Right from the get go it's hard not to fall right into place for the adventure in Ravenlok. I would say this the best-looking voxel game ever created, and the lightining goes a long way in helping it. You feel ready for an epic journey, the music is inviting, the game even has you go get yourself a sword and shield, slowly buidling things up.

Then you get to a fight and realize that's all it's gonna be. There's barely any depth to those mechanics, having only a single normal attack and a shield that doesn't seem to be useful at all. You eventually get 4 special abilities, each having their own cooldown and they do make the game more fun, but not more interesting.

The story is as shallow as it can get. To be honest, I was expecting it to be deeper, more grandiose, even maybe a darker take on the classic Alice stories. The dialogues are very basic, there's little of getting to know anyone or even yourself. I didn't find this to be very bad, anyway, it felt like a fairy tale, a fairy tale that played it too safe.

The missions are also instinctively simple. Exactly what you would expect, and everything is near where you need them. Except for some puzzles and some objects that were somewhat difficult to find, there's little complexity to be found.

Still, I found the world and overall structure of the game to be evocative, delightful and kind of exactly what it needed to be. Each area was a pleasure to explore and discover, though everything felt small when looking at the big picture. And the music has no faults at all, you could even dislike the graphics to some degree, but the music is as outstanding as the art direction is.

I encountered some errors, however, which is a shame. After buying some bombs, my character clipped through the floor and was leaning, thankfully it solved by just moving. The American Spanish localization, however, is less of a good thing, with countless mispellings and the translator, probably amateur or a machine, really struggling with articles.

Played through Xbox Game Pass for 12 hours and 30 minutes.

What to think about something that takes most of what makes it great from something else? These are more just my thoughts than a proper review.

There's this perception in art that highly values originality. We like new propositions. That doesn't undermine a derivative work, however. Concepts evolve, ideas change, gameplay shouldn't stagnate. Still, many dislike plagiarism.

For me, Stardew Valley firmly walks the divisory line between inspiration and plagiarism. Eric Barone, the developer of the game, has mentioned wanting to improve the flaws of the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games was his main drive. I'd say it creates as many flaws as it fixes. Still, this is understandable as he was a sole developer.

It is important to judge a piece of art not just as its own entity, one should also consider the times, the environment, what came before it. That's why we still call Ocarina of Time a masterpiece and not just an outdated piece of software.

Now that Stardew Valley has become as influential as HM/SoS, it's worth asking... does it deserve all the praise? Or is it just a good, polished piece? There's a lot of merit in the creation of a good game, but maybe there's bigger merit in the creation of a genre.

Finally, I'd like to say I'm glad he decided to take what started as mere code training to this extent, and that he decided to make it his own, instead of some sort of mod for any HM/SoS game.

IT'S SUPAH MARIO BROTHARS 2 BABYYYY

Now, seriously... wow. This was awful. You see everything this game has to offer in the very first level. Probably just once or twice I was surprised with a twist of the picking up/throwing mechanic, which I'd say wasn't explored to its fullest.

And I'm somewhat grateful for that, as this buggy, illogical hitbox, repetitive mess of a game was begging me to stop playing it. Almost every single level has a mini boss fight, and almost always it's against Birdo, or as this game's credits call... them, Ostro? That's kinda funny.

But this game certainly isn't. So many design flaws, of its time I guess. Yet there is so much influence of the title in the Super Mario series. Probably every single element from this game has returned somehow, somewhere, in the Super Mario series, except for its main gimmick. It's kind of a shame, yet probably for the best to keep the Doki Doki Panic essence away from the series.

I made use of the rewind feature shamelessly as there were many, many cheap deaths and unpredictable behavior all over the place.

For many years I played the first level or two, when I was younger, with so much joy. Now I wish I had left this title in the mystical realm of the unknown so I'd respect it a little more. At least I can say I finished it.

Go play Onion Assault. That's actually good.

Played for 3 hours and 4 minutes through Nintendo Switch Online.