...When I was 12, back on Easter of 2012, my mom got me physical copies of Super Mario 3D Land and Ocarina of Time 3D as a present to go with my (at the time) new 3DS that I'd gotten for Christmas of 2011. I played Ocarina of Time 3D and liked it... but never ended up playing 3D Land and eventually just traded it in at Gamestop to get some other game I don't remember. Why, you ask? Because I was a stupid kid who thought story was all that mattered in games instead of actual gameplay. This was largely due to my childish bitterness over the MOTHER series being obscure at the time due to how much I loved Mother 3 and how it influenced my view on games for a long time after. It also led to me having a grudge/resentment for Mario for a long time purely on the basis of it being so popular despite not having any meaningful story, though obviously I've grown out of that mindset by now.

Having played a lot of games in the many years since then and wanting to play just more games that I feel are more pure and better for my soul, I wanted to properly give this game a shot since I've been binging through a lot of Mario's titles and have been using my 3DS much more often these days. And now that I've finally played it and have experienced everything the game has to offer... man, kid me was such an idiot.

I absolutely adored this game. At first, I was a bit bored by the first 3 or 4 worlds since I do think they are pretty basic and a bit bland. That said, once you hit World 5 on, the game starts pulling out its big guns in terms of cool level concepts and ideas, and I was really enthralled and captivated by them. The entire idea of having more bite-sized 2D Mario-esque levels in a 3D plane is genius and feels so fresh, especially when you remember this game came back in the 3DS/Wii U era when Nintendo was very clearly lacking in a lot of creativity and innovation, and a lot of the games at the time were pretty hit or miss compared to the Switch era we're in now. The short levels feel a lot like a mish mash of great ideas, and I think the fact they weren't limited by the need to have a uniform cohesive world design for each level does wonders for the game in terms of having more fun levels overall that don't feel overly repetitive or boring (i.e., like a lot of desert world levels in some other Mario games).

This game is also very clearly a Mario game aimed at kids who are new to gaming and platformers in general, it's incredibly beginner friendly. Not only is it generous with lives along with the slower run speed to more easily space yourself with platforming, but the Tanuki Leaf powerup is perfect for those who struggle to line up their jumps with the platforms too. Very forgiving which I appreciate as someone who isn't the best at platformers myself. When I actually started properly giving Mario a chance in recent years, I found I really sucked at them due to not really playing many platformers beforehand, and I had to work my butt off in Mario 3 to finally improve and become somewhat decent at that kind of playstyle (and yes, Mario 3 kicked my butt a million times over, I died so much in that game). If I'd actually played this game and given it a chance as a kid, I probably would have actually liked Mario much sooner, but also probably wouldn't have sucked at platformers for so many years.

Another thing I really appreciate is how every Star Coin is pretty reasonable to find without a guide, even in the harder levels later on. Showing the order the Coins appear in terms of level progression on the touch screen is already a great major hint to these if you've missed them, and I'm happy to say I didn't need a guide to get them all even though I'm usually awful when it comes to missing collectibles in games like these, which is great game design in my book.

The Special Worlds also make up for some of the more bland world design in the first half of the main game. They have a lot of cool gimmicks such as a dark doppelganger of Mario chasing you, and strict time limits among other things in order to make the reused levels feel more fresh, along with other cool ideas to spice things up and make them more fun but not feel as long either. I enjoyed pretty much every world from World 5 of the base game onwards and had a blast with them all.

Having to go through all the levels with Luigi was also much more fun than I expected it to be too, as he's just straight up a better Mario due to his higher jump, which makes a lot of Star Coin collecting much easier and also sprinting through the levels much easier too. I saw someone online say that the Final Level you get from 100%ing every other level is easier with Mario, but that's just straight up a lie. I died a ton of times on that level with Mario, but Luigi made that much easier and I cleared it in only a few tries after that. The Final Level itself was a pretty fun challenge, but not too difficult, which I appreciate after 18 year old me struggled to beat Mario Odyssey's Final Bonus Level (which I did never beat).

The music in this game is also very great too. I know a good amount of tracks were reused from Galaxy (which also has a great OST), but shout outs go to the music used in the final bout with Bowser in the main game (very tense) as well as Special World 8's Map themes being so charming and comfy.

Also I know people go on about this so I won't spend long on it, but yes, this game is definitely the best 3DS game to make use of the 3D effect, even if it isn't used much in most levels, I do still appreciate it all the same.

My only real complaint with the game isn't really even the fault of the game itself, just the console it's on. The buttons being so small and having to hold down the Y button for so long for some levels (such as the final level of the main game where you gotta constantly run from Bowser) made my hands cramp a bit, and also made some platforming/timing things like long jump tricky. I played this on my original 3DS model in honor of what I would've played the game on as a kid instead of my New 3DS XL, so maybe this problem will be more alleviated there, but I'll have to see about that on a future playthrough.

Overall, this is a very amazing game that I wish I played sooner, and that is definitely a more lost gem nowadays due to the 3DS's shutdown. I feel like I've reclaimed at least a small part of my childhood now that I've finally played this game, and look forward to being able to replay it again in the future. I'll probably be starting Mario 3D World in the future too to see how it takes from this game and improves upon its ideas in a console mainline format.

Total Playtime: 22 hours, 27 minutes

Very charming rhythm game! While the GBA and DS ones didn't quite grab me (DS more because I thought the controls held the game back), this one very much lived up to all the hype I heard about it and feels like the definitive Rhythm Heaven experience. The songs are a bop, and all have really fun and cool timings with cute presentation that I adore.

Also, shout out to Remix 10 for being one of the coolest and most fun and catchy final levels in a rhythm game period. I've always loved this song as I've heard it many times beforehand, and getting Superb rank on it was so satisfying. Very great game. That said, I do find that I prefer Theatrhythm on 3DS a bit mostly since I find the touch screen being more responsive and better for faster paced rhythm games like this vs. button controls, but this game is still awesome despite that.

Fun enough game, definitely aimed at kids with short mostly fun to play minigames. I mostly just played through the story mode which gave me a good enough idea of how the game plays, and I thought it was fun, both seeing the fun interactions of the characters (Bowser and Eggman are especially riots) and also just getting a crash course of all the minigames. It's also super funny seeing characters like Bowser do stuff like swinging on Rings or dancing/speedwalking.

That said, screw the stupid kayak minigame where you have to spin the circle pad super fast to row faster, I swear doing that minigame a few times weakened my Circle Pad, big regret doing that, wish I hadn't bothered and had just done another challenge from the start.

The game was a fun enough time overall though, but definitely something meant more for kids than older gamers.

I didn't think Monolith could top their excellent work with the base game, but somehow they managed to make one of the best RPGs I've played that's been released in recent years. Then again, I think that's because this game champions the idea of "Less is more" in spades, and perfectly uses it's more limited runtime and scope coupled with the set up and leg works every previous game has done to make this game's scenario and setting work as effectively as possible.

Note, I will be spoiling the main story here unlike my base XB3 review since I have more to say, but I will give a warning before I do so.

Firstly, the gameplay is somehow even better here than the base game. One of my main complaints with base 3 is that I feel it's overwhelming with too much to see and do, and while it's nice to chip away at over time, if you're just trying to binge the main story while seeing a good amount of quests, it will take a long time and leave you at a loss for what to see and do for awhile, and just feel incredibly daunting, especially if you're an adult with limited free time and a job like me. This game completely nips that problem in the bud by having a good amount to do, but not be too insane in scope. I feel that shorter RPGs are very underrated these days in terms of respecting your time and being better at streamlining its mechanics, while also packing a meaningful experience into a succinct timeframe. As much as I enjoyed the base game, bigger isn't always better.

The exploration here is better than it's ever been, and that's because they learned from Xenoblade 2 Torna's DLC expansion's mistakes. While the Community Affinity system in that game was great, it's biggest problem was that it was required and not optional, and would gate you from literally beating the game for several hours of playtime, even if you worked to do quests ahead of time. Here, it's all optional, but you're subtly encouraged to do so by actually being rewarded for exploring the world via many rewards beyond just EXP and items. Growing stronger and fulfilling objectives like the returning Collectapedia from Xenoblade 1 was so satisfying and addicting. Not only that, the environments and setting being more directly connected returning ones from Xenoblade 1 was another genius way to incentivize the exploration and be good fanservice for fans, so it works doubly in the games favor.

Another great aspect of this progression system is how it's tied into the combat. Because the gameplay is more streamlined, we don't have an expansive class system with tons of options to choose from here, but that works in the combat's favor. Because everyone is limited to one class, the game goes hard on making the progression system in how they get stronger a lot more succinct and rewarding, and making the characters more broken in their roles in ways that couldn't really be done in base 3. My favorite aspect of this was the additional Accesory slot that changed up Chain Order bonuses and let you really mess around with what characters can do what effects to make Chain Attacks that much more engaging and fresh, and give you such a strong edge in racking up the damage in such cool fun ways. I got so incredibly addicted to this, far more than the base game where I felt pretty limited due to how most of the character's completion orders other than the Heroes tend to be pretty eh. Very nice improvement. I also appreciate having Break Arts that aren't solely dependent on positioning in a pinch compared to the base game, as well as having a much more convenient and reliable Smash option that wasn't hard to get like the base game. Both of these changes really helped me pull off more combos than I could in the base game and made the combat that much more enjoyable and strategic, but fair with your control over it this time around.

The music is even better here than in the base game, with generally more memorable tracks, both new and with old homages to Xenoblade 1 and 2 songs from the past in great ways, but it helps that there's less areas that you spend more time in overall in this game, which helps memorability.

Now here come the story spoilers, you have been warned.

While Xenoblade 3's main game was a pretty strong thematic sequel to Xenoblade 1's themes on the cyclical nature of war and revenge, Future Redeemed is very much a direct sequel to Xenoblade 1's narrative as a whole. FR takes full advantage of the fact that it has 3 full games (and an epilogue's) worth of build up for its story, and wastes no time just jumping into the meat of the plot from the get go, no slow burn beginning this time which I appreciate this deep into the series. We get Matthew and Na'el's backstories fed to us via flashback after the journey's already started, and the game capitilizes on addressing remaining questions left over from the base game, as well as resolving plot threads left untied from what happened after Xenoblade 1 and 2's respective endings, which was super satisfying to see finally answered. I know a lot of people think FR raises more questions than it answers, but I disagree. If you have full Xenoblade lore knowledge, FR gives more than enough in terms of overt answers and implied answers for you to piece together the full story of Xenoblade 3 as a whole and how it follows up 1 and 2. The only things left unanswered are the Xenosaga teases near the end, which is pretty clear set up for future Xenoblade games, so that's intentional and not a big deal for the moment in my opinion in terms of being "unanswered".

The cast is as strong as ever, which is great to see not toned down from the base game's quality of writing, and it helps that half the cast are returning characters who had their arcs completed and are more fleshed out as adults who've been through it all. Rex for example I think works a lot better as a character here after having seen him push through with his ideals even after losing his mentors, lovers, and children and still fight to make the world a better place as a more gruff adult. Shulk and Alvis are still as endearing as ever as well, and their bonds with the rest of the cast are so nice and truly enrich the story. Having heart to hearts be incorporated into Shulk, Rex and Alvis revisit old sights and such was a genius idea as well gameplay wise.

The themes of FR inverting the base game's while following up Xenoblade 1 and 2's themes of seizing the future and pushing through a cruel world with hope to rebuild the world better than before in the face of adversity hit so much harder now after seeing how the world has fallen into a worse state than they were in 1 or 2's scenarios. But it makes the triumph at the end all the more sweeter as a result too, and is definitely the pinnacle of Xenoblade's themes as a whole of working towards the future, endlessly. The characters and world of the series isn't stagnant, and doesn't live in an endless now of eternal peace, as that's just now how humanity is. There will always be problems, but we must work through them together for the entirety of our lives in pursuit of something better. That's how life is, and Xenoblade Chronicles as a whole captures that perfectly.

Overall, I'm incredibly impressed with this game, and I wish more episodic direct installments of shorter length were more viable in today's market sadly. Here's to hoping Monolith can do more of these going forward. Their future looks incredibly bright after this magnum opus of a work from them.

Final Playtime: 27 hours, 14 minutes.

Man... Takahashi really outdid himself this time. I'm honestly amazed how well this game came out and how much it drastically improves on all the problems its predecessors had, making what I believe is honestly the culmination of the Xeno franchise as a whole.

The gameplay is honestly better than it's ever been, and I can't believe how much QoL they put into it to make it the best of both worlds of Xenoblade 1 and 2. For starters, Field Skills are gone and you're back to easily picking up collectibles via just running across them on the ground or opening treasure chests! Targeting which enemy you want to fight with L and R before you attack them is so much less finnicky and smooth, the UI responsiveness is way better than 2's, it's more easy to see who is being targeted by enemies due to lines in battle, there are icons marking if equipment pieces matches the character's current class, being able to fight in water now, easy to tell updates to when NPCs have new dialogue, having multiple save slots this time around, and so much more! And that's just the more minor stuff too, not counting stuff like the cool new monster variations like Elite and Lucky to go long with Unique Monsters that give different EXP and item rewards! Honestly, I'd be here all day if I tried to list everything, so major kudos to Monolith for working so hard to improve everything. That said... there's so many gameplay mechanics shoved into this game that it kinda goes a bit overboard into the end of there's way too much to do, which can be overwhelming and a bit ridiculous, but it works well enough that I give it a pass.

Overall the combat feels like an even more improved rendition of Xenoblade 2's, without the trashy gacha system. The combat is so fun that I just had a blast fighting and fighting non stop, even if it's easy to overlevel in this game. That's where the game's toggleable difficulty really comes in to fix that. There were so many times I adjusted difficulty to fit what I wanted at the time, whether I wanted hard difficulty to offset my overleveling, or the difficulty to be set easier so I could beeline through the endgame without too much hassle and having to grind more once I stopped doing quests. Overall I was pleased with the combat of 3 thanks to these awesome QoL options.

The music is still pretty great as usual for Xeno. While the field themes aren't as striking as previous games, the battle themes and other impactful music in the cutscenes are still amazing with great callbacks to 1/2's tracks and making the story beats hit that much harder.

While I do really love how much Aionios plays off the idea of the world being a fused world of 1 and 2, and how it's so cool seeing all the old areas come back, it does sadly make the environments of 3 not stand out as much on their own. But given the themes of the story and how nice it is revisiting those old worlds many years later, I'm willing to accept that sacrifice and still enjoyed the locales enough.

As for the story, I don't plan to specify any heavy spoilers, but I'll go over broad strokes that can imply some stuff, so be warned.

I love how much this is a much more heavily character-driven narrative than a plot-driven one like most of Xeno, that departure did this game so many wonderful favors. Everyone in the world feels so real and like their lives and relevance aren't limited by whoever the chosen one of the world is this time. Even in just the main story alone, the main cast are so well fleshed out and given all their time to shine, and the side content is so insanely rich to the level of a Trails RPG that all the side cast get to shine just as brightly, and even the main cast get even MORE fleshing out there too. It's unreal.

I know the big complaint of 3's main plot is that a good amount of key lore stuff isn't explained the best compared to any other Xeno game (though people tend to forget both Gears and Saga did the exact same thing and needed lore books to explain everything the games couldn't explain fully either), but I don't really mind. I think enough was explained to make 3's story work and FR exists to expand more on other lore not touched upon here, plus it really works in the cast's favor to not restrain them as characters due to this, as previous Xeno games like Gears really suffer heavily from this which really holds back their casts from being more than plot devices on the whole.

The other big complaint is that 3's villain cast isn't as good as 2's, which is a fair critique. However, I personally think that's not a big deal. As long as a story has at least a few solid antagonists, the more important aspect to me is that the main cast is well written across the board, which this game excels in spades with. After all, if the villain cast is written better on the whole than the protag. cast, we're going to want to root for them than the heroes, which while that can work depending on the story, obviously isn't what a series like Xenoblade Chronicles is trying to go for, and I've seen many people hate 2's main cast and wanted the villains to kick their butts instead as a result.

Another thing I really appreciate is how this game feels like a more young adult story compared to 1 and 2's more shonen tones and story directions. It feels like Takahashi aged up the story to match the aged up audience who grew up during the 5 year time skip of Xenoblade 3 being released after 2. It also bridges the gap of the Blade series becoming closer to Gears and Saga's stories adult tone, which I also appreciate.

And lastly, I love how much 3 feels like a culimination of themes and messages of 1, 2, as well as Gears and Saga. The reason I didn't beat this game until almost 2 years after launch is because I went back to go watch Xenogears and Xenosaga's cutscenes so I could fully appreciate 3's story, and I'm glad I did. So many themes and plot points are redone here and fully realized in this game from those games as well as Blade 1 and 2, and it's done so well that it really made me appreciate this story so much more as a result. So many psychological sci-fi concepts wouldn't have landed nearly as well without the proper context, and it was very much worth the endeavor. This game just feels like the perfect love letter and climax to Xeno as a whole in so many ways, heck, even the final fight feels like the closest thing we'll ever get to Xenoblade Infinity War in a great way, and I'm super pleased with how things turned out. The only thing I find myself wanting is a more direct continuation and conclusion to the Xenoblade 1/2's casts stories, which it sounds like Future Redeemed does, so I'm excited to get around to that one very soon.

Overall, congratulations to Monolith for their incredible achievement with this gem of a game. It was worth every second to me, and I didn't even do all the side content. I definitely plan to go back and do all the quests little by little over time, though that'll definitely be a lot later. For now, I'm hyped to finish Blade with Future Redeemed very soon. Thanks again for the memories Monolith Soft.

Final Playtime: 90 hours, 33 minutes.

I played this game only because Vyse from Skies of Arcadia is in it, so I could unlock and play as him. It's fun with friends, played it with two other people in the family to get him, has some unique gimmicks and was unique enough from Mario Kart, I still prefer MK Double Dash as a racing game though personally.

I did like the different modes this game had though, like the boost challenges and rival system that was like F-Zero 99, those were unique spins and good modes to make the game play differently in fun ways. This game also gets an extra half a star just for having Vyse in it.

A pretty good step up from the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy in my opinion. It has a lot of charm to it in a similar vein to the mainline Mario titles, paired with more refined gameplay from what the SNES trilogy had. Both of these alone had me having more fun with this game than I did with the previous 3 titles.

That said, this game was definitely as difficult as the SNES trilogy, if not even moreso. I wouldn't have minded that as much... if not for the fact that such a difficult and precise platformer isn't really good for a tiny 3DS. The small buttons, strict timing, and locked 30 FPS don't mesh well together, along with the fact that because this is a Wii game port, DK's model sometime gets so incredibly tiny on the screen when it zooms out in some levels that it's hard to accurately judge timing as a result and even see him at times. I would've played the Wii version instead, but that has its own caveats of having to deal with motion controls to have DK pound and I'd rather just have normal button use for a platformer like this than the Wii's shoehorned motion gimmick. It got to the point where I just got tired of the game's difficult levels not working well on a 3DS, that I just let Super Kong play a lot of later levels for me since I just wanted to be done. I'm hoping that Tropical Freeze finds the best of both worlds of a normal control scheme made for a bigger screen, paired with the healthy difficulty this game had with a bit less gimmicky levels. I'll be playing it on Wii U, so I hope the final DKC romp I have is better than the last.

I've been following the Science Adventure series (SciADV for short) for the last 4 years now, ever since I checked out the Steins;Gate anime, read some of Chaos;Child, and read the Chaos;Head NoAH spanish translation in full, which made me a diehard fan of the series for a time, and I even helped work on the Committee of Zero Translation and QoL improvement patches for a good while too. That said, while I will still always be grateful to NoAH for putting my own shut-in lifestyle into perspective and helping me get out of that hole I dug myself into, as I've gotten older and graduated college I've come to realize that I've drifted away from this series, and don't like a lot about it in retrospect. I've found the series more often than not is more plot-driven and really chokeholds the potential of its characters to be more compelling due to heavy plot devices and fast pacing in a good amount of entries, with the only real exceptions being Robotics;Notes and Chaos;Child. I've also really grown to not care for the heavy fanservice and objectification of women in the series, there's a lot of misogyny that goes on in the series that feels like it's done for otaku bait, among other fanservice things. For these reasons and a few more, I'm not the biggest fan of SciADV anymore, and I planned to make Anonymous;Code be the final game I check out in the franchise, and I think I might still stick to that. That said...

I have to stay I was pretty impressed with A;C itself. I don't plan to spoil the plot in detail, but I will say some general things. Firstly, I think this game truly is meant for those long-term SciADV fans first and foremost. The game explains enough that newcomers can enjoy and understand a decent bit of the plot, but I think most of the returning SciADV concepts really make a lot more sense and hit much harder in terms of impact if you're already familiar with the series. I'd really recommend most people read Chaos;Head NoAH, Steins;Gate, and Steins;Gate 0 at the minimum before playing this, to get the full impact.

The game is very plot-driven and only really fleshes out its two lead characters, but the main appeal of the game really is the worldbuilding and payoff to long term SciADV plot points and themes in my opinion, and it does a fantastic job of that. So many things I'd theorized and figured out on my own beforehand were finally vindicated after so many years, so that was nice. The very brisk, thriller-esque pacing of the plot was very welcome too, after dumping so many hours of time investment into this series with its earlier entries that are more slow burn plots. I didn't really want another slow burn story with SciADV after this much time investment, and I'm really glad A;C delivered there. I was able to beat the game in 4 days thanks to that.

The OST is also amazing, definitely one of Takeshi Abo's best. Also, after seeing SciADV's horrible decline in quality following Chaos;Child, it's nice to see that Naotaka Hayashi, the original scenario writer for NoAH, S;G, and R;N come back to return the series to form was very nice. Also, thank goodness that they FINALLY got rid of the fanservice crap aspect this series is infamous for. There's next to no fanservice in this game which was super refreshing.

That said, as an Orthodox Christian, this game is pretty blasphemous to my beliefs, but I wasn't too surprised as I said, because a lot of those aspects of the story were already foreshadowed and built up to long in advance in previous games. So I won't hold that against the game itself, even if it's another reason I probably won't revisit this series or read later games.

Overall, the story was good for what it was going for. It's far from perfect, lots of missed opportunities with better character writing and portrayal, some kind of one-dimensional views of religion and other concepts, but I think the game succeeds in what it was trying to be: a full realization of SciADV's overarching themes and sci-fi concepts, and shows them taken to their natural extreme to answer enough of what the narrative's been leading up to all these years. I enjoyed it enough, and I think this is a great place to end my time with Science Adventure.

It's been a fun ride, and may the delusions you wish for come true.

Total playtime: 18 hours.

As someone who always loved the Mario RPGs growing up, I ended up never playing this one because I never really had the means to play it (and by the time I got a Wii U, I never found out it ended up making its way to Virtual Console there). That said, I think it's a blessing in disguise that happened, as I was able to play the remake of it! I'm sure the original game holds up fine enough, but I really love all the Quality of Life improvements the game's made this time around!

First I'll talk gameplay. The timing is a lot more strict in this game compared to the Mario & Luigi games which really surprised me, and I enjoyed that, it gave the game a much better challenge. The fact that each weapon has a different type of timing also made the game and characters feel that much more alive, on top of adding to the challenge. I managed to 100% this game in everything except managing to do the 100 super jump challenge, I couldn't pull that off sadly, but it was still fun all the same.

I'd heard from many people how this game was very easy overall, which is why I went out of my way to try not overgrinding too much, and not using my Flower Tabs to up my FP or even upgrade my equipment all the time, and I found it gave the game a healthy amount of challenge, on top of the strict timing for button inputs. I ended up being level 25 by the end, and beat all the super bosses in the post game at this level. The game wasn't brutal by any means but I wouldn't say it was a complete cake walk either, I thought it was just right with those limits I abided by. Overall it was very fun and I enjoyed it, and the post game really scratched that challenge itch well too! I definitely needed the Lazy Shell armor to stand a chance in some of those fights, though some I did without it and got by.

As for the story and characters, it's a fair bit unique compared to the other Mario RPGs, as Square's involvement is very clear and palpable here. The fusion of Square's type of writing with Mario was so charming and very refreshing as well, all the characters are hilarious and fun to interact with, the environments are pretty varied and explore some places you wouldn't normally see Mario go to.

I honestly think the writing for most of the main party here is pretty on point as well, and arguably better compared to other Mario RPGs. Mario himself has more personality than usual, despite being silent. Him pantomiming previous events to catch other characters up on what's been going on, along with his dialogue options when talking to other characters really help say a good amount about him. Mallow is honestly pretty underrated among the fanbase, he has a pretty nice well rounded character arc of him finding his family and going from a crybaby to a brave young hero, and I found myself very endeared to him. Geno... I ironically found to be the weak link of the party writing wise. He's cool and stoic... and that's kinda all there is to him. I get why that made so many kids fall in love with him, and that's why people want him in Smash so badly, so I understand, even if I think he's just alright.

Bowser and Peach I think were especially done justice in this game compared to the other Mario RPGs. in most of the other ones (aka mostly Mario & Luigi, though Paper Mario falls victim to this somewhat too), Peach tends to end up being a plot device who is kinda idiotic and ends up making a lot of mistakes/just getting kidnapped at convenient times because the plot needs to progress a certain way that relies on her doing dumb things/making mistakes she normally wouldn't, and also just shoving her out of the story for 90% of the game (you could argue this is the case for the mainline Mario games too but at least there, usually her getting kidnapped is the premise, not her just getting kidnapped part way through the story or at several diff. points in the same story). Bowser (while I love him to death, even when he's written like this) is also just a big manchild who flies off the handle every 5 seconds and is also clowned on very often, and made the punching bag no one ever takes seriously to boot.

But in Mario RPG, they feel much more competent and less one-dimensional as characters. Peach has her soft side, and of course isn't the bravest and is very sensitive, but she knows when to put her foot down and stand her ground, and can take charge when she needs to on top of being kind and steadfast as a leader should. She's got a good balance and isn't just a girlboss, nor a weak Princess either. Bowser meanwhile is just generally a lot more mature in this game; he flies off the handle sometimes because it's still Bowser, but he actually lets a lot of things that would get to him in the other games go and actually has genuine respect/care for a lot of his minions, even when you could argue that they might've done things disrespectful to him. He's also just generally respected overall (by foes and allies alike) and isn't made a punching bag for the story to make fun of. He's also a decent bit smarter too. I honestly really like this take on both of them which I imagine was because of Square's writers involvement, and I wish this kind of version of both of them will come back in future games.

As for the story itself, while a very interesting and unique premise, it's more about being a fun enjoyable romp like most Mario RPGs, which isn't a bad thing. I think the cast and world do enough to make this game standout among the many spiritual successors it influenced and gave birth to, very nice to see how many of those well worn tropes and ideas started here with this great game.

The OST is probably my favorite OST among any Mario RPG I've played yet, once again done by the great Yoko Shimomura, but I feel here she had a lot more to work with in terms of material due to Square's involvement. It probably also helps this game was her first Mario RPG she orchestrated for, so she might've had more inspiration and unique ideas to work with as well. Her re-orchestrated soundtrack for the remake never misses a beat, and I still hear a lot of good songs even when I compared it to the SNES OST in the game's sound player itself (wonderful choice on the devs to include both by the way, more remakes should do this and let you toggle which to use).

All in all, I was very impressed by this game, and honestly think it's the best Mario RPG I've played after Bowser's Inside Story, though I still need to replay that one to re-evaluate my thoughts on it beyond just childhood enjoyment and nostalgia. This game is one of the most unique Mario RPGs and I'm glad it's been made more accessible to newer audiences, cleaning up and addressing certain issues while improving its already good qualities the SNES version already had! Will definitely be replaying this game in the future, no doubt about that.

Final Playtime: 21 hours, 10 minutes and 8 seconds.

Beat the main story in one sitting, honestly the best main campaign out of any WarioWare so far! I actually thought it was a pretty innovative and unique concept to have each character play through the minigames with their own moveset, added a style of interactivity and replayability/uniqueness to the game that no other WarioWare has had before. It also seems very fun to play with friends. Another solid title. Sadly this will likely be the last WarioWare I play, but I've enjoyed the series overall nonetheless. This one and Gold would be the ones I recommend people play the most for sure.

After what feels like an eternity (in reality it took me playing this game on and off over nearly 3 full years or so), I've finally beaten this game... mostly. What I mean by that is, I beat the main story and the Special Episodes, but I couldn't finish the insanely long post game story, and I'll explain why later in this review. This review will be spoiler free, though I'll touch upon what I liked about the story without giving anything major away.

I played the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue via GBA Emulation as well as Gates to Infinity before tackling Explorers of Sky, and I'm glad I did. Gates ironically is a step backward in a lot of ways from Sky, but that's also why I think it's a good idea to play it right after Red Rescue, since it'll "feel" like an evolution of Red's mechanics before seeing how Sky got everything right that Gates messed up, a nice incline of rising quality if you will in terms of gameplay evolution and in terms of the number of Pokemon you can recruit as well.

Speaking of the gameplay, I personally find it really fun! I'm not big into dungeon crawlers usually, but Mystery Dungeon mixes in enough RPG mechanics that I like that I enjoy it. Finding items and trying hard to survive against the unknown in the randomized dungeon is a cool concept and for the most part I find fun. That said... the one critique I do have is how insanely hard the game got at a lot of points. I actually had to use a PMD Wonder Mail Generator from the Internet Archive website in order to farm for Reviver Seeds many times in the game in order to progress without getting a game over and having to restart the dungeon numerous times over, the game is just very unforgiving. I didn't mind it for awhile since the main story wasn't too bad, but good Lord, the post game is just brutal. They cut you no slack, and while I got to the Team Charm section, I just couldn't go any further because the post game is super long AND difficult, and I hear the endgame is nigh impossible due to certain weak party members you're stuck with in the tough as nails final dungeon. Thankfully just the main story and Special Episodes are mostly well balanced and not too bad if you wanna complete those, and you'll get most of the story from that alone at least. I ended up having to watch the rest of the post game story from cutscenes on youtube, since I did like the plot enough to want to see how it ends.

Also, the soundtrack in this game is incredible. I swear nearly every dungeon theme is a banger in one way or another, and it took all the willpower I had not to look up the OST before beating the game despite how long it took me. I am going to very much savor and enjoy listening to all the awesome music this game has to offer later down the road going forward.

As for the story, it definitely lived up to all the hype everyone praises it for. Easily the best Pokemon story in any of the video games, no contest. Tons of meaningful messages and emotional moments of persevering through hardship, betrayal and trust, and of the bonds of friendship across time and space, that can appeal to both kids and even older adults, the game is written pretty maturely. The final Special Episode truly serves as the peak of the game's story with a truly unique and fascinating premise, and it really feels as though everything's really on the line there, what a fantastic way to cap off the narrative that I'm surprised wasn't in the original Time and Darkness versions of this game. Really happy they added it.

Overall, while I think the game does suffer from the length of the post game being overly long, paired with pretty brutal difficulty, overall I still enjoyed a lot of my time with this charming, ambitious game, and I look forward to playing Super PMD and the Red Rescue Team remakes in the future, even though I imagine they won't be quite as well written as this one. I'm sure the gameplay will probably still be pretty fun regardless. I definitely see where all the hype for this game finally has come from, and I think most of it is well deserved!

Final Playtime: 59 hours, 39 minutes, 53 seconds

I definitely think this is the best WarioWare of all the ones I've played so far. It has the best of everything the series has to offer in my opinion, it brings back a lot of the best minigames, has the cool returning Tilt controls, the touch screen mini games aren't super hard and the minigames feel like they were more handpicked overall to represent the best parts of the series as a whole. The final level in the story mode was also the coolest "final boss" in a WarioWare game so far honestly, rather than just being a random one off bout with Wario like it usually is, it was really fun.

The full voice acting on display here also added so much more to an already charming series and cast of characters, and I really liked it! That said, it was clear that at this stage in time, Charles really was losing his touch with the Wario voice due to age (not his fault at all though, just a natural byproduct of his age), but he did his best and I salute him for that. That being said... as much as I'd like to say I'd want more full voice acting for future WarioWare games, I just can't get behind Kevin Afghani's take on Wario (which also isn't his fault either, he was just miscast in the wrong role by NIntendo). All I can hear when I hear his Wario is a bootleg Wario, not the real one. Gold was probably the last chance we'd get to hear Wario well voice acted in the modern day sadly.

As I played this on my New 3DS XL, I also got the privilege of using my Amiibo with the game, and so many of Wario's drawings of the amiibo made me die of laughter, so the game gets bonus points for that alone.

Overall, Gold feels like a love letter and celebration of the series as a whole, and honestly feels like THE definitive WarioWare game. If anyone wanted to just play a single game from the series to find out what it's all about, this game right is here the one to go to, no question. Very fun game.