merely visiting Rapture and does not want the city to be his watery tomb. To escape what seems inescapable, Jack heeds in the direction of Atlas, a Rapture iconoclast who spurred the rebellion against city founder Andrew Ryan during the city’s heyday. Atlas's first task for Jack is to save his family, who have been captured by Andrew Ryan, but a bomb kills all of them in a single blast upon spotting their location. Naturally, this makes Atlas upset and extend’s Jack’s mission to kill Andrew Ryan, who is located in his office at the core of the southern district of Hephestus. Once Jack makes his way to Andrew Ryan, Rapture’s founder doesn’t seem to be threatened as he speaks to him nonchalantly while playing putt-putt. Ryan sees Jack as nothing but a pitiable pawn, diminishing the scope of the protagonist’s heroic role like every other immersive sim game. To make a point relating to Jack’s submissive position, he gives Jack the putt-putt club with the illusion of the choice to either submit to Atlases will or quit while he’s ahead. Jack then bludgeons Ryan to death with the club, and this moment is the revelatory turning point that made the player’s jaws drop to the floor back in 2007. Atlas and his family were merely ruses devised by the presumably dead Frank Fontaine, another powerful magnate in Rapture who discovered the power of ADAM and cultivated its power into a business. He was also the main opposing figure in the power struggle against Ryan that caused Rapture’s downfall. In another attempt to usurp Ryan, he used his Atlas persona to control Jack's actions, using his trademark phrase, “would you kindly?” as a sort of Pavlovian trigger to make Jack do his bidding. Jack was merely a tool used in Fontaine’s takeover, but that’s not all. Jack’s memories have also been altered as he discovers that not only was he born in Rapture, but he’s the estranged child of Andrew Ryan. The rest of the game is dedicated to Jack breaking Fontaine’s control over him and stopping him from taking over Rapture. Although I’d argue that Jack’s backstory gives him more significance than the role of a mere pawn, it’s no surprise that this plot twist hooked so many people when BioShock was released.
BioShock’s plot is well-paced and fluid, but the true intrigue of the game lies in divulging its inspiration conveyed in its linear notes. BioShock’s apparent influence as the backbone of its plot, setting, and characters is Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged. Besides some characters like Andrew Ryan and Atlas being obvious references, Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy permeates the fabric of BioShock. Objectivism, in a simplified manner, is the belief that human knowledge and values are objective. In a context that relates to practical uses, objectivism states that a man’s work should not be subjugated by any political or religious power. A man should be entitled to the benefits of his optimal potential, neglecting the morals and sensibilities of others by proxy. It’s kind of like an unbounded version of libertarianism. Andrew Ryan expresses in the introduction reel that he became fed up with the socialist governments and organized religious groups above the surface, supporting the “underserved parasites” who suckled at the teat of his labor. He founded Rapture as a way to foster his own potential without the prying eyes of big government or religion and brought along with him the sharpest minds in their respective fields to do the same. Rapture’s grievous state upon seeing it implies that Rand’s philosophy is not a practical one. By setting himself as the unfettered leader in a blank-slate establishment, Andrew Ryan is quelling the potential of those under him as much, if not more than, the establishments in the surface world. The same goes for other elite members of Rapture, with Dr. Stienman taking subjects to violently experiment on without their consent or Sander Cohen taking his artistic pursuits to morbid extremes. BioShock is an interactive depiction of exposing the hypocrisy behind Rand’s ideology while simultaneously tributing Atlas Shrugged all the same.
How did the fuddy-duddy, non-gamer critics respond to something like BioShock? With nothing but accolades for the most part, there were some dissenters in the mix. One critic, a man who most likely consumes his own farts like after-dinner mints, coined the term “ludonarrative dissonance” to criticize the narrow results the ending gave. As pretentious as the term is, he may have a point to some extent. Once Jack makes his way to Fontaine’s lair, he fights Fontaine, who has been using all of Rapture’s ADAM to transform himself into a demigod-like Dr. Manhattan being. Upon stopping Fontaine, the ending cutscene will depend on how the player interacted with the Little Sisters. Unless the player saves every Little Sister they come across, the player will receive the “bad ending” where Steinman chides the player for their “brutality,” and an ADAM-corrupted Jack returns to the surface, killing four members of the coast guard. The “good ending” involves the saved Little Sisters forming a lifelong bond with Jack that extends to Jack’s final moments on his deathbed. Those are the only two outcomes. It’s evident that the idea of “ludonarrative dissonance” was coined by someone that doesn’t play video games because it shows a lack of understanding of the medium. Teabagging the corpses of Splicers or foolishly blasting the grenade launcher at Jack’s feet is admittedly counterintuitive to his hero narrative. Still, the interactive part of gaming fundamentally separates the narrative schematics of film from gaming. A game’s plot and the player’s specific gameplay choices to traverse through that plot should not be mutually exclusive because of gaming semantics. All that does is mitigate interactivity entirely. However, I wish BioShock had more endings to perhaps convince non-gamers that narrative in games can offer satisfying resolutions.
I am still somewhat unconvinced of BioShock’s status as one of the most exemplary titles in the video game medium. Upon further research regarding BioShock’s gameplay roots in the immersive sim genre, I’ve found that the “groundbreaking” elements that people credit BioShock for pioneering are nothing but watered-down tropes that were already presented in a myriad of games that predate BioShock by more than a few gaming generations. By diluting the elements of an immersive sim game like difficulty and level design, BioShock made the genre more accessible to the general public who were unaware of System Shock or any other immersive sim game. BioShock felt more weighty compared to the FPS games the public was used to. Despite being comparatively hollow compared to its predecessors, BioShock made a powerful boom in the gaming industry that no other immersive sim before it could ever fathom creating. One could chalk it up to be released at a pivotal era for the medium, but 2007 wouldn’t have been as impactful without BioShock. Mainstream shooters needed a title whose impeccable atmosphere, varied gameplay mechanics, compelling story, and intricate world-building elevated the genre above its usual meat-and-potatoes direction. I’m sure some PC gamer snobs give BioShock a Nirvana-like reputation as the title that exposed the games of the underground to an uninitiated crowd that didn’t know any better, but that doesn’t diminish BioShock's importance.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
The heated feud between fans of Super Castlevania IV and Rondo of Blood is something of a new point of contention between Castlevania fans. This is due to Rondo of Blood being confined to the inaccessible Turbo-Grafix-16 in Japan, condemning it to obscurity until its worldwide release several years past its prime. Can you imagine if Rondo of Blood freed itself from its Japanese shackles during its inception? The Turbo-Grafix might have stood some ground in the 16-bit console wars, contending in a bloody battle with both Nintendo and Sega using Rondo of Blood as their killer app. Alas, this is a case of alternative history that never came to fruition, and the Turbo-Grafix was set aside as the hapless third-party candidate in the running for 16-bit glory. Because Rondo of Blood never showed up to the debate promoting the Turbo-Grafix, Sega was free to continue waging their war against Nintendo without any interruptions. Sega’s ironclad tank that they paraded on the battlefield was Sonic, but the company had more weapons at its disposal. People nowadays often forget, but there was another 16-bit Castlevania game that rivaled the SNES’s Super Castlevania IV during its heyday: Castlevania: Bloodlines (or under the inferior title Castlevania: The New Generation in Europe). A Castlevania game developed exclusively for the Genesis/Mega Drive should’ve hit Nintendo closer to home than it did. Still, Bloodlines did not splash Nintendo in the face with the rippling wave of Konami’s treachery intended. Nintendo fans couldn’t shell out enough money to also buy a Genesis, and the Genesis owners obviously didn’t give a shit about Castlevania. Otherwise, they would’ve bought a SNES to play Super Castlevania IV. Bloodlines are and always was the cult classic 16-bit Castlevania game, unappreciated and overlooked compared to its initial competitor and the “lost” Castlevania game that sprung up out of nowhere and stole Bloodline’s impact. The fight between Super Castlevania IV and Rondo of Blood should include Bloodlines in the conversation because it is more than worthy as a competitor.
While the European title of Bloodlines is a lame, generic subtitle for a sequel, it applies to the game’s direction. Bloodlines take place far later than any previous Castlevania game in the early 20th century at the start of the first World War. Konami experiments with a case of alternate history in which the catalyst event of assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand was enacted by Dracula’s niece Elizabeth Bartley, who is directly influenced by real-life Hungarian serial killer Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Since then, a resurrected Dracula has been the cause of the Great War like Satan in “The Howling Man” episode of The Twilight Zone. The source of continental strife across an industrial age Europe is not due to avaricious empires or expanding military powers but an ancient vampiric lord. He relishes in the suffering of humanity. At least vanquishing Dracula again is a simpler solution to the complex political bedlam that was World War 1 in real life.
The Belmont family is out of commission due to the lengthy passage of time, so Bloodlines ushers in a “new generation” of vampire hunters tasked with taking down The Count. John Morris is an American-bred vampire hunter whose choice to brandish the whip recalls Castlevania’s traditional gameplay mechanics. Spanish Eric Lecarde, on the other hand, wields something of a trident with a longer range. These valiant young men are the two playable protagonists in Bloodlines. Working together to eradicate the source of turmoil in a war-torn Europe like other Castlevania games featuring multiple playable characters would be efficient, but Konami has decided to keep John and Eric separated. The player gets the choice of selecting which of these men they’d like to play for the duration of the game rather than swapping them during a level like in Castlevania III. Forcing the player to commit to one character may seem like an inaccessible demerit, but I think that this increases the replay value of Bloodlines. There is enough discernibility between John and Eric’s methods of defending themselves against the creatures of the night to warrant another playthrough with the other character. The discernibility is restricted enough that one character doesn’t cause an imbalance in difficulty like Maria did in Rondo of Blood. In saying this, I feel confident enough to declare that Eric is slightly easier to play than John. One might think a veteran Castlevania player would be more comfortable playing as John. Still, the slight level of versatility with Eric’s weaponry and frog-like jumping ability gives him a smidge of an advantage over his more orthodox cohort. John plays like a compromised version of Simon Belmont from Super Castlevania IV. John can only whip diagonally in mid-air, and the whip swinging technique is slightly finicky. Some Castlevania fans might prefer John’s restraint because it makes the game more challenging, but I thought playing as John tended to be awkward.
Along with expanding Castlevania’s character roster to non-Belmonts, Bloodlines also reaches past the confines of the usual setting of Dracula’s castle. Dracula’s plague reaches across the entire continent of Europe, so John and Eric’s quest takes them all over the land of milk and honey to expunge Dracula’s influence. The first level still revisits the remnants of the vampiric lord’s estate in Romania, but the characters never ascend to the castle’s peak. After that brief excursion, our heroes travel across the map of intercontinental Europe to five more locations. A Castlevania game has never been set outside Dracula’s castle, making this the most radical point of evolution Bloodlines introduces. One might think this decision would be a blasphemous one as the consistent setting provides a sound, continuously spooky tone fitting for a game like Castlevania. Bloodline’s premise expresses that Dracula’s influence has spread across the continent, so it allows everywhere in Europe to look like a perpetual Halloween. Frankly, the climb up to Dracula’s throne room was growing tiresome. The locations around Europe not only provide new variations to Castlevania’s progression but explore the mythos of other cultures beyond the elements that the series has numerously established. The Shrine of Atlantis, located in Greece, is a temple whose sunken sea level status allows flooding water to be used as a hazard. The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy acts as a warped, surreal platforming climb similar to something like the fourth level of Super Castlevania IV. The fourth level in Germany explores a sort of dingy, industrial setting commonly associated with the country and the Palace of Versailles in France looks as resplendent and sublime as one would expect from a gothic French landmark. The castle where Dracula is located in the UK looks like a standard final level for a Castlevania game, but it serves its purpose as a brief final trek up to the final array of bosses. Progression may not feel as organic as the typical climb, but the series desperately needed a refreshing change of pace.
Besides the “blast processing,” the other appeal Sega had over their rivals at Nintendo was a more lenient stance on censorship. Nintendo had always been marketed as a “family-friendly system” and drastically toned down the blood and gore of third-party developed games released on their systems. Sega, on the other hand, deviated from the prudish principles of Nintendo as a marketing scheme to win over the adolescent/adult demographic. Castlevania’s home for several years had been Nintendo, but the horror-inspired series was never specifically intended for a younger audience. The greatest perk of putting a Castlevania game on the comparatively wicked Sega Genesis was that the developers could revel in the potential of excess blood and gore unseen in a Castlevania game on a Nintendo console. A bloody mess of human remains is littered all over Dracula’s castle, and the wolf boss at the castle’s grounds convulses and pulsates on the ground after deleting its health bar. Harpies that reign over the skies of Italy can be decapitated by John’s whip, moving about with gore gushing from the open neck holes like a chicken. I’m also pretty sure these same enemies possess discernable but nippleless tits. The graphic content of Bloodlines may seem tame, especially considering it's delineated by pixels, but Bloodlines would most likely be the only Castlevania game to rile up the concerned soccer moms of the western world during this era.
Unfortunately, the amplified shock factor of Bloodlines is the only way that signifies that the series has grown up. I’m starting to realize that the appeal of the Genesis lies only in gimmicks like blast processing and lack of censorship because Bloodlines greatly exposes the console’s inferior foundation compared to the SNES. Several Genesis games (Strider, Gunstar Heroes) pierce my eardrums with a sharp, grating sound design, and Bloodlines is at least more pleasant than the worst the system has to offer. However, the sound design of Bloodlines isn’t nearly as crisp as the SNES’s Super Castlevania IV. The dialogue of Rondo of Blood might sound horribly processed, but at least the sound design during the gameplay was pleasant. The moment in Bloodlines that confirmed its shoddy aural fidelity was during the section in Greece when the player had to destroy structures to make for sturdier platformers. Knocking down the head of a statue results in a depleting sound reminiscent of having stat decreased in an RPG. It was the least appropriate sound for a crashing marble head heavier than an elephant. As for the graphics, the starless skies in the background are so drab and flavorless compared to the level of visual flair seen in the other two 16-bit Castlevania games. The developers had some leeway with blank backgrounds in the NES era due to the primitive nature of the system, and at least the contrasting colors with the foreground were pleasing. What’s Sega’s excuse here besides laziness?
Sega also seems to eschew the quality of life improvements made by the evolution of home consoles because so many games on the Genesis recalled an arcade-like sense of consequence with continuing. Someone at Sega apparently raised a banner over the offices of the developers that said, “save features and unlimited continues are for pussies”, and the publishing of a Castlevania without those aspects makes this all the more evident. Bloodlines makes it so the player can continue from the last checkpoint when they get a game over, but there are only a limited number of game-overs before the player is forced to start the game over again. A password system was implemented for the first time in the series, but these were obsolete by the 16-bit era. Not including a save feature is one thing, but Castlevania offered unlimited continues as early as the first title on the NES. The franchise broke ground as a merciful purveyor of them when its NES contemporaries still forced the player to start from the beginning after too many deaths. Bloodlines are also just as short as the first Castlevania, so I cannot see any perspective to consider praising Sega for deviating from the staples of the series. Sega wanted to screw the player, which is further supported by the dearth of health items and no extra lives earned in Bloodlines. Sega’s initiative simply makes the game unnecessarily harsh on the player.
Every hit of damage and life counts in Bloodlines, which is tested to the limit with the game’s bosses. Bloodlines has more bosses than all three NES Castlevanias combined, which sounds great in theory. However, the pacing of Bloodlines mixed with the decreased facilitation makes every boss encounter a tense experience. For some reason, the developers found it appropriate to include three bosses per level, appearing every other block of the level until the last boss somewhere from the ninth to the twelfth one. None of the bosses are as difficult as many previous Castlevania games, but they still take a few tries to learn their attack patterns. Because Sega has stripped away the chances to learn these attack patterns, constant boss encounters feel like deliberate roadblocks. The Grim Reaper’s floating scythes finally have a learnable trajectory, but the player must fight three of the game’s previous bosses without dying. Hitting one of the cards during the Reaper fight will cause a splurge of roasts enough to end famine in a third-world country to pop out, but I only felt insulted due to the game being miserly with health items up till this point. The relentless endurance test doesn’t end here as the final fight against Elizabeth and Dracula both have multiple phases and must be beaten without dying. Elizabeth has only a few fatal tricks up her multiple sleeves, and fighting Dracula might be the easiest duel with the dark lord, but every mistake counts. I’d rather try to defeat a harder version of Dracula as many times as needed than feel ultimately defeated by relinquishing my number of chances to fight him.
Castlevania: Bloodlines should always be included in the discussion among Super Castlevania IV and Rondo of Blood in the category of 16-bit Castlevania games. After all, this title was the only real competition Nintendo faced with a Castlevania game after sheltering the series with their own hardware for so long. Whether or not Rondo of Blood is superior to Super Castlevania IV is ultimately superfluous because the fight with those two combatants took place so long after it was relevant. Bloodlines was the turncoat title intended to stab Nintendo in the back and drive attention towards Sega. Still, Bloodlines didn’t have the same appeal as Super Castlevania IV did other than a Castlevania game on a non-Nintendo system. Bloodlines regresses so far back to points even cruder than the Castlevania games on the 8-bit NES. Sega didn’t understand that cheap frills like guts and boobs were not substantial enough to mask their austere game design and lack of presentational polish. I’ve even come to appreciate Rondo of Blood more after playing Bloodlines despite criticizing that game for being more rigid than Super Castlevania IV. Castlevania: Bloodlines simply isn’t up to par with the excellent franchise evolution seen in its competing titles. It will always serve its position as the libertarian/green party representative of 16-bit Castlevania games.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
While the European title of Bloodlines is a lame, generic subtitle for a sequel, it applies to the game’s direction. Bloodlines take place far later than any previous Castlevania game in the early 20th century at the start of the first World War. Konami experiments with a case of alternate history in which the catalyst event of assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand was enacted by Dracula’s niece Elizabeth Bartley, who is directly influenced by real-life Hungarian serial killer Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Since then, a resurrected Dracula has been the cause of the Great War like Satan in “The Howling Man” episode of The Twilight Zone. The source of continental strife across an industrial age Europe is not due to avaricious empires or expanding military powers but an ancient vampiric lord. He relishes in the suffering of humanity. At least vanquishing Dracula again is a simpler solution to the complex political bedlam that was World War 1 in real life.
The Belmont family is out of commission due to the lengthy passage of time, so Bloodlines ushers in a “new generation” of vampire hunters tasked with taking down The Count. John Morris is an American-bred vampire hunter whose choice to brandish the whip recalls Castlevania’s traditional gameplay mechanics. Spanish Eric Lecarde, on the other hand, wields something of a trident with a longer range. These valiant young men are the two playable protagonists in Bloodlines. Working together to eradicate the source of turmoil in a war-torn Europe like other Castlevania games featuring multiple playable characters would be efficient, but Konami has decided to keep John and Eric separated. The player gets the choice of selecting which of these men they’d like to play for the duration of the game rather than swapping them during a level like in Castlevania III. Forcing the player to commit to one character may seem like an inaccessible demerit, but I think that this increases the replay value of Bloodlines. There is enough discernibility between John and Eric’s methods of defending themselves against the creatures of the night to warrant another playthrough with the other character. The discernibility is restricted enough that one character doesn’t cause an imbalance in difficulty like Maria did in Rondo of Blood. In saying this, I feel confident enough to declare that Eric is slightly easier to play than John. One might think a veteran Castlevania player would be more comfortable playing as John. Still, the slight level of versatility with Eric’s weaponry and frog-like jumping ability gives him a smidge of an advantage over his more orthodox cohort. John plays like a compromised version of Simon Belmont from Super Castlevania IV. John can only whip diagonally in mid-air, and the whip swinging technique is slightly finicky. Some Castlevania fans might prefer John’s restraint because it makes the game more challenging, but I thought playing as John tended to be awkward.
Along with expanding Castlevania’s character roster to non-Belmonts, Bloodlines also reaches past the confines of the usual setting of Dracula’s castle. Dracula’s plague reaches across the entire continent of Europe, so John and Eric’s quest takes them all over the land of milk and honey to expunge Dracula’s influence. The first level still revisits the remnants of the vampiric lord’s estate in Romania, but the characters never ascend to the castle’s peak. After that brief excursion, our heroes travel across the map of intercontinental Europe to five more locations. A Castlevania game has never been set outside Dracula’s castle, making this the most radical point of evolution Bloodlines introduces. One might think this decision would be a blasphemous one as the consistent setting provides a sound, continuously spooky tone fitting for a game like Castlevania. Bloodline’s premise expresses that Dracula’s influence has spread across the continent, so it allows everywhere in Europe to look like a perpetual Halloween. Frankly, the climb up to Dracula’s throne room was growing tiresome. The locations around Europe not only provide new variations to Castlevania’s progression but explore the mythos of other cultures beyond the elements that the series has numerously established. The Shrine of Atlantis, located in Greece, is a temple whose sunken sea level status allows flooding water to be used as a hazard. The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy acts as a warped, surreal platforming climb similar to something like the fourth level of Super Castlevania IV. The fourth level in Germany explores a sort of dingy, industrial setting commonly associated with the country and the Palace of Versailles in France looks as resplendent and sublime as one would expect from a gothic French landmark. The castle where Dracula is located in the UK looks like a standard final level for a Castlevania game, but it serves its purpose as a brief final trek up to the final array of bosses. Progression may not feel as organic as the typical climb, but the series desperately needed a refreshing change of pace.
Besides the “blast processing,” the other appeal Sega had over their rivals at Nintendo was a more lenient stance on censorship. Nintendo had always been marketed as a “family-friendly system” and drastically toned down the blood and gore of third-party developed games released on their systems. Sega, on the other hand, deviated from the prudish principles of Nintendo as a marketing scheme to win over the adolescent/adult demographic. Castlevania’s home for several years had been Nintendo, but the horror-inspired series was never specifically intended for a younger audience. The greatest perk of putting a Castlevania game on the comparatively wicked Sega Genesis was that the developers could revel in the potential of excess blood and gore unseen in a Castlevania game on a Nintendo console. A bloody mess of human remains is littered all over Dracula’s castle, and the wolf boss at the castle’s grounds convulses and pulsates on the ground after deleting its health bar. Harpies that reign over the skies of Italy can be decapitated by John’s whip, moving about with gore gushing from the open neck holes like a chicken. I’m also pretty sure these same enemies possess discernable but nippleless tits. The graphic content of Bloodlines may seem tame, especially considering it's delineated by pixels, but Bloodlines would most likely be the only Castlevania game to rile up the concerned soccer moms of the western world during this era.
Unfortunately, the amplified shock factor of Bloodlines is the only way that signifies that the series has grown up. I’m starting to realize that the appeal of the Genesis lies only in gimmicks like blast processing and lack of censorship because Bloodlines greatly exposes the console’s inferior foundation compared to the SNES. Several Genesis games (Strider, Gunstar Heroes) pierce my eardrums with a sharp, grating sound design, and Bloodlines is at least more pleasant than the worst the system has to offer. However, the sound design of Bloodlines isn’t nearly as crisp as the SNES’s Super Castlevania IV. The dialogue of Rondo of Blood might sound horribly processed, but at least the sound design during the gameplay was pleasant. The moment in Bloodlines that confirmed its shoddy aural fidelity was during the section in Greece when the player had to destroy structures to make for sturdier platformers. Knocking down the head of a statue results in a depleting sound reminiscent of having stat decreased in an RPG. It was the least appropriate sound for a crashing marble head heavier than an elephant. As for the graphics, the starless skies in the background are so drab and flavorless compared to the level of visual flair seen in the other two 16-bit Castlevania games. The developers had some leeway with blank backgrounds in the NES era due to the primitive nature of the system, and at least the contrasting colors with the foreground were pleasing. What’s Sega’s excuse here besides laziness?
Sega also seems to eschew the quality of life improvements made by the evolution of home consoles because so many games on the Genesis recalled an arcade-like sense of consequence with continuing. Someone at Sega apparently raised a banner over the offices of the developers that said, “save features and unlimited continues are for pussies”, and the publishing of a Castlevania without those aspects makes this all the more evident. Bloodlines makes it so the player can continue from the last checkpoint when they get a game over, but there are only a limited number of game-overs before the player is forced to start the game over again. A password system was implemented for the first time in the series, but these were obsolete by the 16-bit era. Not including a save feature is one thing, but Castlevania offered unlimited continues as early as the first title on the NES. The franchise broke ground as a merciful purveyor of them when its NES contemporaries still forced the player to start from the beginning after too many deaths. Bloodlines are also just as short as the first Castlevania, so I cannot see any perspective to consider praising Sega for deviating from the staples of the series. Sega wanted to screw the player, which is further supported by the dearth of health items and no extra lives earned in Bloodlines. Sega’s initiative simply makes the game unnecessarily harsh on the player.
Every hit of damage and life counts in Bloodlines, which is tested to the limit with the game’s bosses. Bloodlines has more bosses than all three NES Castlevanias combined, which sounds great in theory. However, the pacing of Bloodlines mixed with the decreased facilitation makes every boss encounter a tense experience. For some reason, the developers found it appropriate to include three bosses per level, appearing every other block of the level until the last boss somewhere from the ninth to the twelfth one. None of the bosses are as difficult as many previous Castlevania games, but they still take a few tries to learn their attack patterns. Because Sega has stripped away the chances to learn these attack patterns, constant boss encounters feel like deliberate roadblocks. The Grim Reaper’s floating scythes finally have a learnable trajectory, but the player must fight three of the game’s previous bosses without dying. Hitting one of the cards during the Reaper fight will cause a splurge of roasts enough to end famine in a third-world country to pop out, but I only felt insulted due to the game being miserly with health items up till this point. The relentless endurance test doesn’t end here as the final fight against Elizabeth and Dracula both have multiple phases and must be beaten without dying. Elizabeth has only a few fatal tricks up her multiple sleeves, and fighting Dracula might be the easiest duel with the dark lord, but every mistake counts. I’d rather try to defeat a harder version of Dracula as many times as needed than feel ultimately defeated by relinquishing my number of chances to fight him.
Castlevania: Bloodlines should always be included in the discussion among Super Castlevania IV and Rondo of Blood in the category of 16-bit Castlevania games. After all, this title was the only real competition Nintendo faced with a Castlevania game after sheltering the series with their own hardware for so long. Whether or not Rondo of Blood is superior to Super Castlevania IV is ultimately superfluous because the fight with those two combatants took place so long after it was relevant. Bloodlines was the turncoat title intended to stab Nintendo in the back and drive attention towards Sega. Still, Bloodlines didn’t have the same appeal as Super Castlevania IV did other than a Castlevania game on a non-Nintendo system. Bloodlines regresses so far back to points even cruder than the Castlevania games on the 8-bit NES. Sega didn’t understand that cheap frills like guts and boobs were not substantial enough to mask their austere game design and lack of presentational polish. I’ve even come to appreciate Rondo of Blood more after playing Bloodlines despite criticizing that game for being more rigid than Super Castlevania IV. Castlevania: Bloodlines simply isn’t up to par with the excellent franchise evolution seen in its competing titles. It will always serve its position as the libertarian/green party representative of 16-bit Castlevania games.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
2011
Valve’s titles to each respective IP never seem to get it right on their first go. Either that or they’re the video game company that benefits the greatest from the inherent second wind of a sequel. The first Team Fortress was merely a tech demo of an employee’s lark of an idea seemingly fabricated in a day. However, Team Fortress 2 was a generation-defining multiplayer FPS whose rabid cult following still keeps the game relevant. Half-Life was a monumental achievement for the FPS genre and influenced so many successors that aped its pioneering properties. Yet, no one speaks of it unless it's about the sequel, a game often declared the Mount Rushmore of video games. Left 4 Dead 2 wasn’t leaps of quality over the first one, but the marginal improvements it made over its predecessor eclipses it all the same. Gabe Newell and his team at Valve have no concept of a “sophomore slump,” or they are so familiar with the term to the extent that they exercise everything in their power to avoid it. The last of their major IPs not to be graced with a sequel was Portal, the game that arguably needed a sequel more than any other Valve IP. The first Portal was funny, inspired, creepy, and breathed new life into what I thought was the then recently deceased 3D platformer genre with puzzle-latent ingenuity. Everyone was praising Portal for all of these admirable qualities, but the short length and minimalism had me unconvinced of its overall quality. All Portal needed was more content to elevate its status in my mind, and what better way to do this than with a sequel cranked out by the most exceptional sequel makers in the industry? Portal 2 was a logical step in fleshing out the first game’s core attributes, and the game succeeded almost entirely.
Familiarity is a natural aspect of a sequel that wavers in necessity. It’s important to expand upon the gameplay, mechanics, and some sense of artistic direction, but developers often overshoot. They unnecessarily extend the arcs of the narrative, setting, and characters that were not open for continuation for the sake of banking on familiarity. Portal 2 is guilty of oversaturation, but I reached a point of clemency after some consideration. Aperture Laboratories was destroyed after the climactic events of the first game, so the facility wouldn’t be active unless they got a construction crew with beaver-like crafting abilities to restore it in a short period. However, is there anywhere as claustrophobic and sterile as Aperture Laboratories to use something like the portal gun? With this technology, the sky's the limit, but the vast potential wouldn’t make for an invigorating puzzle platformer game. Portal takes place in the same lonely laboratory as the first game, but now the player can revel in the destruction they’ve created. Appropriately, the clever, titanium-heeled Chell returns as the main protagonist, for she is the sole person who could relish with the player in what they’ve done. The second go around the compressed enclosure of Aperture starts similarly to the first game. Instead of a glass room with nothing but the bare necessities of living space, Chell finds herself in a more spacious hotel room. Another voice echoes from somewhere outside of the room, signaling that it’s once again time for the player to test their mettle in the courses of what remains of Aperture. Suddenly, half of the hotel room is obliterated, exposing the perilous heights the hotel is situated on. A British-sounding, spherical droid anxiously beckons the player to escape Aperture with him through the broad fissure created in the hotel room. The opening lulls the player with that sense of familiarity but subverts their expectations with a more bombastic set-up. It gives the impression that Portal 2 is a high-octane beast that deviates from its minimal predecessor.
Soon enough, we learn that this is merely a half-truth. While Portal 2 does offer far more than circuitous tests using the portal gun, extended sections of the game are dedicated to numbered courses where the puzzles get progressively more difficult like in the first game. The difference is in the way that Portal 2 paces itself. My biggest grievance regarding the first game was its uneven pacing. Valve split a short game into two thematically different parts: the test chambers and the arduous trek up to GLaDOS. Due to the game’s short length, the test chambers felt like an elongated tutorial to prepare the player for the second act. The most awkward aspect of Portal 1’s transition is that the second half is the same duration as the tutorial section of the first half. The overall experience felt cramped due to not giving the game enough legroom. Portal 2’s pacing is more erratic, but all ten sections are as long as either half of the first game. Lengthening the game is an obvious method of offering more content, and Portal 2 certainly satisfied me in doing this. Chapters involving both the test chambers and untethered platforming endeavors are interspersed throughout Portal 2’s playtime. Doubling the playtime and shifting the layout and focus of the puzzles every so often may have proved to be a bloated experience, but the strength of the narrative holds the mold of Portal 2’s progression.
Sequels to puzzle games tend to feel unnecessary because there is little discernibility from the previous titles. As much as whoever churns out the sequels to Tetris attempt to fool us with graphical overhauls and flashy dancehall visuals, none of this distracts from the fact that they’re still offering the same black and white, Russian-developed game from the mid-1980s. Portal 2’s mission is to expand upon the elements of the first game like any promising sequel would, including the properties of the puzzles. Portal’s puzzles obviously involve more than connecting one color portal to another one on the other side of the room; otherwise, the puzzle aspect of the game would be diminished entirely. Portal 2 adds a myriad of tools to the puzzle sequences for the player to work around. Springboards will make the player leap into the air if a sizable cliff isn’t available to jump off of. Light bridges also provide an alternative traversal method, but the true genius behind these incandescently blue bridges is using them as shields to obscure the turret's line of fire. Lasers replace energy balls as rogue sources of electrical power, and the new “discouragement direction cubes” will often accompany their presence to direct the path of the red hot beams. Vortex beams will carry the player in a single direction with their gravitational pull. My favorite of the new features is the colored gels. Globs of paint drip from the ceiling like a leaky faucet or gush out broken pipes like a sieve. The paints come in three different colors, all with their own attributes. The blue gel will bounce the player like a trampoline, running on a path of red gel will accelerate the player, and a splatter of white gel will allow the player to deposit a portal there regardless of the material the gel is coating. Incorporating each of these gels separately makes the puzzle-solving process all the more dynamic, but the highlight section of this entire game, in my opinion, are the tests that implement all of them at once for one buoyant puzzle sequence. This level of quality also concerns puzzles that involve multiple uses of all of the other features, as their collective presence provides a multifaceted challenge that wasn’t present in the first game.
While puzzles are the crux of Portal’s core gameplay, the first game wouldn’t have garnered the same praise and rabid internet following without its comedic tone and the vacant atmosphere. I’m happy to report that Portal 2 excels on the former of the two ingredients. I don’t know whether or not it’s due to the voicework of Stephen Merchant playing Wheatley, but Portal 2 has made me realize that the games have a very British sense of humor. Dialogue is consistently wry and carries an aura of deliberate silliness behind its deadpan delivery like a Monty Python skit or an episode of Black Adder. This description applies to GLaDOS from the first game, but now she isn’t the only voice in the franchise. Wheatley’s manic manner of speaking, which sounds like he wears every emotion on his sleeve, is delivered exceptionally by Stephen Merchant. The borderline improvised-sounding delivery of the latter gives so much expression and character to what is a featureless sphere with a wide, blue retina that blinks occasionally. His eccentric monologuing with Chell never grows tiresome, but his banter with GLaDOS is especially entertaining. Attempting to best GLaDOS in a match of wits exposes him as a fool without GLaDOS rolling her eyes and sighing at him, but he’s more of a British definition of a comedic oaf than the crass, cloddish American trope of one. Every line spoken by J.K. Simmons as the former Aperture CEO Cave Johnson is pure gold, especially his angry, subversive line about a certain adage regarding lemons. The developers knew that they had to expand on Portal’s character roster beyond GLaDOS and the mute protagonist of Chell, and each new character is as quippy as she is.
Portal 2, however, lacks the same unnerving, cramped atmosphere of the first game. Until I played the first Portal again to review it, I hadn’t appreciated the subtle yet effective way the game conveyed the harrowing malaise that permeated through the vacuous environment of the Enrichment Center. Danger felt eminent, and the player learned that the calm, albeit condescending voice of GLaDOS was not to be trusted. Of course, Valve could not have achieved the same effect in a sequel considering the walls of Aperture had been figuratively and literally torn down, exposing the secret of GLaDOS and destroying the threat accordingly. Holding the same sequence of tests in a different laboratory with a different protagonist wouldn’t have garnered the same effect. Valve had to slightly stray from the existential angle, but they found something as effective. Because the doors of ambiguity were demolished, Valve uses the sequel to expand on the lore of Aperture to unlock a new perspective on the scientific facility unseen from the prison-like walls of the Enrichment Center.
From the first sequence, when half of the hotel caves in, the player sees more of Aperture from a literal standpoint. Portal does not incorporate fall damage, but the wide chasm that signifies the massive size of the facility and the fruitlessness of escaping it is a constant hazard in Portal 2. The ground supporting the player's weight will frequently be the flimsy steel rail platforms. The player will explore vast areas outside the Enrichment Center, like the turret manufacturing plant and the outside borders that serve as Memoriam of Aperture’s CEO Cave Johnson. We learn in this section that Aperture was in an apocalyptic state of ruin before Chell defeated GLaDOS in the first game. The company was founded to compete with the scientific achievements of Black Mesa (yes, the same one from Half-Life), but several foolish business decisions caused its downfall. One of these blunders resulted in Cave Johnson poisoning himself and wishing for his secretary to carry on Aperture's business via inserting her brain into an artificial intelligence apparatus. GLaDOS has a moment of clarity and realizes that she used to be Carolyn and that she’s been conducting these tests on unfortunate subjects like Chell to prolong Aperture’s legacy. Due to the confined scope in the first game, we assume that Aperture is a force to be reckoned with, but more information reveals that we should somewhat pity Aperture and GLaDOS’s everlasting efforts to preserve it.
We also assume from the first game that GLaDOS is a cold, calculating sociopath with an irrevocable role as a villain. Once Chell fails to exterminate her permanently with Wheatley and she subjects more tests on her, we infer that Portal will be another excursion in defeating the mechanical monster. During one of the tests, Wheatley destroys the foundation of another of Aperture’s walls as they both make their way down to GLaDOS’s lair. Because of some sabotage efforts, Wheatley usurps GLaDOS’s power and takes over the facility. GLaDOS informs us that Wheatley was designed as a parasitic tumor meant to dilute her urge to kill and that his presence as the core will eventually destroy Aperture with an explosion. Wheatley isn’t doing all this maliciously, but rather from his insecurities and ignorance about the impact of his actions. Even so, Chell and GLaDOS, in an inconvenient potato form, must stop Wheatley before his hubris gets the best of everyone. After failing to stump Chell in a series of tests he created, Wheatley tries his best to kill her in an attempt to stop her from dethroning him. Encountering Wheatley in his lair results in an exhilarating battle against the clock while neurotoxins slowly seep into the room. Fighting Wheatley is a lot like the GLaDOS fight at the end of the first game, only with the added gel features to spruce it up. The five-minute time limit proves too tight, and in a last-second attempt to stop Wheatley, Chell shoots the portal gun exceedingly past any parameters it has ever been shot before: the moon. Space’s gravitational pull sucks Wheatley into the empty void of space as he regrets his actions leading up to that point while floating aimlessly. Wheatley’s boss fight does not have the same weight as the duel with GLaDOS, but the resolution to Portal 2’s falling action involving GLaDOS is substantial enough. GLaDOS seems healthy and good-natured after stopping the threat of Wheatley, and she sheds the grudge she harbored against Chell. As a token of her warm feeling of friendship, she releases Chell from Aperture and even belches up the singed companion cube from the first game as a bonus. Anyone who played the first game would be outraged at being friends with GLaDOS, but the organic time spent with her by your side in Portal 2 results in a bittersweet and conclusive ending.
Portal 2 was under extreme pressure before the game was released. Video game sequels have a less checkered history than film sequels due to different aspects, so no one expected Portal 2 to fail. However, Portal 2 was under the connotations of a “Valve quality sequel” with soaring expectations that it also had to be one of the greatest games of all time. Portal 2’s result was not perfect as it couldn’t exude the same cold, nihilistic tone as the first game because the mystery of Aperture Laboratories was already spoiled. Fortunately, video games have other aspects of development than narrative and tone like a film. Portal 2 left no stone unturned in fixing every little nitpick I had with the first game. The puzzles are more intricate with new features, and the game’s content is long enough to exude the sense of a full, finished project. All the while, Valve tapped into Portal’s lore and managed to give more intrigue to its world and characters even though I figured they didn’t need it. Expecting a game to be spotless is ludicrous, but Portal 2 leaves with a sensation that the first game didn’t: utter satisfaction.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Familiarity is a natural aspect of a sequel that wavers in necessity. It’s important to expand upon the gameplay, mechanics, and some sense of artistic direction, but developers often overshoot. They unnecessarily extend the arcs of the narrative, setting, and characters that were not open for continuation for the sake of banking on familiarity. Portal 2 is guilty of oversaturation, but I reached a point of clemency after some consideration. Aperture Laboratories was destroyed after the climactic events of the first game, so the facility wouldn’t be active unless they got a construction crew with beaver-like crafting abilities to restore it in a short period. However, is there anywhere as claustrophobic and sterile as Aperture Laboratories to use something like the portal gun? With this technology, the sky's the limit, but the vast potential wouldn’t make for an invigorating puzzle platformer game. Portal takes place in the same lonely laboratory as the first game, but now the player can revel in the destruction they’ve created. Appropriately, the clever, titanium-heeled Chell returns as the main protagonist, for she is the sole person who could relish with the player in what they’ve done. The second go around the compressed enclosure of Aperture starts similarly to the first game. Instead of a glass room with nothing but the bare necessities of living space, Chell finds herself in a more spacious hotel room. Another voice echoes from somewhere outside of the room, signaling that it’s once again time for the player to test their mettle in the courses of what remains of Aperture. Suddenly, half of the hotel room is obliterated, exposing the perilous heights the hotel is situated on. A British-sounding, spherical droid anxiously beckons the player to escape Aperture with him through the broad fissure created in the hotel room. The opening lulls the player with that sense of familiarity but subverts their expectations with a more bombastic set-up. It gives the impression that Portal 2 is a high-octane beast that deviates from its minimal predecessor.
Soon enough, we learn that this is merely a half-truth. While Portal 2 does offer far more than circuitous tests using the portal gun, extended sections of the game are dedicated to numbered courses where the puzzles get progressively more difficult like in the first game. The difference is in the way that Portal 2 paces itself. My biggest grievance regarding the first game was its uneven pacing. Valve split a short game into two thematically different parts: the test chambers and the arduous trek up to GLaDOS. Due to the game’s short length, the test chambers felt like an elongated tutorial to prepare the player for the second act. The most awkward aspect of Portal 1’s transition is that the second half is the same duration as the tutorial section of the first half. The overall experience felt cramped due to not giving the game enough legroom. Portal 2’s pacing is more erratic, but all ten sections are as long as either half of the first game. Lengthening the game is an obvious method of offering more content, and Portal 2 certainly satisfied me in doing this. Chapters involving both the test chambers and untethered platforming endeavors are interspersed throughout Portal 2’s playtime. Doubling the playtime and shifting the layout and focus of the puzzles every so often may have proved to be a bloated experience, but the strength of the narrative holds the mold of Portal 2’s progression.
Sequels to puzzle games tend to feel unnecessary because there is little discernibility from the previous titles. As much as whoever churns out the sequels to Tetris attempt to fool us with graphical overhauls and flashy dancehall visuals, none of this distracts from the fact that they’re still offering the same black and white, Russian-developed game from the mid-1980s. Portal 2’s mission is to expand upon the elements of the first game like any promising sequel would, including the properties of the puzzles. Portal’s puzzles obviously involve more than connecting one color portal to another one on the other side of the room; otherwise, the puzzle aspect of the game would be diminished entirely. Portal 2 adds a myriad of tools to the puzzle sequences for the player to work around. Springboards will make the player leap into the air if a sizable cliff isn’t available to jump off of. Light bridges also provide an alternative traversal method, but the true genius behind these incandescently blue bridges is using them as shields to obscure the turret's line of fire. Lasers replace energy balls as rogue sources of electrical power, and the new “discouragement direction cubes” will often accompany their presence to direct the path of the red hot beams. Vortex beams will carry the player in a single direction with their gravitational pull. My favorite of the new features is the colored gels. Globs of paint drip from the ceiling like a leaky faucet or gush out broken pipes like a sieve. The paints come in three different colors, all with their own attributes. The blue gel will bounce the player like a trampoline, running on a path of red gel will accelerate the player, and a splatter of white gel will allow the player to deposit a portal there regardless of the material the gel is coating. Incorporating each of these gels separately makes the puzzle-solving process all the more dynamic, but the highlight section of this entire game, in my opinion, are the tests that implement all of them at once for one buoyant puzzle sequence. This level of quality also concerns puzzles that involve multiple uses of all of the other features, as their collective presence provides a multifaceted challenge that wasn’t present in the first game.
While puzzles are the crux of Portal’s core gameplay, the first game wouldn’t have garnered the same praise and rabid internet following without its comedic tone and the vacant atmosphere. I’m happy to report that Portal 2 excels on the former of the two ingredients. I don’t know whether or not it’s due to the voicework of Stephen Merchant playing Wheatley, but Portal 2 has made me realize that the games have a very British sense of humor. Dialogue is consistently wry and carries an aura of deliberate silliness behind its deadpan delivery like a Monty Python skit or an episode of Black Adder. This description applies to GLaDOS from the first game, but now she isn’t the only voice in the franchise. Wheatley’s manic manner of speaking, which sounds like he wears every emotion on his sleeve, is delivered exceptionally by Stephen Merchant. The borderline improvised-sounding delivery of the latter gives so much expression and character to what is a featureless sphere with a wide, blue retina that blinks occasionally. His eccentric monologuing with Chell never grows tiresome, but his banter with GLaDOS is especially entertaining. Attempting to best GLaDOS in a match of wits exposes him as a fool without GLaDOS rolling her eyes and sighing at him, but he’s more of a British definition of a comedic oaf than the crass, cloddish American trope of one. Every line spoken by J.K. Simmons as the former Aperture CEO Cave Johnson is pure gold, especially his angry, subversive line about a certain adage regarding lemons. The developers knew that they had to expand on Portal’s character roster beyond GLaDOS and the mute protagonist of Chell, and each new character is as quippy as she is.
Portal 2, however, lacks the same unnerving, cramped atmosphere of the first game. Until I played the first Portal again to review it, I hadn’t appreciated the subtle yet effective way the game conveyed the harrowing malaise that permeated through the vacuous environment of the Enrichment Center. Danger felt eminent, and the player learned that the calm, albeit condescending voice of GLaDOS was not to be trusted. Of course, Valve could not have achieved the same effect in a sequel considering the walls of Aperture had been figuratively and literally torn down, exposing the secret of GLaDOS and destroying the threat accordingly. Holding the same sequence of tests in a different laboratory with a different protagonist wouldn’t have garnered the same effect. Valve had to slightly stray from the existential angle, but they found something as effective. Because the doors of ambiguity were demolished, Valve uses the sequel to expand on the lore of Aperture to unlock a new perspective on the scientific facility unseen from the prison-like walls of the Enrichment Center.
From the first sequence, when half of the hotel caves in, the player sees more of Aperture from a literal standpoint. Portal does not incorporate fall damage, but the wide chasm that signifies the massive size of the facility and the fruitlessness of escaping it is a constant hazard in Portal 2. The ground supporting the player's weight will frequently be the flimsy steel rail platforms. The player will explore vast areas outside the Enrichment Center, like the turret manufacturing plant and the outside borders that serve as Memoriam of Aperture’s CEO Cave Johnson. We learn in this section that Aperture was in an apocalyptic state of ruin before Chell defeated GLaDOS in the first game. The company was founded to compete with the scientific achievements of Black Mesa (yes, the same one from Half-Life), but several foolish business decisions caused its downfall. One of these blunders resulted in Cave Johnson poisoning himself and wishing for his secretary to carry on Aperture's business via inserting her brain into an artificial intelligence apparatus. GLaDOS has a moment of clarity and realizes that she used to be Carolyn and that she’s been conducting these tests on unfortunate subjects like Chell to prolong Aperture’s legacy. Due to the confined scope in the first game, we assume that Aperture is a force to be reckoned with, but more information reveals that we should somewhat pity Aperture and GLaDOS’s everlasting efforts to preserve it.
We also assume from the first game that GLaDOS is a cold, calculating sociopath with an irrevocable role as a villain. Once Chell fails to exterminate her permanently with Wheatley and she subjects more tests on her, we infer that Portal will be another excursion in defeating the mechanical monster. During one of the tests, Wheatley destroys the foundation of another of Aperture’s walls as they both make their way down to GLaDOS’s lair. Because of some sabotage efforts, Wheatley usurps GLaDOS’s power and takes over the facility. GLaDOS informs us that Wheatley was designed as a parasitic tumor meant to dilute her urge to kill and that his presence as the core will eventually destroy Aperture with an explosion. Wheatley isn’t doing all this maliciously, but rather from his insecurities and ignorance about the impact of his actions. Even so, Chell and GLaDOS, in an inconvenient potato form, must stop Wheatley before his hubris gets the best of everyone. After failing to stump Chell in a series of tests he created, Wheatley tries his best to kill her in an attempt to stop her from dethroning him. Encountering Wheatley in his lair results in an exhilarating battle against the clock while neurotoxins slowly seep into the room. Fighting Wheatley is a lot like the GLaDOS fight at the end of the first game, only with the added gel features to spruce it up. The five-minute time limit proves too tight, and in a last-second attempt to stop Wheatley, Chell shoots the portal gun exceedingly past any parameters it has ever been shot before: the moon. Space’s gravitational pull sucks Wheatley into the empty void of space as he regrets his actions leading up to that point while floating aimlessly. Wheatley’s boss fight does not have the same weight as the duel with GLaDOS, but the resolution to Portal 2’s falling action involving GLaDOS is substantial enough. GLaDOS seems healthy and good-natured after stopping the threat of Wheatley, and she sheds the grudge she harbored against Chell. As a token of her warm feeling of friendship, she releases Chell from Aperture and even belches up the singed companion cube from the first game as a bonus. Anyone who played the first game would be outraged at being friends with GLaDOS, but the organic time spent with her by your side in Portal 2 results in a bittersweet and conclusive ending.
Portal 2 was under extreme pressure before the game was released. Video game sequels have a less checkered history than film sequels due to different aspects, so no one expected Portal 2 to fail. However, Portal 2 was under the connotations of a “Valve quality sequel” with soaring expectations that it also had to be one of the greatest games of all time. Portal 2’s result was not perfect as it couldn’t exude the same cold, nihilistic tone as the first game because the mystery of Aperture Laboratories was already spoiled. Fortunately, video games have other aspects of development than narrative and tone like a film. Portal 2 left no stone unturned in fixing every little nitpick I had with the first game. The puzzles are more intricate with new features, and the game’s content is long enough to exude the sense of a full, finished project. All the while, Valve tapped into Portal’s lore and managed to give more intrigue to its world and characters even though I figured they didn’t need it. Expecting a game to be spotless is ludicrous, but Portal 2 leaves with a sensation that the first game didn’t: utter satisfaction.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Me: Mom, can we have Castlevania: Rondo of Blood?
Mom: We have Rondo of Blood at home...
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood at home:
God, I'm such a hack.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Mom: We have Rondo of Blood at home...
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood at home:
God, I'm such a hack.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
At what point does a cult classic lose its status as such? When does a hidden gem gleam too brightly to the point where everyone becomes aware of it through its blinding light? The answer to both rhetorical questions can be traced to the legacy of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, the fifth mainline installment in Konami's iconic action-horror franchise. One who is ignorant about this particular game but enlightened about the franchise might even wonder how a Castlevania game could be burrowed deep into the mud of a cult classic status. The franchise's presence on the NES and SNES consoles as a third-party series was monumental, imprinting its legacy on the 2D platformer era with as much impact as any of Nintendo's first-party contemporaries. Upon the franchise's fifth entry, however, someone at Konami ostensibly decided to sever the Nintendo safety net and release Rondo of Blood on the PC Engine (aka the TurboGrafx-16), the Linux of 16-bit consoles. To add another layer to Rondo of Blood's esoteric allure, the game was only available in its native Japan, the prime factor in the game's relegation to obscurity if confining the game to the TurboGrafx-16 wasn't enough. Konami, feeling somewhat remorseful for their bizarre business decisions, dumped an insufficient Rondo of Blood port titled "Castlevania: Dracula X" on eager SNES owners anticipating the next entry. Naturally, these poor westerners were displeased. It seems baffling that Konami would go to great lengths to bite the hand that feeds them, but it seems, in retrospect, that whoever made this decision had the foresight of a Tibetan monk. Thanks to the revelatory creation of the internet, there is not one piece of hidden media from that past that can hide in the shadows. A decade after Rondo of Blood's limited availability, public knowledge of Rondo of Blood's existence grew rapidly enough to where Konami ported the proper version of the game on a smattering of consoles. Nowadays, Castlevania's well-kept secret is now heralded as the pinnacle of the classic Castlevania format. Upon playing Rondo of Blood, I'm convinced that its stellar reputation stems from the long period that fans were clamoring for it rather than its quality.
While its exclusivity to the TurboGrafx-16 alienated many gamers, the decision was most likely based on the alternative console's advanced capabilities. Those lucky few who owned the system were treated to a marvel of presentation on a 16-bit console. Rondo of Blood's idea of conveying an ominous introduction, a series staple for each Castlevania game, is a voice in German whose subtitles are the only thing the player sees in the darkness. Why the man speaks German in a Japanese game set in Romania is unclear, but I digress. The narrator introduces a sinister scene of what looks like a blood sacrifice in a gothic cathedral. A naked girl wrapped in a large cloth for means of both mystique and censorship is centered in the room. One plunge of a blade into her quivering body by one of the menacing-looking soldiers is enough to resurrect the dark, vampiric lord once again as he rises from his coffin. Higher graphical fidelity and a more eruptive sound were the keys to impressing players in opening Super Castlevania IV on a new system, and Rondo of Blood amplifies it to the next level. The block of text that scrolls upward after the tombstone is struck in Super Castlevania IV had to be read by the player. Still, the white text that pops up over the black background in the opening of Rondo of Blood introduces a vital element of video game progress: voice acting. Foreboding German voice narration and the bloody scream of a helpless virgin are less subtle than a gravestone on a misty moor, but it exudes a tense and spooky atmosphere just as effectively. Voice acting and animation aren't merely implemented to introduce the game. Each cutscene throughout the game is fully voiced with the same animation.
Given that I've played and reviewed every mainline Castlevania game up to Rondo of Blood, I understand the magnificence of the animation and voice acting and the scope of progress they both signified. However, plenty of unprecedented leaps in gaming capabilities in the 1990s haven't aged gracefully, and Rondo of Blood cutscenes are a prime example of this. The choppy, languorous animation is as cheesy as the flat, directionless voice acting, which also sounds like the characters are submerged underwater thanks to the primordial sound design. Simply because gaming hit a point where these aspects were feasible doesn't necessarily mean that developers should've jumped on the opportunity at their genesis. Because of how primitive the new technical frills are, Rondo of Blood arguably seems more dated than Super Castlevania IV or any of its 8-bit predecessors. The pixels that the industry made strides in progressing from for so many generations have ironically aged better than any early effort in deviating from them, and Rondo of Blood is a perfect example of this. At least Rondo of Blood's pixel art that Konami have taken years to refine and improve upon is as appealing as they ever were. Color palettes may not be as dazzling as in Super Castlevania IV, but the deeper tones convey a haunting atmosphere more deliberately.
Rondo of Blood is a Castlevania game marked by advancements. Besides the technical aspects, Rondo of Blood supplies the player with a new Belmont at the helm of destroying Dracula. Unlike Trevor Belmont, who was one of Simon's ancestors, Richter Belmont is adversely a descendant of Simon's, existing in a time over a century after his relative's vampire-hunting endeavors. The Belmont litmus test to both see the character's heroic potential and whether or not he fits the likeness of the family is again as uncanny as it was with Trevor. Richter moves with the same sense of resolution, jumps and climbs staircases with the same rigidity, and gets dramatically blown away by anything that strikes him. He also possesses the same weapons as every Belmont before him; namely, the trademark whip used to strip away the flesh of the foul creatures that lurk around Dracula's castle.
Considering Richter has centuries of fellow Belmonts to use as inspiration, one would think he'd be the most advanced vampire slayer in comparison. Unfortunately, Richter might be a testament to the saying that talent skips a few generations. Richter's fighting prowess recalls the limits of past Belmonts on the NES. He can execute a backflip, but when does this ever come in handy? More importantly, the player cannot whip in several different directions as Richter, for it has been restricted to the horizontal axis once again. Using the secondary weapons is also relegated to the combination of pressing up on the D-pad and the attack button simultaneously. The capabilities of what a Castlevania protagonist could do on a controller for a 16-bit system were already made apparent from Super Castlevania IV. Still, Rondo of Blood chooses to stray backward to a more humble control scheme. This decision was most likely due to the common criticism that Simon's versatility with his whip mitigated the use of secondary weapons. While I'm in the camp that prefers the more flexible range, these complaints are at least understandable as I never found myself seldom using the secondary weapons in Super Castlevania IV. However, relegating the secondary weapon trigger to how it was in the NES titles takes the series a step backward. Was the Turbo-Grafix controller not as multifaceted as a SNES controller and couldn't supply the secondary weapon with its own trigger? Regardless, I feel this point of regression indicates Rondo of Blood's questionable quality. A new feature that Rondo of Blood implements is a special attack with the secondary items. After accumulating a certain amount of hearts, pressing a single button will unleash a special move that coincides with whatever secondary weapon Richter carries. It's a clever idea that encourages using the items, but it's faulty in execution. I found the special attacks to be more flashy than practical, like putting a bushel of oranges in a juicer just to squeeze out a couple of drops.
More so, Rondo of Blood is more difficult than Super Castlevania IV. It's not as relentlessly ball-busting as two out of the three NES games due to featuring a save function, but the gameplay is much harder to hurdle over than the franchise's previous 16-bit outing. One might think it's due to reconverting to the rigid controls from the NES days, but this is merely a fraction of what makes Rondo of Blood's difficulty more appalling. That's right, appalling. Apparently, somewhere on the shadier side of the Belmont family tree lies a trait even more recessive than being blown back by any colliding physical force. This unfortunate gene is not given an invincibility frame; a requisite video game feature that assures the error of taking damage won't punish the player too harshly by providing a brief moment of invulnerability so they can prop themselves back on track. Richter ostensibly has the genetic makeup of a hemophiliac as inbreeding between his Belmont ancestors has given him too many flawed quirks. Not only does Richter stumble dramatically when hit, but his health bar can plummet quickly in a matter of seconds due to not having a merciful window. Groups of Medusa Heads will bat Richter around like a pinball machine, and getting too close to enemies will always be the imminent death for the player. Invincibility windows are paramount to fair game design, and any game without them is objectively flawed. Still, their absence in a close-combat series like Castlevania makes their omission all the more vexing for the player.
The level design in Rondo of Blood is much less linear than in Super Castlevania IV. The older of the two 16-bit Castlevanias was a loyal remake of the first Castlevania, and a non-linear level progression would've proved to be too ambitious for an early NES game. It was, however, proven in the third entry on the same system that experimenting with linearity was possible on the NES, and Rondo of Blood continues where Castlevania III left off. However, Rondo of Blood's experimentation leads the player down different directions of Dracula's castle than Castlevania III did. Instead of choosing paths at a crossroads between levels, Rondo of Blood implores the player to wander off the beaten path of any given level on the direct course. With the save system in consideration, I'd argue that Rondo of Blood should have adopted Castlevania III's method of nonlinearity to facilitate multiple playthroughs. As it is, Rondo of Blood's methods of revisiting levels with a stage select feature is a competent way of fostering exploration.
If the player doesn't take the time to meticulously explore the vicinity, one of the primary objectives will be incomplete. Unlike his forefathers, Richter's mission to defeat Dracula isn't because he's a noble warrior. Richter needed some motivation to carry on his family's legacy as Dracula holds four captured maidens all over his estate, one of them being Richter's fiance. These ill-fated damsels are located in secret corners of the castle which can only be accessed off the beaten path. Once they are found, an animated cutscene plays, and the girls commend Richter for their heroic deeds. The reward for rescuing these girls is practically nothing, and it does not affect the course for the rest of the game. Still, it's confusing why the developers would relegate their roles as optional fetch quests considering their precedence in the story. I think rescuing all four of them should have unlocked the full ending of the game, adding an additional layer of incentive to play the game meticulously. Concepts like "true endings" may have been too radical an idea for the 16-bit era, but hindsight is always 20/20.
One of these four maidens is also Rondo of Blood's secondary protagonist. Tossing a key into the lock of an underground door in the second main level will uncover a ritual conducted on a blonde girl in a pink dress. Upon interrupting this incantation, the blonde girl will float down into Richter's loving arms and thank him kindly. Her name is Maria Renard, a giddy young girl from a fellow vampire-hunting family. She is offended at Richter's laughing condescension when she insists on aiding him in his quest, but the player will know not to judge Maria by her appearance. By stating her role as a secondary protagonist, I don't mean in the narrative. Saving Maria will unlock Rondo of Blood's only other playable character. Subtracting the number of playable characters from Castlevania IIIs three may seem disappointing, but Maria's inclusion is more than enough. Maria's tactics are completely different than any Belmont's, adding additional frills to her moveset. She can double jump, and slide on the ground like Mega Man, and her base attack is two doves whose trajectory is the same as Richter's whip with the added perk of doing damage on reentry like a boomerang. Her secondary weapons are all various animal friends like a cat, tortoise, dragon, and parrot that cover as many bases as the usual ax, holy water, etc. Richter should wipe that smug grin off his face because Maria is far better at eliminating vampiric threats than he or anyone else in his family. What better tool to use against the legions of the damned than purity and chastity? In fact, Maria seems to be TOO good with some criticizing playing as her making the game far too easy. Maria's defense is lower than Richter's, but the player will ideally never get hit due to the higher damage output of her doves. Her sweetness, frilliness, and sickeningly cute demeanor lead me to believe that she's Konami's attempt to cater to girls to a transparent degree. If Castlevania was missing a much-needed demographic, it's the little sisters of Japanese Turbo-Grafix owners. Even the roasts Richter consumes in the cracked-out walls shift into sugary foods like parfaits and birthday cake when playing as Maria. Do girls not need protein in their diets? Maria is a market decision as condescending towards young women as Richter is, but I'd be lying if I didn't find myself playing as her most of the time.
If unlocking a makeshift easy mode and a few hidden cutscenes don't tickle your curiosity, I still beseech everyone to go the extra lengths to search every path this game offers. The secret paths add much-needed variety to the typical climb from the base of the grounds to the tip of Dracula's peak. The secret routes run the gamut of different foregrounds ranging from jungles, and watery wharves, to temples with flowing water streaming through the foundation. One alternate route is a level in the daylight of all things. Each level might not be as creative and stylized as the individual levels from Castlevania IV, but the variation provided here is fresh air upon the fifth trek up this godforsaken building. The secret routes will also lead to some eclectic boss fights. Among the series standards like The Grim Reaper and a boss gauntlet that revisits each boss from the first game in order, Rondo of Blood adds a smattering of high-stakes bosses from other mythical horror sources. For example, the secret path will have Richter and Maria fighting a serpent that slithers along a bridge over water, a pile of skeletons that take the shape of many forms, a naked banshee riding a giant skull, etc. The dark wizard Shaft takes the peculiar role of acting as Dracula's right-hand man, demoting the Grim Reaper for the sake of variety. The final fight against Dracula is surprisingly the bout I expected from Super Castlevania IV because it's the fight from the first game with more impressive graphical flair. The ending will differ depending on whether the player finishes Dracula with either Richter or Maria. Still, either will result in Dracula's demise with his tower crumbling on the horizon as usual.
If Castlevania: Rondo of Blood was released in its full glory to the western world back in 1993, the 16-bit wars would've reached a point of bloody mayhem that Sega, the prime instigators of this capitalistic battle, would've stayed out of. Those few who owned the niche Turbo-Grafix-16 system would've been treated to a hallmark game on the system that made Nintendo fans all the more covetous, given that it's an entry to a series that stands as a reason to have kept purchasing Nintendo's consoles way back when. Alas, this is merely a case of alternative history, for Rondo of Blood's adulation is in retrospect after so many years. The appeal of finally being able to play Castlevania's well-kept secret has caused a rise in the game's placement among the rest of the titles in the series, which I always thought was unjust. I've always thought that Super Castlevania IV was the superior 16-bit Castlevania game, and those who favor Rondo of Blood criticize Super Castlevania IV just as fervently. I now see that both camps have substantial arguments for their respective opinions. Super Castlevania IV is a more orthodox Castlevania game whose mission was to refine the first game with the advancements of the SNES, as was the initiative for many sequels on the console. On the other hand, I admire Rondo of Blood's greater ambition in progressing the series. I still stand by my stance that Super Castlevania IV is the better game because it's much fairer to the player. That was a vital aspect of Super Castlevania IV's evolution not seen in Rondo of Blood. I suppose I can be thankful that westerners finally got to experience Richter Belmont in his finest form on a worthy entry in the series rather than that god-awful port of this game that we initially received on the SNES.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
While its exclusivity to the TurboGrafx-16 alienated many gamers, the decision was most likely based on the alternative console's advanced capabilities. Those lucky few who owned the system were treated to a marvel of presentation on a 16-bit console. Rondo of Blood's idea of conveying an ominous introduction, a series staple for each Castlevania game, is a voice in German whose subtitles are the only thing the player sees in the darkness. Why the man speaks German in a Japanese game set in Romania is unclear, but I digress. The narrator introduces a sinister scene of what looks like a blood sacrifice in a gothic cathedral. A naked girl wrapped in a large cloth for means of both mystique and censorship is centered in the room. One plunge of a blade into her quivering body by one of the menacing-looking soldiers is enough to resurrect the dark, vampiric lord once again as he rises from his coffin. Higher graphical fidelity and a more eruptive sound were the keys to impressing players in opening Super Castlevania IV on a new system, and Rondo of Blood amplifies it to the next level. The block of text that scrolls upward after the tombstone is struck in Super Castlevania IV had to be read by the player. Still, the white text that pops up over the black background in the opening of Rondo of Blood introduces a vital element of video game progress: voice acting. Foreboding German voice narration and the bloody scream of a helpless virgin are less subtle than a gravestone on a misty moor, but it exudes a tense and spooky atmosphere just as effectively. Voice acting and animation aren't merely implemented to introduce the game. Each cutscene throughout the game is fully voiced with the same animation.
Given that I've played and reviewed every mainline Castlevania game up to Rondo of Blood, I understand the magnificence of the animation and voice acting and the scope of progress they both signified. However, plenty of unprecedented leaps in gaming capabilities in the 1990s haven't aged gracefully, and Rondo of Blood cutscenes are a prime example of this. The choppy, languorous animation is as cheesy as the flat, directionless voice acting, which also sounds like the characters are submerged underwater thanks to the primordial sound design. Simply because gaming hit a point where these aspects were feasible doesn't necessarily mean that developers should've jumped on the opportunity at their genesis. Because of how primitive the new technical frills are, Rondo of Blood arguably seems more dated than Super Castlevania IV or any of its 8-bit predecessors. The pixels that the industry made strides in progressing from for so many generations have ironically aged better than any early effort in deviating from them, and Rondo of Blood is a perfect example of this. At least Rondo of Blood's pixel art that Konami have taken years to refine and improve upon is as appealing as they ever were. Color palettes may not be as dazzling as in Super Castlevania IV, but the deeper tones convey a haunting atmosphere more deliberately.
Rondo of Blood is a Castlevania game marked by advancements. Besides the technical aspects, Rondo of Blood supplies the player with a new Belmont at the helm of destroying Dracula. Unlike Trevor Belmont, who was one of Simon's ancestors, Richter Belmont is adversely a descendant of Simon's, existing in a time over a century after his relative's vampire-hunting endeavors. The Belmont litmus test to both see the character's heroic potential and whether or not he fits the likeness of the family is again as uncanny as it was with Trevor. Richter moves with the same sense of resolution, jumps and climbs staircases with the same rigidity, and gets dramatically blown away by anything that strikes him. He also possesses the same weapons as every Belmont before him; namely, the trademark whip used to strip away the flesh of the foul creatures that lurk around Dracula's castle.
Considering Richter has centuries of fellow Belmonts to use as inspiration, one would think he'd be the most advanced vampire slayer in comparison. Unfortunately, Richter might be a testament to the saying that talent skips a few generations. Richter's fighting prowess recalls the limits of past Belmonts on the NES. He can execute a backflip, but when does this ever come in handy? More importantly, the player cannot whip in several different directions as Richter, for it has been restricted to the horizontal axis once again. Using the secondary weapons is also relegated to the combination of pressing up on the D-pad and the attack button simultaneously. The capabilities of what a Castlevania protagonist could do on a controller for a 16-bit system were already made apparent from Super Castlevania IV. Still, Rondo of Blood chooses to stray backward to a more humble control scheme. This decision was most likely due to the common criticism that Simon's versatility with his whip mitigated the use of secondary weapons. While I'm in the camp that prefers the more flexible range, these complaints are at least understandable as I never found myself seldom using the secondary weapons in Super Castlevania IV. However, relegating the secondary weapon trigger to how it was in the NES titles takes the series a step backward. Was the Turbo-Grafix controller not as multifaceted as a SNES controller and couldn't supply the secondary weapon with its own trigger? Regardless, I feel this point of regression indicates Rondo of Blood's questionable quality. A new feature that Rondo of Blood implements is a special attack with the secondary items. After accumulating a certain amount of hearts, pressing a single button will unleash a special move that coincides with whatever secondary weapon Richter carries. It's a clever idea that encourages using the items, but it's faulty in execution. I found the special attacks to be more flashy than practical, like putting a bushel of oranges in a juicer just to squeeze out a couple of drops.
More so, Rondo of Blood is more difficult than Super Castlevania IV. It's not as relentlessly ball-busting as two out of the three NES games due to featuring a save function, but the gameplay is much harder to hurdle over than the franchise's previous 16-bit outing. One might think it's due to reconverting to the rigid controls from the NES days, but this is merely a fraction of what makes Rondo of Blood's difficulty more appalling. That's right, appalling. Apparently, somewhere on the shadier side of the Belmont family tree lies a trait even more recessive than being blown back by any colliding physical force. This unfortunate gene is not given an invincibility frame; a requisite video game feature that assures the error of taking damage won't punish the player too harshly by providing a brief moment of invulnerability so they can prop themselves back on track. Richter ostensibly has the genetic makeup of a hemophiliac as inbreeding between his Belmont ancestors has given him too many flawed quirks. Not only does Richter stumble dramatically when hit, but his health bar can plummet quickly in a matter of seconds due to not having a merciful window. Groups of Medusa Heads will bat Richter around like a pinball machine, and getting too close to enemies will always be the imminent death for the player. Invincibility windows are paramount to fair game design, and any game without them is objectively flawed. Still, their absence in a close-combat series like Castlevania makes their omission all the more vexing for the player.
The level design in Rondo of Blood is much less linear than in Super Castlevania IV. The older of the two 16-bit Castlevanias was a loyal remake of the first Castlevania, and a non-linear level progression would've proved to be too ambitious for an early NES game. It was, however, proven in the third entry on the same system that experimenting with linearity was possible on the NES, and Rondo of Blood continues where Castlevania III left off. However, Rondo of Blood's experimentation leads the player down different directions of Dracula's castle than Castlevania III did. Instead of choosing paths at a crossroads between levels, Rondo of Blood implores the player to wander off the beaten path of any given level on the direct course. With the save system in consideration, I'd argue that Rondo of Blood should have adopted Castlevania III's method of nonlinearity to facilitate multiple playthroughs. As it is, Rondo of Blood's methods of revisiting levels with a stage select feature is a competent way of fostering exploration.
If the player doesn't take the time to meticulously explore the vicinity, one of the primary objectives will be incomplete. Unlike his forefathers, Richter's mission to defeat Dracula isn't because he's a noble warrior. Richter needed some motivation to carry on his family's legacy as Dracula holds four captured maidens all over his estate, one of them being Richter's fiance. These ill-fated damsels are located in secret corners of the castle which can only be accessed off the beaten path. Once they are found, an animated cutscene plays, and the girls commend Richter for their heroic deeds. The reward for rescuing these girls is practically nothing, and it does not affect the course for the rest of the game. Still, it's confusing why the developers would relegate their roles as optional fetch quests considering their precedence in the story. I think rescuing all four of them should have unlocked the full ending of the game, adding an additional layer of incentive to play the game meticulously. Concepts like "true endings" may have been too radical an idea for the 16-bit era, but hindsight is always 20/20.
One of these four maidens is also Rondo of Blood's secondary protagonist. Tossing a key into the lock of an underground door in the second main level will uncover a ritual conducted on a blonde girl in a pink dress. Upon interrupting this incantation, the blonde girl will float down into Richter's loving arms and thank him kindly. Her name is Maria Renard, a giddy young girl from a fellow vampire-hunting family. She is offended at Richter's laughing condescension when she insists on aiding him in his quest, but the player will know not to judge Maria by her appearance. By stating her role as a secondary protagonist, I don't mean in the narrative. Saving Maria will unlock Rondo of Blood's only other playable character. Subtracting the number of playable characters from Castlevania IIIs three may seem disappointing, but Maria's inclusion is more than enough. Maria's tactics are completely different than any Belmont's, adding additional frills to her moveset. She can double jump, and slide on the ground like Mega Man, and her base attack is two doves whose trajectory is the same as Richter's whip with the added perk of doing damage on reentry like a boomerang. Her secondary weapons are all various animal friends like a cat, tortoise, dragon, and parrot that cover as many bases as the usual ax, holy water, etc. Richter should wipe that smug grin off his face because Maria is far better at eliminating vampiric threats than he or anyone else in his family. What better tool to use against the legions of the damned than purity and chastity? In fact, Maria seems to be TOO good with some criticizing playing as her making the game far too easy. Maria's defense is lower than Richter's, but the player will ideally never get hit due to the higher damage output of her doves. Her sweetness, frilliness, and sickeningly cute demeanor lead me to believe that she's Konami's attempt to cater to girls to a transparent degree. If Castlevania was missing a much-needed demographic, it's the little sisters of Japanese Turbo-Grafix owners. Even the roasts Richter consumes in the cracked-out walls shift into sugary foods like parfaits and birthday cake when playing as Maria. Do girls not need protein in their diets? Maria is a market decision as condescending towards young women as Richter is, but I'd be lying if I didn't find myself playing as her most of the time.
If unlocking a makeshift easy mode and a few hidden cutscenes don't tickle your curiosity, I still beseech everyone to go the extra lengths to search every path this game offers. The secret paths add much-needed variety to the typical climb from the base of the grounds to the tip of Dracula's peak. The secret routes run the gamut of different foregrounds ranging from jungles, and watery wharves, to temples with flowing water streaming through the foundation. One alternate route is a level in the daylight of all things. Each level might not be as creative and stylized as the individual levels from Castlevania IV, but the variation provided here is fresh air upon the fifth trek up this godforsaken building. The secret routes will also lead to some eclectic boss fights. Among the series standards like The Grim Reaper and a boss gauntlet that revisits each boss from the first game in order, Rondo of Blood adds a smattering of high-stakes bosses from other mythical horror sources. For example, the secret path will have Richter and Maria fighting a serpent that slithers along a bridge over water, a pile of skeletons that take the shape of many forms, a naked banshee riding a giant skull, etc. The dark wizard Shaft takes the peculiar role of acting as Dracula's right-hand man, demoting the Grim Reaper for the sake of variety. The final fight against Dracula is surprisingly the bout I expected from Super Castlevania IV because it's the fight from the first game with more impressive graphical flair. The ending will differ depending on whether the player finishes Dracula with either Richter or Maria. Still, either will result in Dracula's demise with his tower crumbling on the horizon as usual.
If Castlevania: Rondo of Blood was released in its full glory to the western world back in 1993, the 16-bit wars would've reached a point of bloody mayhem that Sega, the prime instigators of this capitalistic battle, would've stayed out of. Those few who owned the niche Turbo-Grafix-16 system would've been treated to a hallmark game on the system that made Nintendo fans all the more covetous, given that it's an entry to a series that stands as a reason to have kept purchasing Nintendo's consoles way back when. Alas, this is merely a case of alternative history, for Rondo of Blood's adulation is in retrospect after so many years. The appeal of finally being able to play Castlevania's well-kept secret has caused a rise in the game's placement among the rest of the titles in the series, which I always thought was unjust. I've always thought that Super Castlevania IV was the superior 16-bit Castlevania game, and those who favor Rondo of Blood criticize Super Castlevania IV just as fervently. I now see that both camps have substantial arguments for their respective opinions. Super Castlevania IV is a more orthodox Castlevania game whose mission was to refine the first game with the advancements of the SNES, as was the initiative for many sequels on the console. On the other hand, I admire Rondo of Blood's greater ambition in progressing the series. I still stand by my stance that Super Castlevania IV is the better game because it's much fairer to the player. That was a vital aspect of Super Castlevania IV's evolution not seen in Rondo of Blood. I suppose I can be thankful that westerners finally got to experience Richter Belmont in his finest form on a worthy entry in the series rather than that god-awful port of this game that we initially received on the SNES.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
1994
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If this is true, then Capcom’s Mega Man should be humbled by Pulseman. While Konami’s flagship franchises paved their way into gaming royalty on Nintendo’s consoles, their third-party status meant they weren’t contractually obligated to commit 100% of their properties to the SNES. Konami dabbled in playing for both sides in the 16-bit console wars, releasing exemplary exclusive titles of their franchises on the Genesis such as Castlevania: Bloodlines and Contra: Hard Corps. Capcom, on the other hand, did not do the same for Mega Man, for the extensive number of titles on the NES and the neo-spinoff Mega Man X on the SNES signified that Nintendo had Mega Man wrapped around their finger. Sega felt deprived of a Mega Man exclusive, so they enlisted future Pokemon developer Game Freak to craft something supplementary enough so Genesis owners wouldn’t be tempted by the allure of Mega Man on the SNES and switch systems. Unfortunately, Pulseman never made it overseas, or at least not in physical form. During the Genesis era, Sega showcased something called the “Sega Channel” which featured Pulseman for a limited time on a streaming service like a primitive Netflix. After its western availability over a decade after its release, Pulseman hasn’t been graced with a second wind of praise, and it’s not hard to see why not.
Let us first examine the Kirkland-brand Mega Man that Sega have created for their console. Pulseman already sounds like a scrapped Mega Man robot boss, so Sega clearly did their homework in the naming department. Pulseman is however not a robot built by a jolly old scientist to protect their futuristic society from evil. Pulseman is a half-breed cyborg; the love child of a man and his procedurally-generated AI, which is as Japanese as an origin story comes by. However, Pulseman’s human half is irrelevant to his gameplay. Pulseman cannot acquire the attributes of his enemies, for he specializes in the power of electricity. Pulseman’s base attack is an electric smack that must be performed in close range, but he can also compensate for his lack of range by creating static by moving. Once Pulseman gains enough momentum, a volt of static will encompass his entire body with a charged sound accompanying it. If the player presses the attack button, Pulseman will turn the static into a short-ranged projectile attack. By pressing another button on the controller, Pulseman will use this additional energy to create a volt ball. With this move, Pulseman will precariously rocket across the map, ricocheting off of every surface in his path. He can also use this move to be carried along with the current of various wires used to traverse through various levels. For not having a diverse arsenal that grows with progress like Mega Man, Pulseman’s moveset still manages to be dynamic and inventive while being practical for both traversal and dealing with enemies.
The Mega Man comparisons are even more warranted regarding the levels. Capcom’s franchise pioneered the concept of a seamless level select, and people are bound to draw comparisons between any game that also features this. In a game like Pulseman where the Mega Man influences are tremendously apparent, it’s almost an obligation to feature this sort of level selection. Naturally, Pulseman does incorporate this, but there are a few key differences. For one, the levels are not themed around the end bosses, but a diverse range of real world locations. Japan is depicted as a sterile metropolis, India as a jungle, and the USA is specifically located in Nevada around Las Vegas. Sega sure does love casino levels, don’t they? Three more levels are unlocked after completing those three in whichever order, an unconventional form of progression compared to Mega Man whose levels are all available from the start. Perhaps the developers thought unlocking the other half of the game at a certain point was a more satisfying progression point, but the unlocked levels aren’t any more difficult than the former three. Regardless, Thailand, Alaska, and Australia each have their level theme like the previous levels. Unique level theming is something I’m a sucker for, but the standout aspect of each level is art direction. I’ve stated that each level is a 16-bit depiction of a real-world location, but I neglected to specify that the levels are a liberal rendition of these locations. Game Freak’s artistic efforts have formulated a consistent meld of what can only be described as Tron on an ayahuasca trip, contrasting the primal and the futuristic. The dazzling visuals are undoubtedly striking, but the harsh, seizure-inducing lights indicate a wilder era of gaming that didn’t give a rat’s ass about the sensitivities of others.
As I played Pulseman, the Mega Man comparisons slightly dwindled, and the game started to remind me more of Sonic the Hedgehog. Sega might see this sentence and beam with pride at the notion that their Mega Man clone is up to par with their spiky, blue pride and joy, but I mean it as anything but a compliment. Sonic’s core complication is that his speed is impractical for a 2D platformer, even if the roundabout level design in his games somewhat suits his swift nature to some extent. Pulseman reveals itself not to be a carbon-copy of Mega Man but a hybrid of Mega Man and Sonic. It’s a hybrid as unholy as Pulseman himself because it doesn’t work. Because of Sonic’s speed, enemies are placed sparingly, and at least the plentiful amount of rings acts as a fair system for receiving damage. On the other hand, Mega Man is a more action-intensive 2D platformer that provides a steady health bar for dealing with multiple enemies. Pulseman attempts to integrate those elements, but it fails in execution. Pulseman has acceleration issues like Sonic, in which moving too quickly will cause his premature demise. Pulseman can afford to be more patient than Sonic, but this will often happen due to Pulseman’s need to generate static through movement. Enemies are sparse in Pulseman to avoid constant collisions, but the levels are designed more with Mega Man in mind. This design philosophy makes each level feel rather uninvolved as both action and platforming are relatively minimal. I can be thankful for some degree because the developers decided it would be imperative to grant Pulseman with only three measly health points. Pulseman also adopts Sonic’s vexing “trial and error” difficulty, so the player is expected to memorize the level layout and die countless times in the process. It’s incredibly unfair in Sonic, and the parameters presented in Pulseman make it even more egregious.
Once the player manages to endure the repetitive trials in Pulseman, each level comes with a boss to conquer. No, they are not fellow cyborgs represented by a gimmick with the title “man” in their names. However, technology and its corrupting influence are consistent with Pulseman’s formidable foes. Pulseman’s main antagonist is the boy’s father, a man who has been corrupted by the virtual world that has turned him into a futuristic evil scientist hellbent on world domination. His motives and appearance scream Dr. Wily, but his boss encounters highlight plenty of influence from Sega’s own Dr. Robotnik. Besides the big, maniacal cheese running the operation, Pulseman’s other bosses were the clear standout among the game’s other aspects. Whether fighting against the titanium sphere or the giant, unrendered arm, Pulseman’s bosses are as uniquely designed as their respective levels and require clever tactics to defeat. A personal highlight is the boss of the Alaska stage, another cyborg with darker armor that mirrors Pulseman in every way. The barrage of the ball move during his fight is like a sporadic, high-voltage (no pun intended) duel similar to Dark Link in the Zelda games.
The sad thing about Pulseman is that it isn’t almost good: the game is almost great. One would expect a game that unabashedly apes the foundation of one of old-school gaming’s most popular franchises to be shallow and derivative. Still, there are plenty of distinctive elements to Pulseman that greatly discern it from its obvious inspiration. Pulseman’s electrifying moves make him a wholly different force of nature from Capcom’s blue, arm-cannoned wonder, and Mega Man’s stages have never been as visually staggering. Sega, however, couldn’t help but implement Sonic as an intrusive influence that dilutes and complicates the gameplay to a fundamentally broken degree. I’m starting to think that Sonic’s gameplay foibles aren’t unique to him but are simply Sega’s signature, flawed philosophy for every other 2D platformer they’ve created. The catch-22, however, is that all the conspicuous elements from the blue blur are what make Pulseman discernable from the blue bomber. Pulseman is a game that ends up being as unnatural a hybrid as the game’s protagonist. A sequel would’ve most likely refined the formula significantly, but it’s far too late for Sega to export any effort into a game they evidently never had much faith in at the start.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Let us first examine the Kirkland-brand Mega Man that Sega have created for their console. Pulseman already sounds like a scrapped Mega Man robot boss, so Sega clearly did their homework in the naming department. Pulseman is however not a robot built by a jolly old scientist to protect their futuristic society from evil. Pulseman is a half-breed cyborg; the love child of a man and his procedurally-generated AI, which is as Japanese as an origin story comes by. However, Pulseman’s human half is irrelevant to his gameplay. Pulseman cannot acquire the attributes of his enemies, for he specializes in the power of electricity. Pulseman’s base attack is an electric smack that must be performed in close range, but he can also compensate for his lack of range by creating static by moving. Once Pulseman gains enough momentum, a volt of static will encompass his entire body with a charged sound accompanying it. If the player presses the attack button, Pulseman will turn the static into a short-ranged projectile attack. By pressing another button on the controller, Pulseman will use this additional energy to create a volt ball. With this move, Pulseman will precariously rocket across the map, ricocheting off of every surface in his path. He can also use this move to be carried along with the current of various wires used to traverse through various levels. For not having a diverse arsenal that grows with progress like Mega Man, Pulseman’s moveset still manages to be dynamic and inventive while being practical for both traversal and dealing with enemies.
The Mega Man comparisons are even more warranted regarding the levels. Capcom’s franchise pioneered the concept of a seamless level select, and people are bound to draw comparisons between any game that also features this. In a game like Pulseman where the Mega Man influences are tremendously apparent, it’s almost an obligation to feature this sort of level selection. Naturally, Pulseman does incorporate this, but there are a few key differences. For one, the levels are not themed around the end bosses, but a diverse range of real world locations. Japan is depicted as a sterile metropolis, India as a jungle, and the USA is specifically located in Nevada around Las Vegas. Sega sure does love casino levels, don’t they? Three more levels are unlocked after completing those three in whichever order, an unconventional form of progression compared to Mega Man whose levels are all available from the start. Perhaps the developers thought unlocking the other half of the game at a certain point was a more satisfying progression point, but the unlocked levels aren’t any more difficult than the former three. Regardless, Thailand, Alaska, and Australia each have their level theme like the previous levels. Unique level theming is something I’m a sucker for, but the standout aspect of each level is art direction. I’ve stated that each level is a 16-bit depiction of a real-world location, but I neglected to specify that the levels are a liberal rendition of these locations. Game Freak’s artistic efforts have formulated a consistent meld of what can only be described as Tron on an ayahuasca trip, contrasting the primal and the futuristic. The dazzling visuals are undoubtedly striking, but the harsh, seizure-inducing lights indicate a wilder era of gaming that didn’t give a rat’s ass about the sensitivities of others.
As I played Pulseman, the Mega Man comparisons slightly dwindled, and the game started to remind me more of Sonic the Hedgehog. Sega might see this sentence and beam with pride at the notion that their Mega Man clone is up to par with their spiky, blue pride and joy, but I mean it as anything but a compliment. Sonic’s core complication is that his speed is impractical for a 2D platformer, even if the roundabout level design in his games somewhat suits his swift nature to some extent. Pulseman reveals itself not to be a carbon-copy of Mega Man but a hybrid of Mega Man and Sonic. It’s a hybrid as unholy as Pulseman himself because it doesn’t work. Because of Sonic’s speed, enemies are placed sparingly, and at least the plentiful amount of rings acts as a fair system for receiving damage. On the other hand, Mega Man is a more action-intensive 2D platformer that provides a steady health bar for dealing with multiple enemies. Pulseman attempts to integrate those elements, but it fails in execution. Pulseman has acceleration issues like Sonic, in which moving too quickly will cause his premature demise. Pulseman can afford to be more patient than Sonic, but this will often happen due to Pulseman’s need to generate static through movement. Enemies are sparse in Pulseman to avoid constant collisions, but the levels are designed more with Mega Man in mind. This design philosophy makes each level feel rather uninvolved as both action and platforming are relatively minimal. I can be thankful for some degree because the developers decided it would be imperative to grant Pulseman with only three measly health points. Pulseman also adopts Sonic’s vexing “trial and error” difficulty, so the player is expected to memorize the level layout and die countless times in the process. It’s incredibly unfair in Sonic, and the parameters presented in Pulseman make it even more egregious.
Once the player manages to endure the repetitive trials in Pulseman, each level comes with a boss to conquer. No, they are not fellow cyborgs represented by a gimmick with the title “man” in their names. However, technology and its corrupting influence are consistent with Pulseman’s formidable foes. Pulseman’s main antagonist is the boy’s father, a man who has been corrupted by the virtual world that has turned him into a futuristic evil scientist hellbent on world domination. His motives and appearance scream Dr. Wily, but his boss encounters highlight plenty of influence from Sega’s own Dr. Robotnik. Besides the big, maniacal cheese running the operation, Pulseman’s other bosses were the clear standout among the game’s other aspects. Whether fighting against the titanium sphere or the giant, unrendered arm, Pulseman’s bosses are as uniquely designed as their respective levels and require clever tactics to defeat. A personal highlight is the boss of the Alaska stage, another cyborg with darker armor that mirrors Pulseman in every way. The barrage of the ball move during his fight is like a sporadic, high-voltage (no pun intended) duel similar to Dark Link in the Zelda games.
The sad thing about Pulseman is that it isn’t almost good: the game is almost great. One would expect a game that unabashedly apes the foundation of one of old-school gaming’s most popular franchises to be shallow and derivative. Still, there are plenty of distinctive elements to Pulseman that greatly discern it from its obvious inspiration. Pulseman’s electrifying moves make him a wholly different force of nature from Capcom’s blue, arm-cannoned wonder, and Mega Man’s stages have never been as visually staggering. Sega, however, couldn’t help but implement Sonic as an intrusive influence that dilutes and complicates the gameplay to a fundamentally broken degree. I’m starting to think that Sonic’s gameplay foibles aren’t unique to him but are simply Sega’s signature, flawed philosophy for every other 2D platformer they’ve created. The catch-22, however, is that all the conspicuous elements from the blue blur are what make Pulseman discernable from the blue bomber. Pulseman is a game that ends up being as unnatural a hybrid as the game’s protagonist. A sequel would’ve most likely refined the formula significantly, but it’s far too late for Sega to export any effort into a game they evidently never had much faith in at the start.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
1979
With all of the technical progress we’ve achieved since the fetal days of gaming, no other game has managed to convey the dark, empty void of space like this minimalist arcade classic.
------
Attributions: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
------
Attributions: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
2003
This review contains spoilers
Silent Hill 3 was the sequel everyone expected Silent Hill 2 to be. One might expect a sequel to any video game to transfer its characters, themes, and overarching story to its successor because those are the products of familiarity that coincide with a sequel. However, Silent Hill is a series marked by the unexpected and does not adhere to the practices of industry standards. The ingenious people at Team Silent crafted a sequel in which the only familiarity was the titular town, making the town the focal point of the franchise instead of the characters and plot arc presented in the first game. Team Silent’s strides in being unconventional birthed a sequel that was an artfully terrifying adventure into the catacombs of a disturbed, disquieted mind. Silent Hill had managed not to peak with “the scariest game of all time” by subverting every expectation one might have with the sequel and setting a higher caliber for the Silent Hill franchise for every sequel. Using the concept of having the town as the sole, recurring character across each Silent Hill game was a bold but brilliant idea that would retain the fresh frights the first game delivered. There are so many fucked up people in the world that could pass through the ominous resort town and have their uniquely perverse psychological demons conjured up to attack them, providing endless fodder for sequel material. However, someone at Konami must have gotten cold feet despite the acclaim that Silent Hill 2 had received and reminded Team Silent that they were running a business and art has no dealings within the walls of commerce. Either that or the idea of having the town as the sole recognizable property did not actually foster an abundance of creative potential, and they ran out of ideas. Silent Hill 3 is essentially Silent Hill 2 on the merit that it’s the loyal sequel to the first game that many expected the real Silent Hill 2 to be way back when. Silent Hill 3 is still a Team Silent-grade Silent Hill experience, but I’ve always found it to be a bit of a disappointment in comparison to the first two games.
The opening cinematic to Silent Hill 3 doesn’t give the player too much context for the beginning of the game. Alas, Silent Hill 3 begins abruptly as a teenage girl with unkempt blond hair is holding a knife in the misty darkness of night with a neon sign flashing “Lakeside Amusement Park” overhead. Immediately, hostile demonic creatures will appear from all corners and overwhelm the girl, who will run frantically across the park practically defenseless with zero context as to what she’s doing. The objective is to quickly meander to the tracks of a wooden roller coaster where the car will make a head-on collision with the girl, killing her on impact. The revelation behind this shocking introduction is the first of many recycled ideas from the first Silent Hill in that it was a bad dream that the protagonist awakes from while in a stupor in some barren cafe. The girl heads to a payphone outside in the most lively and inviting setting ever seen in a Silent Hill game and tells her dad she’ll be home before dark. On her way there, a detective encourages her to take a detour with him so she can learn more about the events surrounding her birth, so the way home is going to be a bit bumpy.
If it wasn’t made clear from the introduction, Silent Hill 3’s female protagonist is Heather Mason, the daughter of Harry Mason, the protagonist of the first game. “Wait, her name is Heather now?” every Silent Hill veteran will ask themselves in a state of befuddlement. It’s not explicitly explained by Harry, but he understandably wanted his reincarnated adopted daughter to have the least amount of connection to her origins in that godforsaken town as humanly possible. He probably also didn’t want the evil cult to find her just in case they get bold enough to attempt a do-over on birthing the antichrist thing, which certainly explains the name change and the dyed blonde hair. A father mandating a weekly hair-dyeing session on his teenage daughter is a strange thing to enforce, but it’s better to be safe than sorry if the consequences involve revisiting Silent Hill. Seventeen years have passed since the events of the first game, and now little Alessa/Cheryl/Heather is all grown up, meaning the good ending of the first game is now canon. Despite Harry’s best efforts to protect his daughter for almost two decades, his defenses have been infiltrated, and the cult has caught up with him. Now it’s Heather’s turn to uncover the ungodly horrors in her place of birth. At least we can all be relieved that Harry isn’t once again the main protagonist of this direct sequel, and this and other subsequent Silent Hill games won’t be the tired plot of Harry rescuing his daughter from Silent Hill like Mario rescues Princess Peach.
Where does Heather fit in the league of sorry bastards who must visit Silent Hill in their respective entries? Quite comfortably, actually. Heather’s execution as a playable protagonist shows that perhaps there was more to be tweaked to the Silent Hill formula in the vein of quality-of-life enhancements. The wonky, disjointed controls are idiosyncratic to every Silent Hill game and to every survival horror game to some extent. However, I’d be lying if I said I never actively grunted orders at the awkward movements of both Harry and James at moments when they needed to be quick on their feet like someone trying to potty train their dog. Heather is by far the smoothest character to control, yet the developers have somehow impressively managed to retain the essential stiffness of survival horror controls. In a certain section of Silent Hill 3 that copies the Pyramid Head hallway chase sequence from Silent Hill 2, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how many times I startled Harry when I bumped into a wall or the many times changing directions with James during that particular section felt like rotating a life-sized marble statue in a Resident Evil puzzle. With Heather, I practically exited this part unscathed. I suppose it makes sense for Heather to be more nimble than her middle-aged dad and a chronic depressive. Heather also marks the first Silent Hill protagonist with a convincing, emotive voice, thanks to her voice actress. In a series synonymous with flat, cheesy voicework, Heather consistently possesses the vocal inflections of a teenage girl while carrying a range of emotions when necessary. Yet, the rest of the voice cast of Silent Hill 3 gives the typical B-movie delivery.
Silent Hill 3 is a game that seems like it has a lot to prove, and I’m not entirely certain why. The previous game was the sequel meant to showcase how Silent Hill graduated from the grainy, blocky, primitive 3D era with wondrous graphical enhancements. To some extent, Silent Hill 2 was that killer app with an evolved technical prowess, but the art style and direction of that game distracted the player all too often. Silent Hill 3, on the other hand, flaunts its technical features like a model walking on the runway, refining even the new features presented in Silent Hill 2. The pre-rendered cutscenes introduced in Silent Hill 2 via the new capabilities of the PS2 hardware were impressive for their time, but they were implemented inconsistently. We learn from Silent Hill 3’s example that this awkward irregularity was likely because the developers bit off more than the PS2 could chew. Silent Hill 3 does away with the pre-rendered cutscenes entirely, and the regular cutscenes that are present are treated to some additional rectification, so the cutscenes look crisper. Gone are the muted, murky graphics plastered all over Silent Hill 2’s grim aesthetic as Silent Hill 3 revisits the jarring aesthetic of the first game with extra visual flair. The bloody, rusted nightmare that is the “otherworld” has never looked so viscerally grotesque, and now we get to witness a finer-tuned version of this surreal hellhole with the magic of 21st-century gaming hardware.
If the aesthetic of Silent Hill has somehow lost its frightening impact upon the third visit, the developers made sure to provide those jaded Silent Hill veterans with some new obstacles to hurdle over. Silent Hill 3 is far more difficult than the previous two games, most likely a conscious decision from the developers to keep the game invigorating for veteran players. Their efforts have tapped into the vital essence of survival horror, which is the scarcity of resources and the feeling of being helpless. Health items and ammunition wouldn’t rain down upon the player in the previous Silent Hill titles, but they would find a plentiful amount of health drinks, med-kits, and ampoules if they took the time to thoroughly search every nook and cranny in both the overworld and each dungeon. Frequently, I felt like I was hoarding items by the end of the first two games. In Silent Hill 3’s case, on the other hand, the player would be fortunate to stumble upon as many as four healing or ammunition items per area. The comparatively scant number of items here arguably conveys that sense of panic and desperation that comes with trying to survive. Still, the extent of it is rather miserly on the developers' parts. I think by taking the time to explore the area, the player should be rewarded for their diligent efforts like in the previous games.
The new enemies Silent Hill 3 introduces serve as the crux of the deficient item dilemma. These foul, abhorrent dregs straight from the bowels of everyone’s deepest nightmares are the strongest and most diverse cast of monsters from any of the Silent Hill titles. The higher graphical fidelity may compromise the indistinct haziness that adds an element of scary ambiguity to their designs, so Team Silent seemingly pulled out all the stops in the creative department. Dog-like monsters no longer drip blood around the hub due to their total lack of skin but have split heads with each side having rows of sharp teeth. Skinless pterodactyls aren't patrolling the skies, but enemies like the Closer and Insane Cancer seem tall enough to reach the clouds. I couldn’t tell you what the Pendulums resemble, but they swim through the air with at least three tarnished-looking scythes. Remember when the spitting enemies from Silent Hill 2 would zoom around on the floor like a possessed Roomba after hitting them a couple of times? The developers decided Silent Hill needed more of that with the new Slurper enemies, whose pack-like numbers and hard-to-reach stature make them the bane of my existence. All these monsters vary in shape and size, but they all have something in common. Every single enemy in this game is a damage sponge. The larger enemies are presumably bulky, but even the smaller enemies are as durable as carbon fiber. The game supplies the player with half the amount of ammunition just for all the monsters to take twice the amount of damage to subdue. Fortunately, the larger enemies are easy to bypass, but the dogs and Slurper enemies are more ravenous than all other Silent Hill enemies before them. Silent Hill 3 is the only game in the series in which I was stuck between a rock and a hard place regarding my calamitous state of health and my destitute inventory. A part of me wants to praise Team Silent for emulating the struggle to survive in harsh conditions more effectively, but was this extent really necessary? The developers gave the player some new inventory items to help them, like the beef jerky bait and the bulletproof vest, but the results of using the jerky were inconsistent, and the vest weighed Heather down significantly. Also, you’re kidding yourself if you think a stun gun will do anything to these unholy beasts.
The odd thing is that most of these monsters exist outside of the realm of the town that we associate with them. Heather’s objective for the first half of the game is to return home, and she certainly doesn’t live in Silent Hill. Otherwise, the cult wouldn’t have had issues with finding her for seventeen long years. Heather’s residence is apparently Portland, Maine, and her identity could be inconspicuous enough in this New England metropolis to elude the cult for so long. That is until private dick Douglas Cartland is assigned by cult member Claudia Wolf to trace her whereabouts. After he succeeds in finding her, Heather’s existence is exposed, and she is no longer safe. Once Heather meets Claudia, things start to go south really quickly as the gruesome apparitions start to invade the mall. Silent Hill 3 is the most linear of the series, walking through the streets of “Portland, Maine” while dodging ungodly terrors. When Heather makes her way to Silent Hill, traversing through the town is still a straightaway trek with a few notable sights. While I felt dismayed that the town of Silent Hill got shorthanded in this entry, I came to appreciate a Silent Hill game with a more linear progression. The heavy reuse of areas in the town is evident that the developers could not think of any new ground to cover in Silent Hill without bloating the town to the point where it has as many landmarks as New York City. The same hospital from Silent Hill 2 even serves as a returning dungeon with the same layout.
However, “Heather’s Odyssey” raises a few questions. The previous Silent Hill titles solidified that the otherworld and the monsters in it were being fabricated by the remnant dark machinations of occult activity, giving the town otherworldly powers. This core tenant of Silent Hill remains consistent across both Silent Hill 1 and 2 despite their different ways of executing it. How can the otherworld go mobile? Did Team Silent sacrifice all continuity to provide consistent creepiness for Heather to endure even if it doesn’t make sense? This question has been asked numerous times, and some have surmised an explanation. Heather’s existence in this cult is nothing but a vessel to give birth to their dark lord and savior, who will usher in the twisted new world order. Since she is the reincarnated version of Alessa and Cheryl, who have spawned the demon, she is also carrying the demon child, making her witness the otherworld wherever she goes. It’s a sound theory, but it raises even MORE questions. When was the conception, and how was this demon conceived? I assumed in the first game that the ritual Dahlia conducted was to both impregnate Cheryl and have her birth the demon there, and Harry was too late to prevent this from happening. Heather is the reincarnation of Harry’s first adopted child Cheryl. We see her as a baby after Cheryl is immolated during the process of the ritual, and since then, she doesn’t even have an inkling of who she really is or anything about Silent Hill until the events of this game. What impregnated her and when? Has she been housing the fetus since birth, and does it only grow when she’s around the town or the cult? Survival horror gameplay outside the town of Silent Hill just jumbles up the continuity of the series.
Harping on the awkward conveniences, Silent Hill 3 implements is a fine segway to discuss my primary grievance with Silent Hill 3. One of the most effective aspects relating to Silent Hill’s horror factor is its pacing. The subtle ambiance of the fog mixed in with the dim hallways in the abandoned town is supposed to put the player on edge. The otherworld is a means to elevate that disquieted feeling with ghastly imagery to make the player sweat, delving deeper into the nightmare. The boss of a dungeon is meant to be the climax and defeating it serves as the player’s relief, like they are waking up. The first Silent Hill executed this progression flawlessly as early as the first sequence, using the nightmare pacing model for the rest of the game to great effect. Silent Hill 3 attempts to do the same, but the sloppy execution of the dream sequence is indicative of how the rest of the game treats one of the franchise's most crucial elements. Heather is already summoned to the harrowing heights of the amusement park section with little subtly to speak of leading up to it. The otherworld acts less as the danker part of diving deeper into the rabbit hole of Silent Hill and rather like a light switch. The otherworld takes up most of the time spent in each mapped section in the game. The reason “Nowhere” from the first game was so effective is that the otherworld slowly engulfed the town as the game progressed, and “Nowhere” felt like a point of no return with no sign of relief in sight. Silent Hill 3 makes the mistake of raw dogging the player with the otherworld without any lubrication, and the player becomes all too familiar with it. The only instance where Silent Hill achieves the transition tactfully is in the hospital, where a bathtub flooding with blood signals the otherworld at a tasteful halfway point in the dungeon.
Effective moments like these are all over Silent Hill 3. While the game may not treat the player to a horrific dirge, little nuggets of sheer horror are dusted over certain parts to leave that lasting impression. Some highlights include the recurring presence of Stanley Coleman, a former patient of the Brookhaven Hospital. He has developed a case of puppy love for Heather and displays it by sending her creepy love notes and a headless doll as an offering. Needless to say, Heather is put off by his affections, but this doesn’t halt the tenacious Mr. Coleman. Once Heather warps to the otherworld of the hospital, a phone starts ringing in one locker, similar to the phone segment from the first game. An unknown caller, who we assume is Stanley sings the “happy birthday” song to Heather with an unsettling cadence, and the player is just as disoriented by the scene as Heather is. In the same hospital is the infamous “mirror scene” where a room with nothing but a sink progressively starts to sprout blood-red veins from every corner of the room until Heather’s visage in the mirror stands motionless, and Heather is murdered by the room. To add tension, the exit will be locked until the last five to ten-second window before Heather is consumed, leaving the player in a red-faced frenzy trying to escape. This moment tends to be the unanimously pivotal scene among those who have played this game, but there was one scene that affected me even more. Once Heather comes home from the most hectic scenic route imaginable, the player would expect to see good ol’ Harry without those PS1 pixels considering Harry is Heather’s father. Unfortunately, we see Harry in a state of bloody disrepair as he’s been murdered in his living room chair. Douglas didn’t only inadvertently make Heather unsafe with his detective work, but Harry as well. It seems the cult didn’t take kindly to Harry preventing the birth of their savior all those years ago, so they wiped him out as a vindictive act of revenge. Heather is understandably upset, and her father's death is the catalyst that brings her to Silent Hill to enact vengeance on Claudia. I, too, was infuriated upon seeing Harry’s demise, for playing as him for the duration of the first game allowed me to become attached to him. Harry might be a schmuck. Hell, he’s such a schmuck that his apartment is just as dingy and uninviting as the interior of any building located in Silent Hill. But, he was the bravest, most valiant schmuck in gaming, and I became far more invested in Silent Hill 3 after this moment.
Other than becoming a tale of retribution, what is the substance of Silent Hill 3’s story? What separates it from the previous two games on a conceptual level? On the surface, not too much. The sole unique attribute that Silent Hill 3 has that the first game doesn’t is Heather as a protagonist, but her character and story have to be stronger than her becoming Inigo Montoya. Could the otherworld in the context of Heather’s character be a fit of extreme hysteria, like a satanic version of The Yellow Wallpaper? Initially, I had this mildly sexist joke in mind to make fun of how Silent Hill 3 signified a drought of creativity at the Team Silent office, but I started to consider this allegory seriously. Singling out Heather as the franchise’s female protagonist and dissecting her role based on her gender would normally process a shallow analysis, but there is surprisingly enough evidence to support the claim that Silent Hill 3 is a stark feminist work.
I criticized Silent Hill 3 for being too relentless with the otherworld, and I’m still of the opinion that it overstays its welcome. However, looking at the game through Heather’s character, there might be a deliberate reason why Heather’s Silent Hill experience is more relentless than the two other protagonists. Is there any other type of person as scared, volatile, and frangible as a teenage girl? Young women around this age tend to be in serious danger at all corners, whether they put themselves in it. The men surrounding them start to see them with a carnivorous lust, hunting them down like a lion does a zebra. All the while, they never ceased the level of condescension they expressed when the teenage girl was prepubescent. Under a certain lens, the male creeps in a teenage girl’s life are like the enemies in Silent Hill. Monsters such as the Insane Cancer and the Scrapers have more voracious energy and masculine forms than any of the enemies in the previous games. The Closer vaguely resembles a warped caricature of the most primal essence of a teenage girl, as if the otherworld is mocking Heather’s femininity. The Split Worm boss is essentially a basilisk-sized penis, a not-so-subtle rendition of a fear of sex and its consequences. Harry and James’s adventures through Silent Hill were daunting enough, but Heather struggles even more because the town is trying to prove her capabilities because she's a woman.
Any Silent Hill fan, new or old, can see clearly that the cult is a sickening organization, but Silent Hill 3 delves deeper into the dogmatic depravity that fuels it. One can recall from the first game that the God born from Alessa would “cleanse” the world by engulfing it in fire, disintegrating the corrupt influence of humanity, and leaving the world in a state of still oblivion that they refer to as a “paradise.” Claudia, the successor to Dahlia, pontificates emphatically about the cult’s ideal world of purity to Heather. The latter is naturally unconvinced that extinguishing mankind in a fiery inferno is a sensible way to ameliorate the world’s problems. As fucked up as the cult is, it’s not farfetched to mirror it to some organized religions in real life. Maybe the cult is a twisted reflection of the hypocritical zealotry often expressed by officials and fanatics that comprise many world religions. Perhaps the repugnant imagery that makes up Silent Hill is an ugly reflection of the influence of religion behind its seemingly pristine mirage. Vincent Smith, a preacher for the cult, is charismatic on the surface but smugly speaks of nothing but iconoclastic rhetoric that makes him seem psychotic. Claudia preaches benevolence but browbeats any skeptics with threats of eternal damnation. Personally, I’d rather go to hell than Silent Hill, and this cult’s actions based on their religious practices are the reason why.
Relating to the feminist connections, what is one of the biggest societal institutions dedicated to suppressing women's rights? The answer is organized religion. Specifically, in Heather’s case, the right to choose to birth a child. Somehow, Heather is pregnant with the cult’s savior and experiences chronic aches and pains so painful that she writhes on the ground in agony. She is constantly reminded by Claudia that birthing God is her destiny, for she is Alessa who did the same all those years ago. Alessa’s memories start to infiltrate Heather’s psyche to further solidify the connection between the two once she reaches the chapel. This dungeon’s map is even drawn in crayon, similar to what Alessa would do as a child, an ironic contrast between the child-like innocence of the drawing and the nauseatingly unscrupulous land it’s mapping out. However, Heather is not Alessa and does not have to go through with giving birth to something she desperately does not want alive for a cause that she finds utterly horrific. Heather expresses her autonomy as both her own person and as a woman in the best scene in the game. Her act of saying “fuck you” to Claudia and her cult is by aborting the fetus by drinking a liquid found in a locket she’s had for the entire game. She coughs up the fetus, much to Claudia’s chagrin, but Claudia is too pious to give up. Claudia consumes the fetus as its innate powers morph her into the final boss, God, an abomination whose depiction would offend any religious group. After vanquishing the evil, Heather returns to the amusement park to reconvene with a wounded Douglas. She’s in high spirits with a newfound confidence that she is free to live her own life now.
If Team Silent were forced to revisit the story arc of the first game for whatever reason for Silent Hill 3, then I suppose I can be glad that this was the finished product. It seems that I underestimated the ingenuity of Konami’s team of eccentric weirdos, as they still never lost their magic touch while working under constrained parameters. While the story of the first Silent Hill could’ve been under wraps, placing the reborn Cheryl from the first game in the protagonist role managed to breed new life into the already established mythos and consider it from a different perspective. The distinctive properties from the first game have never looked so sublime. However, this is why I feel Silent Hill 3 is still lackluster despite its quality. Silent Hill 3 feels as if it tries far too hard to become the better version of the first game by using so many of the same elements and amplifying them. Still, the developers got so caught up in making Silent Hill 2.0 on the newest console that they forgot the importance of subtlety in a Silent Hill game. That, and being all too familiar with the first game, inherently squandered the full potential of a Silent Hill sequel that we already knew was possible from Silent Hill 2’s shining example. Perhaps I would’ve been less harsh on Silent Hill 3 if it had been released before Silent Hill 2. With all that being said, Silent Hill 3 still exemplifies most of the best qualities the series is known for and playing it will keep you awake at night for at least a week. Ultimately, if you’re comparatively subpar to the two most outstanding pieces of something in your respective genre, you’re still pretty good with all things considered.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
The opening cinematic to Silent Hill 3 doesn’t give the player too much context for the beginning of the game. Alas, Silent Hill 3 begins abruptly as a teenage girl with unkempt blond hair is holding a knife in the misty darkness of night with a neon sign flashing “Lakeside Amusement Park” overhead. Immediately, hostile demonic creatures will appear from all corners and overwhelm the girl, who will run frantically across the park practically defenseless with zero context as to what she’s doing. The objective is to quickly meander to the tracks of a wooden roller coaster where the car will make a head-on collision with the girl, killing her on impact. The revelation behind this shocking introduction is the first of many recycled ideas from the first Silent Hill in that it was a bad dream that the protagonist awakes from while in a stupor in some barren cafe. The girl heads to a payphone outside in the most lively and inviting setting ever seen in a Silent Hill game and tells her dad she’ll be home before dark. On her way there, a detective encourages her to take a detour with him so she can learn more about the events surrounding her birth, so the way home is going to be a bit bumpy.
If it wasn’t made clear from the introduction, Silent Hill 3’s female protagonist is Heather Mason, the daughter of Harry Mason, the protagonist of the first game. “Wait, her name is Heather now?” every Silent Hill veteran will ask themselves in a state of befuddlement. It’s not explicitly explained by Harry, but he understandably wanted his reincarnated adopted daughter to have the least amount of connection to her origins in that godforsaken town as humanly possible. He probably also didn’t want the evil cult to find her just in case they get bold enough to attempt a do-over on birthing the antichrist thing, which certainly explains the name change and the dyed blonde hair. A father mandating a weekly hair-dyeing session on his teenage daughter is a strange thing to enforce, but it’s better to be safe than sorry if the consequences involve revisiting Silent Hill. Seventeen years have passed since the events of the first game, and now little Alessa/Cheryl/Heather is all grown up, meaning the good ending of the first game is now canon. Despite Harry’s best efforts to protect his daughter for almost two decades, his defenses have been infiltrated, and the cult has caught up with him. Now it’s Heather’s turn to uncover the ungodly horrors in her place of birth. At least we can all be relieved that Harry isn’t once again the main protagonist of this direct sequel, and this and other subsequent Silent Hill games won’t be the tired plot of Harry rescuing his daughter from Silent Hill like Mario rescues Princess Peach.
Where does Heather fit in the league of sorry bastards who must visit Silent Hill in their respective entries? Quite comfortably, actually. Heather’s execution as a playable protagonist shows that perhaps there was more to be tweaked to the Silent Hill formula in the vein of quality-of-life enhancements. The wonky, disjointed controls are idiosyncratic to every Silent Hill game and to every survival horror game to some extent. However, I’d be lying if I said I never actively grunted orders at the awkward movements of both Harry and James at moments when they needed to be quick on their feet like someone trying to potty train their dog. Heather is by far the smoothest character to control, yet the developers have somehow impressively managed to retain the essential stiffness of survival horror controls. In a certain section of Silent Hill 3 that copies the Pyramid Head hallway chase sequence from Silent Hill 2, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how many times I startled Harry when I bumped into a wall or the many times changing directions with James during that particular section felt like rotating a life-sized marble statue in a Resident Evil puzzle. With Heather, I practically exited this part unscathed. I suppose it makes sense for Heather to be more nimble than her middle-aged dad and a chronic depressive. Heather also marks the first Silent Hill protagonist with a convincing, emotive voice, thanks to her voice actress. In a series synonymous with flat, cheesy voicework, Heather consistently possesses the vocal inflections of a teenage girl while carrying a range of emotions when necessary. Yet, the rest of the voice cast of Silent Hill 3 gives the typical B-movie delivery.
Silent Hill 3 is a game that seems like it has a lot to prove, and I’m not entirely certain why. The previous game was the sequel meant to showcase how Silent Hill graduated from the grainy, blocky, primitive 3D era with wondrous graphical enhancements. To some extent, Silent Hill 2 was that killer app with an evolved technical prowess, but the art style and direction of that game distracted the player all too often. Silent Hill 3, on the other hand, flaunts its technical features like a model walking on the runway, refining even the new features presented in Silent Hill 2. The pre-rendered cutscenes introduced in Silent Hill 2 via the new capabilities of the PS2 hardware were impressive for their time, but they were implemented inconsistently. We learn from Silent Hill 3’s example that this awkward irregularity was likely because the developers bit off more than the PS2 could chew. Silent Hill 3 does away with the pre-rendered cutscenes entirely, and the regular cutscenes that are present are treated to some additional rectification, so the cutscenes look crisper. Gone are the muted, murky graphics plastered all over Silent Hill 2’s grim aesthetic as Silent Hill 3 revisits the jarring aesthetic of the first game with extra visual flair. The bloody, rusted nightmare that is the “otherworld” has never looked so viscerally grotesque, and now we get to witness a finer-tuned version of this surreal hellhole with the magic of 21st-century gaming hardware.
If the aesthetic of Silent Hill has somehow lost its frightening impact upon the third visit, the developers made sure to provide those jaded Silent Hill veterans with some new obstacles to hurdle over. Silent Hill 3 is far more difficult than the previous two games, most likely a conscious decision from the developers to keep the game invigorating for veteran players. Their efforts have tapped into the vital essence of survival horror, which is the scarcity of resources and the feeling of being helpless. Health items and ammunition wouldn’t rain down upon the player in the previous Silent Hill titles, but they would find a plentiful amount of health drinks, med-kits, and ampoules if they took the time to thoroughly search every nook and cranny in both the overworld and each dungeon. Frequently, I felt like I was hoarding items by the end of the first two games. In Silent Hill 3’s case, on the other hand, the player would be fortunate to stumble upon as many as four healing or ammunition items per area. The comparatively scant number of items here arguably conveys that sense of panic and desperation that comes with trying to survive. Still, the extent of it is rather miserly on the developers' parts. I think by taking the time to explore the area, the player should be rewarded for their diligent efforts like in the previous games.
The new enemies Silent Hill 3 introduces serve as the crux of the deficient item dilemma. These foul, abhorrent dregs straight from the bowels of everyone’s deepest nightmares are the strongest and most diverse cast of monsters from any of the Silent Hill titles. The higher graphical fidelity may compromise the indistinct haziness that adds an element of scary ambiguity to their designs, so Team Silent seemingly pulled out all the stops in the creative department. Dog-like monsters no longer drip blood around the hub due to their total lack of skin but have split heads with each side having rows of sharp teeth. Skinless pterodactyls aren't patrolling the skies, but enemies like the Closer and Insane Cancer seem tall enough to reach the clouds. I couldn’t tell you what the Pendulums resemble, but they swim through the air with at least three tarnished-looking scythes. Remember when the spitting enemies from Silent Hill 2 would zoom around on the floor like a possessed Roomba after hitting them a couple of times? The developers decided Silent Hill needed more of that with the new Slurper enemies, whose pack-like numbers and hard-to-reach stature make them the bane of my existence. All these monsters vary in shape and size, but they all have something in common. Every single enemy in this game is a damage sponge. The larger enemies are presumably bulky, but even the smaller enemies are as durable as carbon fiber. The game supplies the player with half the amount of ammunition just for all the monsters to take twice the amount of damage to subdue. Fortunately, the larger enemies are easy to bypass, but the dogs and Slurper enemies are more ravenous than all other Silent Hill enemies before them. Silent Hill 3 is the only game in the series in which I was stuck between a rock and a hard place regarding my calamitous state of health and my destitute inventory. A part of me wants to praise Team Silent for emulating the struggle to survive in harsh conditions more effectively, but was this extent really necessary? The developers gave the player some new inventory items to help them, like the beef jerky bait and the bulletproof vest, but the results of using the jerky were inconsistent, and the vest weighed Heather down significantly. Also, you’re kidding yourself if you think a stun gun will do anything to these unholy beasts.
The odd thing is that most of these monsters exist outside of the realm of the town that we associate with them. Heather’s objective for the first half of the game is to return home, and she certainly doesn’t live in Silent Hill. Otherwise, the cult wouldn’t have had issues with finding her for seventeen long years. Heather’s residence is apparently Portland, Maine, and her identity could be inconspicuous enough in this New England metropolis to elude the cult for so long. That is until private dick Douglas Cartland is assigned by cult member Claudia Wolf to trace her whereabouts. After he succeeds in finding her, Heather’s existence is exposed, and she is no longer safe. Once Heather meets Claudia, things start to go south really quickly as the gruesome apparitions start to invade the mall. Silent Hill 3 is the most linear of the series, walking through the streets of “Portland, Maine” while dodging ungodly terrors. When Heather makes her way to Silent Hill, traversing through the town is still a straightaway trek with a few notable sights. While I felt dismayed that the town of Silent Hill got shorthanded in this entry, I came to appreciate a Silent Hill game with a more linear progression. The heavy reuse of areas in the town is evident that the developers could not think of any new ground to cover in Silent Hill without bloating the town to the point where it has as many landmarks as New York City. The same hospital from Silent Hill 2 even serves as a returning dungeon with the same layout.
However, “Heather’s Odyssey” raises a few questions. The previous Silent Hill titles solidified that the otherworld and the monsters in it were being fabricated by the remnant dark machinations of occult activity, giving the town otherworldly powers. This core tenant of Silent Hill remains consistent across both Silent Hill 1 and 2 despite their different ways of executing it. How can the otherworld go mobile? Did Team Silent sacrifice all continuity to provide consistent creepiness for Heather to endure even if it doesn’t make sense? This question has been asked numerous times, and some have surmised an explanation. Heather’s existence in this cult is nothing but a vessel to give birth to their dark lord and savior, who will usher in the twisted new world order. Since she is the reincarnated version of Alessa and Cheryl, who have spawned the demon, she is also carrying the demon child, making her witness the otherworld wherever she goes. It’s a sound theory, but it raises even MORE questions. When was the conception, and how was this demon conceived? I assumed in the first game that the ritual Dahlia conducted was to both impregnate Cheryl and have her birth the demon there, and Harry was too late to prevent this from happening. Heather is the reincarnation of Harry’s first adopted child Cheryl. We see her as a baby after Cheryl is immolated during the process of the ritual, and since then, she doesn’t even have an inkling of who she really is or anything about Silent Hill until the events of this game. What impregnated her and when? Has she been housing the fetus since birth, and does it only grow when she’s around the town or the cult? Survival horror gameplay outside the town of Silent Hill just jumbles up the continuity of the series.
Harping on the awkward conveniences, Silent Hill 3 implements is a fine segway to discuss my primary grievance with Silent Hill 3. One of the most effective aspects relating to Silent Hill’s horror factor is its pacing. The subtle ambiance of the fog mixed in with the dim hallways in the abandoned town is supposed to put the player on edge. The otherworld is a means to elevate that disquieted feeling with ghastly imagery to make the player sweat, delving deeper into the nightmare. The boss of a dungeon is meant to be the climax and defeating it serves as the player’s relief, like they are waking up. The first Silent Hill executed this progression flawlessly as early as the first sequence, using the nightmare pacing model for the rest of the game to great effect. Silent Hill 3 attempts to do the same, but the sloppy execution of the dream sequence is indicative of how the rest of the game treats one of the franchise's most crucial elements. Heather is already summoned to the harrowing heights of the amusement park section with little subtly to speak of leading up to it. The otherworld acts less as the danker part of diving deeper into the rabbit hole of Silent Hill and rather like a light switch. The otherworld takes up most of the time spent in each mapped section in the game. The reason “Nowhere” from the first game was so effective is that the otherworld slowly engulfed the town as the game progressed, and “Nowhere” felt like a point of no return with no sign of relief in sight. Silent Hill 3 makes the mistake of raw dogging the player with the otherworld without any lubrication, and the player becomes all too familiar with it. The only instance where Silent Hill achieves the transition tactfully is in the hospital, where a bathtub flooding with blood signals the otherworld at a tasteful halfway point in the dungeon.
Effective moments like these are all over Silent Hill 3. While the game may not treat the player to a horrific dirge, little nuggets of sheer horror are dusted over certain parts to leave that lasting impression. Some highlights include the recurring presence of Stanley Coleman, a former patient of the Brookhaven Hospital. He has developed a case of puppy love for Heather and displays it by sending her creepy love notes and a headless doll as an offering. Needless to say, Heather is put off by his affections, but this doesn’t halt the tenacious Mr. Coleman. Once Heather warps to the otherworld of the hospital, a phone starts ringing in one locker, similar to the phone segment from the first game. An unknown caller, who we assume is Stanley sings the “happy birthday” song to Heather with an unsettling cadence, and the player is just as disoriented by the scene as Heather is. In the same hospital is the infamous “mirror scene” where a room with nothing but a sink progressively starts to sprout blood-red veins from every corner of the room until Heather’s visage in the mirror stands motionless, and Heather is murdered by the room. To add tension, the exit will be locked until the last five to ten-second window before Heather is consumed, leaving the player in a red-faced frenzy trying to escape. This moment tends to be the unanimously pivotal scene among those who have played this game, but there was one scene that affected me even more. Once Heather comes home from the most hectic scenic route imaginable, the player would expect to see good ol’ Harry without those PS1 pixels considering Harry is Heather’s father. Unfortunately, we see Harry in a state of bloody disrepair as he’s been murdered in his living room chair. Douglas didn’t only inadvertently make Heather unsafe with his detective work, but Harry as well. It seems the cult didn’t take kindly to Harry preventing the birth of their savior all those years ago, so they wiped him out as a vindictive act of revenge. Heather is understandably upset, and her father's death is the catalyst that brings her to Silent Hill to enact vengeance on Claudia. I, too, was infuriated upon seeing Harry’s demise, for playing as him for the duration of the first game allowed me to become attached to him. Harry might be a schmuck. Hell, he’s such a schmuck that his apartment is just as dingy and uninviting as the interior of any building located in Silent Hill. But, he was the bravest, most valiant schmuck in gaming, and I became far more invested in Silent Hill 3 after this moment.
Other than becoming a tale of retribution, what is the substance of Silent Hill 3’s story? What separates it from the previous two games on a conceptual level? On the surface, not too much. The sole unique attribute that Silent Hill 3 has that the first game doesn’t is Heather as a protagonist, but her character and story have to be stronger than her becoming Inigo Montoya. Could the otherworld in the context of Heather’s character be a fit of extreme hysteria, like a satanic version of The Yellow Wallpaper? Initially, I had this mildly sexist joke in mind to make fun of how Silent Hill 3 signified a drought of creativity at the Team Silent office, but I started to consider this allegory seriously. Singling out Heather as the franchise’s female protagonist and dissecting her role based on her gender would normally process a shallow analysis, but there is surprisingly enough evidence to support the claim that Silent Hill 3 is a stark feminist work.
I criticized Silent Hill 3 for being too relentless with the otherworld, and I’m still of the opinion that it overstays its welcome. However, looking at the game through Heather’s character, there might be a deliberate reason why Heather’s Silent Hill experience is more relentless than the two other protagonists. Is there any other type of person as scared, volatile, and frangible as a teenage girl? Young women around this age tend to be in serious danger at all corners, whether they put themselves in it. The men surrounding them start to see them with a carnivorous lust, hunting them down like a lion does a zebra. All the while, they never ceased the level of condescension they expressed when the teenage girl was prepubescent. Under a certain lens, the male creeps in a teenage girl’s life are like the enemies in Silent Hill. Monsters such as the Insane Cancer and the Scrapers have more voracious energy and masculine forms than any of the enemies in the previous games. The Closer vaguely resembles a warped caricature of the most primal essence of a teenage girl, as if the otherworld is mocking Heather’s femininity. The Split Worm boss is essentially a basilisk-sized penis, a not-so-subtle rendition of a fear of sex and its consequences. Harry and James’s adventures through Silent Hill were daunting enough, but Heather struggles even more because the town is trying to prove her capabilities because she's a woman.
Any Silent Hill fan, new or old, can see clearly that the cult is a sickening organization, but Silent Hill 3 delves deeper into the dogmatic depravity that fuels it. One can recall from the first game that the God born from Alessa would “cleanse” the world by engulfing it in fire, disintegrating the corrupt influence of humanity, and leaving the world in a state of still oblivion that they refer to as a “paradise.” Claudia, the successor to Dahlia, pontificates emphatically about the cult’s ideal world of purity to Heather. The latter is naturally unconvinced that extinguishing mankind in a fiery inferno is a sensible way to ameliorate the world’s problems. As fucked up as the cult is, it’s not farfetched to mirror it to some organized religions in real life. Maybe the cult is a twisted reflection of the hypocritical zealotry often expressed by officials and fanatics that comprise many world religions. Perhaps the repugnant imagery that makes up Silent Hill is an ugly reflection of the influence of religion behind its seemingly pristine mirage. Vincent Smith, a preacher for the cult, is charismatic on the surface but smugly speaks of nothing but iconoclastic rhetoric that makes him seem psychotic. Claudia preaches benevolence but browbeats any skeptics with threats of eternal damnation. Personally, I’d rather go to hell than Silent Hill, and this cult’s actions based on their religious practices are the reason why.
Relating to the feminist connections, what is one of the biggest societal institutions dedicated to suppressing women's rights? The answer is organized religion. Specifically, in Heather’s case, the right to choose to birth a child. Somehow, Heather is pregnant with the cult’s savior and experiences chronic aches and pains so painful that she writhes on the ground in agony. She is constantly reminded by Claudia that birthing God is her destiny, for she is Alessa who did the same all those years ago. Alessa’s memories start to infiltrate Heather’s psyche to further solidify the connection between the two once she reaches the chapel. This dungeon’s map is even drawn in crayon, similar to what Alessa would do as a child, an ironic contrast between the child-like innocence of the drawing and the nauseatingly unscrupulous land it’s mapping out. However, Heather is not Alessa and does not have to go through with giving birth to something she desperately does not want alive for a cause that she finds utterly horrific. Heather expresses her autonomy as both her own person and as a woman in the best scene in the game. Her act of saying “fuck you” to Claudia and her cult is by aborting the fetus by drinking a liquid found in a locket she’s had for the entire game. She coughs up the fetus, much to Claudia’s chagrin, but Claudia is too pious to give up. Claudia consumes the fetus as its innate powers morph her into the final boss, God, an abomination whose depiction would offend any religious group. After vanquishing the evil, Heather returns to the amusement park to reconvene with a wounded Douglas. She’s in high spirits with a newfound confidence that she is free to live her own life now.
If Team Silent were forced to revisit the story arc of the first game for whatever reason for Silent Hill 3, then I suppose I can be glad that this was the finished product. It seems that I underestimated the ingenuity of Konami’s team of eccentric weirdos, as they still never lost their magic touch while working under constrained parameters. While the story of the first Silent Hill could’ve been under wraps, placing the reborn Cheryl from the first game in the protagonist role managed to breed new life into the already established mythos and consider it from a different perspective. The distinctive properties from the first game have never looked so sublime. However, this is why I feel Silent Hill 3 is still lackluster despite its quality. Silent Hill 3 feels as if it tries far too hard to become the better version of the first game by using so many of the same elements and amplifying them. Still, the developers got so caught up in making Silent Hill 2.0 on the newest console that they forgot the importance of subtlety in a Silent Hill game. That, and being all too familiar with the first game, inherently squandered the full potential of a Silent Hill sequel that we already knew was possible from Silent Hill 2’s shining example. Perhaps I would’ve been less harsh on Silent Hill 3 if it had been released before Silent Hill 2. With all that being said, Silent Hill 3 still exemplifies most of the best qualities the series is known for and playing it will keep you awake at night for at least a week. Ultimately, if you’re comparatively subpar to the two most outstanding pieces of something in your respective genre, you’re still pretty good with all things considered.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
This review contains spoilers
Ocarina of Time was once a hot, roaring flame whose glowing luminescence lit a path for all ambitious 3D titles, giving the industry the utmost confidence that the early experimental phase of extra polygons could be the indefinite mainstay for generations to come. From a marketing standpoint, Nintendo saw Ocarina of Time’s unparalleled adulation as an opportunity to bank on fanservice before the fire was extinguished by time. In only a year and a half after the release of Ocarina of Time, Nintendo managed to eke out another mainline Legend of Zelda game on the N64 using Ocarina of Time’s engine in the optimal time frame just as Zelda fans exhausted their Zelda fix upon countless playthroughs of Ocarina of Time. The game Nintendo churned out at the peak of a golden opportunity was The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, a new mainline Zelda game made to satiate the rabid hunger of those who had been bewitched by the pandemonium surrounding Ocarina of Time.
Upon release, Majora’s Mask did not receive the same unbridled enthusiasm as its 64-bit older brother, but this was a reasonable reaction. Majora’s Mask’s mere existence was supplementary material to quench the vigorous thirst that Ocarina of Time created, an appetizer in anticipation for the next main course. Naturally, a game formulated for this purpose could not be up to snuff with a Zelda title that Nintendo took more time and care for before releasing, right? That was the attitude regarding Majora’s Mask for quite some time. Soon after the “true” successors to Ocarina of Time were released and Ocarina’s initial luster became stale, Majora’s Mask’s place in the Zelda franchise was considered. Nowadays, Majora’s Mask has cult status because we all realized that the game wasn’t met with a lukewarm response from fans. After all, it was unexceptional. While it ran on the same engine as Ocarina of Time and carried most of the familiar properties from the series, Majora’s Mask was a game that fans had trouble grappling with for years. It was a mainline Zelda title that did not include the titular princess, Ganondorf, or the tried and true story arc of Link saving the princess and conquering the king of evil. Majora’s Mask is the most unconventional Zelda title there is, and that’s what makes it an exceptional addition to the series.
Only one concrete connection Majora’s Mask has with Ocarina of Time is that it takes place in the same confined timeline, acting almost like the most detached sequel imaginable. At the end of Ocarina of Time, Princess Zelda grants Link the seven years of youth he accelerated past to defeat Ganondorf, so he returns to his form as a nubile elfin boy to live out those wasted years. Link’s first excursion in his makeup adolescence, or as far as we can see from Majora’s Mask opening sequence, is taking a fellow prepubescent Epona into a shady section of an unknown forest and finding himself in yet another predicament that will shave precious time off his youth. A skull kid wearing a striking mask with striking yellow eyes and a pair of fairies of contrasting colors bum rush Link into the woods and steal both his horse and his ocarina. Link runs off to confront the miscreant who took his prized possessions but learns that this woodland skull kid is no ordinary delinquent. With some sort of black magic, the skull kid transforms Link into something of a Deku scrub, a hollowed-out wooden doll of a creature with Link’s green hat and blonde hair being the only remnants of his humanity. The skull kid disappears, leaving Link in his uncoordinated new form. Before coming across a bustling civilization, a traveling mask salesman barters with Link about a deal. If Link retrieves his ocarina, the mask salesman will transform Link into his pink, fleshy self. Once Link accomplishes this task, the mask salesman puts our hero in a bit of debt. Link must retrieve the relic that the skull kid is wearing on his face, for its legendary history of darkness has given it extraordinary powers that could lead to devastating consequences if in the wrong hands. Link also only has a short amount of time to do so because the skull kid is already using the harrowing potency of the mask to bring down the moon in three days, annihilating the people below and potentially the entire world.
Mechanically speaking, Majora’s Mask’s foundation is so similar to Ocarina of Time that it’s as if OoT reproduced Majora’s Mask asexually like some kind of single-celled paramecium. These days, Nintendo would’ve most likely offered Majora’s Mask, a downloadable extension of Ocarina of Time with a half-baked concept and only a fraction of the content. Fortunately, Majora’s Mask adds a few subtle quality of life improvements that discern it from the game that preceded it. For instance, I hadn’t realized how clunky the menus were in OoT. At least half of the anguish brought about by the Water Temple was due to continuously pressing start to reequip the iron boots, with the menu taking its sweet time to respond to pressing the start button like the sun rising at dawn. The iron boots are no longer an equipable item in Majora’s Mask, but the more responsive menu will be more convenient when browsing the other apparatus in Link’s inventory. The menu items are also organized more efficiently with the masks separated in a different window from the rest of Link’s inventory, except the three main transformation masks in the items menu due to their continual usage. Something I consider to be a quality of life improvement is the Z-targeting, and it isn’t because its mechanics have been reworked. Tatl is Link’s new fairy, aiding him on his journey to stop the world's end. She’s essentially a color-swapped version of Navi, and while she makes no effort to reinvent the wheel regarding her job as a glorified targeting system, at least she knows when to shut her piehole. Her sassy attitude and slight precedence in the story make her more of a character rather than a sentient tool like Navi, which is a slight improvement.
Masks were present as items in OoT, but only for the novelty. Considering the title of its successor, masks hold a heftier gravity in the land of Termina. Link has coincidentally stumbled upon Termina in carnival season, an annual festival held in Clock Town meant to celebrate the prosperity of the harvest. Clock Town’s carnival ostensibly takes influence from traditional, real-world cultures that use masks as symbols to facilitate the prayers for their superstitions. The masks are the prime collectible in Majora’s Mask, and the game offers plenty to Link along his journey with a myriad of different uses. Some masks are meant to deceive and influence others, like the Bremen Mask and the Captain’s Hat, while others give Link special abilities like the Bunny Hood and the Mask of Truth. Some of these masks are crucial to progression, and some are meant to be used sparingly during optional quests.
While the abundant number of masks with unique qualities make collecting them invigorating, the most pivotal masks among the smattering in Link’s inventory are the transformation masks. Deku Link may have been a hefty hindrance in physicality and appearance, but once the Happy Mask Salesman does Link a solid and removes his curse, his time as a forest-dwelling scrub isn’t completely over. With the “Song of Healing,” Link can now masquerade as his former curse at his leisure, albeit in a transformation sequence that looks excruciatingly painful (don’t worry, you can skip this sequence with the press of a button). Deku Link is later joined by Goron Link and Zora Link, representing the three major races presented by the Spiritual Stone quest in OoT. It’s fairly obvious as to why the transformation masks are a revolutionary mechanic as this is the first Zelda title that technically features multiple playable characters. Link doesn’t merely assume their form: he embodies all of the physical capabilities of each creature. Deku Link is not a formidable fighter, but his gaunt physicality makes him vital for traversal. He can bounce off any body of water for five steps like a dumpy Jesus lizard and glide for a short period when he pops out of the many Deku Flowers strewn across the map. Goron Link, comparatively, is a brawny force of nature who fights by punching, even though it can be imprecise in combat. His truly remarkable ability, however, is being able to roll into a ball and zoom across the map like a turbulent cannonball. Zora Link is a balanced compromise between the other two forms who serves better in combat and uses his fins like boomerangs. He may just be a reskinned adult Link with dolphin-like swimming abilities, but that’s just me being cynical. Each form even has its own instruments that substitute the ocarina. This level of versatility had never been seen in the Zelda franchise before. As for Link himself, the hero of time must have aged into adolescence in the time after the end of OoT because he can now hold up a Hylian shield without having to wear it as a turtle shell.
Without knowing those changes, Majora’s Mask will initially seem like a uniform spawn that crawled out from OoT’s birth canal, or at least on a surface level. Majora’s Mask’s graphics are identical to the franchise's revered, 64-bit wunderkind, but Majora’s Mask transcends OoT’s graphics with extraordinary art direction. Dark surrealism permeates the atmosphere of Majora’s Mask, fitting for the grim, apocalyptic premise. The lugubrious aura is never relentlessly melancholy; rather, it's subtly sprinkled over the game’s world like a flurry of snow. Some areas like Clocktown exude a sense of zestful activity that the Hyrule town square did in OoT, but with a disarming feeling of tension always around the corner. This feeling resonates even stronger in the other areas, with a musical refrain indicating a more prevalent sense of agitation in the air. Color choices in Majora’s Mask are more lurid and provocative with more liberal use of every color of the rainbow with a slightly debased look as if the lingering threat over Termina is slightly depleting the spirit of the land. The general aesthetic congeals with the atmosphere to create an ethereal scope, a hazy dream that will slowly progress into a raging nightmare. I already adored the charming, rough-hewn efforts of a 64-bit Zelda game presented in OoT, but the artistic decisions made in Majora’s Mask make the already pleasant graphics wonderfully captivating.
As iconic of a setting Hyrule is, its first 3D iteration proved to be staggeringly vacant. The kingdom's center was always a vast, open field in the 2D Zelda games, but its depiction in OoT was on the extreme end of being spacious. Hyrule Field in OoT was located smack dab in the center of the map like a grassy, vacuous hub between every notable area. I forgave the dearth of land that became gaming's most iconic kingdom (behind the Mushroom Kingdom, of course) because I attributed it to the primitive capabilities of the N64. Upon comparing the hub of Majora’s Mask to OoT’s Hyrule Field, I realize that the developers rather underestimated the potential of the hardware when they crafted the first 3D Zelda title. Termina Field is a hub world that understands that the wide open field that connects the major landmarks is merely a passageway. This connective plain should be quick and easy to navigate with as little tedium as possible. Termina has a much more condensed design, using the center village of Clocktown as the nucleus for the land instead of the field like Hyrule Field was for OoT. After all, Clock Town is where Link’s adventure begins at the dawn of the first day and will return to each subsequent time he plays the “Song of Time”. After Link returns to his original form and ventures out of Clock Town, every point of interest is seen clearly right outside each Clock Town exit in every cardinal direction. The game even allows a fast-travel option early on via an ocarina melody. Time is of the essence in Majora’s Mask, and the hub of Termina is designed accordingly. All the while, the consistent enemy placements and splashes of notable features like the giant, hollow tree trunk and the snowy mushroom caps are far more intriguing than the fallow grounds of Hyrule. One might argue that putting all of these geologically eclectic places in a contained area would feel inorganic, but I’m not arguing against its convenience.
The five areas that sprout from Clock Town’s center are also treated with a better sense of detail and purpose than those that protrude from Hyrule’s sweeping grassland. Normally, I wouldn’t thoroughly compare the settings between two different stretches of land, but Majora’s Mask insisted on preserving the same thematic design that OoT created. From each direction in both Zelda realms, the player will find another district with radically different terrain and creatures that inhabit it. Hyrule in OoT highlighted three distinct districts in the former half of the game with the spiritual stones and expanded upon those districts by revisiting them with four additional areas in the latter half with adult Link’s quest.
The five areas of Termina are obviously not the same as the ones in Hyrule, but they share the same segregated design with the same creatures in their homogenous societies. The Goron kingdom resides in the northern, mountainous Snowhead region, while the Zoras are surrounded by the beachy waters of the Great Bay. Link’s surrogate fairy brethren are nowhere to be seen in the Woodfall swamp, but the area is populated by the Deku scrub creatures that used to pelt Link with nuts. Ikana Canyon is another arid, cavernous area like Gerudo Valley, but with a haunting atmosphere akin to the Shadow Temple. The Gerudos, however, are nowhere to be found here, as the settlement in Termina is a watery fortress situated near the Great Bay. The Gerudo gynocracy coexisting in the same area as the Zoras illustrates another improvement Majora’s Mask makes over OoT’s world design. Each district of Termina feels more nuanced than their OoT counterparts. As marvelous as Zora’s Domain was with its gleaming natural pool and exquisite waterfall, the single, albeit ample, space that was the domain’s entirety made the area feel rather meager. Climbing up Death Mountain to reach the Goron’s civilization was an arduous trek, but their city at the peak suffered from the same sparseness as the Zoras. My guess is that the developers attempted to convey a loyal recreation of these areas in 3D, but the cohesiveness of the land was already spoiled by placing a widespread field at the center. The rustic metropolitan areas divided by tribes of Zelda creatures preserved a certain quality set by the 2D games, but it looks rather dull in execution. The Great Bay, for example, features many sections of land beside the epicenter of the Zora’s domicile, including a cove populated with giant eels, an aquarium similar to the one in Lake Hylia, and the aforementioned Gerudo fortress. There is also a waterfall where Link challenges a family of beavers to a swimming race for an empty bottle. Woodfall, the wooded companion to Kokiri Forest, is based on a swamp with a river that goes through the woods, the Deku Scrub’s kingdom, and the gaping pond where the Woodfall Temple is submerged underneath. Through the journey on the kayak they supply, the player will be treated to the best of Majora’s Mask’s lush color palette. The areas of OoT are adequate, but the attention to detail presented here just spoils the player.
I’ve gone on record saying that the dungeons are my favorite aspects of the Zelda series, so it might seem unfortunate that Majora’s Mask only offers a piddling total of four of them. Fortunately, Majora’s Mask compensates by making these few dungeons some of the most notable in the series. One factor attributed to this is the more organic pacing Majora’s Mask presents compared to OoT. I adore the scope and design of the Great Deku Tree, but I can admit that the dungeon is a glorified tutorial, so its overall quality has a limit that does not exceed the other dungeons by design. By the time the player (literally) uncovers the first dungeon, they could have ideally accomplished quite a bit around Termina and acquired a certain level of proficiency with the mechanics. There is one dungeon per district, and the player must undergo more preparation to finish these dungeons in one sitting due to the time constraint. Dungeons in Majora’s Mask are also more time-consuming because of the fifteen fairies strewn over every floor and corner of these foundations. Collecting and piecing them back together at that dungeon’s local fairy fountain is optional, but the rewards the completed, giggly prostitute-looking fairy gives the player are too valuable to neglect.
Like the areas each individual dungeon occupies, they are as individually unique and make the most of a designated transformation mask. Woodfall Temple has a wicked, voodoo-like atmosphere fitting for the apex of the swamp area and makes great use of gliding via Deku Flowers. Snowhead Temple is a slippery climb up an indoor summit where the player must hurdle over the tightest ramps with Goron Link. I used to abhor the Great Bay Temple and dread it upon replaying this game for this review. Now, I think it utilizes Zora Link’s abilities far better than any of Link's other transformation beings. I realized I was simply stubborn, attempting to beat the water current, which was the main source of my frustrations. Lastly, Stone Tower Temple is a grand fortress situated in the skies above Ikana Canyon. It uses a Symphony of the Night design philosophy, flipping the tower for the second half and making it the longest in the game by sheer length. Stone Tower Temple is a feat that tests the player's abilities for all four of Link’s forms with consistently engaging puzzles and obstacles. It’s the grand poobah of all Zelda dungeons, not just in Majora’s Mask but in the entire series. As for the bosses behind each dungeon’s boss key, they aren’t as collectively strong in terms of quality. I wish the Odolwa, and Twinmold fights featured more mechanics involving that area's transformation mask, and Gyorg’s fight tended to be unfairly punishing due to Zora’s Link wonky swimming controls. However, Goht in Snowhead is a thrilling, exceptional fight that employs the finest extent of Goron Link’s rolling ability.
Even if the dungeons and bosses in Majora’s Mask were consistently some of the worst in the series, I’d be willing to give Majora’s Mask some leeway. This sort of clemency is something I certainly wouldn’t give for any other Zelda game, so what makes Majora’s Mask different? I’ve expressed this before, but I usually see traversing through the hub of Hyrule as a means to an end rather than feeling as if I must relish in its fantastical glory. Throughout my time in Termina, stopping to smell the proverbial roses occupied most of my time because the denizens of this world are far more interesting than the royal family's underlings in Hyrule. For a game that emphasizes a time constraint, Majora’s Mask offers the best side quests across every game in the franchise. The developers had to do something to compensate for a paltry number of dungeons, and the content in the overworld absolves this issue. Early in the game, a (harmless) gang of kids will grant Link an item called the bombers notebook, cataloging every interaction Link has with any notable character in the hub across the three days. By repeating the three-day cycle, the player will become familiar with the people of Termina and their pastimes. The mayor’s office will always have a disgruntled mob in his office on the first day, the Rosa Sisters will always be practicing their mystical dance moves in western Clock Town on the first and seconds nights, and the grumpy Grogg will be clamoring for his chicks to hatch before the moon falls, etc. At some point, the player won’t even need to check the notebook because every NPC and their interactions will be etched into their memories. This familiarity will make the player feel like Termina is their home and not an irritating detour after a majorly macabre setback.
As one could probably tell, there is too much content in Majora’s Mask to complete in three in-game days, arguably not even three days in real-time. The solution to experiencing everything the game has to offer and not being beset by the inevitable cataclysm set by the moon is the mechanic most people will associate Majora’s Mask with: the time warp. At the end of the first three-day cycle, when Link is still a precious Deku Scrub, he recalls the “Song of Time” from the previous game, which warps him back to the dawn of the first day. Link will retain his sword, masks, and songs, but every other item, including money, will fall out of Link’s pockets as he tumbles through the fabric of time. Rupees can, fortunately, be stored at a bank, but I hated having to deal with the overly excitable, condescending teller on every cycle. Everything Link has done in the previous three-day period will be reset, but each retainable item and defeated boss serve as checkpoints. Every refresh of time through the good ol’ ocarina jingle will give the player free rein to use the three days to do whatever they please, or at least to some extent. Majora’s Mask often draws comparisons to the film Groundhog Day because the freedom of choice with a looping time mechanic is reminiscent of that movie’s central gimmick.
The time mechanic also makes Majora’s Mask arguably the hardest of the franchise, or at least the most demanding. Majora’s Mask is the only game I know where saving the game will delete the player’s progress. Because every action Link has done in the previous cycle resets upon warping back in time, the player must time every lengthy ordeal accordingly. Preparation in this regard mainly pertains to getting to the dungeons and completing those dungeons, which I don’t recommend trying to accomplish in one cycle. Owl statues serve as makeshift checkpoints for the player to save their progress here, but only if they also want to quit for the day. Most players use these as warping points via the “Song of Soaring”, a staple of the Zelda franchise that OoT strangely omitted. The player better prepares to dry out their eyes and have sore asses while playing this game because completing any major task in Majora’s Mask requires lengthy periods without saving. The deliberate lack of direction also doesn’t help matters. As early as the first cycle, the player arrives in Termina without any hint as to what their objective is. This, along with the dwindling clock winding down as the day ends, will put the player in a panicked frenzy. Playing a reversed version of the “Song of Time” will make the flow of time move more lethargically, but how the player will know this without a guide is beyond me. I trust that the developers make the game feel rudderless to better suit a sense of freedom, but it also feels as if Nintendo had a deal with Prima Guides.
Majora’s Mask also just creeps people out and gets under their skins. Majora’s Mask is weird, a statement that will shock no one upon uttering it because of how many times it has been said. However, it’s not hard to see why this is the most common conclusion when discussing this game. Aliens will invade the Romani Ranch and steal their cattle, the “Elegy of Emptiness” figures are upsettingly uncanny, and the jump-cutting Happy Mask Salesman will shake Link in a fit of rage if he is displeased with him. Too much in Majora’s Mask is unsettling, but there is one element of this game that trumps them all. Could there be anything more off-putting in Majora’s Mask than the moon? I reference this harrowing celestial body constantly because it’s the most effective purveyor of looming despair across all media. Its bulbous, tangerine-colored eyes and toothy, open-faced smile(?) are enough to catch anyone off guard. Still, the more alarming aspect of the moon is how omnipresent it is and the disconcerting notion that it’s progressively motioning further towards Termina. The moon makes the player feel as if no matter where they go, the moon will always watch over them, and their untimely fate cannot be eluded.
Personally, labeling Majora’s Mask simply as “weird” is a gross simplification. Beneath the doom and gloom of Majora’s Mask is a profound sense of beauty unseen in any other Zelda title. I’m not the only person who sees this, as others have divulged the deeper connotations of its being with the most popular topic relating to the five stages of grief. It’s a bulletproof connection, but it’s been done more times than the moon has fallen on Termina in multiple timelines (and I made this connection with Silent Hill 2 already). Also, the theory has one major flaw, which is that Link ultimately prevents utter destruction by the end, mitigating the concrete nature of dealing with grief. As I played through this game once more, I conjured up something even more revelatory. My point of clarity came with realizing that OoT and Majora’s Mask not only have the same graphics and engine but also have the same fundamental story of a young man conquering an immense evil through seemingly impossible odds via time travel and the unification of every tribe in the land. However, Majora’s Mask executes this story far more impressively.
Groundhog Day comparisons are usually shallow, but there is more to it than warping time. In the film, Phil Connors repeats the same lousy day and is damned to do so until he changes his life around. The end goal is to romance his co-worker, but his full character arc is fulfilled by becoming a better person by helping everyone in town. He doesn’t do this immediately, nor does the thought of doing this initially cross his mind, but he manages extraordinary feats of altruism through trial and error thanks to the repetition. I’ve mentioned that Zelda’s world seems segregated, but is this because of xenophobia? Clock Town is bustling with humans, but I’ve only seen token instances of other races roaming around. Link is also treated differently by others depending on which form he’s taking, so perhaps the divided races aren’t a coincidence. By completing each section’s dungeon, Link vindicates the problems beset by each race’s civilization. The Dekus no longer have to boil a monkey alive for kidnapping their princess, the Gorons won’t freeze/starve to death, the Zoras get their eggs and their mojo back, and the dead in Ikana Canyon can rest peacefully. The bosses are essentially MacGuffins, but defeating them causes a drastic improvement in morale. OoT scratches the surface with the effect of defeating bosses, but the player gets to revel in a post-dungeon period to see what they’ve done, and maybe Link will get credit for it.
A side quest that takes full advantage of helping the denizens of Termina through the three-day cycle is the infamous Kafei quest. It’s a long, grueling task that demands patience and pinpoints accuracy from the player, but it is a totally optional quest. However, I implore anyone who has never played this game to persevere and attempt this undertaking because this quest is requisite for unlocking the inner beauty beneath the surface of Majora’s Mask. A blue-haired man named Kafei has also been cursed by the mischievous Skull Kid and has gone missing a few days from his own wedding out of shame and embarrassment. His mother and his fiance Anju, the woman behind the counter at the Stockpot Inn, aid Link in finding Kafei’s whereabouts which involves a lot of waiting and a bit of stealth. After meeting Kafei, he suggests you help him retrieve a mask stolen from him by a thief who resides in Ikana Canyon, a covert operation in which the player will simultaneously play as both Kafei and Link. After recovering the stolen merchandise, Kafei will meet with his fiance in one of the Stockpot Inn’s rooms and reward Link with a mask. As I watched the two kneel on the hotel floor in each other’s embrace, a wave of emotion struck me like a lightning bolt. The circuitous charade I had to undergo to reunite these people resulted in witnessing a couple rekindle their estranged love for one another mere minutes before their imminent demise was one of the most emotionally resonating moments in any video game I’ve played. I almost wanted to savor the moment I had worked so diligently to create, only if the moon wouldn’t have killed me as well. As I warped back to the dawn of the first day, everything I accomplished held no grounds in reality, for Link and Tatl are the sole preservers of that beautiful memory. This revelation hit me like a ton of bricks, and I swear I shed a tear.
Link needs to unify all of Termina because every district is needed to stop the moon fall. Defeating each boss will uncover the hidden red giant the boss was undermining. Once Link defeats all four major bosses, he confronts Skull Kid again on top of the clock tower on the night of the carnival. Only this time, Link calls the four giants via a tune on his ocarina, and they hoist the moon away from the town. The evil spirit inside the mask feels unfulfilled and disposes of Skull Kid as his vessel. The mask makes the moon even more malevolent by possessing it, and Link must duel the embodiment of Majora inside it. Surprisingly, the moon's core is a lovely meadow with one oak tree sitting on top of a hill. Children with the masks of the four bosses scamper playfully on the field, but the one donning the mask of Majora is sitting pensively on the peak of the hill. Talking to him will begin the fight, and it’s just as distressing as one could imagine. Combating each of Majora’s unpredictable forms in the splatter-painting of an arena practically simulates a bad psychedelic drug trip. However, its duration can be condensed with the Fierce Deity Mask, which can only be obtained by collecting every other mask in the game and going through the other kid’s transformation-mask-themed trials. The mask isn’t entirely necessary, but it’s remarkable how Link can use the mask to make Majora his bitch. After vanquishing the evil spirit in the mask, the long-awaited fourth day commences. The people of Termina can rest easy now and enjoy a new, beautiful day, but I felt a sense of existentialism under a blanket of bittersweetness.
I’ve always attempted to dissociate Majora’s Mask from OoT because people often compared them on a superficial basis. As the two Zelda titles on the N64, comparisons would be easy to make. Both games have the same graphics, gameplay, sound design, and a plethora of other aspects too numerous to list. However, what Majora’s Mask does with its foundation makes OoT pale in comparison. Ocarina of Time was bogged down by the initiative to translate The Legend of Zelda to a new polygonal generation. While it certainly succeeded, maintaining that loyalty to the formula can only sprout so much of its full potential. With greater ambition and inspiration, Majora’s Mask excels over its older brother and fulfills that missed potential. OoT used the passage of time as a plot convenience, but Majora’s Mask earns that feeling of personal growth through painstaking progress. If we're still adamant that Majora’s Mask is the shadow under the light that is Ocarina of Time, then like a shadow, it's taller than the physical being it casts over. Majora’s Mask’s pension for oddities, disturbing themes, and liberal direction may make it inaccessible to most, but those who desire something more substantial will adore Majora’s Mask and see it as the most exemplary entry in the franchise.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Upon release, Majora’s Mask did not receive the same unbridled enthusiasm as its 64-bit older brother, but this was a reasonable reaction. Majora’s Mask’s mere existence was supplementary material to quench the vigorous thirst that Ocarina of Time created, an appetizer in anticipation for the next main course. Naturally, a game formulated for this purpose could not be up to snuff with a Zelda title that Nintendo took more time and care for before releasing, right? That was the attitude regarding Majora’s Mask for quite some time. Soon after the “true” successors to Ocarina of Time were released and Ocarina’s initial luster became stale, Majora’s Mask’s place in the Zelda franchise was considered. Nowadays, Majora’s Mask has cult status because we all realized that the game wasn’t met with a lukewarm response from fans. After all, it was unexceptional. While it ran on the same engine as Ocarina of Time and carried most of the familiar properties from the series, Majora’s Mask was a game that fans had trouble grappling with for years. It was a mainline Zelda title that did not include the titular princess, Ganondorf, or the tried and true story arc of Link saving the princess and conquering the king of evil. Majora’s Mask is the most unconventional Zelda title there is, and that’s what makes it an exceptional addition to the series.
Only one concrete connection Majora’s Mask has with Ocarina of Time is that it takes place in the same confined timeline, acting almost like the most detached sequel imaginable. At the end of Ocarina of Time, Princess Zelda grants Link the seven years of youth he accelerated past to defeat Ganondorf, so he returns to his form as a nubile elfin boy to live out those wasted years. Link’s first excursion in his makeup adolescence, or as far as we can see from Majora’s Mask opening sequence, is taking a fellow prepubescent Epona into a shady section of an unknown forest and finding himself in yet another predicament that will shave precious time off his youth. A skull kid wearing a striking mask with striking yellow eyes and a pair of fairies of contrasting colors bum rush Link into the woods and steal both his horse and his ocarina. Link runs off to confront the miscreant who took his prized possessions but learns that this woodland skull kid is no ordinary delinquent. With some sort of black magic, the skull kid transforms Link into something of a Deku scrub, a hollowed-out wooden doll of a creature with Link’s green hat and blonde hair being the only remnants of his humanity. The skull kid disappears, leaving Link in his uncoordinated new form. Before coming across a bustling civilization, a traveling mask salesman barters with Link about a deal. If Link retrieves his ocarina, the mask salesman will transform Link into his pink, fleshy self. Once Link accomplishes this task, the mask salesman puts our hero in a bit of debt. Link must retrieve the relic that the skull kid is wearing on his face, for its legendary history of darkness has given it extraordinary powers that could lead to devastating consequences if in the wrong hands. Link also only has a short amount of time to do so because the skull kid is already using the harrowing potency of the mask to bring down the moon in three days, annihilating the people below and potentially the entire world.
Mechanically speaking, Majora’s Mask’s foundation is so similar to Ocarina of Time that it’s as if OoT reproduced Majora’s Mask asexually like some kind of single-celled paramecium. These days, Nintendo would’ve most likely offered Majora’s Mask, a downloadable extension of Ocarina of Time with a half-baked concept and only a fraction of the content. Fortunately, Majora’s Mask adds a few subtle quality of life improvements that discern it from the game that preceded it. For instance, I hadn’t realized how clunky the menus were in OoT. At least half of the anguish brought about by the Water Temple was due to continuously pressing start to reequip the iron boots, with the menu taking its sweet time to respond to pressing the start button like the sun rising at dawn. The iron boots are no longer an equipable item in Majora’s Mask, but the more responsive menu will be more convenient when browsing the other apparatus in Link’s inventory. The menu items are also organized more efficiently with the masks separated in a different window from the rest of Link’s inventory, except the three main transformation masks in the items menu due to their continual usage. Something I consider to be a quality of life improvement is the Z-targeting, and it isn’t because its mechanics have been reworked. Tatl is Link’s new fairy, aiding him on his journey to stop the world's end. She’s essentially a color-swapped version of Navi, and while she makes no effort to reinvent the wheel regarding her job as a glorified targeting system, at least she knows when to shut her piehole. Her sassy attitude and slight precedence in the story make her more of a character rather than a sentient tool like Navi, which is a slight improvement.
Masks were present as items in OoT, but only for the novelty. Considering the title of its successor, masks hold a heftier gravity in the land of Termina. Link has coincidentally stumbled upon Termina in carnival season, an annual festival held in Clock Town meant to celebrate the prosperity of the harvest. Clock Town’s carnival ostensibly takes influence from traditional, real-world cultures that use masks as symbols to facilitate the prayers for their superstitions. The masks are the prime collectible in Majora’s Mask, and the game offers plenty to Link along his journey with a myriad of different uses. Some masks are meant to deceive and influence others, like the Bremen Mask and the Captain’s Hat, while others give Link special abilities like the Bunny Hood and the Mask of Truth. Some of these masks are crucial to progression, and some are meant to be used sparingly during optional quests.
While the abundant number of masks with unique qualities make collecting them invigorating, the most pivotal masks among the smattering in Link’s inventory are the transformation masks. Deku Link may have been a hefty hindrance in physicality and appearance, but once the Happy Mask Salesman does Link a solid and removes his curse, his time as a forest-dwelling scrub isn’t completely over. With the “Song of Healing,” Link can now masquerade as his former curse at his leisure, albeit in a transformation sequence that looks excruciatingly painful (don’t worry, you can skip this sequence with the press of a button). Deku Link is later joined by Goron Link and Zora Link, representing the three major races presented by the Spiritual Stone quest in OoT. It’s fairly obvious as to why the transformation masks are a revolutionary mechanic as this is the first Zelda title that technically features multiple playable characters. Link doesn’t merely assume their form: he embodies all of the physical capabilities of each creature. Deku Link is not a formidable fighter, but his gaunt physicality makes him vital for traversal. He can bounce off any body of water for five steps like a dumpy Jesus lizard and glide for a short period when he pops out of the many Deku Flowers strewn across the map. Goron Link, comparatively, is a brawny force of nature who fights by punching, even though it can be imprecise in combat. His truly remarkable ability, however, is being able to roll into a ball and zoom across the map like a turbulent cannonball. Zora Link is a balanced compromise between the other two forms who serves better in combat and uses his fins like boomerangs. He may just be a reskinned adult Link with dolphin-like swimming abilities, but that’s just me being cynical. Each form even has its own instruments that substitute the ocarina. This level of versatility had never been seen in the Zelda franchise before. As for Link himself, the hero of time must have aged into adolescence in the time after the end of OoT because he can now hold up a Hylian shield without having to wear it as a turtle shell.
Without knowing those changes, Majora’s Mask will initially seem like a uniform spawn that crawled out from OoT’s birth canal, or at least on a surface level. Majora’s Mask’s graphics are identical to the franchise's revered, 64-bit wunderkind, but Majora’s Mask transcends OoT’s graphics with extraordinary art direction. Dark surrealism permeates the atmosphere of Majora’s Mask, fitting for the grim, apocalyptic premise. The lugubrious aura is never relentlessly melancholy; rather, it's subtly sprinkled over the game’s world like a flurry of snow. Some areas like Clocktown exude a sense of zestful activity that the Hyrule town square did in OoT, but with a disarming feeling of tension always around the corner. This feeling resonates even stronger in the other areas, with a musical refrain indicating a more prevalent sense of agitation in the air. Color choices in Majora’s Mask are more lurid and provocative with more liberal use of every color of the rainbow with a slightly debased look as if the lingering threat over Termina is slightly depleting the spirit of the land. The general aesthetic congeals with the atmosphere to create an ethereal scope, a hazy dream that will slowly progress into a raging nightmare. I already adored the charming, rough-hewn efforts of a 64-bit Zelda game presented in OoT, but the artistic decisions made in Majora’s Mask make the already pleasant graphics wonderfully captivating.
As iconic of a setting Hyrule is, its first 3D iteration proved to be staggeringly vacant. The kingdom's center was always a vast, open field in the 2D Zelda games, but its depiction in OoT was on the extreme end of being spacious. Hyrule Field in OoT was located smack dab in the center of the map like a grassy, vacuous hub between every notable area. I forgave the dearth of land that became gaming's most iconic kingdom (behind the Mushroom Kingdom, of course) because I attributed it to the primitive capabilities of the N64. Upon comparing the hub of Majora’s Mask to OoT’s Hyrule Field, I realize that the developers rather underestimated the potential of the hardware when they crafted the first 3D Zelda title. Termina Field is a hub world that understands that the wide open field that connects the major landmarks is merely a passageway. This connective plain should be quick and easy to navigate with as little tedium as possible. Termina has a much more condensed design, using the center village of Clocktown as the nucleus for the land instead of the field like Hyrule Field was for OoT. After all, Clock Town is where Link’s adventure begins at the dawn of the first day and will return to each subsequent time he plays the “Song of Time”. After Link returns to his original form and ventures out of Clock Town, every point of interest is seen clearly right outside each Clock Town exit in every cardinal direction. The game even allows a fast-travel option early on via an ocarina melody. Time is of the essence in Majora’s Mask, and the hub of Termina is designed accordingly. All the while, the consistent enemy placements and splashes of notable features like the giant, hollow tree trunk and the snowy mushroom caps are far more intriguing than the fallow grounds of Hyrule. One might argue that putting all of these geologically eclectic places in a contained area would feel inorganic, but I’m not arguing against its convenience.
The five areas that sprout from Clock Town’s center are also treated with a better sense of detail and purpose than those that protrude from Hyrule’s sweeping grassland. Normally, I wouldn’t thoroughly compare the settings between two different stretches of land, but Majora’s Mask insisted on preserving the same thematic design that OoT created. From each direction in both Zelda realms, the player will find another district with radically different terrain and creatures that inhabit it. Hyrule in OoT highlighted three distinct districts in the former half of the game with the spiritual stones and expanded upon those districts by revisiting them with four additional areas in the latter half with adult Link’s quest.
The five areas of Termina are obviously not the same as the ones in Hyrule, but they share the same segregated design with the same creatures in their homogenous societies. The Goron kingdom resides in the northern, mountainous Snowhead region, while the Zoras are surrounded by the beachy waters of the Great Bay. Link’s surrogate fairy brethren are nowhere to be seen in the Woodfall swamp, but the area is populated by the Deku scrub creatures that used to pelt Link with nuts. Ikana Canyon is another arid, cavernous area like Gerudo Valley, but with a haunting atmosphere akin to the Shadow Temple. The Gerudos, however, are nowhere to be found here, as the settlement in Termina is a watery fortress situated near the Great Bay. The Gerudo gynocracy coexisting in the same area as the Zoras illustrates another improvement Majora’s Mask makes over OoT’s world design. Each district of Termina feels more nuanced than their OoT counterparts. As marvelous as Zora’s Domain was with its gleaming natural pool and exquisite waterfall, the single, albeit ample, space that was the domain’s entirety made the area feel rather meager. Climbing up Death Mountain to reach the Goron’s civilization was an arduous trek, but their city at the peak suffered from the same sparseness as the Zoras. My guess is that the developers attempted to convey a loyal recreation of these areas in 3D, but the cohesiveness of the land was already spoiled by placing a widespread field at the center. The rustic metropolitan areas divided by tribes of Zelda creatures preserved a certain quality set by the 2D games, but it looks rather dull in execution. The Great Bay, for example, features many sections of land beside the epicenter of the Zora’s domicile, including a cove populated with giant eels, an aquarium similar to the one in Lake Hylia, and the aforementioned Gerudo fortress. There is also a waterfall where Link challenges a family of beavers to a swimming race for an empty bottle. Woodfall, the wooded companion to Kokiri Forest, is based on a swamp with a river that goes through the woods, the Deku Scrub’s kingdom, and the gaping pond where the Woodfall Temple is submerged underneath. Through the journey on the kayak they supply, the player will be treated to the best of Majora’s Mask’s lush color palette. The areas of OoT are adequate, but the attention to detail presented here just spoils the player.
I’ve gone on record saying that the dungeons are my favorite aspects of the Zelda series, so it might seem unfortunate that Majora’s Mask only offers a piddling total of four of them. Fortunately, Majora’s Mask compensates by making these few dungeons some of the most notable in the series. One factor attributed to this is the more organic pacing Majora’s Mask presents compared to OoT. I adore the scope and design of the Great Deku Tree, but I can admit that the dungeon is a glorified tutorial, so its overall quality has a limit that does not exceed the other dungeons by design. By the time the player (literally) uncovers the first dungeon, they could have ideally accomplished quite a bit around Termina and acquired a certain level of proficiency with the mechanics. There is one dungeon per district, and the player must undergo more preparation to finish these dungeons in one sitting due to the time constraint. Dungeons in Majora’s Mask are also more time-consuming because of the fifteen fairies strewn over every floor and corner of these foundations. Collecting and piecing them back together at that dungeon’s local fairy fountain is optional, but the rewards the completed, giggly prostitute-looking fairy gives the player are too valuable to neglect.
Like the areas each individual dungeon occupies, they are as individually unique and make the most of a designated transformation mask. Woodfall Temple has a wicked, voodoo-like atmosphere fitting for the apex of the swamp area and makes great use of gliding via Deku Flowers. Snowhead Temple is a slippery climb up an indoor summit where the player must hurdle over the tightest ramps with Goron Link. I used to abhor the Great Bay Temple and dread it upon replaying this game for this review. Now, I think it utilizes Zora Link’s abilities far better than any of Link's other transformation beings. I realized I was simply stubborn, attempting to beat the water current, which was the main source of my frustrations. Lastly, Stone Tower Temple is a grand fortress situated in the skies above Ikana Canyon. It uses a Symphony of the Night design philosophy, flipping the tower for the second half and making it the longest in the game by sheer length. Stone Tower Temple is a feat that tests the player's abilities for all four of Link’s forms with consistently engaging puzzles and obstacles. It’s the grand poobah of all Zelda dungeons, not just in Majora’s Mask but in the entire series. As for the bosses behind each dungeon’s boss key, they aren’t as collectively strong in terms of quality. I wish the Odolwa, and Twinmold fights featured more mechanics involving that area's transformation mask, and Gyorg’s fight tended to be unfairly punishing due to Zora’s Link wonky swimming controls. However, Goht in Snowhead is a thrilling, exceptional fight that employs the finest extent of Goron Link’s rolling ability.
Even if the dungeons and bosses in Majora’s Mask were consistently some of the worst in the series, I’d be willing to give Majora’s Mask some leeway. This sort of clemency is something I certainly wouldn’t give for any other Zelda game, so what makes Majora’s Mask different? I’ve expressed this before, but I usually see traversing through the hub of Hyrule as a means to an end rather than feeling as if I must relish in its fantastical glory. Throughout my time in Termina, stopping to smell the proverbial roses occupied most of my time because the denizens of this world are far more interesting than the royal family's underlings in Hyrule. For a game that emphasizes a time constraint, Majora’s Mask offers the best side quests across every game in the franchise. The developers had to do something to compensate for a paltry number of dungeons, and the content in the overworld absolves this issue. Early in the game, a (harmless) gang of kids will grant Link an item called the bombers notebook, cataloging every interaction Link has with any notable character in the hub across the three days. By repeating the three-day cycle, the player will become familiar with the people of Termina and their pastimes. The mayor’s office will always have a disgruntled mob in his office on the first day, the Rosa Sisters will always be practicing their mystical dance moves in western Clock Town on the first and seconds nights, and the grumpy Grogg will be clamoring for his chicks to hatch before the moon falls, etc. At some point, the player won’t even need to check the notebook because every NPC and their interactions will be etched into their memories. This familiarity will make the player feel like Termina is their home and not an irritating detour after a majorly macabre setback.
As one could probably tell, there is too much content in Majora’s Mask to complete in three in-game days, arguably not even three days in real-time. The solution to experiencing everything the game has to offer and not being beset by the inevitable cataclysm set by the moon is the mechanic most people will associate Majora’s Mask with: the time warp. At the end of the first three-day cycle, when Link is still a precious Deku Scrub, he recalls the “Song of Time” from the previous game, which warps him back to the dawn of the first day. Link will retain his sword, masks, and songs, but every other item, including money, will fall out of Link’s pockets as he tumbles through the fabric of time. Rupees can, fortunately, be stored at a bank, but I hated having to deal with the overly excitable, condescending teller on every cycle. Everything Link has done in the previous three-day period will be reset, but each retainable item and defeated boss serve as checkpoints. Every refresh of time through the good ol’ ocarina jingle will give the player free rein to use the three days to do whatever they please, or at least to some extent. Majora’s Mask often draws comparisons to the film Groundhog Day because the freedom of choice with a looping time mechanic is reminiscent of that movie’s central gimmick.
The time mechanic also makes Majora’s Mask arguably the hardest of the franchise, or at least the most demanding. Majora’s Mask is the only game I know where saving the game will delete the player’s progress. Because every action Link has done in the previous cycle resets upon warping back in time, the player must time every lengthy ordeal accordingly. Preparation in this regard mainly pertains to getting to the dungeons and completing those dungeons, which I don’t recommend trying to accomplish in one cycle. Owl statues serve as makeshift checkpoints for the player to save their progress here, but only if they also want to quit for the day. Most players use these as warping points via the “Song of Soaring”, a staple of the Zelda franchise that OoT strangely omitted. The player better prepares to dry out their eyes and have sore asses while playing this game because completing any major task in Majora’s Mask requires lengthy periods without saving. The deliberate lack of direction also doesn’t help matters. As early as the first cycle, the player arrives in Termina without any hint as to what their objective is. This, along with the dwindling clock winding down as the day ends, will put the player in a panicked frenzy. Playing a reversed version of the “Song of Time” will make the flow of time move more lethargically, but how the player will know this without a guide is beyond me. I trust that the developers make the game feel rudderless to better suit a sense of freedom, but it also feels as if Nintendo had a deal with Prima Guides.
Majora’s Mask also just creeps people out and gets under their skins. Majora’s Mask is weird, a statement that will shock no one upon uttering it because of how many times it has been said. However, it’s not hard to see why this is the most common conclusion when discussing this game. Aliens will invade the Romani Ranch and steal their cattle, the “Elegy of Emptiness” figures are upsettingly uncanny, and the jump-cutting Happy Mask Salesman will shake Link in a fit of rage if he is displeased with him. Too much in Majora’s Mask is unsettling, but there is one element of this game that trumps them all. Could there be anything more off-putting in Majora’s Mask than the moon? I reference this harrowing celestial body constantly because it’s the most effective purveyor of looming despair across all media. Its bulbous, tangerine-colored eyes and toothy, open-faced smile(?) are enough to catch anyone off guard. Still, the more alarming aspect of the moon is how omnipresent it is and the disconcerting notion that it’s progressively motioning further towards Termina. The moon makes the player feel as if no matter where they go, the moon will always watch over them, and their untimely fate cannot be eluded.
Personally, labeling Majora’s Mask simply as “weird” is a gross simplification. Beneath the doom and gloom of Majora’s Mask is a profound sense of beauty unseen in any other Zelda title. I’m not the only person who sees this, as others have divulged the deeper connotations of its being with the most popular topic relating to the five stages of grief. It’s a bulletproof connection, but it’s been done more times than the moon has fallen on Termina in multiple timelines (and I made this connection with Silent Hill 2 already). Also, the theory has one major flaw, which is that Link ultimately prevents utter destruction by the end, mitigating the concrete nature of dealing with grief. As I played through this game once more, I conjured up something even more revelatory. My point of clarity came with realizing that OoT and Majora’s Mask not only have the same graphics and engine but also have the same fundamental story of a young man conquering an immense evil through seemingly impossible odds via time travel and the unification of every tribe in the land. However, Majora’s Mask executes this story far more impressively.
Groundhog Day comparisons are usually shallow, but there is more to it than warping time. In the film, Phil Connors repeats the same lousy day and is damned to do so until he changes his life around. The end goal is to romance his co-worker, but his full character arc is fulfilled by becoming a better person by helping everyone in town. He doesn’t do this immediately, nor does the thought of doing this initially cross his mind, but he manages extraordinary feats of altruism through trial and error thanks to the repetition. I’ve mentioned that Zelda’s world seems segregated, but is this because of xenophobia? Clock Town is bustling with humans, but I’ve only seen token instances of other races roaming around. Link is also treated differently by others depending on which form he’s taking, so perhaps the divided races aren’t a coincidence. By completing each section’s dungeon, Link vindicates the problems beset by each race’s civilization. The Dekus no longer have to boil a monkey alive for kidnapping their princess, the Gorons won’t freeze/starve to death, the Zoras get their eggs and their mojo back, and the dead in Ikana Canyon can rest peacefully. The bosses are essentially MacGuffins, but defeating them causes a drastic improvement in morale. OoT scratches the surface with the effect of defeating bosses, but the player gets to revel in a post-dungeon period to see what they’ve done, and maybe Link will get credit for it.
A side quest that takes full advantage of helping the denizens of Termina through the three-day cycle is the infamous Kafei quest. It’s a long, grueling task that demands patience and pinpoints accuracy from the player, but it is a totally optional quest. However, I implore anyone who has never played this game to persevere and attempt this undertaking because this quest is requisite for unlocking the inner beauty beneath the surface of Majora’s Mask. A blue-haired man named Kafei has also been cursed by the mischievous Skull Kid and has gone missing a few days from his own wedding out of shame and embarrassment. His mother and his fiance Anju, the woman behind the counter at the Stockpot Inn, aid Link in finding Kafei’s whereabouts which involves a lot of waiting and a bit of stealth. After meeting Kafei, he suggests you help him retrieve a mask stolen from him by a thief who resides in Ikana Canyon, a covert operation in which the player will simultaneously play as both Kafei and Link. After recovering the stolen merchandise, Kafei will meet with his fiance in one of the Stockpot Inn’s rooms and reward Link with a mask. As I watched the two kneel on the hotel floor in each other’s embrace, a wave of emotion struck me like a lightning bolt. The circuitous charade I had to undergo to reunite these people resulted in witnessing a couple rekindle their estranged love for one another mere minutes before their imminent demise was one of the most emotionally resonating moments in any video game I’ve played. I almost wanted to savor the moment I had worked so diligently to create, only if the moon wouldn’t have killed me as well. As I warped back to the dawn of the first day, everything I accomplished held no grounds in reality, for Link and Tatl are the sole preservers of that beautiful memory. This revelation hit me like a ton of bricks, and I swear I shed a tear.
Link needs to unify all of Termina because every district is needed to stop the moon fall. Defeating each boss will uncover the hidden red giant the boss was undermining. Once Link defeats all four major bosses, he confronts Skull Kid again on top of the clock tower on the night of the carnival. Only this time, Link calls the four giants via a tune on his ocarina, and they hoist the moon away from the town. The evil spirit inside the mask feels unfulfilled and disposes of Skull Kid as his vessel. The mask makes the moon even more malevolent by possessing it, and Link must duel the embodiment of Majora inside it. Surprisingly, the moon's core is a lovely meadow with one oak tree sitting on top of a hill. Children with the masks of the four bosses scamper playfully on the field, but the one donning the mask of Majora is sitting pensively on the peak of the hill. Talking to him will begin the fight, and it’s just as distressing as one could imagine. Combating each of Majora’s unpredictable forms in the splatter-painting of an arena practically simulates a bad psychedelic drug trip. However, its duration can be condensed with the Fierce Deity Mask, which can only be obtained by collecting every other mask in the game and going through the other kid’s transformation-mask-themed trials. The mask isn’t entirely necessary, but it’s remarkable how Link can use the mask to make Majora his bitch. After vanquishing the evil spirit in the mask, the long-awaited fourth day commences. The people of Termina can rest easy now and enjoy a new, beautiful day, but I felt a sense of existentialism under a blanket of bittersweetness.
I’ve always attempted to dissociate Majora’s Mask from OoT because people often compared them on a superficial basis. As the two Zelda titles on the N64, comparisons would be easy to make. Both games have the same graphics, gameplay, sound design, and a plethora of other aspects too numerous to list. However, what Majora’s Mask does with its foundation makes OoT pale in comparison. Ocarina of Time was bogged down by the initiative to translate The Legend of Zelda to a new polygonal generation. While it certainly succeeded, maintaining that loyalty to the formula can only sprout so much of its full potential. With greater ambition and inspiration, Majora’s Mask excels over its older brother and fulfills that missed potential. OoT used the passage of time as a plot convenience, but Majora’s Mask earns that feeling of personal growth through painstaking progress. If we're still adamant that Majora’s Mask is the shadow under the light that is Ocarina of Time, then like a shadow, it's taller than the physical being it casts over. Majora’s Mask’s pension for oddities, disturbing themes, and liberal direction may make it inaccessible to most, but those who desire something more substantial will adore Majora’s Mask and see it as the most exemplary entry in the franchise.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
This review contains spoilers
Every Metal Gear Solid story revels in a hypothetical scenario involving the potential destruction of the world with burgeoning nuclear technology in the close future, but remember a time in history when this scenario was a reality? For those of you, whose high school history education needs a bit of dusting off, the Cold War was a long, tumultuous period from a few years after World War II to the very early 1990s. Relations between the western world and the eastern world during the latter half of the 20th century couldn’t have been more contentious, a feud between economic and political ideas with two massive oceans in between both sides. Several famous wars like the Korean War and the War in Vietnam were notable marks in the Cold War timeline, but there is one aspect that most people associate when the Cold War is discussed. Usually, discrepancies between nations would be resolved violently with a bloody, debilitating war, but there was a certain unforeseen factor that prevented this. We as human beings had progressed our weaponry to the point where they would not only clear away an entire battalion of troops but would annihilate all of mankind as we knew it, using the instances in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as grim references. The looming threat of nuclear devices kept any bloodshed at bay but only escalated tensions between opposite sides and scared everyone shitless. However, there were most likely tons of covert operations involving espionage that could have resulted in imminent death for us all that we mere citizens are not privy to. World history used to be the plot of a Metal Gear Solid game. The third entry in the acclaimed franchise offers us a prequel set during the Cold War period as what could be loosely described as a historical fiction piece that revels in the lore of Metal Gear Solid.
Metal Gear Solid was in desperate need of taking a few steps back after the disastrous endeavor that was Metal Gear Solid 2. One would think that Kojima’s clueless ambition from that game would lead him to attempt conveying the fucking Fibonacci sequence in the video game medium for the third Metal Gear Solid title, something that I cringe at the thought of. Fortunately, a prequel set in a time before modernism grew, that pesky “post” prefix potentially showed a sense of self-reflection on how to approach Metal Gear Solid’s narrative. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater moves things back a few paces, and thank god for the inherent past setting of a prequel keeps the series from plunging even deeper into the rabbit hole of technological progress. Snake Eater is the most modest of the Metal Gear Solid titles, using the eccentric espionage story that defines the series and somewhat trimming the convoluted, bloviating fat. It sounds like Kojima has gone soft here but considering the praise Snake Eater receives over every other game in the franchise, this proved to be for the better. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a more refined, mature Metal Gear experience because it tones down all of the properties associated with the series.
Metal Gear Solid 3 still grants the player a thrilling introduction that sets the scene and scope of the operation. It’s the height of the Cold War in 1964, with the disastrous Bay of Pigs ordeal in recent memory and America’s involvement in the Vietnam War still yet to become a decade-defining event. A helicopter flies above the clouds with the sun radiantly beaming on the horizon. A group of American mercenaries, including a familiar voice in a tight leather uniform and pilot’s oxygen mask, set a course over a remote area of the enemy’s territory in the USSR. As the man stylishly lands on the soil of the dense jungle floor, he unmasks himself to affirm to the player that the voice does indeed match the face. For the first time in the Metal Gear timeline, this inconspicuous soldier is dubbed “Snake” by an older British man. Snake's mission is to rescue a hostage by the name of Nikolai Sokolov, a Russian rocket engineer who is essentially an older, foreign Otacon building a weaponized tank called the “Shagohod.” Upon retrieving Sokolov from his containment cell, GRU commander Volgin and his sensei, The Boss, storm the rickety bridge they’re running across. To Snake’s unpleasant surprise, The Boss has defected to the Soviets and gives Volgin enough firepower to blast Sokolov’s lab to kingdom come. With Snake mortally injured after falling off the bridge and his “virtuous mission” a bust, he merely has more on his plate now in the hopes of preventing another cataclysmic war.
Diverse environments seem to be a consistent strength of the Metal Gear Solid series. A tanker facility set over the deep waters of the Hudson was different enough, but the jungle setting in the Soviet Union is the antithesis of the frozen tundra surrounding Shadow Moses Island. Kojima has formulated a fictional area of the Soviet Union known as the Tselinoyarsk, or colloquially as the “Virgin Cliffs,” a wooded area with a heaping amount of eclectic topography. The Russian jungle is a vast, humid stretch of wilderness where the shade of the lanky, disheveled, and an innumerable number of trees filters the light in their habitat like a natural greenhouse. Swamps filled with the thickest of mud will sink any unfortunate soul in a matter of seconds, and crocodiles the size of mack trucks will crush anything with just the might of their tails. Bustling sounds of chirping birds and screeching primates make up the soundscape accompanying the faint sound of Snake’s footprints rustling through the leaves and the tall grass. On the outskirts of the jungle are caves, rivers, canyons, and more temperate forest areas. One could argue that this wide range of topographic areas confined under the name of a single place would feel inorganic, but the journey-like progression most Metal Gear Solid games implement makes coming across each of these formations feel natural. Tselinoyarsk is the most beautiful setting in the series while maintaining that sense of disquiet and hostility to constantly keep the player’s guard up.
This wilderness also comes with some new stipulations never before seen in a Metal Gear Solid game. Surviving the throngs of enemy troops through stealth was always imperative in the previous Metal Gear Solid games. Still, Snake Eater builds on that initiative with a more orthodox context. Snake’s full code name throughout the game isn’t “Solid Snake,” as we’ve come to know him as, but instead referred to as “Naked Snake.” Sorry ladies, this moniker does not connote that the rugged, handsome Snake is scampering through the jungle cupping his junk with his hands like Raiden near the end of Metal Gear Solid 2. Rather, it refers to how unprepared Snake is and has to fend for himself to survive here. Snake is at the mercy of the elements here and needs to find the best utility of the wilderness to survive. The emphasis on survival introduces many mechanics previously unseen in the Metal Gear series, and they prove to be a constant challenge to adapt to. In the previous games, rations will be found all around the field as items that will heal a consistent amount of health, and Snake can carry up to five at a time. In Snake Eater, Snake’s health will replenish automatically, so has Konami forsaken one of the franchise's staple properties here? Not exactly, as rations will refreshen Snake’s new (or old) stamina gauge underneath his health bar. It will diminish slowly over time as Snake is active in the field, and consuming rations is the only means to alleviate Snake’s energy. But where are all of the rations? Usually, cans of god-knows-what will be scattered around the field for Snake’s convenient consumption. Snake now has to MAKE his own rations by butchering the wildlife that makes up the ecosystem of the Virgin Cliffs. There is a smattering of different animals to eat here, something expected from land as diverse as the Virgin Cliffs. The player must look meticulously in the unkempt grass and shadiest spots of assorted facilities to subdue his prey, preferably with his trusty knife. Everything from rabbits, crocodiles, vultures, and spiders, to every assortment of wild serpents will be ready to consume after Snake plunges his blade into them. Snake Eater as a subtitle is a literal instance of what MGS 3 incorporates and not a cool, ambiguous spy title, nor is it a sexual euphemism.
While the hunting mechanic is a requisite in emulating a genuine survival experience, I am still skeptical about its general utility in regard to the game. Animals are plentiful no matter the terrain, but it’s the new rejuvenation aspect of eating animals that didn’t convince me. Endurance simply doesn’t seem essential to the gameplay. The meter dwindles fairly quickly depending on how much Snake is moving, and his stomach will begin to growl once the meter reaches its halfway point. Eating each animal will provide Snake with a different amount of regeneration as he’ll naturally find some animals delicious, while he’d rather taste the vomit he expunges after attempting to digest others. The mechanic at least works, but why is it here? Endurance, or lack thereof, never seems to deter Snake. If I didn’t know any better, the amount of food Snake eats matched with how far he has to travel before his stomach starts to rumble again, makes him seem like a glutton rather than a man on the brink of his own humanity. Having the endurance meter at a lower threshold never makes Snake groggy but only makes his stomach growl as loud as the roar of a tiger. I’m not sure if it’ll alert the guards because I always kept food on my person, but keeping Snake hungry doesn’t seem to have any consequence. The food spoils quickly, signaled by a fly symbol to signify its rotten status. If Snake eats the expired food, he’ll get sick, and his endurance meter will plummet unless he takes medicine to alleviate his stomach ache. What if Snake isn’t hungry when the food is fresh? I thought preservation was the point of rations! Perhaps having these animal rations as healing items would make the game too easy, but what the developers decided to do with this mechanic proved to be kind of awkward and lazy.
Surviving the harsh elements of the Russian wilderness doesn’t connote having enough food. Once Snake falls from the bridge after his first encounter with Volgin and The Boss, his grievous fall introduces the “cure” mechanic also found in the pause menu. While not initially strapped with either food or weapons, Snake’s first-aid kit is quite abundant. Snake’s first wound as a tutorial operation will mend his broken bones, but the player will keep reopening the menu to use this feature for various wounds. Once Snake gets injured, a red sliver of varying size on his health bar indicates that he needs medical attention in the cure menu. A smattering of supplies will be at Snake’s disposal, and depending on the nature of the wound, fixing Snake up will either require a single tool or a whole operation. The “cure” mechanic is a relatively engaging feature that fits perfectly with the survival initiative but like with eating, its flaws aren’t as apparent as the eating feature. Sometimes, it’s uncertain what injury is severe enough to warrant pausing and mending. I’d get shot, stabbed, burned, etc., and sometimes need to pause and patch it up, and other times I could carry on with my business. Secondly, medical supplies might run low because of common afflictions like gunshot wounds and broken bones requiring many to heal Snake. Other than these minor nitpicks, the “cure” mechanic remains engaging after repeat instances. Bandaging up Snake’s boo-boos in the name of survival tactics is like a mini-game in itself. My only wish is that I wouldn’t have to play doctor with Snake so often and disrupt the gameplay.
The player will have to familiarize themselves with these new mechanics because Snake Eater, in many ways, is the hardest Metal Gear Solid title. In the Metal Gear timeline, Snake Eater is a prequel set several decades before any preceding title. 1964 feels like ancient history compared to the advancements of 21st-century technology. Naturally, this comes with connotations relating to Snake’s typical bag of gadgets. Because much of the technology Snake uses are inventions of a hypothetical 21st-century future, the tools Snake uses in the mid-1960s Snake Eater are either more primitive versions of familiar items or are omitted completely. The radio Snake used to conduct codec calls with various operatives functions, but the talking heads on parallel sides of the call were obviously a feature of a more advanced model. Instead, the person on the other end is portrayed by a set of four different pictures, and a blurred outline of Snake is seen crouching down to take the call. Cigars are in Snake’s inventory as the smoking apparatus to slightly illuminate dark areas as his health dwindles, now without a surgeon's warning because it’s 1964. Why is it a single cigar now instead of a whole pack of cigarettes? It’s not as if cigarettes were invented after 1964 as less compact ways to smoke, but I digress. Truly, setting a Metal Gear Solid game in the distant past makes the game harder because of the glaring absence of one essential feature seen in the previous games: the radar. In a series where stealth is the most vital aspect of gameplay, the omission of the radar that details the trajectory of each enemy’s sight inflicts the player with a massive handicap. Navigating around enemies must be done with extra precaution in Snake Eater, with the player scoping the entire field before making even one move to their objective. It doesn’t help that the AI is as sharp as usual and will sound the alarm at the first instance of Snake’s presence if the player isn’t careful. I understand that something like a radar would’ve been a glaring anachronism in 1964, but I could say the same for Snake's radio. Couldn’t they have produced a more primitive version of the radar with some reasonable suspension of disbelief?
The final section of the “virtuous mission” where Sokolov is held serves as the first major roadblock regarding the lack of a radar. Several guards roam every corner of the dilapidated facility, and Snake must sneak around them with only a tranquilizer gun at his disposal. The cavalry will come if Snake is spotted, so the likelihood of Snake defending himself with a paltry weapon is low. Snake also cannot run from the guards as the ones from the previous area with the bridge will also be on his ass. Rescuing Sokolov will also not take place if there is even a slight alert level. Stealth was never as crucial to one of Snake’s missions before this moment. Patience is a virtue and a more vital component in Snake Eater. The margin of error in getting caught is much smaller and will happen more frequently. While rescuing Sokolov for the first time took some time to get used to, the section of the “virtuous mission” was perfect for familiarizing the player with the changes.
Under a less gifted studio and director, stripping the gameplay down to bare essentials would’ve rendered the game objectively worse than its predecessors, but Konami knew how to compensate for setting Snake in the past. If the player is less advantaged by the regression of a prequel, the prime solution to survival is to play as aggressively as possible. One might raise an eyebrow at my suggestion considering Snake Eater is still a stealth game, and I previously stated that the keener enemy AI means that punishment for not being vigilant is stricter. Still, I would be doubtful if I hadn’t played the game either. Using the radar in the previous MGS games allowed Snake to reference the dangerous spots and the enemy’s range of sight to passively trek past them to avoid conflict, with only a few unfortunate, nosy guards whose curiosity will get the best of them. I figured that the mark of a fine stealth game was only using combat in dire situations to prevent one’s cover from being blown, and also figured that this is what fundamentally separated the stealth genre from the action genre. I needed to change my perspective to survive playing Snake Eater and realized that I shouldn’t fear the guards: they should fear me. Snake is now a predator lurking in the grass to slowly and methodically eradicate every threat in the area. Again, that eyebrow might be raised with confusion as to how Snake can mow down enemies without too much blowback. That skepticism can be resolved by delving into another one of Snake Eater’s new mechanics: camouflage. Snake uses a bevy of face paints and colorful uniforms to match the terrain of his hiding spot like a big game hunter does to his unsuspecting prey. Selecting the various camouflage in the pause menu will inform the player on how effective each type is at concealing Snake on the field. If the player utilizes this feature to its fullest extent, those pesky, observant guards will act like a confused pack of defenseless deer. Using the most efficient camouflage, hiding in the grass, and then scoping out guards with Snake’s diverse set of weapons always proved to be a delightful excursion. Once I grew accustomed to this, the factor of not having a radar no longer crossed my mind.
I’d be remiss not to mention Snake Eater’s graphics and presentation as I do with every Metal Gear Solid game. A new entry to the series wouldn’t be the same without Kojima’s cinematic flair that redefined the capabilities of gaming back in the early 3D era. Like the previous titles, Snake Eater displays a scope of masterful cinematic proficiency, along with cutscenes long enough to where the player could finish another game during their run time. Unlike MGS 2, Snake Eater is not a showcase of the series' graphical potential on a new piece of advanced hardware. Snake Eater had nothing to prove in this department, and it’s expected that the game looks exactly like its predecessor on the same system. However, it’s surprising that Snake Eater’s presentation isn’t as fluid as the previous game because both games are on the same hardware. Graphics are not an issue, but the framerate in Snake Eater takes a complete nose dive in quality. I was floored by the silky smooth framerate in MGS2, especially for a game released in the early years of the PS2. The framerate in Snake Eater is fine, but I see no excuse as to why it couldn't have been as impressive as the previous game. The argument that a game set in 1964 should feel more primitive is downright silly. One aspect the developers retained from MGS 2 and 1 that I wish they hadn’t was the camera angles. Players of the MGS series were used to an inflexible, eagle-eyed perspective, but it doesn’t bode well without radar to compensate for blind spots. The developers maintained this angle to preserve a sense of familiarity, but all it does here is unfairly screw over the player*.
So, Snake Eater isn’t a perfect game, but this is an unrealistic standard for even the most exceptional of games, and Snake Eater is certainly in that league. Toning down everything from the mechanics to the performance fidelity might make people question why Snake Eater is often regarded as the optimal Metal Gear Solid experience, but these aspects are not the refreshing ones that I alluded to. I like each entry in the Metal Gear Solid series and admire the ambitious gameplay elements, but the bloated, overwritten narratives tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth. The story of Metal Gear Solid 2 went so far off the rails with so much postmodern mumbo-jumbo and a violent jetstream of different plot points that it left me with an irksome feeling like I had just watched a communist-era Godard film. Snake Eater may uphold a plot worthy of Metal Gear Solid’s standard of a convoluted political thriller. Still, the base of its story relies on emotion rather than a sputtering of obtuse philosophy.
A vital aspect of any exceptional story is the characters, and like the previous MGS games, Snake Eater’s cast is just as varied as the regions of the Virgin Cliffs. Setting the series back to its narrative roots in 1964 means that this new crop of Metal Gear lore relics is unrecognizable to the player, but there are some familiar faces in the batch. Surprisingly, Solid Snake is not one of those characters, or at least to the few who have not been paying attention. The “Les Enfants Terribles” project did not occur until the early 1970s, so this Snake is not the one we’ve come to know and love. However, Snake Eater’s Snake is a familiar character to Metal Gear veterans who have been attentive to the long-standing exposition. This Snake is none other than “Big Boss”, the infamous American supersoldier whose warrior DNA was cloned to create Solid Snake and his less genetically concrete brethren. An endurance meter must have been the only genetic trait Big Boss passed on to Liquid and Solidus because other than that, Solid Snake is an uncanny, indistinguishable replica of Big Boss. He has the same wartorn voice, phlegmatic demeanor, bearish charm, and savant-like enthusiasm for weapons used in war. If this Snake is Big Boss, why isn’t he referred to as such? For the readily identifiable characters, Snake Eater is a “how the leopard got his spots” sort of story that elucidates certain things from the lore. Operation “Snake Eater” is the mission in which Big Boss earns his stars and stripes and Revolver Ocelot earns his place in the Metal Gear storyline. Yes, the sole recurring character in this prequel is everyone’s eccentric, spaghetti-western-loving Russian operative Revolver Ocelot. Here, he’s a fresh-faced, twenty-something-year-old whippersnapper who becomes Volgin’s right-hand man after he uncovers the weapon Volgin uses to obliterate Soklov’s lab. Snake catches him early on using Makarov handguns in the same fashion he does with revolvers, only to jam them. After Snake’s informed suggestion to use revolvers, Ocelot’s boss encounter sees him with several of his trademark revolvers looking as if peanut butter just discovered chocolate, with those cheesy cowboy spurs to boot. Big Boss inadvertently created a monster, and this revelation is great to witness for anyone familiar with this character.
Admittedly, Metal Gear Solid was never a series whose strengths relied on its characters. Most of them are only heard and seen through the visor of Snake’s radio, conversing with Snake about the mission, and Snake Eater is no exception. While Roy Campbell is probably old enough to be on a mission regarding nuclear devastation in 1964, Snake Eater treats us with a new cast of characters that Snake can only communicate with from a safe distance via technology. The role of chief commander that Roy Campbell has taken is a British bloke who can’t decide on a code name but decides on “Zero” for just this mission. Unfortunately for the player, Zero and Snake are all business. It’s a shame that the man who dubs this iconic operative “Snake” has such a bland rapport with him, unlike the Colonel in the first game. Para-medic is a young woman who serves Mei Ling’s job of saving the game and also uses her time in her cushy role to ask Snake about a myriad of different films. Her character is not as lively or infectious as Mei Ling, and she never gets the hint that maybe Snake just isn’t a movie guy. A black man named Signit, apparently the younger DARPA chief from MGS1, will inform Snake about various weapons (like gun fanatic Snake wouldn't know everything already). As neat as having another familiar character available for codec calls, I never found a need to call Signit and only heard his voice when he interrupted someone else's call. One impressive factor in the first MGS was how organically the player became attached to these characters, who were only seen through the moving still on the left side of Snake’s monitor. Still, the weaker characters in Snake Eater, unfortunately, do not efficiently uphold this.
Eva is the only significant character the player can phone in for tips, but her weight as a codec character is based solely on her role in the field. Her relationship with Snake is fairly reminiscent of Meryl from the first MGS game, but Eva is far more capable than Meryl ever was. Eva is a sly, adept soldier whose buxom sex appeal is as dangerous as her skill with a gun. Her sultry, seductive demeanor gives her a strong femme fatale role which makes her relationship with Snake and the mission all the more unpredictable. She’s my favorite female character in the series, and it has nothing to do with pressing R1 to stare at her tits once you first meet her or that scene where she traipses around a bonfire in nothing but her underwear. I never called Eva for anything over the radio, but her hybrid role only reminds me that in-person relationships are more bountiful than long-distance ones. In a series where the protagonist is alone on the field surrounded by nameless, armed droogs, Snake Eater offers some of the strongest characters that Snake encounters on his adventure. The monocle-wearing, technological genius Sokolov is like a foreign, middle-aged Otacon, complete with moistening his pants in moments of fear. Granin is another Russian weapons scientist whose fearful ambition for tanks to be bipedal makes him the godfather of the destructive Metal Gear.
The villains of Metal Gear Solid were always much stronger than the supporting characters anyways, and the villains in Snake Eater are some of the most memorable in the series. The most formidable foe in Snake Eater is Volgin, the Russian soviet commander and the main antagonist of the game. His colossal physical presence, brutish strength, cold-blooded personality, and powerful lightning abilities make him the pinnacle of Russian nightmare fuel that would make Ronald Regan fumble about in his sleep in terror. Volgin is unapologetically evil and is a mightier threat than any Metal Gear MacGuffin. From a narrative standpoint, Volgin almost seems comical as a threat, as if the developers concocted all the most outlandish depictions of Russians from pieces of anti-Soviet propaganda. However, Volgin always has The Boss tailing him on the field, and she’s a much more substantial villain. Her defection is a devastating moment for Snake, and the main objective of his mission to subdue her never ceases to upset him. The Boss, however, does not start laughing maniacally like Volgin or downing fifths of vodka in the name of Mother Russia. The Boss still seems like the benevolent mentor Snake once knew, and each interaction they have on the field retains a sense of respect for one another. The Boss kicks Snake’s ass into the dirt once in a while, but only as a means to deter him and viciously execute him like Volgin would. Her unclear disposition carries a sense of intrigue, and the player feels just as conflicted in eventually killing her as Snake does.
Villains with more narrative weight and substance in an MGS game are nice and all, but what about the group of superterrorists with different powers? Could a group like FOXHOUND and Dead Cell exist in 1964? Fortunately, yes, and the Cobra Unit is the best bunch of eccentric baddies in the franchise. The Cobras have a bit less narrative importance than the members of the other two terrorist groups as they merely support The Boss in her efforts to halt Snake in his efforts to hunt her down, but they all prove to be exceptional fights. Every member in this group is titled with “the” in their name like a flock of British Invasion bands, and the ending half of their name vaguely represents their unique quirk. The Pain wears a hive of hornets like a sports jacket and spurts these buzzing bees like projectiles as if he's a military-grade Candyman. The Fear has a distressing presence due to his long tongue, bulging eyes, and lizard-like movements. The Fury wears a black spacesuit and uses his jetpack to set anything in his line of sight ablaze with his massive flamethrower from above. The high quality of all of these bosses lies in their design accommodating Snake Eater’s hunter stealth initiative. Patience is required to scope out these foes in larger arenas and requires as much stealth as dealing with enemies on the field, making for more tense boss encounters.
This concise design is taken to the extremes with what I consider the highlight fight between the Cobras: The End. A wheelchair-bound octogenarian who is old enough to remember the days of slavery is not only the cream of the Cobra crop, but he’s one of the greatest bosses in video game history. Soon after fighting The Fear, Snake will make his way towards a sprawling, green forest with running rivers and steep cliff sides to find the old man vegetating somewhere in the grass. Before he decomposes, he challenges Snake to one last duel using every last ounce of his strength, which is more than one would think a centurion would have. The End’s fight is not for the faint of heart. The wide arena, a paper-thin margin of error, and painstaking search efforts for The End make it one of the most demanding bosses I’ve ever played. I was not sure if I could do it as it took me over two hours to put the ancient bastard six feet into the ground where he belongs, and that’s an average time for most players. I was ready to give up, but the victory I achieved after figuring out a method to take him down made me feel invincible like I could take on anything. Of course, the developers knew The End would be too much to handle, so the player also had the option of sniping him during an earlier cutscene or setting their console clock forward by approximately a week, so he dies of old age. Absolutely brilliant.
Snake Eater borrows a few new influences and accentuates some old ones. James Bond has always been a clear inspiration for the franchise, but Snake Eater revels in Agent 007’s essence. Snake Eater is set during the golden age of the Bond franchise, and Eva is practically the spitting image of a “Bond girl.” That bombastic orchestral theme and Snake Eater is the greatest Bond film title that never came to make it all apparent. However, James Bond only serves as a stylistic influence. The story and direction of Snake Eater remind me more of Apocalypse Now. Not Heart of Darkness, but specifically how Apocalypse Now shifted the story of its source to the Vietnam War setting and turned the story into a spiritual journey of the soldier on a mission to kill his boss. Along the way, the soldier becomes subjected to the atrocities of war as it gets uglier the more he ventures onward. A creative instance of using the wartorn odyssey of Apocalypse Now is the “fight” against The Sorrow, the last Cobra Unit member who was presumably dead. This eerie duel against the supernatural phantom is an unconventional hike, wading through misty waters as the vengeful spirits slowly attack every enemy Snake had killed on his journey. It artfully illustrates the gravity of war in an interactive medium like Apocalypse Now did cinematically.
Using Apocalypse Now as a primary influence also lends to the best ending in the series Once inside the hangar containing the Shagohod tank, Snake attempts to blow it sky high, planting C3 all over the place. His plans are thwarted by Volgin and The Boss, who discover that Eva has been posing as a spy and threatened to execute her. Her role as a spy was to steal Volgin’s part of the Philosopher’s Legacy, the convoluted plot point of historical fiction in Snake Eater, and a lore piece regarding the enigmatic Sons of Liberty. With the help of The Boss, Snake and Eva make their escape as Volgin chases them down with the fully-functional Shagohod tank. After thwarting him at the bridge, one could assume that the threat has been vanquished and Snake’s mission is complete. However, Snake’s mission was to kill The Boss, not to stop Volgin. Eva and Snake make their way down to a field engulfed by knee-high white lotuses near a lake, the final arena against The Boss. She gives Snake ten minutes to execute her and fulfill his role as “boss” in the best final boss of the series. Once Snake tentatively kills his sensei, he flies away with Eva to a base in Alaska. Eva leaves him with the shocking revelation that she double-crossed everyone as a spy for the Chinese government to uncover the Philosopher’s Legacy. He returns home a war hero, but the victory is a sullen one as we learn that The Boss was never a villain who defected from her country. Her name got mixed up in the media when Volgin bombed the lab, so she will wrongfully be remembered as a villain. Snake still respects her as he salutes her at her grave with a single tear rolling down his cheek. For once in the series, the ending had me choked up. The endings of the first two MGS games were corny and confusing, respectively, but this one hits the mark because Kojima opted for an ending that reflects on emotions instead of ideas.
I am relieved that Kojima listened to the vocal criticisms regarding MGS2 and used them to deviate completely from that game when crafting the next entry in the franchise. Setting the game several decades ago wasn’t necessarily vital in going off the Metal Gear grid. Still, the lore implications and inherent technological divergence did wonder for the series. The game isn’t perfect, as some new survival mechanics are awkward, and the presentation isn’t as spectacular as MGS2’s. Still, everything else is so extraordinary that the minor blemishes can be forgiven. Snake Eater has the best bosses, characters, plot, and direction in the series by a metric mile. Among all of these stellar attributes, the thing that makes Snake Eater the standout entry in the series is that it has a heart. Instead of pontificating obtuse philosophies, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a solid Cold-War era espionage adventure story with extra layers for emotional impact, and that’s all I can ask for.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Metal Gear Solid was in desperate need of taking a few steps back after the disastrous endeavor that was Metal Gear Solid 2. One would think that Kojima’s clueless ambition from that game would lead him to attempt conveying the fucking Fibonacci sequence in the video game medium for the third Metal Gear Solid title, something that I cringe at the thought of. Fortunately, a prequel set in a time before modernism grew, that pesky “post” prefix potentially showed a sense of self-reflection on how to approach Metal Gear Solid’s narrative. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater moves things back a few paces, and thank god for the inherent past setting of a prequel keeps the series from plunging even deeper into the rabbit hole of technological progress. Snake Eater is the most modest of the Metal Gear Solid titles, using the eccentric espionage story that defines the series and somewhat trimming the convoluted, bloviating fat. It sounds like Kojima has gone soft here but considering the praise Snake Eater receives over every other game in the franchise, this proved to be for the better. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a more refined, mature Metal Gear experience because it tones down all of the properties associated with the series.
Metal Gear Solid 3 still grants the player a thrilling introduction that sets the scene and scope of the operation. It’s the height of the Cold War in 1964, with the disastrous Bay of Pigs ordeal in recent memory and America’s involvement in the Vietnam War still yet to become a decade-defining event. A helicopter flies above the clouds with the sun radiantly beaming on the horizon. A group of American mercenaries, including a familiar voice in a tight leather uniform and pilot’s oxygen mask, set a course over a remote area of the enemy’s territory in the USSR. As the man stylishly lands on the soil of the dense jungle floor, he unmasks himself to affirm to the player that the voice does indeed match the face. For the first time in the Metal Gear timeline, this inconspicuous soldier is dubbed “Snake” by an older British man. Snake's mission is to rescue a hostage by the name of Nikolai Sokolov, a Russian rocket engineer who is essentially an older, foreign Otacon building a weaponized tank called the “Shagohod.” Upon retrieving Sokolov from his containment cell, GRU commander Volgin and his sensei, The Boss, storm the rickety bridge they’re running across. To Snake’s unpleasant surprise, The Boss has defected to the Soviets and gives Volgin enough firepower to blast Sokolov’s lab to kingdom come. With Snake mortally injured after falling off the bridge and his “virtuous mission” a bust, he merely has more on his plate now in the hopes of preventing another cataclysmic war.
Diverse environments seem to be a consistent strength of the Metal Gear Solid series. A tanker facility set over the deep waters of the Hudson was different enough, but the jungle setting in the Soviet Union is the antithesis of the frozen tundra surrounding Shadow Moses Island. Kojima has formulated a fictional area of the Soviet Union known as the Tselinoyarsk, or colloquially as the “Virgin Cliffs,” a wooded area with a heaping amount of eclectic topography. The Russian jungle is a vast, humid stretch of wilderness where the shade of the lanky, disheveled, and an innumerable number of trees filters the light in their habitat like a natural greenhouse. Swamps filled with the thickest of mud will sink any unfortunate soul in a matter of seconds, and crocodiles the size of mack trucks will crush anything with just the might of their tails. Bustling sounds of chirping birds and screeching primates make up the soundscape accompanying the faint sound of Snake’s footprints rustling through the leaves and the tall grass. On the outskirts of the jungle are caves, rivers, canyons, and more temperate forest areas. One could argue that this wide range of topographic areas confined under the name of a single place would feel inorganic, but the journey-like progression most Metal Gear Solid games implement makes coming across each of these formations feel natural. Tselinoyarsk is the most beautiful setting in the series while maintaining that sense of disquiet and hostility to constantly keep the player’s guard up.
This wilderness also comes with some new stipulations never before seen in a Metal Gear Solid game. Surviving the throngs of enemy troops through stealth was always imperative in the previous Metal Gear Solid games. Still, Snake Eater builds on that initiative with a more orthodox context. Snake’s full code name throughout the game isn’t “Solid Snake,” as we’ve come to know him as, but instead referred to as “Naked Snake.” Sorry ladies, this moniker does not connote that the rugged, handsome Snake is scampering through the jungle cupping his junk with his hands like Raiden near the end of Metal Gear Solid 2. Rather, it refers to how unprepared Snake is and has to fend for himself to survive here. Snake is at the mercy of the elements here and needs to find the best utility of the wilderness to survive. The emphasis on survival introduces many mechanics previously unseen in the Metal Gear series, and they prove to be a constant challenge to adapt to. In the previous games, rations will be found all around the field as items that will heal a consistent amount of health, and Snake can carry up to five at a time. In Snake Eater, Snake’s health will replenish automatically, so has Konami forsaken one of the franchise's staple properties here? Not exactly, as rations will refreshen Snake’s new (or old) stamina gauge underneath his health bar. It will diminish slowly over time as Snake is active in the field, and consuming rations is the only means to alleviate Snake’s energy. But where are all of the rations? Usually, cans of god-knows-what will be scattered around the field for Snake’s convenient consumption. Snake now has to MAKE his own rations by butchering the wildlife that makes up the ecosystem of the Virgin Cliffs. There is a smattering of different animals to eat here, something expected from land as diverse as the Virgin Cliffs. The player must look meticulously in the unkempt grass and shadiest spots of assorted facilities to subdue his prey, preferably with his trusty knife. Everything from rabbits, crocodiles, vultures, and spiders, to every assortment of wild serpents will be ready to consume after Snake plunges his blade into them. Snake Eater as a subtitle is a literal instance of what MGS 3 incorporates and not a cool, ambiguous spy title, nor is it a sexual euphemism.
While the hunting mechanic is a requisite in emulating a genuine survival experience, I am still skeptical about its general utility in regard to the game. Animals are plentiful no matter the terrain, but it’s the new rejuvenation aspect of eating animals that didn’t convince me. Endurance simply doesn’t seem essential to the gameplay. The meter dwindles fairly quickly depending on how much Snake is moving, and his stomach will begin to growl once the meter reaches its halfway point. Eating each animal will provide Snake with a different amount of regeneration as he’ll naturally find some animals delicious, while he’d rather taste the vomit he expunges after attempting to digest others. The mechanic at least works, but why is it here? Endurance, or lack thereof, never seems to deter Snake. If I didn’t know any better, the amount of food Snake eats matched with how far he has to travel before his stomach starts to rumble again, makes him seem like a glutton rather than a man on the brink of his own humanity. Having the endurance meter at a lower threshold never makes Snake groggy but only makes his stomach growl as loud as the roar of a tiger. I’m not sure if it’ll alert the guards because I always kept food on my person, but keeping Snake hungry doesn’t seem to have any consequence. The food spoils quickly, signaled by a fly symbol to signify its rotten status. If Snake eats the expired food, he’ll get sick, and his endurance meter will plummet unless he takes medicine to alleviate his stomach ache. What if Snake isn’t hungry when the food is fresh? I thought preservation was the point of rations! Perhaps having these animal rations as healing items would make the game too easy, but what the developers decided to do with this mechanic proved to be kind of awkward and lazy.
Surviving the harsh elements of the Russian wilderness doesn’t connote having enough food. Once Snake falls from the bridge after his first encounter with Volgin and The Boss, his grievous fall introduces the “cure” mechanic also found in the pause menu. While not initially strapped with either food or weapons, Snake’s first-aid kit is quite abundant. Snake’s first wound as a tutorial operation will mend his broken bones, but the player will keep reopening the menu to use this feature for various wounds. Once Snake gets injured, a red sliver of varying size on his health bar indicates that he needs medical attention in the cure menu. A smattering of supplies will be at Snake’s disposal, and depending on the nature of the wound, fixing Snake up will either require a single tool or a whole operation. The “cure” mechanic is a relatively engaging feature that fits perfectly with the survival initiative but like with eating, its flaws aren’t as apparent as the eating feature. Sometimes, it’s uncertain what injury is severe enough to warrant pausing and mending. I’d get shot, stabbed, burned, etc., and sometimes need to pause and patch it up, and other times I could carry on with my business. Secondly, medical supplies might run low because of common afflictions like gunshot wounds and broken bones requiring many to heal Snake. Other than these minor nitpicks, the “cure” mechanic remains engaging after repeat instances. Bandaging up Snake’s boo-boos in the name of survival tactics is like a mini-game in itself. My only wish is that I wouldn’t have to play doctor with Snake so often and disrupt the gameplay.
The player will have to familiarize themselves with these new mechanics because Snake Eater, in many ways, is the hardest Metal Gear Solid title. In the Metal Gear timeline, Snake Eater is a prequel set several decades before any preceding title. 1964 feels like ancient history compared to the advancements of 21st-century technology. Naturally, this comes with connotations relating to Snake’s typical bag of gadgets. Because much of the technology Snake uses are inventions of a hypothetical 21st-century future, the tools Snake uses in the mid-1960s Snake Eater are either more primitive versions of familiar items or are omitted completely. The radio Snake used to conduct codec calls with various operatives functions, but the talking heads on parallel sides of the call were obviously a feature of a more advanced model. Instead, the person on the other end is portrayed by a set of four different pictures, and a blurred outline of Snake is seen crouching down to take the call. Cigars are in Snake’s inventory as the smoking apparatus to slightly illuminate dark areas as his health dwindles, now without a surgeon's warning because it’s 1964. Why is it a single cigar now instead of a whole pack of cigarettes? It’s not as if cigarettes were invented after 1964 as less compact ways to smoke, but I digress. Truly, setting a Metal Gear Solid game in the distant past makes the game harder because of the glaring absence of one essential feature seen in the previous games: the radar. In a series where stealth is the most vital aspect of gameplay, the omission of the radar that details the trajectory of each enemy’s sight inflicts the player with a massive handicap. Navigating around enemies must be done with extra precaution in Snake Eater, with the player scoping the entire field before making even one move to their objective. It doesn’t help that the AI is as sharp as usual and will sound the alarm at the first instance of Snake’s presence if the player isn’t careful. I understand that something like a radar would’ve been a glaring anachronism in 1964, but I could say the same for Snake's radio. Couldn’t they have produced a more primitive version of the radar with some reasonable suspension of disbelief?
The final section of the “virtuous mission” where Sokolov is held serves as the first major roadblock regarding the lack of a radar. Several guards roam every corner of the dilapidated facility, and Snake must sneak around them with only a tranquilizer gun at his disposal. The cavalry will come if Snake is spotted, so the likelihood of Snake defending himself with a paltry weapon is low. Snake also cannot run from the guards as the ones from the previous area with the bridge will also be on his ass. Rescuing Sokolov will also not take place if there is even a slight alert level. Stealth was never as crucial to one of Snake’s missions before this moment. Patience is a virtue and a more vital component in Snake Eater. The margin of error in getting caught is much smaller and will happen more frequently. While rescuing Sokolov for the first time took some time to get used to, the section of the “virtuous mission” was perfect for familiarizing the player with the changes.
Under a less gifted studio and director, stripping the gameplay down to bare essentials would’ve rendered the game objectively worse than its predecessors, but Konami knew how to compensate for setting Snake in the past. If the player is less advantaged by the regression of a prequel, the prime solution to survival is to play as aggressively as possible. One might raise an eyebrow at my suggestion considering Snake Eater is still a stealth game, and I previously stated that the keener enemy AI means that punishment for not being vigilant is stricter. Still, I would be doubtful if I hadn’t played the game either. Using the radar in the previous MGS games allowed Snake to reference the dangerous spots and the enemy’s range of sight to passively trek past them to avoid conflict, with only a few unfortunate, nosy guards whose curiosity will get the best of them. I figured that the mark of a fine stealth game was only using combat in dire situations to prevent one’s cover from being blown, and also figured that this is what fundamentally separated the stealth genre from the action genre. I needed to change my perspective to survive playing Snake Eater and realized that I shouldn’t fear the guards: they should fear me. Snake is now a predator lurking in the grass to slowly and methodically eradicate every threat in the area. Again, that eyebrow might be raised with confusion as to how Snake can mow down enemies without too much blowback. That skepticism can be resolved by delving into another one of Snake Eater’s new mechanics: camouflage. Snake uses a bevy of face paints and colorful uniforms to match the terrain of his hiding spot like a big game hunter does to his unsuspecting prey. Selecting the various camouflage in the pause menu will inform the player on how effective each type is at concealing Snake on the field. If the player utilizes this feature to its fullest extent, those pesky, observant guards will act like a confused pack of defenseless deer. Using the most efficient camouflage, hiding in the grass, and then scoping out guards with Snake’s diverse set of weapons always proved to be a delightful excursion. Once I grew accustomed to this, the factor of not having a radar no longer crossed my mind.
I’d be remiss not to mention Snake Eater’s graphics and presentation as I do with every Metal Gear Solid game. A new entry to the series wouldn’t be the same without Kojima’s cinematic flair that redefined the capabilities of gaming back in the early 3D era. Like the previous titles, Snake Eater displays a scope of masterful cinematic proficiency, along with cutscenes long enough to where the player could finish another game during their run time. Unlike MGS 2, Snake Eater is not a showcase of the series' graphical potential on a new piece of advanced hardware. Snake Eater had nothing to prove in this department, and it’s expected that the game looks exactly like its predecessor on the same system. However, it’s surprising that Snake Eater’s presentation isn’t as fluid as the previous game because both games are on the same hardware. Graphics are not an issue, but the framerate in Snake Eater takes a complete nose dive in quality. I was floored by the silky smooth framerate in MGS2, especially for a game released in the early years of the PS2. The framerate in Snake Eater is fine, but I see no excuse as to why it couldn't have been as impressive as the previous game. The argument that a game set in 1964 should feel more primitive is downright silly. One aspect the developers retained from MGS 2 and 1 that I wish they hadn’t was the camera angles. Players of the MGS series were used to an inflexible, eagle-eyed perspective, but it doesn’t bode well without radar to compensate for blind spots. The developers maintained this angle to preserve a sense of familiarity, but all it does here is unfairly screw over the player*.
So, Snake Eater isn’t a perfect game, but this is an unrealistic standard for even the most exceptional of games, and Snake Eater is certainly in that league. Toning down everything from the mechanics to the performance fidelity might make people question why Snake Eater is often regarded as the optimal Metal Gear Solid experience, but these aspects are not the refreshing ones that I alluded to. I like each entry in the Metal Gear Solid series and admire the ambitious gameplay elements, but the bloated, overwritten narratives tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth. The story of Metal Gear Solid 2 went so far off the rails with so much postmodern mumbo-jumbo and a violent jetstream of different plot points that it left me with an irksome feeling like I had just watched a communist-era Godard film. Snake Eater may uphold a plot worthy of Metal Gear Solid’s standard of a convoluted political thriller. Still, the base of its story relies on emotion rather than a sputtering of obtuse philosophy.
A vital aspect of any exceptional story is the characters, and like the previous MGS games, Snake Eater’s cast is just as varied as the regions of the Virgin Cliffs. Setting the series back to its narrative roots in 1964 means that this new crop of Metal Gear lore relics is unrecognizable to the player, but there are some familiar faces in the batch. Surprisingly, Solid Snake is not one of those characters, or at least to the few who have not been paying attention. The “Les Enfants Terribles” project did not occur until the early 1970s, so this Snake is not the one we’ve come to know and love. However, Snake Eater’s Snake is a familiar character to Metal Gear veterans who have been attentive to the long-standing exposition. This Snake is none other than “Big Boss”, the infamous American supersoldier whose warrior DNA was cloned to create Solid Snake and his less genetically concrete brethren. An endurance meter must have been the only genetic trait Big Boss passed on to Liquid and Solidus because other than that, Solid Snake is an uncanny, indistinguishable replica of Big Boss. He has the same wartorn voice, phlegmatic demeanor, bearish charm, and savant-like enthusiasm for weapons used in war. If this Snake is Big Boss, why isn’t he referred to as such? For the readily identifiable characters, Snake Eater is a “how the leopard got his spots” sort of story that elucidates certain things from the lore. Operation “Snake Eater” is the mission in which Big Boss earns his stars and stripes and Revolver Ocelot earns his place in the Metal Gear storyline. Yes, the sole recurring character in this prequel is everyone’s eccentric, spaghetti-western-loving Russian operative Revolver Ocelot. Here, he’s a fresh-faced, twenty-something-year-old whippersnapper who becomes Volgin’s right-hand man after he uncovers the weapon Volgin uses to obliterate Soklov’s lab. Snake catches him early on using Makarov handguns in the same fashion he does with revolvers, only to jam them. After Snake’s informed suggestion to use revolvers, Ocelot’s boss encounter sees him with several of his trademark revolvers looking as if peanut butter just discovered chocolate, with those cheesy cowboy spurs to boot. Big Boss inadvertently created a monster, and this revelation is great to witness for anyone familiar with this character.
Admittedly, Metal Gear Solid was never a series whose strengths relied on its characters. Most of them are only heard and seen through the visor of Snake’s radio, conversing with Snake about the mission, and Snake Eater is no exception. While Roy Campbell is probably old enough to be on a mission regarding nuclear devastation in 1964, Snake Eater treats us with a new cast of characters that Snake can only communicate with from a safe distance via technology. The role of chief commander that Roy Campbell has taken is a British bloke who can’t decide on a code name but decides on “Zero” for just this mission. Unfortunately for the player, Zero and Snake are all business. It’s a shame that the man who dubs this iconic operative “Snake” has such a bland rapport with him, unlike the Colonel in the first game. Para-medic is a young woman who serves Mei Ling’s job of saving the game and also uses her time in her cushy role to ask Snake about a myriad of different films. Her character is not as lively or infectious as Mei Ling, and she never gets the hint that maybe Snake just isn’t a movie guy. A black man named Signit, apparently the younger DARPA chief from MGS1, will inform Snake about various weapons (like gun fanatic Snake wouldn't know everything already). As neat as having another familiar character available for codec calls, I never found a need to call Signit and only heard his voice when he interrupted someone else's call. One impressive factor in the first MGS was how organically the player became attached to these characters, who were only seen through the moving still on the left side of Snake’s monitor. Still, the weaker characters in Snake Eater, unfortunately, do not efficiently uphold this.
Eva is the only significant character the player can phone in for tips, but her weight as a codec character is based solely on her role in the field. Her relationship with Snake is fairly reminiscent of Meryl from the first MGS game, but Eva is far more capable than Meryl ever was. Eva is a sly, adept soldier whose buxom sex appeal is as dangerous as her skill with a gun. Her sultry, seductive demeanor gives her a strong femme fatale role which makes her relationship with Snake and the mission all the more unpredictable. She’s my favorite female character in the series, and it has nothing to do with pressing R1 to stare at her tits once you first meet her or that scene where she traipses around a bonfire in nothing but her underwear. I never called Eva for anything over the radio, but her hybrid role only reminds me that in-person relationships are more bountiful than long-distance ones. In a series where the protagonist is alone on the field surrounded by nameless, armed droogs, Snake Eater offers some of the strongest characters that Snake encounters on his adventure. The monocle-wearing, technological genius Sokolov is like a foreign, middle-aged Otacon, complete with moistening his pants in moments of fear. Granin is another Russian weapons scientist whose fearful ambition for tanks to be bipedal makes him the godfather of the destructive Metal Gear.
The villains of Metal Gear Solid were always much stronger than the supporting characters anyways, and the villains in Snake Eater are some of the most memorable in the series. The most formidable foe in Snake Eater is Volgin, the Russian soviet commander and the main antagonist of the game. His colossal physical presence, brutish strength, cold-blooded personality, and powerful lightning abilities make him the pinnacle of Russian nightmare fuel that would make Ronald Regan fumble about in his sleep in terror. Volgin is unapologetically evil and is a mightier threat than any Metal Gear MacGuffin. From a narrative standpoint, Volgin almost seems comical as a threat, as if the developers concocted all the most outlandish depictions of Russians from pieces of anti-Soviet propaganda. However, Volgin always has The Boss tailing him on the field, and she’s a much more substantial villain. Her defection is a devastating moment for Snake, and the main objective of his mission to subdue her never ceases to upset him. The Boss, however, does not start laughing maniacally like Volgin or downing fifths of vodka in the name of Mother Russia. The Boss still seems like the benevolent mentor Snake once knew, and each interaction they have on the field retains a sense of respect for one another. The Boss kicks Snake’s ass into the dirt once in a while, but only as a means to deter him and viciously execute him like Volgin would. Her unclear disposition carries a sense of intrigue, and the player feels just as conflicted in eventually killing her as Snake does.
Villains with more narrative weight and substance in an MGS game are nice and all, but what about the group of superterrorists with different powers? Could a group like FOXHOUND and Dead Cell exist in 1964? Fortunately, yes, and the Cobra Unit is the best bunch of eccentric baddies in the franchise. The Cobras have a bit less narrative importance than the members of the other two terrorist groups as they merely support The Boss in her efforts to halt Snake in his efforts to hunt her down, but they all prove to be exceptional fights. Every member in this group is titled with “the” in their name like a flock of British Invasion bands, and the ending half of their name vaguely represents their unique quirk. The Pain wears a hive of hornets like a sports jacket and spurts these buzzing bees like projectiles as if he's a military-grade Candyman. The Fear has a distressing presence due to his long tongue, bulging eyes, and lizard-like movements. The Fury wears a black spacesuit and uses his jetpack to set anything in his line of sight ablaze with his massive flamethrower from above. The high quality of all of these bosses lies in their design accommodating Snake Eater’s hunter stealth initiative. Patience is required to scope out these foes in larger arenas and requires as much stealth as dealing with enemies on the field, making for more tense boss encounters.
This concise design is taken to the extremes with what I consider the highlight fight between the Cobras: The End. A wheelchair-bound octogenarian who is old enough to remember the days of slavery is not only the cream of the Cobra crop, but he’s one of the greatest bosses in video game history. Soon after fighting The Fear, Snake will make his way towards a sprawling, green forest with running rivers and steep cliff sides to find the old man vegetating somewhere in the grass. Before he decomposes, he challenges Snake to one last duel using every last ounce of his strength, which is more than one would think a centurion would have. The End’s fight is not for the faint of heart. The wide arena, a paper-thin margin of error, and painstaking search efforts for The End make it one of the most demanding bosses I’ve ever played. I was not sure if I could do it as it took me over two hours to put the ancient bastard six feet into the ground where he belongs, and that’s an average time for most players. I was ready to give up, but the victory I achieved after figuring out a method to take him down made me feel invincible like I could take on anything. Of course, the developers knew The End would be too much to handle, so the player also had the option of sniping him during an earlier cutscene or setting their console clock forward by approximately a week, so he dies of old age. Absolutely brilliant.
Snake Eater borrows a few new influences and accentuates some old ones. James Bond has always been a clear inspiration for the franchise, but Snake Eater revels in Agent 007’s essence. Snake Eater is set during the golden age of the Bond franchise, and Eva is practically the spitting image of a “Bond girl.” That bombastic orchestral theme and Snake Eater is the greatest Bond film title that never came to make it all apparent. However, James Bond only serves as a stylistic influence. The story and direction of Snake Eater remind me more of Apocalypse Now. Not Heart of Darkness, but specifically how Apocalypse Now shifted the story of its source to the Vietnam War setting and turned the story into a spiritual journey of the soldier on a mission to kill his boss. Along the way, the soldier becomes subjected to the atrocities of war as it gets uglier the more he ventures onward. A creative instance of using the wartorn odyssey of Apocalypse Now is the “fight” against The Sorrow, the last Cobra Unit member who was presumably dead. This eerie duel against the supernatural phantom is an unconventional hike, wading through misty waters as the vengeful spirits slowly attack every enemy Snake had killed on his journey. It artfully illustrates the gravity of war in an interactive medium like Apocalypse Now did cinematically.
Using Apocalypse Now as a primary influence also lends to the best ending in the series Once inside the hangar containing the Shagohod tank, Snake attempts to blow it sky high, planting C3 all over the place. His plans are thwarted by Volgin and The Boss, who discover that Eva has been posing as a spy and threatened to execute her. Her role as a spy was to steal Volgin’s part of the Philosopher’s Legacy, the convoluted plot point of historical fiction in Snake Eater, and a lore piece regarding the enigmatic Sons of Liberty. With the help of The Boss, Snake and Eva make their escape as Volgin chases them down with the fully-functional Shagohod tank. After thwarting him at the bridge, one could assume that the threat has been vanquished and Snake’s mission is complete. However, Snake’s mission was to kill The Boss, not to stop Volgin. Eva and Snake make their way down to a field engulfed by knee-high white lotuses near a lake, the final arena against The Boss. She gives Snake ten minutes to execute her and fulfill his role as “boss” in the best final boss of the series. Once Snake tentatively kills his sensei, he flies away with Eva to a base in Alaska. Eva leaves him with the shocking revelation that she double-crossed everyone as a spy for the Chinese government to uncover the Philosopher’s Legacy. He returns home a war hero, but the victory is a sullen one as we learn that The Boss was never a villain who defected from her country. Her name got mixed up in the media when Volgin bombed the lab, so she will wrongfully be remembered as a villain. Snake still respects her as he salutes her at her grave with a single tear rolling down his cheek. For once in the series, the ending had me choked up. The endings of the first two MGS games were corny and confusing, respectively, but this one hits the mark because Kojima opted for an ending that reflects on emotions instead of ideas.
I am relieved that Kojima listened to the vocal criticisms regarding MGS2 and used them to deviate completely from that game when crafting the next entry in the franchise. Setting the game several decades ago wasn’t necessarily vital in going off the Metal Gear grid. Still, the lore implications and inherent technological divergence did wonder for the series. The game isn’t perfect, as some new survival mechanics are awkward, and the presentation isn’t as spectacular as MGS2’s. Still, everything else is so extraordinary that the minor blemishes can be forgiven. Snake Eater has the best bosses, characters, plot, and direction in the series by a metric mile. Among all of these stellar attributes, the thing that makes Snake Eater the standout entry in the series is that it has a heart. Instead of pontificating obtuse philosophies, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a solid Cold-War era espionage adventure story with extra layers for emotional impact, and that’s all I can ask for.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com