hue
2023
Pseudoregalia is one of the best games I've played in a while. It's a rare combo of 3D platformer and metroidvania, and pretty much perfectly executes its vision of a game focused on fun, expressive platforming and freedom to explore a small but open world. The game's charming and authentic-feeling retro visuals, the blurry textures and hazy fog really capture the game's dream world setting. It's also got a great soundtrack that I never tired of listening to throughout the journey, and nails both the chill, atmospheric and catchy, energetic moods of the different areas.
The game's protagonist, Sybil, is one of the most fun characters I've ever played as! There's so much depth packed into her moveset to discover and each move you unlock synergizes nicely with your other moves. The jump kick is the star of the show, after a short time to understand how your approach angle and timing of the kick affects how you kick off the wall, it becomes such an expressive tool for navigating the world.
I love how the game embraces the non-linear nature of metroidvanias and lets you sequence break (whether on purpose or by accident), getting to areas earlier than intended makes your adventure feel unique and it's refreshing to see a smaller scoped game that really leans into exploration and giving the player a hands-off experience. I played the game after the map update, which likely made exploring a much smoother experience than it otherwise would have been. While the game's visuals are excellent, many rooms do not feel that distinct from each other with few landmarks, so it's easy to get lost. I didn't mind this too much, but it could be a sticking point for some.
The game's combat is pretty fun considering how much of the focus was on platforming. There's not a lot of enemy variety and most enemies don't pose much of a threat, but sections where enemies are pelting projectiles from a distance while you navigate up to them to take them out were particularly fun and suited the game's strengths better than one-on-one fights.
I also believe that Pseudoregalia improves on Hollow Knight's healing system. While both games allow you to accumulate magic by attacking enemies and healing by taking a moment to focus, Pseudoregalia provides a passive bonus to attack range and damage depending on how full you magic meter is. This provides a benefit to skilled players who avoid taking damage for long periods of time, without asking them to spend that magic on more powerful attacks. Hollow Knight's tradeoff of increased damage in exchange for less healing resources is interesting, but one I rarely went for, while Pseudoregalia's passive buffs felt more rewarding to me.
The final boss of the game was pretty fun, frantically dodging projectiles and melee attacks while trying to get a few hits in worked well. A final platforming gauntlet would have been a great send-off and would play more to the game's strengths, but the final boss was a good finale as it is.
The game's protagonist, Sybil, is one of the most fun characters I've ever played as! There's so much depth packed into her moveset to discover and each move you unlock synergizes nicely with your other moves. The jump kick is the star of the show, after a short time to understand how your approach angle and timing of the kick affects how you kick off the wall, it becomes such an expressive tool for navigating the world.
I love how the game embraces the non-linear nature of metroidvanias and lets you sequence break (whether on purpose or by accident), getting to areas earlier than intended makes your adventure feel unique and it's refreshing to see a smaller scoped game that really leans into exploration and giving the player a hands-off experience. I played the game after the map update, which likely made exploring a much smoother experience than it otherwise would have been. While the game's visuals are excellent, many rooms do not feel that distinct from each other with few landmarks, so it's easy to get lost. I didn't mind this too much, but it could be a sticking point for some.
The game's combat is pretty fun considering how much of the focus was on platforming. There's not a lot of enemy variety and most enemies don't pose much of a threat, but sections where enemies are pelting projectiles from a distance while you navigate up to them to take them out were particularly fun and suited the game's strengths better than one-on-one fights.
I also believe that Pseudoregalia improves on Hollow Knight's healing system. While both games allow you to accumulate magic by attacking enemies and healing by taking a moment to focus, Pseudoregalia provides a passive bonus to attack range and damage depending on how full you magic meter is. This provides a benefit to skilled players who avoid taking damage for long periods of time, without asking them to spend that magic on more powerful attacks. Hollow Knight's tradeoff of increased damage in exchange for less healing resources is interesting, but one I rarely went for, while Pseudoregalia's passive buffs felt more rewarding to me.
The final boss of the game was pretty fun, frantically dodging projectiles and melee attacks while trying to get a few hits in worked well. A final platforming gauntlet would have been a great send-off and would play more to the game's strengths, but the final boss was a good finale as it is.
Momodora is a series that is near and dear to me, playing Momodora II on TIGSource showed me that an open world-style game structure works even when making smaller games (in fact these days I would say they are probably more successful in my eyes than larger open games). The game inspired me to make countless Metroidvania-style prototypes over the years, none of them really getting off the ground. When Momodora III came out, it opted for a more linear structure, which Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight and Momodora: Moonlit Farewell abandoned to return to the more open structure that Momodora II started. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is a fun and competent game that looks and sounds gorgeous. The game makes small refinements in some areas that the series has previously struggled with, but it brings little new concepts to the table that had not already been explored by previous entries.
A big issue that I feel that Moonlit Farewell mostly resolved is that gameplay clarity during boss fights has been greatly improved, with more pronounced audio and visual cues before enemy attacks. In previous entries, overwhelming screen shake and busy particle effects made it difficult to discern when bosses were about to attack, so I tended to just spam attacks and try to tank through any hits I took to defeat the boss faster than they defeated me. This can be fun to some degree as a sort of DPS race, but it does take out a lot of the strategy and payoff of learning a tough enemy's tells, dodging their attacks and retaliating with your own. Depending on the Sigils you equip, the particles can get a bit more distracting, and some of the game's more abstract and gaseous enemies and hazards betray this clarity, making it hard to tell how large their hitboxes are and when they are active threats, but overall I found this to be a big improvement over previous games in the series.
The boss fights themselves are a highlight of the game, they are often the largest and most well-animated sprites in the game which is impressive by itself, but many of them feature unique tracks, which is an unexpected but welcome touch. These fights are where the game's combat and systems really shine, though I wish that more of the enemy encounters were as fleshed out as they had been in Reverie Under the Moonlight. With lots of ambushes in more cramped areas, mixing of ranged enemies and aggressive enemies in interesting ways, I can still recall several specific rooms and encounters that were fun and challenging, whereas I did not have this same feeling for most of Moonlit Farewell's encounters. The battles where you are locked into a smaller arena definitely recapture some of that feeling, but only some of the later enemies feel like enough of a challenge that makes you fight them like you fight bosses, by learning their moves and dodging and punishing. Most of the enemies in the game can simply be spammed with attacks and stun-locked until they're defeated.
Moonlit Farewell's new stamina system adds some depth to combat to avoid spamming roll, but I would not say that this system is particularly effective to me. In my experience, constantly rolling was never a particularly dominant strategy in Reverie Under the Moonlight, so a limiter on that did not seem necessary. The stronger bow attack at full stamina is pretty fun though, and I think is much more successful than charging the bow attack in RUtM. In the early and mid game, where the player has lower stamina regeneration, stamina still feels like it was not particularly relevant in combat, and in late game where stamina is a limiter on your more powerful form (which feels like where this system is meant to really click together), you are so powerful and stamina regenerates so quickly that it doesn't truly get its time to shine at this point either. The stamina system is also a detractor to how fun it is to explore and backtrack through the world, since the new sprint ability helps you move at a more appropriate rate considering how large the screens are in the game with its extremely zoomed-out perspective. Sprinting is pretty fun, and I enjoyed using the new sprint-jump-attack that hits vertically above and below you. However, running out of stamina and having to walk slowly for some time was tedious, and as covered before, the stamina system does not add enough to combat to forgive its impact on exploration. As soon as I found it, I equipped the Hare Sigil, which gave me unlimited stamina in exchange for increased damage taken, which made exploration more enjoyable. Designing a system that hinders and limits the player from what the developer feels could be a dominant strategy makes sense to me, and providing upgrades and build options to reduce the impact of that limiter makes sense as well, but I felt disproportionately inconvenienced considering the little value that the combat got out of this stamina system. Removing a core system like this with a Sigil feels like a bit of a bandage solution to me.
Covering the Sigil system briefly, they mostly work the same way as the passive items in Momodora III and RUtM, except you get upgraded equip capacity throughout the playthrough rather than as a New Game+ feature. Equipping Sigils provides a passive benefit, and there are only a limited number of slots. I love features like this, such as the Badges in Paper Mario and Charms in Hollow Knight. However, a lot of Sigil effects are too minor to feel impactful or interesting. Many of these effects were underwhelming when they appeared in Momodora III and RUtM, so it's disappointing to see some return with little to make them more worth considering equipping. Earning new equipment slots in systems like this is usually exciting, but I found myself struggling to think of what to equip when I was able to equip an additional Sigil. Of course, not every Sigil can be groundbreaking and there's a place for more subtle effects, but more effects that made me change my strategies or see my abilities in a new light would be welcome. By the end of the game, you do end up with several powerful Sigils that lend themselves to interesting synergies, but by that point the game is over and you only have the unlockable boss refight feature to test them out on, which is a bit of a shame.
Getting back to the zoomed-out camera point for a moment, I feel that this change compared to RUtM was majorly detrimental to the game. Rooms have to be much larger to fill in the entire screen, which as mentioned can make traversal tedious, and there is lots of wasted space, with most of the time the actual gameplay happens in a small portion of the screen. It feels as though the level design suffered as a result of having to make such large rooms, with most of the game feeling very same-y, with few notable areas or interesting enemy encounters. That being said, the level design does end up harkening back to RUtM's philosophies towards the end in the bandit-ridden Meikan Village, with more interesting encounters and more environmental variety, which was a welcome surprise after all of the forest areas in the rest of the game.
Breaking up the game into its separate areas, it felt like Springleaf Path and Lun Tree Roots were essentially the same thematically. I did appreciate that at one point, Lun Tree Roots becomes more challenging and gets a change in palette, however the Ashen Hinterlands were a bit underwhelming and mostly felt like a grayscale forest. Aesthetically, the Fairy Springs were my favorite area, with one of my favorite tracks that kept getting stuck in my head, and just generally being a breath of fresh air after clearing two forest areas. I will say that the Fairy Village had a strong build-up with the music turning to an eerie low hum while you walk past fairy corpses on your way to save what fairies remain, but when you defeat the boss and enter the village proper, it feels like wasted potential as there is no sign that anyone lives there besides there being several fairy NPCs around. No cute little fairy houses or any real decor at all, which is unfortunate considering that the village at the start of the game feels much more alive. Having such large rooms, and such a detailed, high resolution pixel art style must have made these types of bespoke assets too time consuming to produce, which is understandable, but it leads me back to thinking the game would have benefitted from using a similar resolution and scale to what RUtM used.
One aspect of the game that I felt was a bit of a let down was the writing and characters. There was not a ton of writing in Momodora II or III, but I especially remember those games having very memorable writing with funny and interesting characters. The aggressive Princess Eri, swearing like a sailor and Melilot's charming theme song were fun and memorable. The darker story of RUtM moved away from this type of writing, but still had interesting characters like Askorn, whose side story was small but memorable and sad. But the characters in this game feel really dry and stilted, especially Momo, who offers dry apologies and well wishes to pretty much every character in the game for what they are dealing with. Even with Dora and Cereza, who we would expect her to be close with, Momo never feels like she comes out of her shell to do or say anything interesting. The scenes where you hang out and eat with Cereza were cute and charming, but Momo does little to contribute. Thankfully, Dora is probably the strongest written character in the game, with her headstrong personality mostly kept intact, making me wish she had more screen time. I think the main issue with the writing is that Momo was mostly a blank slate throughout the series, so her dialog feels uninspired, and since she's the main character, she's dragging down every scene. Momodora has always had cool and appealing characters, and even though the games' focus has never been on the narrative (I remember the older games having their stories tucked away in a readme file!), I feel like the characters were written well enough that I cared about them and the story, and that just did not happen with Moonlit Farewell. With this potentially being the last Momodora game, or at least the last game with this cast of characters, some heightened stakes and more interesting characters would have been a strong sendoff, but for now it feels like missed potential.
A big issue that I feel that Moonlit Farewell mostly resolved is that gameplay clarity during boss fights has been greatly improved, with more pronounced audio and visual cues before enemy attacks. In previous entries, overwhelming screen shake and busy particle effects made it difficult to discern when bosses were about to attack, so I tended to just spam attacks and try to tank through any hits I took to defeat the boss faster than they defeated me. This can be fun to some degree as a sort of DPS race, but it does take out a lot of the strategy and payoff of learning a tough enemy's tells, dodging their attacks and retaliating with your own. Depending on the Sigils you equip, the particles can get a bit more distracting, and some of the game's more abstract and gaseous enemies and hazards betray this clarity, making it hard to tell how large their hitboxes are and when they are active threats, but overall I found this to be a big improvement over previous games in the series.
The boss fights themselves are a highlight of the game, they are often the largest and most well-animated sprites in the game which is impressive by itself, but many of them feature unique tracks, which is an unexpected but welcome touch. These fights are where the game's combat and systems really shine, though I wish that more of the enemy encounters were as fleshed out as they had been in Reverie Under the Moonlight. With lots of ambushes in more cramped areas, mixing of ranged enemies and aggressive enemies in interesting ways, I can still recall several specific rooms and encounters that were fun and challenging, whereas I did not have this same feeling for most of Moonlit Farewell's encounters. The battles where you are locked into a smaller arena definitely recapture some of that feeling, but only some of the later enemies feel like enough of a challenge that makes you fight them like you fight bosses, by learning their moves and dodging and punishing. Most of the enemies in the game can simply be spammed with attacks and stun-locked until they're defeated.
Moonlit Farewell's new stamina system adds some depth to combat to avoid spamming roll, but I would not say that this system is particularly effective to me. In my experience, constantly rolling was never a particularly dominant strategy in Reverie Under the Moonlight, so a limiter on that did not seem necessary. The stronger bow attack at full stamina is pretty fun though, and I think is much more successful than charging the bow attack in RUtM. In the early and mid game, where the player has lower stamina regeneration, stamina still feels like it was not particularly relevant in combat, and in late game where stamina is a limiter on your more powerful form (which feels like where this system is meant to really click together), you are so powerful and stamina regenerates so quickly that it doesn't truly get its time to shine at this point either. The stamina system is also a detractor to how fun it is to explore and backtrack through the world, since the new sprint ability helps you move at a more appropriate rate considering how large the screens are in the game with its extremely zoomed-out perspective. Sprinting is pretty fun, and I enjoyed using the new sprint-jump-attack that hits vertically above and below you. However, running out of stamina and having to walk slowly for some time was tedious, and as covered before, the stamina system does not add enough to combat to forgive its impact on exploration. As soon as I found it, I equipped the Hare Sigil, which gave me unlimited stamina in exchange for increased damage taken, which made exploration more enjoyable. Designing a system that hinders and limits the player from what the developer feels could be a dominant strategy makes sense to me, and providing upgrades and build options to reduce the impact of that limiter makes sense as well, but I felt disproportionately inconvenienced considering the little value that the combat got out of this stamina system. Removing a core system like this with a Sigil feels like a bit of a bandage solution to me.
Covering the Sigil system briefly, they mostly work the same way as the passive items in Momodora III and RUtM, except you get upgraded equip capacity throughout the playthrough rather than as a New Game+ feature. Equipping Sigils provides a passive benefit, and there are only a limited number of slots. I love features like this, such as the Badges in Paper Mario and Charms in Hollow Knight. However, a lot of Sigil effects are too minor to feel impactful or interesting. Many of these effects were underwhelming when they appeared in Momodora III and RUtM, so it's disappointing to see some return with little to make them more worth considering equipping. Earning new equipment slots in systems like this is usually exciting, but I found myself struggling to think of what to equip when I was able to equip an additional Sigil. Of course, not every Sigil can be groundbreaking and there's a place for more subtle effects, but more effects that made me change my strategies or see my abilities in a new light would be welcome. By the end of the game, you do end up with several powerful Sigils that lend themselves to interesting synergies, but by that point the game is over and you only have the unlockable boss refight feature to test them out on, which is a bit of a shame.
Getting back to the zoomed-out camera point for a moment, I feel that this change compared to RUtM was majorly detrimental to the game. Rooms have to be much larger to fill in the entire screen, which as mentioned can make traversal tedious, and there is lots of wasted space, with most of the time the actual gameplay happens in a small portion of the screen. It feels as though the level design suffered as a result of having to make such large rooms, with most of the game feeling very same-y, with few notable areas or interesting enemy encounters. That being said, the level design does end up harkening back to RUtM's philosophies towards the end in the bandit-ridden Meikan Village, with more interesting encounters and more environmental variety, which was a welcome surprise after all of the forest areas in the rest of the game.
Breaking up the game into its separate areas, it felt like Springleaf Path and Lun Tree Roots were essentially the same thematically. I did appreciate that at one point, Lun Tree Roots becomes more challenging and gets a change in palette, however the Ashen Hinterlands were a bit underwhelming and mostly felt like a grayscale forest. Aesthetically, the Fairy Springs were my favorite area, with one of my favorite tracks that kept getting stuck in my head, and just generally being a breath of fresh air after clearing two forest areas. I will say that the Fairy Village had a strong build-up with the music turning to an eerie low hum while you walk past fairy corpses on your way to save what fairies remain, but when you defeat the boss and enter the village proper, it feels like wasted potential as there is no sign that anyone lives there besides there being several fairy NPCs around. No cute little fairy houses or any real decor at all, which is unfortunate considering that the village at the start of the game feels much more alive. Having such large rooms, and such a detailed, high resolution pixel art style must have made these types of bespoke assets too time consuming to produce, which is understandable, but it leads me back to thinking the game would have benefitted from using a similar resolution and scale to what RUtM used.
One aspect of the game that I felt was a bit of a let down was the writing and characters. There was not a ton of writing in Momodora II or III, but I especially remember those games having very memorable writing with funny and interesting characters. The aggressive Princess Eri, swearing like a sailor and Melilot's charming theme song were fun and memorable. The darker story of RUtM moved away from this type of writing, but still had interesting characters like Askorn, whose side story was small but memorable and sad. But the characters in this game feel really dry and stilted, especially Momo, who offers dry apologies and well wishes to pretty much every character in the game for what they are dealing with. Even with Dora and Cereza, who we would expect her to be close with, Momo never feels like she comes out of her shell to do or say anything interesting. The scenes where you hang out and eat with Cereza were cute and charming, but Momo does little to contribute. Thankfully, Dora is probably the strongest written character in the game, with her headstrong personality mostly kept intact, making me wish she had more screen time. I think the main issue with the writing is that Momo was mostly a blank slate throughout the series, so her dialog feels uninspired, and since she's the main character, she's dragging down every scene. Momodora has always had cool and appealing characters, and even though the games' focus has never been on the narrative (I remember the older games having their stories tucked away in a readme file!), I feel like the characters were written well enough that I cared about them and the story, and that just did not happen with Moonlit Farewell. With this potentially being the last Momodora game, or at least the last game with this cast of characters, some heightened stakes and more interesting characters would have been a strong sendoff, but for now it feels like missed potential.
2015
A sequel to Pink Hour, Pink Heaven doubles down on the idea of being a short and sweet replayable game by adding a choice of powerup, letting you choose to power through enemies with increased damage, or glide to shortcuts and simplify platforming challenges with an umbrella. There are also two levels instead of just one, along with another unique boss fight. Playing through the game twice to try out each powerup is fun, and considering the scope of the game, they do change more about the experience than you might expect. I would have liked to see the document appear from Pink Hour, which requires you to not get hit in order to get the good ending, just to add an additional challenge. The unlockable hard mode returns, and was tough enough that I wasn't able to finish it right away, but I'd like to come back and finish it soon!
2015
A charming free prologue to Kero Blaster where you play as the pink office lady, a side character in Kero Blaster's story. The gameplay is pretty much identical to Kero Blaster, just pared down to its most simple form - no shops upgrades and only one weapon - and features a single short level. More Kero Blaster is always a treat, so I really enjoyed getting to play what feels like a bonus level, but what makes Pink Hour stand out to me is that towards the end of the level, you receive a document that is destroyed if you take damage. So you have to clear the boss and the rest of the level without being hit to get the good ending, taking this short game and making it more replayable with this added challenge. I think a short and replayable game is great combo, its difficult for me to want to slog through a 20-30 hour game again just to see what I missed or go for another ending unless I really adored the game the first time around, but something that takes just a few minutes makes it easy to want to jump right back in. I'd like to experiment with this type of short, replayable game some time in the future!
2023
Boxbrawl Delivery is a spiritual successor to the Mario Bros. arcade game, and improves on its inspiration in almost every way. The original Mario Bros. is an interesting game conceptually, I like the single screen arenas and the strategy of trying to take out all the enemies efficiently, however your grounded movement is a bit too slippery and you have no midair control at all, which makes moving around a bit laborious. You also spend most of your time waiting for enemies to pass above you so you can stun them and knock them out, which can be a bit tedious.
Boxbrawl Delivery has much less slippery controls and a good level of midair control, so moving around is much more fun. You also attack enemies directly by throwing boxes, which carries inherent risk as you are more directly vulnerable to being hit if you mess up, and because missing your throw will damage the box and decrease your potential score gain. The game also varies between several different arena layouts and has several different enemy types, which is appreciated and unexpected considering that this is a jam game. Through the lens of a game that was made in 48 hours I think it's an incredible achievement and very polished.
Looking at Cruise Elroy's Annalynn, it's clear that he has a great appreciation for arcade games of this era and knows how to breathe new life into them and I am excited to see what he makes next.
Boxbrawl Delivery has much less slippery controls and a good level of midair control, so moving around is much more fun. You also attack enemies directly by throwing boxes, which carries inherent risk as you are more directly vulnerable to being hit if you mess up, and because missing your throw will damage the box and decrease your potential score gain. The game also varies between several different arena layouts and has several different enemy types, which is appreciated and unexpected considering that this is a jam game. Through the lens of a game that was made in 48 hours I think it's an incredible achievement and very polished.
Looking at Cruise Elroy's Annalynn, it's clear that he has a great appreciation for arcade games of this era and knows how to breathe new life into them and I am excited to see what he makes next.
I loved Breath of the Wild's fresh take on Zelda after the series started to get a bit stale, so I came into Tears of the Kingdom with high expectations. Breath of the Wild was not without its flaws, but they only really made themselves clear to me after sinking in a lot of time with the game and in my opinion were excusable given how much was thrown out from previous games and how much experimentation was done in reworking core systems such as healing and combat.
Pretty much immediately something did not feel right about this game, the opening area of the Great Sky Island is laboriously long, tedious, and surprisingly linear-feeling compared to Breath of the Wild's incredible Great Plateau. Instead of getting set loose to explore and fend for myself, I felt railroaded towards the next point of interest by Rauru or the construct robots, and it was clear to me that the themes of loneliness and being one with nature were replaced with rebuilding civilization. This would not be a bad thing on its own, but the writing feels just as lifeless and uninteresting as it was in Breath of the Wild, but now this is a much bigger part of Tears of the Kingdom so it sticks out more.
My main issue with Breath of the Wild that I hoped to see smoothed over in a sequel (before Tears of the Kingdom was announced) was that the game does very little to disincentivize you from ruining your own fun. This is an issue that is pervasive through almost every aspect of the game; healing instantly in menus with no limit takes the tension out of combat completely, upgrading armor will accidentally make you unkillable because of how BotW calculates damage vs defense, and cooking is completely imbalanced by the existence of Hearty ingredients which completely restore all your hearts and add temporary bonus hearts on top of that. While to some extent can be seen as a consequence of prioritizing player freedom over all things, I think a sense of freedom can be preserved even when making changes to address these issues. Not even an attempt was made to address these major issues, really the only major issue with Breath of the Wild that you could say that Tears of the Kingdom resolves is that it makes materials more useful, which to the game's credit is an important issue that I am happy to see resolved in such an creative way with the Fuse system. The only issue is that it doesn't take long to realize that the Fuse system is not as interesting or fun as it seems at first, and even feels like a step backwards in some ways, as you end up just slapping the strongest and most abundant monster parts on every weapon and now all your weapons feel even less unique from each other than they did in Breath of the Wild.
The game is also a complete UI and UX nightmare, fiddling with the arrow Fuse menu is easily the most egregious issue, but dropping items from your inventory to Fuse them, and having to go to the menu to un-Fuse weapons are similarly tedious and you perform these actions so often that I can't believe this workflow was not made smoother before release.
The game is clearly all about the Ultrahand ability and Zonai devices, but not being able to use your Zonai devices in Shrines feels like a bizarre slapped-on solution to prevent players from breaking puzzles by smuggling in their own solutions. I can understand the logic, but it flies in the face of the game's design philosophy of letting the player do whatever they want; if the player can trivialize combat for themselves by eating 10 apples every time they get close to death, why not let them bring in a few rockets and just fly to the goal. This is especially funny considering that you could still bring in a shield with a rocket attached and use that to brute force your way through several puzzles. Just a baffling decision overall. Reusing the Shrines concept alone is a bit unfortunate and keeps the game from feeling like much of an improvement from Breath of the Wild, so seeing them implemented in such a half-measured approach only further makes me wish they had gone for something completely different that better compliments Ultrahand.
It also feels as though the game's marketing materials were a bit dishonest about the role that the sky would serve in the game. Besides the Great Sky Island, there are barely any sizeable islands in the game that do more than act as simple puzzles or a place to play a minigame or get some Zonai devices. This was one of the greatest disappointments to realize as I filled in the map. More baffling still is that the Depths, an area that was never revealed before the game released, is huge and almost completely devoid of interesting experiences. The Gloom enemies that deal permanent damage until you return to the surface or stave off the Gloom damage in other ways such as food or an armor set do make things interesting at first, but it becomes old very quickly. I would have much preferred if the Depths were removed in favor of fleshing out the sky and making it the exciting hook that the game pretends it is.
I kept playing this game hoping for things to get better and for the "real game" to start. That moment never came, and just exploring reshuffled areas from Breath of the Wild with some caves here and there was not enough to keep me playing, I gave up on my way to the Fire Temple after clearing the Wind Temple, but not before exploring significant portions of Hyrule and the Depths. I think that the gameplay style that Breath of the Wild started to unearth has a lot of potential, it's a shame that the game's direct sequel squanders the opportunity to build on that potential in any meaningful way.
Pretty much immediately something did not feel right about this game, the opening area of the Great Sky Island is laboriously long, tedious, and surprisingly linear-feeling compared to Breath of the Wild's incredible Great Plateau. Instead of getting set loose to explore and fend for myself, I felt railroaded towards the next point of interest by Rauru or the construct robots, and it was clear to me that the themes of loneliness and being one with nature were replaced with rebuilding civilization. This would not be a bad thing on its own, but the writing feels just as lifeless and uninteresting as it was in Breath of the Wild, but now this is a much bigger part of Tears of the Kingdom so it sticks out more.
My main issue with Breath of the Wild that I hoped to see smoothed over in a sequel (before Tears of the Kingdom was announced) was that the game does very little to disincentivize you from ruining your own fun. This is an issue that is pervasive through almost every aspect of the game; healing instantly in menus with no limit takes the tension out of combat completely, upgrading armor will accidentally make you unkillable because of how BotW calculates damage vs defense, and cooking is completely imbalanced by the existence of Hearty ingredients which completely restore all your hearts and add temporary bonus hearts on top of that. While to some extent can be seen as a consequence of prioritizing player freedom over all things, I think a sense of freedom can be preserved even when making changes to address these issues. Not even an attempt was made to address these major issues, really the only major issue with Breath of the Wild that you could say that Tears of the Kingdom resolves is that it makes materials more useful, which to the game's credit is an important issue that I am happy to see resolved in such an creative way with the Fuse system. The only issue is that it doesn't take long to realize that the Fuse system is not as interesting or fun as it seems at first, and even feels like a step backwards in some ways, as you end up just slapping the strongest and most abundant monster parts on every weapon and now all your weapons feel even less unique from each other than they did in Breath of the Wild.
The game is also a complete UI and UX nightmare, fiddling with the arrow Fuse menu is easily the most egregious issue, but dropping items from your inventory to Fuse them, and having to go to the menu to un-Fuse weapons are similarly tedious and you perform these actions so often that I can't believe this workflow was not made smoother before release.
The game is clearly all about the Ultrahand ability and Zonai devices, but not being able to use your Zonai devices in Shrines feels like a bizarre slapped-on solution to prevent players from breaking puzzles by smuggling in their own solutions. I can understand the logic, but it flies in the face of the game's design philosophy of letting the player do whatever they want; if the player can trivialize combat for themselves by eating 10 apples every time they get close to death, why not let them bring in a few rockets and just fly to the goal. This is especially funny considering that you could still bring in a shield with a rocket attached and use that to brute force your way through several puzzles. Just a baffling decision overall. Reusing the Shrines concept alone is a bit unfortunate and keeps the game from feeling like much of an improvement from Breath of the Wild, so seeing them implemented in such a half-measured approach only further makes me wish they had gone for something completely different that better compliments Ultrahand.
It also feels as though the game's marketing materials were a bit dishonest about the role that the sky would serve in the game. Besides the Great Sky Island, there are barely any sizeable islands in the game that do more than act as simple puzzles or a place to play a minigame or get some Zonai devices. This was one of the greatest disappointments to realize as I filled in the map. More baffling still is that the Depths, an area that was never revealed before the game released, is huge and almost completely devoid of interesting experiences. The Gloom enemies that deal permanent damage until you return to the surface or stave off the Gloom damage in other ways such as food or an armor set do make things interesting at first, but it becomes old very quickly. I would have much preferred if the Depths were removed in favor of fleshing out the sky and making it the exciting hook that the game pretends it is.
I kept playing this game hoping for things to get better and for the "real game" to start. That moment never came, and just exploring reshuffled areas from Breath of the Wild with some caves here and there was not enough to keep me playing, I gave up on my way to the Fire Temple after clearing the Wind Temple, but not before exploring significant portions of Hyrule and the Depths. I think that the gameplay style that Breath of the Wild started to unearth has a lot of potential, it's a shame that the game's direct sequel squanders the opportunity to build on that potential in any meaningful way.
2023
Friends vs Friends is a unique take on the arena shooter, where you build a deck of cards with various effects such as equipping more powerful weapons, increasing the size of your enemy's heads, or even completely changing the map. Each card's effect lasts for the round, and you draw more cards each round, so you need to be smart about which cards you use and make sure you keep some around so that you have more options next round. Before the match starts, you can also select a character that will have a unique passive effect, I liked playing Moose because of her passive double jump ability!
The game has a charming visual style with low-poly 3D models and crisp pixel art textures. The hub world you explore while matchmaking is charming and full of details, making it fun to look around while waiting for a match. Speaking of which, while playing I never had a hard time finding a match, even though that seems like a challenge for many indie multiplayer games. This is probably helped by the game's format of 1v1 or 2v2 duels, though there were often times where matchmaking felt unbalanced, where my opponent either had lots of powerful rare cards that were hard to work around, or had clearly just started and barely had a chance against my deck.
That leads me to my main gripe with the game, the card system is fun and is what gives the game its unique twist on the genre, but many of the cards are very strong and are very difficult to work around without having a direct counter in your own deck. This comes with the territory of card games, so I'm mostly fine with this, but newer players will not be prepared for dealing with the more powerful cards like Vampire Bullets, Katana, Heartless, Titan, and Mind Blowing, and could cause them to bounce off the game if it feels like their own arena shooter fundamentals are not able to keep pace with the cards.
There's plenty of moments where the cards shine as a strategic layer on top of the gunplay, and coming up with different card combos or ways to counter a strong combo you saw gives you a lot to consider when building your deck. Swapping weapons with your opponent after they equip a powerful weapon, or preventing your opponent from jumping while they're on the subway tracks and leaving them helpless to get run over, there's lots of clever ways to use the cards that kept me coming back and rethinking my deck.
The game has a charming visual style with low-poly 3D models and crisp pixel art textures. The hub world you explore while matchmaking is charming and full of details, making it fun to look around while waiting for a match. Speaking of which, while playing I never had a hard time finding a match, even though that seems like a challenge for many indie multiplayer games. This is probably helped by the game's format of 1v1 or 2v2 duels, though there were often times where matchmaking felt unbalanced, where my opponent either had lots of powerful rare cards that were hard to work around, or had clearly just started and barely had a chance against my deck.
That leads me to my main gripe with the game, the card system is fun and is what gives the game its unique twist on the genre, but many of the cards are very strong and are very difficult to work around without having a direct counter in your own deck. This comes with the territory of card games, so I'm mostly fine with this, but newer players will not be prepared for dealing with the more powerful cards like Vampire Bullets, Katana, Heartless, Titan, and Mind Blowing, and could cause them to bounce off the game if it feels like their own arena shooter fundamentals are not able to keep pace with the cards.
There's plenty of moments where the cards shine as a strategic layer on top of the gunplay, and coming up with different card combos or ways to counter a strong combo you saw gives you a lot to consider when building your deck. Swapping weapons with your opponent after they equip a powerful weapon, or preventing your opponent from jumping while they're on the subway tracks and leaving them helpless to get run over, there's lots of clever ways to use the cards that kept me coming back and rethinking my deck.
2023
Street Fighter 6, unlike the previous entry in the series, launched feeling like a complete experience. If you're looking to play with friends, there are plenty of options for a more social experience, ranked mode gives the most competitive players plenty of goals to work towards, and newcomers or fans of single-player games have a large, fleshed out story mode to explore. I spent almost all of my time in Street Fighter 6 playing against friends in private lobbies or playing ranked matchmaking online. I gave the story mode a shot, and while I've seen lots of praise for the mode, I quickly bounced off of it. It felt a bit too much like a middling MMORPG where I'm just walking from point to point doing things without really having much interest in why I'm doing them, and the performance issues I encountered also kept me from wanting to continue with the story.
The base roster is a microcosm of the game's goals; there are plenty of classic characters for longtime fans of the series, but there's also lots of new blood, which feels appropriate for a game that hopes to usher in the next generation of fighting game fans while respecting the legacy of what made Street Fighter what it is today. I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this spectrum, as someone whose first entry into the series was Street Fighter 4 but also did not play it often, and also played Street Fighter V on and off for a few months. I also appreciate the game's return to the hip-hop influence that it also embraced in Street Fighter 3, which inspires the game's overall presentation and soundtrack.
In terms of mechanics, I really enjoy the Drive Gauge system for adding so much of a push-and-pull to each round. Starting with a full gauge makes it tempting to go on an all-out offensive with powerful Overdrive (OD) moves, guard-breaking Drive Impacts, and the Drive Rush dash, but this can quickly drain your resources and put you in Burnout. Burnout is a dangerous state where you can no longer perform any actions that spend any stocks of your Drive Gauge, you take increased blockstun from attacks, and being knocked into a wall by a Drive Impact will stun you, leaving you open to a huge punish from your opponent. I really enjoy the risk/reward of this system, and how it tests your patience; do you want to use some of your Drive Gauge to get in quickly or deal some extra damage on a combo, do you want to use it to get yourself out of a tricky situation, or do you want to abstain from using it for now so that you don't risk putting yourself in Burnout? It adds a lot to the game's mental stack, weighting your options against each other and also taking your opponent's Drive Gauge into account; if they're close to Burnout, you could go for a Drive Impact or a Super Art to try and force the issue.
I believe that Street Fighter 6 does a great job of setting itself up for the next generation of fighting games, and sets a high bar for other games in the genre. I know that the current implementation was pretty popular, but I think a more tightly focused single player mode would have been a bit more interesting to me personally.
The base roster is a microcosm of the game's goals; there are plenty of classic characters for longtime fans of the series, but there's also lots of new blood, which feels appropriate for a game that hopes to usher in the next generation of fighting game fans while respecting the legacy of what made Street Fighter what it is today. I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this spectrum, as someone whose first entry into the series was Street Fighter 4 but also did not play it often, and also played Street Fighter V on and off for a few months. I also appreciate the game's return to the hip-hop influence that it also embraced in Street Fighter 3, which inspires the game's overall presentation and soundtrack.
In terms of mechanics, I really enjoy the Drive Gauge system for adding so much of a push-and-pull to each round. Starting with a full gauge makes it tempting to go on an all-out offensive with powerful Overdrive (OD) moves, guard-breaking Drive Impacts, and the Drive Rush dash, but this can quickly drain your resources and put you in Burnout. Burnout is a dangerous state where you can no longer perform any actions that spend any stocks of your Drive Gauge, you take increased blockstun from attacks, and being knocked into a wall by a Drive Impact will stun you, leaving you open to a huge punish from your opponent. I really enjoy the risk/reward of this system, and how it tests your patience; do you want to use some of your Drive Gauge to get in quickly or deal some extra damage on a combo, do you want to use it to get yourself out of a tricky situation, or do you want to abstain from using it for now so that you don't risk putting yourself in Burnout? It adds a lot to the game's mental stack, weighting your options against each other and also taking your opponent's Drive Gauge into account; if they're close to Burnout, you could go for a Drive Impact or a Super Art to try and force the issue.
I believe that Street Fighter 6 does a great job of setting itself up for the next generation of fighting games, and sets a high bar for other games in the genre. I know that the current implementation was pretty popular, but I think a more tightly focused single player mode would have been a bit more interesting to me personally.
2021
Annalynn is a love letter to classic arcade games like Pac-Man, where you navigate through mazelike caves and outmaneuver four snakes that chase you with varying tactics. The game feels challenging without being unfairly difficult as classic arcade games often were, taking on more modern design sensibilities like practice mode to try harder levels you've already reached to get a better understanding of how they work without having to work your way back there from the beginning.
While it only took a handful of runs to get through all of the caves and defeat the boss at the end, the game offers a lot to keep you playing past your first successful run. Getting a perfect clear of each level - which requires defeating each snake with each Shining Ruby powerup in the level and collecting the bonus food, all without dying - is a fun challenge that the game rewards with unlockable color palettes for Annalynn. There are also various gameplay modifying settings that you can toggle to further change things up.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Annalynn, I'm a big fan of platformers so it's cool to see a modern take on Pac-Man's design as a platformer. I'd like to return to perfect clear more levels and unlock all of the palettes.
While it only took a handful of runs to get through all of the caves and defeat the boss at the end, the game offers a lot to keep you playing past your first successful run. Getting a perfect clear of each level - which requires defeating each snake with each Shining Ruby powerup in the level and collecting the bonus food, all without dying - is a fun challenge that the game rewards with unlockable color palettes for Annalynn. There are also various gameplay modifying settings that you can toggle to further change things up.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Annalynn, I'm a big fan of platformers so it's cool to see a modern take on Pac-Man's design as a platformer. I'd like to return to perfect clear more levels and unlock all of the palettes.
2019
A chill 3D platformer that shows how an open world structure can work in a small and dense game. Climbing and flying around is fun, and collecting the golden feathers to make it easier to traverse is a great reward for exploring and completing quests.
The summit area that freezes used feathers so that they don't recharge over time is an interesting twist on the mechanic, but it's so short with little to do that it does not feel like a true test of your knowledge of climbing and flying efficiently.
This game makes me hope to see more small games experiment with open world design, I feel like the structure lends itself better to a smaller, more dense world rather than a vast, sparse one.
The summit area that freezes used feathers so that they don't recharge over time is an interesting twist on the mechanic, but it's so short with little to do that it does not feel like a true test of your knowledge of climbing and flying efficiently.
This game makes me hope to see more small games experiment with open world design, I feel like the structure lends itself better to a smaller, more dense world rather than a vast, sparse one.
2023
(For transparency's sake, Shooting Saucer was developed by my younger sibling. I stand behind my praise for the game, but I understand that I am in a uniquely biased position and I think it's only fair to mention this in the review.)
Shooting Saucer is a platformer shooter that is as charming as it is challenging, with a cute and simple pixel art style and creative environments. The game features linear levels with a twist; you're constantly being chased down by a flying saucer with its tractor beam ready to suck you up if you don't go fast enough. This makes each level a frantic scramble to defeat enemies and clear a path before you get caught by the UFO.
Defeated enemies drop experience orbs which can evolve your character when you get enough to increase your firepower, and getting hit will devolve you by one level, so this evolution mechanic also acts as a health system. This system encourages you to play aggressive and defeat enemies when you're weak, which can be risky but rewarding, and when you level up when fully evolved, you earn an extra life, which will be very helpful considering how difficult some of the later levels and bosses are.
The game's story is simple and cute, and adds more charm and silliness to the game without it getting in the way. The game even features multiple endings, with a bonus stage for players who are able to reach the end of the game without dying. The other playable characters (including some secret unlockable ones) are all very interesting to play and change the game in meaningful ways. Paraffin, one of the alternative characters unlocked by default, attacks with a passive fiery aura instead of shooting, allowing you to deal a lot of damage if you stick close to enemies and bosses. Turr, the other alternative character that you start with, is small and weak, but every experience orb you earn creates a copy, so you'll start mowing enemies down with a big enough group, but managing that group becomes a new challenge as you navigate the level and dodge attacks.
This game is a blast, and beating it is only the first step with all of the bonus content like unlockable characters and getting the true ending. If you're a fan of other platformer shooters like Kero Blaster or bullet hell games, I recommend checking it out.
Shooting Saucer is a platformer shooter that is as charming as it is challenging, with a cute and simple pixel art style and creative environments. The game features linear levels with a twist; you're constantly being chased down by a flying saucer with its tractor beam ready to suck you up if you don't go fast enough. This makes each level a frantic scramble to defeat enemies and clear a path before you get caught by the UFO.
Defeated enemies drop experience orbs which can evolve your character when you get enough to increase your firepower, and getting hit will devolve you by one level, so this evolution mechanic also acts as a health system. This system encourages you to play aggressive and defeat enemies when you're weak, which can be risky but rewarding, and when you level up when fully evolved, you earn an extra life, which will be very helpful considering how difficult some of the later levels and bosses are.
The game's story is simple and cute, and adds more charm and silliness to the game without it getting in the way. The game even features multiple endings, with a bonus stage for players who are able to reach the end of the game without dying. The other playable characters (including some secret unlockable ones) are all very interesting to play and change the game in meaningful ways. Paraffin, one of the alternative characters unlocked by default, attacks with a passive fiery aura instead of shooting, allowing you to deal a lot of damage if you stick close to enemies and bosses. Turr, the other alternative character that you start with, is small and weak, but every experience orb you earn creates a copy, so you'll start mowing enemies down with a big enough group, but managing that group becomes a new challenge as you navigate the level and dodge attacks.
This game is a blast, and beating it is only the first step with all of the bonus content like unlockable characters and getting the true ending. If you're a fan of other platformer shooters like Kero Blaster or bullet hell games, I recommend checking it out.
2023
Moonleap is a charming platformer puzzle game where jumping changes from day to night, with enemies and hazards changing behavior or moving accordingly. The pixel art is charming and full of character, the music is moody and immersive, and overall it's a fun experience you can complete in an evening.
The puzzles ramp up nicely, starting out simple enough to get a feel for the day/night change while jumping. This can be tricky at first as you'll try to jump to dodge an obstacle, only for the obstacles to rearrange themselves and potentially having you hurl yourself into danger, but figuring out how maneuver in both forms of each level is a big part of the fun.
The game shines in its hub world, which fully commits to the idea rather than feeling like a glorified level select. The music is beautiful and haunting, adding so much atmosphere to the game. Each screen of the hub world has secrets to discover, some small and simple, but the best-hidden secrets are obscure enough to leave you thinking about their purpose as you play through the rest of the game. Some of these secrets were more fun than others, the jumping one was a bit too much of a logical leap for me to understand it, and even after looking up the solution later, it was not obvious how to execute the jumps in the correct timing. Ultimately, some of these secrets were more fun to discover and wonder about than to actually solve, but it was still a great time and added a lot to the game.
The puzzles ramp up nicely, starting out simple enough to get a feel for the day/night change while jumping. This can be tricky at first as you'll try to jump to dodge an obstacle, only for the obstacles to rearrange themselves and potentially having you hurl yourself into danger, but figuring out how maneuver in both forms of each level is a big part of the fun.
The game shines in its hub world, which fully commits to the idea rather than feeling like a glorified level select. The music is beautiful and haunting, adding so much atmosphere to the game. Each screen of the hub world has secrets to discover, some small and simple, but the best-hidden secrets are obscure enough to leave you thinking about their purpose as you play through the rest of the game. Some of these secrets were more fun than others, the jumping one was a bit too much of a logical leap for me to understand it, and even after looking up the solution later, it was not obvious how to execute the jumps in the correct timing. Ultimately, some of these secrets were more fun to discover and wonder about than to actually solve, but it was still a great time and added a lot to the game.
2023
I've dabbled with Counter-Strike in the past with CS: Source and CS:GO, but I never really got invested until CS2 released. It's been a lot of fun to play Competitive with friends and start to slowly learn the maps and their callouts (along with making up our own silly ones).
I'm really glad that a game like Counter-Strike can succeed and thrive in the modern multiplayer game climate, where the developers do not feel compelled to add unnecessary fluff to keep people coming back. There's an elegance to the game's design, it does so much with so little, and each seemingly trivial aspect of the game has so much nuance that players can slowly tease apart without things feeling too overwhelming. I don't need to learn lineups if I don't want to; I will be rewarded for doing so, but I can also just intuitively throw a smoke or flash grenade more directly to achieve a similar effect.
There's so much history to this franchise that squeezing out the last drops of efficiency in your play is part of the appeal, and while I doubt I will get to that kind of level any time soon, it's been really enjoyable to play such a mindful shooter.
I'm really glad that a game like Counter-Strike can succeed and thrive in the modern multiplayer game climate, where the developers do not feel compelled to add unnecessary fluff to keep people coming back. There's an elegance to the game's design, it does so much with so little, and each seemingly trivial aspect of the game has so much nuance that players can slowly tease apart without things feeling too overwhelming. I don't need to learn lineups if I don't want to; I will be rewarded for doing so, but I can also just intuitively throw a smoke or flash grenade more directly to achieve a similar effect.
There's so much history to this franchise that squeezing out the last drops of efficiency in your play is part of the appeal, and while I doubt I will get to that kind of level any time soon, it's been really enjoyable to play such a mindful shooter.
2017
Hollow Knight is one of my favorite games, and sets a high bar for the genre that, in my opinion, has yet to be bested. The movement and combat feel snappy and expressive, the world is an ever-expanding delight to explore with countless secrets with meaningful rewards, and the breathtaking art brings the game's characters and environments to life.
The game's healing system is brilliant, allowing you to gain Soul by attacking enemies and having to take a moment to heal. This system is so flexible that it works in both of the game's main contexts; exploration and boss fights. When exploring the world, taking a stray hit here and there is never a major issue as you are able to heal and keep going, but if you find yourself one hit from death with no Soul, then you have to brave taking the offensive in order to gain enough to heal. When fighting bosses, you're constantly looking for small moments to sneak in a heal between the bosses' attacks, forcing you to pay attention and intimately learn the fight and pick your moment wisely, or else be interrupted and take further damage. More confident players can also opt to spend their Soul on powerful offensive spells to take down bosses faster, which adds an extra layer of depth to your decision-making when managing Soul.
As a Paper Mario fan, I greatly appreciate Hollow Knight's Charm system, which is similar to the Badges of the first two Paper Mario games. These Charms allow you to pick and choose from various effects, such as regenerating health and increased attack speed. Building your loadout of Charms is a fun decision-making process that you constantly reevaluate as you unlock new Charms and Charm Slots, and they make for some of the most exciting rewards for exploring the world. All that being said, I wish the Wayward Compass was a key item instead of a Charm. I can definitely understand that this makes for an interesting trade-off, but seeing your position on the map feels so integral to the game that removing it is too much of a quality-of-life downgrade for that one freed-up Charm Slot.
My only real gripe with the game is that its major mobility upgrades are fairly standard Metroidvania fare; you get a dash, a wall jump, a super dash, and a double jump. Some more inventive upgrades that stray from these well-trodden abilities would have been welcome.
The game's healing system is brilliant, allowing you to gain Soul by attacking enemies and having to take a moment to heal. This system is so flexible that it works in both of the game's main contexts; exploration and boss fights. When exploring the world, taking a stray hit here and there is never a major issue as you are able to heal and keep going, but if you find yourself one hit from death with no Soul, then you have to brave taking the offensive in order to gain enough to heal. When fighting bosses, you're constantly looking for small moments to sneak in a heal between the bosses' attacks, forcing you to pay attention and intimately learn the fight and pick your moment wisely, or else be interrupted and take further damage. More confident players can also opt to spend their Soul on powerful offensive spells to take down bosses faster, which adds an extra layer of depth to your decision-making when managing Soul.
As a Paper Mario fan, I greatly appreciate Hollow Knight's Charm system, which is similar to the Badges of the first two Paper Mario games. These Charms allow you to pick and choose from various effects, such as regenerating health and increased attack speed. Building your loadout of Charms is a fun decision-making process that you constantly reevaluate as you unlock new Charms and Charm Slots, and they make for some of the most exciting rewards for exploring the world. All that being said, I wish the Wayward Compass was a key item instead of a Charm. I can definitely understand that this makes for an interesting trade-off, but seeing your position on the map feels so integral to the game that removing it is too much of a quality-of-life downgrade for that one freed-up Charm Slot.
My only real gripe with the game is that its major mobility upgrades are fairly standard Metroidvania fare; you get a dash, a wall jump, a super dash, and a double jump. Some more inventive upgrades that stray from these well-trodden abilities would have been welcome.
2004
I started playing Pikmin 2 right after beating Pikmin 1, and there are immediate quality of life improvements that I greatly appreciated. Being able to switch between Pikmin types while holding a Pikmin is great for quickly picking the one you need without having to dismiss as often, and Pikmin feel more clever overall, for example they now automatically pick up a pellet after taking out a Pellet Posy. Being able to switch to a second leader is also useful, but admittedly I was not able to do as much multi-tasking as I expected to do, which may be due to my own inability, but being able to send a leader somewhere automatically while doing another task would be helpful (and is something the Pikmin games would later implement in future titles).
The game's new structure with a focus on procedurally-generated caves where you bring a set number of Pikmin in and are unable (for the most part) to get more shows a big change in the game's focus compared to its predecessor. Since Pikmin 1 focused more on the overall challenge of finding all 30 ship parts in 30 days, each individual challenge was less demanding, as major disasters could throw players off pace and the tension came from hoping you had enough days left to recover all the parts. In Pikmin 2, there is no time limit, instead each cave demands more from the player with challenging layouts full of enemies and hazards. The designers were free to create more difficult encounters, as if the player lost all their Pikmin, they could simply take time to get more and come back later with no time limit looming overhead. I find this change to be a great one. The tension of getting through a cave is palpable, knowing that every Pikmin lost is a permanent weakening of your abilities to not just to defeat the boss at the end, but also to take back all of the treasure.
While Pikmin 2 is definitely challenging, I never felt that it was poorly balanced until taking on the final boss, which was a nonstop 30 minute gauntlet of dodging attacks and running in to throw Pikmin before recalling when they started their next attack. The boss does not give you enough of a window to deal much damage, so the fight turns into a bit of a slog that had my hands cramping up from throwing so many Pikmin. Having to refight the boss if you don't have enough Pikmin to take back its treasures is another brutally punishing element that, while interesting, I found to be a bit much.
For the most part, I also believe that most Pikmin types fill an important niche. Yellow Pikmin are much more useful now, as they resist electricity which is the most fatal hazard type in the game, as it instantly kills the other Pikmin types with no chance of whistling them back to safety. Red Pikmin are still useful for fiery enemies and traps, but their role in combat has been somewhat overshadowed by the powerful but somewhat rare Purple Pikmin. The quick White Pikmin are able to keep up with the leaders' speed easily unlike all other types (which have been slowed down since Pikmin 1), allowing you to make some risky but exhilarating moves to quickly grab treasure and get out before enemies have time to attack, but I would say that they are the new least-utilized Pikmin type. As most poisonous hazards can be neutralized with a single White Pikmin, there is little need to amass many of them.
The game's writing is clever and thought-provoking, reading the Piklopedia and Treasure notes was a fun way to wind down after a tense day exploring caves. Learning more about Olimar's family dynamics, his thoughts on Louie and the President, as well as his theories about the ecology of the planet was something I looked forward to at the end of each day. Unlocking Louie's notes towards the end of the game was great, seeing his recipes for each creature gave him some much-appreciated characterization after being absent for much of the playthrough, though I still wish you could pick either Louie or the President as the second leader after Louie is rescued.
Pikmin 2 is a game that surprised me in how much room Pikmin had to grow, and gracefully takes on a new direction for the series considering how much has changed structurally. Even after beating the game, I could not stop thinking about how rich the world of Pikmin 2 is, and it makes me wish that Nintendo would do more to emphasize their writing in their games, as Pikmin 2 clearly shows how much it can add without getting in the way of players who are not interested.
The game's new structure with a focus on procedurally-generated caves where you bring a set number of Pikmin in and are unable (for the most part) to get more shows a big change in the game's focus compared to its predecessor. Since Pikmin 1 focused more on the overall challenge of finding all 30 ship parts in 30 days, each individual challenge was less demanding, as major disasters could throw players off pace and the tension came from hoping you had enough days left to recover all the parts. In Pikmin 2, there is no time limit, instead each cave demands more from the player with challenging layouts full of enemies and hazards. The designers were free to create more difficult encounters, as if the player lost all their Pikmin, they could simply take time to get more and come back later with no time limit looming overhead. I find this change to be a great one. The tension of getting through a cave is palpable, knowing that every Pikmin lost is a permanent weakening of your abilities to not just to defeat the boss at the end, but also to take back all of the treasure.
While Pikmin 2 is definitely challenging, I never felt that it was poorly balanced until taking on the final boss, which was a nonstop 30 minute gauntlet of dodging attacks and running in to throw Pikmin before recalling when they started their next attack. The boss does not give you enough of a window to deal much damage, so the fight turns into a bit of a slog that had my hands cramping up from throwing so many Pikmin. Having to refight the boss if you don't have enough Pikmin to take back its treasures is another brutally punishing element that, while interesting, I found to be a bit much.
For the most part, I also believe that most Pikmin types fill an important niche. Yellow Pikmin are much more useful now, as they resist electricity which is the most fatal hazard type in the game, as it instantly kills the other Pikmin types with no chance of whistling them back to safety. Red Pikmin are still useful for fiery enemies and traps, but their role in combat has been somewhat overshadowed by the powerful but somewhat rare Purple Pikmin. The quick White Pikmin are able to keep up with the leaders' speed easily unlike all other types (which have been slowed down since Pikmin 1), allowing you to make some risky but exhilarating moves to quickly grab treasure and get out before enemies have time to attack, but I would say that they are the new least-utilized Pikmin type. As most poisonous hazards can be neutralized with a single White Pikmin, there is little need to amass many of them.
The game's writing is clever and thought-provoking, reading the Piklopedia and Treasure notes was a fun way to wind down after a tense day exploring caves. Learning more about Olimar's family dynamics, his thoughts on Louie and the President, as well as his theories about the ecology of the planet was something I looked forward to at the end of each day. Unlocking Louie's notes towards the end of the game was great, seeing his recipes for each creature gave him some much-appreciated characterization after being absent for much of the playthrough, though I still wish you could pick either Louie or the President as the second leader after Louie is rescued.
Pikmin 2 is a game that surprised me in how much room Pikmin had to grow, and gracefully takes on a new direction for the series considering how much has changed structurally. Even after beating the game, I could not stop thinking about how rich the world of Pikmin 2 is, and it makes me wish that Nintendo would do more to emphasize their writing in their games, as Pikmin 2 clearly shows how much it can add without getting in the way of players who are not interested.