Quite the video game.
It did a lot of new things, took a brave step with the gameplay, and pulled it off pretty well.
The new cast is pretty loveable, and it references (both indirectly and very directly) enough of the established concepts to still very much feel like a part of its series.
The story was also pretty thematically strong, but I do think it misses in the last 20 minutes of ending cutscenes, in a way I was pretty displeased with.
That and the gameplay getting a bit repetitive after a while, while also having a very unhinged up and down difficulty curve, are the reasons I can't rank it higher.
It did a lot of new things, took a brave step with the gameplay, and pulled it off pretty well.
The new cast is pretty loveable, and it references (both indirectly and very directly) enough of the established concepts to still very much feel like a part of its series.
The story was also pretty thematically strong, but I do think it misses in the last 20 minutes of ending cutscenes, in a way I was pretty displeased with.
That and the gameplay getting a bit repetitive after a while, while also having a very unhinged up and down difficulty curve, are the reasons I can't rank it higher.