Secretly the best game on the N64.

Its nice seeing Nintendo getting weird and experimental. I guess with a dedicated handheld they could take the risks with reduced teams and budgets.

Great game, very funny, fun and great to play in short sessions.

When it was first released in 2002, Prime was so ahead of its time, and it still remains. Its one of those games that does not need to be remade from the perspective of its mechanics, gameplay, design, sound. I'm always skeptical of remakes/remasters because most of the time the original art and feeling of the original is completely lost (e.g. Demons Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, Crash Trilogy), the game becomes another completely different thing (e. g. Resident Evil 2), or its totally unnecessary (e.g. Last of Us, Dead Space, Resident Evil 4).

At first I though Metroid would fall in the latter category because its such a masterpiece that it does not need to be remade, but they really nailed it. The new visuals are much improved, but respectful of the originals, the control options are modernized, but retain the original scheme as options. And most importantly, it is the same game mechanically and in its design. Additionally, it brings attention the Prime series, which is much needed.

In the end i got that feeling that its clearly much improved visually, but at the same time it looks the same as I remember. I guess thats the best compliment a remaster can get.

This review contains spoilers

Starts really strong, but the genre shift at the middle was such a step down to what came before that I was left extremely disapointed. I understand the narrative importance, but it just dragged for too long and wasnt goo to play.

Great atmosphere and soundtrack, but I think it came out a few years too late. If this was released in a world before Hollow Knight and Metroid Dread it would have actually made an impact. As is, it does nothing new, it is too similar to what came before and does not do anything better than its inspirations.

Additionally, the Switch version is filled with technical problems that usually do not bother me much, but here are very severe. The input lag specially, makes some of the more dificult encounters very very frustrating.

They really nailed the most frustrating aspects of the original trilogy. Specially when trying to get all crates I always had the sensation that I was not being challenged, but being tricked by the designers. There is always crates placed in horrible angles that you only find by trial and error or by being lucky, not counting the absolute dreadful placement in some platforming challenges.

Levels are simply too long and by design you have to replay them to 100%. The feeling when you miss a single crate is amazing. Gave up on that really quickly.

I just kept playing thinking that perhaps they saved the best for last, but everything is just mediocre to bad from beginning to end. Honestly, I'm surprised by the positive reception or maybe I was just expecting too much but after finishing it I was left only with frustration and disappointment.

One positive thing to highlight would be the graphics, art-style and animations, they are all excellent.

There is an excellent game and story buried beneath 8000h of cut-scenes.

What draws me to the series is the exploration, and it remains excellent. Unfortunately every 200m you walk there will be a cutscene for the main quest that completely breaks most of the enjoyment. I was actively avoiding the main quest path as it completely breaks any immersion during exploration. Specially at the beginning all mechanics are introduced in these awkward cutscenes. I believe most of them could be left to the player to find by themselves.

Also, sometimes the side quests actively force to explore some hidden paths, and I'm not sure this is the best design decision. I think the best moments I had with any Xenoblade are when I just found out things by myself when exploring. In the end most of the side quests felt like filler content, where I was just completing a list of checkmarks without meaningful stories. I think maybe the best way here is to leave things open, especially for the simpler side quests. Instead of tracking the side quests in the menu and with waypoints, leave it open for the player. For example, when you talk to NPC, he will give a lead via dialogue, but the side quest is not tracked in the menu, and it is not pin pointed to you in the map. The removal of fetch quests was a step forward, but what remained is still not good enough mechanically or story-wise. I think maybe 95% of the side quests could be cut or simply left open without actively being tracked.

I was very surprised by the story and themes, but, it is simply filled with unnecessary exposition and an astronomical amount of cut-scenes that totally take away most of the good stuff. Throughout the game I was so disappointed by the amount of cut-scenes that I felt an editor should be hired for Monoliths next game.

The combat remains similar to the previous entries, which Im not very fond off... In XC3, due to the larger party I felt like enemies health's were given a boost and combined with the chain attacks, encounters with unique enemies and bosses take a long time. The chain attacks animations are so slow and get so repetitive that I ended up avoiding triggering them.

The music remains excellent and this time they took a more ambient approach I feel. But, i still think I prefer XC1 and 2 soundtracks.

In summary, it is more of the same where everything that was good before, remains good, and what was bad, got worse. Almost everything is too bloated. The amount of characters, cut-scenes, the combat, the party size, the enemies in the field. I think for the beautifully crafted world, the music and some parts of its story it deserves to be played, but hopefully for future sequels Monolith should shake the foundations the series a little more.


It is bizarre how Platinum manages to create new mechanics in the character action genre and most of then are usually pretty good. Such a talented group of people and Im glad that they keeps pushing the boundaries of the genre (unfortunately they seem to be the only ones doing it).

At first the Demon Slave summoning seem to go against to what the series is known for, but when I realized that there is a buffer on the slaves inputs allowing to Control Bayonetta between the inputs the combat really clicked.

I still think there is a lot of room for improvements with the goal of creating a better synergy between Bayonetta and the Demon, but the foundation is very solid. Some encounters are just very focused on using only the Demon and you are not penalized if you only rely on it.

Dont think they will keep pushing these new mechanics in Bayonetta sequels, but maybe some variant of this in Project GG? Also the game seems to take a bunch of mechanics that were planned for Scalebound (which is good because at least we have a glimpse of what it was suposed to be).

Some complaints:

-Still not feeling Viola. My best scores happen when I let Chechire do all the work. Dont like that he attacks automatically.

-The acessory that makes demons Slaves attack automatically should have some penalty... Why it even exists? It removes any complexity of the Demon Slaves.

-Even in encounters with small enemies, summoning the Demon Slaves seems to be the safer bet to pure platinums.

-Due to the focus on Demon Slaves and the scale of encounters, enemies seem to attack more often from offscreen compared to 1 and 2, and the warnings did not seem as clear to me.

-The genre shift levels, as usual, are hit and miss (mostly misses though).

Beat em ups dont mix well with leveling up systems and status upgrades.

Wish it was focused on a more robust scoring system. Chaining combos is not as excinting if the rewards are crafting materials. The template for an amazing arcade game is here, but It ends up leaning more towards a boring and safe mobile game progression.

Dungeon Encounters takes everything that is expected from a mainstream release and proves that almost all of it is superfluous. It was such an interesting experience that got me thinking, that lots games try to appeal to broader audiences by introducing more and more mechanics burying the good stuff underneath a ton of mediocre stuff, demotivating the player.

Would I be as engaged to keep descending the dungeon for as long as I was if it had more cinematic and narrative ambitions like almost every JRPG in existence? I dont think so. Likewise, would I keep going if the combat system was more complex? Probably not. Would prettier graphics improve the experience? Nope.

It was nice seeing something so focused coming from Square veterans.

The game is not perfect though. I think the music leaves a lot to be desired, specially the battle themes. Also the post credit content leans a little towards grinding.

Superb presentation but brings nothing really new or better than other similar games. It is very competent in its mechanics, gameplay and design, but the feeling that everything has already been done better elsewhere was always on my mind.

The lack of a map kinda encouraged my abandonment of the game.

I was little skeptical by the reception Neon White was getting since I did not enjoy Donut County very much. But my low expectations ended up elevating my enjoyment of the game.

Neon White manages to be innovative and original in the overly saturated genre of first-person shooter by mixing plataforming in a more arcade approach. However, nailing the mechanics are just the first step of a good game. The level design must also offer creative ways to explore them, and Neon White does it extremely well. Every new weapon and ability is introduced with a sequence of levels that always bring some new challenges and ideas. The game keeps introducing new ideas and none felt gimmicky, and by the end of the game the combination of every mechanic makes for some truly amazing synergy by the player and level design.

Overall the game is really well in other areas as well. The music is excellent, matching well with the speedrunning approach that game has. The graphics are clear and simple enough to help make the more chaotic moments easier to understand while also making for some fast load times due to the repetitive nature of failing a level a trying again.

Some minor complaints:
1) The level geometry could be even simpler. In some more chaotic moments I often got stuck in some corners due to more complex geometry of a few elements of a level.

2) The focus on the story I felt was little too much. If 95% of dialogue and cutscenes was cut, nothing would be lost.

3) The gift hunting dragged for me and did not add much to the experience (with few exceptions).

4) Neon Yellow sidequests and some of Neon Purple were not very good

Absurdly creepy atmosphere that will never be matched again. It is unfortunate that not even with spin-offs Capcom tries to mimic what was done here.

Its funny, but I still rank it below 4, which ended up killing this style of RE.

It aged extremely well and still is just as good to play today, than it was in 2002.

Some minor complaints:
The switch version has very long load times between rooms. Longer than the door animations. Ended up killing my interest in doing a full second play through.

Inventory is too short. Sometimes you are just moving items to the box, breaking the pace of the game.

Most cut scenes did not age well.

Good concept, but didnt like the execution. Puzzles were not clever for the most part, and the challenge was more on the plataforming.