5999 Reviews liked by MobileSpider
I don't know how to accurately rate Lego titles. They're games meant for young children that offer zero challenge and are really just an excuse to run around and collect a million different things. Which, turns out, I'm down for. Every few years when one of these games pops up and is based on a franchise I'm actually interested in, I hop on board for a bit, because they're the kind of simple, mindless fun I think you need once and a while.
The Skywalker Saga is very much of that same mold, although on a seemingly much larger scale. The individual levels of each movie have been abridged to a greater degree than past Lego Star Wars titles (perhaps too much so), but alongside them come much larger, open environments that constitute the meat of this particular one. Side-by-side they offer a lot of variety and I never really found myself bored with each level's gimmicks or the surprising amount of different puzzles, even if it did leave me yearning for a few more character classes to break up some of the more monotonous abilities.
In terms of other criticisms I have about the game, I wish they'd go a bit more off-script from the movies at times. When they do it's really a highlight, but cutscenes stick more to doing word-for-word line reading of the film dialogue and letting the humor fill the background instead of bringing it the forefront. In addition I encountered several annoying bugs that disrupted side quests and collecting tasks, though to the game's credit, it is very good about saving everything so I rarely had to redo something I already accomplished. Also no amount of lampooning could make up for having to re-experience The Rise of Skywalker again, but I suppose that was unavoidable given the game's premise.
Ultimately I'd say this game's biggest strength is simply letting you exist and breathe in the Star Wars universe. The breaks in-between levels where you can just roam around, meet characters, explore the vast array of planets, or just take in the ambience of the extremely detailed environments coupled with the classic Star Wars music and sounds makes for a really relaxing experience. Lego games will never be the most compelling things you'll ever play, but every once and a while I think it's worth it to play something like this for a change of pace. Considering this game delivers on that and then some, I'd say it achieved its goal.
UPDATE: Lowering my score one star. At this point in time I've almost 100% the game but due to a bug I have been unable to do so. Truthfully my entire experience with trying to platinum The Skywalker Saga has been an exercise in frustration due to the constant bugs, glitches, and crashes, little of which I experienced through my main playthrough of the game, but have become overwhelmingly apparent in my attempt to complete everything. I know there are players out there who have experienced even more severe, game-breaking bugs than I have, so I can't even say I've gotten the worst of it.
Adding to that frustration has been the fact that we're now going on nearly a month without any sort of patch to fix these problems, and radio silence from the developer on when we can expect one. Quite frankly that is inexcusable and has really soured my opinion on the game overall, even if a lot of the praise I heaped upon it earlier still stands. I'm sure at some point in the future this game will be fixed and these complaints will be rendered a non-issue, but I simply cannot ignore how long this game has been left to flounder in is post-release window.
The Skywalker Saga is very much of that same mold, although on a seemingly much larger scale. The individual levels of each movie have been abridged to a greater degree than past Lego Star Wars titles (perhaps too much so), but alongside them come much larger, open environments that constitute the meat of this particular one. Side-by-side they offer a lot of variety and I never really found myself bored with each level's gimmicks or the surprising amount of different puzzles, even if it did leave me yearning for a few more character classes to break up some of the more monotonous abilities.
In terms of other criticisms I have about the game, I wish they'd go a bit more off-script from the movies at times. When they do it's really a highlight, but cutscenes stick more to doing word-for-word line reading of the film dialogue and letting the humor fill the background instead of bringing it the forefront. In addition I encountered several annoying bugs that disrupted side quests and collecting tasks, though to the game's credit, it is very good about saving everything so I rarely had to redo something I already accomplished. Also no amount of lampooning could make up for having to re-experience The Rise of Skywalker again, but I suppose that was unavoidable given the game's premise.
Ultimately I'd say this game's biggest strength is simply letting you exist and breathe in the Star Wars universe. The breaks in-between levels where you can just roam around, meet characters, explore the vast array of planets, or just take in the ambience of the extremely detailed environments coupled with the classic Star Wars music and sounds makes for a really relaxing experience. Lego games will never be the most compelling things you'll ever play, but every once and a while I think it's worth it to play something like this for a change of pace. Considering this game delivers on that and then some, I'd say it achieved its goal.
UPDATE: Lowering my score one star. At this point in time I've almost 100% the game but due to a bug I have been unable to do so. Truthfully my entire experience with trying to platinum The Skywalker Saga has been an exercise in frustration due to the constant bugs, glitches, and crashes, little of which I experienced through my main playthrough of the game, but have become overwhelmingly apparent in my attempt to complete everything. I know there are players out there who have experienced even more severe, game-breaking bugs than I have, so I can't even say I've gotten the worst of it.
Adding to that frustration has been the fact that we're now going on nearly a month without any sort of patch to fix these problems, and radio silence from the developer on when we can expect one. Quite frankly that is inexcusable and has really soured my opinion on the game overall, even if a lot of the praise I heaped upon it earlier still stands. I'm sure at some point in the future this game will be fixed and these complaints will be rendered a non-issue, but I simply cannot ignore how long this game has been left to flounder in is post-release window.
Alien Soldier
1995
this is a title that feels downright oppressive at first. your protagonist takes up an absolutely absurd amount of screen real estate; you have a wealth of complex techniques to master mapped to only three different buttons; there's six different weapons, not all of which are applicable in every scenario, and there are upwards of twenty different ways of representing your status and resources; the only available difficulties are SUPEREASY and SUPERHARD. this is unruly, frantic, and demanding, and you'll likely spend a fair amount of time dying repeatedly just to make heads or tails of the game because it shoves you right into the crossfire, before you might even be aware that the entire game is tantamount to a boss rush.
stick with it. conquer the game on SUPERHARD, no matter how arduous. it's the rare game that makes the most of every single mechanic on offer, where each design implementation is representative of an uncanny degree of fine-tuning and polish. i can point to any one detail in this game, no matter how consequential or intangible, and give you a sensible, informative, and well-articulated answer for why it was designed this way. doubtless the masters at treasure can, too. it's tooth-and-nail adrenaline-inducing frenzy condensed into an hour's run time
stick with it. conquer the game on SUPERHARD, no matter how arduous. it's the rare game that makes the most of every single mechanic on offer, where each design implementation is representative of an uncanny degree of fine-tuning and polish. i can point to any one detail in this game, no matter how consequential or intangible, and give you a sensible, informative, and well-articulated answer for why it was designed this way. doubtless the masters at treasure can, too. it's tooth-and-nail adrenaline-inducing frenzy condensed into an hour's run time
King's Field
1994
Truly rocks. The skeleton and the weird tree enemies in this one are so incredibly endearing. John/Jean-Alfred deserves to go down as a legend in the dudes that rock inexplicably-pantheon.
Tsukihime
2000
He just like me fr
Fate/unlimited codes
2008
i LOVE dead fighting games that have no balance whatsoever and are filled with jank!
Blasto
1998
There's a certain feeling I hate getting when I'm playing a game, one that is a clear sign that what I'm playing is not worth the time of day. I was in the middle of the second level of Blasto when I said to myself "Oh god, is this all the game is?".
"Like Tomb Raider mixed with Duke Nukem" is the quote I would give this game if I was working for a game magazine in the 90s. The game's premise of "manly action hero full of one-liners wipes out a bunch of aliens and also there's Sexy Babes there" isn't the only thing this game borrows from Duke Nukem, as it seems to adhere to the boomer shooter tradition of "go here, hit a switch, ok now go back there, hit that switch, ok now that part is open, find the switch here, etc". Blasto's moveset resembles Lara Croft's in a couple ways, being a tank-controlled third-person shooter with a focus on jumping, though Blasto is much less focused on puzzle-solving, instead going full action. It's also a lot faster than Lara Croft, the jump is definitely more reliable for platforming. It's not like any of this is doomed to fail, but good god Blasto employs the most boring and annoying possible level design. On top of all the backtracking I mentioned, every couple steps you run into a section full of enemies spawning out of thin air, many times behind your back in such a way that getting to them before they hit you is impossible. The game is generous with health and extra lives, but that almost makes it worse because it feels like it knows it's shit and is trying to last-minute balance itself. Seriously, by the time I got to level 3 I felt like I was going insane with how much this game repeats the same tricks every couple seconds. The same flying enemies spawning everywhere in large numbers, the same on-foot enemies spawning right in front of you, the same switches and platforming challenges, it became miserable very quickly. Just, imagine Tomb Raider if instead of a Tomb to solve it was a big hallway and every 10 seconds you had to stop and fight 10 bats and 10 dogs.
There are a few redeeming qualities to Blasto, ones that keep me from giving it the lowest score possible. For one, Blasto doesn't actually control that poorly, if you're used to tank controls you mostly won't have a problem when it comes to trying to fight enemies or make jumps, it's really the level design and enemy encounters that kill this game. Secondly, hearing Phil Hartmann in anything is a joy, even in this. The lines he's given are pretty bad (the opening cutscene does 3 Uranus jokes and the game definitely takes place on Uranus only because it wanted to make those jokes), but he sells the hell out of them. A damn shame his talents were wasted on Blasto.
Anyway, check out the tcrf page for this game, it's got a naked woman on it.
"Like Tomb Raider mixed with Duke Nukem" is the quote I would give this game if I was working for a game magazine in the 90s. The game's premise of "manly action hero full of one-liners wipes out a bunch of aliens and also there's Sexy Babes there" isn't the only thing this game borrows from Duke Nukem, as it seems to adhere to the boomer shooter tradition of "go here, hit a switch, ok now go back there, hit that switch, ok now that part is open, find the switch here, etc". Blasto's moveset resembles Lara Croft's in a couple ways, being a tank-controlled third-person shooter with a focus on jumping, though Blasto is much less focused on puzzle-solving, instead going full action. It's also a lot faster than Lara Croft, the jump is definitely more reliable for platforming. It's not like any of this is doomed to fail, but good god Blasto employs the most boring and annoying possible level design. On top of all the backtracking I mentioned, every couple steps you run into a section full of enemies spawning out of thin air, many times behind your back in such a way that getting to them before they hit you is impossible. The game is generous with health and extra lives, but that almost makes it worse because it feels like it knows it's shit and is trying to last-minute balance itself. Seriously, by the time I got to level 3 I felt like I was going insane with how much this game repeats the same tricks every couple seconds. The same flying enemies spawning everywhere in large numbers, the same on-foot enemies spawning right in front of you, the same switches and platforming challenges, it became miserable very quickly. Just, imagine Tomb Raider if instead of a Tomb to solve it was a big hallway and every 10 seconds you had to stop and fight 10 bats and 10 dogs.
There are a few redeeming qualities to Blasto, ones that keep me from giving it the lowest score possible. For one, Blasto doesn't actually control that poorly, if you're used to tank controls you mostly won't have a problem when it comes to trying to fight enemies or make jumps, it's really the level design and enemy encounters that kill this game. Secondly, hearing Phil Hartmann in anything is a joy, even in this. The lines he's given are pretty bad (the opening cutscene does 3 Uranus jokes and the game definitely takes place on Uranus only because it wanted to make those jokes), but he sells the hell out of them. A damn shame his talents were wasted on Blasto.
Anyway, check out the tcrf page for this game, it's got a naked woman on it.
Gubble
1996
[whispering to date while playing Gubble when Gubble first appears on the screen] That's Gubble
This game made me realize (again) that I'm a bit useless with point-and-clicks - this was no exception. I was glued to a guide almost the whole way, basically amounting to me cheating the entire "game" part of this game. Even with that in mind, I cannot deny that this is a fiendishly clever piece of work with some of the wittiest cutscenes and puzzle outcomes. It's also very careful not to overstay its welcome, in spite of some backtracking issues (the rowboat kinda sucks and you have to use it to go back and forth three times).
I'm just saying a lot of words to convey "it's funny and ridiculous I like it"
I'm just saying a lot of words to convey "it's funny and ridiculous I like it"
Drakengard 3
2013
don't care that the frame rate is awful; don't care that the combat is asinine; don't care that the game is unpolished, janky, ugly, and poorly considered in every respect; don't care that it was subject to predatory dlc; don't care that accord's requests are emblematic of some of the worst there is in side quest design; don't care don't care don't care
what i do care about is that this is the ultimate manifestation of YT's disinclination to work in games juxtaposed with his earnest belief in the medium as a vessel for greater things. in his grimmest failure, he finds light at the end of the tunnel. an astonishing exercise in empathy generation, one of the best finales in a game, and the only one of yoko taro's works that makes great use of backwards scripting + sequential playthroughs
what i do care about is that this is the ultimate manifestation of YT's disinclination to work in games juxtaposed with his earnest belief in the medium as a vessel for greater things. in his grimmest failure, he finds light at the end of the tunnel. an astonishing exercise in empathy generation, one of the best finales in a game, and the only one of yoko taro's works that makes great use of backwards scripting + sequential playthroughs
Evergrace
2000
Jesse, play Evergrace full OST
even if we scare the hoes
even if we scare the hoes
King's Field
1994
King's Field is more detailed than you can expect.
For a game where you only have 2 simple attack mechanics, is a really fitting and functional combat style, where you need to learn enemies timing, surround them and keep distance. Although the attacks are slow, the battles are brief, so it doesn't get tedious, at least not so easily.
Exploration is very well rewarded, even I would say essential. Nothing is wasted in this game, each picked object and each enemy killed will make you progress and be useful to you with some ingenuity.
The map more than being a no sense maze, actually is very intuitive, you even have a compass, that is really useful for the entire walkthrough.
You even can guide yourself through NPC's that reveal the story of the place, the characters, tips and your main quests.
Don't be fooled by the graphics, cuz actually King's Field has a somber, hostile and well-built atmosphere, and you would be missing one of the most classic dungeon crawler.
For a game where you only have 2 simple attack mechanics, is a really fitting and functional combat style, where you need to learn enemies timing, surround them and keep distance. Although the attacks are slow, the battles are brief, so it doesn't get tedious, at least not so easily.
Exploration is very well rewarded, even I would say essential. Nothing is wasted in this game, each picked object and each enemy killed will make you progress and be useful to you with some ingenuity.
The map more than being a no sense maze, actually is very intuitive, you even have a compass, that is really useful for the entire walkthrough.
You even can guide yourself through NPC's that reveal the story of the place, the characters, tips and your main quests.
Don't be fooled by the graphics, cuz actually King's Field has a somber, hostile and well-built atmosphere, and you would be missing one of the most classic dungeon crawler.
Wayne's World
1993
wayne's world level 1 music 10 hours
The NewZealand Story
1988
I have some friends from New Zealand. They can confirm that what happens in this game is true.
This review contains spoilers
Growing up, one of the most important games to me was Kirby Air Ride. To this day it's one of my favorite games ever, but if I'm being honest there are about 2/3rds of that game that I really could care less about. Like most fans of that game, for me it was all about city trial. This isn't a Kirby Air Ride review so I won't go into what made City Trial so special, but one of the biggest factors to me was the ability to simply get off your air ride and walk around as Kirby. This fulfilled a strong childhood feeling I had about kart racers which was "I want to get out of the kart". It wasn't that I didn't enjoy kart racers, but when Mario Kart 64 had Peach's castle in Royal Raceway, I just felt so frustrated that there was no way to get out of the car and go in there. In Diddy Kong Racing there are cutscenes showing the characters outside of their vehicles and I so badly wanted to just move around the hub world as Tiptup or Timber (not Banjo, that guy already has his own game). So City Trial having this mechanic of being able to hop out of your vehicle at any time and walk to anywhere on the City Trial map was extremely fulfilling. In the main mode, walking around and not being on a vehicle is bad if you're trying to win, since you can't pick up power-ups or get anywhere quickly, but then we have Free Run mode. No time limit or power-ups, just you, the map, and every vehicle in the game. I spent so many hours here either making up games to play with my siblings or doing some honest-to-god RPing with Kirby running around the map, it was here that I fully fell in love with the idea of Kirby in 3D, I knew it was possible because the little taste of it I got in Kirby Air Ride was immaculate to my child self.
In a lot of the ads for Super Mario 64, and the N64 in general, there's a lot of emphasis on "freedom" and "liberation". At the time everyone was excited to leap into the third dimension, even if not everyone had a great plan for it because it was the obvious "next step", the way the media and industry framed it, there was no choice. 3D games freed us from the tyranny of 2D games, and it was time to escape (Funnily enough, it kind of sounds like how people talk about transitioning to open-world games nowadays). And yet Kirby had managed to skip this process entirely. Kirby Air Ride is just a spin-off, outside of that, every Kirby game has taken place on a 2D plane. Pretty wise on the developer's part, because we saw plenty of well-liked series try their hand at 3D and immediately regret it, and it's not like Kirby ever really had to become 3D at some point. The series had plenty of great entries in several different styles of 2D games, but Star Allies showed some stagnation, a need for something to change. So much of that game felt like Kirby running on auto-pilot, and while it had a lot of great stuff carried over from previous entries, I think the last thing anyone wanted was another one of those. Similar to my feeling of wanting to get off my kart in a kart racer, I wanted to get out of the format the Kirby series was stuck in, I knew Kirby could work in 3D, I wanted that freedom.
Now, I can't hide this any longer, so I'll just admit now that a 3D Kirby game has been one of my dream games since I was a child, and I really can't emphasize enough how blown away I am with the way it's executed here. Kirby controls as good as I hoped he would, the level design really captures a lot of the strengths of the best 2D Kirby games, and so little about what makes 2D Kirby great is compromised for this game, the transition is so smooth it feels like this game has always been here. But just making a good-feeling 3D Kirby game isn't enough to revitalize the series, so we get this completely new, exciting post-apocalypse that helps add a really good flavor to the usual grass and water levels. The Waddle Dee town is not only adorable but allows for the large amount of extra content the Kirby series is known for to exist in a brand new way. The bosses are a wonderful breath of fresh air from Star Allies, capturing the fun of Kirby bosses while adding extra layers of thought and strategy, and a fucking DODGE ROLL. Mouthful mode and the Treasure Road levels give us some great feeling obstacle course style level design, the music pops off the way any good Kirby soundtrack should, Dedede is there, this is all I could ever ask for.
Now I think a lot of the complaints I've heard from other people on this site are completely valid, and I can see why someone would leave this game thinking of it as middle-of-the-road or disappointing. The abilities have been kind of watered down for the sake of transitioning them smoothly to 3D, and for some abilities, it's not a huge deal but for others, it's kind of a shame. Cutter isn't all that fun because doing melee attacks with it feels finicky in terms of finding how close you need to get to an enemy to do it, and hammer is missing its spin attack. Not to mention there are also a lot of unfortunate cuts from the ability list, obviously, they can't bring every ability back for this one, but it just feels wrong for something like plasma or fighter to be missing. My true hope for a follow-up to this game is that they'll be able to not only introduce more new and old abilities but give them something more closely resembling the extensive movesets they had in Star Allies and the games leading up to it. I've always sort of half-joked that the ideal 3D Kirby game wouldn't be a collect-a-thon Mario 64 style, but instead a character action game. I mean, platforming has always been kind of de-emphasized in Kirby games, since you can often just float over it. It's more about trying out different abilities, solving environment puzzles, and effectively fighting enemies and bosses, and if Kirby could just go full Metal Gear Rising on an enemy when he has the sword ability, I genuinely believe that would be the truest to the previous entries in the series. If I'm being honest, fighting the final boss with the hammer only and no extra power-ups felt like baby's first Dark Souls in a way I was extremely into, so they're already halfway there.
This is really something special, and I believe a sequel in this style that improves the things I have a problem with would be just straight-up exactly what I've always wanted. And hey, maybe there'll be some DLC involving playing as other characters, something else I loved in Allies and I wish was here? No matter what, I've never been more excited about the Kirby series than right now, I'm ready for anything. Also please keep this Dedede design, he's finally cute again like in Kirby 64. Did you see that part of his second boss fight where he got on all fours and went full beast mode? Sickest shit ever, God I love this game.
In a lot of the ads for Super Mario 64, and the N64 in general, there's a lot of emphasis on "freedom" and "liberation". At the time everyone was excited to leap into the third dimension, even if not everyone had a great plan for it because it was the obvious "next step", the way the media and industry framed it, there was no choice. 3D games freed us from the tyranny of 2D games, and it was time to escape (Funnily enough, it kind of sounds like how people talk about transitioning to open-world games nowadays). And yet Kirby had managed to skip this process entirely. Kirby Air Ride is just a spin-off, outside of that, every Kirby game has taken place on a 2D plane. Pretty wise on the developer's part, because we saw plenty of well-liked series try their hand at 3D and immediately regret it, and it's not like Kirby ever really had to become 3D at some point. The series had plenty of great entries in several different styles of 2D games, but Star Allies showed some stagnation, a need for something to change. So much of that game felt like Kirby running on auto-pilot, and while it had a lot of great stuff carried over from previous entries, I think the last thing anyone wanted was another one of those. Similar to my feeling of wanting to get off my kart in a kart racer, I wanted to get out of the format the Kirby series was stuck in, I knew Kirby could work in 3D, I wanted that freedom.
Now, I can't hide this any longer, so I'll just admit now that a 3D Kirby game has been one of my dream games since I was a child, and I really can't emphasize enough how blown away I am with the way it's executed here. Kirby controls as good as I hoped he would, the level design really captures a lot of the strengths of the best 2D Kirby games, and so little about what makes 2D Kirby great is compromised for this game, the transition is so smooth it feels like this game has always been here. But just making a good-feeling 3D Kirby game isn't enough to revitalize the series, so we get this completely new, exciting post-apocalypse that helps add a really good flavor to the usual grass and water levels. The Waddle Dee town is not only adorable but allows for the large amount of extra content the Kirby series is known for to exist in a brand new way. The bosses are a wonderful breath of fresh air from Star Allies, capturing the fun of Kirby bosses while adding extra layers of thought and strategy, and a fucking DODGE ROLL. Mouthful mode and the Treasure Road levels give us some great feeling obstacle course style level design, the music pops off the way any good Kirby soundtrack should, Dedede is there, this is all I could ever ask for.
Now I think a lot of the complaints I've heard from other people on this site are completely valid, and I can see why someone would leave this game thinking of it as middle-of-the-road or disappointing. The abilities have been kind of watered down for the sake of transitioning them smoothly to 3D, and for some abilities, it's not a huge deal but for others, it's kind of a shame. Cutter isn't all that fun because doing melee attacks with it feels finicky in terms of finding how close you need to get to an enemy to do it, and hammer is missing its spin attack. Not to mention there are also a lot of unfortunate cuts from the ability list, obviously, they can't bring every ability back for this one, but it just feels wrong for something like plasma or fighter to be missing. My true hope for a follow-up to this game is that they'll be able to not only introduce more new and old abilities but give them something more closely resembling the extensive movesets they had in Star Allies and the games leading up to it. I've always sort of half-joked that the ideal 3D Kirby game wouldn't be a collect-a-thon Mario 64 style, but instead a character action game. I mean, platforming has always been kind of de-emphasized in Kirby games, since you can often just float over it. It's more about trying out different abilities, solving environment puzzles, and effectively fighting enemies and bosses, and if Kirby could just go full Metal Gear Rising on an enemy when he has the sword ability, I genuinely believe that would be the truest to the previous entries in the series. If I'm being honest, fighting the final boss with the hammer only and no extra power-ups felt like baby's first Dark Souls in a way I was extremely into, so they're already halfway there.
This is really something special, and I believe a sequel in this style that improves the things I have a problem with would be just straight-up exactly what I've always wanted. And hey, maybe there'll be some DLC involving playing as other characters, something else I loved in Allies and I wish was here? No matter what, I've never been more excited about the Kirby series than right now, I'm ready for anything. Also please keep this Dedede design, he's finally cute again like in Kirby 64. Did you see that part of his second boss fight where he got on all fours and went full beast mode? Sickest shit ever, God I love this game.
Sonic the Hedgehog
1991
that moment when you realize the first stage was the only one good