Despite being my favorite game of all time, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is not a perfect video game. I could spend a long time going over all the game’s glaring flaws and little things that could be improved. Or I could boot up the game and play it for 5 minutes and remember none of that actually matters.

First and foremost, Xenoblade 2 is an absolutely beautiful video game. Every location is absolutely stunning, sporting a distinct visual identity that’s always pleasing to look at. Gormott is a vast, sprawling plain with the endlessly cozy village of Torigoth tucked away in its corner. Uraya’s cool color palette across its vast swampland and beautiful Saffronia trees perfectly complements the comfort of Garfont Village and elegance of Fonsa Myma. Tantal’s harsh, snow-covered wasteland filled with ancient architecture builds a brutal backdrop for a desperate village struggling to survive. On top of that, Monolith took great care to make these places feel real. Every town is fully populated and every inch of wilderness teeming with wildlife.

It’s not just the locations that look good, either; every element of the game, from effects to menus, is perfectly stylized to fit the pseudo-sci-fi/fantasy world. Character design’s great too, with the game boasting a set of distinct cultures across the different titans in styles of dress and some absolute banger designs for the blades done by a variety of artists. Yes, I know it’s tempting to post a picture of Rex on Twitter with no context and say, “look at this idiot” or to post a picture of Pyra with no context and say, “dumb fanservice game”. But that’s ignoring the work that went into making a lot of creative, awesome-looking characters (and the fact you can easily get used to how Rex and Pyra look within an hour of playing the actual game).

Speaking of awesome, creative things, let’s talk about this game’s soundtrack. Every piece is an absolute banger and fits perfectly within its place in the game. The title screen immediately hooks players in, perfectly sets up the game’s sense of quiet contemplation, and later serves as a background piece in some of its most emotional moments. Each level theme perfectly captures the feel of the area it plays in, from the bustling trade hub of Argentum to the vast wonder of Gormott to the serene beauty of Uraya. The standard battle theme is on the same level as most games’ final boss themes, and every other one brilliantly accents its fight: the savagery of “Deathmatch with Torna”, the over-the-top showmanship of “Bringer of Chaos: Ultimate”, and “One who Gets in Our Way” seamlessly transitioning from the terror of getting spotted by Rotbart to the euphoria of felling a fearsome foe. Even the cutscene music is outstanding. “Counterattack” and “Over the Sinful Entreaty” are outstanding background tracks to some of the game’s coolest moments, “Past from Far Distance” is almost as haunting as the scenes it plays over, and songs like “Friendship”, “Walking with You”, and “Tomorrow with You” perfectly encapsulate the tenderness of Xenoblade 2’s best scenes. I can barely listen to the credits theme without tearing up.

On the topic of audio, the game’s English dub is often a point of contention. I get it, especially coming off of Xenoblade 1. Certain deliveries can feel a bit awkward, and you can get the sense that lines were recorded out of context. That said, I don’t think it’s bad, besides a couple things like Rex’s screams and Obrona’s voice. In fact, there are some great deliveries here, with characters like Zeke and Malos having especially entertaining voices behind them. I also love how the characters from different countries, as well as the blades, all have distinct accents. It’s a cool bit of texture that further develops the different cultures of Alrest, plus a lot of them just sound nice (I could listen to Morag and Nia talk all day).

All this style would mean nothing if the game didn’t have substance to back it up, and I am happy to report this game has substance in spades. Those beautiful locations are all fully realized semi-open worlds, with most of their landscapes being traversable. On top of the massive open spaces, every area is intricately designed with tons of memorable locales hidden away for players willing to explore. And these areas aren’t just big; they’re loaded with content. Every inch of every level has something interesting: a sidequest, a treasure trove, a landmark or secret area, a heart-to-heart, a unique monster, or even just a strong enemy. The size of the worlds is also perfectly tuned, making them big enough to feel impressive but small enough to be traversable. And the challenges each area introduces with side content, blade quests, and higher-level enemies means you can keep coming back to these places for the entire game. The towns are equally impressive, with a variety of buildings, shops, NPCs, hidden areas, and tons of dialogue serving up tons of content both from a story and gameplay standpoint.

Also, the Field Skills aren’t that bad. Sure, switching blades around to get the right skills in your party is annoying, but that’s it. It’s an annoyance, and nothing more. Nearly every skill check in the main story (and like, 80% of checks in side quests) can be cleared with guaranteed blades, and the process to unlock individual skills is very quick, requiring a few battles at most. Hell, the only time you need to pull blades for the main story is to clear the spider web in Chapter 7 (and even then, getting 1-2 common fire blades is trivial). It’s a minor bump in the road that doesn’t take away from the fantastic exploration. In fact, the focus on world design and exploration alone makes Xenoblade 2 an incredible video game.

But it’s not content to be incredible. It has to be the best there is, and “the best there is” is the best description I could possibly give for Xenoblade 2’s combat. Yes, it takes a while to get the full extent of it, but once you do, there’s nothing else like it. It takes the rhythm of a turn-based RPG and seamlessly transitions it into real time, making the player keep track of positioning, healing, enemy aggro, and Art usage. And on top of that, it introduces some truly phenomenal mechanics that elevate it above the other games in its series.

On paper, 2’s combat may look like a downgrade from the previous installments: you can’t Auto-Attack while moving, your Arts charge based on Auto-Attacks instead of cooldowns, and you only have 3 Arts per character. But look a little deeper and you’ll see how much it really adds. If you start moving and then stop, it resets the Auto-Attack timer, enabling the very useful and probably unintentional technique of “stutter-stepping”: continually move slightly to repeatedly perform your first Auto-Attack, speeding up combat even in the game’s early stages. Even beyond this, I enjoy the decision-making it presents: Do you stand still to deal more damage and charge your Arts or do you try to pick up items, grab HP Potions, and revive fallen party members? Speaking of Arts, the detail about only having 3 Arts is a straight-up lie. Each character can equip up to 3 Blades, which each have 3 Arts, 4 Specials, and their own unique abilities. This change in format gives the player plenty of freedom in deciding their loadouts, forces them to manage Blade cooldowns on top of other combat mechanics, and lets the game map arts and specials to the 4 main buttons, reducing the amount of necessary menuing in combat.

On the topic of Arts and Specials, I think it’s about time I explain the meat of the combat. As previously stated, using Auto-Attacks lets you use Arts, which lets you use Specials. Using Specials lets you perform Blade Combos, which can set up Orbs that let you perform better Chain Attacks. And if you break enough Orbs in a Chain Attack, you deal insane damage with a Full Burst. This also grants you additional EXP if you kill an enemy, which all but eliminates the need for grinding when used properly. Speaking of Blade Combos, each Blade Combo deals increased damage and damage over time, even at lower levels. Ergo, even if you don’t finish a Combo, you can still deal good damage to the enemy.

Xenoblade 1’s Break/Topple system is also reworked into Driver Combos. In 1, the best strategy for harder fights was to break enemies and then continually topple them until they could no longer move, which could feel a bit stale. In Xenoblade 2, Break and Topple have much more limited durations, but Toppled enemies can be Launched and Launched enemies can be Smashed. Launched enemies take more damage than Toppled enemies, and Smashing an enemy deals massive damage and spawns items. All stages of a Driver Combo also spawn HP Potions, increase the DOT and uptime of Blade Combos, and interrupt enemy Arts. This creates a much more dynamic system where you can constantly perform small actions to gain the advantage over the enemy, but there’s also a degree of risk when your Breaks don’t hit and you have to retry. Performing a Blade Combo while the enemy is inflicted with a Driver Combo also performs a Fusion Combo, dealing even more damage. On top of all that, Blades’ affinity increases over the course of a battle and grants you buffs when it maxes out.

This turns every combat encounter into a satisfying series of loops, where every attack builds into the next. At the start of a fight, you’re at your weakest, only using Auto-Attacks and a few Arts. But as the battles progress, your options open up. You start using Specials and Blade Combos to deal damage. You perform Driver Combos to gain advantages over the enemy and maybe even get a few items. And when your Party Gauge fills up and you’ve applied a few Orbs, you can unleash a Chain Attack and deal massive damage. There are few feelings in gaming as satisfying as performing a Full Burst.

And all throughout, the Cancel Attack system enhances the very experience of fighting. In a similar vein to Mario RPG’s timed hits, Cancel Attacks give you an advantage in combat if you press a button just as an attack connects. Auto-Attacks, Arts, Specials, and even Blade Switches flow seamlessly into each other for extensive chains of high damage and powerful effects. And the sound design just adds on to the satisfaction. Every attack feels crunchy. The feedback for cancelling makes the combos you pull off exponentially smoother. The cinematic angles for Blade Combo Finishers, Level 4 Specials, Fusion Combos, and Chain Attacks help them hit that much harder.

The combat does take a while to get into. You don’t unlock all the mechanics until the end of chapter 3 and it takes a bit longer than that to get all the really cool stuff. Needing to unlock Arts Chaining and 3 Blade slots especially can be a pain in the ass. The tutorials don’t help, either; they’re way too vague for a system this complex and it sucks you can’t re-view them. Also, the game never tells you how good the Art Recharge items are, which makes the early game a lot slower than it needs to be for most players. But if you’re willing to push through those early hours, to really sink your teeth into the battle system and unlock its full potential, there’s nothing else like it. (I recommend this video if you want a good tutorial).

The combat system is fantastic on its own, but it’s backed up by equally amazing character customization. Like I said before, each Driver in the party (with 1 exception) can equip up to 3 Blades at once. Each Blade increases the Driver’s stats, as well as having their own weapon class and element. Element determines what Blade Combos a Blade can perform as well as dealing more damage if an enemy is weak to it. Weapon classes and the Drivers they’re attached to determine which Arts a Blade can use, with 3 out of a potential 4 being usable at any time. The more a driver uses a specific weapon, the more they can upgrade the Arts for that weapon, granting stronger effects and lower recharge times. In addition, each Driver has an Affinity Chart: a skill tree you gain points for as you defeat enemies and complete quests. These grant some pretty useful passive skills, including the aforementioned Arts Chain. All these systems combined with 5 Drivers that can fill a 3-Driver party and the wide variety of Blades already offer a ton of options and a steady sense of progression throughout the game.

But then the Accessories and Pouch Items shoot the scope of customization through the roof. All drivers can equip up to 2 accessories (3 in New Game Plus). These grant passive bonuses ranging from stat increases, to damage increases, to more specific uses like reducing enemy break resistance or preventing enemies from blocking your attacks. One Driver can’t use multiple accessories with the same effect, but otherwise you can do pretty much anything. Each Accessory can completely change how you play the game, assisting in a variety of strategies and synergies. Pure attack, tanking, evasion, crit healing, and even soloing enemies are all possible thanks to this system. Pouch Items are really cool too, essentially being passive buffs you can give to your Drivers for a certain amount of time. Eventually, you can even equip 2 at a time, offering additional customization and power. Like I said before, the Art Recharge ones are the best, but other effects like Special Recharge and Increased Party Gauge can also be useful.

On top of all of that, Blades have their own customization and progression systems. Core Chips grant steady increases to attack power while offering a choice between Block Rate, Critical Rate, and various secondary effects. Aux Cores grant additional effects that help you deal more damage, take less damage, avoid attacks, and do tons of other things. Even more impressively, each Blade has its own Affinity Chart. As you fight and complete side quests with a Blade, you increase their trust with their Driver. In addition to increasing their damage, this unlocks the nodes in their Affinity Charts. Filling in those nodes is a bit more complicated: each one has specific actions tied to them, ranging from using Specials to defeating enemies to completing side quests. I love this; it encourages players to constantly use all the different mechanics and keeps progression from feeling stale, since you’re doing different things to get stronger rather than grinding. The nodes themselves offer a few different things: Red Nodes improve Blades’ Specials, Yellow Nodes improve Passive Skills, and Green Nodes unlock Field Skills.

This gives Blades a ton of utility in different strategies, which is only compounded by the Accessories, Core Chips, and Aux Cores. You could go for pure damage with heavy hitters like Mythra or Herald. You could use tank-class blades like Brighid to evade attacks. You could build entire strategies around blade-specific mechanics, like Dagas’ Kaiser Zone or Adenine’s boost to elemental weakness damage. And this is before you get into Tora and Poppi, who not only can perform Driver Combos by themselves, but have a unique progression system that lets you fully customize the abilities of all 3 Poppi forms. It’s truly incredible.

Now, there is one part of this system that often falls under scrutiny, and I do understand it: The Core Crystal Gacha System. Basically, a good chunk of the game’s Rare Blades are locked behind random drops from specific items. It can be annoying when you want a specific Rare Blade but can’t pull them, or when you do get that Blade on a different Driver than you wanted. That said, I think a lot of the criticism is overblown, and a good chunk of it probably stems from people’s gut reactions to the words “Gacha System”. First off, there are no microtransactions involved. All resources are earned by playing the game normally. In reality, the Core Crystal system barely differs from most RPG drop systems, and people never throw fits on Twitter about those. In fact, the game is actually really generous with Rare Blades: a lot of really good ones can be earned through either the main story or through side content. Plus, Common Blades are better than you might think, offering good stats, good Specials and some really useful Passives like Orb Master. That’s ignoring how generous the base chance is for getting Rare Blades and how easy Legendary Core Crystals are to farm later on. Is it a perfect system? No, it can be a hassle to get the last couple Rare Blades in the endgame, the game’s a bit too stingy with Overdrive Protocols, and there are probably better ways to encourage switching up your team on replay. But it’s not nearly as bad as it’s often made out to be. At worst, it’s a small blot on an astounding canvas.

There’s a lot more to do in Xenoblade 2 than just exploring the world and fighting things. Sure, those are your main means of interaction with the game, but there’s some pretty neat context surrounding them. Xenoblade 2’s sidequests are great, both from a gameplay and story perspective. They grant a variety of tasks, which mainly involve collecting items, fighting enemies, and exploring certain locations. While that might sound a bit repetitive, the way these basic elements are combined keeps the quests from getting boring. In addition, they all have pretty neat stories tied to them, some even extending through multiple sidequests. The quest chain involving the organizations in Mor Ardain is the obvious highlight, but I also love the Nopon History quest chain, the one where you build a school, the quest in Gormott involving the missing soldiers, and anything involving the Garfont Mercs, just to name a few. Even the smaller quests do a great job fleshing out the world and giving character to the various NPCs. You learn a lot about the different nations of Alrest just from seeing how these people interact in their day-to-day lives.

Blade Quests are another great addition. Every optional Rare Blade has their own dedicated side story, complete with fully voiced cutscenes. These help elevate the Blades from just being numbers on a sheet to being fully defined characters, with certain ones like Dagas having really good arcs throughout their quests. And of course, the Xenosaga fan in me will always appreciate KOS-MOS getting story relevance, even if it is self-contained.

Not only are these quests intrinsically engaging, but they offer great rewards. You get additional EXP, money, and SP (for Drivers’ Affinity Charts) for each one you complete. Blade Quests even grant additional abilities for the Rare Blades. This constant stream of rewards creates this really satisfying gameplay loop of completing quests, getting stronger, and taking on tougher quests. If you’re worried about becoming overleveled after doing all the side quests, don’t worry; all EXP gained from quests is completely optional. Don’t get me wrong, there are some stinkers among the quests. Ursula’s Blade Quest and the Nopon Doubloon quest are pretty annoying, and the compass isn’t too helpful for certain navigational challenges. But the batting average is pretty damn high, and the side quests are overall one of my favorite parts of the game.

If that wasn’t enough for you, Xenoblade 2 offers additional side content to keep you busy. Completing side quests and buying items in an area increases that area’s Development, which lowers prices and opens up new items in the stores. Buying all the items in a store even lets you buy the store, which grants a passive buff during overworld gameplay. This a lot to the game mechanically and thematically, since you’re helping people around the world through your actions and have much greater incentive to interact with the different shops. I also really like Salvaging as a way to integrate Rex’s passion into the gameplay and as a means of making money. (Seriously, you can get a ton of money with just a little salvaging. It’s insane.)

The last major mechanic I want to talk about is the Merc Group, which basically lets you send your idle blades on special missions. These are often used for Blade Quests, normal quests, and unlocking more of a store’s inventory. They also grant additional EXP, money, items, and help unlock skills for the blades. I love this feature. It adds to the sense of progression since you’ll probably have a Merc Mission running at all times, and also helps if you want to develop a Blade without using them in combat. It also makes all the blades feel useful, since you’ll often need specific field skills to start a Merc Mission or to have it complete faster. All this great content doesn’t even cover the additional difficulty modes, New Game Plus, or Challenge Mode, all of which add fantastic depth and replayability just by themselves. With all these different mechanics combined, Xenoblade 2 is a masterwork of game design.

But there’s far more to it than that. Many people say an RPG is only as good as its story, and this story is certainly as good as the RPG behind it. The story of finding hope in a dying world is done beautifully, and leads to quite possibly the best final act I’ve ever seen in a video game. It’s exciting, well-paced, and isn’t afraid to go dark places, but still remains a heartwarming and optimistic tale throughout. I won’t go into detail here for the sake of keeping this review spoiler-free and not tripling its length. Instead, I’d like to dispel a popular myth surrounding this game.

Many people have claimed the story is “tropey anime garbage” and that it doesn’t match the serious tone Xenoblade 1 had. Yes, the story has silly moments, but they pretty much vanish halfway into Chapter 4, and they never interrupt the more serious parts. There are only 10, maybe 15 minutes of these scenes over the course of a 100+-hour game. If that’s enough for you to dismiss a game, then I’m sorry, but I think that’s incredibly shallow. Plus, this game can actually be really funny when it wants to. Throwaway lines like Pupunin’s “wife ran out on me”, Heart-to-Hearts like the cooking disaster in Argentum, and pretty much everything involving Zeke von Genbu just make me crack up. Not to mention, Xenoblade 1 has plenty of light-hearted moments: Colonel Vangarre, Riki’s introduction, half of Reyn’s dialogue. Hell, one of the most emotional scenes in the game was turned into a meme by the fandom, which got big enough for Nintendo of America to post about it on Twitter. I think at least a little comedy is fully acceptable.

This fantastic story is backed by an even better cast. Every member of the main party is memorable, well-written and has at least a few great moments throughout the story. Sure, Morag and Brighid are a little underused and Tora has some…questionable moments, but that doesn’t make the overall cast any less lovable. Each of them supports the game’s central themes in some way, on top of having some great interactions both in the main story and outside of it. The villains are just as good, easily being my favorite cast of antagonists in all of Xenoblade. All the major antagonists and even a few of the minor ones have interesting roles to play in the story, complex motivations that intertwine and often clash, and wonderfully interact with both the thematic material and the main characters. Again, I won’t go into spoiler territory, but there is one character I will talk about quite a bit.

Rex is a fantastic main character. Sure, he may look like a dorky kid with a stupid outfit and subpar voice acting, but give him a chance and you’ll know why this kid made himself the Aegis’ Driver. Even in a world brought to the brink of destruction, suffering from the mistakes of its people, he keeps smiling. He helps everyone he can, tries to understand even the worst of humanity, and fights for its best. It’s amazing how profoundly Rex impacts the people and places around him just by being the good person he is. Not just Pyra and Mythra, but the other party members, the villains, and all the people you meet along the way. As amazing a portrayal as Future Redeemed gave Rex, it could only do so thanks to Xenoblade 2’s rock-solid foundation. And all this came from a humble salvager with a big heart.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will always be a special game to me. It came into my life at an important time and helped my broaden my horizons for what games were capable of. But even considering that, I think it’s a masterwork of game design and storytelling, and my appreciation for it only grows with each passing day. I know it’s not for everyone, but please, give this game a chance if you haven’t already. Don’t dismiss it because a YouTube comedy video made it look bad. I’m sure you’ll find something to love.

As a follow-up to Pikmin 1, Pikmin 2 makes an incredibly strong statement. And that statement is "we know that we're spreading ourselves thin between score attack-style survivalist gameplay and slow-burn exploration and worldbuilding, so we've destroyed the worldbuilding and put it in a little book and now the game is all about not dying in caves". It's a change that honestly the Pikmin series probably needed to take in one direction or the other, and the game commits to its more arcade-style gameplay fairly well! Without having to worry about navigating a more complex terrain in favor of labyrinths, control of the Pikmin generally feels a lot more consistent, combat challenges can be placed in a player's way methodically and deliberately, and overall the spikes in difficulty and memorable moments are a lot more controlled than in Pikmin 1. Unfortunately, the very limited exploration offered from seeing Pikmin 1 environments change does end up feeling very rote and obligatory by comparison, which makes a lot of the game's opening stretch seem pretty performatory; Pikmin 2 can't be mean enough in its opening to really grit its teeth due to needing to reteach Pikmin 1's mechanics and introduce its new ones. Additionally, returning bosses like the Burrowing Snagret, Beady Long Legs and Emperor Bulblax are shadows of their former selves due to appearing at the end of dungeons where a player can't be assured to have a full squad like Pikmin 1, creating this really unfortunate deflating feeling after clearing the first game. I'd cleared the debt and was ready to write the game off as a technically superior, but ultimately short-sighted version of Pikmin 1.

Then the Water Wraith happened.

I cannot tell you how wonderful of a turning point the Water Wraith is. Every cave up to that point (discounting backtracking to the first area's harder dungeons) could be handled with just a simple measure of patience, with taking things slowly, step by step, and throwing the right colored Pikmin at the thing they're good at stopping. Water Wraith takes every bit of that away from you, demands you scramble, puts you in the position to make mistakes, has no weaknesses for a majority of its dungeon. This is Pikmin 2 at its best: throwing you into cruel situations where one lapse in attention or assuming that your little guys will be fine will end up with a squad crushed, exploded, or eaten by a jumpscare of a bomb rock or bulbear. Where the first game had you try to figure out how to solve each creature individually, Pikmin 2 is glad to mingle its enemies together, forcing you into incredibly uncomfortable situations to try and keep your most precious fellas alive, cursing the name of the Dirigibug or anything that happens to shoot lightning as they attempt to one-shot your lil' boy army. Bosses take a significant step up, with Man-At-Legs being an especially fantastic upgrade of needing to figure out spacial awareness, positioning, and just how fast your Pikmin can duck into cover to avoid machine gun fire. The midgame of Pikmin 2 is absolutely exhilerating in attempting to expect its cruelty and react.

... and unfortunately the endgame is where Pikmin 2's flaws become most apparent. The caves that you delve into are somewhat randomly generated, with layouts tending to be similar, but a lot of enemy placements and exit placements in those rooms being random. This leads to a lot of scenarios that aren't so much difficult, but unfun, especially if something REAL dangerous like a groink or bulbear spawns directly outside your starting area and leaves you little time to react. I do think the game is significantly more fun not resetting or leaving caves, just trying to do your best with the limited resources you have (I actually managed to beat Submerged Castle on the back of seven total Pikmin remaining, and it was an absolute blast maneuvering that!), but I'll admit it's not the optimal way to play the game compared to resetting. Sitting there watching your 'min get blown over and over again because the blowy man is behind a wall you need to break while a snitchbug takes swipes every so often is hardly a fun time, and these kinds of scenarios are abundant the further you get into Pikmin 2. Add in things like bomb hitboxes extending through walls with no real indication, cutscenes for items interrupting gameplay, and treasures sometimes glitching out if at a bad angle, and Pikmin 2 ends up an experience as unintentionally frustrating as it is intentionally.

Overall, Pikmin 2 is my favored Pikmin game of the Gamecube duology. It's a wildly inconsistent game, but its peaks are utterly fantastic, its writing some of the best on the system even though it's tucked away in its own little section, and the moments it creates as you barely make it through a tough challenge or scenario are legendary. I will never forget sending my army of Pikmin to gank the Empress Bulblax while the President of Hotocate Freight personally punched out an army of her spawn with his bare hands until they could all mob her face and guarantee a win, or slowly tricking Dweevils into getting a stack up disc out of the water because I lost all my Blue Pikmin. It is not the ideal sequel to its original game, and has to sacrifice a lot to make its own fun, but what it does uniquely it does superbly, and there's a stretch of about eight hours of game in here that's utterly incredible. The other surrounding eight hour chunks on either side are still pretty good, too, just with their very obvious drawbacks!

Olimar should not dump his wife for a cool marble, though. That's weird, Olimar.

Super Mario Galaxy is the game that made me love video games.

It wasn’t the first game I played, or even the first Mario game (that honor goes to Mario Kart Wii), but it was the first to make me see games as an art form. It’s been over 15 years since I first sat down to play it at the tender age of 4 years old, but that first play session is burned into my brain. The transition from a quiet, somber storybook into a joyous festival instantly invokes a sense of childlike wonder and turns the remotely interested into the completely invested. Then, Bowser’s attack on the Star Festival and Mario’s defeat lets veteran Mario players know this adventure will be something special, while also making the basic elements of Mario clear to new players.

Speaking of basic elements, Gateway Galaxy is a fantastic tutorial. The Star Bunny segment seamlessly introduces the game’s gravity mechanic, as well as the concepts of bushes, pipes, and craters. Rosalina’s introduction introduces a sense of mystery and quiet contemplation, and the next few planets establish the game’s phenomenal sense of epic adventure and even more gameplay elements: spinning, crystals, Launch Stars, Star Bits, enemies, Black Holes, Star Chips, Flip Switches, and electricity. And all this culminates in the rescue of the Grand Star, giving 4-year-old willn46 his first chance to save the universe and make it back home to the beautiful Comet Observatory.

But even beyond its importance to me, Mario Galaxy is simply an incredible 3D platformer. Right from the outset, Mario controls like a dream. Every input is immediately taken into account, with jumps, ground pounds, and everything in between being perfectly tuned to just feel good to use. But I’d be remiss not to mention the crown jewel of Mario’s moveset: the Spin Move. Not only is it a fantastic use of the Wii’s motion controls that feels both significant and unobtrusive (unless you have a disability that renders the controls unusable for you, in which case I am incredibly sorry), it’s also an incredibly versatile tool that’s easy to use, but has nearly limitless potential. First and foremost, the momentum-halting midair jump lets players easily recover from mistakes and adjust their positioning on the fly, giving newer players a safety net that eases them in to platforming in a 3D space. Additionally, the extra jump is great for getting places that seem just out of reach, horizontally or vertically, enabling the game to set up interesting platforming challenges and fun opportunities to skip past sections if the player is good enough. But the Spin Move isn’t just for platforming; it’s also the player’s primary means of interaction with the game. It’s used to defeat enemies, break objects, collect shells, swim faster, and so much more, and every interaction is completely intuitive (Ceave Gaming has a great video on this exact topic).

I’ve seen some people criticize the Galaxy games for not having as much movement tech as other 3D Mario games. While, yes, the movement here is much simpler than 64, Sunshine or Odyssey, I actually think it works to the game’s benefit. Not only is it much easier to learn, requiring the player to understand a few basic moves rather than a plethora of complex maneuvers, but the more limited moveset lets the game be carried entirely by its level design.

And said level design is top-notch. Like 64 and Sunshine before it, Galaxy spreads its 120 stars across multiple worlds for the plumber to tackle. But it trades their handful of levels holding a few collectibles for a supercluster of memorable locales, each one bearing a unique mechanical, visual and auditory identity. Fully committing to Sunshine’s separation of individual objectives lets the designers get the most out of a single Galaxy by introducing multiple ideas while still maintaining the level’s core themes, and splitting up the action across multiple planets allows for great variety within missions as well as between them. Plus, the introduction of mid-level checkpoints allows for longer levels that don’t feel like they drag on and gives the designers more time to play with a level’s gimmicks. The more linear level design even means the game’s limited camera rarely feels limiting. And the generous amount of Power Stars gives players plenty of freedom in choosing which levels to tackle.

This would all mean nothing if the levels themselves were boring, but luckily they couldn’t be further from that. Galaxy takes basic level tropes like Ice, Beach, and Desert levels and pushes them to their absolute limits: combining ice and fire mechanics in a lava-skating course, hiding the path to a deadly obstacle course behind an underwater cave, and navigating sand streams and tornadoes across an ocean of quicksand. And that’s not even mentioning the more original levels, like HoneyHive Galaxy, BattleRock Galaxy, or Toy Time Galaxy. Besides a few stinkers like the ball-rolling levels and some of the race levels, the level mechanics on display are consistently excellent in a way I think is only matched by this game's own sequel. Interesting obstacles like altered gravity, throwing Bob-Ombs, and launching from Sling Pods are expertly paced and explored to the fullest. Cool enemies like spinning tops, bugs that need to be ground-pounded, and giant eels combined with interesting spins on classic enemies like Goombas and Boos work wonders both from a mechanical and aesthetic standpoint. Plus the bosses are great tests of skill, utilizing a level’s mechanics in their battles on top of being tests of basic skill. Power ups are pretty fun too (besides the spring), with their own unique attributes, interactions with level gimmicks, and hazards to deal with.

And do I even need to mention the visuals and music? The artstyle is vibrant, yet the locales are consistently stunning, with great attention to detail both in the actual levels and in background elements. The character designs are excellent, both with how returning characters look and how the new characters perfectly fit in with Mario while still standing out. Plus, there are tons of cool little details and secret areas that, while they may be a little pointless, give the levels tons of personality. But even more impressive is the game’s music. The confident, orchestral themes give the game an almost cinematic feel, and yet each one perfectly fits within the level and the Mario series. There are so many standout pieces in this regard, like Good Egg Galaxy, BattleRock Galaxy, and Buoy Base Galaxy. However, the game also knows when to be more subdued and reflective, with pieces like Space Junk Galaxy and Gateway Galaxy.

And on that note…besides sparking my love of video games, there’s another reason this game means so much to me.

Back in late 2016, I made some mistakes. The details are personal, but long story short, I was a stupid 12-year-old who took his friends for granted and ended up losing them all. And for the entire month of November, going to school was absolute Hell for me because of it. In every class, I would argue with people, get teased, or get laughed at, and since a lot of it was my fault, I didn’t want to ask any teachers or my parents for help. Luckily, Thanksgiving Break rolled around eventually, and I was home safe. But at this point I realized something horrible: I had no one to turn to. All my friends left me because of my egotism, and my parents wouldn’t understand enough to help me. For that entire week, I was more or less left to think about my actions, angry at myself and at the people who hurt me. I didn’t know if I could go on, and before long, my mind went to some…dark places.

Then, on Sunday, the day before I had to go back to school, I thought I would boot up Mario Galaxy so I could at least have a little fun. I played around a little, going through some of my favorite levels, not really accomplishing much. But I enjoyed it. The game didn’t judge me. It didn’t try to hurt me. It didn’t care what I did. It was just there for me, and it was there to make me happy.

And…suddenly, I wasn’t alone anymore.

Not only did that moment save my life, not only did it bring me out of the hole I dug for myself, but it made me realize the true power of a good video game. Some people might say video games are silly little things, that they’re hunks of digital junk to give to a kid so they’ll shut up for a bit. But I think they’re more than that. Like any form of art, they can lift a person up, give them a new perspective on life, and help them move forward even when nobody else will. That moment is why I wanted to become a game designer. Because I wanted to help someone feel like someone cared for them, the same way Super Mario Galaxy helped me. Sometimes, when you’re feeling hopeless, that’s the only message you need to hear:

“Thank you so much for playing my game.”

Finished it again. Just like the last thousand times. Now I tried installing countless mods. Game crashes so much.
Note: Don't install the mod named "YourMom". It just turns every text in the game to "Your Mom".
So, if you are looking to spice up your Spore experience, you don't have to put yourself through the agony of installing countless mods you don't know, like I did. Just install dark injection, auto save and some graphic patches, and tweak some game files to skip the intro and unlock your FPS. On top of it all, install Reshade and you have the ultimate Spore experience.

Pros:
- Visuals and sound are great
- Oatchi is a great addition that brilliantly expands upon the series' core mechanics
- The levels are fantastic, excelling in both quality and quantity of content
- The caves are greatly improved from Pikmin 2, with much more memorable designs and better pacing
- Incorporating the side modes into the main levels was a great idea executed very well
- Phenomenal roster of enemies and bosses
- The in-between day segments are neat. I love having access to all the different upgrade services
- Story is cute
- The custom character maker is cool

Cons:
- 3 Deluxe controlled better. I also had this issue with the 1+2 collection but I prefer having motion aiming always active, not just when holding A or B. Also, auto-lock-on is a bit annoying.
- I miss the Co-Op from 3 Deluxe as well. I get having a different player control Oatchi would be a little awkward, but it's still a shame to see it go.
- Ice Pikmin are cool, but they're way too strong. A sizeable group of them plus Ultra Spicy Spray solos about 80% of the game.
- On that note, the game's way too generous with Ultra Spicy Spray. Not only can you easily farm it thanks to the lack of a time limit, but enemies drop it a lot.
- The beginning is too tutorial-heavy. I think you can skip most of them, but it's still annoying
- Needing Oatchi or the captain for certain tasks gives you less options to multitask. It only really applies in the Dandori missions and even then it's not so bad but it's still worth mentioning
- Enemies not respawning is an odd choice and makes the levels feel a bit barren after a few days

Other Things:
- The Night Missions are alright. They're a cool idea, but I don't have any strong opinions on them either way.
- I didn't do too much of Olimar's story, but I liked what I played of it. It's a neat idea.
- The game could benefit a lot from a New Game Plus mode. It'd make a lot of the late-game unlocks feel a lot more useful.

At the time around its early access release, Palworld is a heated main topic in the circles gathered around gaming news. The game has sold at least 8 million copies already in its first week, exceeding all expectations. This has sparked a lot of discussion about why this game is finding its success. In my brief participation in some discussions in various parts of the internet, I consistently found that others would try to slot me into one of two camps: A freak for Game Freak who believes Nintendo can do no harm, or some techbro weirdo defending modern generative AI and plagiarism. This is based on whether I'm expressing positivity or negativity about the game, with no regard for what is praised or criticized. Conversations have turned into vitriolic flamewars under these dogmatic perspectives.

Palword isn't doing much new while being responsible for all of this heated debate. All of this hubbub is happening around a game that would be, in a vacuum detached from the present's perspective, ordinary and uninspiring. This game lifts a bunch of ideas from other games, and makes them all shallow enough to unobtrusively stick together. It's a baffling blurred mess of familiar popular ideas. You'll see Pokémon, Ark, Elden Ring, Tears of the Kingdom, and Fortnite all jarringly mishmashed into a clumsy excuse for a game.

In the game's evoked confusion, there's something fascinating about it all. The game, for me, ended up being a mildly fun experience and a mildly funny joke. These lifted elements of gameplay, as jarring as they are, make an interesting base for the gameplay to work from. The loop keeps me more hooked in your standard open world survival crafting experience than anything else I've tried in the past decade's deluge of these games. The mimicry of Palworld's inspirations leads to some hilarious exaggerations in Palworld's interpretations. There's always some goofy goal or weird new Pal to keep me engaged. The game, whether by accident or intention, serves as a parody of the modern gaming landscape.

As of writing this, Palworld has only just entered "Early Access"/"Game Preview" but in its current state, it might effectively be seen as a condensed reflection of current common interests. Palworld is everything that makes a game popular in January 2024.

Palworld is a flawed game that is fun only for a limited amount of time.

Dont get me wrong, this was quite fun to binge over a week with mates. In fact, I could think of nothing else for a good long week except what I will do next in this game. It is also way way way better than anything pokemon offers to a long time fan like me. You feel involved, the game is goofy as hell with dark undertones that work (until they dont). I also appreciate the fact that this is an early access game (from a dev who literally nevers goes out of early access really) and is very full of content by those standards.
But the game is just... dead behind the eyes. Once the novelty wears off, its quite grindy and has seemingly no end goal. There is really nothing except the "paldex" to fill. The battles get repetitive over time. Lets not even mention the creative liberties the devs have taken here, the game becoming a mish mash of mechanics from better games.
It is a great amount of fun for 20-30 hours and maybe it will be fleshed out eventually. Maybe this will be an all timer, the pokemon killer (lol), the go to multiplayer game. It just isnt that yet.
Still I can recommend giving it a try, a novel pokemon (but better) experience as it definitely scratches the itch left behind by lack of good pokemon games in creature collector genre.

Bland levels, bland roster, bland art style, bland music, bland gameplay. A competent product that I feel virtually nothing but apathy for - granted I don't care that much about the Smash games either, but come on... There's just no comparison here, those are (mostly) leagues better than this is despite it still being a capable clone on a base level. The PlayStation All-Stars comparisons are noted but I would say they're only founded in the sense that both feel like almost immediate abandonware despite being spearheaded by waves of gigantic IPs that have all the ingredients for what should have been a huge slam dunk. Otherwise Sony's attempt felt way more personalized than this shallow husk imo. Feels like a sixth-gen game and not in a good way, everything about this just screams chintzy. Crazy how even after all these post-launch fixes the sound mixing is still this bad.

Interesting in concept. Takes the system of the hilariously obscure and failed digital card game Artifact and massively simplifies it. Basically, the idea is you have to use your cards as resources to control 3 separate territories, rather than attacking the enemy cards or clearing enemy health. After 6 turns, whoever has 2 of the 3 territories wins. There are no spells either, just a bunch of hero that give you 'power' towards that goal thus dramatically simplifying deck building.

There's a lot of special unique nuances to the game as a result, in contrast to something like hearthstone, to the point that it becomes difficult to properly convey. For example the game has only maximum 12 card decks, and you only play 6 turns, so you end up getting a lot of hand consistency as a result, but ironically you also dont in a way that's difficult to pin down. For one, there is 50 different territory effects many of which radically change the pace of the game, for example one is called "The Raft: Whoever fills this location first draws a 6-Cost card. It costs 0." This benefit is so huge that it becomes imperative to try and race for it after it being revealed, but 1 territories effect is revealed each turn. So naturally if that effect is the rightmost territory, what will happen is that the game becomes almost entirely decided by who risked putting a hero there first without even knowing what the effect would be. It's really hard to describe just how volatile these various effects become to the course of the game but at the same time because you only get 75% of your deck in the short game you cant 100% rely on running 1 late game closer combo, not to mention the territories will probably just mess up your gameplan anyway.

The other really strange inclusion is the 'bluffing' component. Basically you can at any point double the stakes of play by 'snapping' meaning that if you win you get double the amount of ladder elo to further towards those extrinsic rewards, rewards also double on the last turn to. You can basically use this as an option to in theory scare your opponent into leaving early by leveraging a snap to 'raise'. Or you can cut your own losses and leave. This creates a neat little poker game metagame that has an air of unusual suave charm to the experience, considering the vulgarity surrounding aesthetics at play here.

What you're left with as a result of these mechanics is a strange type of deduction game where you have to try and figure out how strong you think peoples remaining hand is, whether they are running 'x' late game card and whether or not you have to tools in your next few turns to control the territories. This part of the game is very amusing and a great foundation for the play experience.

The issue though is that the ladder fundamentally doesnt matter at all, due to the fact the extrinsic rewards for doing well are so trivial as to be irrelevant. Half of them give no actual reward at all in terms of currency or cards instead just giving you barely a daily play rate of gems, the other half give prestige bonuses like just new avatars or titles which could not possibly matter less because there's no in game social element whatsoever. So while there's an intrinsic reward for ranking up there is no meaningful motivator for taking the 'stakes' of play that seriously. To compare think of how it feels to play no-stakes poker, realizing that raising or even all inning does not matter at all. Folding naturally only becomes important when you specifically want to stop playing or if only you specifically want to win, but the 'non seriousness' of the play environment has a natural effect of completely rattling the 'good' players of poker because without actual risk their opponents play decisions become that much more unpredictable completely undermining the point of the game. This is why I argued so incredibly fiercely to the idea that gambling does in itself have a profoundly dynamic and entertaining mode of play in my Vampire Survivors write up, and I stand by that 100% here.

The issue is obviously not that I want them to financialize the game even more than it is, if anything this complaint actually comes out of the opposite. This complaint is bundled in with the general fact that this game is really making you grind for those cards. But it's doing it in a really odd way. Unlike making you rip open card packs and experiencing the 'novelty' of having a card others might not, instead you have to rank up your cards through a 'pool' system. With the cards you unlock being in that pool. This has a lot of theoretical consistency as literally almost nobody in the same card pool level as you is going to have cards you wouldn't, thus allowing you to assess what your opponent is going to play more accurately, and not get rolled by the opponent running 1 broken 'legendary' card you dont have. The issue is that the ranking system is not pool locked at all, eventually you will get to a point where you're fighting against players are running cards you've literally never seen before. At these ranks you're no longer fighting players that have just 1 or 2 new cards but rather, players for which every card is new. The issue is that accessing the options of those pools (say pool 3 or 4) is only doable by months of daily quests really, or by fronting a lot of cash to get there more quickly (and even this would still take probably a week just to get there since even the shops have a cooldown). Combine this with labyrinthine upgrade systems, season passes, shops options, etc. and you seem to have a system that heavily incentivizes envy over success. The implicit game function seems to be that how well you can play doesn't matter at all, instead, doesn't that enemies Rhino seem so cool? Too bad, you have to get to level 300 first. Grind chimpmonkey grind.

You have a game almost entirely dedicated to paywalls and timegates. A game that has throttled the dynamicism of card games into the chemical compounds of envy. They know what they are doing, they know that if they made the ladder matter at all it would make the player too satisfied, and you're never supposed to be too satisfied. It's the same reason why Diablo Immortal gives you nobody to play with after you spent 10 grand on it, you thought that was an accident? No child, you buy because you are unsatisfied, and you are unsatisfied so you buy. The heart wants, and it wants, and it eats itself alive with the almighty dollar.

Download your parasite little one.

After the New Play Control! versions of Pikmin and Pikmin 2 showed how precision aiming can improve the experience of tactical organization and management inherent to the series, an entry on one of the touchscreen-based handheld systems of Nintendo would seem a no-brainer. In a way, that is eventually what we got with Hey! Pikmin, but its design philosophies are so removed from the core conventions of the series that it’s hardly comparable to the image that comes to mind when one says “Pikmin on the 3DS.” The great irony here is that Hey! Pikmin is a 2D platformer, one so committed to this divergent identity that it refuses to utilize the stereoscopic 3D capabilities of the hardware, despite the obvious array of opportunities in both the numerous cutscenes seen throughout the game as well as to add a sense of depth to the design of the levels, if only for the sake of more immersive aesthetics. Setting aside any misplaced expectations, though, the prospect of a side-scrolling Pikmin platformer isn’t inherently off. In fact, much of the baseline mechanics of Hey! Pikmin’s design congruently suit the congenial spirit of mainline games. It’s never really enough to justify itself, however, as beyond the relatively commendable translation of throwing mechanics and squadron management from the console games to the handheld, Hey! Pikmin offers shockingly little in terms of new or interesting interpretations of the core ideals, and feels far too drawn out and lethargic for how simple it ultimately is.

Hey! Pikmin’s primary issue is just how needlessly slow the whole experience is. From overly long load times, to the stodgy controls and movements, and the constant interruptions of cloying cutscenes introducing new batches of Pikmin several times each level, everything feels designed to arbitrarily moderate your pacing. While the intent is clearly to maintain the more relaxed and methodical nature of the series through the restriction of movement, the lack of flexibility takes so much of the control out of the player’s hand that the whole of the experience more or less feels like you’re on rails. Sure, there are secrets to be had by uncovering alternate routes and hidden exits, but so many levels are designed around pushing you forward without a way to backtrack, often requiring you to replay a level entirely in order to get to the secret items. Rarely are these items generally worth going for either, as only occasionally do the puzzles around them challenge you enough to merit interaction. Seeing as you don’t need all the treasures to beat the game (as is tradition with Pikmin) the satisfaction in recovering these items really needs to be its own reward, but due to the nature of simply obtaining an object as soon as Olimar is close enough, you often don’t even need the assistance of the Pikmin to obtain many of the items, rendering the very nature of the gameplay moot more often than not.

The novelty of collecting treasures has also somewhat run its course now. There’s still the occasional joy in collecting an otherwise ordinary item and seeing its humorous name cataloged, but the tedious nature of collecting makes it all feel so played out this time. It doesn’t help that the motivation to collect these treasures now is rather contrived. The mission here is to convert all the objects we find into enough “Sparklium” to fuel the ship, a kind of nonsense objective designed with only enough veneer to attempt to justify the conventions of artifice. It’s even more meaningless after you realize the set amount you’re tasked to obtain can’t even be used until you rescue the Sparklium Converter from the final boss, which itself can’t be accessed until making your way through all eight sectors of the game in a linear progression of uninspired, forgettable levels. Giving the player more agency when it comes to providing a path forward was always a strength of previous Pikmin games, so to restrain the player so severely here is quite the odd choice. You don’t even have control over the Pikmin you can use in any given level, as they’re all encountered along the way, with any you keep alive by the end going off to a separate location to slowly harvest small quantities of Sparklium while you progress in the following levels.

And yet, it’s difficult to bemoan Hey! Pikmin as being outright awful. It’s not a good game by any metrics, but it’s largely acceptable on multiple fronts, and even has a handful of positive qualities in need of acknowledging. The implementation of the 3DS’s dual screens for platforming and navigation is far more comprehensive than most titles on the console, or even its originating predecessor. The levels, though simple, are pleasantly short, and their straightforward design allows for a relaxing, if uninspired, progression through the game. And, aside from being egregiously slow, the actual feel of the platforming is responsive and positive, ensuring that you’re able to traverse the levels with relative ease and little dysfunction. Beyond that, though, it’s hard to see any further qualities for the title. Hey! Pikmin generates the majority of its good will by virtue of not being actively discouraging to play, but at the same time it does little to inspire the player to engage further with its gameplay beyond the hollow proclamation of asserting your completion of the game. It’s such a shallow endeavor, evidenced very early on, and never improving upon its meager offerings even as you near the end. At best, it’s a serviceable distraction, peppered with barely enough charm and intrigue to sustain short bursts of your attention, such that you may, theoretically, pick it up enough times in passing curiosity to complete it. But the belabored pacing, threadbare mechanics, homogenous level design, and scarce framing all but undermine its mediocre framework, resulting in a game that just narrowly passes for “playable.”