Its nintendo!!!
...
sigh.

my memory of this game goes moon moon moon moon. it feels exemplary of nintendo design. so streamlined it smooths the wrinkles in your brain. not necessarily a bad thing but also i dont kno if its a great thing either? its a game full of whacky worlds and characters that evaporate into the background like the flavour of the spray candy your mom just bought you from the checkout line. all its worlds exist to create a spectacle but they contain no substance, they dont love or hate you, containing nothing but a stale placid joy (made worse by the fetishizing mexican/southamerican level) "mario is like a clinical prostate exam" etc.

the gameplay as alluded to is extremely tight to the point of almost feeling like it plays itself. its certainly fun, yet the prevailing feeling is the slight drool cresting my lips as i complete my raid of the worlds remaining stash of moons.....

oh and the costumes were good. putting mario in a wedding dress is probably the closest nintendo will ever get to gay representation (good).

Its nintendo!!!
what else is there to say?
...
well ig i do have things to say otherwise i wouldn't be writing this... first of all im in the camp that was kind of cool on it. its one of those games that you can sink hours into and just sort of feel empty inside. actually that might just be a "me and video games" issue.. hm.. well anyway as i mull over my memories i recall something distant.. a feeling of excitement and.. awe?

i think what hit good for me about this game was the world and sense of discovery. jumping into the castle town ruins butt naked, narrowly dodging laser nukes from ancient ghibli ass murder bots... expansive deserts and hidden towns... the peaceful serenity of nature as it takes hold of a place wrought with disaster not long ago... that shitd ruled!!!

but then theres the rest of the game.

i guess it comes down to what fulfills me in a game, and what most of this game was made to be was not it. you fight, find, collect, repeat. the world has beautiful broad strokes but most of the characters dont have much dimension. its a game about doing all the things, getting all the cool stuff, completing for every inch its worth or just until you've had your fill. if thats what you want i think its a good game, i think thats why so many ppl liked it. its a game choc fucking full of Stuff, and a lot of that stuff is cool!
...
its just not that fun to play? for me anyway?
the combat just feels like a chore. i dont think i rly got the dynamism other ppl saw. i felt it sometimes glancing its way in but it never shrined through, maybe im just not creative lol. either way it wasnt a fulfilling way of engaging with the world to me and it was like 70% of the game. maybe i would have had more fun running around from shrine to shrine? that lacks variety tho... maybe a no equipment run..? regardless playing the game as intended i just felt so full of nothing after a while, so much /playing game/ and getting so little back. again, it seeks to be certain type of game, to fill a certain role, and for many it seems to. for me tho it feels too padded with carbs, the flavour thats there stretched way too thin.......

wow well that was way more words then i was expecting. anyway.

nintendo sucks, pirate their games!!

For real for real one of my favourite games. replayed it last year while streaming for some friends and it still holds that special place for me. its all about the vibes, the music, the characters. it takes you to a place, a dream, a memory. as fragile as it is beautiful, almost popping out of the screen with feelings at points. maybe thats just me. with some of the postgame stuff in particular, you can feel how its a game about being a game, playing games, escaping into an Other, something i spent my whole adolescence doing. it rly speaks to me in that way. its also been a hugely influential to me as an artist, and inspired me to want to make games in a very direct way (seriously i was reading their tigforums threads n stuff.. it was like 2 ppl made this game? you can just do that??). anyway for their first game, analgesic rly put their whole pussy into it.