IriidaV
2009
Assassin's Creed II is a complete improvement of every facet over its predecessor - the gameplay is more fluid, the level design is more engaging, the story is more interesting. Even bland boy Desmond gets a little character injected into him here and that's a pretty big boost here.
After 2007, Assassin's Creed was the new big hotness in gaming - merchandise, comics, animations. It was the biggest multi-media franchise in gaming, arguably since Halo. It was a new idea that had enough sci-fi and fantasy in it whilst grounding everything in a layer of suspended realism to really appeal to anyone and Ubisoft knew it. There was so much hype after people played the first game - what would the sequel do, what weapons would it introduce, where would the plot go? The question of what time and place the new Assassin's Creed game will take place in is one that still gets asked today, if with a little less enthusiasm now than it was back then.
So, Renaissance Italy? People were maybe hoping for Japan or maybe China, but Italy? This was actually a genius idea, and one that was inkeeping with the first 5-ish years of AC's life - pick a period we know relatively a good chunk about in terms of history and famous people, the cultures at play, etc, and the Renaissance period was enough of a jump from the Crusades to really distance itself in terms of expectations and art direction.
ACII really was the perfect sequel in every way.
After 2007, Assassin's Creed was the new big hotness in gaming - merchandise, comics, animations. It was the biggest multi-media franchise in gaming, arguably since Halo. It was a new idea that had enough sci-fi and fantasy in it whilst grounding everything in a layer of suspended realism to really appeal to anyone and Ubisoft knew it. There was so much hype after people played the first game - what would the sequel do, what weapons would it introduce, where would the plot go? The question of what time and place the new Assassin's Creed game will take place in is one that still gets asked today, if with a little less enthusiasm now than it was back then.
So, Renaissance Italy? People were maybe hoping for Japan or maybe China, but Italy? This was actually a genius idea, and one that was inkeeping with the first 5-ish years of AC's life - pick a period we know relatively a good chunk about in terms of history and famous people, the cultures at play, etc, and the Renaissance period was enough of a jump from the Crusades to really distance itself in terms of expectations and art direction.
ACII really was the perfect sequel in every way.
2017
EU release played on a PlayStation 4 Pro.
I'll be perfectly honest, I hated Sundered when I first booted it up. The trailer presented itself as a story-driven metroidvania (at least that's the impression I got), so to be confronted with a rogue like with minimum plot alongside death being an expectancy rather than a fail state, I was extremely turned off. I'd tried roguelikes in the past and had never really seen the appeal, so was prepared to just turn this off and never play it again. But since Sony has no refund policy on PSN purchases, I percevered and forced myself to keep going, and hey this is actually pretty good.
The art style is the first attractor, impleneting a clean, flat shaded look which utilises a hand drawn animation stlye. It's really quite beautiful to see in morion and coming up across the giant bosses in the game is all the more intimidating because of their sense of weight and scale implemented through their motion.
The sound design also manages to capture you, filling you at the best of times with a sense of uneasy calm and at the worst, complete dread. Each time you encounter a horde, a resounding gong plays and hearing it sucks every time for all the right reasons.
I managed to even love the level design in the end, regardless of it implementing some randomisation. The main locations within each area stay where they are on the map, but the rooms and corridors you traverse to get there change each time, which keeps exploration and traversal rather fresh.
And the upgrade system is incredibly satisfying, giving you the classic option between good and evil powers with both sides providing a good variety in benefits that each player will have their own preferences towards. As with most Metroidvanias, traversal becomes a complete and total joy in the endgame and gaining a new weapon or ability always felt good.
All in all I highly recommend Sundered. Even if these types of games aren't your thing, it managed to really sway me over to its overall design with some good art direction and music.
I'll be perfectly honest, I hated Sundered when I first booted it up. The trailer presented itself as a story-driven metroidvania (at least that's the impression I got), so to be confronted with a rogue like with minimum plot alongside death being an expectancy rather than a fail state, I was extremely turned off. I'd tried roguelikes in the past and had never really seen the appeal, so was prepared to just turn this off and never play it again. But since Sony has no refund policy on PSN purchases, I percevered and forced myself to keep going, and hey this is actually pretty good.
The art style is the first attractor, impleneting a clean, flat shaded look which utilises a hand drawn animation stlye. It's really quite beautiful to see in morion and coming up across the giant bosses in the game is all the more intimidating because of their sense of weight and scale implemented through their motion.
The sound design also manages to capture you, filling you at the best of times with a sense of uneasy calm and at the worst, complete dread. Each time you encounter a horde, a resounding gong plays and hearing it sucks every time for all the right reasons.
I managed to even love the level design in the end, regardless of it implementing some randomisation. The main locations within each area stay where they are on the map, but the rooms and corridors you traverse to get there change each time, which keeps exploration and traversal rather fresh.
And the upgrade system is incredibly satisfying, giving you the classic option between good and evil powers with both sides providing a good variety in benefits that each player will have their own preferences towards. As with most Metroidvanias, traversal becomes a complete and total joy in the endgame and gaining a new weapon or ability always felt good.
All in all I highly recommend Sundered. Even if these types of games aren't your thing, it managed to really sway me over to its overall design with some good art direction and music.
In the wake of Alice: Madness Returns and revitalisation of "disturbing Alice" content, the Alice is Dead trilogy of flash games were an excellent addition to the large mythos of Alice in Wonderland media.
A collection of fairly simplistic point and click puzzle games were you usually had to escape from an enclosed environment, Alice is Dead put a great deal of emphasis on story-telling and playing with your expectations. It created a wonderfully creepy experience through clever sound design and music choices while the art style never felt too amateurish or forced.
The whole series can be played through in roughly half an hour and is still a fairly engrossing experience. Shout out to episode 3's night club song especially.
A collection of fairly simplistic point and click puzzle games were you usually had to escape from an enclosed environment, Alice is Dead put a great deal of emphasis on story-telling and playing with your expectations. It created a wonderfully creepy experience through clever sound design and music choices while the art style never felt too amateurish or forced.
The whole series can be played through in roughly half an hour and is still a fairly engrossing experience. Shout out to episode 3's night club song especially.
1998
PAL copy played on a region-modded Dreamcast.
This game came out in 1998.
1998.
You know what else came out that year? Resident Evil 2. Spyro the Dragon. Banjo Kazooie. Half Life. Ocarina of Time. Metal Gear Solid.
So while you can fault the story for its cheesiness (when really it was pretty on par with other kids media of the time) and critisize the gameplay (when you're probably just playing the shite, buggy ports with crap lighting and art changes that the Dreamcast Conversion mod for PC fixes entirely), you cannot deny that for nineteen-ninety-fucking-eight, this was a beautful looking game that provided you with an actual goddamn adventure with some fun music that'll worm itself into your brain.
Big's levels do suck though and was the reason I never finished this game as a child, I'll grant you that.
This game came out in 1998.
1998.
You know what else came out that year? Resident Evil 2. Spyro the Dragon. Banjo Kazooie. Half Life. Ocarina of Time. Metal Gear Solid.
So while you can fault the story for its cheesiness (when really it was pretty on par with other kids media of the time) and critisize the gameplay (when you're probably just playing the shite, buggy ports with crap lighting and art changes that the Dreamcast Conversion mod for PC fixes entirely), you cannot deny that for nineteen-ninety-fucking-eight, this was a beautful looking game that provided you with an actual goddamn adventure with some fun music that'll worm itself into your brain.
Big's levels do suck though and was the reason I never finished this game as a child, I'll grant you that.
2013
Played v2.0.0 via Steam on Windows 11 (Gigabyte B560 HD3, i7-11700 @ 2.5GHz, 64GB DDR4 RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070) with Flare's GUI Assets v1.3 mod.
Sonic Lost World is such a weird game - the awkward middle child between the highs of Generations and lows of Forces, Lost World appropriately straddles between the two in a potentially brilliant package but teaming with hints of mediocrity.
First up the gameplay. I enjoyed how this game handles and feels whilst playing - for the majority of the time. The "sprint" button seems like it should be a strange inclusion for a mascot with a crippling "go fast" medical condition but it compliments the level design well, allowing you to control fairly well where and how Sonic will get from point A to B. The advancement of the homing attack to allow chains the longer you wait near enemies felt like it could have a satisfying risk/reward system depending on how long you wait for your opening but often times chains don't appear when you want and waiting around stronger enemies for the chain to build can result more often in wasted time. The parkour is the big new gameplay gimmick this time around and I wish I could give it high praise but it falls just shy of being very finnicky and unreliable. Running up and along walls can be fun but jumping between them to cross a long gap or even getting started on your run can be frustrating and result in multiple deaths. The Wisps from Colors make a return but they're relegated to one-off gimmicks in rare scenarios and feel forced in given their lack of narrative inclusion and sparsity.
The level design is fairly varied with a decent mix of 3D and 2D segments. Lost World also takes a step back from the level stylings of Generations and Colors with their one or two big levels per area and a handful of smaller challenges and instead sticks to 4 decently-paced levels per zone, each offering a decent amount of exploration of different paths and methods of traversal. These can vary from 1 minute to 4 and beyond depending on skill level and how far you are in the game but I had fun exploring and progressing through the majority of these - for the majority of the time. The only ones I grew to hate were the 2D-gliding-through-the-air levels, which had a steep learning curve and never felt natural to control with the caveat of dying if you strayed too far up or down the screen. There are a fair number of levels where you can farm lives however so you shouldn't really be reaching a true "game over" screen, but sometimes you will hit snags where you're repeatedly dying to what feels like stupid decisions, often involving the red rings. Bosses vary from stupidly short and easy to obvious but dysfunctional. Zavok's second encounter took a frustratingly-long time to figure out and when I finally did the homing attack chain would cut off in the middle 3 out of 4 attempts, resulting in me falling off and having to wait for the next opportunity to stun him.
The art direction is fairly solid - for the majority of the time. The CG cutscenes have weird foliage/artifacting that looks straight out of Colors while the design of "Sonic's World" feels strange and unlike anything we've seen before. Designs for the Lost Hex and the Deadly Six felt strong to me however and I really enjoyed their stupid interactions, even if a lot of it was incredibly surface-level.
Also being surface-level was the narrative - a very strange episode in this series that tries to take a minor step back from Colors and Generations' more light-hearted and overly-comedic banter and attempts to take itself a little seriously. However the lack of any drama or tension in cutscenes or pathos in the characters' relationships and the voice actors' direction results in it all falling just flat and it was a tradition carried on through Forces until Frontiers managed to break that cycle. If nothing else then you can argue Lost World sows the seeds of Eggman's recent grey morality and as always Mike Pollock's comedic timing helps sell a lot of the cutscenes.
Even the music can feel a little off at times. It's all still good, but Ohtani was very clearly either given the direction to emulate some symphonic Mario or he really wanted to go in that direction from the start because ooh boy if you thought this looked like Mario Galaxy, wait til you hear it. There's a lot to love about this OST though - Careening Cavern is a super chill beat with an underlying menace that bursts out on occasion, Midnight Owl is a fun musette-styled caper, and Desert Ruins is classic percussion-filled Ohtani with a variety of lazy middle-eastern inspired catchy melodies. Cutscene music however is forgettable and boring, nothing at all sticking out or complimenting much of what's happening on screen.
Lost World's greatest sin however is it's complete and total lack of tutorialisation. It doesn't tell you how to do anything, whether it's basic movement, the new parkour move set or how the Wisps properly function. The new homing attack takes way too long to figure out, I thought it was determined by how long you held the jump button on the second press but it instead requires you to wait for the chain to appear. It never felt really intuitive and it ended up causing me to take damage more often than not due to course layouts or boss attack patterns. Learning the parkour requires a metaphorical trial of fire by going after the red rings. They won't start as very challenging in the first few zones, but only by the time you reach the fourth will you begin to get a better understanding of how the parkour actually functions. Activating the Wisps will present a pop up box (every time) on how to move with the wisp, but it doesn't explain any basic functionalities. I still don't know what the deal with the Rhythm Wisp is or how you're expected to know that the Hover Wisp offers a light-speed dash ability since there's no explanation in the game anywhere for them. They all end with another pop up saying the Wisp has been depleted too which...yeah, I know.
I want to give Sonic Lost World more than 3/5 but it truly doesn't deserve it. For every cool level design, ability or bopping track, there's at least one other thing detracting from it and holding the experience back. It's not a complete waste of your time, there is fun to be had here despite it not adhering to the boost formula of prior successful games and shamelessly aiming for a "Mario but with a Sonic approach" design philosophy, but it doesn't take long to find minor grievances that sour the regular gameplay experience all too often.
Sonic Lost World is such a weird game - the awkward middle child between the highs of Generations and lows of Forces, Lost World appropriately straddles between the two in a potentially brilliant package but teaming with hints of mediocrity.
First up the gameplay. I enjoyed how this game handles and feels whilst playing - for the majority of the time. The "sprint" button seems like it should be a strange inclusion for a mascot with a crippling "go fast" medical condition but it compliments the level design well, allowing you to control fairly well where and how Sonic will get from point A to B. The advancement of the homing attack to allow chains the longer you wait near enemies felt like it could have a satisfying risk/reward system depending on how long you wait for your opening but often times chains don't appear when you want and waiting around stronger enemies for the chain to build can result more often in wasted time. The parkour is the big new gameplay gimmick this time around and I wish I could give it high praise but it falls just shy of being very finnicky and unreliable. Running up and along walls can be fun but jumping between them to cross a long gap or even getting started on your run can be frustrating and result in multiple deaths. The Wisps from Colors make a return but they're relegated to one-off gimmicks in rare scenarios and feel forced in given their lack of narrative inclusion and sparsity.
The level design is fairly varied with a decent mix of 3D and 2D segments. Lost World also takes a step back from the level stylings of Generations and Colors with their one or two big levels per area and a handful of smaller challenges and instead sticks to 4 decently-paced levels per zone, each offering a decent amount of exploration of different paths and methods of traversal. These can vary from 1 minute to 4 and beyond depending on skill level and how far you are in the game but I had fun exploring and progressing through the majority of these - for the majority of the time. The only ones I grew to hate were the 2D-gliding-through-the-air levels, which had a steep learning curve and never felt natural to control with the caveat of dying if you strayed too far up or down the screen. There are a fair number of levels where you can farm lives however so you shouldn't really be reaching a true "game over" screen, but sometimes you will hit snags where you're repeatedly dying to what feels like stupid decisions, often involving the red rings. Bosses vary from stupidly short and easy to obvious but dysfunctional. Zavok's second encounter took a frustratingly-long time to figure out and when I finally did the homing attack chain would cut off in the middle 3 out of 4 attempts, resulting in me falling off and having to wait for the next opportunity to stun him.
The art direction is fairly solid - for the majority of the time. The CG cutscenes have weird foliage/artifacting that looks straight out of Colors while the design of "Sonic's World" feels strange and unlike anything we've seen before. Designs for the Lost Hex and the Deadly Six felt strong to me however and I really enjoyed their stupid interactions, even if a lot of it was incredibly surface-level.
Also being surface-level was the narrative - a very strange episode in this series that tries to take a minor step back from Colors and Generations' more light-hearted and overly-comedic banter and attempts to take itself a little seriously. However the lack of any drama or tension in cutscenes or pathos in the characters' relationships and the voice actors' direction results in it all falling just flat and it was a tradition carried on through Forces until Frontiers managed to break that cycle. If nothing else then you can argue Lost World sows the seeds of Eggman's recent grey morality and as always Mike Pollock's comedic timing helps sell a lot of the cutscenes.
Even the music can feel a little off at times. It's all still good, but Ohtani was very clearly either given the direction to emulate some symphonic Mario or he really wanted to go in that direction from the start because ooh boy if you thought this looked like Mario Galaxy, wait til you hear it. There's a lot to love about this OST though - Careening Cavern is a super chill beat with an underlying menace that bursts out on occasion, Midnight Owl is a fun musette-styled caper, and Desert Ruins is classic percussion-filled Ohtani with a variety of lazy middle-eastern inspired catchy melodies. Cutscene music however is forgettable and boring, nothing at all sticking out or complimenting much of what's happening on screen.
Lost World's greatest sin however is it's complete and total lack of tutorialisation. It doesn't tell you how to do anything, whether it's basic movement, the new parkour move set or how the Wisps properly function. The new homing attack takes way too long to figure out, I thought it was determined by how long you held the jump button on the second press but it instead requires you to wait for the chain to appear. It never felt really intuitive and it ended up causing me to take damage more often than not due to course layouts or boss attack patterns. Learning the parkour requires a metaphorical trial of fire by going after the red rings. They won't start as very challenging in the first few zones, but only by the time you reach the fourth will you begin to get a better understanding of how the parkour actually functions. Activating the Wisps will present a pop up box (every time) on how to move with the wisp, but it doesn't explain any basic functionalities. I still don't know what the deal with the Rhythm Wisp is or how you're expected to know that the Hover Wisp offers a light-speed dash ability since there's no explanation in the game anywhere for them. They all end with another pop up saying the Wisp has been depleted too which...yeah, I know.
I want to give Sonic Lost World more than 3/5 but it truly doesn't deserve it. For every cool level design, ability or bopping track, there's at least one other thing detracting from it and holding the experience back. It's not a complete waste of your time, there is fun to be had here despite it not adhering to the boost formula of prior successful games and shamelessly aiming for a "Mario but with a Sonic approach" design philosophy, but it doesn't take long to find minor grievances that sour the regular gameplay experience all too often.
2007
There's not really much left to say about Portal that hasn't been said - the first-person shooter as a puzzle game was a great new concept at the time, and mixed with the sterile, clinical scientific environments and AI voice assessing your every move that both became delapidated and deranged over the course of the levels was a very memorable experience. The ambient electronic music pulls a lot of the weight too, keeping you in the zone when you're puzzle solving but not afraid to fully disturb you whenever you discover something the facility didn't want you to see.
It's overall a great game that can be experienced in a few hours and I still go back and visit it occasionally.
It's overall a great game that can be experienced in a few hours and I still go back and visit it occasionally.
2009
Played via the UK PSN release on a Vita OLED model.
I'm sure this is a great game on the original Wii release but on the Vita it's an imprecise mess. The gyroscope controls feel jittery and improperly calibrated so you end up missing every fifth projectile that comes your way. Music and visuals are great but I couldn't last more than 10 minutes and a couple restarts in the vain hope my Vita would behave itself.
I'm sure this is a great game on the original Wii release but on the Vita it's an imprecise mess. The gyroscope controls feel jittery and improperly calibrated so you end up missing every fifth projectile that comes your way. Music and visuals are great but I couldn't last more than 10 minutes and a couple restarts in the vain hope my Vita would behave itself.
1998
Played via the Steam release with BetterSADX mods installed.
Another year, another replay of Sonic Adventure, this time with Frontiers now having released and seemingly broken the era of the stale Boost formula. It's odd too, because a lot of my criticisms with that game, especially towards the animations and cutscene directions can be also applied here, giving the impression that Sonic Team never really did have a handle on those to begin with. It doesn't help that Sonic Adventure feels older than ever before, with a camera system that's positively decrepit and any port of the game without heavy modding looking and playing like a complete travesty. Still, it remains a charming time with good controls, a decent art direction, and a banging soundtrack.
Regardless, I wanted something a little fresher from my nth playthrough of this game and attempting a chronological route (with the aid of mods allowing the unlocking of all stories straight from the get-go) really helped hold my attention this time around. If, like me, this is a comfort game for you but you want it to feel a little fresher I recommend the route laid out below. Be aware of a game-locking bug (unless you can familiarise yourself with how the SASave tool functions) when playing Tails' story, so always keep the emblem across from his workshop free for collection until a specified point. Also whilst this was a fun exercise, the cutscenes never perfectly line up and you'll have to stretch your imagination a little as to how the chronological events connect in a cohesive manner.
Knuckles - intro
Big - intro
Sonic - intro / Chaos 0
Tails - intro
Sonic - Emerald Coast / Tails - post crash
Sonic / Tails - Egg Hornet
Knuckles - Speed Highway
Sonic / Tails - Windy Valley / Casinopolis
Knuckles - Casinopolis / vision #1 / Chaos 2
Big - Twinkle Park
Sonic / Tails - Ice Cap
Knuckles - Red Mountain
Sonic / Tails / Knuckles - Character bosses / Chaos 4
Sonic / Tails - Sky Chase
Gamma - intro / Final Egg / Beta
Big - Ice Cap
Tails - Sand Hill / vision #2
Tails / Big - character cutscene (collect the emblem across from Tails' workshop immediately after meeting Big - this saves the game and prevents being locked in the vision sequence)
Amy - intro
Sonic / Amy - Casino area / Twinkle Park
Sonic - Speed Highway
Amy /Sonic - abduction
Big - Emerald Coast
Gamma - Emerald Coast
Knuckles - Lost World
Gamma - vision #3
Knuckles - vision #4 / board Egg Carrier
Sonic - Mystic Ruins cutscene
Tails - Tornado 2
Sonic - Red Mountain
Sonic / Tails - Sky Chase 2
Gamma / Amy - character cutscene
Amy - Hot Shelter / vision #5
Big - Hot Shelter
Sonic / Tails / Knuckles - Egg Carrier transform / Sky Deck
Sonic / Tails / Gamma - character bosses
Sonic - change ship shape
Big - vision #6
Knuckles - vision #7
Big - Chaos 6 [story complete]
Sonic - Chaos 6
Knuckles - Chaos 6 [story complete]
Gamma - Windy Valley
Tails - Speed Highway / Egg Walker [story complete]
Gamma - Red Mountain
Sonic - Lost World / vision #8
Gamma - Hot Shelter
Amy - Final Egg
Gamma - Beta [story complete]
Amy - Zero [story complete]
Sonic - Final Egg / Egg Viper [story complete]
Super Sonic - vision #9 / Perfect Chaos [story complete]
Another year, another replay of Sonic Adventure, this time with Frontiers now having released and seemingly broken the era of the stale Boost formula. It's odd too, because a lot of my criticisms with that game, especially towards the animations and cutscene directions can be also applied here, giving the impression that Sonic Team never really did have a handle on those to begin with. It doesn't help that Sonic Adventure feels older than ever before, with a camera system that's positively decrepit and any port of the game without heavy modding looking and playing like a complete travesty. Still, it remains a charming time with good controls, a decent art direction, and a banging soundtrack.
Regardless, I wanted something a little fresher from my nth playthrough of this game and attempting a chronological route (with the aid of mods allowing the unlocking of all stories straight from the get-go) really helped hold my attention this time around. If, like me, this is a comfort game for you but you want it to feel a little fresher I recommend the route laid out below. Be aware of a game-locking bug (unless you can familiarise yourself with how the SASave tool functions) when playing Tails' story, so always keep the emblem across from his workshop free for collection until a specified point. Also whilst this was a fun exercise, the cutscenes never perfectly line up and you'll have to stretch your imagination a little as to how the chronological events connect in a cohesive manner.
Knuckles - intro
Big - intro
Sonic - intro / Chaos 0
Tails - intro
Sonic - Emerald Coast / Tails - post crash
Sonic / Tails - Egg Hornet
Knuckles - Speed Highway
Sonic / Tails - Windy Valley / Casinopolis
Knuckles - Casinopolis / vision #1 / Chaos 2
Big - Twinkle Park
Sonic / Tails - Ice Cap
Knuckles - Red Mountain
Sonic / Tails / Knuckles - Character bosses / Chaos 4
Sonic / Tails - Sky Chase
Gamma - intro / Final Egg / Beta
Big - Ice Cap
Tails - Sand Hill / vision #2
Tails / Big - character cutscene (collect the emblem across from Tails' workshop immediately after meeting Big - this saves the game and prevents being locked in the vision sequence)
Amy - intro
Sonic / Amy - Casino area / Twinkle Park
Sonic - Speed Highway
Amy /Sonic - abduction
Big - Emerald Coast
Gamma - Emerald Coast
Knuckles - Lost World
Gamma - vision #3
Knuckles - vision #4 / board Egg Carrier
Sonic - Mystic Ruins cutscene
Tails - Tornado 2
Sonic - Red Mountain
Sonic / Tails - Sky Chase 2
Gamma / Amy - character cutscene
Amy - Hot Shelter / vision #5
Big - Hot Shelter
Sonic / Tails / Knuckles - Egg Carrier transform / Sky Deck
Sonic / Tails / Gamma - character bosses
Sonic - change ship shape
Big - vision #6
Knuckles - vision #7
Big - Chaos 6 [story complete]
Sonic - Chaos 6
Knuckles - Chaos 6 [story complete]
Gamma - Windy Valley
Tails - Speed Highway / Egg Walker [story complete]
Gamma - Red Mountain
Sonic - Lost World / vision #8
Gamma - Hot Shelter
Amy - Final Egg
Gamma - Beta [story complete]
Amy - Zero [story complete]
Sonic - Final Egg / Egg Viper [story complete]
Super Sonic - vision #9 / Perfect Chaos [story complete]
2013
Played via the Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury eShop release on a Nintendo Switch.
3D Land was one of the earliest titles I played on my 3DS back in the day - it was a solid little platformer for the handheld with its bright, simple colour scheme and solid art direction landing it in the top games for the console.
3D World is much more of the same, with some added screen real estate and complexity to the level design but something feels...broken in the transition. Maybe it's nostalgia talking and sitting a few meters away from the TV, but where Land's simplistic lighting made you confident in your platforming, World's more complex system leads to uncertainty and hesitance. I never was absolutely certain where I was going to land when playing this game which resulted in every jump being accompanied by a full rectal clench.
The crux of my issues ultimately fall on the camera though - it's similar to 3D Land's but due to the wider shots movement can be finnicky, and when combined with a lot of late-game chaos on the screen I often had no idea where I was when desperately trying to hit a block or jump on an enemy.
I used to get pretty angry with games, and while I've managed to chill out a lot lately there was just something about this game that would result in occasional primal yells whenever my co-op partner and I would lose a life or hit a game over. It wasn't helped by the sprint button also being the "grab other player" button or simultaneous platforming always risking unwanted boosted jumps from landing on your partner and sending you flying further than intended. Maybe we had a skill issue, maybe I was needlessly losing my shit over a game designed to be played by literal children, but goddamn the rage I had at points in this game due to co-op interactions...
This is absolutely still a solid game though, and to the standard I'd expect from a first-party Nintendo release. The music is fun and always suitably tuned to the scenario you're playing whilst power ups and level designs are truly fun to traverse and satisfying to get right. The issues I had with the game might be due to my proximity to the TV and could possibly have been entirely eliminated if I were to play in portable mode (or if I were to simply git gud), but I believe the points I've raised here are valid to hold in mind for any visits to this 10 year old game that's still being sold for $60 on modern hardware.
3D Land was one of the earliest titles I played on my 3DS back in the day - it was a solid little platformer for the handheld with its bright, simple colour scheme and solid art direction landing it in the top games for the console.
3D World is much more of the same, with some added screen real estate and complexity to the level design but something feels...broken in the transition. Maybe it's nostalgia talking and sitting a few meters away from the TV, but where Land's simplistic lighting made you confident in your platforming, World's more complex system leads to uncertainty and hesitance. I never was absolutely certain where I was going to land when playing this game which resulted in every jump being accompanied by a full rectal clench.
The crux of my issues ultimately fall on the camera though - it's similar to 3D Land's but due to the wider shots movement can be finnicky, and when combined with a lot of late-game chaos on the screen I often had no idea where I was when desperately trying to hit a block or jump on an enemy.
I used to get pretty angry with games, and while I've managed to chill out a lot lately there was just something about this game that would result in occasional primal yells whenever my co-op partner and I would lose a life or hit a game over. It wasn't helped by the sprint button also being the "grab other player" button or simultaneous platforming always risking unwanted boosted jumps from landing on your partner and sending you flying further than intended. Maybe we had a skill issue, maybe I was needlessly losing my shit over a game designed to be played by literal children, but goddamn the rage I had at points in this game due to co-op interactions...
This is absolutely still a solid game though, and to the standard I'd expect from a first-party Nintendo release. The music is fun and always suitably tuned to the scenario you're playing whilst power ups and level designs are truly fun to traverse and satisfying to get right. The issues I had with the game might be due to my proximity to the TV and could possibly have been entirely eliminated if I were to play in portable mode (or if I were to simply git gud), but I believe the points I've raised here are valid to hold in mind for any visits to this 10 year old game that's still being sold for $60 on modern hardware.
2020
EU release played on a PlayStation 4 Pro.
The Pathless very much wears its influences on its sleeve, and while the core gameplay loop involves gliding through vast environments and hunting down giant beasts, it does offer a few more similarities to Shadow of the Colossus and Breath of the WIld. The world is abundant with life but the only people you come across are corpses, and the beasts you help cleanse will help further your journey. It also has a great auditory design with deep bassy voices in fictional tongues and haunting string scores helping sell the vibe of this humanless world, and the visual style is absolutely striking, with colours that pop out at you and featuring a huge similarity to BotW's Calamity Ganon when you see a rampaging beast surrounded with swirling red mist.
I did enjoy my time with The Pathless, but I'm not really sure if I can recommend it at it's current price point of $40/£30 given I probably could have finished it in about 6 hours but did it in 10 purely to hunt the secrets and trophies. The world is certainly unique, and the method of using your bow and arrow to shoot targets that help traverse the environment in interesting ways alongside your eagle friend that allows you to glide is satisfying to utilise. But I spent probably a good couple of hours on and off using the spirit vision mask that filters the world into a ghostly blue aura, making it a little uninteresting to look at, and unless you want to actively hunt down a lot of the lore markers and spirits that litter the land and help you learn more about the world, there's really not much else to do here. The world is (usually) quite pretty to look at once you've cleansed an area and the beast designs range from fearsome to quite cute, but I felt they could have been scaled up to be just that little bit more intimidating.
I'm not one to usually invoke the idea of a game's pricepoint needing to be tied to it's length, and given how much I did enjoy my time playing it and solving the unique puzzles I feel a little unfair for being so harsh. I enjoyed the gameplay despite my small niggles with it, and the story was well told (if you find those pieces of lore) - it's certainly a strong favourite within my list of recently played games, but if it was roughly a tenner cheaper I feel this could be a new indie classic. I encourage you to try it out if I've made it sound interesting to you, but yeah, probably wait for a sale.
The Pathless very much wears its influences on its sleeve, and while the core gameplay loop involves gliding through vast environments and hunting down giant beasts, it does offer a few more similarities to Shadow of the Colossus and Breath of the WIld. The world is abundant with life but the only people you come across are corpses, and the beasts you help cleanse will help further your journey. It also has a great auditory design with deep bassy voices in fictional tongues and haunting string scores helping sell the vibe of this humanless world, and the visual style is absolutely striking, with colours that pop out at you and featuring a huge similarity to BotW's Calamity Ganon when you see a rampaging beast surrounded with swirling red mist.
I did enjoy my time with The Pathless, but I'm not really sure if I can recommend it at it's current price point of $40/£30 given I probably could have finished it in about 6 hours but did it in 10 purely to hunt the secrets and trophies. The world is certainly unique, and the method of using your bow and arrow to shoot targets that help traverse the environment in interesting ways alongside your eagle friend that allows you to glide is satisfying to utilise. But I spent probably a good couple of hours on and off using the spirit vision mask that filters the world into a ghostly blue aura, making it a little uninteresting to look at, and unless you want to actively hunt down a lot of the lore markers and spirits that litter the land and help you learn more about the world, there's really not much else to do here. The world is (usually) quite pretty to look at once you've cleansed an area and the beast designs range from fearsome to quite cute, but I felt they could have been scaled up to be just that little bit more intimidating.
I'm not one to usually invoke the idea of a game's pricepoint needing to be tied to it's length, and given how much I did enjoy my time playing it and solving the unique puzzles I feel a little unfair for being so harsh. I enjoyed the gameplay despite my small niggles with it, and the story was well told (if you find those pieces of lore) - it's certainly a strong favourite within my list of recently played games, but if it was roughly a tenner cheaper I feel this could be a new indie classic. I encourage you to try it out if I've made it sound interesting to you, but yeah, probably wait for a sale.
2010
Played on an original Xbox 360.
If I could score Alan Wake based purely on its setting, narrative, amd over all vibes this would get 10s across the board from me - it's a wonder that outside of Remedy's experiments and Deadly Premonition the market of making a game influenced so heavily by Twin Peaks remains firmly untouched yet this game managed to ride those coattails whilst throwing in its own clever twists on those old ideas.
The gameplay is where Alan Wake falters however - it's not really bad persay but it's very basic and repetitive with not much in the way of keeping you engaged. I actually found it kind of comfy at first, the first few chapters go by on a Normal difficulty setting without much issue, leaving you in a chill state of wondering around, get enemies pointed out to you, react with flashlight and kill, rinse and repeat. The later chapters really only serve to point out how shallow that gameplay loop is though. You see a lot of cool environments with fun setpieces and cool story beats, but the combat gets a little tedious after a while and never truly feels "fun". The idea of staggering enemies with light a is a neat one but I'd hate to play on the higher difficulties with stronger enemies and less access to items as Normal felt more than balanced to me.
Overall I would recommend playing Alan Wake if for nothing else than to set yourself up for its terrific-looking sequel. It can be beat in just over 10 hours and while the gameplay can be a bit tedious later on, the tone and story Remedy set out to craft here is wonderfully unique and intriguing.
If I could score Alan Wake based purely on its setting, narrative, amd over all vibes this would get 10s across the board from me - it's a wonder that outside of Remedy's experiments and Deadly Premonition the market of making a game influenced so heavily by Twin Peaks remains firmly untouched yet this game managed to ride those coattails whilst throwing in its own clever twists on those old ideas.
The gameplay is where Alan Wake falters however - it's not really bad persay but it's very basic and repetitive with not much in the way of keeping you engaged. I actually found it kind of comfy at first, the first few chapters go by on a Normal difficulty setting without much issue, leaving you in a chill state of wondering around, get enemies pointed out to you, react with flashlight and kill, rinse and repeat. The later chapters really only serve to point out how shallow that gameplay loop is though. You see a lot of cool environments with fun setpieces and cool story beats, but the combat gets a little tedious after a while and never truly feels "fun". The idea of staggering enemies with light a is a neat one but I'd hate to play on the higher difficulties with stronger enemies and less access to items as Normal felt more than balanced to me.
Overall I would recommend playing Alan Wake if for nothing else than to set yourself up for its terrific-looking sequel. It can be beat in just over 10 hours and while the gameplay can be a bit tedious later on, the tone and story Remedy set out to craft here is wonderfully unique and intriguing.
2010
EU copy played on a PlayStation 3 Super Slim.
This was honestly a rollercoaster of an experience. I'd finished Automata a couple years prior to tackling this and the upcoming release of Replicatn v1.22... gave me the push to jump in so I could experience the original localisation first.
First up, I'm glad I'd played Automata first as it both set and disappointed my expectations. Set because I knew there would be a number of playthroughs involved to truly "finish" the game, and disappointed because those subsequant playthroughs were nowhere near as varied as Automata's. Automata is an improvement of every facet of this game, but there is still some worth to be found here.
After my obtaining ending A I was pretty pumped and happy - it took roughly 37 hours and I'd put the time in to do as many side quests and optional activites as possible. Movement and platforming felt a little janky at times but it was still perfectly playable and the weapons and combat in general felt fairly satisfying. The music was as great as usual for Keiichi Okabe's standards and the story was enjoyable, if a little lacklustre by the end twist.
Ending B was a bit of a different experience. I was hyped to start it since completing Ending A informed me I would get to experience "Kaine's story", however this was not the B story I was expecting due to having played Automata so was greeted with a simple visual novel before plowing through the same second half of the main game as Ending A with a few extra voice clips and additional context for the bosses you fight. Overall, it was well done and in the context of the entire story everything was pretty well done, but it all kinda just fell into the "everything is miserable and no-one is happy" mood that everything during this latter period of the game has. It was just a real fucking downer to play so I'm glad I at least did it in one sitting, plus the post credits scene helped bring the mood up a little too.
Endings C and D was where I ended up grinding a lot to obtain all the additional trophies for growing flowers, catching all the fish and upgrading all the weapons. Typical grinding experience of doing it all on auto pilot while listening to podcasts or watching youtube videos in the background so no much to complain about too bad really. In the C playthrough I was skipping through everything, having watched all the cutscenes and heard the voice clips twice now and getting a little weary of it all.
After C I went for the speedrun followed by going straight for Ending D. My intention was to watch and experience all the cutscenes in one sitting so I could get the full impact of the game's narrative, but in the end the depressiveness of those latter story beats were just too much and I skipped them bar everything leading up to the final boss.
So all in all, going by what I've written I didn't enjoy the game that much, but surprisingly I still have a lot of fond thoughts toward it. It feels like a slightly upgraded PlayStation 2 game with it's design choices and art direction and lighting, sure, but it's weirdly ernest in its presentation. The gameplay (bar the fishing) is altogether damn solid and entertaining and Yoko Taro's narrative, while exhausting at times does hit the mark more often than not. I think my main problem was just binging the entire game in such a short period of time. I played this game for just under 100 hours over the span of a couple of months (which isn't that big a deal, but doing an hour every morning before the day started for material farming was draining), but at the same time I can't say I've done that for many other games. I truly did play the absolute ever loving shit out of this game and found enjoyment in the vast majority of it.
This was honestly a rollercoaster of an experience. I'd finished Automata a couple years prior to tackling this and the upcoming release of Replicatn v1.22... gave me the push to jump in so I could experience the original localisation first.
First up, I'm glad I'd played Automata first as it both set and disappointed my expectations. Set because I knew there would be a number of playthroughs involved to truly "finish" the game, and disappointed because those subsequant playthroughs were nowhere near as varied as Automata's. Automata is an improvement of every facet of this game, but there is still some worth to be found here.
After my obtaining ending A I was pretty pumped and happy - it took roughly 37 hours and I'd put the time in to do as many side quests and optional activites as possible. Movement and platforming felt a little janky at times but it was still perfectly playable and the weapons and combat in general felt fairly satisfying. The music was as great as usual for Keiichi Okabe's standards and the story was enjoyable, if a little lacklustre by the end twist.
Ending B was a bit of a different experience. I was hyped to start it since completing Ending A informed me I would get to experience "Kaine's story", however this was not the B story I was expecting due to having played Automata so was greeted with a simple visual novel before plowing through the same second half of the main game as Ending A with a few extra voice clips and additional context for the bosses you fight. Overall, it was well done and in the context of the entire story everything was pretty well done, but it all kinda just fell into the "everything is miserable and no-one is happy" mood that everything during this latter period of the game has. It was just a real fucking downer to play so I'm glad I at least did it in one sitting, plus the post credits scene helped bring the mood up a little too.
Endings C and D was where I ended up grinding a lot to obtain all the additional trophies for growing flowers, catching all the fish and upgrading all the weapons. Typical grinding experience of doing it all on auto pilot while listening to podcasts or watching youtube videos in the background so no much to complain about too bad really. In the C playthrough I was skipping through everything, having watched all the cutscenes and heard the voice clips twice now and getting a little weary of it all.
After C I went for the speedrun followed by going straight for Ending D. My intention was to watch and experience all the cutscenes in one sitting so I could get the full impact of the game's narrative, but in the end the depressiveness of those latter story beats were just too much and I skipped them bar everything leading up to the final boss.
So all in all, going by what I've written I didn't enjoy the game that much, but surprisingly I still have a lot of fond thoughts toward it. It feels like a slightly upgraded PlayStation 2 game with it's design choices and art direction and lighting, sure, but it's weirdly ernest in its presentation. The gameplay (bar the fishing) is altogether damn solid and entertaining and Yoko Taro's narrative, while exhausting at times does hit the mark more often than not. I think my main problem was just binging the entire game in such a short period of time. I played this game for just under 100 hours over the span of a couple of months (which isn't that big a deal, but doing an hour every morning before the day started for material farming was draining), but at the same time I can't say I've done that for many other games. I truly did play the absolute ever loving shit out of this game and found enjoyment in the vast majority of it.
2003
What an odd decision for Naughty Dog to hop on the GTAIII band-wagon and make their own "hijack vehicles in a vast open world and blast folks with guns, oh and also a skateboard too" game. It works, just about, but there is a charm from the original that definitely gets lost in favour of the more edgy approach to story-telling. It's very much down to each individual that plays it to whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. But hey, open world with a fairly solid art direction on the PS2 at 480p, 60hz was a great experience at the time!