The Devil May Cry format, set up as a rhythm game - and while its not uncommon for the game to fail you for QTEs, the real magic lies in how Hi Fi ties every aspect of the game to the beat. Encouraging (instead of strictly requiring) rhythm promotes a groove within players, a sense that with every action they take they are jamming along with the game - achieving a potent and unbelievably addictive sense of flow when synchronized.

Frankly, I think Hi Fi’s aesthetic would otherwise be a liability for me. Garish color palettes, generic and undiverse enemy design, even the music selection is not my favorite. The supreme, engrossing nature of the combat puts me on a wavelength that elevates every other aspect of the game, I can forgive significant holes in the character writing because I am actually, literally vibing. Any mission thats mostly a gauntlet of enemies is a great time - the opposite of how I usually feel about the genre.

On release, Wonder was quickly crowned the new king of the 2D Mario series by legions of folks who’d been burned deeply by the New Super Mario Bros. tetrology's shallow and uninspired aesthetic. I was there. I’ve played all of these games. 2D Mario games are important enough to me that I will play them on a TV, even if it means passers-by can look in and clearly tell that I’m not filing my tax returns. I finished Wonder with 100% completion on the weekend of October 20th, 2023 (unless you count the standees. I don’t). I’ve replayed all of its levels at least twice, with and without grabbing each Wonder Flower. You know I like this game a heck of a lot. Nevertheless, I’ve got a lot to say, not all of it good. This is gonna sound a bit dry.

On Super Mario Bros. Wonder (OR — "No Country for New Super Mario Bros.")

Visually, Wonder is closer to my Dream Mario than any other this side of Yoshi’s Island, and I do hope the next one commits even harder to the cartoonishness of this aesthetic. My first impression was that it had the best control of any game in the 2D series, and in most respects, I do still believe that. The “New” games carried with them this lumbering heaviness that I’m glad we’ve shed away. The Elephant power-up is a bit undercooked, but the other two additions appropriately shake up the player's relationship with enemies and the environment. Just being able to jump into enemies from below while at a full sprint makes the Drill a treat, even without considering its burrowing ability. The removal of a flight-based power was likely due to multiplayer, but in principle, it helps the game stay centered squarely on running and jumping, and encourages creative use of the Bubble Flower (which, yes, is more or less a retooled Bubble Yoshi from off of NSMBU). The Demon’s Souls online feature is welcome; I didn’t see myself playing as a guardian angel in a Mario game, but here we are. Badges are a solid addition too, especially for newcomers. I can play as Daisy. Awesome stuff. Promising. Shame that, to my taste, there’s a lot left on the table here.

Every stage of this game locks its enemies and visuals and stage gimmicks down almost completely; you’re not likely to see much crossover. There’s one rolla-koopa stage, one hoppycat stage, one condart stage. These guys are stuck in their zones. It results in an impressive level of variety, but also prevents the game from meaningfully building on concepts from stage to stage. You don’t get that blending of flavors you’ll find in the series’ earliest entries. In this respect, it’s arguably even more formulaic than the games it’s trying to subvert. Each level’s gimmicks undergo a similar arc before being put away, each of them with a Wonder Flower to find which activates a minigame or setpiece. Nothing so plain as the well-documented and scientifically-proven "Four Step Level Design" of New Super Mario Bros., they just remembered to add the sugar. Would people still be talking about Mario 3's Angry Sun if you had to pop a regularly-mandated Wonder Flower to activate it? I don’t think it helps that these stages are threaded together as loosely as they are.

Playing into its save feature, Super Mario World invited its players to revisit levels for alternate exits and hidden secrets. Wonder doubles down on that attitude, with a wide-open map and only a single file per user. You’re meant to dig around in these levels and scour the world, but there isn’t really a whole lot to find. Yes, there are large coins to collect, tops of flagpoles to grab, but – and I hate to grumble – these pale in comparison to the discovery of warp zones, unique power-ups, and routes which alter the trajectory of a playthrough. I think they’d have been better off hiding badges within full stages than keeping them in shops or bespoke levels on the overworld. I’m of the opinion that collectibles should feel immediately tangible and exciting. Wonder sidesteps the checklist school of design for the most part, but I’d like to see it drop outta these games completely.

Here's what I'm getting at – I don’t think Wonder is adept at curating its adventure, and I don’t get the impression that its developers made that a priority. There’s a sort of halfhearted effort to add a single story beat to each world, and it's unconvincing. Possible plants just don't tend to pay off. The talking flowers never do. Stages are clustered together with respect to difficulty and theming, but any pretense of a “flow” between them, that levels together form an arc, is rarely suggested. A level is an island unto itself. It’s because the game isn’t concerned with its own replayability, actively obfuscating the option to start a New Game. It’s because Wonder isn’t all that interested in blending ideas between stages. It’s because the “Wonder” gimmick, ironically, requires each level to follow the same general beats.

I came for an album, and what I got was a collection of singles. They’re good, even great singles, but I don’t think it comes together as a whole game in the same way each of the old classics did. I hope Wonder is a sign that Nintendo is open to getting even more experimental with the conventions of this series (maybe cut out the world map next time, have one continuous game of back-to-back platforming levels), and I’m glad it was well received. You can feel those seasoned designers stretching their legs with this one — it beats out the New Super Marios on charm factor alone — and I squeezed every last drop I could out of it. I believe greater heights are within reach for this series, but if this is the last for a while, I'll still be more than appreciative that Wonder got its moment in the spotlight.

(...if you'd like to see where this falls on my list of the Thirty-Five Best Games I Played in 2023, you can check it out here. Thanks for reading!)

After Devil May Cry 3 brought about the franchise's redemption arc with its incredibly solid gameplay, a tightly woven narrative, and catchy 2005 vibe music, the question must have arisen as to "where do we go from here?"

And while many would hope the answer would be up, Devil May Cry 4 would ultimately wind up being quite the disappointment as the follow up to my personal favorite of the series.

From the very start of the game there was this awkward emptiness I felt, and it was a feeling that only grew the more I played the game.

Starting with Nero. Nero is not a bad character by any means, in fact I quite enjoy his banter with the various antagonists the game throws his way and he generally exudes a youthful arrogance that reminds me a lot of Dante in DMC3. However it is his motivation that I find lacking, and not in that the motivation is inherently bad but rather, it's very standard and tied to the weakest character in the game.

His undying love for Kyrie, while wholesome and also providing great emotional scenes comes across as very plain for this franchise. It doesn't help that Kyrie herself receives very little characterization outside of "being a nice girl who loves Nero and her brother and is nice." Easily my least favorite (non-DMC2) female protagonist in the series so far, exuding none of the confidence that characters like Trish or Lady have in spades.

It just results in the story feeling rather weak, which given its inherent vibes reminding me a lot of Final Fantasy (but less interesting), resulted in me kind of shutting my brain off at most points.

The game starts with this interesting hook with Dante showing up out of nowhere and killing Sanctus, the leader of a Sparda worshipping cult, which causes Nero to fight him, but eventually it tappers off into an uninteresting conspiracy by the cult to bring life to this giant statue called The Savior.

Hell, by the time Dante becomes the central protagonist, the story kind of just takes a backseat so he can crack his funny pizza man jokes, and only really comes back into play at the very end.

Not that the plot is the most important aspect or even the biggest problem in this game, but rather a piece in a larger set of issues that pervades every corner of DMC4.

The gameplay is incredibly solid, Nero controls very well and I love his mechanics. His affinity for air combat allows him to easily juggle an enemy possibly even indefinitely if you know how to do jump cancelling. His revving of his motorcycle sword (which is fucking awesome in the exact same way as a Gunblade) allows for him to charge up a meter that allows for some useful moves, however it can take time to do so and leaves Nero defenseless... unless you know how to Instant Rev, which if you time after a hit just right, you can instantly fill up one bar of meter(eventually able to upgrade this to the entire meter). However, these moves are honestly limited in their actual usefulness I've found, and it's just more effective to just utilize your regular combos.

Dante is easily my favorite character to utilize in the game, finally having Style Switching which is a major improvement from DMC3. I loved utilizing Swordmaster and Gunslinger for those banging combos, even finding out that Swordmaster has a literal auto-combo that results in Dante swinging his sword like a baseball bat. However Dante's weapon selection is... not great unfortunately. I loved using Rebellion, but Gilgamesh wasn't as fun to utilize as Beowulf in DMC3, and while I liked Lucifer, I simply found that Rebellion was generally the more efficient of the bunch in regards to the sheer amount of combos it has. Same with the guns really, but honestly Ebony & Ivory have always been perfect to use so I have no complaints there.

The problem with the gameplay is honestly the levels themselves. They are very... standard. For comparison, in Devil May Cry 1, the Mallet Island Castle has this dark, creeping vibe that sticks to the player. It is very much drenched in its horror aesthetic as it feels like a genuine location that's been lived in, and serves to show the imposing and oppressive nature that the game and its narrative have.

DMC4 on the other hand is a Super Mario/Sonic game in regards to its levels. You've got your town level, you have your mineshaft level, you have your frozen castle level, you have your hidden factory level, your jungle level, and your holy castle level. These locations are already very uninspired by just being tropes that I could find on TV Tropes if I wanted, but what makes it worse is that you go through all of these locations twice only backwards with Dante.

Of course, this isn't news to anyone who has played the game and contributes to the one, very openly talked about aspect of DMC4:

It's fucking unfinished.

From the fucking stupid as fuck dice mini game (that you do twice for the record, and the second time is tied to the fucking boss rush), to The Savior boss fight just being an utter clusterfuck, the final boss being almost as bad as a DMC2 fight, the game starts strong but shits the bed so fucking hard by the end that when I realized Vergil was just going to go through the exact same campaign, I immediately dropped it to play him in Bloody Palace instead.

The boss fights themselves, minus the snake dragon lady, Credo and Agnus don't even feel designed around Nero's toolkit and fighting them with him just feels unpleasant, where once you fight them with Dante it feels incredibly satisfying by comparison. Maybe this was to show the experience gap between the two, but personally I don't think there's any narrative reason for it.

The music didn't vibe with me as much as DMC3's or even DMC1, which isn't to say I hated DMC4's soundtrack but rather that in comparison it just wasn't that memorable, which y'know, fits the entire game now that I think about it.

DMC4, outside of its combat, is not memorable.

The demons you fight as bosses are all inconsequential randos who have barely anything to do with the plot, the plot itself is very plain, the main antagonist is boring and generic Super Pope, it's all just very forgettable.

It's another one of those games I wish I could love but I just can't, and that is disappointing.

I doubt I'll ever play the story mode of this game ever again, but Bloody Palace will always be there and I will definitely come back to it just for the fun that that mode brings.

The time had come, but this game didn't.