✔
Oh hell yes, we are COOKING today.

Getting this out of the way now, this game is just fantastic overall. The gameplay is fantastic, the spritework is fantastic, the soundtrack is fantastic...it's just NICE. You can tell this was a labor of love. This does have heavy Wario Land vibes, but make no mistake, this is absolutely its own delicious beast. As someone who didn't exactly get deep into Wario Land, this is ticking all the right boxes for me in terms of what I want from a game like this.

I want to elaborate a bit on the fact that the gameplay is so good, man. It's easy to pick up and hard to master, but the curve isn't impossible to learn. I struggled a bit at the start, but I've been getting pretty good ranks overall. This game fufills a strange desire of mine to run through everything at mach 350. The speed is something that new players might struggle with, but once you get a good grasp of your speed and momentum, it's a blast!

I won't be forgetting this one. I played this game during a pretty bad point this year. 2024 has not been my year so far, if I may be candid. However, I gotta say that watching this man suffer just to do what he loves was weirdly helpful to me because I could kind of relate. I could feel the stress and the worry within every sprite, so it was kind of nice to help relieve my stress by trying to help him relieve his stress.

One thing's for sure. This dish is anything but plain. I'll be coming back for seconds.

My 5-year-old son asked me to play Smash Bros. Ultimate with him. He said he was going to be the "Scaredy Cat". I asked who that was, and he replied "Luigi!"

This led to an unnecessarily serious conversation.

We had just recently completed Luigi's Mansion 3 (A-Rank with $91k), and his impression of Luigi was that he was scared all the time, and that Mario was the brave one. I explained to him that Luigi is the bravest character in Smash BECAUSE he's always scared. Mario does whatever he feels like without hesitation, concern, or remorse. Luigi does what needs to be done DESPITE his crippling fears.

LM3 is the best-looking game on the Switch to date, no question. The environments are gorgeous, the lighting is properly dramatic, and the scale of larger rooms and challenges is enough to make you stop and just stare a while. But the key component of what makes the visuals so impressive is the detail in Luigi's face and his body language. There are varying degrees of fear that Luigi is constantly bouncing between, and his personality really shines through. Luigi's fearful determination and optimism is oddly inspiring.

The game handles very well, with all functions performable with shoulder buttons so you never have to take your thumbs off the sticks. It's also nice to feel HD rumble actually being used effectively, which is getting rarer and rarer.

I felt the game's length was perfect, not overly long, while not being disappointingly short. The cutscenes are delightful, and the whole experience was joyful.

Anyway.

No, son. Luigi is no scaredy cat.

Hype train first, functional video game second

Fucking terrible, can’t believe everyone likes this overhyped shit. hardly any content to enjoy by yourself and an embarrassment of a story mode. GARBAGE I TELL YOU. Oh and don’t even get me started on the character roster, fucking MID AS HELL. Not a single character even matters to video game history, none of this matters when you don’t have motherfuckin GWIMBLY! DUH HELLO?!?!? I cannot in good faith waste my hard earned money to cavemen that live under a gigantic Stonehenge-ass rock of a company that is Nintendo

half a star for kazuya