part of the reason I love old-school sega games is because I just love the way their games feel. games designed by sega straddle the line between nuanced, logical physics and exaggerated, arcade-y physics with aplomb. the sega rally series captures this perfectly, where the terrain material and topography are intimately factored into the performance of your car while at the same time you can perfectly drift around corners and fly over hills with a bit of squash-and-stretch going on. the tightrope here is between making the player feel like they're in total control of the car (with the consequences that result) while simultaneously hand-waving the internal mechanisms that limit player expression. the early monkey ball games are the same way: the level design is punishing yet it's addicting because any strategy you devise can probably work thanks to how controllable the ball is. it's why I've stuck with this series so long: from barely making it past beginner as a young child, to learning the extra levels as a high schooler, to finally conquering master and master extra in both games as I whittled away time during a global lockdown.

that being said, I didn't want to go into this game with unrealistic hopes. I knew the original engine was not being used here, so I figured it probably would be a bit stiffer and maybe a little hand-holdy. after all, this remake is partially meant to introduce new players and give them leverage to actually succeed in comparison to the original games, where over half of the levels were tucked behind some serious execution barriers. when I popped it in for the first time this mostly held true: I ran smb1 beginner (newly christened as "casual") without much issue. it wasn't until I touched smb1 expert immediately after...

167 deaths. 167 deaths without including expert extra no less, which I accidentally voided myself out of thanks to misreading the helper option menu that pops up automatically (protip to UI designers: don't make both your selected and unselected options bright colors!!!). these levels are no cakewalk, let's be clear, but I know these levels by the back of my hand. I've 1cc'd expert + expert extra in the original many many times, and even now out of practice I can manage 10 - 15 deaths. it just shocked me that this game felt so different, and so much less precise. in a lot of ways it felt like the original levels popped into Unity with a basic sphere physics plugin, and the results were not pretty. my roommates (also long-time monkey ball fans) also immediately wrote off the game after playing it. even though we had been so hype about finally getting an HD monkey ball - a monkey ball game that wasn't garbage and didn't require us to pull out our CRT - all of our energy immediately dissapated once we got our hands on the game.

so what exactly is the issue here? basically everyone agrees that the physics in this game are noticably different from that of the original, but I want to delve into why. after playing this game for quite a bit (all of story mode, up through master mode in smb1, all the deluxe levels, and poking around into other stuff here and there) I think I've narrowed it down to frictional differences between the two games. for those of you who haven't taken high school physics in some time, let me present the equation f = μN, where f is the frictional force applied parallel to surface we are moving upon (usually horizontally), μ is the coefficient of friction, and N is the normal force applied perpendicular to the surface (hence the name "normal"). before your eyes glaze over, let me connect these to some intangible game-feel statements:

coefficient of friction: this refers to how difficult it is to move over a material; for example, it accounts for why it's more difficult to slide your coffee table when it's on a shaggy carpet versus a finished wood floor. as it relates to the how it feels in this game, I'll borrow a quote from my roommate when he was playing the game: "it feels like every single floor is made out of glass"

normal force: this refers to how hard the object is pushing down on the surface, which in this case mainly refers to the gravitational force the object exerts. this scales with the mass, so we can think of it as how much the object weighs; a cardboard box is a lot easier to move than a full wardrobe. this affects the game-feel, as my girlfriend eloquently put: "it's like there's no monkey at all, and you're just rolling around a hollow ball"

so tldr: there's a severe lack of friction in this game in comparison to the original. in the original game, the ball was weighty, and the friction on the goal posts or ledges allows you to grip them easily (and a bit unrealistically for that matter). these things are boons to the player that go a long way towards making impossible looking courses just barely doable with practice. here the stages refuse to budge when you try to force them to, and you end up without a lot of the gravity-defying tricks you could initially pull off. I'll give some examples of situations that pop up that break under the new physics:

stopping the ball: this took a lot of adjustment for me, and while it's just a matter of relearning muscle memory it very noticeably makes some stages harder. in the original game you could stop pretty much on a dime (unless you were rolling to the point of sparks flying), whereas here the ball will sliiiiiiiide all over the place unless you very deliberately deccelerate. this is more of a general issue but a good example of where this becomes frustrating is Twin Cross, where you're expected to roll across a series of 1x1 tiles in diagonal lines. you need to keep a certain level of speed up to avoid falling off when crossing the corners of two tiles, but then also must deccelerate at the right moment to keep your ball from flying off at the end of a line (which itself is just a 1x1 tile floating in space). Edge Master also becomes more annoying than its prior appearances thanks to this issue, as staying within the bounds of the upward face of the first rotation becomes very precise given how much speed you gain when the stage rotates.

narrow lines: approach a ledge in this game and you'll notice that the bottom of your ball will just be barely close to the ledge when your character starts trembling and attempting to balance themself. compare that to the original, where the characters won't start said animation until their feet are literally touching the ledge, far closer to the center of mass for the ball. you basically have a lot less wiggle room on the edge, and it can become very apparent in certain levels that depend on this. kudos to the dev team for adjust Catwalk to accommodate, but on the flipside look at Invasion. I'd say this level was middle of the road in terms of its original difficulty, but here it's fucking brutal towards the end, where you're expected to navigate in a curve on a ledge around staggered bumpers. comments I've read on early gameplay capture on youtube were quick to point to this stage as one of the biggest difficulty bumps for a remade stage.

slopes: friction is the reason why we don't instantly slide down slopes in real life, hence why we use snowboards and skis instead of just standing on mountains waiting to gain speed. however, in monkey ball the goal is usually not to slide down slopes unless you're explicitly supposed to, and many levels depend on you being able to balance yourself on slopes either while waiting for a cycle or when speeding through before you have a chance to fall off. Drum and Twister back-to-back in smb1's ice world were originally breather stages, where you simply had to keep yourself balanced in brief intervals before reaching the goal. here they became much more precise than I feel was intended, as even slightly moving from the narrow top of the curve on either of these levels will send you careening to your death with no recourse. from smb2 I can absolutely not forget to mention Warp... oh my god Warp. this level was already surprisingly difficult in smb2, given that the flatter part of the curves here are covered with bumpers and maintaing yourself on a slope is already a trickier technique to learn (I see a lot of more casual players get stuck on Floor Bent from smb1 for this reason). here it's nigh impossible to do thanks to how little grip you have. Cross Floors is another smb2 example that requires a lot of practice in the original and here feels terrible to attempt.

centripedal force: some of you may have seen charity donation recepticles shaped like curved funnels (I've seen them in american malls at least), where you can put a coin into a slot and it will spiral around the funnel down and down until falling through a hole at the bottom, much like water spinning in a drain. there are multiple areas in the original monkey ball games that utilize this phenomenon to great effect, and it relies on the friction of the slope or wall that the ball is on to keep it from dropping out. however, when I first played Spiral Hard in this game, I was very surprised to find that I could not simply drop in as I was accustomed to, as even with a decent amount of speed the ball does not grab onto the slope and instead falls off. it took me several tries to successfully drop in, where I had to come in with an exceptional amount of speed, heavily tilt against the slope to avoid falling off, try to balance out before I lost the speed I needed to stay in, and then continue on my way. this level is already difficult enough as is, with a path that narrows the further it spirals down and a goal that is difficult to aim for, so I don't see why dropping in needs to also require a lot of set up when it didn't originally. the end of Stamina Master is also much more difficult than before thanks to this, as the spiral towards the end becomes nearly vertical, and I would often drop out of it completely before I reached the goal. the pipe stages also seem to struggle with keeping you moving, such as the smb1 expert extra stage Curl Pipe, where the second hill virtually always stopped me dead in my tracks (though I've had this happen occasionally in the original as well).

this would be a good time for me to also mention how the camera has changed significantly from the original games. the camera used to rather aggressively stick to the ball's back, whereas here the camera will follow your stick without really staying glued to a particular orientation on the ball. to solve this there is now camera control on the right-stick... this sort of defeats the purpose of the original one-giant-banana-joystick control scheme, but I'm sure plenty of players will feel more comfortable with it there. the big issue here comes when trying to line up straight lines: in the original game it was very doable to turn in place with the camera lining up directly with the center of the monkey's back. here it's already hard enough to turn in place given that you slide around with so little provocation, and now you must center the camera manually using... non-analog controls? yes, the right stick does not seem to have a real gradient of turning from my time playing with it, giving it little more functionality than d-pad camera controls. you can at least adjust camera sensitivity, but I feel like you're forced to sometimes go in and change it per stage, ie high sensitivity for when you need to turn quickly or steadily on fast stages, and low sensitivity when you line up precise shots. the latter was a necessity on Exam-C (a particularly infamous stage) and the aforementioned Twin Cross, as well as Checker, and it made all three of these stages much more tedious than I would've liked. sometimes the camera just breaks entirely, most notably on Centrifugal from smb2, where the speed of rotation in the giant wheel of death causes the camera to get stuck outside the level geometry, or flip in front of you to mess up the angle you're tilting the stage in.

I wanted to include this diatribe about the physics in here just to have some sort of document with the issues I've noticed with this game, and as to provide a detailed summary of why and where the physics are different without just saying they are. players who know the levels above might have noticed that they're virtually all pulled from expert and master: this is because the beginner and advanced difficulties (casual and normal) are totally playable regardless of the changes. that is not to say they aren't still difficult (I still have not beaten Polar Large in this game and, much to my consternation, can not even figure out a good route through it for some reason) but if you're coming in just to fuck around a bit, play through part of story mode, enjoy the cameos, and play minigames with friends, you're not going to notice the different game-feel to the extent of it being overbearing. on the flipside, I do feel justified in presenting my opinions on this in pedantic detail because beginner and advanced only make up 108 stages out of the 258 total stages between the non-DX games, which is to say that for over half of the game you will likely notice what I mentioned above unless you have never played the originals.

regardless of everything listed above, I've actually rated this one a bit higher than super monkey ball deluxe, a collection that still has the original physics intact. my rationale: banana mania is an amazing package overall. what honestly frustrates me more than anything about this game is that it perfectly captures the features and content I'd want in a remake of these games without the tight gameplay I originally adored in the originals. whereas deluxe (on ps2 mind you) was a poorly performing mess with overly-long course structure and a lack of improvements over smb2, this game is packed to the brim with extra modes, great cameo characters, and accesibility features. not everything really hits, but I appreciate how much effort and material there is here with so little development time.

the main game specifically deliminates between the first two games for its courses, unlike deluxe where stages from both games were interleaved. each course is 1:1 with their original set of stages, with extra stages now being unlocked if all the regular stages were completed without the helper functions active. master mode for smb1 is now accessible just by completing expert without the 1cc requirement or even extra stages being finished. there are also marathon modes for each, which while not as wild as the ultimate course from deluxe, still are great additions. stages in both have been rebalanced, with the original layouts being included in a special purchaseable game mode. overall the rebalances were really well done: probably the most notable for me was Arthopod, a stage from smb2 that was complete bullshit originally and has now been made less annoying to deal with by far by removing gaps. virtually all of smb1 master was rebalanced as well, with Stamina Master getting a much-needed nerf to its infamous middle 1x1 moving tile balancing section (which balances out the more difficult first and last sections a bit). the other master changes honestly make some of the stages like Dodge Master and Dance Master trivial, but I don't really mind considering that the requirements for obtaining master are less restrictive now. other changes are more subtle, such as adding curved inlets to the titular launchers in Launchers (which honestly don't help very much) or an extra 30 seconds for the timer in Exam-C (which helps an insane amount).

there's a story mode identical to that of smb2, with truncated cutscenes in mime retelling the lovably bizarre plot of the original. personally I don't mind this change, as the story isn't really that important or complicated. I'm a little puzzled at why they didn't use the expanded worlds of deluxe's story mode, but it's not a big difference either way. as I mentioned prior stages that were changed have their original versions present in a standalone mode, and all of the deluxe-exclusive levels have a mode as well. playing through them all back to back, I have to say I still like them for the most part, as there's a lot of great ideas present (maybe one too many maze stages tho). there are also a few modes that remix the levels. golden banana mode is probably the best of these, where you need to collect every banana in a stage in order to clear it. this actually changes how the stages need to be approached quite a bit. the opposite of this is dark banana mode, where any banana touched instantly causes a game over. while the idea is good in concept, they're designed for a level of precision I just don't think exists in this game. finally there's reverse mode, where certain levels start you at the goal and make you work your way back to the starting point. the best level of these is Free Throw, where they make you throw yourself backwards onto the starting platform in a cool twist. the others mainly just require you to tread the same path as whatever the hardest goal is, so they come across as rather redundant.

minigames are also back in full force, with all of the features from deluxe retained to my knowledge. the big thing that turned me off here was the lack of alternating multiplayer, which even in a patch could be such a trivial addition. I bought this on ps4, where I don't really have extra controllers to work with, and it's frustrating that my roommates and I can't play monkey target or billiards by passing the controller around. overall the minigames seem to be pretty much as I remember them from the old games, with all the customization you could want to boot. I can't really pretend something like monkey race isn't scuffed as fuck, but they were in the originals as well so it's pretty faithful. all that I played other than monkey target look very solid... monkey target is honestly a "Made in Dreams"-ass game here, but it's so annoying in its original form that I'll let it slide here. most of the other games here I can just experience via yakuza or really don't care that much about, beyond perhaps trying to go for completion later down the line.

I also wanted to briefly mention the art design for both the menus and the levels, which are absolutely phenomenal. beyond some UI nitpicks I mentioned earlier I think the interface is very clear and clean, and feels like an accurate translation from the older games to a modern style. the world designs are really gorgeous, and blew me away with their accuracy. I really would not have thought a quickie project for RGG would capture the style and detail of the original worlds so well in HD, but they absolutely nailed it here. the banana blitz-era monkey designs I'm not crazy about but they do the job fine, and the cutesy redesigns of kiryu and beat are so fun; I still can't believe they're in the game!! the music has all been remixed as well, though I personally think they're pretty middling overall. the original soundtracks are legendary so I definitely didn't expect them to live up here, but they really veer into tacky EDM territory more often than I would like.

finally, I wanted to bring up the accessibility options, which are much-needed additions for newer fans looking to try the series out. you can use helper functions in each level to double the timer as well as open up a very useful slow motion mode for the cost of receiving no points upon clearing the level and disabling the extra stages for the course. I messed around with these a bit and I think they do a good job of covering the bases for someone learning a given stage. if stage is too taxing, you can also pay 2000 banana coins to mark it as cleared. which is a hefty toll but honestly worth it when poking around in the special modes to skip annoying levels that would take a lot of practice. finally, the jump from banana blitz has been added in as a purchaseable item, and surprisingly it doesn't void trophies/extra stuff like the helper functions (though it can't be used in ranking mode). when watching trailers I thought I wouldn't touch this at all but I decided to try it out when struggling on Warp and wow did it really save my ass. because the jump wasn't present in the original games, it opens up a lot of ways to break previously challenging level design, and honestly that became the most fun part of the game for me at points. skipping all of the tiring maze levels from smb2 feels so great, and I even managed to pull off a strat equivalent to the speedrun route for Stamina Master by jumping at the peak of the first ramp. it honestly made the final worlds of story mode a lot more enjoyable given how many frustrating and gimmicky levels are contained within it (they were bad in the original too, not just this game). when I eventually get around to smb2 master and master extra, I'm sure I'll have fun finding ways to break levels that originally took me dozens of lives to beat.

I think I've exhaustively covered every aspect of this game that I've played so far... and now that I've finished this giant wall of text I can finally move onto some other games. I don't think I've wasted my time with this game at all, and I'm glad this package exists, but man does it really not scratch that itch that the original games do. perhaps an engine on par with the original simply isn't capable of happening without the original source code available... but at the end of the day I'll still have the original games to return to when I really want to experience monkey ball as it originally felt.

a rare game where the first half is sort of mid and the second half is really great. for a rather unorthodox early metroidvania to be remade with this many successes is certainly a big win for mercurysteam, even with the design choices that don't quite hit. while the overall find-and-kill-metroids structure drags in the first half, it improves greatly as the boss fights get more complex and more tools become available to the player.

starting off the game, I was instantly thrown off by the control scheme, parrying system, and graphics. because samus returns has free aim, you now use the left trigger to lock in place, whereas the rest of the time you can do eight-way aiming while running using the circle pad. this took some getting used to, as the free aim is a lot more useful than the other aiming options and was my go-to in virtually all combat situations, yet I'm not used to being locked in place like that during a metroid game. the other big addition are melee counters/parries, which are mapped to the X button. I often found myself trying to press X to fire missiles, and I'm not quite sure why this was... regardless, I eventually fixed my muscle memory to fire with Y and use X for the parry. like many others have said, the melee counters slow down the pace when running around, as many creatures are specifically meant to be killed via parry. even in late game creatures could stomach 5+ spazer + plasma shots to the face but would be killed instantly when being shot after countering, and while this may have been a neat concept to add depth to metroid combat it makes the enemies a pain to handle when they can't be killed quickly outside of counters. most metroid games allow you to tank hits, quickly clear out areas, and/or simply ignore enemies while exploring, whereas here it feels like you're forced into momentary encounters with enemies you don't care about. on top of all of this, the graphics have a washed-out look with low-poly 3D indicative of much of the 3DS's catalog. due to the console requiring its flagship games to contain 3D effects, a lot of games that would have been perfectly good with spritework instead got rudimentary polygon models instead. it's not a terrible look but I really prefered the previous 2D games' graphic design in comparison to this one.

as I played further, I started to get less and less interested in the structure of the game. the game is split into 8 separate areas + the surface, and each one is an isolated yet fully explorable search action area. the prerequisite for moving to new areas is to kill various metroids and submit their DNA to a large circular shrine, which once filled with DNA will lower dangerous liquid from around it and thus open deeper parts of the planet SR388. these early metroid fights (the alpha ones) get boring pretty quickly after the first couple of them, even with the elemental attacks they add. there are some gamma fights as well, but these are rather annoying prior to unlocking the space jump. none of this is helped by the fact that enemies deal a significant amount of damage in this game, and early-game deaths are common until you really learn the ropes. out of the first half, area 3 was by far the most tedious area. 10 metroids reside in this sprawling area with few major powerups, and it was in this section where I put the game down for a while to focus on other games.

I eventually picked the game back up to finish area 3 and move on with the rest of the game. thankfully there are some upsides to this entry even early on: aeion abilities being one of them. from near the beginning you have the ability to scan areas both to fill out your map remotely as well as find blocks that can be somehow destroyed to solve puzzles, get upgrades, and progress. this is a huge boon compared to prior entries, such as metroid fusion where I complained quite a bit in my review about how frustrating it was to progress with constant hidden destructable blocks. there are also some neat other abilities, such as a time-slow ability that can be used to dodge enemy fire or to run across disintegrating blocks, and a shield that is invaluable both for certain puzzles as well as when you have lots of aeion and little health. post-area 3 the amount of abilities distributed increases significantly. in a usual metroid game finding a new powerup is a significant milestone, whereas here I found that the developers tended to lump multiple powerups together into a short period of play with long stretches in between. thankfully once I had some of the stronger beams and the gravity jump, the game felt much more open for me. I could finally start playing metroid as I remember it, where exploration is quick and without much obstacle, and where enemies are cannon fodder instead of walking QTEs.

where the game really shone is in the major bosses in the second half of the game. prior metroid bosses have been fun but don't usually have much depth. these bosses are much more complex and involve multiple phases and attack patterns, with later phases often combining or refining attacks from earlier phases to force the player to adapt as the fight goes on. the balance is perfect between having a slight puzzle with each battle and allowing the player to unload ammo into the boss, and each fight has optional parries that open up opportunities for enhanced damage. there are also uses for multiple weapons in each fight, such as using the power bombs during the omega metroid fights to interrupt certain attacks and regain valuable super missiles. the three major bosses during this section all were a rare goldilocks difficulty for me, where it took multiple attempts to learn the patterns, but never felt like I was beating my head against the wall or struggling against unforgiving game design. after the two GBA games fell at the opposite extremes of the difficulty spectrum (fusion's fights were frustrating and frequent versus the few trivial boss fights in zero mission), it's really impressive that mercurysteam managed to make boss fights these exciting and well-designed.

I can't recommend samus returns in its entirety, but I can absolutely say it's worth trudging through the slower first half in order to reach the highs of the second. everything from available options, environment variety, boss depth, and pacing get noticably better after the halfway point. for this section I honestly could not put this game down, making me regret a little bit that I had struggled to maintain focus with it previously. while initially my response to this game worried me with the knowledge that this same team is handling dread, I'm very assured that the team will continue to design high-octane fights and scenarios without the restrictions of remaking a 30-year old game boy title.

thought I was lucky to find out my roommate had this on ps2 but once I booted it up I was sorely disappointed... this is really not the best version of old-school monkey ball. this game takes all of the stages from the first two gamecube titles and combines them with the scraps from an unfinished monkey ball 3 to make a definitive edition built on the structure of the second game. menus are identical to smb2 as well as story mode, and all of the minigames from both 1 and 2 return. this is certainly strong on its face, but this collection is bogged down with numerous issues that make it a lesser version in my eyes.

the performance is probably the most notable downgrade from the original, at least for the ps2 version (the xbox version is better as far as I can tell but I don't have a copy). framerate is cut down to 30 fps from the original 60 fps, and it's not a particularly stable 30 fps either. while this is always an annoyance in a ported game, it's an especially crucial change for monkey ball, where the level of precision is noticably reduced at a lower framerate. many lighting effects and textures were removed, most notably the wavy bonus stage and the AV logo extra stage from smb1. in some cases there's no texture replacement at all with solid color being used instead, and even when textures are retained they seem downsampled with an ugly grainy look. load times are excruciating, with noticable hangs between stages in challenge mode and most egregiously between stage selections in story mode. in fact, the story mode menu feels like a pre-release build, with frequent chugging and the aforementioned multi-second hangs while moving the cursor between levels. there also isn't progressive scan support that I could find within the game, and even over component cables the game looks like a blurry mess sometimes compared to the clean look of the gamecube titles.

to incorporate all of the new levels, each of the challenege courses has been lengthened considerably. while isn't necessarily bad, it does make every single course way longer than it probably should have been. beginner runs in the original games were generally 10 levels with some more extra stages on top (three for the original and 10 for the second game), whereas beginner here is 40 levels initially and then another 20 extra stages. on higher difficulties the level count is even higher, and it's just so draining to play through all of these; I wish they had something like the upcoming remake where you can play the beginner/advanced/expert/master courses for their respective games individually. the new levels themselves aren't equally spread throughout the courses either: it seems like nearly half of the beginner/beginner extra stages are deluxe-exclusive, with some more being in advanced and precious few being in expert. this left me pretty much unwilling to sit through all of expert like I would have otherwise, as I already played through all these levels before in a much better format. this is especially compounded by the fact that additional lives per continue seem much more inscrutable to receive versus paying for them with play points in smb2. I've seen different methods online for getting them but I only managed to get one extra one via story mode (in the middle no less, not after completing the story) and none via challenge mode, and without the easy potential to max out lives it makes getting a 1cc through an obscene amount of levels that much harder.

the new levels are pretty solid however, with the design philosophy of the unfinished third game being more about larger, complicated levels without as many moving-object gimmicks as the second game. levels like scrolls or cliffs are legitimately new ideas for the series, and I'm glad these deluxe levels will be returning in the remake. with this in mind, I was disappointed that there were virtually no new stages for the entire second half of story mode. this mode is a little easier now as you only need to finish half the stages in a given world to progress, but it was still a chore thanks to all of the performance issues and load times, and I would've appreciated some new content strewn throughout to give it more of a draw. another quick note I wanted to make: some of the levels are reversed this time around it seems? I noticed a couple times that levels from the first game would start their cycles on a different place than usual: for example pirates from smb1 where the sliding platforms now slide to the left first rather than the right. a really noticeable example is mixer (also from smb1), where the bars now rotate in the opposite direction from their prior appearance, making the level significantly easier (honestly not a problem in my book). there were also some physics and camera differences, but it's hard for me to tell how much of this is a result of the ps2 stick having a different feel than that of the gcn, or whether smb2's engine had differenes that are more apparent on the smb1 stages.

I just wanted to mess around with this one considering that it was one I always wanted as a child and the fact that it's getting remade, but it was a much rougher experience than I was hoping for. it deserves points for having this many stages as well as all of the minigames intact, but on ps2 the performance issues are just too much to bear, even on a CRT. I originally played story mode on a 4k TV, where even with game mode turned on it was a huge, painful slog. thankfully the remake drops the day after this review comes out, and I'm sure I'll have countless hours to spend grinding the missions and getting used to the new handling and level tweaks.

this game combines levels from the prior katamari console titles (so just damacy, we <3, and beautiful) into a single game with various bits and bobbles to flesh out the experience. it's very lopsided in favor of we <3 levels, but this isn't a huge downside as this is the current only official way to play most of these levels in HD. speaking of which: this is one of the rare 1080p ps3 games and it looks phenomenal, even with the hand-drawn filter over everything (which honestly is sort of cute). this is a great thing until you begin encountering dreadful framerates which really spoil the experience in some instances. if this kind of thing came out now it would have a lower-res performance mode, which I would honestly much prefer for this arcade-y style of game.

the framing for all of this is that the king of the cosmos got bonked on the head and is now in a coma/deep sleep/amnesia? kind of thing. the cousins band together to create a robotic version of the king that goes nuts on startup and knocks all of the stars out of the sky. thus the game is split into two interleaved campaigns: one where you help the roboking put new stars in the sky (make a star levels) and one where you roll around inside of the king's head to help wake him up and revive his memories (most of the gimmick levels reside here). roboking himself is surprisingly remorseful and existential, which is a very katamari kind of writing that works well to differentiate him from the pompous and negligent real king. the story spares him no quarter either, which i found amusing in a very bittersweet way. on the flipside, the king campaign is pretty much what you would expect save for all of the levels being in black and white (objects picked up will regain their colors, along with all other objects identical to them). this isn't a nuisance for the most part outside of the downright infuriating heat-the-katamari-up level that I can only assume is from beautiful.

I didn't delve much into the post-game but as far as I'm aware there are now up to four modes to play each level in. forever mode is the standard gameplay, which is identical to the older games save for an added jumping mechanic. this mainly replaces rolling up walls from previous games, and is useful depending on the context (often uncontrollable otherwise). thankfully this is mapped to the triggers, as trying to perform it by shaking the dualshock is virtually impossible. I also feel like the handling is a bit different, as larger katamaris often feel downright unresponsive, but ymmv. there's also a new mechanic involving the roboking's broken heart, which will magnetize your katamari and pick up everything within your size close to you automatically. drive mode speeds up the katamari considerably while removing your fine movement controls and decreasing the timer. classic mode restores you to old-school katamari controls (no jump or broken hearts), and eternal mode is the same as in prior games where you have no time limit on picking things up.

I don't know if I feel like going for a platinum on this one so I may leave it here for now, or maybe choose to finish out the drive and classic requests at some point. the package itself is very solid just in terms of its completeness, even if I'm more mixed on the new additions. worth having just to have a massive katamari game to chew on.

+great character designs by Trigun creator Yasuhiro Nightow. Kosuke Fujishima of Oh My Goddess worked on this one as well
+cinematics hold up well, this is one of the first games I can think of that made the link between cel shading and anime designs that we commonly see today
+interesting pseudo-tank controls that emphasize careful approaches
+lots of movement options including jumping, running, dash evasion, and quick 180 turnarounds
+mowing down enemies is a blast, and taking out enemies in close combat by sweeping them with your own coffin also rules
+halo-esque regenerating shield system was a good choice considering the chaos during battles
+continue system is forgiving by giving you more "demolition shots" (super attacks) to use on every death
+some very solid boss design in the second half of the game

-level design is bland. it's a lot of walking forward and mashing square, with little enemy variety until the endgame
-certain mechanics are unresponsive, including the quickturns and lock-on system that are essential in most boss fights
-early game bosses are pushovers, some of which can be killed by a single demo shot
-there's no handgun variety through the game. supposedly you can unlock more demo shots but I never saw these while playing (perhaps I am just bad...)
-apparently there's a fatality system too during the boss fights? again, the game is very opaque about this so I was never made aware that this was a possibility
-the plot is pretty hard to follow, though I don't mind this as much because it's unobtrusive and well-animated
-rather short, at under 2 hours long. this may be for the best considering the lackluster stage design
-a certain boss at the beginning of the final level has a desparation attack where he hides from you while healing himself. not a great mechanic in a game with such limited mobility

I had fun playing this in 30 minute spurts here and there, and this would probably be very easy to binge in its entirety as well. it's a very unique third-person shooter, and what it lacks in content is makes up for in style and sheer fun

another one of many multiplayer games I've been going through with my gf in the last couple months. we both agreed it's pretty scuffed but very well designed. each level is a diner dash-esque score attack scenario where you're given ingredients for a subset of a bunch of recipes and forced to navigate around obstacles (including your partner) while preparing the meals, plating them, and then serving them. it's meant to be a total mess, and often on first runs of a given stage we'd fuck up tremendously or barely scrape by with a passing score. it pretty quickly ramps up the chaos, with various pits, rotating platforms, conveyer belts separating the players, and other hazards getting thrown around liberally. there's no levels that feel too similar either, as even when obstacles are reused they're combined in unique ways per level.

probably the biggest issue is just the presentation, which is pretty typical for a unity engine game. every human chef looks like the corporate memphis version of a muppet, and the animals aren't much better. there's also occasional glitchiness here and there, which was exacerbated by me playing over remote play instead of us doing proper couch co-op. none of these are serious issues really, but I did notice them frequently while playing. the story is also very odd, though in a tongue-in-cheek way that I thought was cute. the final boss was well-designed and a good test of everything presented in the levels prior. it def feels like there's a lot of avenues to go down with this concept, and I'm sure I'll see a lot of growth in overcooked 2 once we get to that one.

killer7 may be the first game where I've actively sought out analysis of the plot and themes beyond just basic examinations; it reminded me a lot of NGE where it's pretty digestible once you lock down the core concepts but still rich enough to make exploring various interpretations worthwhile. part of this is because of how the game expresses its ideas both from a modern political context as well as a timeless, cyclical myth. on top of all of that, it's a fun adventure/light gun game in its own right thanks to having a consistent design language and an expansive amount of hints. suda has called this his crowning achievement, and in a lot of ways I think this may be a perfect expression of his narrative ideas with his unorthodox gameplay design.

it's hard to go over the plot without getting into spoiler territory, but I'll try my best. the plot details the affable combat between a set of idle demigods who frequently dabble in world politics. meanwhile, around the turn of the millennium, a new semi-communal world order is established that cements continual peace and anti-terror initiatives within the tight grasp of US hegemony. as a new sect of spiritually-enhanced suicide bombers (the Heaven Smiles) begin wracking havoc across the world and as japanese political forces convene to secede as an independent nation, the US government influences paranormal assassins Killer7 (also known as the Smith Syndicate) to intervene on the side of pro-globalist japanese operatives to promote US interests. in a series of vignettes in the middle of the game, Killer7 are tasked with continuing to deal with downstream effects of their prior operation as well as previous US overreach both public and private. as the game draws to a close, the true nature of the powers of Killer7 are revealed to its members as well as their long-reaching ties to political apparatuses within america.

an interpretation I'd like to discuss is the messaging on east-west relations presented in the game. while the context is lopsided (both in-game and in parallels to the US's vulgar displays of foreign power irl), I don't see this as a game explicitly singling out the evils of western powers over those of eastern ones. I originally had this interpretation myself until I reached the ending, upon which I realized the futility and perpetuity of conflict between sides as presented in the final scenes. with that in mind, the game uses a real-life context familiar to those of the early 21st century (a single global superpower and an exceedingly violent anti-terror movement) to contextualize an evergreen tale of nations jockeying for supremacy. the game does an expert job of dissecting the death drive the individuals involved have for power at any cost. virtually every character is deeply entwined in the existing power structures, and those who are not desperately claw their way into new ones (see Ulmeyda's cult/corporation during the Cloudman episode). the mortals and their grasps at legacy, relevance, and pleasure contrast nicely with the reincarnated demigods who walk among them and absent-mindedly reorient the world order at will in a sort of "long dark tea-time of the soul" to pull a phrase from douglas adams. this is all not to say the game doesn't indulge itself at all - far from it - but the underlying currents of the plot are grim towards the coexistence of different powers even in a globally-enforced peace arrangement.

as others have pointed out, I did want to briefly mention the mid-game sag that makes the plot a little hard to follow. as mentioned previously, there's three chapters in the middle of the game that are self-contained intersituals centered on dangerous forces within the US. the Cloudman chapter is definitely the best of the three, thanks to how it draws parallels between religious cults and the cult of personalities around business tycoons (a too-easy real world example: elon musk's following vs the sketchy finances of his company tesla) all being seasoned to taste by the US intelligence community. a lot of this is conveyed through animated sequences as well, which are in a western style that reminds me of older Korn music videos for better or for worse. the Encounter chapter covers an organ trafficking operation as well as Dan Smith's backstory, which is fascinating with context from the supplementary material but doesn't cover much interesting ground in the game itself. finally, the Alter Ego chapter tosses some interesting ingredients into the mix such as government involvement in private media and corporate exploitation of creative works, but without enough time to simmer these threads feel too underdeveloped to analyze in detail. this chapter is animated in a more traditional anime style, though everyone's faces are lopsided in an exceedingly ugly way that I'm not sure was intentional. this middle section is very playable so it's not an immense drag on the game, but I feel like I have to bring up the faults as well as part of my honest opinion.

on the flipside, the gameplay is pretty easy to parse thanks to a nice heap of quality of life features and smart design decisions. as everyone probably knows, this game is controlled on rails with one button moving you forward and another moving you backwards. while it takes a bit to get used to, it's mapped to W and S on k+m as if it were WASD controls, and at the same time it keeps everything important directly in your path, keeping the player from missing an important item or objective. this also allows for creative camera angles when it isn't locked in the classic grasshopper manufacture worm's eye view perspective. in your way moving between areas are plenty of Heaven Smiles, which you can deal with in a first-person aiming mode reminiscent of a light gun game. enemies are initially invisible but have distinctive laughter that let you know when one is in the vicinity (a godsend considering the odd camera angles), and each can be scanned to visualize them and find weak points. I was surprised by the variety of enemies in this game, many of which encourage experimentation to determine the best way to take them down. minibosses can get annoying here or there, but once the mechanics are learned and you have a good grasp on your combat options it becomes more rewarding to encounter new enemies.

one of the big draws here are the switchable characters, both for puzzles and for combat. there are six that can be swapped between at will via the menu as well as Garcian, who is mainly used to revive other characters when they are killed. by sitting through all of the optional tutorials you can find out the ins-and-outs of each, though I did not do this and found that I was able to sus out their differences just from organic trial-and-error. each one has a unique method of combat that goes beyond simple differences in stats and instead alters the gunplay for each. getting a handle on each character's abilities is key, as most of the chapters lock some personalities behind a set amount of kills that you must meet, though generally it isn't difficult to unlock whichever ones you're missing. I personally focused on coyote in the early game thanks to his wide applicability to puzzles, fast reload time, and solid damage, and I eventually branched out to the others. dan is powerful in combat thanks to his collateral shot charge special, while kaede and mask are situationally useful for certain enemies that require precision aiming/large explosives respectively. the only one I didn't get a lot of juice out of is kevin: he can easily skip large groups of enemies with his invisibility but is rarely useful in puzzles and lacks the firepower of the other characters. then again, I can't fault the game too much for this considering that it was more personal choice that I chose not to use him.

beyond understanding the above mechanics, most of the game really consists of learning the language of the design concepts for each puzzles. when I first played this briefly on gamecube I was quickly confused by the abstract language, frequent codewords, overwhelming amount of abilities, and the unfamiliar combat. on returning though, I feel like I understood how each in-game mechanic maps to a classic game mechanic pretty well, ie thick blood = exp, thin blood = mana pool, warped guitar riff = unsolved puzzle, soul shard = plot coupon, gimp suit guy on wall = soul shard nearby, and so on. learning to separate out the random musings from the side characters from important puzzle hints is vital to getting by, though the puzzles aren't that hard to begin with. the majority just involve using the correct character ability or ring in the right place, and which you should use where can generally be figured out just from whether a given object is interactable or not. more complicated puzzles generally involve passcodes or tiny quizzes or other things that don't really take mental gymnastics to figure out, and there's a built-in character who will give you clear hints in exchange for thick blood/EXP. I'll mention the bosses here as well because they're all puzzles to some extent: they're hit and miss, but nothing terrible. a couple times I got a little confused on the mechanics of a given fight, but none of them are strenuous to the point of being frustrating. some of them are straight-up scripted, and the rest should be easy to deal with as long as you keep your characters leveled up.

some other quick bullet points I wanted to mention:
+so many people have already mentioned it, but I gotta bring up the sound design. the soundtrack is great front-to-back, sound effects are vibrant, and you can even pinpoint enemy positions thanks to the clever stereo panning at play here.
+upside of the steam port: this game feels really natural with k+m controls. downside: all of the FMVs are super compressed and look pretty ugly to be honest.
+the chapter selection menu is really fun, and I love the way that you shoot each target when the chapter is selected and they explode into particles.
+definitely read Hand in Killer7 after playing, it helped me organize my thoughts on the plot and it adds a lot of context that didn't make it into the final game
+the remnant psyches are all a joy to talk to, though I wish I could clicked through the dialogue at my own place sometimes. I initially thought they had animal crossing-style babble, but it seems like they actual speak from an alternative engrish script through a modulator? hard to tell, but neat nonetheless.
+I like the way the mad doctor holds his hands up while cooking up serum for you to level up your characters with, and how he bangs the machine when it stops working aka when you've produced as much serum as you can for a given level.

it's a singular, unique game that goes down smooth while also packing a lot of punch thanks to the amount of depth in its story. after my mixed experiences with no more heroes I think this is the game that really made me appreciate suda's work. I already want to hop back onto my gamecube save just to get that experience, and I'm excited to play his other early games that I've had sitting in my backlog for ages. none of them may unseat this game for me, but anything even approaching this level of quality would be worth playing in my book.

In the very short time I binged through the Yakuza series towards the end of last year, I fell in love with how wacky, emotional, action-packed, and unique it was. And with the final chapter closing on main protagonist Kiryu's saga in Yakuza 6, it was time for a new star to shine.

Enter Yagami, a disgraced Kamurocho lawyer turned detective who finds himself, with the help of friends and unlikely allies, solves one of the biggest criminal cases the district has seen.

Overall Judgment manages to hit all of the beats that made the first 7 Yakuza games so good. The story was gripping and cinematic, the characters were all memorable and likable, with the villains being as menacing as ever. I think this story in particular has plenty of twists and turns that felt mostly unpredictable, not to mention feeling more realistic and possible.

Aside from the story, in typical Yakuza fashion, you have an insane amount of side content to find. You can side missions, referred to as "side cases" in the game, which range from heartfelt to downright absurd. I will say that these side cases don't quite reach the heights that the mainline series does though, aside from a few memorable ones. Also, even with the vast amount of mini-games you can engage in, there's shockingly no karaoke. Still, I'm not one to complain about a lack of content, Judgment still gives you hours upon hours of content to explore. And the edition of drone races were an absolute blast. Not to mention the fact that this series continues to utilize the same map while still giving us new and memorable stories and side content is honestly incredible.

Game-play is similar to Yakuza in the sense of the whole beat-em-up fighting style. This time, much like Yakuza 0, Yagami has two different fighting stances depending on the situation, as well as new moves to unlock in the skill unlocking section (amongst many other up-gradable things.) Yagami's combat took me awhile to get used to compared to the Kiryu styles I got so used to utilizing, but I also appreciate the way it separates itself from the other games.

It also separates itself in the game-play department in ways that didn't quite stick the landing, and those were the tailing and clue searching missions, of which there were many. Overall they felt clunky, uninteresting, and derailed the momentum of the rest of the game.

Derailing from my one minor negative thought on the game, I wanted to bring up the visuals of Judgment, which utilizes the Dragon engine from Yakuza 6 as well as Kiwami 2. Once again this game looks phenomenal due to this engine. The attention to detail throughout this map is stunning, as well as the facial models of the characters. Just walking through this city at night and seeing all the lights reflecting off of the surfaces and puddles never gets old.

Overall Judgment isn't without it's flaws, but that could also be said about the majority of the mainline Yakuza series, at least in my opinion. And just like those game, the bad doesn't even come close to outweighing the good. This is one fantastic game.

Rating: 8/10

+perhaps the first game to really nail mario-style linear 2d challenges in a 3d environment
+very solid amount of content, a full 120 stars that each have their own distinct obstacles barring some challenge stars that require beating an earlier star under specific requirements
+I wouldn't classify this game as difficult by any means, but the endgame galaxies feel rewarding to beat rather than perfunctory
+the story is very sweet, totally optional but very much worth peeking at as chapters are unlocked over the course of the game
+art design, galaxy design, the modeling and graphic quality, everything here is a culmination of over a decade of standard def 3D development, and it shows. very few games on wii look better than this
+getting to play as luigi rules, though it takes quite a bit of time to get there
+gorgeous orchestral soundtrack, really bolsters the grandiose feel of the game
+the gravity mechanics throughout the game, both the specific gimmicks as well as the general feel of walking around the planets, is fantastic. possibly gaming's best representation of such mechanics

-the hub is a pretty steep drop from both 64 and sunshine in terms of secrets, though it's certainly passable
-the garbage minigame.... what a pain

at the top of a heap of already amazing games in the mario series. plays very well on switch too!

Wasn't huge on Hearts of Stone (thought it was good, not great) but man I fucking loved this. To me, Toussaint is the best location in the game, bar none. Stepping into it for the first time and basking in its radiance feels unlike anything else in the base narrative and the story feels infinitely more rewarding than Hearts of Stone. The final Detlaff boss has a learning curve for sure but his monster form is so cool and it's incredibly satisfying when you finally come out on top. Wonderful ending too, being able to settle down with Yennefer for good felt like a beautifully bittersweet finale to my adventure. Ended my journey arriving back at my fully upgraded vineyard and mounting personal favorite collected swords and paintings in my home was lovely.