Like many of my favorite games, I knew from very early on that Ghost Trick was something special. I put off playing this or even really looking into what it was for years of hearing that it was great just through a misunderstanding of what it actually is. It's actually a very unique game, but if you were to try and describe it to someone unfamiliar, the closest fit is probably a mix of a visual novel and a point-and-click adventure game, two things I am very much not fond of. The recent remastered release caught my attention, and I'm very glad it did. I've tried to avoid any spoilers in this review, but really if the game already has your attention and you haven't tried it, let this be a recommendation to just stop reading and play it. I was very skeptical that it could live up to its reputation, and throughout the game I was still half-expecting the story or gameplay to fall apart by the end, as good as they were. I can say now that it definitely doesn't do that, and it's a game I think everyone should play.

The game's charming presentation is one of the first things you'll notice and goes a long way towards making a strong first impression. It feels high quality in so many ways, and that extra effort really pays off. I've seen similarly structured games with a lot of dialogue like this where characterization is done entirely through text and character portraits (which there are often a real lack of, with characters only having a couple of faces or emotions). There's still a lot of that here, and it could probably get by with the great dialogue writing and wide range of expressive character portraits, but the animations and presentation of scenes outside of that visual novel format really add a lot. Even if they're smoother in the remake, I'm shocked these animations came from a DS title. I think this is a big part of what helps the game go between serious subjects and comedy effortlessly. Comedy is very hard to do well in games, and I laughed a lot while playing this. More often it came from visual jokes with the character animations than from dialogue. This doesn't fall into the trap of detracting from serious subjects in the story though, and both aspects feel respectful of each other.

Another big part of the presentation is the soundtrack, and it's fantastic. One of my favorites I've heard in quite a while, it has a very unique sound to it and has enough variety in tracks that none of them feel old even with some reuse. The remake has a new arranged version of the soundtrack as well as the option to use the original, which I'm really glad they included. I played mostly with the original version, and have listened to the arranged version afterwards. I think I have a slight preference for the original, but both are great, it's hard to pick a clear winner so it's very nice to have the choice there.

The core gameplay is a very unique twist on classic point-and-click adventure games, which feels like a natural evolution of that genre, and was very enjoyable even as someone who dislikes most of those. You play as a ghost who can hop between nearby objects and interact with them. You're very limited in both range and strength, making puzzles into elaborate chains of actions to achieve simple tasks. It never feels like the puzzles get too complex or open ended, but they do a good job at making you feel smart for figuring them out.

I do have some small complaints with the gameplay. The puzzles take a little too long to ramp up in difficulty, and it feels like the game is feeding you a few too many hints for the first third or so of the runtime. It's not too overbearing, but it does hold your hand a little too much. When the puzzles do get harder it's mostly very fun, but getting stuck can be a frustrating experience that I think they could have easily alleviated. Checkpoints are a little inconsistent, sometimes being there when you don't feel like you need them, but sometimes feeling like you have to redo a little too much each attempt or listen to the same dialogue after each restart in some spots. There's an in-world reason for how the checkpoints work, which could excuse this, but a lot of that reasoning starts to feel a little flimsy for some of them anyways, so I feel like it wouldn't have been too hard to place some of the checkpoints better. There's also a lot of timed elements to puzzles, and a fast-forward feature would have been appreciated. You're never waiting for too long at once, but it can add up if you get stuck for a while on a puzzle with a timing element. The game is also very eager to give you hints at the start of a puzzle, but there were a handful that I got stuck on and it never gave more hints or any help, I think there could have been more stuff like that for the later puzzles that only shows up after a certain number of retries. This is all just nitpicking really, the flaws are very easy to overlook in something so unique, and the pacing between gameplay and story sections is excellent and makes it hard to stay frustrated when the game gives you something else to focus on for a bit after a difficult section.

As neat as the gameplay is, the story is pretty clearly the main draw here, and I was shocked from start to finish how good it is. The basic setup is that you've died and lost your memory, and you have to use your ghost tricks to help yourself and others along the way. In addition to manipulating objects, you're able to replay the moments of death of the recently deceased, and interact with the world in the minutes leading up to that to try and change their fate. In doing this you get caught up in a much bigger plot with a wide cast of characters across a variety of locations. It's often unclear how these threads are connected, both to each other and to your character's story, but against all odds the game manages to wrap it all up in a very satisfying way. Each character in the game has a depth to their personality and attention to detail that you really don't see in other games, and it manages to make even the most unimportant seeming side characters endearing. The story has a lot of twists and reveals, and on top of these being excellently paced and spread throughout the story, they all do make sense within the narrative. Some pretty wild stuff happens, but the writing does a great job of making it all make sense within the game's world, and also addresses every concern I could think of, even if some of the explanations are withheld for a while. I really didn't think the ending could possibly wrap everything up while also addressing some of the minor criticisms I had with the story's logic, and I would have been happy with just a good ending, but it's an amazing one. Everything comes together perfectly and things are addressed in ways I never could have seen coming but make perfect sense. The way the story is put together just feels masterful, and it belongs on the very short list of game stories that I think only work in this medium.

Ghost Trick is such a standout game in every aspect, and while it's not perfect I've never played anything else quite like it and doubt I ever will again. A story this good in a video game is something I've only seen a few times ever, and it's definitely among my favorites. I've been recommending this game to everyone I know since well before I finished it, and it nailing the ending as well as it does only reinforces that. You really owe it to yourself to play this, it's a very special game.

This game is basically what would happen if FF14 was single player. From the overall pacing of the story to the quest design. I think this is a great culmination of FF that feels like it's been work towards since FF12 was released and the turn based system was mostly abandoned. There are certainly some touch ups that can be done but overall the formula felt well put together throughout my entire playthrough of ~55 hours to do everything I could.

Overall the game was far too easy in the action focused mode which was the hardest difficulty to start with. I have barely touched upon the New Game+ difficult (Final Fantasy) but have initial high hopes for it.

The quest design I find tremendous, but I think i've been stockholm'd by playing so much FF14. The main quest with extremely high points of just incredible action and story accompanied by side quests all designed in a way to help the player understand the world and everything else that just keeps on going despite your heroic conquests.

The music is phenomenal throughout and really accentuates the tone of some of the areas you explore and the larger, more important fights that you partake in. While the story was for the most part serviceable, I think the final hour or so of actual game leading up to the end of the game was some of the straight up coolest shit.

The combat felt really fun and snappy. It was like if you took the garbage system from Valkyrie Elysium that came out last summer (I think) and made it good. The biggest problem is that the Eikons, which essentially come down to which special ability do you like the most, didn't matter too much in the initial playthrough since everything was so easy. There are plenty of abilities to pick and choose from and I'm hoping to spend a little more time trying them out and finding all the cool nuances. I was still discovering small intricacies in the combat system even near the very end of my playthrough.

May update this review once I play more of NG+ and potentially dip my toes into the arcade stages.

A game with extremely high highs and some pretty dry lows.

Content pacing is the big discussion point here, mostly with side quests. The quests themselves are generally pretty good, and showing how the world is evolving outside of the main story is done really well. The issue is when about 4 hours worth of side content is dumped on you between major story beats near the end of the game. Early on, I was actually praising the game for its restraint in only giving out 2-3 quests every few story beats, which felt a bit on the low side but totally appropriate. By the end of the game, I'd never taken back a comment as much as I had that one. I'm glad I experienced all the quests once, because now on a replay I can just play the story, which I think will greatly improve how much momentum is maintained in the back half of the game. When a game's problem is more about evenly distributing content than the quality of the content, it's not the worst sin ever, though it did put a damper on some play sessions. I ended up with the feeling that the game could have been about 10 hours shorter, but I'm not sure on how much of that was due to side quests vs the main story itself.

The quests aren't the only way the pacing is a bit lumpy though. Aside from the huge setpieces that get diluted as more and more side content spreads them out as the game goes on, there's also a gradual shift in the balance of linear stages vs what I'll call "zone traversal". After playing so many modern games with at least semi-open worlds, the somewhat "retro" feeling (at this point) linear structure of the game was kind of a breath of fresh air at first. It did get a little tiring later on, reminding me why this isn't really the norm anymore. But it's hard to differentiate between the fatigue from exploring those zones as part of the story and the inflated time spent in them from side content. The first half felt like a more directed, higher tempo story with a bit of a different tone than what it eventually settled into, which felt a little more traditional JRPG fantasy by the end.

On a more positive note though, the combat was hyped up to be "the best game ever" and while I'm not sure about that, it was pretty great. It was deep yet approachable, it had a ton of customization, it let you experiment without penalty, it had some super cool looking abilities, what more can I say. Bosses were also pretty great, and though I prefer fighting as Clive to Eikon battles, their over the top presentation was also quite the spectacle. Accept The Truth was the peak of the story for me and just one of the hypest moments I've ever experienced in a game.

(Light spoiler warning): There was a weird trend I was noticing throughout the game where concepts and characters were introduced or brought to the foreground right as they became relevant instead of being seeded and built up beforehand. Some of this is probably just the intro of the game having too much on its plate to set the stage properly (better explanations of Bearers before Clive is branded, for example). Byron and others kind of pop up out of nowhere, Cid's idea about the Mothercrystals is just something you get from a line after a fade to black instead of hearing his actual pitch, etc. This isn't a huge deal, just something that seemed to keep happening. Vivian's "state of the realm" rundowns in the 2nd half would've been nice to have earlier as well for clarity, despite how direct they are presentation wise. The hyperfocus on how badly everyone treats Bearers in the first half was also a bit overdone, though I guess it was to contrast the treatment you receive later on.

Characters were a big of a mixed bag too. Clive, of course, is Clive, but most other allies felt very side character-y even if they were major players. There were some standouts like Dion, and some slight letdowns like Jill, but at the end of the day this is Clive and Valisthea's story, so that's not that big a deal. These just aren't necessarily characters that I'll cherish forever. There's such a large cast of medium-importance characters to support the feeling of a living world, and for that I think they did a pretty good job. And active time lore was a great feature for keeping track of everything.

Despite some mixed feelings on pacing, this was a pretty great game overall that I think will feel even better on a replay. I was on the fence about it beforehand and not quite sure how I'd like it, but now it seems crazy that I might have skipped this. Now give us Leviathan DLC you cowards

"fuck it, finally a fantasy"
~fred durst (2021)

consistently fun but bogged down by way-too-frequent mmo-esque fetch quests, a dogshit main antagonist and jill's comical lack of characterization

when it hits though, it really fucking hits. clive is a terrific lead, (kupka is also a fantastic rival) every major set piece manages to one up the last and the combat, while a bit easy for an action game absolutely braindead, is really fucking fun

only ps4/5 game thus far to feel like a truly "next gen" experience and a crystal clear reminder of the heights this series can reach when it's not rife with developmental problems

edit: that last line is still mostly correct but not in the way i'd like. it's certainly next-gen in terms of scope and scale with regards to spectacle, but the actual writing is piss poor. this was very much a honeymoon game and ng+ made it clear. xvi feels like a first draft

As I initially set off to finish the last of the remaining dungeons, I round a corner and a stray thought occurs: “Can I dogfight dragons in this game?” After an evening spent on that instead, it turns out that I can both do that and send it tumbling down a cliff in the process. Another thought follows: “This is probably the coolest game I’ve ever played.”

This reflects a strength that’s been carried forward from Breath of the Wild and part of what separated that game from standard open world fare: the “triangle rule.” It includes shaping environmental geometry in such a way that landmarks and other notable sights were deliberately obscured from angles players were most likely to view them from, creating a visual chain of interest as they orient themselves around it. It’s impressive that Tears of the Kingdom retains this considering just how much Hyrule has been reshuffled and expanded upon, but where it particularly excels in this regard is in terms of new additions, namely its tripling down on verticality.

Diving into a well or tree stump, winding up in a complex cave system, finding treasure behind a waterfall or at the top of a hidden shaft and using Ascend to pop out the other end in parts unknown is the exact kind of storybook-like experience that this new formula needed, like meat added to the bones of the sense of adventure BOTW was otherwise so successful at selling. Caves seem a deceptively simple inclusion on a conceptual level – goodness knows open world fantasy games’re no stranger to them – but one reason you couldn’t just plop TOTK’s into some other game is because of how their design’s informed by Link’s traversal options. Just finding them often resembles a scene out of Katsuya Terada’s art for the first few Zelda games, steep climbs into hidden entryways and all, often in a way that foreshadows the challenges inside. Slippery walls, boulders you have to smash your way through, confined spaces and other hazards combine to form the other reason, which is the contrast these environmentally constrained puzzle boxes create with the rest of the game’s freedom.

Shrines and temples alike exemplify this, as much as or more than the spectacle of diving from a sky island straight into the Depths in what’s a sensation I haven’t felt since Gravity Rush 2. Getting goofy with a combination of Ultrahand and Recall or whatever other powers you prefer to circumvent obstacles brings to mind an anecdote I have about a level in Thief 2 called Casing the Joint – years now after first playing that level, I still couldn’t tell you the “proper” way to beat it, because I’d always drag boxes from the opposite end of the level and use them to scramble onto titular joint’s roof before smashing a window that would leave every guard permanently alerted. Scuffed a method as it may sound, the important thing is that the game says “yes” to the player regardless, and the same’s largely true of TOTK; although, as with BOTW, some of its quest design shows that it isn’t fully designed in accordance with these sorts of open-ended solutions (Calip’s omniscient fence in Kakariko comes to mind), this isn’t necessarily so much a flaw as just an indicator that it’s not quite the same type of game. Where limitations like these do exist, they rarely feel so arbitrary as to outweigh the feeling of thinking like an adventurer that comes with nonlinear problem solving through Link’s new, more multifaceted powers.

Fuse is a favourite of mine not just for how it turns any item you come across into a potential tool, but also because this by extension encourages thinking about your equipment more than BOTW required. A bokoblin reaper may share the same animations as a horriblin hammer, but only one of them’s getting used for smashing enemies’ armour, clearing boulders out of caverns or searching for ore among other things. It’s understandable why some players may initially be upset at the apparent lack of any new weapon types compared to BOTW, but considering how many different functionalities are covered thanks to this one power, I wouldn’t be surprised if the devs considered and rejected the idea based on potential new ones being redundant. It feels weird to say so about a game that isn’t by any means hurting for recognition, but this is just one example of how it (and its predecessor) probably deserves more credit for achieving more with less.

This extends to its enemy design. We have a tendency to think of “enemy variety” in terms of the quantity of different enemy types, but what gets lost in that sort of discourse is the mechanical variety between those types. Even in BOTW, bokoblins have more dynamic behaviours than the combined enemy rosters of some other games, and that was without boss bokoblins, aerocudas and Zonai constructs for them to interact with. While TOTK having a higher amount of different and region-specific enemy types is appreciated nonetheless, I’m glad that fleshing out these behaviours amongst a relatively condensed roster still seems to have been a priority.

Flux Constructs are a standout in both that respect and why we ought to also apply this sort of lateral thinking to TOTK’s combat as well – in a game in which you can remove a golem’s hands to prevent him from being able to punch you, shoot dragons out of the sky with a DIY plane or suspend yourself in air with a foot-mounted flamethrower, it seems myopic to judge it based on how many ways Link can swing a weapon. Between using Recall on a certain attack of theirs to fling myself to places I couldn’t otherwise reach, darkness that’s actually dark and which requires resources to dispel, plus summonable AI companions, it becomes apparent that the sceptics were wrong – this isn’t BOTW DLC, but rather a Dragon’s Dogma 2 closed beta.

I’m only being slightly facetious, because much of what makes Dragon’s Dogma and its mutual point of influence, i.e. Skyrim, special as adventure games is present here too. If those two games could each be distilled into one key characteristic, I’d say they’re respectively dynamism and player-directed experiences. TOTK takes both and melds them with a largely honoured commitment to unrestricted problem solving that – in my view – has always felt like the most natural direction for Zelda to go in, forming a superlative package which I think sits at the top of its franchise, its console and potentially open world games in general.

All this and somehow I still feel as if I’ve only scratched the surface of all there is to appreciate here. As many words could be written about the atmosphere invoked during a sunset with the Dragon Head Island theme playing, the extent to which Ganondorf’s phase 2 transition has been living in my head rent free or the fact that, if you think about it, Link himself has become the legend of Zelda. I might play another 100 hours and still be finding new things to wrap my head around. Such a game.

A worthy sequel with both pluses and minuses when compared to Breath of the Wild. They're so intertwined that it's easier just to highlight what was changed or addressed and see how they stack up:

The biggest change in how you approach almost everything in the game is the new Right Arm Abilities, replacing Runes. I think how you feel about these will largely come down to how much you enjoy Ultrahand, the clear spotlight of the game's mechanics. To me, it was ok. I prefer the slightly more limited nature of the Runes, which didn't feel as overcentralizing. But I still definitely had fun with the abilities overall, there were just more opportunities where they felt gimmicky compared to meshing well with the world. Fuse also had this problem, I ended up missing unique weapons with cool appearances a lot more than I expected.

The world is probably the other biggest change here. The sky islands felt a little small and empty to me overall, and the depths were also probably my least favorite area of the game, so surprisingly I think the best change here was the addition of caves and fleshing out the mainland more. I liked BotW's world, which fit its atmosphere, but there's really not much downside to these additions. Side stories were also well expanded here, which was nice overall. There felt like a lot of little plot threads to find and follow as far as you please, highlights for me being Hateno Village and Gerudo Town. The depths though, I may have enjoyed the game more without. I started out not disliking them, as they were a nice pace break for a different style of gameplay, but as the game went on I found myself getting more and more bothered whenever I had to trudge down there. In a smaller capacity, they would be something cool to explore every now and then, but a zone of darkness spanning the entire overworld just made it a bit of a slog after too long. Also, I felt like enemy variety was much improved and probably the best thing they addressed, even if there's still quite a lot of Bokoblins (now with silly horns glued to their heads).

Right off the bat, you get the impression that they heard feedback about how light the story was in BotW and wanted to push this more. Bizarrely, they end up just falling back to the "go collect memories" style after the introduction, which is probably what those complaints were more about. Either way, I don't have much of a problem with those, but I also didn't massively love the new story either. The extremely formulaic "regional phenomena" plots were not my favorite and felt like a very thin reskin of BotW's setup (just swap "champions" to "sages" and most of the plot is the same). The story after these was more interesting, though the gameplay tied to some of it (collecting certain parts) was a slog. Overall, this was all solid enough, but I definitely respect BotW's sense of discovery and freedom with the story more. Temples were also very short and not quite the true return to dungeons that I think many were hoping for. They did have more unique art and bosses than Divine Beasts, but honestly I think they are about equal overall. And thinking back to the intro, I think the overall experience (gameplay + story) of the Great Plateau blows the Great Sky Island out of the... sky. The complete sweeping under the rug of most of the replaced concepts from BotW also felt a little weird, like Sheikah tech being mostly missing or replaced 1:1 with Zonai stuff. This gave me the impression that BotW felt like a more cohesive game overall in its meshing of world, theme, and story.

One more thing I can't forget to mention: the controls for the sage abilities are possibly the worst thing in the game. They turn these somewhat-fun concepts for abilities into super frustrating to use, annoying, or just inaccessible tools that almost never feel like they're there when you need them. Having unique contextual activation conditions like BotW's champion abilities would have been an absolutely massive improvement here.

Overall, while this may have sounded somewhat negative, at the end of the day this is still a supreme adventure in a great world with plenty of fun mechanics and content to explore. Though I prefer BotW overall after this first playthrough, this is a great game on its own with a lot to discover and dig into, and I very much enjoyed most of my time with it.

I won’t mince my words here: the last month has been a bit underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some solid titles that I finally got to finish and everything’s been interesting enough to where I still wrote about it, but nothing’s quite blown my mind recently. Flywrench might have set the bar a bit too high, for better or for worse. So, it looks like it’s time for another nostalgia reset; what better way to get myself back in gear than to go back to the source? Consider this write-up a follow up to my original Donkey Kong Country piece; since I think I’ve fleshed out obstacle escalation theory a ton by this point, I’ll focus more on differences between the two games this time around.

There’s an old Eurogamer review round-up that sort of laments the lack of differences between the original DKC and Diddy’s Kong Quest, referring to the sequel as a victim of “lack of ambition.” I honestly don’t agree with this assessment; Donkey Kong Country 2 preserves much of the original design philosophy for sure, but the game’s levels are often structured so differently with so many new ideas that I find it quite baffling to describe the sequel as “not terribly imaginative.” If anything, there were so many new ideas that many of them led to a lot of dissonance regarding expectations of flow and functionality between the two games. I’ll try to go over as many of the outstanding features as I can, but first, we should address the change in scope that seems to have thrown off so many of us, myself included.

In a retrospective Retro Gamer interview, lead designer Gregg Mayles describes this best: “If we had made it speed runs again then there wouldn’t have been much scope for us to go anywhere different with it.” The focus then, shifted from a speedrunning-friendly momentum-based platformer to a platformer that emphasized exploration, all while still emphasizing fluidity through interchangeable moving parts. Mayles later adds, “[they] wanted to maintain the same ‘go first’ gameplay where all the barrels and baddies were set up so if you went first time – or got the timing right – then the levels were very fluid, but I also wanted to add something new to it. So the first one was very linear, and the second one introduced exploration.”

This is perhaps the most pronounced improvement from the original to the sequel: secret finding and completion now feels significantly more intuitive and fulfilling. While I never personally had much of an issue with exploration in the original, I have to admit that there isn’t much of an incentive trying to find bonus rooms outside of collectibles that all lead to extra lives and the thrill of stumbling upon treasure troves through tougher maneuvers. Diddy’s Kong Quest, however, shows far more focus: the usual spelling and slot minigames alongside treasure troves have been replaced with timed challenges that actively test players’ abilities as par the level’s themes: for example, the bonus area in the first half of Screech’s Sprint requires players to switch between characters to balance out cartwheel jumps and hovering, a bonus area in the windy Gusty Glade requires players to time jumps across dragonflies while being boosted by a current, and so on so forth. Moreover, secret entrances and bonus barrels are more clearly marked with elements such as stray bananas, enemy clusters guarding paths, platforms that are just off-screen, and even banana arrows redirecting players to areas of interest or spelling out button prompts to supercharge animal buddies/team throw. One particularly clever example comes in the level “Target Terror”, where an enemy throwing barrels at you in the car ahead drops to a track below the main track if you decide to make the jump, signifying for future runs that there’s probably something hidden below.

Another improvement towards secret finding comes in the form of cannonballs that have to be carried across segments of the level to activate a cannon into potential bonus sections; it’s a welcome change since it pools the difficulty into the task of ferrying the cannonball while grappling/avoiding enemies inbetween, instead of attempting to create difficulty via obscuring the bonus area entrance. Finally, the reward is also greatly enhanced: instead of more lives to throw into the fray, you receive Kremcoins that can be used to unlock guarded golden barrels by Klubba and access tougher levels in the Lost World to achieve that true ending and snag that sweet, sweet 102% completion. Again, I never found the original limited exploration in DKC to be much of a detriment, but I nevertheless believe that the exploration loop feels much more fleshed out and substantial this time around.

This layer of calculation behind the mechanics translates to practically every single one of the mechanics in the sequel, starting with the characters themselves. It’d be easy to write off Dixie Kong as a Diddy Kong clone, considering that their weight and physics are about the same and Dixie was originally created by iterating upon Diddy’s design in the first place. However, let’s consider Donkey Kong’s value as a controllable character in the original; outside of being a heavier character to one hit KO Armys, Krushas, and Klumps by jumping (Diddy must generally use barrels and cartwheels to defeat these enemies, or in the case of Krushas, often outright avoid them), as well as the abilities to hand slap the ground (not really useful in the original outside of collecting some stray items with no hints and defeating stunned Rock Krocs in one level) and holding the barrel directly above his head, Donkey Kong mostly serves as the character you play when you don’t feel like risking the more agile Diddy Kong to potential death. Diddy’s quicker cartwheel and faster jump means that he is the weapon of choice for most of the platforming in the long expanses of the original DKC, and Donkey Kong is often there just as a “back-up” second life.

In Diddy’s Kong Quest, Dixie and Diddy are stratified enough to where your second character is more than just a representation that you can take a second hit. Diddy is of course, still a pleasure to control thanks to his quick cartwheel jump providing a “low and long” form of movement, and holding the barrel directly in front gives Diddy a quick form of defense for approaching enemies. Dixie, on the other hand, snags Donkey Kong’s utility of holding the barrel directly above the character’s head and utilizing overhead throws with a bit extra. All of her moves involve her long blonde ponytail, including her ability to hover in mid air by holding down Y to slow her descent and reach dangling collectibles while more carefully maneuvering past flying obstacles. As a result, it might be easier to think of Diddy as the better character for the classic speedy platforming experience, while Dixie is not quite as agile but is extremely helpful for spanning larger gaps and taking your time while ascending/descending vertically.

Moreover, the sequel also places additional emphasis upon having both characters available to you at once. Most of this comes in the form of the team-throw: you can pick up your partner at any time and angle the throw to reach collectibles and platforms/hooks that would normally be impossible to jump to. Additionally, since Diddy and Dixie are both lightweights, Krunchas can only be defeated with the team-throw outside of barrel usage and animal buddies, since jumping onto Krunchas will just result in Diddy/Dixie bouncing off. Finally, certain barrel cannons are marked with either Diddy or Dixie’s face, meaning that you will need to either be using that particular character or throwing that particular character into the cannon to be launched. Having both characters on your screen has an inherently deeper meaning than just possessing another hit; not only will you need to pick the correct character for the best approach, you must often have both on-hand to maximize opportunities with the team-throw and be allowed access to character-coded barrels.

Regarding character control, animal buddies have also been greatly buffed. The original was admittingly a bit more wishy-washy towards usage of animal buddies; while they were intended as a power-up, levels had to nevertheless be designed without explicit usage of them, resulting in many situations where animal buddies at best felt like extraneous helpers that could sometimes help unlock secret areas and provided another hit point of health, and at worst feeling like an active detriment (ex: Rambi’s awkward size and maneuverability in Manic Mincers, or Espresso’s inconsistency safely walking over Klap Traps in Orangutan Gang). As seen previously, animal buddies like Rambi and Engarde can throw out attack hitboxes to break fake walls for secrets, but Diddy’s Kong Quest goes beyond that and often sculpts entire playgrounds for animal buddy abilities, going as far as to include animal buddy transformation barrels for particular sections.

Toxic Tower is a great example of this in action: you start with a very open and wide section that requires very high and lengthy jumps, often on Zingers, to scale the initial heights, as per Rattly the Snake’s speciality with the charged superjump. Then, the stage transitions to a more enclosed series of chambers and tight passageways, with tons of vertical navigation and roaming enemies that require Squawk’s flight and egg shots to clear. Finally, the stage’s final stretch is a straight shot up to the exit, forcing the player to rely upon Squitter the Spider to quickly create temporary web platforms to scale up the chute while pursued by the ever-rising toxic waste. As an addendum to maintaining composure with the animal buddy, “No Animal Signs” will force the Kongs to abandon that particular playstyle while often rewarding players that manage to get that far with their animal buddy intact with a reward, such as banana bunches, extra lives, or in some cases, barrels that can be used (and only appear in that particular fashion) to open up yet another secret area. The end result is yet another design tool that’s been pushed to its furthest extents so far for more varied level structures, broadly increasing the DKC toolkit while maintaining the same core principles.

On that note, Donkey Kong Country 2’s most defining experimental level design trend is perhaps its enthusiasm to dabble with verticality. While the original only had one primarily vertical level in Slip Slide Ride, the sequel happily mingles with scaling heights every other level or so, with some levels that resemble a spiraling zig-zag with interspersed horizontal platforming like Windy Well while others commit hard to a full scalar climb such as the aforementioned Toxic Tower. It seems antithetical at first to design so many vertical levels in a game that’s practically mastered its horizontal traversal with the fast cartwheel jump for maintaining momentum, but in my opinion, it’s simply a different language of platforming that builds off the same organic obstacle escalation and fluid movement, and with that different language comes a different set of tools to express the language more fluently. Skyhooks, barrel cannons, animal buddy abilities such as Rattly’s superjump and Squitter’s temporary web platforms, climbable ropes and chains, and even certain water levels that experiment with the changing height of the liquid and interspersing dry land platforms are just some of the many level elements that are utilized to aid ascending player movement, alongside the usual hazards to spur players into action such as the aforementioned rising toxic goo in Toxic Tower and the bramble walls encountered while flapping about with Squawks. Even within this new territory, DKC 2 subverts its own set expectations with two levels that force players to travel downwards, in the form of Parrot Chute Panic (which has players slowly descend a Zinger infested hive with the help of purple budget Squawks) and Black Ice Blitz (which as a foil to Parrot Chute Panic, goads players into quickly descending a slippery icy chasm to avoid being swarmed by grounded foes). Though it is easy to criticize the sequel for taking such a seemingly drastically different approach to level design, I do believe that Diddy’s Kong Quest deserves to stand on its own merits and absolutely presents a more calculated and methodical, yet just as focused platforming experience.

What stands out to me as this game’s greatest strength is that no idea is ever repeated verbatim, both within the game and with respect to the original DKC. A great way to illustrate these wrinkles that are used to diversify level navigation is through examination of the three minecart levels, which have now been rethemed as roller coasters. Target Terror has Diddy and Dixie leaping between skull cars to hit green checkmark barrels while avoiding red X barrels to open up closed gates and avoid closing already open ones. Meanwhile, Rickety Race recontextualizes the roller coaster ride as a straight up competition, incentivizing players to defeat and bypass enemy skull cars to eventually stomp the goon in first place and snag the level’s DK coin. Finally, Haunted Hall introduces the timer into the equation, and requires the player to collide into + barrels while avoiding – barrels to maintain timer longevity and avoid certain doom from the pursuing Kackles. At the end of the day, all of these examples are horizontal auto-scrollers, but thanks to the varied level objectives defining how traversal must be accomplished, the levels still feel distinct without any single one bleeding into another.

I could go on and on about the sheer amount of fresh level elements introduced in DKC 2 and just how many of them remain memorable to me, from the air draft balloons in Red Hot Ride to the rolling giant tires of Jungle Jinx to the usage of Clapper seals in Lava Lagoon purifying the lava into water and creating this mad scramble to make it in one piece to the other side before the liquid heats up again, and so on so forth. Sure, most of these elements are only present in one or two levels and could be written off as “gimmicks,” but that doesn’t take away from their value. Rare’s willingness to throw realism out the window and tinker with so many different kinds of mechanisms may seem at first quite unfocused, but by embracing experimentation that’s all designed to keep the player moving, that eagerness actually points to a deeper level of commitment that few platformers manage to effectively achieve.

Of course, there’s another piece to the puzzle that stops the game from ever feeling too stale, and that’s the theming itself. Again, Rare’s abandonment of realism is a key motivation; while the original DKC was often limited to natural landscapes and caves outside of Kremkroc Industries, Diddy’s Kong Quest commits fully to the absurdity of fighting alligator pirates in an unfamiliar land and as a result, greatly diversifies its various settings from the decks and sails of the Gangplank Galleon (a fitting beginning, considering that the previous adventure ended here), to the glowing infernal pits of Crocodile Cauldron, to the abandoned urban amusement wasteland of Krazy Kremland that nature has begun reclaiming with brambles and overgrown beehives. You don’t need me to tell you that this is one of the most richly textured games on the SNES, with plenty of corresponding level elements such as the sticky honey walls of Hornet Hole and the eerie disappearing ropes of Ghostly Grove to further sell the exoticism and accentuate the level of detail presented in each environment.

I’d be remiss though, to not spend a paragraph gushing about the soundtrack, something that I’d consider a formality at this point while praising the game. If the original Donkey Kong Country OST was a 10, then this is an 11. Not only are there practically no wasted tracks within the repertoire, but also every notable track ends up being a standout. I’m led to believe that David Wise was in a class of his own, because even to this day, the diverse and richly layered instrumentation is like no other. The whistling wind of Jib Jig, the bubbling lava of Hot Head Bop, the screams of excitement from Disco Train: the sheer attention to detail to embed all these different environmental SFX into the tracks themselves so that the effects never break your attention away from the task of platforming is incredible. It’s the cherry on top of this whole package; sure there’s a part of me that might get a little annoyed falling several stories in yet another mine shaft level, but at least I get to do it while the steel hammer samples in Mining Melancholy go for another run.

I’ll quickly address the lingering complaint that I had from the first game as well; I had previously lamented that bosses in Donkey Kong Country seemed to be a one and done affair, though the sequel does a great job substantially increasing their interactivity. Some are still a bit simple but at least have some extra steps to them: these include the first Krow fight, which you can clear by jumping on egg projectiles and then waiting for Krow to run into the held egg (though it is at least justified by being the first boss fight) and Kudgel, whose boss fight becomes a case of “jump when he lands to avoid getting stunlocked” and then ramming TNT barrels into him when appropriate. Fortunately, the highlights leave these fights in the dust. The clear standout for me here is the fight against Kleever, this giant possessed cutlass that slashes at you relentlessly while you jump to and fro between skyhooks dodging fireballs and waiting for the cannonball to respawn to get your hit in. There’s also a boss fight vs yet another giant bee, but unlike the fight vs Queen B in DKC, this King Zing fight lets you play as Squawks and shoot eggs at the giant bee’s stinger, alternating with an invincible phase where you have to dodge spikes in the closest thing resembling a bullet hell in the series and then segueing into a quickfire second phase where Squawks has to defeat an outer circle of respawning normal sized Zingers before landing the final hit.

Even the final fights vs K Rool (sorry, Kaptain K Rool) have been juiced up, with plenty more jumping and rolling to be done to dodge scores of spiked cannon balls as well as some colorful gas clouds that can mess with your control scheme or movement speed if you’re not careful. The first fight is a bit longer than previous boss fights since it serves as the final boss gauntlet, but there's at least some wiggle room since a Buddy Barrel is given to you at the start of each new phase if you've taken a hit. While the true final boss fight in Krocodile Kore more or less uses the same types of attacks as the first encounter, I appreciate that they’ve at least upped the ante with some new attack patterns and scaling everything they have to throw at you in one “phase” before letting you plug up his blunderbuss with a cannonball for good. All in all, it’s improvements across the board for bosses, and while some of them are still a bit lame, it’s a vast jump up from the one-dimensional and often palette swapped fights of the original game.

So, with all the welcome changes out of the way, do I really have any outstanding major complaints to spill? I’ll admit, I often struggle to find any substantial errs in Diddy’s Kong Quest. It’s a more difficult game for sure, but I also find it surprisingly fair: the game gives you plenty of leeway with all the bananas, KONG letters, and hidden balloons and coins to win more lives at Swanky’s Bonus Bonanza, assuming you’re playing competently enough and exploring levels to their greatest extent. Moreover, most levels are pretty condensed and usually don’t take more than several minutes to clear when carefully approached, with plenty of Buddy Barrels and the Star Barrel halfway through the level as fail-safes if you end up taking a hit or two. I’ve also found during my experience that the obstacle escalation theory continues to holds true, and that dangerous moments are often greeted with plenty of warning prior and enough time to react and adapt accordingly, with instances where I’m confronted with something that I’m genuinely not prepared for few and far between. With that said, there are a few exceptions:

- Web Woods is often cited as one of the most notorious levels in the game: the majority of this stage is spent playing as Squitter, with large stretches of abyss that have to be crossed with disposable web platforms while sniping any Zingers and Mini Nectys in the way. Upon my replay, I don’t think it’s as hard as others make it out to be, but it definitely feels a bit longer because Web Woods forces either extremely careful movement and web shots when going fast ( see Mike Kanis’ recording for an example ) or for casual playthroughs, steady and often strenuous platforming across daunting gaps while juggling enemies at the same time. I’ll concede that the level could probably be improved upon with a few smaller gaps and removing the extraneous introductory Kongs platforming section, but otherwise, I think this level serves its purpose well and just takes a bit of time to get used to. Though, I do think that putting the DK coin in the end-of-level target is pretty lazy and evil considering that the coin flashes in the display for less than half a second and you'll have to replay the whole level again if you were just a hair off.

- Screech’s Sprint is probably the most significant difficulty spike present in DKC 2 in my opinion (which is saying something considering Toxic Tower is the level right before this), and as the final level before the first K Rool fight, is unfortunately a bit of a slog and probably my least favorite level in the game. The first half of the level is solid end-game platforming through the brambles and isn’t too bad, but the second half of the level is an extremely tight race as Squawks against his goth counterpart Screech, that has to be played close to perfectly if you’re not aware beforehand of the many shortcuts hidden in the brambles since second place will result in instant death. That’s not even bringing into account the KONG letters that are all present in the race segment, or the hidden DK coin (that can at least be collected in a throwaway run). Needless to say, it’s a cool concept, but there’s not much time given for the player to scale up and adapt to the sudden rush of precision required for the race or to discover all the ins and outs of the course, so if any level in the game feels like throwing away lives and banging your head against the wall, I’d wager that it would probably be this one. Also, it overrides Stickerbush Symphony with its own theme... which isn’t a bad track, but it's automatically my least favorite track in the OST because anything that takes away from the GOAT of VGM is an instant con in my book.

- Animal Antics is generally the final level tackled by most players who are going for the true final boss fight (as the final level in the Lost World), and while I hesitate to call any single level gimmicky, I suppose this is the one that comes closest to the definition. It’s a marathon that involves the usage of all five animal buddies, which already sounds like quite an exhausting affair. However, it’s exacerbated by the fact that the first two animal buddy segments (Rambi and Engarde) are pretty straightforward by this point, but the next two right after the Star Barrel in the form of Squitter and Squawks generally take up a lot more time, especially because the Squawks segment requires you to navigate yet another bramble maze while a mercurial wind current keeps blowing you left and right and forces you to alternate between fighting the wind or fighting the controls to avoid being blown astray by the wind. The final segment with Rattly is not particularly difficult, but it sure is intimidating as hell since there are no Buddy Barrels to be found there and you’ve probably already taken a hit as Squawks, turning what should be the victory lap of a marathon into a one of the most nerve-wracking level finishers, since dying here means getting sent back to the Star Barrel and having to do Squitter, Squawks, and Rattly all over again. It probably doesn’t help that Toxic Tower utilizes the animal buddy swap formula more succinctly either, with a smoother difficulty curve to boot.

Besides these three levels though, I can’t really say that the difficulty in Diddy’s Kong Quest ever felt discouraging to me. If anything, I found my second full playthrough even more fulfilling this time around; while I was still in the process of mastering the controls during my first run, I really got the chance to flesh out my understanding of the levels during my replay and spend more time adapting and figuring out how all the different moving parts and hazardous elements fit together in different ways. With so many new combinations to consider, I could honestly keep at this for days, even weeks upon end putting my skills to the test; more depth via tighter execution barriers from tougher obstacle courses with even more secrets to explore results in a higher skill ceiling after all. It’s really quite rewarding to figure out game-plans for each level and grind out the specific inputs necessary; as Gregg Mayles put it, the fluidity and momentum is still there, just a tad bit more difficult to grasp, and that makes actually achieving it all that much sweeter.

While the jump from the original Donkey Kong Country to Diddy’s Kong Quest came with mostly scores of improvements (even if most of the improvements were over features that never genuinely bothered me in the first place), there is one quality of life issue that does weigh on my mind as an obvious area of improvement. Aside from the tracked Kremcoins and optional DK coins, a third type of collectible in the form of banana coins is also present. However, just like the lives and banana count, the banana coin count is reset whenever the system is turned off since it’s not tracked, which becomes a bit obnoxious because banana coins are mandatory whenever requesting services from the other Kongs, from asking Cranky for hints and Funky for flights to other worlds, to even saving the game itself. It’s at least slightly mitigated since banana coins are plentiful within levels and are respawned every time you revisit, and the first time visiting Wrinkly and Funky for saving and flights respectively in each area will always be free. Nevertheless, I concede that this is a bit of a barrier for newer players who feel the need to save more often or for players who don’t have as much time on their hands to commit to longer sessions to build up lives and banana coin stocks, and Rare did seem to learn from this since paying to save is limited to just Diddy’s Kong Quest in the original trilogy.

All in all, I’m not sure if I have any far-reaching takeaways to present here or if there were really any lessons to be learned in the first place, but I’m glad I finally found the time and the opportunity to come back to really flesh out my understanding of a title that once frustrated the hell out of me as a kid. Sure, I could join the never-ending debate of which title has the greater legacy or “aged better,” but at the end of the day, I don’t think I necessary prefer Diddy’s Kong Quest over the original Donkey Kong Country or vice versa; I simply think that they’re different appeals for different moods. If I want to feel good about myself and just dash through levels in my comfort zone, I’ll pick up the original and spend a couple of hours speedrunning Blackout Basement or Loopy Lights. However, if I want make my hands sweat a bit more and really put my execution to the test, then DKC 2 will be my weapon of choice and I’ll get to feel overwhelmed while the woozy arpeggios of Forest Interlude roll over me once more. Whichever one I pick, I think I’d have a pretty damn good day.

As it stands, I’m not quite ready to put Donkey Kong Country 2 on a pedestal as my favorite 2D momentum-based platformer of all time. That said, I’ll call it an “honorable draw” as Gregg Mayles stated five years ago, and it’s about time that I started being more open with myself regarding my appreciation for what Diddy’s Kong Quest brought to the table. Hopefully, all this musing about will encourage some more to do the same. Thanks for reading, everyone.

I can't believe it took me this long to go back to Greg Lobanov's games after how fulfilling Wandersong was for me, and I absolutely should have done so sooner. I should not be surprised that I adored Chicory; it is everything I am looking for in video games. It's a relaxing and thought provoking title that provides meaningful gameplay while tying that gameplay to strong storytelling and rich characters in a tightly woven narrative. It's like they made Okami a coloring book while retaining the adventure and exploration elements in a 2D top down environment, which amazes me because I can't recall the last time something reminded me of Okami. Chicory reminded me that we are all somewhat lost individuals struggling on our own ends to find meaning in this strange world, and that it's okay if you don't know the answer, because you're not alone. This is probably my GOTY of 2021 and the best game I've played in 2021, which again astounds me because I've played some amazing titles this year and somehow Greg Lobanov's done it again and created an unforgettable experience. Please take the time to play this game and savor the whole experience. I'm lost for words to truly describe what I felt and played through, and it deserves so much more love.

This is a perfectly fine game. The first person platforming is simple but fun enough, it introduces all of the mechanics fairly quickly and I guess they're used decently, though it never gets very challenging. The story is just... there. It didn't evoke much emotion or interest, but wasn't actively bad. It's held back some by the voice acting and character animations feeling very stiff. I can admire going for what they did on a lower budget, many games just wouldn't show you the characters directly or communicate only through text as a way around this. I dunno, this is okay but also isn't very well done here. The highlight of the game is definitely the environmental design and art. The areas were really nice looking, pretty diverse for a short game, and fun to move through. It's hard to think of who I'd recommend this to, because it doesn't really excel at much, but if it seems interesting to you it's not bad and it's fairly short to play through.

Distilled, quick-fire action euphoria. It takes simple concepts (pattern recognition and quick reflexes on a grid-like setting with 4 directional movement) and pushes these concepts to their limits while slowly introducing new wrinkles and demonstrating through clever level design how to master your understanding of the mechanics and develop approaches for these new problems; think of it as an abstract arcade indie "avoid the hazards" game that reminds me heavily of playing WarioWare. Best itch.io gem I've played in a while, can't recommend it enough.

Holy shit, what an absolute joy of a game. This is perfectly up my alley, instantly snappy movement, simple controls but a lot of skill involved, single screen and arcade-like. The levels here are so creative throughout, it could have gotten away with so much less, or with reusing concepts more, but there are amazing level concepts that are used once in a level you can beat in 10 seconds and I love that. The pace of this was enthralling and kept me going through the whole thing in one sitting. The last world in particular was a blast, it does get tougher but it's not just a challenge of existing ideas, it breaks all of the rules and pushes the game to its limits. Damn, what an awesome surprise this was. Go play this right now.

My last recorded game of 2022 is one I imagine people would think is most-removed from my tastes: A Hearthstone-esque roguelike deckbuilder set on a train in hell. I haven't had much opportunity to discuss it here, but one of my lowkey genre obsessions is card games - I don't play all of them, I couldn't tell you a lick about Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh, but when I find one that hits my brainworms just right, it becomes a violent headspace fervor. Pokemon, CvS Cardfighters, Battle Network and Star Force, Slay The Spire - all games I've burned near-hundreds of hours into, bordering thousands in Mega Man's case. I'm already a firm advocate in self-expression through combat, but there's an extra layer I love about compartmentalizing every identifiable quirk, ability and rote-movement into a simple, compact card. The deck is a sum of assimilated parts equaling the self; a diary and bibliography to long-forgotten warriors, expert tacticians and wandering mysteries. The synergies, parallels, complements, one-shots, patterns AND pattern-breakers are colors to a palette - freely interchangeable and taking on unique roles in context-dependent builds. I can't get enough of it.

I hopped onto Monster Train after glancing it in a favorite roguelikes list and a glowing recommendation from Vee: It immediately drew to mind STS with the unit management of more traditional tabletop card games. In execution, it resolves what I imagine are a lot of common grievances for basically everyone that likes STS but not enough to ascension-climb it: RNG is mostly less-prevalent to deck-building and encounters, there's enormous payouts between fewer-but-grander battles, most default cards remain useful over the run, and everything is heavily-upgradeable with little to no cost. You can start winning runs as soon as the second or third attempt: The intent was clearly for ascension-climbing to be the game's evolution of difficulty, rather than starting hard and escalating further into madness. And most surprisingly, it actually has good music: The melodies are strong, and the instrumentation is both distinct and memorable. It's a good orchestra/rock blend with very powerful acclimations during boss themes, conveying the rickety engine-like movement across Hell's frozen terraform. This is music I would actually consider listening to outside of gameplay, and wouldn't be out of place in a proper JRPG.

With that said, the 2-faction system ends up putting somewhat strict reigns on the outcome of your build: Not only are some factions just better than others, but they don't always synergize well with each other. In STS, all your tools are incredibly simple and individually-weak, but create violent perpetual motion machines with even a little tandem play. But in Monster Train, there's so many systems and situations going on at once, that some card picks vary between being run-winners to being almost worthless. This gets worse as you climb ascensions and get randomized starting cards, many of which won't offer a meaningful boon until your toolkit gets fleshed out mid-run.

I wanted to compare this much further to STS, but I think that's largely pointless when the two games have unique design goals: One is a lone journey where you start and struggle through hell and high water; the other is a communal quest, with more traditional 'save your people' narration and challenge. Monster Train's dispersion of tools across units has the co'op-like effect of splitting your responsibility across the rest of your team, diminishing the blame of a failed run. And due to the way the pyre and floors work, you have multiple opportunities to avoid receiving 'damage' through defensive play and low-floor snipes. The few moments a unit does land a hit are acceptable scrapes in order to mush onward, and if an enemy IS strong enough to land a hard blow, chances are it'll kill your train anyway. The sight of a 40HP Pyre never invokes dread; only caution. On the other hand, STS relentlessly punishes you and wants you to know it: You hardly avoid damage, just diminish it, and constantly have to weigh odds around survivability. Even at peak performance, crushing blows have to be accepted. You constantly feel the blood leaking out of your system, and there's merciless pressure dragging at your heels on every floor. I love that these games manage to have totally unique ways of letting you interface and fight through their worlds without ever being 'replacements' for each other, and I'll always respect them as masters to their own devices.

But all said and done, I don't anticipate myself getting into Monster Train long-term the way I did with STS. The difficulty pacing remains all too bizarre throughout a run: I started noticing myself going through runs, finishing a fight, seeing the rewards and just, flatlining. My investment would randomly drop on a hat and I'd put the game down immediately, come back to it later, and restart my run just for sake of not having to eat leftovers. I think by having huge piles of payouts at smaller frequencies, it feels a lot more miserable in those few times you don't get what you want for a build. Hell, often times I don't even know what I NEED for a build until it's too late. You can smoothly coast through everything and then hit a boss and get your ass whupped because you forgot to specialize in HP support, or your deck was too spell-dependent and trigger their incant abilities, or any range of weird hiccups. While STS is also an extremely matchup-dependent game, I feel better-compelled to balance out my tools there because there's so many reality checks before the final encounters: Attack, draw, energy, defense, spread, and status effects are heavily evaluated by all of the game's major enemy encounters, and there's few points you can coast by with an under-developed corner of your deck. But in Monster Train, it's all too common to win the first 5 fights by just overpowering the small fries, only to realize you lack endurance to beat the quadruple-digit-HP bosses.

You also can't really 'flow' through Monster Train: You have to be proactively thinking at every turn of a run. Even after roughly 20+ hours I couldn't auto-pilot any one part of a run or ever play on 'instinct' until a challenge called for patience. I have to dedicate all my mental energy to this, just like a CCG, but the game just isn't challenging that dedication in a smooth-enough curve. And it doesn't help the factions aren't balanced at all. If you made a ranked list of class strength by the order you unlock them, you would get a diagonal line; the disparity between the starting Hellhorned and the late-game Waxed units is maniacal. I'm not a stickler for balance - I love OP things, - but I think roguelikes need a good baseline, or at least should make the weaker builds fun in unique ways, like a self-imposed challenge with the tradeoff of getting a distinctly-gimmicky play experience.

But hey, the word salad ain't a condemnation of love; just addiction. Love this shit and it's maybe for the better that it won't eat the next 4 months of my life. Kinda respect that.

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It felt good to end 2022 on a strong note with this and Symphony of the Night, though I gotta admit I'm burnt out and lost a lot of time trying to clear out my growing backlog while scooping into new territory. I think going into 2023, I'm resolving to play less games as a whole, and focus on quality over quantity.

Happy new years to all, and a very merry sega-tape-waffle-making

My favorite rogue-lite to come out of 2020(sorry Hades), I enjoy the aesthetic of this game and trains are super cool and we should get more games with them as a focal point. The fact there exists people who think it looks bad kinda boggles my mind, because I personally think Slay the Spire looks abominable which is my main takeaway from that game but I guess that's just me.

There's a good amount of events and options so there's a lot of ways to spruce things up in each run, which are also short enough to not feel shitty if one goes south when close to the end. So I think it should be hard to get bored with this, assuming you like a nice deckbuilder game.

My only real complaint is that the factions are pretty unbalanced which is probably expected from this kind of game. Melting legion and umbra are both braindead easy to beat the game with once you know the overpowered combinations, stygian are pretty balanced but actually require a thought process and in later covenant runs good artifacts, awoken is probably about the same as stygian or slightly better at this point after the recent nerfs and hellhorned never fails to feel at least a little weak to me and hard to win with in 20-25 covenant runs.

I still put 110+ hours into it though according to steam, well worth a look.

Crisis Core Reunion is a PSP game with multiple fresh coats of paint that greatly help modernize it to fit in with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, though relics of its 2007 origin peek through the cracks every 30 seconds. Every time a character pauses awkwardly between lines, or there's a strange brief load screen between two adjacent areas, or Zack takes a full minute to stop and whip out his phone and put it to his ear, or Zack does the very Kingdoms Hearts-esque anime "jump back with hands up" animation, you can see straight through to what this game is at its core. I'll give them the combat animations though, those are nicely touched up. It's very jarring when it cuts to an upscaled PSP cutscene with noticeably different lightning and a just-off-enough artstyle that looks several steps down from the actual in game visuals at this point. The game tries hard to keep you in a modern continuity with its FF7R style UI, it just betrays itself very often. Despite this, I still think this is a generally very nice looking game, and especially getting to see areas like Junon and Nibelheim in near-Remake fidelity really is a treat and an awesome sneak peak of what may be to come in the rest of that trilogy.

Combat feels arcadey and fun in general but it's not something that I felt super compelled to get deep into. DMW bonuses are insanely powerful from minute 1, so nothing ever really felt like a threat. The easy difficulty kind of fit the casual, cheesy, fast pace of the game though, so it's not necessarily a complaint. It just felt odd that I could clear anything I was put up against with no challenge at all even when I clearly hadn't messed with loadouts as much as I probably should have by the end of the game.
The main story being a short experience (I clocked almost exactly 10 hours, just doing main story and ~15 missions for summons, Yuffie, and some key items) actually worked nicely. Some parts felt rushed, like skipping the entire trip up to Mt. Nibel, but when I got to the final dungeon and had to do "normal JRPG dungeon things," I realized I hadn't missed them almost at all earlier in the game.

The story and characters took like 10 minutes for me to adjust from "serious FF7R project game" to "OK, I just have to accept this as cheesy and goofy and have a good time with it" so that I could enjoy it. The main new plot involving Genesis and co truly is not good. On the flip side, when we get to see the events depicted or alluded to in the original game from Zack's perspective, I can take it more seriously and it's very enjoyable (as long as they're not ruined by awkward PSP presentation). But when during a pivotal FF7 flashback scene, Genesis shows up to spout more lines from Loveless, it really gets in the way and makes me wish none of that was a thing. However, learning to take it for what it was did let me enjoy scenes like Zack yelling "shut up" at Genesis as he continued reciting, which was very funny. The voice performances (English) were hard to judge due to this tone and the awkward line cadences that were clearly a holdover from the original and not touched up, but I generally was fine with the whole cast and thought they fit well enough. Small shoutout to the slightly younger Cloud performance compared to Remake, which I thought fit perfectly. Also, fully voicing the whole game was a nice touch.

Mail is actually a pretty cool way to add worldbuilding and little extra story notes. Seeing Shinra propaganda from that side of things is a nice perspective, and small touches like Yuffie's messages sorting into Spam are pretty funny.
Minor complaint, but the game kind of overdoes the tutorials, both from mail and clearly new ones with the FF7R style half-screen popups.

Overall, pretty much every improvement is great, and even though I complain about mismatching artstyles in cutscenes or noticeably aged animations, that's just me wishing they went even further in remaking it. What we got is still a really nice remake with much improved and modernized presentation and smoother gameplay. I still think the game itself is just pretty good, and it remains shackled by the PSP a bit, but this was a nice quick game to keep me in the modern FF7 world. I enjoyed my time with it.