i rented this game one (1) time when it was new and got up to the hooktail boss fight... i remember it, which means i probably enjoyed it, but i had also played superstar saga at that point so it didn't register to me as anything beyond "mario & luigi but on the gamecube." coming back to it, i wasn't already convinced of its specialness.
i think, had i played further as a kid, i would definitely be in the nostalgia-goggles camp about it. it flows tremendously well from act to act, there's always interesting stuff going on, and it's fun to see where the game will toss you next. the difficulty is tuned pretty low so it never feels taxing to play, the aesthetics are incredible. it all just works, and feels very close to seamless.
my issues with it are more that it just feels a bit like a dead end, mechanically speaking; and as such, the game is full of flashy stuff to cover up the repetitive nature of its combat and exploration. yet, improving on that repetition risks taking away the emotional complexities brought out by it. crisscrossing twilight town over and over with vivian in tow makes her feel more like an essential member of the party, and the story needs that to make her addition feel justified. but it also destroys the pacing, and this game needs to move fast in order to keep the player engaged.
this isn't a game where the player participates in the story, it's a game where the story happens peripheral to the player. i am not driving the plot, the plot is driving me. yet rpg mechanics are metaphors for plot and character development, metaphors that the player can control. do you see the problem? the rpg aspects of this game feel vestigial, almost like afterthoughts.
that doesn't mean this is a bad game. i'm enjoying it! there's a lot to love here! but it's just covering its problems with, like, a hundred heaping gravy helpings of charm and style. it actually makes a lot of sense to me that the series would move into an experimental phase after this one; it's quite good but there is basically nothing to iterate on, no path forward with these systems still intact.
i think, had i played further as a kid, i would definitely be in the nostalgia-goggles camp about it. it flows tremendously well from act to act, there's always interesting stuff going on, and it's fun to see where the game will toss you next. the difficulty is tuned pretty low so it never feels taxing to play, the aesthetics are incredible. it all just works, and feels very close to seamless.
my issues with it are more that it just feels a bit like a dead end, mechanically speaking; and as such, the game is full of flashy stuff to cover up the repetitive nature of its combat and exploration. yet, improving on that repetition risks taking away the emotional complexities brought out by it. crisscrossing twilight town over and over with vivian in tow makes her feel more like an essential member of the party, and the story needs that to make her addition feel justified. but it also destroys the pacing, and this game needs to move fast in order to keep the player engaged.
this isn't a game where the player participates in the story, it's a game where the story happens peripheral to the player. i am not driving the plot, the plot is driving me. yet rpg mechanics are metaphors for plot and character development, metaphors that the player can control. do you see the problem? the rpg aspects of this game feel vestigial, almost like afterthoughts.
that doesn't mean this is a bad game. i'm enjoying it! there's a lot to love here! but it's just covering its problems with, like, a hundred heaping gravy helpings of charm and style. it actually makes a lot of sense to me that the series would move into an experimental phase after this one; it's quite good but there is basically nothing to iterate on, no path forward with these systems still intact.