Great on all fronts; narrative, atmosphere, voice acting and gameplay as usual with the boundlessly creative minds at Remedy. Flashlight mechanic adds an extra layer of tension in an already very tense game. Only issue I have is its bad habit of bombarding you with waves of enemies left and right and center which made gameplay scenarios samey and predictable, I can't count how many times I was moving in the woods from point A to B while camera is zooming out to show the enemies then zooming back in. If they spread out those combat encounters and doubled down on environmental storytelling like the stuff with TVs and Radio, this would've been an easy 10/10.

I don't normally like commenting on this kind of thing but there's a fascinating consensus that I've noticed when it comes to opinions on this game. It's slow, tedious, repetitive and looks like crap. But that's not what you really play it for, right?

Well, in a lot of ways it really is what you play it for. I think one of the most interesting parts of FSR to me is how it utilizes those long stretches of walking. I found myself thinking of every step, watching Sumio creep closer and closer to another inane goal. My eyes fixated on the surroundings, taking in the quickly familiar fuzzy landscapes of Lospass Island. I wasn't paying attention out of any sense of danger or obstacles popping up, and it wasn't even because I expected some great payoff at the end. It was because I had fallen under its spell. Sumio walked, and so did I.

Of course part of what makes it so great is how it bathes in the atmosphere of the island at every moment. I've seen it compared to a horror movie before, with the sense of eerie claustrophobia that comes from running through the same environment over and over again. But it's also something that becomes intimate, just part of the routine after a while. None of it is reinforced better than through Sumio's odd interactions with each character. He's given a nonsense task, he completes it because, well, of course he does. It's who he is, and who we become.

It's hard to properly explain why I love FSR's writing, but the character interactions make for both absurd and heartwarming moments. Suda51's tonal balance here is absolutely immaculate. The endings to each chapter shift from ridiculous punchlines to fantastic punctuations of a huge story moment, sometimes both at once. Also some of the rare metacommentary that is actually funny. Thank you Suda.

I've seen people also talk about how this game becomes slowly more hostile to Sumio over time. It's true, more and more as time goes on he is called a "pawn". But even at his most derided, it feels like there's a genuine appreciation for him by the end. Lospass Island really embodies a feeling of "paradise" that I haven't seen before. I left it not with feelings of discomfort, but a vague sense of warmth. The one thing about paradise is that it can't last forever, and eventually Sumio and the player have to go. But you can always take back souvenirs.

I don't really know what I'm talking about anymore but I love this game. KILL THE PAST

Esse jogo é quase uma experiencia você mais anda e absorve o mundo belo e a historia, as vezes com pequenos puzzles e batalhas

Em Hellblade 2 eu sinto uma maturidade ainda maior pra lidar com temas como a psicose de Senua,ela tem maior controle com suas vozes depois do que aconteceu com o primeiro jogo, não tem milagre é parte do que ela é porem ela demonstra esta em controle a sua psicose e tomar suas proprias escolhas.

além disso eu sinto que a realidade e como ela interage com as pessoas e as ver, lida com as coisas acontecendo com o mundo é tão realista,pra uma pessoa como eu que sofro com isso, eu senti um respeito tão grande e uma representatividade enorme com toda a psicose da Senua, Coisa que no 1 era legal e até realista mas no 2 é outro patamar de respeito em manter fiel a como pessoas sofrem com psicose

Sua qualidade grafica e suas expressoes de rosto fazem isso se tornar mais realista porque voce consegue ver como a Senua reage as ações em sua volta dela e como ela está acostumada com tudo

Eu fico real feliz por ter uma obra com personagem com psicose ser feita de maneira tão respeitosa e como isso me tocou tão profundamente por ser algo que sofro diariamente.

(aconselho a pessoas que não entendem muito de psicose e querem saber mais da produção, depois de zerar o game ver o extra da psicose da senua é muito interessante de saber mais)

It's said that the reason the Mona Lisa is such an impactful painting is because of the miracle Leonardo Da Vinci accomplished with her. You can spend hours and hours discussing what the Mona Lisa is and what she means, hyper-analyze the technique and flaws that make her as she is. I don't meant to devalue that critical process in any fashion. But if you look upon her - really, truly look upon her, and let yourself be open to idea, you might just experience what centuries of people have seen in her, what few people throughout history have been able to replicate in their own artistic endeavors: the essence of the human soul.

What on earth does this have to do with a metafictional murder mystery visual novel concerning the fate of a wealthy Japanese family? ...we'll come to that.

Umineko: When They Cry (to use the localized title) consists colectively of the third and fourth entries of 07th Expansion's "When They Cry" anthology series, something that has given me no end of trouble when it comes to thinking through how to present this review. As with Higurashi: When They Cry before it, Umineko is an episodic visual novel series, broken up into two collections of four episodes each, with each episode broadly retelling or rearranging the events of a two-day serial killing. While the mechanics behind how this works eventually become clear to the reader, it's sort of a hard effect to wrap your head around before reading. I would assume it's more natural if you start with Higurashi (which is the normal pipeline for readers anyway), only I went into Umineko first. Actually, at the time of this writing, I've read the first one-and-a-third episodes of Higurashi's Steam release and experienced nothing else, so I can't be sure.

No, instead, I was introduced to Umineko completely out of context by a friend. See, we were involved in a couple different forum games on this message board, and he would introduce random Umineko characters and music to them for variety's sake. So long before I ever read a thing, I knew about a couple fan-favorite songs such as "miragecoordinator" as well as memorable characters like Lambdadelta, Bernkastel, Ronove, and Rosa Ushiromiya. Also Nanjo Terumasa, for some reason. I have to say, world of difference between how relevant Nanjo was to me before and after reading Umineko.

But the most important context I had going in was familiarity with Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None", specifically through René Clair's excellent 1945 film adaptation. My mother's childhood was spent watching television broadcasts of movies from her parents' youths in the 30s/40s/50s, something she was able to pay forward for her children with the widespread availability of DVD rereleases and Turner Classic Movies. "And Then There Were None" was not my very favorite movie she introduced to me like this - "The Thin Man" and "The Court Jester" are stronger contenders, and I've always been fond of "The Penguin Pool Murder". But it must certainly belong in the conversation! The private island setting, the revelation that each of the major players are baddies in their own way, each character being memorable despite their introduction as an ensemble ("Beastly bad luck" has managed to work its way into my daily vocabulary), the creative way they're each picked off in accordance with the titular song/nursery rhyme, the mounting tension as the number of possible killers dwindles down... Fantastic setup, great direction, captivating movie. The only thing it's missing is the original story's chilling confession-in-a-bottle ending, though I can accept the altered ending as necessary under the Hays Code (and also not being a bummer to film audiences of the time).

This is only loosely related, but since I'm on the subject - one way I used to connect with media as a kid was imagining what video game adaptations would have looked like for it. Keep in mind this would've been before I ever had regular access to non-computer games, yet this often took the form of imagining GameBoy or N64 tie-ins, since there was still allure in what intrigue those consoles held. I remember doing this while watching "And Then There Were None", and I specifically remember imagining a TV spot for it ending with, "And Then There Were None, only on GameBoy Color". It didn't occur to me until later how this was a pretty strange gaming platform to exclusively assign a black-and-white movie!

Anyway! Having "And Then There Were None" as reference, I was eager to read through what was to me a transparent attempt to invoke that book, only with magic and electronic dance music somehow incorporated. It took some time, but I was able to read it, first through an under-the-counter copy translated on the sly by fan effort The Witch Hunt (at the time, the only viable way to get it in English), then through buying the somewhat-more-official MangaGamer release (only "somewhat" because my payment to MangaGamer was listed in my bank transactions as a phantom charge to a random London ATM. Is this still people's experience with MangaGamer? That was a hard one to explain to my father, who at the time still had access to my bank account). All things told, I think it took me the better part of three/four years reading it on/off to get through all of it, around high school/college.

Let the record show that that loooong reading time was not a consequence of disinterest, just intimidation. Hard to find 80-120 hours to read a book! But I was pulled in immediately, even in spite of Umineko's notoriously slow opening leading into the First Twilight, when things really kick off.

Before that, you have the soundtrack. I say this with no hyperbole: Umineko has my favorite soundtrack of anything ever. There's a decent amount more instrument-driven atmospheric pieces than melody-driven, and thus less likely picks if you're specifically looking up music from the game - but even then, tracks like "Witch in gold", "Apathy", "Stupefication", and "Voiceless" are all great. But then you get into some of the main leitmotifs, some of the main melodic set pieces, and holy crap, the musical team drives the story in ways that words alone could not do. It's just a song that plays over a crawl of character names, but "Ride On" gave me chills the first time I heard it, that buildup slowly giving way to triumphant strings. "Towering Cloud in Summer" comes shortly thereafter, a less-bombastic progression of the melody that receeds into the backdrop of a bright day on the coastline. The melody finally comes into its own after these hints once the family reaches the island and wanders through the rose garden. As the cast experiences this serene beauty - "Hope" plays.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to call "Hope" the song of Umineko. It's a quiet, understated, beautiful composition, constantly finding its footing and receeding into the background in sequence, its simple musical phrases swirling in turn as more instruments are added, until it finally lets itself fade away to the call of seagulls. Because that's what Umineko's title refers to: the crying of the black-tailed gulls, the Japanese "sea-cats", sure to be heard once the storms clear at the end of the story.

There are a lot of emotions tied to "Hope", largely contingent on the context of the scene during which it's played. Most of the moments to use the main composition are introspective and melancholic character beats, sometimes used to punctuate conversations about the future or the past. One of the lyrical versions (not used in-game) places it as a sad piece, regretting the curse of the singer's existence and how much better everyone's life would be if the singer did not exist - a desperate misery that wishes for a hope that does not exist in this world. Another places it as a triumphant piece, bemoaning the circumstances that have come to pass but becoming a rallying cry to burn it all to cinders and fly onward. I think, ultimately, the song is less about having "hope" and more about finding "hope", particularly in such a dire situation.

Because, you see, the main family - the Ushiromiyas - are cut off from the world during a tropical storm that ravages their island for two full days. Once the storm passed, when the seagulls cried, none were left alive.

I don't want to cover too many specifics, because so much of Umineko comes from experiencing its story beats and songs in the moment. But I will mention the First Twilight. By this point, you've been reading for about four hours. Not a whole lot of exciting stuff has happened - you had an out-of-context scene of a dying old man playing chess with his doctor, then the family arriving at the island, then discussions around inheritence, the storm, and a strange riddle placed next to the beautiful portrait of the family's mythical benefactor. There is some intrigue as one of the characters reveals a letter, supposedly from their benefactor, the Endless Golden Witch Beatrice, announcing that she will take back everything she had given the family lest they solve the riddle. The family sets to it, but they're not able to make headway before turning in for the night.

Then we follow one of the characters, who wakes up the following morning. There's a subdued atmosphere as they start to prepare for the day. They start to search for the others, who should be here. They reache for a doorknob...

...and find blood. The terrifically filthy, oppressive "Golden slaughterer" kicks in as a frantic search begins, more of the family waking and scouring the grounds until finally, six horribly mutilated bodies turn up. In accordance with the riddle's "First Twilight", six were offered as sacrifices.

If you haven't read it, you might think this is giving a lot away. But this is only describing the first chunk of the first episode. You've been reading for about four hours to this point; that's at best one-twentieth of what the book has to offer. And it will be full of this sort of thing, constantly inventing and reinventing itself, becoming somehow bigger and better the whole way through. This? This is nothing in the grand scheme of things. And yet when I read through this first part with my (politely patient) sister, I got four hours' worth of conversation out of it with her.

Ryukishi07 is a master of tonality in writing (though, due credit goes to The Witch Hunt as well for capturing his writing essence in English). Umineko tackles a lot of extremely complex emotions and themes throughout its entire runtime, as we come to know the family and the myriad other characters who crop up here and there. This might sound weird, but a lot of how it's able to capture this wildly divergent tonality is through how sloppy the writing comes across. We know that Ryukishi07 is capable of formal prose - that prologue scene with Kinzo and Nanjo playing chess is played largely straight with a stiff third-person narrator, only devolving towards the end as Kinzo falls into a passion and begins to scream (but this is contained in dialogue tags, and anything goes in character speech). But for much of the narrative, there's little effort to keep a consistent tone with how the story is presented. Sometimes the narration is in first person, following the stupidly-named Battler Ushiromiya as he directly addresses the reader. Sometimes the narration is in third-person limited, only following a single character around. Sometimes it's third-person omniscient, flitting from character to character or describing things that characters present could not know about. Sometimes, in moments of heightened emotion, dialogue bleeds into the narration, and a third-person narrator briefly becomes the character. Sometimes the narration just devolves into repetetive onomatopoeia or stage directions, and you get digital pages worth of metaphorical noise.

If we're strictly focused on proper form, then yeah, this is rough. But pay attention to what the music is doing, or what the visuals are doing, or what the words are trying to communicate, as this goes on. This is always in service of emphasizing a certain mood. Some of my favorite books do this sort of thing, too: "Everything is Illuminated" makes excellent use of run-on sentences, forgetting punctuation to communicate both the POV character's rough grasp of English as a second language and his heightened emotions during particular sequences. The "How to Train Your Dragon" books use different typefaces to communicate different spoken languages. "The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear" plays with font size to communicate volume, uses garbage characters to communicate incomprehensible dialogue, and - in one of my favorite scenes - creates "dialogue" between the in-universe encyclopedia entries and the narrator. I love it when fiction plays with its specific medium to articulate itself, and Umineko is a masterclass example of that. Honestly, something I think anyone who wants to be a writer should study...

...with the caveat being that if you're squeamish about... oh, just about anything... then this probably isn't for you. There was a point in my life where, as soon as this came out on Steam, I started buying copies for all my friends who I thought could learn something from it. But one friend gleefully spoiled one of the more explicit, mean-spirited murders to another friend. Dude was so offended that he proclaimed he was disappointed in me as a person and loudly uninstalled the game from his hard-drive, just so his computer wasn't tainted by this filth. So, um, just to avoid another heartbreak and wasted twenty-five bucks: if you're someone who has a weak constitution for any heavy subject matter besides racism or animal abuse (two of the few subjects Umineko doesn't cover), I'd understand it if you steered clear.

At the same time, that willingness to tackle just about anything means Umineko has the ability to connect to the reader through extremely specific, unexpected moments. There are ultimately a LOT of characters that do a LOT of things, and while some are mostly there to serve some narrative purpose (I don't imagine Sabakichi is a character a lot of people think about), a ton express very specific ideas. This is largely a consequence of the game's narrative and central theming... becoming unmoored, let's say. This is never a work to abandon its given themes, but each episode represents a separate cycle of the same events, which suggests counter-narratives running alongside everything that has been established. In particular, the visual novel is metafiction, a story that becomes a commentary on murder mysteries as much as an example of the murder mystery genre; even this gets unmoored, and the commentary becomes about storytelling and commentary on storytelling.

You'd think this would devolve into gibbering madness, but there's always some sort of emotional core and throughline for the reader to hold onto. Sure, at a given point we might be three layers deep in the Witch's Game (how the metafiction manifests - a game of wits between characters, where the murder mystery is the gameboard), but the narrative still devotes time to the character dramas of the Ushiromiya family because that remains the heart of this experience. Like, Natsuhi is a character who was pretty important in the first episode but got largely abandoned by the narrative, only to become a central character again in Episode 5, at a time when the narrative has flown off the rails into deep metafiction territory; I'd argue we get even better insight into the character in Episode 5 because the game's now set up the tools for the reader to read between the lines of its own narrative.

We're getting into abstract territory, so I'll give a specific personal example to highlight why I think this is so effective. This is a line from Episode 6, paraphrased a bit to avoid spoilers (why am I still trying to present this unspoilered, mumble grumble). This is a point where the Witch's Game is a central part of the narrative, so we're spending more time with the characters in the metafiction rather than in the initial Ushiromiya murder mystery. Still, we're viewing a gameboard presented by a novice Game Master (who I'll refer to as 「Guy」), so the Ushiromiya murder mystery is at the forefront of the text. At this point in time, within the murder mystery, Rudolph Ushiromiya has just asked Krauss Ushiromiya about the whereabouts of another character (who I'll refer to as 「Character」). As readers, we know exactly what 「Character」's whole deal is. We learned all about that over the last five episodes. There's a perfectly valid explanation for their whereabouts, and it has nothing to do with the murder mystery. So, the narration explains:

"Flustered, Krauss tried to explain away 「Character」's silence. 「Guy」, the Game Master, hadn't made '[「Character's」 absence]' a major theme for this game, so the conversation didn't progress any further at this point. They stopped talking about 「Character」 without Rudolf thinking anything was particularly suspicious."

This is a complete throwaway line. And yet, this is one of the lines I think about most from this visual novel. As mentioned, to this point, we've spent a LOT of time thinking about '[「Character's」 absence]'. It was a major theme of the previous episodes, because the metafictional author of those murder mysteries chose to emphasize it as a major theme. This time around, 「Guy」 didn't want to express that theme, because 「Guy」 has different narrative goals in mind. So the characters in 「Guy」's drama don't fixate on it, even though they would have if someone else was writing the story. It makes me think a TON about the essence of what storytelling is. Like it's so easy for someone just learning to write or engaging in literary criticism to fixate on the monomyth or the Seven Basic Plots, and fear that anything they say has already been done by someone else. Yet every author chooses to express different themes, both as conscious goals and unconscious expressions of the author's lived experiences and worldviews; it's from this divergent understanding of reality that we get our stories. We read stories and look for authors because of the way they express ideas, not because the ideas being expressed are wholly new.

Or, another way to look at it: as a writer, characters are your tools to express certain themes. Because 「Guy」 didn't want to roll with '[「Character's」 absence]' as a theme, 「Guy」 made the characters not worry about it. Now, presented with this quote out of context, you might suggest that this is a clumsy way of diffusing this question, since the reader will just want to know more about what's going on with 「Character」. I would agree! Within the text of Episode 6, 「Guy」 is not a good Game Master. There are much better ways of diffusing the question of given themes. But this clumsy example still proves the point: you don't have to make every potential consequence of your characters and your setting an element of your work's text. You can naturally diffuse situations if you don't wanna tackle them. Same reason why we don't see a lot of toilets in fiction, or we don't always ask how fantasy characters can wear their hair or clothes like that. The work doesn't have to be about that.

Like I said, complete throwaway line, but from that I've found those two extremely fundamental things to hold onto as I work to be a novelist. Because of how dense Umineko is with its narrative goals, there are so many things like that throughout. And it's not just the metafictional angle! The story has a lot to say on faith and belief, on self-identity and actualization, on logic and magic, on love and hate, on kinship and family, on fantasy and reality. The literary stuff just happens to be the main thing I really held onto over the last ten years, on top of the music.

...that, and Beatrice.

I cannot say much about Beatrice without giving things away, because Beatrice is the essence of Umineko. Nevertheless: I have never seen a more fully-realized character in any fictional work than Beatrice. So much of it is her role as the assumed killer, and the extent to which the narrative examines the possibilities of its central murder mystery. But so much of it as well is how often she surprises you. You'll think you have her pegged, only for a single line to completely change everything. Even by the end, you don't completely understand her; I don't, not even after having ten years to think about her. But you understand what you need to, and you accept that that's all you need.

And, I'll be honest - I see within Beatrice the essence of the human soul. I struggle to articulate what it is, specifically; perhaps it is that struggle that forms that essence? But the act of going through the visual novel and making sure I understood the themes and lessons at play made me want to believe in her reality, even if just for a moment. Beatrice is my Mona Lisa.

I have no interest in pretending that Umineko is a flawless masterpiece that everyone will love. It's really long, there's very limited interactivity even for a visual novel, it's frequently crass and vulgar, syntactical errors can be distracting, it's easy to read a bad message out of the thematic conclusion, there are pros and cons to each art style (though using anything besides Ryukishi07's original art is weird to me), etc etc etc. A lot of people aren't gonna resonate with it. And that's perfectly fine (as long as you don't take me to task for it)! But for me, it was an extremely formative piece of fiction. Some of my favorite fictional characters, one of my biggest writing influences, an incredible soundtrack, and one of my favorite things to think about. I don't expect I'll be rereading it any time soon, but I guarantee it'll remain a part of my life for a long time yet, even if it's just me centering my thoughts again by listening to "Hope".

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a tough game to review because it objectively does nothing wrong -- it’s fun, accessible, and boasts so much eye candy, you’d think the devs were on something when they coded it. But as a lifelong fan of both the platformer and Mario games, I couldn’t help feeling like it was intrinsically stuck in the past - as though there was something stopping it from straying too far from that pre-established blueprint Miyamoto wrote back in 1985.

Of course, a series should never abandon its roots, but in a world where the 3D Mario titles have consistently innovated post-64, it’s admittedly disappointing to see its side-scrolling Bros. accompaniment not do the same post-Mario World, Fans may call me crazy given that these criticisms are normally-leveled at the New SMB subset; however, the truth is I’ve always felt the macro franchise, as a whole, was just as guilty of stagnation, and unfortunately this latest release did little to quell those preconceptions.

On the surface, Wonder appears completely discrepant from its forebears, but take a closer look and you’ll see there’s actually very little in the way of genuine DNA swaps: levels are largely the same desert/water/lava/ice motif we saw aplenty in the OG trilogy; stages primarily operate on the X-Y axis; secrets are still accessible by randomly-placed pipelines; bosses remain the same lame “jump on X three times” template; and even the story continues that tiring retread of Bowser conveniently discovering a new power source (and yes, I know that latter point will come across as excessively-whiny, but compare this to other Nintendo franchises like DKC, Zelda, and Kirby which at least swapped up the antagonist every other entry).

Regarding the new power-ups, they ain’t all that groundbreaking either - bubble flowers are reskinned fire flowers, while the much-touted elephant suit is literally limited to spraying water and breaking horizontal blocks ( things that were pioneered in DKC3 almost 30 years ago…). The Drill Cap stands as the most unique addition to the game, allowing Mario to tunnel into adjacent walls & floors, but as the name implies, it’s restricted to subterranean stages, rendering it severely-underutilized compared to its brethren.

Supplementing this are several design choices I thought were outright regressive from the past, the biggest being the presence of badges. These tokens grant supplements to Mario and co.’s movements, theoretically changing-up the gameplay for better & for worse depending on which one you choose. The problem is, in creating them, Nintendo outright-stripped standard abilities you had in previous Mario games, making it a bit frustrating for older gamers used to a full set of tools - the crouch jump, spin jump, vertical wall leap, speed boost, and Peach and Luigi’s semi-floating being among the casualties. Don’t get me wrong, Wonder does have some fresh concoctions; I just doubt the majority of gamers will utilize them in light of it making the game harder than necessary (the spring hop and wall latcher coming to mind).

Chances are you’ve heard of the eponymous Wonder Seeds laden in most levels, their touch causing all manner of psychedelic changes within, and look, I’d be lying if I said the visuals weren’t dope (you really do wonder what manner of drugs Mouri distributed to his staff during development); however, I personally never felt like you were undergoing some radical gameplay change during these sections, the lion’s share of them being either imagery swaps of standard templates, Mario Maker-esque rail levels, or transformation stages wherein you turn into an enemy like a poor man’s SM Odyssey.

Again, I don’t want it to seem like the game is bad - Wonder is, equitably-speaking, a great title, and considering every generation gives us a new batch of potential Mario fans, it’ll definitely serve as a wonderful (no pun intended) introduction to the franchise. But for longtime enthusiasts like myself expecting something different from Bros.-past, I think it’s fair to say, at this point in time anyway, that Nintendo has no interest in doing that. This is their, for lack of a better term, “safe” series where, much like GameFreak and Pokémon, they want people to know what you see is what you get - a modernized, but ultimately nostalgic, rendition of the classic SMB template.

Ironically, the one area where more was done that I actually felt would’ve actually benefited from a regressive set-up is the story as I kid you not when I say this game has more dialogue than every single Mario Bros. game combined, and it’s as trivial & repetitive as you can imagine. I get that you need a basic framework, but the way Wonder constantly reminds you about its pointless story or pointless characters, it honestly comes across like someone at Nintendo actually thought highly of the writing.

Outside of running-and-bounding across levels, Nintendo has thrown-in three additional stage types to peruse in each world: first are Break Times, or short excursions built around a gimmick; second are KO brawls, in which you’re tasked with clearing out squads of enemies; and third are Badge Challenges, wherein you, as the name implies, try out a badge in a handcrafted course. They’re fun enough diversions, but understand you’re maybe getting a couple minutes of enjoyment from each.

Graphically, Wonder is a phenomenal game, building on the HD palette New Super Mario Bros. U pioneered back in 2012 via brighter hues, motion-based environments, and even some well-done dynamic luminescence around fire. Much like Daedaelic, Mario games have always had a distinct art style, and Wonder continues that trend whilst evolving some of my favorite aspects from the franchise in the process ala superb facial expressions and minor animation work that’ll unfortunately be underappreciated (i.e., seeing a goomba’s scared reaction to his friend being eaten by a Yoshi!).

Voice acting in the Mario titles has always been restricted to the grunts & giggles of its cast, and here it’s as fine as it’s ever been. My only complaints would be Yoshi’s inflections appearing higher-pitched than normal, and all the Popplins sharing the same VA (and, you know, sounding & looking like discount Toads).

SFX is kind of disappointing given the strange decision to both use instrumentals for most actions and rehash standard stock noises Nintendo concocted long ago. With the former, static pounds are rendered as drum riffs; leaps, string plucks, and fireballs some sort of bleated note amongst others. With the latter, expect Starmen and Goalposts et al. to resound like they always have since Super Mario World.

Thankfully, the OST by Shiho Fujii, Sayako Doi, Chisaki Shimazu, and the legendary Koji Kondo remains exceptional. Going in, I expected nothing but a platter of classic Mario themes (i.e., your orchestral motifs & proud horns), and to be fair there are a good chunk of those in here; however, there’s just as many, if not more, unique tunes crafted for the game, with some of my favorite ones including: the snake charmer melody of Sunbaked Dessert, pan flutes of Shining Falls, the alternating xylophone & digitized blurts of Fungi Mines, the seafaring voyage of Lava Theme, the 80s synth revamp of Bowser’s Castle, and the masterpiece that was A Night at Boo’s Opera. The more nostalgic among you may recognize short callbacks to prior titles, like Isle Delfino in Bouncy Tunes, Slider in Coins Galore, or Super Mario World in Wonder Token Tunes, all of which add-up to a thoroughly-enjoyable medley of tracks for old and new ears alike.

In the end, though, the best music wouldn’t change what I said at the beginning - if you’re tired of the Mario Bros. formula, Wonder won’t amend things for you. It’s a terrifically-constructed enterprise ripe with multicolored energy and hallucinogenic fervor, albeit wrapped in an overly-familiar skin. Make your decision accordingly.


NOTES
-I genuinely don’t understand why Nintendo continues to put lives in the Mario games when losing them does nothing save forcing someone restart a level (a facet that, itself, is rarely going to happen). Can they really not think of any substitute purpose for collecting coins?

-Much has been made about the Talking Flowers, and they’re surprisingly not annoying, often having a singular line before disappearing from view. Still, I couldn’t get over Mick Wingert giving them a Petey the Pistol-esque voice (for you younger readers, basically he sounds like the Map from Dora the Explorer).

-Speaking more on the music, I loved how the majority of Wonder Flower shifts had their own leitmotif rather than just an altered version of the base level’s cues.

This is a review of the DLC for Never Alone. For the main game’s review, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1648515/

Note - as this game rehashes almost every asset from its predecessor, no in-depth discussions will be had on the GFX or sound


Foxtales is the sole expansion to Never Alone, offering another retelling of a (presumably popular) Iñupiaq tale. Is it worth the trouble? Well, that’ll depend on how much you like deep sea diving!

Yes, like Avatar 2 did for Avatar 1, Foxtales primarily revolves around water as you and your canidaec companion weather the icy seas in search of a runaway mouse. Puzzles are once again simple quid pro quos, the lion’s share entailing you utilizing stones to both circumvent obstacles and breakdown barriers blocking spirit winds. Interestingly, despite the title of Foxtales, your unnamed boy arguably plays a larger role in each stage due to him being the only one capable of navigating the boat and tossing boulders.

Speaking of the protagonist, graphically the game is a bit on the lazy side as the devs didn’t bother altering the character model to separate his sex from his predecessor’s. There was inconsistent gendering in the first game too, but I was willing to chock that up to translation errors: here, though, he is consistently referred to as a Boy despite being visually indifferent from the female of Never Alone.

Ironically, your Fox companion was given a slight makeover & new animations, his fur boasting a slight silver mane and his model doing things like putting paws up on the side of the boat and ducking whenever a rock falls into said vessel.

But ultimately there’s nothing much to say about Foxtales: it’s less than an hour, has a story with an unclear message, and is basically unconnected to its predecessor. It’s not inherently bad; however, filtering a potentially-strong cultural tale through a forgettable lens doesn’t exactly do it favors.


NOTES
-I’ll give the devs credit for crafting new enemy types rather than reskinning old ones.

uma história sobre histórias, uma extensão da cabeça do protagonista, um grande vômito de ideias que se costuram numa estrutura que não tem verbos o suficiente pra sustentar sua prolixidade

um simbionte bizarro entre resident evil 4 e uncharted onde os elementos temáticos se distanciam e até se recusam a dialogar com sua ludicidade -- tirando uma coisa ali ou outra, como os manuscritos e a mecânica de luz do jogo

uma narrativa com grande pretensão metalinguística presa no template de shooters da 7° geração de consoles de videogame que desconsidera a própria progressão gamística como parte de tal linguagem; ousa se autoroteirizar mas narra um gameloop fraco, mecânicas pobres e eventos scriptados extremamente previsíveis; tudo pra se justificar como um videogame

alan wake tenta ser mais do que consegue ser e menos do que eu queria que fosse

Playing No Time to Explain is like opening a time capsule from the time when Newgrounds was still popular and making flash games was the biggest trend.

Each cutscene, level, and story bit just screams the early 2010s with how it can start with a solid plot line and ideas, and just start throwing random switch-ups with different characters or new gimmicks. It's impossible to get bored even with my rotten brain with just how fast things move.

The gameplay isn't anything too special. Levels are short and sweet and each world keeps things fresh, but you can tell that it's a flash game. The levels look like they were made in a simple level editor with how square everything is, but this also works well when it comes to tighter platforming. The other part that feels dated is just the movement and controls. controlling your character can feel a bit off and a little slippery when you're using your abilities and this can lead to some deaths.

It's important to know how important these kinds of games were to people back then and how they influenced future ideas in games. Even when the aging feels apparent and things could be more fleshed out, No Time to Explain just fills me with the joy that only the child in me could feel.

i think this game is the game that best exemplifies the values of "Wario".
wario is trapped in a magic music box after surviving a plane disaster, and is tasked with saving this realm in exchange for its riches.

wario posesses herculean strength. wario cannot be killed by any means. wario can have every treasure in the world but he can not have dignity.

in lieu of such lowly systems such as "health" and "lose conditions", wario instead is constantly punished and humiliated by his environment. while many mascots will be burned and flattened as they go on their adventures, for wario, undergoing torture is mandatory for progression, which paints a picture of a man who'll do anything for riches. wario is the gigolo of platformers.
wario is not unlike zero mostel's character from The Producers (1967).

perhaphs, what wario wants, isn't just treasure, but "everything". he wants to experience all the pain and pleasure life can provide.

i really like how the music in this game sounds very nasally, as if its nose is always being pinched.

Note - this is a review of the base game, for its expansion see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1648517/


Never Alone made the indie rounds back-in-the-day for being the first major video game to focus on the Iñupiat, its contents adapting a popular oral story from said tribe’s folklore. You control a young woman named Nuna who sets off on a quest to find the source of some horrible blizzards that have been afflicting her town. Question is, are the game’s contents as novel as its premise, or is it another case of flimsy execution? Well, it won’t challenge veteran players, though I could definitely see it being a gateway for newer ones, particularly those who have a close friend at-hand.

Yes, that’s right, Never Alone is local co-op only, and while you can technically play it solo, I’d recommend finding a buddy as this is one of those titles that best suits the format (like the name didn’t give that away). While Nuna is your protagonist, it’s not long before her arctic ally shows-up, the goal of each chapter devolving into the two of them working in-tandem to surpass obstacles good old-fashioned puzzle platformer style.

Unfortunately, Never Alone’s puzzles are a bit on the easy side, meaning it doesn’t take more than a few seconds to deduce the solution upon second glance. Now, of course, simplicity isn’t synonymous with fun, and I certainly enjoyed my time with the game, but it should be made clear that, unless you’re playing it for ulterior reasons, you won’t find much exterior motivation here (+) -- this is less of a brainteaser and more of a cinematic introduction to a thoroughly-interesting culture.

That aside, there were some objective flaws with the gameplay that do bear repeating, the worst being the presence of game-breaking bugs. On multiple occasions my brother or I found our sprites stuck in a falling animation, and it appeared to be triggered whenever we immediately jumped after taking a fall; other times, a scene wouldn’t load and we’d have to restart from the last autosave. Now thankfully the checkpoint system is very generous, otherwise my monitor may have found a controller chucked through it; however, that doesn’t excuse the continued existence of errors almost 10 years post-release.

The second issue I had concerned a set of magical bolas you’ll frequently employ during the course of your journey as their controls are inverted and they lack a trajectory path, resulting in many many failed throw attempts. All cards on the table, I personally never got frustrated, though I could definitely see this being problematic for other gamers given the bolas’ extensive usage in-game.

Visually, Never Alone has rightfully earned acclaim for its presentation as this is a gorgeous title. It actually adopts two different art styles, one for the base game and the other for the slideshow cutscenes scattered throughout the story. In the former, you’re looking at something akin to an HD WiiWare release, with 3D modeling and cartoon-esque rendering propped against relatively-realistic backdrops of nature vistas. In the latter, cinematics resemble stenciled drawings overlain with a tan filter, their presence bringing to mind those old Tomie dePaola illustrations from the Strega Nona series.

Ultimately, though, the best graphical feats owe fealty to some superb animation and illumination work wrought by the artisans at Upper One Games. For starters, 90% of Never Alone takes place amidst heavy wind, and visibly seeing the effects of the gull on Nuna’s hair & cloak, or the Fox’s tail & fur, were delightful to witness. Even more impressive are the transitory animations as, with the exception of bola pull-outs, every single one of them is perfectly seamless: whether you’re going from a drop to recovery, or prone to standing, I never once caught those stilted frames oft seen in independent video games.

Lighting is largely static, but the few times the devs implement dynamic interfaces, they’re definitely spellbinding, the best instances ironically emanating from the bolas, whose blue glow shines on both Nuna and any obstacle you toss them at (++). In addition, a flurry of green spirits boast their own radiance during scripted sequences, bringing a dark viridescence to the Alaskan Tundra.

Speaking of dark, it should be noted that, while the story here is pretty heavy, I’d honestly put it in the same category as other children’s works like Secret of NIMH or Courage the Cowardly Dog in that it’s ultimately appropriate for kids (+++). There are some interesting twists that occur, but fundamentally the game follows the same general beats as other cultural fables (minus the preachy lesson at the end).

SFX is overall very good, with footsteps differentiated between the many characters and environmental interactions hosting grand reverberations - given that Mother Nature is as much against you as the demons within, it was terrific hearing such colossi as icebergs, snowstorms, and collapsing trees actually resound like their real-life counterparts would to a lone human. My sole complaint (no pun intended) is that the footfall was a little soft-sounding, though I understand that may have been deliberate due to the potential repetitiveness.

Nuna and the Fox have their respective grunts, but by-and-large the voice acting comes down to narration from a guy named James Mumigan Nageak, who does a fair job even if he’s a bit too monotone-ish. That said, as I noted in my review of Jotun, it’s difficult to judge non-English voice acting when you’re not fluent in the language, so I do concede Nageak could very well be putting greater nuance (or vice-versa!) into his oration and I’m simply incapable of noticing.

The score by Brendan J. Hogan operates in a low-key way, alternating between soft piano touches and hard drums to highlight the arctic beauty about you whilst accentuating action beats respectively.

In the end, Never Alone is a case of what you see is what you get - a beautiful platformer for either green gamers looking for a gateway into the genre or parents seeking a title to play with their kids. As long as you’re willing to overlook some glitches, you should have a pleasant time.


NOTES
+It blows my mind reading a number of negative Steam reviews ranting about trial & error puzzles. If you’re so frustrated with Never Alone that you have to resort to slinging mud-at-a-wall, you’re better off sticking with Checkers.

++The bolas are further amazing in that they follow the physics engine of the game: throw them at a slope and they’ll individually roll-on down; fling them into a body of water and they’ll make a splash!

+++In case it comes across like I’m denigrating Never Alone by calling it a children’s game, here’s my obligatory “no, I’m not using adolescence as an insult.”

-There is only one visual con, and that’d be the close-ups of Nuna and the Fox yielding some slightly-uncanny compositing. The distant camera, hoodie, and bellowing snow pellets were no doubt deliberate (smart) design choices in that regard.

I was going to write a genuine review of this game where I nitpicked every single thing I hated, and I was writing these things down as I played the games. This game has so many things that are a problem and make playing the game the single most abysmal thing you could do with a friend. I like how you have the option to play this with a random dude using the power of the World Wide Web to connect you guys, as if this game could ever be enjoyable with the random temperature level IQ caveman that usually plays online games.

And then I got to the Ada campaign with my friend. And I turned into Agent. And I was as much of a presence in the game as Ada's farts were in her underwear. And I realized how nobody cared while making this game. So what's the point of even highlighting the bad things if they simply didn't give a fuck😎.It was awesome, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

"If you had grasped the journey’s finale right from its inception, would you still embark on this journey?”


“I would blaze a trail without hesitation.”

It's official. Penacony has the best story arc in Star Rail to date. After a little over a year of updates, the finale to this section showcases some of the game’s best moments. But it also underlines the strain that a genuinely creative story can be put under when it has to exist inside a gacha game with built-in hype cycles to get as much money as possible out of its player base.

But first, the good: as invested as I was in seeing how the story would play out by the time this patch released, everything was so convoluted that I wasn't sure if the writing could stick the landing. That much I didn't need to be concerned about - for all the floating plot threads in this arc, the conclusion is the most satisfying part. A side character I'd wondered about ended up playing a big role in the resolution, my questions about "death" were answered, and the Trailblazer gets to hit the real villain with a giant train. On that note, I liked that the final boss fight had more strategy to take into account - I usually brute force my way through the story fights, so having to replay a few times to figure out the boss gimmick was a nice change of pace. Additionally, as someone who builds teams based around weakness breaks, the new Trailblazer path is a welcome addition to the roster.

Now for the not so great - despite all the hype and marketing surrounding Robin and Boothill, they're barely in the story. Robin's part is more defined by how other characters discuss her than by the actions she takes in the final hour. Boothill comes across as more of a comedy relief character, but I do hope that the last scene of this patch means that he'll have a larger role in the epilogue. I would have loved to see more of both of them, but because of the way the story turned out, that wasn't possible. However, new story patch means new banners, which means they're hyped up in marketing regardless. I know that it's unrealistic to expect what happened with Aventurine's character arc to occur with every new character, but after getting a taste of what this writing team is capable of, is it wrong to feel a little disappointed?

All of this said, I'm more hooked on the promise of Star Rail's story than I've ever been, especially after the disappointing lows of the Xianzhou Luofu’s finale. I'd like to believe that it's all up from here, but time will only tell if Penacony is the start of a new standard or a high bar that the player base can only hope that the team can clear again.

🇬🇧 full review | 🇧🇷 resenha completa

Jogar Pine Hearts é como comer um biscoito sem gosto com um recheio impressionante e incrível por dentro. Eu realmente gostei de como eles desenvolveram a história de perda de Tyke de uma forma tão brilhante e sincera, e até mesmo usando a mídia do videogame como forma de apoiar a narrativa. Mas a mecânica chata que a cercava me fez jogar no automático só esperando o próximo flashback. É difícil recomendar tudo só por causa das poucas coisas boas que tem dentro, mas talvez você possa aproveitar sua viagem por este parque tanto quanto eu aproveitei meu destino no pico da montanha.

I remember enjoying this game so much back in the day.

Many moments of the open-world reminded me that I was playing a video game rather than let me be submerged in the world. This works for this title compared to others that are too serious.

Sleeping Dogs is a wild ride and loads of hours ahead.

Also, Emma Stone voicing in this is strange to hear.