brianlevin83
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Lovingly crafted remake of a classic Super Nintendo RPG. Honestly, I am loving that Nintendo is doing these types of remakes of old properties, following up on Link's Awakening. I will gladly play modernized remakes of virtually any SNES game. There are a few I'm sure we can all name.
As for Super Mario RPG, it's a faithful remake with tons of great quality of life improvements. Some tweaked gameplay elements make the game more exciting, and more challenging. Trying to get the timing right added a fun, unique, battle challenge that even upped the ante on simple fights you are guaranteed to win.
As far as RPGs go, this game is fairly linear and exploration is kept to a minimum, however coming off of my 48 hours of Final Fantasy 16 playtime, I was happy to have a game that took me less than 20 hours to finish.
There are some elements of the game that don't translate to a modern style of gaming, the turn based combat is a formula we don't get much of these days. It still works charmingly, but it can be very repetitive.
Overall I really enjoyed my time with this game.
As for Super Mario RPG, it's a faithful remake with tons of great quality of life improvements. Some tweaked gameplay elements make the game more exciting, and more challenging. Trying to get the timing right added a fun, unique, battle challenge that even upped the ante on simple fights you are guaranteed to win.
As far as RPGs go, this game is fairly linear and exploration is kept to a minimum, however coming off of my 48 hours of Final Fantasy 16 playtime, I was happy to have a game that took me less than 20 hours to finish.
There are some elements of the game that don't translate to a modern style of gaming, the turn based combat is a formula we don't get much of these days. It still works charmingly, but it can be very repetitive.
Overall I really enjoyed my time with this game.
This game mostly gets all of the stars it is earning because I love a giant Metroidvania and the actual gameplay and combat were fun. But the game is full of problems.
The most noticeable issue is that the game has bugs. Several times the game would drop me out of spike death back to my starting position without the ability to control the map, my character would move but the map/camera would not. Other times I got stuck on the map itself, unable to move around or exit, thus bricking the game. One time I opened one my saved photos that you can place on the map and I was unable to exit from it. And all of this would be fine, and somewhat forgivable, if the game had a more robust checkpoint system. But, it does not. The only time the game saves your progress is when you complete a major event (boss fight) or when you save at a tree. Otherwise, if you should happen to exit the game, or your PS5 updates overnight and restarts itself, you will lose all progress up to your last save. For a modern game this is strange, why is progress not caught with every new door you enter?
The combat is incredibly fun, but despite there being a deep combat system a la Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, you can easily finish the game with some hack and slashing. The combat is never required, you can just jump, dodge and dash your way to success. But it's propulsive, and if you want that feeling of being fast and whipping around the map, you have that power.
Once Sargon achieves more of his move set, you can really get going, it is reminiscent of the Ori games.
As Metroidvania's go, the map is gigantic. It seems to go on endlessly and I loved exploring and unraveling secrets. It's hard to go wrong with a giant Metroidvania style game.
A pretty standard 2D side scrolling adventure game doesn't need a complex story, but Prince of Persia tows the line between wanting to have a complex story and wanting to have a simplistic good guy/bad guy thing. Unfortunately, in never fully committing one way or another, the story itself is muddled and confusing, the lore is unclear, and ultimately I just didn't care what happened to any of the characters.
Would definitely play another entry of this game in the future though, some 30 hours of very entertaining combat and mobility.
The most noticeable issue is that the game has bugs. Several times the game would drop me out of spike death back to my starting position without the ability to control the map, my character would move but the map/camera would not. Other times I got stuck on the map itself, unable to move around or exit, thus bricking the game. One time I opened one my saved photos that you can place on the map and I was unable to exit from it. And all of this would be fine, and somewhat forgivable, if the game had a more robust checkpoint system. But, it does not. The only time the game saves your progress is when you complete a major event (boss fight) or when you save at a tree. Otherwise, if you should happen to exit the game, or your PS5 updates overnight and restarts itself, you will lose all progress up to your last save. For a modern game this is strange, why is progress not caught with every new door you enter?
The combat is incredibly fun, but despite there being a deep combat system a la Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, you can easily finish the game with some hack and slashing. The combat is never required, you can just jump, dodge and dash your way to success. But it's propulsive, and if you want that feeling of being fast and whipping around the map, you have that power.
Once Sargon achieves more of his move set, you can really get going, it is reminiscent of the Ori games.
As Metroidvania's go, the map is gigantic. It seems to go on endlessly and I loved exploring and unraveling secrets. It's hard to go wrong with a giant Metroidvania style game.
A pretty standard 2D side scrolling adventure game doesn't need a complex story, but Prince of Persia tows the line between wanting to have a complex story and wanting to have a simplistic good guy/bad guy thing. Unfortunately, in never fully committing one way or another, the story itself is muddled and confusing, the lore is unclear, and ultimately I just didn't care what happened to any of the characters.
Would definitely play another entry of this game in the future though, some 30 hours of very entertaining combat and mobility.
Does a game have to be challenging to be fun? No, Pikmin 4 says forget about that. Just enjoy. And you know what, it's very enjoyable. This is peak gaming, it's relaxing, it's meditative, it feels good.
That it is coupled with gorgeous art and varied locations, a delightful music score, and tight controls makes it even more of a positive experience.
This is a rare occasion where I'm happy to do endgame missions because they keep upping the ante. So many different enemy types, new challenges to explore, and it just feels great to command 100 Pikmin.
I need to keep this log as a memory that I really do love Pikmin games, even when this one came out I was sort of not into the idea of playing it, but I'm so glad I did.
That it is coupled with gorgeous art and varied locations, a delightful music score, and tight controls makes it even more of a positive experience.
This is a rare occasion where I'm happy to do endgame missions because they keep upping the ante. So many different enemy types, new challenges to explore, and it just feels great to command 100 Pikmin.
I need to keep this log as a memory that I really do love Pikmin games, even when this one came out I was sort of not into the idea of playing it, but I'm so glad I did.