So I was originally planning on playing this right after the new game plus update was released, but I had my hands full with FF7 Rebirth.

Even with the new mechanics and tweaks, the gameplay is still very similar to the two previous Spider-Man games. Swinging doesn't really feel all that different, though I ended up using the web wings WAY more than I expected. Combat gives you a lot more tools to deal with enemies, though I'm disappointed that the gadgets from the first game have all been replaced with new gadgets that I barely used across my whole playthrough.

I do like how the game encourages you to explore. Your entire map isn't flooded by tiny icons this time around, the map icons only appear after you swing by their location. You get the ability to fast travel to a district if make enough progress in that district.

Pretty much all of the side content is good. Nothing feels too long or tedious to do. It's a big improvement from the side content in the 2018 game.

Honestly, I have a lot of problems with the story, but I can't go into detail without mentioning any spoilers. All the pieces are in place, though the big dramatic moments don't have enough impact cause there isn't a ton of setup. The third act in particular feels especially rushed. Another draft (or two) could’ve ironed out these issues with the writing.

This next part of the review isn't really a critique (I guess it kinda is considering the pacing is severely affected), but I thought I'd bring it up regardless. This game was clearly rushed. Even if you ignore the cut content that people 'found', the game itself just feels cut kinda short. For example: look at the amount of main missions in the game. The first act has 15 main missions, the second act has 10, and the third act has 6. When almost half of the main missions are in the first act alone, that's definitely gonna mess with the pacing of the story. It wouldn't surprise me if the third act was meant to have more meat on its bones, but it had to be trimmed down for time.

The fact that stuff like the ability to replay missions and the option to change the time of day took months to be added to the game (not to mention the bugs) only make it seem more likely that Sony rushed Insomniac to get this game out before the 2023 holiday season. Obviously this is all just speculation, but this kind of crap ain't exactly new to most big gaming publishers. I lost faith in the Triple-A games industry a long time ago.

Hopefully Insomniac has learned from this experience and takes their time with Wolverine (and any unannounced games) so that it can be the best game it can be.

Also I expected nineteen inches of Venom and yet he's barely in the game. We need more Venom!

I think most people who are interested in getting this game are aware of what it's inspired by and thus in on the joke, though I'll explain it anyways. So there were two games based on The Legend of Zelda series that were released for the Phillips CD-i called Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. The cutscenes in particular were known for being bizarre and strange so much that they spawned countless memes and YouTube poops. Then, in 2020, these games were remade unofficially by Dopply who went on to make his own company called Seedy Eye Software.

You can just tell that a lot of passionate people made this game. This game isn't just a joke or a meme. The fact that this game even exists is proof of the amount of passion on display.

The gameplay is fine overall. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's nothing mind blowing either. It's kinda like a metroidvania in that you unlock new abilities and have to go back to old areas to progress. Only wandered around a couple of times, otherwise it's very good about leading you in the right direction.

The music is surprisingly good.

This next bit isn't a criticism of the game, but I thought it was worth bringing up anyway. A few of the cutscenes are clearly 3D. Sometimes there's no cutscene at all and instead there's just a dialogue box, though I'm pretty sure all those quests are completely optional. These things didn't happen often enough to dampen my experience, though I do believe that they're in the game for a good reason. It's simple, animation and voice acting cost money. I highly doubt that a spiritual successor to the Zelda CD-I games is gonna make much money or be very popular.

If I had to highlight one aspect of this game, it would have to be the cutscenes. The animation and the voice acting serve as a nice treat for making progress. You could say that it's FINE DINING.

Also I played this game on the Nintendo Switch cause I thought it would be fitting.

I know that nowadays the fact that this is a reskin of Doki Doki Panic is common knowledge in the gaming community, but that wasn't always the case so I wonder what people back in the day thought about this game. 🤔

It's interesting that the main mechanic in this game is picking up and throwing things. You do it quite a bit, probably about as much as you do platforming.

Having four playable characters instead of just Mario and Green Mario is a nice change of pace. It's funny that I never played as Mario in this Mario game, but I played as every other character. Peach makes platforming a lot easier, even the harder segments.

The bosses are pretty lackluster, especially Birdo. The normal enemies all have pretty neat designs, I like Shy Guy.