Pseudoregalia is not a fifth-generation console game out of time, but rather the kind of game that could only be made decades out from that era. The polygonal style, low-resolution textures, limited sound capabilities, and general haze which were borne of technical limitations have gained appreciation from those who grew up in that era for evoking a dreamlike atmosphere. Pseudoregalia could not have been made then, because this retrospective understanding of fifth-generation 3D games informs Pseudoregalia, from its design, to its aesthetic, to even its narrative framing. Its own falseness is acknowledged in the title - all media is fiction, representations of real things, but "Pseudo" implies a level deeper. This is a representation of a representation of regalia (i.e. the castle, the princess) and the unreality of it could not be more salient. Pseudoregalia evoked nostalgic feelings for me, having grown up with games of the fifth generation, while also prompting reflection on the fictional nature of these nostalgic memories, which, like Pseudoregalia, have succumbed to haze.

The gameplay itself is also a dream, in that it's superb. The platforming is a genuine delight, with a high skill ceiling enabling endless sequence breaking. A second playthrough is mandatory to truly appreciate just how intricate Pseudoregalia's design is. I went for 100% on my second playthrough and it was a joy using the knowledge and skill acquired from the first to really mix up the order I did things in, getting to places and power-ups well before I was "supposed" to by making clever use of the versatile wall-kick.

I need to acknowledge the character design of Sybil. I've seen some of the not-in-game art of her and, uh, let's just say it's not to my tastes. You do you rittzler, but I'm not down with what you seem to be down with as far as anthropomorphic animals go. With that said, her in-game, polygonal design is wonderful. Her enormous thighs may have an ulterior motive, but in-game they convey her leg-strength and acrobatic abilities, which are brought to life with beautiful animation. Her grey-gold colour scheme makes her look "regal" and thus she fits just right in these environments against a backdrop of greys, purples and light blues. Her and the environment come together to form such a cohesive picture.

Pseudoregalia is a small but plucky game, packing an atmospheric, mechanically thrilling punch in a short playtime. Not only did I want to immediately jump in and play through it again, I literally couldn't imagine just playing it once. If that's not a sign of a great game I don't know what is.

Still craving polygonal platforming goodness after the brilliant Pseudoregalia, Corn Kidz 64 immediately jumped out to me. Where Pseudoregalia is sparse and ethereal, Corn Kidz 64 is densely packed and full of attention to detail, creating an immensely interactable platforming experience. It feels reminiscent of Banjo-Kazooie in this respect, but with a far more nuanced move set.

Seve is the perfect protagonist for his mechanics, this grungy little goat with a low centre of gravity being appropriately weighty, setting the pace for the explorative poking and prodding this world excels at. Both him and Pseudoregalia's own anthropomorphic goat protagonist serve as exemplars of platforming character design and animation, with each having a totally distinct style of platforming that is perfectly captured in their physicality.

I adore almost everything Corn Kidz 64 has going on, but unfortunately it's over far too soon. It's been described by the creator as a "pilot episode", so with any luck we'll eventually get the full show. If an increased scope can be achieved without sacrificing the amazing attention to detail on display here, Corn Kidz will be one of the best to ever do it.

Really good for it's price, but sometimes too vague and difficult, you need to repeat long stretches of platforming over and over again which makes it too repetitive. Make main content a bit easier, save big challenges to side conetent and it will be fine.
Visually it's beautiful retro look with many options to make it fit your preferences. Music is good and with visual together they make really unique atmosphere.
I wish there was more levels with unique themes than 3 while one humongous one that takes 3/5 of your experience.
Still had a good time, hopefully next game will be more polished and complete.

I really wanted to like this game, I really did. The excitement I saw people have made me crave this as I love the era of platformers this game is trying to invoke. What I got is a game that I just ended up disliking the more and more I played. I will say the game does have two positives that I think are very strong.
The art direction is great and the music kicks ass. I still think this despite really being negative on the game elsewhere. The biggest annoyance in the game to me is the extreme lack of direction. I understand the game is not holding your hand but it expects you to go one path and instead of telling you to do that just shrugs and throws 5 different paths your way and has the correct one be a hidden 6th path. The gameplay also is not the funnest to me, the game seems to want you to do tight platforming but does not really provide the means to do said tight platforming. I don’t know I like platformers but this game got to the point where it was just making me mad with some of its expected platforming especially when combined with areas where it was unclear what I was even platforming too. Finally I get its going for an early 3D platformer feel but did it really need to have an awful camera as well? That thing just served to make the game even harder to navigate.
I think the game has a solid foundation and I think the devs can have a fun time, but this game just falls flat for me. It just ended up not fun to play and made me wish I was playing other platformers both old and new. I really hate to be this negative on the game since it was clearly made with heart but I just did not have a good time.

After getting to the second level, I had multiple "WHERE DO I GO WHAT DO I DO" moments. Similar effect to a point-and-click adventure where I have to search everywhere to find the one thing I need and then immediately need to figure out what to do with it; always slightly lost.

Finally got used to the movement and jumping right about at the end of the game, so that was a shame.

Other then that, I did enjoy this game.

Okay, so I'm going to give you a spicy hot take right off the bat:

In my opinion, Assassin's Creed games only became well-rounded and enjoyable when they transitioned into the RPG-like format that started with Origins.

That's obviously not to say that the RPG AC games are immaculate; in fact, more often than not, they are purely quantity over quality. However, from a pure moment-to-moment gameplay standpoint, I have enjoyed the RPG Assassin's Creed games, flaws and all, far more than the standard formula that the majority of the games in the series thus far have followed.

That is also not to say that I haven't at least enjoyed parts of previous Assassin's Creed games. Unity's parkour animations, for instance, really are as fun and compelling to play around with as everyone's always saying. But pound for pound, the RPG games are much more my thing.

That said, I endeavoured to at least give Mirage a try since OG Assassin's Creed fans have been clamouring for a game like it for years now, and I figured with all the improvements made for the previous three games, this one would be more my speed.

And, well?

The highest praise I can give Mirage is that it's an excellent podcast game. That might sound like a sardonic indictment against it, but, at least to me, it really isn't. The gameplay foundations are solid enough that it can be fun to just go through the motions as background fodder while listening to your podcast or audiobook of choice.

Of course, that's obviously not what Ubisoft Bordeaux intended when they made Mirage but that's part and parcel of what I enjoyed the most about it.

The rest of Mirage outside of the gameplay stuff? Very meh.

Granted, Mirage is a prequel to Valhalla, a game I have not finished, and Basim is introduced and goes through an arc there before starring in his own game here.

So, despite what Ubisoft themselves have stated, perhaps it is best to start with that one.

I say so because he's kind of a bland protagonist with an uninteresting story otherwise, despite the good performance given by Lee Majdoub. I will admit that I was skipping through much of the narrative since it wasn't that engaging, and stayed that way until the last third of the game.

Even the gameplay has its issues, though. Ironically, one of my main criticisms for Mirage is the same people have given to Valhalla and Odyssey before it: it's just too repetitive and dull. True, you can argue the same for the previous three AC games, but at least there, it felt like there was a lot more going on at any given moment, and it was likely more interesting, to boot.

Again, overall, much like Far Cry 6, Mirage is a really great podcast game. That may not be what you're looking for in a new Assassin's Creed, but it's what you get here. Unless, that is, if you're a staunch fan of the original style and longed for the series to return to that.

If that is you, in all sincerity and without a shred of sarcasm, I am glad that you got what you wanted.

5.5/10

A short and sweet high-octane platformer. Obviously, I would've loved more of what this game offers, but I think the game is paced perfectly and has just the right amount of content.

Blazing through levels is super fun, and getting into the groove of the game is an amazing feeling, and luckily, most of the game is built around maintaining this feeling. The boss fights are also pretty fun.

The game has some sore spots in the non-drill-focused levels, mostly because they act like huge pace breakers. They're still fun, but not nearly as fun as the other 90% of the game. The mech, for example, seems really cool at first, but its so much more clunky to control that it feels like you're playing a different game. The length of the game makes this contrast a little worse than it would've been otherwise.

That all being said, this is an amazingly fun game that I highly recommend.

Ah. That’s more like it.

As the one person I know who likes Donkey Kong Country, Drill Dozer, and that one burrowing escape sequence from Ori and the Will of the Wisps, I knew Pepper Grinder was going to be right up my alley. What impressed me though, was just how precisely the game melded its influences into something that felt simultaneously fresh yet familiar. The level design is classic obstacle escalation (introduce a concept, scale it up, throw in a twist, and then run the player through a final exam into their victory lap) with DKC inspired secrets with skull coin collectibles for unlocking secret levels. Many of the usual formula beats are present as well to force execution tests, from the usual moving parts in the forms of cannons, rope swings, and grappling points, to constantly present sources of danger like the freezing ocean or the temporary dirt patches created from cooling lava. What sets Pepper Grinder apart however, is that the terrain itself is the main obstacle. It feels like such a natural pairing to seamlessly mesh environmental navigation with the course’s very foundation, and the best moments of the game lean into funneling the player through various layers of shifting and isolated terrain while tearing through all that may stand in their way.

That said, I think to really understand the nuances of Pepper Grinder, one has to readily commit to its time attack mode. I could have been sold on the game-feel alone as an amalgam of Donkey Kong Country’s momentum physics and Drill Dozer’s force feedback, but playing under circumstances that force you to squeeze every possible second out of the timer gives the player a better appreciation of its movement mechanics. Pepper is not very fast on foot, nor can she naturally jump very far. Therefore, you’d think that most speed comes from tunneling through terrain, but it’s not quite that either. Rather, the player has to maintain momentum through the interplay of drilling and jumping by exiting terrain via the drill run (boosting right as you’re about to leave a patch of dirt), which commits the player to the projected arc leaving the terrain but with the reward of significantly more speed. The result is some of the weightiest and most satisfying movement I have ever experienced in any platformer. I was constantly figuring out new ways to save seconds by timing by boosts both within terrain and right before exiting terrain (since you can’t just spam boost and using it too early can lock you out from getting the necessary boost jump out of terrain), skipping certain obstacles entirely with well-placed drill runs, and figuring out how to manage my health to bypass unfavorable cycles and damage boost past mines and thorns. Some of those gold time attack medals were tight ordeals, but I absolutely savored every moment of the grind.

Bosses as a whole are a significant improvement from the usual quality of those in Donkey Kong Country. You’re not safe just waiting above ground, and burrowing to dodge attacks forces you to at least dash-dance underground since drilling means you can’t stay in one place. As a result, the player is constantly on the move, and you’re incentivized to do so anyways given that most of the bosses require multiple hits to defeat and aren’t the usual “invincible until they’re done attacking” crop from DKC. The biggest complaint I can levy here is that boss hit/hurtboxes can feel imprecise; I’ve heard that many players have had difficulty figuring out how to correctly drill into the beetle boss’s underbelly, and while I had no issues there, I did die a few times from the skeleton king’s heel hitbox where there was no visible attack in its vicinity. Still, I much prefer these boss fights over many of its peers, and figuring out when and how to best aim drill runs from the ground to speedrun bosses was just as much of a pleasure as speedrunning the courses themselves.

There are a few questionable design choices that could be touched upon here. Firstly, there’s a shop system present where you can purchase optional stickers from a gacha machine as well as temporary health boosts. The former is mostly forgivable given that they don’t impact the gameplay otherwise and can be cleared in about three minutes of purchasing and opening capsules. That said, I feel as if the latter could be removed entirely given that I never felt pressured to purchase insurance for courses and bosses, especially because I was often taking hits anyways to skip past obstacles and because you’re not going to regain the extra health capacity in-level once it’s gone. Secondly, bosses in time-attack mode force you to watch their opening unskippable cutscenes before getting to the action, and this gets extremely irritating when you’re constantly restarting fights to get better times. Finally, Pepper Grinder has a few gimmick areas in the forms of a couple of robot platforming segments, two snowmobile sections where you just hold forward on the control stick, and a couple of run-and-gun levels with little drilling involved. I can look past most of these given that they don’t take up much time and that I enjoyed all the minecart levels from DKC as is, though I do wish that they spaced the gimmicks apart a bit more given that levels 4-3 and 4-4 both have significant run and gun segments sending each course off.

If I did have any lasting complaints, it would be that I just want more of this game. Most players will finish adventure mode in under four hours. That said, even despite a lack of polish here and there, I absolutely adore Pepper Grinder. At this time of writing, I’ve 100%ed the game and even gone back to a few time trials after snagging all the gold medals just to further polish my records. It’s often difficult for me to pin down what makes a game feel good to play, but in this case, I just know. Pepper Grinder feels like an adrenaline rush made just for me, and though its execution barriers and short length will likely make this a tough sell for many, it is undoubtably some of the most fun I have had with a game this year. If you’re curious or enjoy anything that I’ve discussed in this write-up, please give the demo a shot. They don’t make 2D platformers like this anymore, and Pepper Grinder’s existence leaves me wondering why when they absolutely killed it on their first try.

It's weird realizing how important this game ended up being in Nintendo's history. The first game developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo, the team that would go on to develop Super Mario Galaxy and every following 3D Mario until Odyssey (and even then Odyssey's team features most of if not all of the most prominent Tokyo EAD members). It features many mechanics that would end up in Galaxy, like the dandelions you spin off of, the clap in this game having a lot of the functionality of the spin jump, the look and feel of the 2D sections in Galaxy, and a lot of other little things that ended up in Galaxy, even some sound effects.

This game is also significant in terms of Donkey Kong's characterization in future games. With Rare no longer working on DK, this really feels like Nintendo going "Alright let's make him an angry fucking gorilla again". Donkey Kong is out for fucking blood now, no sight of any of the other DKC characters, just him rampaging through different kingdoms to overthrow their leaders and eventually conquer the entire jungle world. Diddy isn't here to be his conscience, he's going to kill until there's nothing left. Definitely a weird move, but honestly very entertaining, and while his more bloodthirsty side has been toned down since, this game did basically create DK's personality, mannerisms, and the general look of the enemies and characters of the world for future DK games. Not only that, but there are a lot of similarities between the enemy and character designs in this game and what would show up in Galaxy as well. Again, just really surreal to realize this game is kind of the beginning of an era for Nintendo.

As for the game itself, this is easily the best use of the DK Bongos. The bongos are kind of lousy as rhythm game peripherals, but as big ass buttons to slap the shit out of in order to beat up a boss, they honestly work really well. At first I was kind of unsure how platforming would feel with these, but this game really encourages a flow in your movement, doing your best to keep yourself off the ground, clapping to interact with objects that'll help you do that, wall jumping and bouncing off enemies and doing your best to keep a combo up. Running and jumping with the bongos ends up feeling completely intuitive, to the point where after playing this game for an extended period of time I was watching someone stream Sonic Generations and when they moved to the right I was like "oh, they hit the right drum on their bongo", like this game is so much better at putting you in a rhythm trance than the actual fucking rhythm game that uses the same peripheral.

Bosses are also good here, they require good reflexes and movement but never demand too much out of the limited options. The Kong bosses end up not being great though because the timing on dodging is really weird and delayed, but it's still cool that they have a sort of Punch-Out type feel to them.

My biggest gripe though is that, well, the bongos never really prove themselves to be an ideal way to play any game, for a couple reasons. First of all, this game gets tiring very easily, and getting tired leads to weaker claps, which the game definitely has trouble picking up. It's funny, Donkey Konga had the exact opposite problem, where the mic basically picked up any sound of any volume made near it as a clap, but here I found myself repeatedly clapping in order to make sure I hit something on time, and as I got more tired that problem got a lot more frustrating. Water levels are really annoying to navigate with the movement options given, and there are a bit too many moments of trying to figure out how to pull off a certain move or jump that aren't really fun, especially in a game that's all about keeping up a combo in order to get the best score needed to progress further in the game. Anytime the game wanted me to do a slam I struggled to do it in one try, for some reason the input for it is really picky, even though it's the same input for jumping but just in midair.

After 12 levels, the game plays credits and then tells you there are four more levels, but in order to unlock all of them you need to go back and get gold medals on every previous level. This involves keeping the best combos possible and having the least amount of errors when it comes to boss fights, and while I could see myself having fun perfecting these levels, I am not a child in the year 2005, I am an adult in the year 2021 and I don't feel like devoting the time that Donkey Kong is demanding of me. But this is definitely the game to get the DK Bongos for, no contest, and it's a really fun thing that I'm glad I got to finally play.