Sonic Frontiers: The Lost Levels

Definitely a very scattered addition to Sonic Frontiers. Having new playable characters in Tails, Knuckles, and Amy is really cool and I really liked being able to control someone other than sonic in a mainline game for the first time in a LONG while. There's a whole extra island full of the typical stuff you'd need to find and do in the base game, just now split across 4 different similarly-controlling characters. The big primary gripe that I (and a lot of other people) have with this expansion is just the fact that it's uncharacteristically difficult compared to the base game or just other sonic games as a whole, and it really emphasizes the flaws from the base game rather than playing towards its strengths. Since Sonic is for some reason the only character that can enter the (now much more demanding) cyberspace levels, in order to make interesting platforming challenges for the new characters there's a lot more focus put on the random floating sky blocks and rails that plague the islands of Sonic Frontiers, and the pop-in still does not help much. There were several instances where the game prompted me with a waypoint that to the understanding of my current view was just a random inaccessible point high up in the sky because the render distance was too short to actually show what kind of platforms I needed to be getting to or where the path to go there even starts, and conversely there were also times where I felt like I used each of the new characters air movement in a way to bypass entire large platforming challenges that I was intended to do a specific way. There's also these really tall towers that need to be scaled with their own unique lengthy platforming challenges to reach the top, and they are incredibly stressful to climb as any small mistake has the possibility of sending you all the way back down. The overworlds balance is just as sporadic as the random blocks that float around within it.

Combine that with a boss rush that is aggravatingly difficult as it demands you clear the first 3 bosses on the same pool of rings which as a speedrun challenge works fine enough for the first and third bosses but the second one being a cycle-based fight means you pretty much have to get a perfect cycle or two otherwise the entire run is dead which is always fun. They introduce the "perfect parry" mechanic here where instead of just holding the bumpers to be in a automatic parry state you need to time your parry properly which sounds deeper on paper but considering the very weirdly timed hit windows on the bosses attacks I think I understand why the parry system was how it was in the first place! And this is even after several patches that nerfed things to make them easier, this shit was even harder when it first dropped!

It's just kind of hard for me to tell who this expansion was really made for. The new characters and world make me believe it's for anyone who has played through Frontiers, but the higher difficulty makes it a pretty tough pill to swallow. The extra story content might mean it's for sonic lore masters, but really the alternate ending doesn't really amount much differently than the base games ending, if at all. The extra focus on challenge implies that it's for challenge-seeking veteran gamers, but the challenge comes more from managing the games jank and figuring out what the game may or may not want from you as the game itself doesn't really inform you on shit! I think the base game being much more mellow and casual in design helped hide the mechanical cracks in the seams, but with this game being much spicier those cracks are all the more apparent. To me, a games final impression matters as it's both the note to end the whole thing off on as well as one of the first things that I think about when I reminisce on it given that it's usually a more recent memory of playing it. Playing through this made me genuinely consider if Frontiers was actually this mid the whole time, and that's never the kind of note you want to end your bonus content on... I will give them props for making something of this caliber a free update instead of a paid expansion, but like it might be for the best to stick to the base game so as not to potentially sour your last impressions on the game like me by playing this.

while doom would (rightfully) set the world ablaze, marathon would pop up on the mac shortly after, and took a decidedly different approach.

im sure youve seen the quote from john carmack. you know the one, about stories in games being more comparable to ones from a porn movie. marathon would take the logic and plant it in the nearest dumpster. fuck that, said bungie.

it payed, and continues to pay dividends. marathon is beautifully written and the layers of conspiracy do go deep, with plenty to find and take apart, from MIDA to whatever the hell is happening in a certain deprivation chamber. while the sequels (particularly infinity) would create more madness, this is a hell of a foundation. it also introduces one of the most interesting and charismatic video game characters in Durandal. seriously - practically every quote from him is immediately quotable.

its just a shame that other parts of marathon are so clunky. the movement, the fov and ESPECIALLY the map design are all either outdated or just insane. its a shame cause the moment-to-moment gamplay is as fun as every other shooter from the era. but hey, this is what going back to the early days is like

aside from the map design. seriosly its just kinda dumb sometimes.

anyways, brilliant first game, despite its many issues. if you just want to learn about the story, give hamish a visit.


T-Minus 15.193792102158E+9 years until the universe closes!

END OF MESSAGE
(U.E.S.C. Marathon - Public Access Terminal 39-f<13.19.31.37>)

Something which can get lost in conversations about especially faithful remakes is what elements outside of the games themselves can bring to the table. The key differentiator between my experiences with the original Thousand Year Door and this version, as well as what ultimately led both to my preference for the latter and greater appreciation for the strong points it's always had, isn’t anything to do with localisation alterations, white character outlines, reflective surfaces or whatever other common talking points you can shake a hammer at – it’s the handheld factor.

Granted, the transition from a pure home console to a hybrid wouldn’t be as impactful if it weren’t for some of the in-game adjustments which complement it. The new fast travel room, which initially seems like just a stopgap measure, eventually reveals itself to be a gamechanger once the backtracking comes to a head in the form of General White, and even smaller level-specific inclusions like the spring on Keelhaul Key’s midsection shave off substantial amounts of time which used to be spent absent-mindedly holding right, then left, then right, then left. As appreciable as they are in a vacuum, it’s the additional convenience and lack of commitment inherent to the handheld format stacked on top which really drew my attention toward them to an extent I’m not sure would’ve happened if these still pretty lacklustre segments were something I had to plop myself down for and dedicate 100% of my attention to. Serious recommendation: if you’ve access to a treadmill at home, hop on it while playing and be amazed at how much more engaging TTYD’s overworld exploration can be when you’re balancing it alongside yourself.

The bizarre inability to speed up text bubbles you haven’t already seen before hurts this appeal, and I personally would’ve preferred some bolder adjustments to the levels in general (like, for example, taking a leaf out of Mario & Luigi’s book and making traversal more puzzle-like), though it’s understandable that they’d want to play it fairly safe given Mario RPGs’ precarious circumstances until recently. If there’s anything I’m glad to see untouched, it’s this combat system. Action commands are great in any form for the tactility they add, but in this particular case you can also feel a concentrated effort to one up the original Paper Mario’s already ambitious variation in inputs for them, pretty much every individual attack being distinct from every other one in terms of motions, timing or both (which also applies to each one’s stylish moves). Special Attacks and the audience which acts as fuel for them add at least two intertwined layers of resource management to consider, with the latter specifically also sprinkling in a bit of dynamism thanks to how audience members can help or hinder you depending on your performance and/or what type of creature they are. Even the properties of your partners’ overworld abilities tie into it through the first strike system, helping the two main gameplay components feel less disparate and enabling silly nonsense like this. This game’s panache in terms of character design warrants the praise (Luigi gets an entire party of his own whom we never even get to see in action), but that clip’s also an example of a trait which probably deserves more attention, i.e. how it uses the readability of mainline Mario’s enemies to inform their unique quirks when translated into a JRPG format.

Everything pertaining to TTYD’s combat mechanics is so good that you can’t help but wish that this version added some kind of difficulty modifier to better push them to their limits, as well as to give an extra incentive for returning players. Thankfully, though, there are a pair of new post-game superbosses which effectively tease at this sort of thing. The absence of a Prince Mush fight in the original felt conspicuous even at the time considering both the extent to which other characters hype him up and the resolution to his arc, so it’s cathartic to see this delivered upon at all, never mind for it to be so distinctive that it’s (as far as I’m aware) the only boss which outright requires you to superguard just to be able to damage him. Whacka’s in a similar boat, substantiating a one-off gag with a fight that’s as comedic as it is dangerous and in which the potential danger only grows every single time you whack-a him. These aren’t just cool bosses in and of themselves, but also signs of promise – with Mario RPGs’ prospective futures looking the brightest they’ve probably been since around the time of the original TTYD, it’s pretty exciting to experience firsthand that Intelligent Systems are still capable of creating compelling fights with this battle system.

They and others are also, I’d argue, indications that the remake’s musical direction’s more well-considered than occasional claims of it being overproduced compared to the original tend to suggest. If you could take a conceptual joke boss who also happens to be able to deal 80+ damage in a single turn in a game where single digits’re often cause for concern, a Super Toad God Super Toad wanting to give his audience one last hurrah or a skeletal dragon sleeping at the bottom of a cursed pit and convert them into audio files, it’s hard to imagine any of those not respectively sounding like this, this or this. Bonetail’s theme in particular feels well-aligned with the spirit of “old” Paper Mario and its aforementioned emphasis on standout character designs, given that it’s now unique to him rather than shared with the other two dragons. I’m in favour of any game having more electric guitar riffs in it as a general rule, it’s just that it’s especially conducive to the ambiance of a game that’s willing to get so adventurous with its cutesy source material (as well as a better vehicle for conveying the seediness of Rogueport).

That adventurousness is something I’ve come to appreciate much more now than I did as a 6 year old, so my gladness at TTYD being given a second wind’s twofold: the potential it has to see wider success on an install base magnitudes bigger, and for enticing me to revisit it when I otherwise probably wouldn’t have. I say revisit because, although (for all the reasons above) the additions made here are substantial enough both to justify the remake’s existence and make it my preferred version of the game, so many of its strong suits were ever-present. As it turns out, it doesn’t take a full-on overhaul of something for you to see the greatness it always had – sometimes it just takes 20 years, a change in attitude, a couple of new superbosses and the ability to play it on workout equipment.

After a long period of radio silence from the big ape, Donkey Kong managed to bounce back and flourish in the spotlight once again, thanks to Rareware and the first two games of the Donkey Kong Country sub-series. Both of these games in many ways are some of the best platformers that you could possibly find not just on the SNES, but from the 16-bit era, providing fast and fun platforming challenges, plenty of fun secrets and levels for players to find and complete, many difficult trails that feel oh-so-satisfying to conquer, and all of the joy, charm, and fun that you could expect from both Rare and Nintendo around that time. So, now that we have two very successful and beloved games on our hands, how about we go ahead and expand things a bit, by making a brand new DKC game specifically for the Game Boy (also, yes, I am aware that DKL came out before DKC 2 did, but uhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I don’t care)! And I mean, hey, why not? After all, Mario was able to make several beloved and successful platformers for the gray brick beforehand, and Donkey Kong already made a name for himself on the Game Boy with that one title from 1994, so I’m pretty sure they could do no harm with this decision. So, after a little bit of time and after one cancellation of a Battletoads Arcade port (it was probably for the best, tbh), we then got this game in the form of Donkey Kong Land.

This is probably one of the more forgettable games in the Donkey Kong series, as you don’t really hear too many people talking about it or its sequels anymore, and as for me, I didn’t even know it existed for the longest time until a good while ago, until I bought a bunch of Game Boy games off of this one woman, and this just so happened to be one of the games included in it. Whenever I eventually did decide to sit down and play it initially, I remembered HATING it, being incredibly frustrated with it by the end of it, and thinking that it was pretty much just a shitty version of the main console DKC games. It has been a long time since that initial playthrough though, and I felt I may have been a little too harsh towards the game back then, so I decided to go back to it and give it another shot, and you know what… it still ain’t no DKC 1, but for what it is worth, it is a good game. It doesn’t really do anything too special or different from the mainlike DKC games, but it still manages to successfully bring the fun gameplay of those games onto the smaller screen, and it can provide you with plenty of fun if you can ignore some of its... glaring issues.

The story is exactly the same as the original DKC, so there is no need to go further into that, the graphics are Game Boy graphics, and in this case, they are…… interesting, where they do try to replicate the same kind of look and animations that are in the SNES games, and it is impressive what they manage to do with that here, but it definitely has aged pretty poorly, and it can make the game an eyesore at plenty of times, the music is good, with most of the tracks consisting of Game Boy renditions of DKC 1’s tunes, but they manage to sound good enough on the system, and the new tracks there are good to listen to as well, and the gameplay/control is pretty much exactly as how it was in the SNES games (you see the pattern here, right?), except not quite as good, so if you were a big fan of how those games played and controlled, you are pretty much gonna feel the same way here.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of either Donkey Kong or Diddy Kong, go through a set of thirty different levels across many different worlds, from your typical jungle and water levels, to new levels like sewers and the clouds, defeat plenty of enemies by either bopping them on the head or slamming a barrel into their face, even if most of them are just minding their own business, gather plenty of bananas to increase your life, as well as the KONG letters and extra lives to help you out along the way, and take on several bosses that take the wrong lessons from DKC 1’s bosses, and can be quite the disappointment. Most of what you would expect from a DKC game is here and accounted for, and while it doesn’t feel quite as great to play and conquer as that of the console games, it can still provide a decent amount of fun whenever you try it out, and it is some good road trip material…….. as long as you play it on a GBA SP, otherwise you won’t be able to see a thing.

Aside from the new level environments, bosses, and what have you, there isn’t really anything new to talk about when it comes to this game, which is to be expected, as this was just meant to be a companion piece to the original DKC. So, the biggest factor that I can really judge this game on, over anything else, is how well it does at managing to bring the classic DKC formula to a handheld system, and from what we got here, I think it works out pretty well. Everything still plays and feels like a typical DKC game, with tricky yet satisfying platforming, plenty of secrets and bonuses to find, many difficult segments that you will need to overcome, and enough of that same charm you have come to expect, which all works pretty well here, making for a fairly solid little adventure that you can finish in an hour or so if you know what you’re doing. It can be a little hard to get used to, considering how momentum and movement can feel pretty stiff, especially if you are coming from the SNES games, as well as how difficult it can get towards the end of the game, but it isn’t anything too off-putting to where I couldn’t finish it, and I ended up having a really good time with it regardless.

Of course though, it does come with its fair share of issues, because just like with DKC 1, the bosses in this game kind of suck. To be fair, they are better than that of that original game, and there are fewer of them to complain about, but some of the ones here aren’t really that fun to fight at all, such as one where you have to just jump on a bunch of stingrays and then you win, or one that takes place entirely underwater, and you have to maneuver yourself around this area to get the enemy to hit itself with its own projectiles. Yeah, I’m sure you can imagine how much fun that is. Also, this game does have a bit of an issue with saving, where unlike in DKC 1, where you can visit Candy Kong so that she can save your game, here, you have to collect the KONG letters in the levels in order to do that, which isn’t necessarily that bad or impossible to do, but it definitely isn’t the way I would want to go about saving my game. And I thought Crash Bandicoot was the only game that does this kind of stupid saving shit, but I didn’t know what was barreling around the corner…

Overall, despite some poor bosses and the saving system being pretty lame, Donkey Kong Land is still a good companion piece to the original Donkey Kong Country, where it still retains all of the things you love about the main games, including the fun platforming, the challenging yet satisfying obstacles, all of the secrets to find and collect, as well as that Rare charm that you just can’t go without. I would recommend it for those who are big fans of the main DKC games, as well as those who are big old-school platformer fans, because while this may not be the go-to option for those wanting a helping of DK action, it can still be fun regardless if you haven’t tried it out. Also, before we end this review off, I do wanna briefly go over the other two Donkey Kong Land games, DKL 2 and 3, because I am not gonna be dedicating full reviews to those two games. Unlike the first DKL, which was more of an original Donkey Kong adventure, these two games are more or less conversions of DKC 2 and 3 for the Game Boy, where most of the level themes and means of progression remain the same, but some of the level design is changed up. These are fine enough versions of these games, and they are pretty impressive conversions for this gray brick, but you obviously wouldn’t want to play them over the main console games, so they are just more forgettable than anything else. It’s a shame too, cause I definitely would’ve wanted to see a sequel to the original DKL that did have more original content, but eh, whaddya gonna do.

Games #626, 626.5, and 627

"Then what happened, dad?"

"Then I did about an hour of tedious first-person platforming between floating rocks."

"Wow! And then what?"

"Well, then I did it some more and then I was done. The End."

"Wow ... great story, Dad."

I remember taking family trips to the beach when I was a kid and note being able to be apart from my PS2. I remember this specific trip where I knew there was going to be a TV on this small tropical beach we were visiting and I secretly took the PS2 with me. I remember playing Okami the whole week and starting to realize that games could actually be influenced by other games (I was quite mindblown as a kid by this) and I remember very excitedly pointing out all the similarities to previous Zelda games I had played over the years. A very wholesome and ultra artistic experience.

Not really a big fan of multiplayer games in general, but this game kind of ignited and maintained my sense of camaraderie. I had a short time in my life where I was actually able to play with a small group of friends that enjoyed similar games and it was wonderful! Part of the reason i dislike multiplayer games is that i am definitely not a competitive person. I prefer to chill and enjoy a good story or communally build a base together. Things that Valheim helped me achieve.
I also have a super soft spot for games that don't do the hyper-realistic graphic aesthetic and cater to more of an artistic aesthetic. Valheim totally nails this sort of watercolor painting graphics and it's something that I think an art appreciator should experience. The feeling of ecstasy still linger from the first time i was able to build a boat and set sail in this game. Definitely a great feeling. Similar to the first time you set sail in Wind Waker (although fairly clunkier). Aside from the gorgeous graphics I remember feeling tons of fear the first time i ventured away from the green pastures of the starting area and meeting the giants. This game made me feel many things, and feelings are good in my book. Both good and bad.

4 resource gathering vikings out of 5 ⚒️⚒️⚒️⚒️

I had my first girlfriend back in 2015 when I was 21 years old. I was really excited. Finding love late in life had not been easy for me, yet there she was - able to love a person who believed that he was unlovable. I always dreamt of finding a gamer girl and I think that is what drew me to her at first. We clicked quickly and intensely and I wasn't going to let myself drown in an ocean of what ifs later in life. Things also happened really fast - See, aching for love for so long and finally finding it at such a late age does weird things to you. I moved into her place after dating for a couple of intense months. We were excited and young. We both had jobs, but we weren't incredibly well off. That didn't matter though. We were in love and together and that was all that mattered. She also had a PS4 that she let me borrow from time to time and now that we lived together it was all mine.

This is when I found the game that would change my life. See, I had known about souls-like games for a while, but I had never dared to try them. I was a very afraid young man. Afraid to take risks, but that was clearly changing. I remember thinking to myself. I had moved in with someone i met less than 6 months ago! That is what risk takers (or young, naive and in love people) do! I had understood that risks could pay off sometimes.

One day I was watching a game grumps let's play, like i usually did. I loved that shit. I was in the peak of my game grumps binge watching era and I remember loving their Bloodborne playthrough. It was a nasty game. It looked very difficult and it made me feel real uneasy. I always did have a fascination with the souls games however. Something of an admiration from afar... and so I did it. I asked my girlfriend if we could get it. I had made my own account on her PS4 and i got the game.

I was shitting my pants the whole time guys. I remember the intro scene so perfectly in my mind. Waking up to the little hat guys. Finding the werewolf in the first room and being weaponless! What game would be this cruel. Which eldritch god would doom and mentally torture a young soul like mine. I was swiftly wiped out by the beast. I was livid and I wanted my revenge and I was clueless in realizing that this was the game's way of installing its emotional machinery into my unconscious. This was From Software's way of implanting its tiny little machine bug in my belly button. This small and seemingly tiny little encounter etched the souls formula in my psyche. I started to hunger for revenge.

After finally getting my first weapon (the same one the main character has on the game art), I succinctly claimed my vengeance. I felt accomplishment and proud, yet I also felt empty. I felt hunger. I wanted more - and so I decided to venture deep into this Victorian nightmare. Everything seemed dangerous. Everything put me into fight or flight mode. Villagers jumping at my character from the boxes had me jumping in real life, but they made me feel strong since they would die in one or two hits. These games have such a sophisticated way of empowering you. They inflate your ego and make you believe you're the best - and then suddenly you find an abomination twice your height and 10 times your width wielding an 11 ton sword that kills you instantly. You quickly understood that this game was not messing around.

And so, I got addicted to this process. Game empowers you - you kill some monsters, you git good - game kills you, deflates your ego and humiliates you. You get depressed and annoyed You don't give up, you git gud and you manage to beat a boss. Rinse and repeat. I had never had a humbling experience like this one before. A game that was fearless in its ways of teaching you how to navigate it. I was both enthralled and appalled that I was never brave enough to subject myself to such a treat! It was like being able to lift weights without actually going to the gym! I had started to build up my souls-like muscles.

Day in and day out I abused my girlfriend's PS4. She was subjected to hearing weird Victorian English flavored dialogues and indescribable weird screams from unimaginable beasts all night long. She was happy I had found a game that I was really passionate about though. And I was glad. I was glad I was old enough to appreciate it. I was glad that my first time with a souls like was so eye opening. In that moment is where I understood the value in doing hard things. And I still hadn't even beaten a boss. I still hadn't tasted the intoxicating high that is utterly destroying something that had utterly destroyed you in the past. Something like bullying the bully that bullied you in high school years after graduating.

I kept advancing through the game and after having my ass kicked by villagers and werewolves for a while, I was met with the Cleric Beast. My first ever souls like boss. Keep in mind that back then I did not understand the tropes I do now. I didn't understand how to dodge, how to aggressively attack (in the case of bloodborne) and how to take advantage of the movement of bosses. I was just in awe. In awe of the magnificence I had prescenced so far. I was fully immersed in a Lovecraftian world getting my ass handed to me by the introductory boss at 3am in the morning. What a time to be alive.

In that moment is where I started to truly appreciate the dynamics of the game (and where I developed my love for the glass canon archetype). I was able to be quick, maybe even quicker than the beast. I just had to believe in my self. I just had to trust in my muscle memory and all that I had learned so far. I was a hunter god damnit. I was born to literally hunt beasts and take their blood - and that's what I did. It felt like divine intervention. I celebrated late in the night. I felt accomplished and like I was able to overcome a fear I had.

In the grand scheme of things it might not have been such a big of a deal to overcome an obstacle in a videogame. Maybe it's silly to even take it this seriously. But I truly believe that big feats are made up of smaller, more manageable feats. This was good. This was important.

I started to understand more of the innerworkings of the game. I learned how to heal my self and learned how to farm for blood phials. I started to uncover the meticulously hidden short cuts and appreciated their cleverness. I witnessed the tragic story of Father Gascoigne. I absolutely loved the way Bloodborne tells its stories and how it exposes the player to the lore. It did it in such a natural and non intrusive way. There was always little to no handholding and absolutely no exposition in it's story telling. Almost to a fault. I did enjoy uncovering things for myself though. Even if it meant I'd miss some content eventually.

My story had then continued like most others' stories. I ventured into a creepy forest and beat the worst 3v1 odds. I collected umbilical cords. I helped NPCs escape into the safety of a strange church. I experienced Yharnam in all its glory. The world changed and I faced eldritch horrors. I upgraded my character and died many times and well... I know no one needs me to tell them how the experience of a souls like goes. Nowadays I would argue that the experience is has grown close to the mainstream and it's probably no longer a niche thing, so I just thought I'd share how this first souls like experience felt to me. I believe it actually might have changed my life.

I even believe that most really good videogame experiences change your life. I can think of Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, Final Fantasy VI, Fallout New Vegas, just to name a few. Something inside of you changes when you experience games like these. You're a comet in outer space travelling at 51.7 km/s and when you experience games like these, they veer you, even if it is slightly. You're exposed to stories and archetypes that enrich you in the best way. They nudge you and it changes your path. Like a comet that slightly changes its path, it ends up somewhere entirely different over time.

I believe Bloodborne changed my life. It changed my life because it helped me believe a little bit more in myself. It helped me understand that I might actually be able to overcome hurdles that I thought impossible. It taught me that I am probably a terrible estimator of what I am capable. Thank you Bloodborne (and first girlfriend), for teaching me that there is value in me beyond my understanding.

In any case, my rating for Bloodborne is:

5 eldritch horrors out of 5 👹👹👹👹👹