Vibes immaculate, thematic subtext very interesting, but the level design being so endlessly obtuse and frustrating, as well as the actual mechanics not really engaging me all that much knock this down for me. You can run past most enemies in this game and even if you get yourself in a tight corridor they're often trivial. The puzzles aren't terrible on the whole but a few rely on some real pixel hunting adventure game logic that doesn't really serve the game well at all imo. Harry is a bit of a drip which can be equal parts charming and just kind of boring.

I will say now that I've gotten past all the pain points this first time around I think this game would only get better with subsequent playthroughs where I can stop worrying quite as much about what to do with the rubber ball and more about soaking in the frankly incredible mood this game sets for itself.

The prose and production value are such huge steps up from the first game, but the boost in quality sacrifices none of the outsider art sensibility and charm that its predecessor has. While much like the first game it seems a bit scattershot, this works to the game's strength in a way, giving it the feel of a journal of disconnected thoughts from an author who is hesitant to dig into any one thing too long lest it excavate feelings and memories they'd rather keep buried. At only around an hour, please check this out.

1st match online: Beat my opponent using some cool synchro summons in a duel that at least somewhat resembled the anime I used to watch

2nd match online: Was utterly obliterated in 3 turns, each of which took about 10 full minutes, as every card my opponent played had about 2 paragraphs of text explaining its incredibly specific function that allowed it to combo with another specific card to allow them to draw more cards which allowed them to special summon a monster whose effect allowed them to special summon another monster whose effect allowed them to draw more cards whose effects allowed them to- AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Possibly the most absurd card game ever created

By god, NDCube might finally get it.

...now by "finally get it" I mean "not get it so badly and for so long that you realize the only way to get back on track is by just practically 1 to 1 remaking and remixing things that people actually liked wholesale and even then managing to screw up some of the finer details" but hey it's a real strong start to maybe getting some good original content in the next game at least.

I'm kidding around but really, this is pretty good! The minigames that have been brought back here have all made the jump pretty seamlessly and I think they chose a great list of games to return, with a good balance of free for all, team, and 1 v 3. One or two minigames seem to have been balanced incredibly weirdly even though they were fine in the originals, such as Hammer Drop, which gives out way, waaaay too many coins now, but they are exceptions. The boards themselves are also mostly great. They definitely could have used one more board though (one more from Mario Party 3 would make for 2 returning boards from each of the original 3, which would make sense) and I also question that of the returning boards the only one they took from 3 is Woody Woods, which on top of having a horribly uninspired name is also one of the worst boards from 3??? Regardless, the other returning boards are all great. The only downside is that I think the item shop items are a bit too cheap. This is something they've adjusted from the original games where items were significantly more expensive to encourage more item use, and while I like that idea on paper I think they overcorrected a bit too much to where now it feels like a no brainer to buy an item every single time you go past the shop.

But these are all pretty minor nitpicks when it comes to how badly they've bungled this series in the past, and by far the biggest two things they get right here are the only two things that actually are new: Online and quality of life features. You mileage may vary but I've played the main board game mode exclusively online and it ran pretty much flawlessly. It's one of very few times I think Nintendo has actually ever nailed online play, and it's just something the series so obviously needed that it's great to have it here. They've also managed to improve the pacing of the overall experience significantly, cutting down on slow explanations or animations and just letting you get straight to the game which for a party game is essential, and is one of the reasons why despite being a step in the right direction Super Mario Party was still a much weaker entry for the series.

Now that they've finally managed to make a good one of these the next step for NDCube will be to see if they can actually design some original boards that are even remotely good for whatever the next game ends up being. It's been about 10 years since they've taken over this series and they haven't managed it yet, but here's hoping!

Yeah I did the first two chapters of the main story and I'm not coming back to this probably. Gotta love that music as always but once I booted it up and was greeted with the typical 100 currency gatcha nonsense my eyes glazed over. The actual game part is mind numbing too, it absolutely plays itself moreso than any other gatcha I've seen, and that's saying something. Gatcha really doesn't even work for the Nier series whatsoever, after doing some pulls with the starting gems and getting a bunch of literally who random nobodies with no personalities I was just left wondering who on earth would care enough to spend money trying to pull anyone who isn't one of the 7 or so main characters from Replicant/Automata.

Gotta say though the fact that the narrative of this seems to be about walking forever through an endless grind in an area literally called "The Cage" is pretty funny though. I choose to believe for my own sake Taro knew what he was doing there and didn't give much of a shit about this

Neat game! The meta stuff isn't super deep or interesting, and I think the review here that highlights the surface level/vague approach to mental illness is correct. That being said, it's genuinely both creepy and funny which is a pretty big win for this type of game. Additionally, this got me thinking about how much better this is because of, not in spite of, the poor english translation. Heightens the bizarre vibe of the game even more and its broken stiltedness leads to one or two lines that struck me as shockingly poetic as well.

Much like Tennis Aces, the core gameplay is an extremely solid 8/10, but the surrounding elements are 6/10, so it balances out. Can't speculate too much but I do think this game was a victim of covid wreaking havoc on the production. There are a bunch of cook/chef characters in every area that all have dialogue about how eating certain meals will help your golf game, but there is no cooking/eating mechanic? Feels like something that got cut late in production.

The story mode feels like two entirely different story modes slapped together, the first half is a fun golf adventure moving up the ranks and learning moves as you'd expect from this sort of game. I was actually looking forward to facing off against progressively more central Mario characters as time went on and finally winning the big golf tournament at the end as you do. Suddenly the game became about getting a lightning sword and defeating an evil snowman and then it just... ends. Abruptly.

Both halves were fun gameplay wise but felt completely incongruous with one another and I think each half really suffers for it. Camelot really should have just picked a lane with this and stuck to a more traditional tournament story or a fantastical RPG one because this just does not work on any level for me. They start talking about some sleeping tree that puts Bowser to sleep and then is promptly never mentioned again? Was that supposed to be a level that got cut? Everything felt so out of left field.

The lack of content is also a huge bummer. Only 6 main 18 hole courses. Camelot has promised additional content with free updates, and they better not be only adding Battle Golf courses and characters, the game is desperately in need of more traditional levels. Snow mechanics are introduced in the story mode that are then nowhere to be found in the standard golf mode, another strange omission that makes this game feel a bit rushed.

One final complaint: It's asinine that the "star clubs" for each character are not easier to unlock. This is a multiplayer game Nintendo FFS unlocks should not be this much of a grind. It pretty much forces you to stick to the default set of clubs for everyone when playing with friends so no character has an advantage unless you're willing to spend an extra 20 hours unlocking stars for each of them.

Now that the negatives are out of the way, I do really want to say that this game's core mechanics are just about perfect. Pure arcade-y golf action that's difficult to master and tons of fun gimmicks in later levels to spice things up. The additional speed golf and battle golf modes are also genius in my opinion. They add additional elements of strategy to multiplayer while also making online matches more fun and engaging than sitting around taking turns hitting balls.

Overall, the core gameplay being as great as it is really carries this and I hope the content problem is alleviated somewhat with the free updates. Nintendo has been trying the "keep people engaged by dropping free content that probably could've/should've been in the base game" strategy a lot lately and while it's worked wonderfully for Splatoon I think the balance has been very off in every other game that's attempted it.

Hope they give Camelot a bit more time and money for their next game because I can tell they're a studio that's so close to reaching the heights of their prime but isn't quite there yet because their projects are subject to a lot of constraints.

NEO TWEWY is, like it's predecessor, a game that is supremely confident in its own vision. For that alone I give it massive props. I don't have a whole lot to say about it in a formal review sense but this ended up being one of my favorites of the year. I do think its pacing is substantially worse than the original TWEWY, and this does hurt it quite a bit, but improvements in other areas such as the better presentation and in my opinion an even stronger cast of characters (I also think the combat, while still flawed, manages to carry over a lot of the original's strengths while bringing new ones of its own) make up for that. I will say that the soundtrack is absolutely killer as well but I do think the game being so much longer than the original stretches the songs that are there pretty thin and it does grate on you after a while. A situation where I think some more quantity would have really helped things in that regard.

Ultimately though this is just some real good shonen anime shit with actual stakes, themes that the story actually manages to maintain a strong focus on, and characters that I ended up being really attached to. Great game!