insuredgecko
2019
i had an african wild dog whose randomly chosen name was asswad and i cried when he died godspeed king
I could write an essay on how atrocious the final case of this game is. good god
1985
You have to make concessions for a lot of old games. They're super important and influential, sure, but time is harsh to many of them. So perhaps the most impressive thing about Super Mario Bros. is how playable it is. You can jump around and play Super Mario Bros. and it feels fine and functional. Sure, it's not good. Level design is pretty awful, look at the multiple levels that are just a mostly straight walk to the goal with fish jumping up at you but hey, it works, and it has that instantly iconic quality. Y'know. Mario.
2019
Just lovely. The world is gorgeous and charming, the dialogue is fun, and movement feels great. I loved figuring out how to get myself places and explore. I like that there's no list of tasks to do or things to find either. It's all at your own pace, and you can do as much or as little as you want. A Short Hike is indeed short, but what a great little experience. Makes me wanna go for a hike right now.
There isn't a whole lot to this game BUT alice transgenderism real so it's a win
Persona 2 was so good they made persona 2 2
2007
The visuals, audio, and controls are mostly acceptable for a DS game, but Garfield's Nightmare is boring, tedious, lacks anything recognizably garfield aside from the cat himself, and has a final boss inexplicably named after Franz Kafka. And it has the gall to call itself Garfield's Nightmare and it doesn't even have any gay sex in it.
2023
It's always a pleasure when something catches you at just the right point in your life to have its maximum impact on you. That's what happened to me here. Slay the Princess was a touching, beautiful, and frequently funny journey . I have a huge soft spot for horrific and/or metatextual things that are ultimately hopeful stories, about love and why it matters.
And besides, there's every type of hot woman a lesbian could possibly ask for. That's more than enough for me.
And besides, there's every type of hot woman a lesbian could possibly ask for. That's more than enough for me.
I've been a fan of Endless Ocean for years. Not once did I imagine I'd actually get to see a new entry in the series, so I was shocked and delighted when Luminous was announced. Even when mediocre review scores started popping up after the game's release, I was undeterred. The first Endless Ocean game had pretty average reviews when it was released after all. So the day I got back from college after finishing my finals, I immediately picked up a copy. In retrospect, the warning signs were all there, but I am still bitterly disappointed to say that this is a poor, bland excuse for a game.
The first red flag is that, for the first time in the series, the titular ocean is truly endless. Each time you start a new dive, you are dropped in a randomized location that can contain a few different types of biomes and structures. Initially, it's fun to explore and see all the different things, but there's only so much room for variety. Within a few dives, you'll start seeing the same simplistic structures again and again. It makes me yearn for the wonderful diving locations in Endless Ocean 2, filled with unique touches and genuinely breathtaking set pieces. I would rather have a few well-crafted maps than an infinite amount of generated slop.
But the scenery isn't what you're going to be looking at in this sort of game, no, you're looking at the marine life. And as far as that goes, I am baffled by the decisions this game made. There are over 200 more species in this game than there were in Endless Ocean 2, but the variety feels much smaller. With the exception of some special encounters, Luminous has no pinnipeds, sirenians, otters, sea birds, modern marine reptiles except turtles, sea horses, jellyfish, nautiluses, horseshoe crabs, sea sponges, or sea slugs (all of which are present in at least one of the previous games). There are also significantly fewer cetaceans, upsetting to a whale enthusiast such as myself. So if they cut so many species out, how did the roster get beefed up to 578? The one thing I will praise the species roster on is the inclusion of tons of prehistoric marine life. That's new, and very cool to see. But as for the rest... well, there's 11 nearly identical species of tuna. That helps. This game has a lot of very similar looking fish species and when that isn't enough, it turns to good ol' palette swaps. Sometimes these swaps are fun references to special creatures from the other games. Sometimes these swaps are just slightly green tinted whale shark. I love fish and it doesn't need to all be charismatic megafauna to get me to care. But this game couldn't even do that right, because it removed zoom spots from the first two games. You're no longer able to zoom in on dedicated spots for small creatures to show up, instead you get to scan a few pixels that are allegedly a fire goby or something. You never get to appreciate the beauty of the smaller life you're finding because you can't see it most of the damn time. And speaking of not seeing! The title of the game, Luminous, is a reference to its most confusing decision. Every creature, prior to being manually scanned by you, is covered in a blue, silvery sheen that obscures their features. This makes it easy to tell which creatures you've already scanned or not, which is nice if you're just trying to get through the game. But maybe you want to use the diving game to, I don't know, relax and look at the fish?? No can do, you've gotta manually uncover every critter you want a good look at. There's no passively swimming around taking in the sights. If you want to look at fish, you've gotta earn it.
What can you do with those critters once you've scanned them anyway? Put them in an aquarium? Feed them? Train them? Pet them? Use a highlighter in the water near them? Blow a whistle at them? Nope. All of these options you had for interacting with creatures in the previous games are gone. You can take a picture if you want. That's it. Listen, we're already going for verrrryyy unrealistic with these games. No, you shouldn't be encouraging people to touch wildlife, but there is a magical glowing coelacanth the size of a car swimming past me. I think we can take an acceptable break from reality to actually. Have features in the game you can use.
There is no aspect of this game that doesn't fall far, far short of its predecessors. The gorgeous (if geographically out of place, seriously what the fuck was an Irish folk song doing in the Amazon) vocal tracks in the first two games are gone. The story in this game is so bare bones it might as well not exist. There are NES games with more complex plot points. The first two Endless Ocean games weren't exactly Moby Dick (aside from the presence of whales), but they had a real earnest charm about them, and did actually try to deliver an engaging experience. GG and his very real and cool American saying "Hasta la pizza!" live in my heart forever. Calling Sera and Daniel cardboard cutouts would be an insult to cardboard. I can't believe this game honestly tried to pull a fake-out death on us like anyone would give a shit. And how do you even access this mediocre story? Well, you can't progress organically through maps since there are infinite maps, so you just need to grind between bitty chunks of the story. Awkward, but not unbearable, ok. But to actually complete the game and finish the story? You gotta fill out the mystery board. The mystery board is a board with 99 squares on it that each represent a mystery of the ocean. Performing a task will unlock its square, and you need all 99 squares cleared to access the final chapter. A pain, but this must be where all the side quests and stuff went, right? Fun tasks for the mystery board? Solving riddles, doing guided tours, photographing something specific, something, anything we actually had in the last games? No, there's not hints about how to unlock the squares on them, you just need to wander around aimlessly until you open a randomly generated chest or scan a particular animal (one of them was even broken for the first weeks after launch and would softlock your game!). There's no side content to speak of. No unique encounters outside of a few brief story missions. The special creatures in this game, UMLs, are unlocked the same boring way every single time. They look cool at first, until you've seen them spawn at least a dozen times because did I mention that this game locks the ending behind finding an extremely rare variant of these UMLs three fucking times?? Imagine if a Pokemon game wouldn't let you see the credits until you caught a shiny. It took me almost 40 hours to find three variants and see the lackluster finale for myself. and that was with grinding with other people.
It's miserable seeing my beloved Endless Ocean dragging its carcass ashore in such a state. I didn't have zero fun, swimming around with people on multiplayer was cool, it was nice to zen out and scan fish for a while, and some of the new creature designs are very cool. Is that worth your time and money though when you could just play Endless Ocean 2? No. Go play Endless Ocean 2. That's the takeaway. No more ocean games, we've peaked. Everyone else go home.
The first red flag is that, for the first time in the series, the titular ocean is truly endless. Each time you start a new dive, you are dropped in a randomized location that can contain a few different types of biomes and structures. Initially, it's fun to explore and see all the different things, but there's only so much room for variety. Within a few dives, you'll start seeing the same simplistic structures again and again. It makes me yearn for the wonderful diving locations in Endless Ocean 2, filled with unique touches and genuinely breathtaking set pieces. I would rather have a few well-crafted maps than an infinite amount of generated slop.
But the scenery isn't what you're going to be looking at in this sort of game, no, you're looking at the marine life. And as far as that goes, I am baffled by the decisions this game made. There are over 200 more species in this game than there were in Endless Ocean 2, but the variety feels much smaller. With the exception of some special encounters, Luminous has no pinnipeds, sirenians, otters, sea birds, modern marine reptiles except turtles, sea horses, jellyfish, nautiluses, horseshoe crabs, sea sponges, or sea slugs (all of which are present in at least one of the previous games). There are also significantly fewer cetaceans, upsetting to a whale enthusiast such as myself. So if they cut so many species out, how did the roster get beefed up to 578? The one thing I will praise the species roster on is the inclusion of tons of prehistoric marine life. That's new, and very cool to see. But as for the rest... well, there's 11 nearly identical species of tuna. That helps. This game has a lot of very similar looking fish species and when that isn't enough, it turns to good ol' palette swaps. Sometimes these swaps are fun references to special creatures from the other games. Sometimes these swaps are just slightly green tinted whale shark. I love fish and it doesn't need to all be charismatic megafauna to get me to care. But this game couldn't even do that right, because it removed zoom spots from the first two games. You're no longer able to zoom in on dedicated spots for small creatures to show up, instead you get to scan a few pixels that are allegedly a fire goby or something. You never get to appreciate the beauty of the smaller life you're finding because you can't see it most of the damn time. And speaking of not seeing! The title of the game, Luminous, is a reference to its most confusing decision. Every creature, prior to being manually scanned by you, is covered in a blue, silvery sheen that obscures their features. This makes it easy to tell which creatures you've already scanned or not, which is nice if you're just trying to get through the game. But maybe you want to use the diving game to, I don't know, relax and look at the fish?? No can do, you've gotta manually uncover every critter you want a good look at. There's no passively swimming around taking in the sights. If you want to look at fish, you've gotta earn it.
What can you do with those critters once you've scanned them anyway? Put them in an aquarium? Feed them? Train them? Pet them? Use a highlighter in the water near them? Blow a whistle at them? Nope. All of these options you had for interacting with creatures in the previous games are gone. You can take a picture if you want. That's it. Listen, we're already going for verrrryyy unrealistic with these games. No, you shouldn't be encouraging people to touch wildlife, but there is a magical glowing coelacanth the size of a car swimming past me. I think we can take an acceptable break from reality to actually. Have features in the game you can use.
There is no aspect of this game that doesn't fall far, far short of its predecessors. The gorgeous (if geographically out of place, seriously what the fuck was an Irish folk song doing in the Amazon) vocal tracks in the first two games are gone. The story in this game is so bare bones it might as well not exist. There are NES games with more complex plot points. The first two Endless Ocean games weren't exactly Moby Dick (aside from the presence of whales), but they had a real earnest charm about them, and did actually try to deliver an engaging experience. GG and his very real and cool American saying "Hasta la pizza!" live in my heart forever. Calling Sera and Daniel cardboard cutouts would be an insult to cardboard. I can't believe this game honestly tried to pull a fake-out death on us like anyone would give a shit. And how do you even access this mediocre story? Well, you can't progress organically through maps since there are infinite maps, so you just need to grind between bitty chunks of the story. Awkward, but not unbearable, ok. But to actually complete the game and finish the story? You gotta fill out the mystery board. The mystery board is a board with 99 squares on it that each represent a mystery of the ocean. Performing a task will unlock its square, and you need all 99 squares cleared to access the final chapter. A pain, but this must be where all the side quests and stuff went, right? Fun tasks for the mystery board? Solving riddles, doing guided tours, photographing something specific, something, anything we actually had in the last games? No, there's not hints about how to unlock the squares on them, you just need to wander around aimlessly until you open a randomly generated chest or scan a particular animal (one of them was even broken for the first weeks after launch and would softlock your game!). There's no side content to speak of. No unique encounters outside of a few brief story missions. The special creatures in this game, UMLs, are unlocked the same boring way every single time. They look cool at first, until you've seen them spawn at least a dozen times because did I mention that this game locks the ending behind finding an extremely rare variant of these UMLs three fucking times?? Imagine if a Pokemon game wouldn't let you see the credits until you caught a shiny. It took me almost 40 hours to find three variants and see the lackluster finale for myself. and that was with grinding with other people.
It's miserable seeing my beloved Endless Ocean dragging its carcass ashore in such a state. I didn't have zero fun, swimming around with people on multiplayer was cool, it was nice to zen out and scan fish for a while, and some of the new creature designs are very cool. Is that worth your time and money though when you could just play Endless Ocean 2? No. Go play Endless Ocean 2. That's the takeaway. No more ocean games, we've peaked. Everyone else go home.
2021
For what it is, this is a very polished and fun short experience. I only wish it was longer.
This review contains spoilers
JANUARY 2024 EDIT: I'm keeping this review up because I still agree with most of what was said, but time has soured my view of this game, and I was definitely too nice to it here. Bear that in mind.
I spent a little while waffling over whether to give this game a 7 or 8 out of 10, before remembering that I gave BOTW an 8 and I don’t feel this game is quite as good as its predecessor. So a 7 it is, though this is really more of a 7.5
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: you don’t need me to tell you that the gameplay is top notch. It’s like playing BOTW again for the first time (an incredible feeling already), except bigger and better with even more to do. The new features allow for so much creativity, and are a natural fit for the game. BOTW’s design philosophy of “if it works it ain’t stupid” is compounded here, and its a joy to experience. It’s also wonderful to see all the characters and the land of Hyrule again. It really feels like visiting old friends.
Any prerelease promise of traditional Zelda dungeons were out and out lies, but these dungeons are leagues more interesting, both visually and gameplay wise, than the Divine Beasts. The bosses are a return to form as well, playing much more like classic Zelda bosses. The final boss especially is a notable improvement. You can’t just brute force your way through it and it actually looks, well, cool!
Where the game loses me is in its story. I really care about the stories in Zelda games, they’ve told some fantastic and thematically rich ones in the past. But Tears of the Kingdom’s is kind of a mess.
The reason why the memories system worked well in BOTW, at least in my opinion, is that the majority of them weren’t focused on story so much as they were focused on character. Their purpose was to let you get to know Zelda, and care about saving her. And she actually does have a character. She’s bitter about her circumstances and needs time to warm up to Link, but cares deeply and is passionate about her interests. This system does not work as well in TOTK. The memories in this game serve a different goal, they’re intended to show the events of the plot, not give insight into characters. Seeing as you can discover the memories in any order, the whole story loses its impact when you’re seeing it out of order. It’s not confusing, just frustrating. And the characters feel like props moving the story along, not characters in their own right. Characters who become very important (Mineru, I’m talking about Mineru) are difficult to care about like you’re supposed to because they never feel real. This sacrifice in character moments in service to a story that’s damaged by the way it’s told really stings.
And can we talk about that story? How you hear it repeated every single fucking time you complete a dungeon? The past sages provide no new insight and do not tell the story any differently so you just hear the same old thing, over and over. I think it’s a good thing they didn’t try to make the past sages characters, they would have just felt like replacements for the champions, but it means it’s boring as sin to hear them go on.
Speaking of the champions, the new champions sure are there. They all have fine roles in the story, but I can’t help but yearn for more. There’s glimpses into better arcs, but the conclusion of “it’s my entire people’s purpose to assist Link so I’ll do my best!” is uncomfortable to watch happen four times. And on the subject of that conclusion…
Much smarter people than me have talked about the Zelda franchise’s issues with racism and imperialism, but I’ll throw in my two cents. The suggestion that the other races of Hyrule’s purpose is to assist the royal family is an uncomfortable one, and it’s made worse by the fact that Ganondorf is back in this game and. Like that. I shouldn’t need to tell you his design plays on several harmful tropes. At the absolute bare minimum, the vai outfit is gone from the game and you can make Link girlboss with being fetishistic (thank you frostbite set).
I don’t dislike everything the game’s story has to offer, I love the little mysteries about what the fuck Zelda’s been up to (my friends and I took to calling the Zelda imposter Zelwario) and I love everything to do with the light dragon. I wish we got to see Fi, but I know I’m one of maybe a dozen people on earth who wanted to see that, so I understand why it didn’t happen.
I don’t know. I got really invested in the simple yet effective story of BOTW, and it feels like this game is a good example of bigger isn’t always better.
It really speaks to how damn fun this game is that I’d still rank it so highly with so many negative things to say about it. I may have beaten the main story, but I’m nowhere near done with this game. Those Koroks aren’t going to torture themselves.
I spent a little while waffling over whether to give this game a 7 or 8 out of 10, before remembering that I gave BOTW an 8 and I don’t feel this game is quite as good as its predecessor. So a 7 it is, though this is really more of a 7.5
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: you don’t need me to tell you that the gameplay is top notch. It’s like playing BOTW again for the first time (an incredible feeling already), except bigger and better with even more to do. The new features allow for so much creativity, and are a natural fit for the game. BOTW’s design philosophy of “if it works it ain’t stupid” is compounded here, and its a joy to experience. It’s also wonderful to see all the characters and the land of Hyrule again. It really feels like visiting old friends.
Any prerelease promise of traditional Zelda dungeons were out and out lies, but these dungeons are leagues more interesting, both visually and gameplay wise, than the Divine Beasts. The bosses are a return to form as well, playing much more like classic Zelda bosses. The final boss especially is a notable improvement. You can’t just brute force your way through it and it actually looks, well, cool!
Where the game loses me is in its story. I really care about the stories in Zelda games, they’ve told some fantastic and thematically rich ones in the past. But Tears of the Kingdom’s is kind of a mess.
The reason why the memories system worked well in BOTW, at least in my opinion, is that the majority of them weren’t focused on story so much as they were focused on character. Their purpose was to let you get to know Zelda, and care about saving her. And she actually does have a character. She’s bitter about her circumstances and needs time to warm up to Link, but cares deeply and is passionate about her interests. This system does not work as well in TOTK. The memories in this game serve a different goal, they’re intended to show the events of the plot, not give insight into characters. Seeing as you can discover the memories in any order, the whole story loses its impact when you’re seeing it out of order. It’s not confusing, just frustrating. And the characters feel like props moving the story along, not characters in their own right. Characters who become very important (Mineru, I’m talking about Mineru) are difficult to care about like you’re supposed to because they never feel real. This sacrifice in character moments in service to a story that’s damaged by the way it’s told really stings.
And can we talk about that story? How you hear it repeated every single fucking time you complete a dungeon? The past sages provide no new insight and do not tell the story any differently so you just hear the same old thing, over and over. I think it’s a good thing they didn’t try to make the past sages characters, they would have just felt like replacements for the champions, but it means it’s boring as sin to hear them go on.
Speaking of the champions, the new champions sure are there. They all have fine roles in the story, but I can’t help but yearn for more. There’s glimpses into better arcs, but the conclusion of “it’s my entire people’s purpose to assist Link so I’ll do my best!” is uncomfortable to watch happen four times. And on the subject of that conclusion…
Much smarter people than me have talked about the Zelda franchise’s issues with racism and imperialism, but I’ll throw in my two cents. The suggestion that the other races of Hyrule’s purpose is to assist the royal family is an uncomfortable one, and it’s made worse by the fact that Ganondorf is back in this game and. Like that. I shouldn’t need to tell you his design plays on several harmful tropes. At the absolute bare minimum, the vai outfit is gone from the game and you can make Link girlboss with being fetishistic (thank you frostbite set).
I don’t dislike everything the game’s story has to offer, I love the little mysteries about what the fuck Zelda’s been up to (my friends and I took to calling the Zelda imposter Zelwario) and I love everything to do with the light dragon. I wish we got to see Fi, but I know I’m one of maybe a dozen people on earth who wanted to see that, so I understand why it didn’t happen.
I don’t know. I got really invested in the simple yet effective story of BOTW, and it feels like this game is a good example of bigger isn’t always better.
It really speaks to how damn fun this game is that I’d still rank it so highly with so many negative things to say about it. I may have beaten the main story, but I’m nowhere near done with this game. Those Koroks aren’t going to torture themselves.
Fuck it I’m a Simon’s quest defender now. People are way too hard on this game. Yes, it’s cryptic and not often clear about what you need to do next, but is it really that much worse than other games of the time period? I say not. And as a trade off for being confusing, the actual gameplay is extremely forgiving, especially compared to the first game. Honestly, this game deserves a play through just to bask in that castlevania atmosphere and listen to one of the best video songs of the era.
I do not think I would have enjoyed this game nearly as much if it didn't come out when. you know
2022
I do wish the story mode borrowed a little less from Octo Expansion (it doesn't work as well here as it did there) and dared to be more of its own thing, but the aspects of the story mode that were original (the new idols serving as obstacles instead of new guides, smallfry, the exploring) were great. Deep Cut acting as sort of team rocket figures was fantastic and extremely funny.
As for the online multiplayer, it definitely has issues, but I think it's overall the best the series has been yet. The new map designs are awful, with the shapes being far too simplistic, but the gameplay is as vibrant as ever. The level of customization you have, between your tag and your locker, is super fun and sorts Splatoon very well. Tableturf is a fun addition, and this game overall has a very bright, welcoming community. It's just a ton of fun to sink hours into. A lot of people have complained about connectivity issues, but I didn't experience too many.
It doesn't quite reach the highs of Octo Expansion, but I love this game and I'm excited to see what Side Order brings.
As for the online multiplayer, it definitely has issues, but I think it's overall the best the series has been yet. The new map designs are awful, with the shapes being far too simplistic, but the gameplay is as vibrant as ever. The level of customization you have, between your tag and your locker, is super fun and sorts Splatoon very well. Tableturf is a fun addition, and this game overall has a very bright, welcoming community. It's just a ton of fun to sink hours into. A lot of people have complained about connectivity issues, but I didn't experience too many.
It doesn't quite reach the highs of Octo Expansion, but I love this game and I'm excited to see what Side Order brings.
TBD
the story behind what happened to this game is far more interesting than the game ever was